One Intense Bout

Today is the first day back from my vacation at work. During the last (insanely awesome) week and a half I was at a Harry Potter conference, I had an interview posted on the Kate in Skates blog, and our team had one of our most intense bouts yet.

Our team is small because we keep losing skaters to pregnancy, job changes, and injuries. We decided not to borrow any skaters for this bout because the last time we played Lakeland we beat them by 246 points, and we didn’t want that to happen again. So we would be playing short with only 10 players. The day before the bout though, one of our players was admitted to the hospital so instead we went into the bout with 9 skaters.

The problems didn’t end there, though. The team’s venue we were playing at is an airplane hangar and right at turn 2 there is a very slick spot due to a past oil spill of some kind. The whole space is slick, but that particular spot is ridiculous. It was raining, so the air was beyond humid and the concrete was also just sucking up the water in the air, making it even more slippery (the team even said it had never been that bad before). It was hot as balls (as it tends to be in Florida during the summer; we’re so lucky the rain cooled it down). Also, the roof wasn’t that great and there were some drip spots on the track. So yeah, lots of problems.

We started out using our lines. Most of the team would be playing every other jam but 3 of us (me, Bone, and Fingaz) would play two, sit one, and repeat. By the time we reached the end of the first set of lines we had thrown them out. There was no point in having them, so they disappeared.

It was awesome, honestly. I was absolutely exhausted. I would skate three jams, and then I would sit one jam and do it all over again. I was in 4 jams in a row once and Bone was in 5 in a row once. Whenever we were tired we sat down for one jam before going back in. I even jammed once (didn’t get lead jammer or any points because the other jammer called it off when I reached the back of the pack). By the end we were so tired that we got a bit sloppy.

When it ended and we saw that we won 116-86 we were amazed. It was a miracle that we won and we didn’t die. Below is a video of the first few jams of the bout and some pictures by the amazingly awesome Phantom Photographics.

Our First Win of the Season! OCRD vs LDD

We won! We won! We won!

Okay, now that I’ve celebrated, I am going to admit that I feel a teeny tiny bit guilty about our win. Why?


Ummm, yeah…

So not only did we win, but we won by a lot! Almost 250 points, which is an insane amount. It is the third time the team has won (with two wins during the last season) and the second time the team has won a home bout (the first time was against a team that had only been skating about 6 months and they beat them 212-17).

About two weeks ago a few of us went to see Palm Coast’s bout and they just happened to be playing Lakeland. The ending score was very close (by about 7 points, I believe), so we started thinking that maybe we would get our first win of the season. We’ve been training hard and having really great practices in hopes that we would win. Well…we definitely won.

One reason why we won by such a high amount was that we played the entire game. Even when we had a giant lead we didn’t stop giving it our all. With about 15 minutes left in the second half the other team was absolutely exhausted. Our coach kept telling us to get lower because things were starting to get sloppy and dangerous on the track because they may have been tired. Should we have taken it easy on them? Maybe. We were having such a fun time playing that I didn’t really even notice the score until the game was over.

Unfortunately, I kind of suck and was the only jammer on our team that went to the box and created a power jam for the opposite team. Actually, I did it twice. The first time I was going into the pack way too fast and hit Poni causing her to fall and my leg must’ve caught someone else because I ended up with a major low block. The second time I went to the box was because I cut the track. I am pretty sure I was straddling the line, but I still should’ve just stopped and went back behind the person that was pushing on me, but I was thinking I would be fine. I really need to shake that because cutting the track is something I did a lot at the last bout, too.

We’re just about a month away from our next away bout, so we’ll see what happens. We’re losing one of our players because she announced her pregnancy last night, but we’re gaining two that just came from the fresh meat side (one is a freshie and the other is a returning skater that just went through her mandatory time in fresh meat). My older sister NSO’d last night and now she wants to get some skates and join in. I knew that when she saw derby she’d want to do it, and I was definitely right! I think it helped that there was one insanely badass player that we borrowed for our team that is a pretty big girl.


Scrum starts aaaaaaaaaaaall day


Derp jamming!


At the front of the Lakeland train, woo woo!


Sitting on the jammer

OCRD vs South Florida

On Monday we got some homework from our coach, “Homework assignment Vets! I want you to write down a list of pros and cons about the bout for me. What are your thoughts about yourself, the refs, your team, and the coaching. This gives me a chance to hear your stories without using our practice time to do so.”

