So backwards skating is not a new thing in derby, but check out this video of Gotham having backwards scrimmage practice:
Also check out the awesome backwards crossovers on the red Jammer when she gets out of the pack!
Obviously this is much easier for the blockers, who can see the jammer coming and can wall up (e.g. look at how red's wall holds together and moves when the black jammer tries to make their way though). This is an excellent exercise in getting comfortable going backwards and blocking that way (look at some of those laterals), which of course would be useful for forwards derby.
Have two lines, where a faster skater is paired up with a slower one. The faster skater gets the inside line.
Each pair of skaters seal together, and on the whistle, the back pair race to the front.
"Why is the fastest skater on the inside?" you might ask. The slower skater has to skate on the outside of the pace line, while the faster skater has to weave between the other sealed pairs in the pace line. So the faster skater has to travel further. Then when they get to the top of the line they reseal, and the next pair goes.
If you don't have a lot of people you can have a single pace line but alternate fast/slow people, so that when they get to the back you will have a pair of fast/slow people to race!
I know that crossovers are a fundamental part of being able to derby, but it has taken me AGES to ty to get the technique down. I came across this video which might be useful for just getting the muscle memory in order first before trying to push around and whatnot:
I like that it's offskates practice. When I was at SCRD we were trying to do these on skates and I couldn't get my feet in the right place without falling on my face. So having this done offskates (and on carpet, for more resistance on the chair) is pretty handy. I'm sure you could later upgrade to onskates, and maybe without carpet.
Notice how low she's getting and how far she can push the chair with one stride!
This one comes courtesy of Smooth Operator, who was our guest coach at practice tonight! One skater is designated to be "Number 1" (or I like to say, "Mother duck"). All the other skaters skate behind and basically try to get the number 2 spot right behind her, and maintain that spot. You can block people out of the spot if necessary, or hit them out of bounds, or knock them over, so long as it's all legal.
Out of my way, bitch!
It probably looks less like a line of ducks as much as it looks like the mother duck with a clump of aggessive ducklings behind her who keep hitting each other.
Two rules though: if you touch the number 1 mother duck person, you have to skate a lap and rejoin at the back. Also, if the mother duck stops and you stop ahead of her or go out of bounds to stop, you have to skate a lap and rejoin at the back.
So you're practicing staying really close to someone without plowing into her while she's speeding up and slowing down and whatnot. And people are hitting you all this time.
Also, apparently, for people watching us do this drill, it's like watching NASCAR.
This is a drill I've been thinking about for a long time, but I don't think we've ever done it. I think I was talking to someone about this at Post Tax Smacks a long time ago, and they did this at their league and it was really helpful (although I can't remember who it is, so if it was you, let me know so I can thank and credit you!)
This is what it is like.
Basically the idea is that awareness of where your teammates, the jammer, the OJ, etc. are are REALLY important to know in a bout situation. So you have everyone skate around as per a jam situation (maybe at 60-70%, so no balls to the wall business for reasons that follow).
On the whistle, all the skaters have to take a knee and close their eyes (once they're down, so it's not like you are taking a knee and plowing into someone). When everyone is down, randomly ask people who is next to them, or where their teammates are, or where the jammer is, or ask the jammer how far they are from the pack, or where the OJ is, and so on. Or you could even say "where is [this particular person]". Then when people have made guesses as to where they think the relevant people are, have them open their eyes and actually look.
You'd be surprised. Where you think people are is usually NOT where they actually are. Unless you have a very close working with your teammates in terms of knowing how they skate and where they like to be (inside/outside etc.), this is a really good learning experience. After you repeat this a few times people will become more aware of where their teammates are, where they should be, where the opposing jammer is, etc. and then they will actually move to places where they can be more effective.
This drill also works for the refs, in terms of them being aware of where everyone is, where their jammer is, and so on. So everyone wins!
When I started at VDL, Pitts (who was then-President of the league) introduced a new term: lurby. It's supposed to be some portmanteau of "derby love". I'm not a huge fan of the spelling but whatever, the idea is that you have love not just for roller derby itself, but those who play it, and those who enable you to be able to be part of it.
Sometimes we all need a bit more lurby. Every league goes through some drama where there's some internal squabbling over something or another. But in doing so we sometimes lose sight of what matters, and then people get angry and frustrated, and then they cry and walk away.
