Banked Track Babes

I had a chance of a lifetime to go to this thing called the “ProRollerDerby Invitational” in Glendale, Arizona.  So I took it.  The chance, that is.

It was a fun road trip & girl-bonding sort of thing, decorated with the austere reality that we were there for a workshop session with none other than a couple of world-renowned coaches, Bonnie D. Stroir (pronounced “Destroyer”) – founder of the San Diego Derby Dolls, and Heather ‘PITA’ (“Pain In The Ass”) Martin, of the Orange County Roller Girls and the L.A. Derby Dolls.  And dolls they were, the both of them.  For their worldwide celebrity status among the derby community, these chicks were just folks – sweet, friendly, welcoming, utterly charming folks. 

We had originally signed up to do some flat track training, ‘cause that’s what our WFTDA-hopeful league does – the “FT” in there being “Flat Track” and all.  And just for funsies, some of us also signed up to try out the banked track, which is basically the same size and shape of a flat track, but raised on the outside all the way around, so that when you skate on it, you’re tilted sideways, just a skosh.  (OK, maybe it’s a bit more than a skosh.  But don’t worry – I’ll get to that.)

Did I mention that this whole thing takes place in the Jobing.com Arena, home of the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team, seats close to a bajillion people, a total rush if you happen to be the center focus of all those bajillion seats?  Yeah, that’s the one.

A bajillion seats shall surround you...

So we’re all gearing up on the entry-level floor when the elevator doors suddenly swish apart, and PITA and Bonnie emerge and introduce themselves.  By now, we all have glitter in our eyes, and then one of them (I’m not really sure which one because, you know, glitter…) politely inquires, “Is anyone completely freaked out by the idea of doing banked track?” 

Why, of COURSE none of us are!  We’re not freaked out by ANYthing; we’re derby girls.  (As a rule, freakouts are never admitted in person amongst ourselves, and most CERTAINLY not in the presence of a coach, captain, trainer, or famous derby skater.  Freakouts are best reserved for… blogs.)

Anyway, the next thing we know, we’re all being herded into the elevator and taken down, down, down – to the main floor, where a gleaming white banked track had been set up the night before.  And there she lay, glowing white hot in the arena lights – inviting, beckoning, taunting, seducing us into trying something that, compared to our home track of painted ovals on a securely horizontal surface, looked mighty dangerous and weird.

Thar she glows!  And the track looks pretty cool too.
(photo by Fern Aldahyde)

Everything about the banked track seems different.  There’s even a special way to get onto the darned thing.  You gotta crawl up through the rail and get onto your knees, then right yourself, but then you’re standing sorta sideways, so you can’t just stand there – you have to do a special coordination thing with your wheels and your toe-stops in order to even stay put long enough to begin skating.

So here we are, a bunch of flat track girls – most of us have only been skating derby for a few months – and we’re trying very hard to play it cool as we all creep under the rail and onto the top of the track, then linger on our knees just long enough for the brain to exclaim, “Hey WAIT a minute, what the HELL do you think you’re…” – then we switch off the brain’s warnings, get up, figure out our footing, and start skating.

The first thing you notice is the sound.  Once a dozen or so sets of wheels start spinning along that raised surface, it creates the coolest sort of “Hommmmmmmm” that you usually only hear from the depths of the grittiest spaceships in the darkest science fiction films.

NOT for little girly-men.

Then you realize you’re skating on a 30˚ lean, so a whole different set of muscles in your legs and lower back begin to materialize out of nowhere, and just like that scene from Hellraiser, suddenly growing new tendons, nerves, and blood vessels on the fly can be… rather painful.

Meantime, they’ve had the house lights on while we’re skating away & getting our groove on, and then all of a sudden some techies come in and start messing with the switches and levers and thingamajigs, and the lights go down.  Music booms in, and multiple spotlights start streaming around the track.  The brain switches itself back on and screams, “I reiterate, WHAT in the HELL…” so you switch off the brain again, and let the spaceship fly. 

Then you realize, it’s not the spaceship that’s flying… it’s YOU.

This is because you very quickly learn that allowing yourself to slow down on the banked track is a bad idea, especially on the curved ends of the oval, where it’s even steeper.  So the brain gives up on all the warnings and switches into pure survival mode, and that’s exactly when you figure out how to let the track itself propel you.  Down toward the center floor on the turns, then up toward the rail on the straightaways.  Down toward the floor, up to the rail.  And so on.  That’s what keeps up the momentum, and turns everything into controlled flying chaos.  Like the little silver ball on a roulette wheel - "Round and round she goes..."

After about 10 minutes, the music winds down, the house lights clank and buzz back on, the spaceship lands, and Bonnie & PITA enter the track.  The workshop begins.

We went through all different kinds of drills and tried out various new maneuvers.  Some were easier than others – ALL were riotous fun – because we were doing them on the BANKED F’ING TRACK!  The very first drill stands out in my mind, because I got lots of attention for it.  Stood out in the crowd, if I do say so myself:

You know how I mentioned that you can’t just stand on the track?  Well you’re really supposed to use your toe stops, and ideally not hang onto the rail at the top.  So they were showing us how to actually slide down backwards from the top of the track to the bottom, using just our toe stops.

Now, when you fall on a flat track, it makes a cute little “ka-whack” sound, and sometimes you can’t even hear it over an entire pack of girls skating around during a scrimmage.  You can sort of sneak back into the pack and act like everything’s fine.  On the banked track, it’s a little different...