I was going to do a full write-up on the bout, but I think my homework really says a lot about the bout without me having to do a new post. Below is an edited version of what I sent to our coach.

Pros:

• Good communication in the pack
  
• Pack aware of jammer location, informing others of upcoming jammer
  
• On the knee starts were awesome, I enjoyed that they got us moving faster and we didn’t have any super slow and drawn out starts
  
• Very few out of play issues on our side as compared to the last two bouts
  
• Played as a team rather than individuals

Cons:

• Too many penalties
  
• Too many mistakes made near the end, possibly due to tiredness? (still skating short, one day our team will have enough people to have a full roster and it will be awesome!)
  
• Umm…we didn’t win?

Thoughts on myself:

• Way too much falling, could be due to bad stance, no balance, unpreparedness for hits?
  
• Majorly need to improve: balance, stance, endurance, hits (especially hip checks), quick feet, lateral movement, general skating skills, breaking up walls, getting up faster, and rejoining the pack quickly
  
• Need to be more aware of the other jammer’s location when I am jamming
  
• Need to fight more when trying to get out of the pack, I don’t believe I pushed the wall as hard as I could have; I would like to be a more aggressive jammer
  
• I’m proud that I got lead jammer twice, and I want to work hard to make sure that I get lead jammer and points more often when jamming; I seriously need to improve my speed and endurance for this to happen

Thoughts on refs:

• Made very fair calls on my majors (not counting my first major, because I have absolutely no idea what it was, so I have no idea if it was fair) – their calls made me realize that I straddle the line without even realizing I’m doing it, so I need to make a concentrated effort to stay on the damn track so I don’t get more track cuts in the future
  
• Did not like how the refs were slow to call off the jams, especially when the jammers had to signal for an entire half of the track.

Thoughts on team:

• As a team, we didn’t use our learned skills in the bout (stepping into a hit, turning and hitting, putting our chest into the blockers, gut hits); I want to make an effort to try to use them more during our scrimmages at practice so they can possibly become second nature
  
• Bench was more supportive than at the last bout
  
• In my opinion, everyone’s level of playing and spirits were more elevated

We lost 212 to 160, but the score was within 10 points for a majority of the bout. We tried our hardest and can only get better!


BoneSaw and I hitting each other during the warm-up
photo by UnSENCERed photography


Clearly I found something interesting on the ground
photo by UnSENCERed photography

My First Away Bout!

I meant to post this several days ago but I have been super crazy busy

This past Saturday was our first away bout! It was at Barber Park (the outdoor rink where Heather and I sometimes go to skate) and the weather was awesome. We were all worried that the weather would be suffocatingly hot or it would rain, but it was just slightly warm and breezy.

We lost 198 to 98. The thing is: no one was really upset about it (unless I completely missed it). We were skating short as we only had 10 people and one was a borrowed person. Our normal team has 2 regular jammers but Poni was unable to come, so we only had one normal jammer, Brawl. A lot of us have been training as jammers, so there were 4 other girls that jammed every other line to give Brawl a rest (I was one of them).

We started out pretty strong, keeping the other team under 10 points for quite a while, but then they got the lead and ran with it. Everyone felt that we played better than we did at the last bout, though! We were against a better team with only one of our regular jammers; we really did well!

For my own performance? Meh. I did horribly as a jammer. I never got lead jammer, but I did manage to make it out of the pack every time. Unfortunately, every time that I made it to the pack to get some points, the other jammer called it off. I was a pretty okay blocker in the first half, though. I made some pretty good hits, but I also fell way too much.

I got hurt, too! Not seriously at all, but enough to show off for funsies. One of the times I was knocked down and got my hands completely dorked up and the other time was a hit to the mouth with a helmet which resulted in a busted lip. I’m actually kinda disappointed and slightly pissed off that the girl that hit me with her helmet didn’t get a penalty (if the refs don’t see it they can’t call it, but yeah, ow). When my fingers got ran over I saw they were bleeding a lot, so two of the girls helped me put bandaids on. It was a pretty amazing moment because the jam could have ended at any time and we’d be back on the track (every person played every other jam). And even though I was a bit rattled and bleeding I got right back on the track for the next jam. It was the same with my lips. It was bleeding quite a lot and the only thing I could taste was blood, but I still had to go out there and I’m glad I did.