I've already written a whole giant blog entry about derby drama. I'm not going into that again. But when I was recently back in Australia and skating with VDL, I noticed that they had a new tradition to counteract the problems that came with politics and drama. Basically, at the end of each practice session, all the skaters--regardless of their skill levels or who they were--sat down in a circle while they were taking their gear off, and each went around and said who they had lurby for based on that session. So you might say that you have lurby for a freshie who has just nailed a new skill, or for a coach for an awesome session, or whatever it is. But it was a good way to bring everyone together at the end and just refocus on the important stuff, which is the fact that we are all in it together.
P.S. The awesome Derby Love ring showed above is available at I heart roller derby. Squee!
We've been working more on timing our hits, and I like this one a lot because it sounds easy but it's actually pretty hard to do well.
So you start with a pace line, going at a moderate pace in the middle of the track:
Yes, my paint skills are so good.
The last two people peel off the pace line and skate to the front. One goes on the inside of the pace line, one goes on the outside. The skater the inside is the "blocker" and the skater on the outside is the "jammer".
When they reach the front of the pace line, the blocker is to hit the jammer out.
This is much harder than it sounds; the jammer is flooring it (usually) and even though they're on the inside, the blocker has to actually skate pretty quick to catch up, but not too quickly that they overshoot the front of the pace line and leave a big hole behind them for the jammer to go through, or getting too much speed so the blocker goes out with the jammer.
Then when they're done, they form the front of the pace line and the next two go.
Variation: once you've done the basic version, you can also do a more advanced version where the blocker can hit the jammer out in between other skaters in the pace line. Timing is crucial here, since otherwise the blocker will hit other skaters, or fuck up the pace line.
(And that's embarassing because it screws up the drill so you don't want to do that.)
This is a really simple trick to practice transitions without even
really thinking about it! We used to do this at VDL when we were learning transitions, and I introduced it to some of the skaters at NRV tonight and they liked it, hooray! I call it Dirty Dancing Transitions for want of a better name, but you have to maintain lots of eye contact as you do moves together, and the transitioning looks like something they could do if Dirty Dancing was done on skates.
Now I've had the time of my life No I never felt like this before
With a partner, start facing each other, not
too far apart, maybe like 15-20 feet (depending on how much speed you
want to do this at). Skate towards each other (1), and look each other in
the eye. Maintain eye contact as you pass each other and turn around (2), so you end up skating backwards (3).
Red arrows indicate the direction you're skating in.
I should really work on my paint skills.
This means that you'll both end up transitioning, and because you're not focusing on your feet, the transitions will come naturally and quickly. You can also check to see if your transitions are working well, if you
turn around and your partner is directly across from you, not veering off to the
side.
Remember to practice transitioning on both sides--if you have a bad side, try to partner up with someone who also has that as their bad side so you can both work on transitioning on that side at the same time.
As you both get better at it, you can increase your speed.
Have a single pace line, about a foot away from the inside track line. The last person in the pace line is the jammer, and they have to get through the gap made between the skaters and the inside line. If they cut the track, they have to stop, go back and reenter the pace line from whoever they cut in front of.
It's really not a lot of space.
As the jammer, you have to pick up your feet a lot. (I know I don't do this as much as I should.) Since there's not much room, you can't propel yourself by sticky skating or whatever; there's not enough room really to have both your skates on the ground side by side.
Variation: have the pace line again, but on the outside line. This makes your jammer have to work much harder since they have to go faster to cover more distance.
Variation 2: have the pace line, but have your hip sticking out a bit over the line to offer some resistance to the jammer as they are getting past.
When you are walling up as a blocker, you shouldn't be relying on just being an arm's length away from your blockers; the closer you can get to to them, the stronger your wall will be, and the harder it is for the jammer to get through.
Have a double pace line, where each person is skating about a foot apart from their partner. This is as if the elevator doors are "open". When someone yells "close" you have to basically have your shoulder/hip/thigh touching your partner's, like you are learning into each other. So basically, you've got a pace line, that is opening and closing as you skate.
We skated around just practicing "open" and "close" first, but hey, after a while, that's not much fun. So then we had someone who had to run through the gauntlet we'd created. So when the "doors" are open, if you are in the back of the pace line, you had to run through as many open doors as you could before they closed. And when they closed you had to slow down so you wouldn't back block the blockers in front of you. And then when they opened again, you ran again, until you got to the front.
The red jammer is trying to get through the pace line, but should maintain their speed when the doors close. This is also a test to see how fast the blockers can close their gap.
As a jammer doing this, you've only got about a foot of space between the blockers. But that's more than enough. It's also important that when you run you don't kick your feet out sideways because then you'll be clipping people's wheels and kicking their skates out from under them.
Just make sure when the elevator doors open you're not seeing this:
So, derby has evolved a bunch and now there are new skills you need, like being able to transition, backwards crossovers, etc. There's a lot more focus on being able to skate backwards, for example, so you can hold up your 3-wall or whatever.
Form a pace line at a moderate pace. The first person in the pace line transitions so they are skating backwards, and right as they do that, the second person jams to get around them, so that the first person has to quickly react and block them. Usually you end up blocking someone with your shoulders as they charge you. Then once the second person gets past, the first person skates to the end of the line, and the second person turns around for the third person to charge them.
You'll end up with something like this:
Meowmix shows how it's done. (Photo: Derbylife)
Because you're 1) going backwards and 2) trying to cover the whole track, it can be pretty hard. Also, because of my height, I just kept getting facefuls of boob and trying not to get a shoulder in my eye or nose or whatever. Drills like this make me want to consider getting a hockey helmet with one of those face shields.
Protip: MOVE YOUR FEET. Juking while you are skating backwards is hard, but it is much more effective.
Split the group into two. #1s all skate forwards, #2 skate backwards. Then you just play Queen of the Rink as usual! You hit other players; if they go out of bounds or fall, they're out. BUT: if you hit/get hit, you have to switch direction. So if you hit someone when you were skating forwards, then you have to turn around and skate backwards. And the person you hit (if they didn't fall) has to also switch direction too. Last one standing wins. :D
This one was really fun, and you don't even think much about the transitioning you're doing. It's tricky with direction of play/stop blocks though, but I think with practice, transitions and hits come easier even if you're not facing the direction your skates are going in.
I like this drill a lot. It's really easy and you can change it depending on the skill level of the people doing it. I don't know why it's called Frogger, but I guess there's a sense in which it's like the video game in that you have to move around obstacles (other skaters) and stuff?
This was the version I played as a kid. Oh, memories.
You start by making a pack with all the skaters in it and have the skating as a pack. This is really important for the drill. Then, the person running the drill (presuambly not in the pack) will call out specific commands either for the entire pack, or for individual people.
Commands you could call for the entire pack are:
speed up
slow down
stop
touch two people (to make sure that you were still close enough in the pack)
(in theory I guess you could say stop and turn around but we didn't)
Then there were specific commands, so you'd call out someone's name and then say something like:
go to the front
go to the back
go to the inside
go to the outside
hit [some other person]
and the last one was fun because if you were hitting or being hit, you might be on opposite ends of the pack and you'd have to find the other person while the pack was still moving.
We did this one for about 10 minutes, then had a break and then did it again. I really liked it, you have to look in all directions and people started calling out where there were holes that needed filling and moving people into the right spots and it worked really well and was pretty fun to boot.
Wednesday was my first practice back. It was okay; I felt a bit rusty and when we were practicing scrim situations I got goated a bit. Boo. But it was really nice to be back on skates after a month off and getting fat and lazy.
We did a drill that I really liked; it had enough different elements to make it fun and interesting, and it was quick and made me sweaty and tired, so that was also good. I can't remember what Smack called the drill, but since the basic premise involves a double pace line I'm going to call it Two by Two.
That said, when I think of "Two by Two" I think of one of the following:
Noah's Ark:
This is the cutest and most non-religious picture of Noah's ark I could find/
That song from the Book of Mormon:
Hands of blue
Those gloves always remind me of the security dudes
at US airports when you get patted down and stuff.
Yes, I am a geek. :P
Anyway, the drill is as follows. You set up a double pace line and just do laps of the track in pace line formation so each person has someone next to them. Then, when certain commands are yelled, you do things to/with your partner.
For example, if SWITCH is yelled, you basically switch places with your partner. But you're in a pace line, so there's an order you do this in. So the person on the inside moves forward, and then waterfalls to the outside while the outside partner steps to the inside:
1 is the starting move for Switch; yellow steps forward, blue moves into her spot.