I had my first trip to the box, too! I had 4 minor penalties, so I had to spend a minute in the box. I was one of the few people that spent time in the box. At our last bout we constantly had people in the box and it was tough for our bench coach. This time was so much better.

The feedback I got after the bout was awesome, too! Several skaters from the Orlando league complimented me and it made me feel great! It meant a lot because they are the first roller derby players I saw and cheered on before I ever knew that I was going to do derby myself. I’m excited to get back to practice and start putting in the work and the time to become a better player.

Because we didn't have the rink Tuesday we watched the bout footage instead of normal practice. It was interesting, but still sort of hard to watch in parts. I am still a really awkward person. Speaking of awkward, here are some bout photos!!


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Phantom Photographics


Photo by Notalie Unsencered

Skater of the Month!

I wrote a very lovely post about it, but I wrote it while at work and forgot to email it to myself, so it is lost forever (or at least until Monday). Anyway, I am the Skater of the Month for January! When they announced it at practice on the 12th, I was in shock! I though back to the previous year and, no, they hadn't run out of people, they had actually picked me!

Obviously it's not because of my skills (although many people said I improved a ton and I am starting to feel very confident with several aspects of derby), but because they wanted to recognize and thank me for sticking around and being helpful wherever possible. One of the main things I've been doing for the league is designing the flyers, which I've put below.





An ad that is appearing in a local magazine for 6 months


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Also, I had a photoshoot for my skater picture near the beginning of the month and I completely forgot to post about it (I don't know how, because this picture is amazing in so many ways). I cannot thank Not-A-Lie Photography enough (and of course, her girlfriend Oxy, an amazeballs skater and occasional coach, for directing me during the shoot).

My Second Scrimmage

Photo by Phantom Photographics

Sunday I skated in my second ever scrimmage. I am very glad that it was not my first scrimmage, because the experience was not that good. My first scrimmage was at the rink I’m used to with tons of my fellow teammates and we had specific lines without much strategy other than to have fun and play hard. The scrimmage last night was quite a bit different.

Rather than set lines, we moved along the benches provided and were put into lines based on that…kinda. I don’t think it really worked all that well because the bench coach switched it up completely to a point where I was skipped over 3 jams in a row despite being the next person to go up (this happened several times to me and at least 1 other girl, maybe 2). Obviously it was because I’m not that good, but I still wanted to play, too. One girl said I should be more assertive and I have to agree. I think if I had been more aggressive and assertive, I would have been in more jams and not skipped over so much.

While our coach was insanely cool, we started off on the wrong note. He told everyone not to hit very much and do more positional blocking because that is what he had talked about with the coaches on the other team. It wasn’t until the 2nd jam when someone on the opposite team completely took out someone from our team that he changed the game plan and just let us play how we would normally play. Because he plays on a nationally competing broller derby team and practices with another top level team, he wanted us to focus more on strategy plays (which are definitely made for more experienced, existing teams rather than a group of varied level players on a mix of several teams). There was one play he tried to do that, in theory, should have sent pretty much the entire other team to the box, but instead just ended up costing us a ton of points. Complex strategies like that are good if you’re experienced, but with a less experienced player that has no idea what the strategy is and what’s supposed to happen it just turns into a mess.

In my first scrimmage I hit several people and know I actively helped my team in almost every jam I played in. In this one I didn’t feel that way at all. In one of my jams I knocked a jammer out of bounds on the outside and in another I held the jammer off on the inside through the straightaway before getting her out of bounds. Looking back I can see exactly what I should have done in the other jams.

I know that as long as I keep practicing and playing I’ll get better, and I’m okay with progressing at the rate I am (which is the complete opposite of how I felt on Thursday & Friday). After reading a few blog posts and talking with Heather I felt better, but then I also spoke with the girl from my team that was also in the scrimmage. We rode to Lakeland together and she told me how she thought she would never improve or be a good player and now she’s one of the best on our team. Girls just bounce off of her during hitting drills and she was the first person to lay me flat when I joined the vet’s side. I will get there, it’s just a matter of time and practice.

My two goals were to have fun and not get hurt (it was explicitly stated by several of my teammates that I had better not get hurt at the scrimmage), and I consider it a success. The whole experience was fun (except for those few negative points), and I definitely learned from it.

Team Dog FTW (except not really because we lost)

Yes, my tongue is out. No, I don't know why it is.

Photos by Clarke Moffitt Photography

My First Scrimmage!

Yes, that's my butt in those shiny silver shorts


It was awesome, but before I start with that, I want to talk about the preparation. I got to the rink around 4:45 and we were just starting to set up. We were told to grab our knee pads, so I got mine and helped as the head ref did the chalk outline. I’d never seen them do the outline, so it was really cool. He had a long chain that had different rings and labels that told you which lines went where. Once the chalk outlines were done, we started laying out the rope and taping it down. It took us quite a while and then one of the refs came over and helped do the rest of the track in 3 seconds flat. He said he got really fast at it because the rink he used to be at wouldn’t let them set up until very late.

Name and number on my green shirt

At that time I had to gear up and I started feeling very nervous. For the first 30 minutes I was on skates I couldn’t remember how to stop (it was more about the rope lines and being scared of tripping over them). Because so many people signed up for the scrimmage we were going to have three 30-minute periods (we ended up having two 30-minute periods and one 15-minute period, but that whole thing comes later), and I was put as B2 in the 1st and 7th lines and then as Pivot in the 3rd line during the 3rd period.

Because I was in the first line I got to do the example jam at the beginning. I always thought it was some kind of planned thing, but apparently not. After the demo we lined back up for real and the whistle blew to start the first jam. And I literally do not remember what happened after that. The jammer probably passed right by me and I may have hit one person, but I have no clue. Before I knew it the whistle was blown four times by all the refs and the jam was over as quickly as it had begun.

A few highlights from my times on the track, since I can’t really recall enough to fully talk about one:

• One girl fell right in front of me and I tripped over her and fell spectacularly, but I got right back up.
  
• There was a bit of a pile up around turn three and I ran over someone’s fingers. It was like driving on a bumpy road.
  
• I accidentally hit the jammer with my elbow (though she didn’t fall or anything) and luckily I didn’t get a minor (actually, I didn’t any minors or majors, but then again I didn’t play a whole bunch).
  
• I hit the jammer with my elbow at turn two, but at turn 4 I hit her out of bounds!
  
• I was really good about looking behind me and I think I spent more time looking behind than looking forward

We did have a few problems though. One woman fell (not during a jam) and snapped her ankle in two places. They called the ambulance and had to reset her ankle last night. That happened with about 3 minutes left at the end of the 2nd period and they were going to call the bout. They decided to go ahead and finish out the period and follow it up with a 15 minute period rather than a 30 minute period like they planned.

The 3rd period was going to be more evenly matched players against each other. Basically it’d be a line of all beginners, and then a line of intermediates, and then a line of advanced. I was the pivot in the beginners group.

With about 5 minutes left on the clock our jammer got hit and broke her clavicle. We all thought she had just hit her bad shoulder again, but at the after party we found out what happened. She was able to get up on her own steam and walk off the track and be driven to the hospital. So yeah, two very bad injuries in one scrimmage, both of them from my team. I am just so bummed and feel horrible for the ladies who were hurt, both of them love derby and it's going to kill them not to be able to play for however long they're out of commission. :(

The final jam was pretty intense. It started out as a power jam for the Santas and after about 2 or 3 grand slams our jammer was released from the box and was able to get some points before the jam was called off. It took several seconds to update the scoreboard and when we saw that it was 190-188, we all flipped! My first scrimmage and I was on the winning team!

At the end of the night I had smudges from other people’s numbers on my arms (and it was awesome). I had to resist the temptation to just leave my numbers on my shoulders because I’m sure my co-workers would not want to see it. Now we're on a break until January 3rd and our first bout of the 2012 season is February 12th. So yes, two more months and I have some goals/ideas for how I want to improve and I'll talk about those in another post.

And here's some pictures, all lumped at the bottom because I'm too lazy to sprinkle them through the whole post like a good blogger.

Hanging with Heather during one of the breaks

My dad kept taking pictures of me and I was very irritated about it


Go Elves!!


Wearing the pivot panty, woo!