Yellow then steps right and slows down so blue and yellow are both next to each other (as in (2)).
Then sometimes there'll be offensive/defensive things, like the following:
INSIDE LEAN (inside person leans on the outside skater until they are over the outside line)
OUTSIDE LEAN (outside person leans on the inside skater until they are over the inside line)
INSIDE HIP/SHOULDER CHECK (inside person checks the outside skater)
OUTSIDE HIP/SHOULDER CHECK (outside person leans on the inside skater)
In all these cases, remember that you're still in a pace line and moving relatively quickly, so if you get leaned out/checked you have to still hoof it back to keep your place in the pace line. And switching will also change whether you are the inside/outside person, so you have to really listen out and pay attention to that stuff.
Another thing that might get yelled out is PUSH/PULL. Basically the outside person pushes the inside person closer to the inside line, and then pulls them back into position (usually by their shirt or arm or something).
That could get confusing.
One final command that got called out was the pretty obvious WEAVE. You're in a pace line anyway, so that wasn't too bad. You bascially did the push/pull with your partner as you went through, so the inside partner would always be leading the pair when they were heading inside, and the outside partner would be leading the pair when they were heading to the outside.
Then, a variation on this was WEAVE WITH CHECKS. You still did the same weave with the push/pull as before, but the leading partner got to check the first person of the pair of people in the pace line that they passed:
Our pace line was pretty quick, and after a while it got a bit messy. Maybe a variation would be to have instructions controlling speed, like SPEED UP or SLOW DOWN or whatever. But overall it was a good drill, and we had a pretty cracking pace and all the footwork and checking and catching up meant that it was a good workout overall.
You'd think from all the munting I did that I'd get used to how awesome it feels to come back. I haven't, but it still feels awesome.
I have new gear too! New wheels and configurations, and also some anti-blister sock things. I'll have to do a product review of both of those at some point.
We were working on stuff for the WFTDA skills test, so we did 25/5. It was a good opportunity to test out the wheels, and I think they were okay. It was good to be back and I felt faster and more controlled in the corners than I had before. I did 25 laps in 4:27, which I think was pretty good for a month off skates. I want to knock that down to 4:20 though but I was happy with the result.
We also did a "pace line with hitting someone out of bounds" drill which was fun. Because of my size, hitting isn't the easiest thing for me, so Gritz suggested I try swooping/leaning people out instead of trying to hit them because if I bounce off them, all the worse for me. Basically, I should plant my foot in front of theirs and point my foot in the direction that I want them to go and then lean all my weight on them. It's much more effective than me trying to hit people twice my size, so I'll work on that too.
I also learned to (at least try to) do something I'll call the Sex Move--not because it's inappropriate or anything, but because Sexaqshunher was doing it. Basically you skate up to someone in the pace line, transition so you're going backwards, and then check them out of bounds. Because you're backwards, you're already ready to run back so they have to backtrack as well. It doesn't come naturally to me in derby yet, but that's something new to try out. Yeah. Being back on skates is good. :)
I like this drill but I'm quite crap at it. If you know how to tomahawk, hockey stop or plow, then you should be okay to do it.
Basically, you start with two pace lines, and you go at some speed that works for everyone. If you want the drill to be harder, you go faster. That's pretty easy. It's fun though if everyone is roughly at the same skill level. If not,
put the people who are fastest at the beginning of the pace line and the slower people at the end. Or at the very least try to pair up the people in the pace line so they are with someone of a similar skill level.
Anyway, so you have your two pace lines moving together. On the whistle, the pair of skaters at the top of the pace line each "peel off" the pace line (but they should still stay within the track lines, so make sure the pace lines are actually in the middle of the track), so you basically stop with a tomahawk, hockey stop or plow, skate to the end of the line and then rejoin the line.
So it looks something like this:
And rinse and repeat. It gets tricky if you
try to send through multiple pairs.
If you tomahawk, you should also switch sides so you can practice transitioning both ways before you stop. But the faster you do it, the harder it gets. I have a bad habit of flinging my arms around to try to help me stop and I almost punched someone in the mouth. :/
Okay, I have to admit that right now I'm slightly tipsy after having gone out for drinks with some of the peeps from derby. Beer here comes in giant 20 oz glasses; that's like one of those really big two feet tall glasses things. I didn't take a photo this time but I will next time. And I had two of them. Before my turkey burger and fries arrived. And I hadn't eaten since about 4 hours before training. Wheeee.