I think this girl and I took each other out, but I seriously can't remember what happened


You can barely see me in this picture, but I am directly behind the girl that is on the ground. I ended up falling in a most epic manner (according to the bruise on my hand), but I got right back up and rejoined the pack!


Plow stopping like a boss


Remember when I said I didn't remember how to stop because of nervousness? Well, after my introduction lap I wasn't stopping very well so I grabbed onto the hand of one of the girls on my team. You can see the fear in my eyes and her laughing at me. I hope her clavicle heals quickly!


I want to go back in time and yell at myself to get lower. It looks like I'm just derping around at session or something.

5:07 and Clarence the Bruise

In my last post I said something along the lines of “I had a post, but I deleted it because it’s no longer relevant.” The reason being is that I said that I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough because I wasn’t sore. In all of the derby blogs I’ve read, it always says that you should be sore or else you aren’t doing it right. Well, now I’m definitely doing it right.

On Thursday I fell pretty hard, but I got right back up. I had a sore spot that I had a feeling might turn into a bruise, and boy was I right (pictures at the bottom of this post). Saturday was pretty awesome. We did the 25-in-5 again and I had my best time yet! 25 laps in 5 minutes and 7 seconds!! It means I’m really getting close and shaved off a hell of a lot of time from my crummy Thursday time. The vet that was watching me/keeping track of my laps told me that I was doing great for the first 15 laps, but around the 17th lap I started to wear down and get slower. If I can get my endurance up then I’ll definitely be able to make it under 5 minutes! Of course, the vets got their chance to shine and had to do 30 laps in 5 minutes (a large portion of them succeeded). After practice I rushed home to shower because there was a derby social at SkyZone, a trampoline place. It was really cool, but I felt a bit out of place.

Sunday and Monday were spent trying not to die from the soreness. I also spent way too much time looking at Clarence (the bruise). Once I got to practice last night all soreness was forgotten (or it could have been the advil, who knows). We did some more weaving (getting better!!), sticky skating, double crossovers/pushing hard with both feet in a crossover (which I am totally nailing, but am sort of scared of because they make me go super fast), falls (single knee, double knee, porn star), and one foot glides.

Okay, now the reason you’re here – bruise pictures!! This is my very first official roller derby bruise. The initial fall happened on Thursday, so almost a week ago.

Clarence on Sunday 9/4






Clarence on Tuesday 9/6

My First Time as an NSO

Last night there was a game in Daytona Beach. My GPS was nice enough to get me and the other girl I was with completely lost. When we finally found the rink (about 45 minutes after we were supposed to get there) we were assigned our NSO positions. The girl I was with (another fresh meat) had never been to a real live derby bout! She was one of the scorekeepers and I was given the job as outside penalty person (you know, the people that the inside penalty trackers completely forget about so you have to yell and jump around to even get their attention).



It was really awesome (even if the team lost), because the more and more I learn about derby the more enjoyable the games are. Also, being as close as I was I could hear every call and Ref discussions happened near me and that was exciting! After the bout I was going to drive straight home (since it was a two hour drive, ugh), but I thought, "Hey, why not drop in to the after party for 20 minutes and just grab a soda?" Yeeeah, 20 minutes can turn into 2 hours very quickly. It was great though. The team is full of really awesome ladies.

And now I'd better go, because I'm going to get ready and drive to Orlando to skate with Heather and Itzel. I'm finally going to use my outdoor wheels for the first time!!!

View from the Merch Table

The view wasn't all that great, but the experience was a lot of fun!

Date and Venue Change!!

I'm so glad that I am so obsessed with checking the Cannibal's facebook page every day or else I would not have seen this.



There are several awesome things about this change:

• I am familiar with the venue, I skate there every Monday
  
• No hard concrete (like at OEC, where they were going to hold the event)
  
• Indoors! Their other venue is/was (dunno if this is a permanent move) outdoors. Florida is hot as balls.
  
• Skate Mania is literally five minutes away from my house

And a few not so awesome things:

• I've noticed my wheels sort of sucked on the skate surface the last time I was there and my t-stops are bad (more like t-slide and skid), I run into the carpeted walls for stopping and that will be a hard habit to break
  
• The interior of the rink is filled with christian/jesus paraphernalia because it doubles as a community center; not much of a complaint, but this list is short!
  