Anyway, we did this awesome hitting/blocking drill tonight. Basically you have half the people in a pace line skating close to the inside line, and the other half were skating around the outside, or the middle of the track. The ones skating on the inside line are supposed to hold the inside line, while the outside line basically come in and take potshots at them. Like, they skate alongside you and then just come in to hit you. Then they do it from further out so they have to swoop you as well. And you had to take the hit but not hit back. Ow.
I was on the inside line and every second skater would come by and hit the shit out of me. And they hit hard. My right side is all crunchy now, and at one point I got laid on my ass. But we also practiced leaning into the hits and preempting them (i.e. leaning into the hit), and that worked better. It was a crazy drill, and I was so nervous and anxious throughout it waiting for the next hit, but it was good to get some smashy in. Yay.
But then we went out for beers and everything was okay. Yay. I'm drunk on a weeknight after a hard day of teaching. Whooooooooo.
What was useful about Bambi's coaching is that she explained
what the blockers were doing while the jammer was trying to get through, and
then what the blockers should do in respond and how the jammer should change
her strategy and stuff, so that was really cool. So technically we were
learning this stuff and aggressive jamming at the same time. But I thought it’d
be nifty to separate them to get a clearer understanding of what was happening.
(I think this entry will be shorter though, since we were supposed to be doing
aggressive jamming, and in order to do that there had to be some defensive
blocking, etc.)
Blocking and bracing your wall
Blockers 1 and 4 are on the outside, so they will be the ones to brace the wall made up of 2,3,4 (for blocker 1) and 1,2,3 (for blocker 4). There are two possible places to brace for each blocker. They can also push the jammer out over the line if necessary.
This was the main thing we worked on while the jammers were trying to get past. Basically, you can have your wall of four, and make a wall across the whole track. That's pretty handy, but if a jammer is going to be trying to get past, you will have at least one blocker who is not really doing anything because she's not at the part of the wall that the jammer is pushing at.
If this happens, the blocker furthest away (i.e. one of the line blockers) can swing in front and, facing the three blockers in the wall, use her arms to brace up the wall. Basically it's just to counter the force of the jammer pushing past. You're not supposed to be pushing the jammer back, but rather just holding the wall in place. Outside blockers to be sideways so they can also butt push jammer out of
play and over the line if they try to sneak past.
Here's a picture of CRDL applying the bracing thing:
It's technically 1-on-1 bracing, but it's keeping the opposing
jammer from getting past Shorty (as pivot).
As a bracer, there are a couple of important things to note:
Direction of gameplay: this was a big one. Just because you're facing backwards doesn't mean you can go backwards. You're supposed to be holding up the opposing jammer, not pushing them back. It's REALLY important to make sure you're still rolling in derby direction even if you're pushing on your teammate to counter the jammer.
Hand placement matters: When you're bracing, you're putting force on your teammate and using her as a wall. Watch where you are actually bracing your teammate. Hands on shoulders/pecs works much better than hands on their sternum. Or their throat.
Elbows: There'll be other shit going on around you while you are bracing. Keep your elbows in so you don't clock someone and get majored for it.
Talk to your pack: if you're skating backwards, you will be best able to see where the jammer is. Tell your blockers which side she's coming in on or if she is switching tactics so they will be able to prepare for getting hit (which also makes your job easier).
Helping out your jammer
Kinda like this. I imagine it's all pixelly too.
Okay, this is obvious, yes? But remember that derby is offensive and defensive at the same time, so while you're doing all this defensive blocking your jammer is still going to be hanging around trying to get past. Bambi said that, as a blocker, you have to do what you can to help your jammer. So, suppose that it's like in a video game and your jammer has an energy bar. Seriously. Every time your jammer has to take a step or a hit the bar goes down.
So as a blocker, you should be helping clear the path so she has to take less steps, or taking hits for her, or whatever. The best thing you can do is open up the inside line for your jammer, and you can do this by getting the blockers out of the way and off the line.
On Tuesday at training we had our first in a series of guest
trainers from Canberra Roller Derby League who were going to come and teach us
some new tricks. I almost didn’t go because of Ph.D. dramas, but I ended up
going and I am so fucking glad I did.
Firstly, Bambi was a great coach; I think she’d give Pain
from SCRD a run for her money. She was really good at explaining stuff and what
the strategy was for doing things and how to apply it and also just some general
stuff about learning in derby, which was useful since obviously she’d been
where we were. Shorty didn’t really say much but gave people a lot of
one-on-one pointers and did a lot of demo type stuff. She’s pretty damn funny
though.
Warmup was dynamic stretching and then some endurance type
stuff; we did 15 laps of the track anti-derby, then 30 squat jumps (on skates!)
and then 30 “dead bugs” which seemed to be really similar to bicycles but you
have the same arm and leg going instead of the opposite ones (see video). Then it was 10
laps derby direction, 20 squat jumps and dead bugs, then 5 laps and 10 squat
jumps and dead bugs. Wheeeeeeee.
Our first drill we did was explosive something something.
:P I can't remember the name. Basically, you paired up with someone and they put their toe stops down (or
plow stop, or whatever) and you had to push them. Running on your toe stops for
this was really useful, rather than just on your skates. I’d done some of this
at SCRD, and I really like running on my toe stops, so yeah I was excited for
this drill.
I was MUCH more excited when people paired off with others
of roughly their size and I was the odd one left and got paired up with Shorty.
Squee indeed. AND THEN I FOUND OUT SHE IS TALLER THAN ME. DAMMIT. Anyway, yeah
so I did a bunch of laps of the track pushing her around, and then she had a
go. My weak ankle (the right one) is mega dumb and doesn’t steer very well and
I kept going in circles, which was kind of embarrassing. :( It worked much better when I was basically in plow stop position but on my toe stops so my feet were more pigeon toed, than straight. But yeah, I made
her push pretty hard, and I have all the marks on my shoulders to prove it from
where she was digging her hands into my shoulder meat :P
Then the variation after that was to push someone with your
shoulder, so your pec was basically pushing theirs (and you had to keep your
head out of the way so you weren’t going to headbutt the other person). I found
this harder because when I run on toe stops I swing my arms a lot, and I
wouldn’t have been able to do that without punching Shorty in the crotch or
something. But yeah, that was a fun drill. :D
A scrum start. White would usually be taking a knee right on the
line and black would be standing but as close to them as
possible without touching. (Also because of my craptastic
paint skills it looks like the outside white blocker is leaving
an opening for the white jammer or something. Yep.)
Next, we worked on using the toe stop push to get through a pack. Bambi said that teams were more likely to do scrum starts now (i.e. have everyone at the jammer line), so once the jammer is released they immediately have to get through the pack, usually if one team knee started at the jammer line. Usually in these cases the blockers would make a wall, such that you'd have all four blockers in a line across the track, covering both inside and outside lines at the same time.
We worked on several techniques for breaking walls. Walls can be made of seriously ANY number of blockers, so we practiced a bunch of different things. Basically, the key thing in all wall-breaking cases was to pick some spot--either between two blockers, or pushing one blocker out of the way to create a gap--and then go for it. We started with a wall of three (with a fourth one bracing) and trying to get a jammer to bust through. I found the running-on-toe-stops thing quite useful for pushing through blockers.
Then we did wall-busting in between two blockers. Importantly, in a game situation your blockers won't be completely stuck shoulder-to-hip together, but might be slightly spaced apart, so there is naturally a gap to get through. We tried a bunch of different things in a "jammer against two blockers" scenario:
Shoulder charge: basically you use your shoulder like a battering ram and aim for the the back of the blockers' arms, or straight through the gap that is between them.
Kidney punch: I like this one a lot! You keep your head down and use your shoulders to basically hit the blockers in their kidneys. Seriously. Be careful not to headbutt them or (as I did) get my head stuck in the gap between the blockers.
Shark attack: you start low and "pop up" between the blockers. I think you can use the back of your shoulders to push them out of the way.
Stepping through: If there's a big enough gap between where the blockers have their feet, get down and step through it to get past them. This is hard to do quickly, but it's essential that you actually do it quickly, or else you get stuck.