• It's two days sooner than I thought it would be, which makes me freak out just a teensy bit.

In other news, the last two days at work I've been reading the WFTDA rules and decided to see if there were any quizzes/tests out there to see how much I've learned. This one is a pretty good test...and not just because I did well. It covers some basic information, which is always good to know.

Getting mah skate on!

My friend Heather, whose derby blog is here, purchased her skates right after that very first live bout in January. Once she was done with Faire, she started taking skating classes at Universal Skating Center, which is where we go to see the Orlando Psycho City Derby bouts. Every Saturday morning from 9:15-10am they have classes and then from 10am-noon they have public skate. She’s been going for a little over a month and was finally able to convince me to wake up early enough to get down there and skate.

My first class, on June 11, was a bit hectic. Usually they have two teachers, one to teach the level 1 skaters and the other to teach the level 2 skaters (level 3 classes end at 9:15 and they are run with both teachers), but one was gone, so the first 20 minutes were just waiting around. I started in the level 1 class, but because I was already rolling and moving, I was bumped up to the level 2 class. At the end of the first class I decided I had to have my own skates and went to the store inside of the rink.

Heather has Rock GT-50 skates which are apparently better for wider feet. I thought I would be getting that one, but I asked to try on the Riedell R3s that they had. I tried on a few pairs of skates and finally found that the size 7 fit me best. Once I was all laced up, we went back out onto the rink floor and it was like magic. I had used the crummy rental skates for class, but skating on my brand new skates was like skating on butter.



While going to the Orlando skate class at least once a week is something I plan to do, I still wanted to skate a bit closer to home. I knew of one skating rink here in Ocala, but it’s not open very often because it doubles as a community center/daycare type of place. I called on Monday to find out their public skating hours and discovered that they have a 21+ adult skating session every Monday nights from 7-10. So that night I convinced my brother to come along and we skated.

I’m now going to continue skating twice a week (and I'm going to show up right at 7 because they have skating lessons for the first 30 minutes), and hopefully I’ll start to improve. I’ve fallen a few times (more on that in another post) so far, but I have managed to pick up a few skills. I can do: turtle tucks, scissors, t-starts, flamingo, raising one foot while skating, and one footed turns (though I need to practice them more tonight).

What I want to be able to do before recruitment:

• Stop!! (T stop, plow stop, and if possible the tomahawk stop)
  
• Shooting the Duck
  
• Crossovers
  
• Skating backwards (we started this in class but I was only able to waddle back and do horrible scissors)
  
• Lift leg behind me, swan-like move (no idea what it’s called)

Update!: I wrote this post while I was at work today, but I forgot to post before I left for skating. The skating class wasn't exactly what I thought it was, but something really amazing came out of it - I learned how to do crossovers!! I'm so proud of myself and very excited. They feel so natural. I also fell tonight while working on backwards skating, so I'll definitely be wearing my pads the next time I give it a go.

Standard Introduction + Weight Loss Stuff

I'm very afraid of new and different, but I seem to be trying new things all the time. Roller derby is going to be one of those new and different things. I've always had an interest in the sport, but the real interest to actually do roller derby started in January of this year. I saw my first live bout (I'd seen others on tv and in movies) with my friend Heather and we both were blown away by how awesome it was. We immediately said we wanted to do derby, but then sort of let it go for a few months. Heather was busy with RenFaire and I put the idea down on a list of things I could never do because of my size.

Fast forward a few months to May, and I was feeling fed up with the fact that I couldn't do much at all because of my weight. I was sad that I would never be one of those smaller, sportier girls, but then I asked myself, "Why not? Why can't you be one of those girls?" So I decided to start dieting and exercising with the intention of becoming a derby girl.

On May 18th I bought a scale and weighed in at 223. It's been a month and two days since I started my diet and this morning my weight was 204. One pound away from losing 20 pounds and 5 away from being under 200.

My original plan was to buy skates once I lost 30 pounds, but I went skating once and couldn't help myself. In my next post I'll talk about the skating classes and sessions I'm going to as well as what I'd really like to be able to do as far as skating goes.

Also, my friend Heather is keeping a Fresh Meat blog as well. We live an hour away from each other, so she's going to be skating in a different league. You can read her blog here.