Here's Shorty doing the shark thingy at TGSS (although it might have started as a kidney punch):
Photo: Steve Craddock
You can also combine them: for example, you can start low and step
through between blockers and then pop up in a shark attack. Or you can do the shoulder charge and when the gap comes up you step through. What's
important is that you have the element of surprise. For the record, Rubi
and I were the "demo people" for Shorty demonstrating surprise, which
was hilarious because obviously we knew she was going to bust between
us, but then when she actually did I think her charging into me actually
propelled me like 3 metres or something, and I was screaming the whole
time.
Finally, we did some juking. For this drill, we paired off and you had to get past your partner who was booty blocking you. There were a couple of things to pay attention to. Juking is a combination of speed and agility--I think Bambi said that Bonnie D. Stroir said that there's some sweet spot where your speed and agility meet, such that you're maximally agile while not plowing into the back of people (and getting called for back blocking). Basically, the idea is that you only juke as fast as you can skate while being agile.
Attempted juking diagram. Basically, the
jammer skates straight up to the PoNR and
then does the 3-step thingy to get around the
blocker (clearly not to scale.)
Bambi described something called the "point of no return" or something--basically you should only juke when the blocker can't see your feet. If they can see your feet, they are likely to know what you are going to do. So you should skate up to them as close as you can before busting out your juke moves. (This is also where the speed/agility thing is important; if you skate too close to them and can't stop, you back block them.) We practiced doing a three-step juke, basically you go left-right-left or right-left-right and then around the blocker. It also helped if you confused your blocker by making them look over both shoulders. Crossing seemed to be quite useful here, although not necessary (if you can also clumsily stomp to either side for the juke).
Another way you could juke is by basically fast feeting (feeting?? WTF) behind the blocker, and then getting past them because they don't know what your footwork is doing. Also, one thing to do is to get your foot in front of theirs and block them with your hip/shoulder. If your foot is in front of your opposing blocker's, when the block you they'll actually be pushing you forward. (I found this kind of hard to do without wheel clipping, but maybe I just need to work on that more.)
And then there was a bit of a strategy chat while we warmed down, and then we were done! It was seriously an awesome session; I probably learned more in those two hours than I have for a very long time. Also, I was a bit of a nerd and got RefDonald to take a picture of me with Shorty at the end. Yeah.
When we were taking this Shorty was like,
"Yeah you have to go Asian style". Heh.
(Also, photobomb by Bambi.)
Okay, first off, I have NO idea why it's called that. Seriously.
Now that that's out of the way, this is one of the funner drills we've done lately. It's pretty easy to understand: basically, you have two groups on the track of equal number. One group are blockers, and the other group are jammers. Yes, so you can have like 4-5+ jammers on the track at the same time. The aim for the jamming group is to get all their members out through the pack, and obviously the blocking group is to prevent that from happening. If you did a major, you had to reenter from the back of the pack and try getting through it again. Then after all the jammers were through, you swapped.
We had about 5 people in each group. We tried two variations of this drill: first, if you were jamming and made it out of the pack, that was all well and good and you were done, or you could go back into the pack and help other jammers through (but you didn't have to get through the pack again). The other version required ALL the jammers to get through the pack together, such that if you ate the baby (i.e. got reabsorbed by the pack) you had to try to get out again, and the drill wasn't over until all the jammers were clearly out together. That one was crazy hard because the blockers just kept speeding up to make sure the jammers couldn't pass and we ended up with the crazy 70-foot rule thing happening. I'd never seen it before but when everyone was so spread out it was seriously like WTF. But I think the non-eating-the-baby-version worked much better, in terms of organisation and pack structure.
We did this as a scrimmaging drill, but obviously if you're not cleared for hitting you can do this drill with positional blocking or something.Keeping the pack together was tricky. But this is a fast-paced drill,
and lets you focus on offensive or defensive blocking. Helping out team
members was also really important. But yeah! Mega fun drill, and one I'd like to do again.
Now that that's out of the way, this is one of the funner drills we've done lately. It's pretty easy to understand: basically, you have two groups on the track of equal number. One group are blockers, and the other group are jammers. Yes, so you can have like 4-5+ jammers on the track at the same time. The aim for the jamming group is to get all their members out through the pack, and obviously the blocking group is to prevent that from happening. If you did a major, you had to reenter from the back of the pack and try getting through it again. Then after all the jammers were through, you swapped.