You don’t just fall.  You tumble, then slide the rest of the way down.  So on a raised floor, the sound goes more like this:

“BUNK, THA-DUNK, CHONK!  Smeeeeeeeeee…”

And that’s the sound I made when I attempted to slide ‘gracefully’ down the track backwards on my toe-stops.  Everyone turned around and looked at me.  It was awesome.

Me and Beyoncé - we understand each other.

There were other drills that I was able to do pretty well, even a few of the more difficult ones, like weaving yourself up through a pace line of girls – easy enough to do on flat track, a whole different ball game on the banked.  But then we went back to learning how to slide our skates backwards down the side of the track and off the little curb onto the center floor - this time with one toe-stop sliding while the other skate rolls.  I can skate backwards.  I can.  Really.  But skating backwards down a hill, over a curb, and onto a flat surface without wiping out?  Notsomuch.

So I kept trying.  And wiping out at the bottom.  And trying again, and wiping out.  I did this close to 20 times, wiping out on my arse every time, and each time I wiped out, my inner insecure child whined, “You’re never gonna get this!” while my inner warrior said nothing, took over physically, and forced me to keep trying.  And then, remarkably, around the 21^st time, I managed to slide-roll down, make it off the curb, stagger about for a spell, but stay upright.  I did this about 5 more times, then all of a sudden, I managed to roll all the way down, off the curb, and stand there – perfectly upright, amazed and triumphant.  No stagger – not even a swagger!  I immediately sprinted right back up the track and rolled down again, made it off the curb, and lingered, tall and light, the embodiment of Princess Grace.

I bet it took at least 20 tries even for Lady Grace
herself to skate down those stairs backwards.
Especially in that dress.

Now, I could get all mushy and philosophical again about how the little triumphs you get from roller derby can be directly related to lessons in life, but that will just make us all blubbery, and I like to keep things light-hearted and fun.

But it was pretty freakin’ awesome. 

So the other part of the whole “Invitational” thing meant that we could watch two different bouts that day by professional derby teams – one of them being our beloved home AZDD "Hot Shots" team, plus the Orange County and Charm City Roller Girls, who really tore it up out there, and yet another being the much-admired-by-me Rat City Rollergirls, and yes, I caught a glimpse of their coach – my idol – Quadzilla.  We got to witness some of the most amazing jammers and blockers in the sport show off their banked track badassery, while listening to the infamous witticisms of Tara Armov and Dump Truck as they announced the game plays.

It was an utterly magical day full of celebrity sightings, invaluable training, and bonding with the girls.  We all got to know each other a little bit better that day, and the next day we drove back up the mountain and went to our regularly scheduled practice, refreshed and giddy from what we'd learned, accomplished, and dared ourselves to try.  Everything we learned on the banked track could be applied to the flat track – even the sliding backwards down-the-hill-and-off-the-curb thing.  Because that was something I couldn’t do, still couldn’t do, kept on trying to do… and now I can do it.  So bring on the next challenge!  Because I know that if I can’t do 'X' the first 20 times, I’ll get it on the 21^st try.  And by the 25^th time, I’ll have it down like disco.

My new BFF, Bonnie D. Stroir (the cute one on the left).
Right: My post-workshop hair as flat as the track back home.

Embrace the Fear, and Apply it to Everything.

Welp – I completed my minimum skills testing and I think I passed everything, although my blocking & hitting prowess is still in need of some serious attention.  Managed to do the 25 laps in under 5 minutes, which I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do with so many people watching me.  My heart went all aflutter as I stood on the track waiting for the whistle to blow, and I thought, great – there goes half my energy because I’m nervous.  I think it helped when Warbaby just looked me in the eye and said “Repeat after me:  I’ve f***ing got this.”  So I repeated it back to her with venom under my breath, and proceeded to pump out those laps.  I made it with 2 seconds to spare.

Of course, almost immediately after the minimum skills test, I came down with a cold, and I’ve been sick all week, trying to stay home and get well rather than “skate it off”.  There’s some nasty crud that’s been going around for months now, and people are ending up with pneumonia and bronchitis, so I haven’t skated for 5 days.  I’m not looking forward to how out of shape I’m going to look and feel at practice this weekend…

In the meantime, while I’ve been home long enough to actually think about stuff, I’ve also had time for a few revelations.  About derby, about life, and about how I can relate one to the other, and improve on both.

Lemme ‘splain.  During scrimmages, I’m still very afraid to fall and get caught in a pileup.  In fact every time I turn my head to look over my left shoulder during a jam, I’m reminded by the slight pain of residual derby whiplash (from that face-plant several weeks ago) that I can still potentially hurt myself.  Stupid brain – always trying to preserve the body.  It’s annoying.

However, what I’ve realized is this:  When I decide I’m not going to fall, confound it, I do not fall.  I’ve been surprised at how extremely well I do not fall, in scrimmages especially.  It can get downright hairy out there – people on both teams falling all around you, in front of you, and slamming into you as they tumble to the ground, but somehow I can manage to avoid all of it and stay upright.  During practice drills, I seem to have “trouble” doing certain things, like juking (stepping around people and sprinting away) and counter-blocking (keeping your balance when someone else hits you).  But get me in a scrimmage where the potential to end up with an entire skate up my nose suddenly increases by a factor of Ridiculous, and I suddenly find myself side-stepping people, hopping over arms & legs, and anticipating a pileup before it even happens – so that I can avoid it.  All of this sudden and newfound “skill” is solely based on Fear, mind you, but that Fear is exactly what fuels my determination not to fall.  And God help me – it works.

If I were a Cenobyte, they'd embed a roller skate in my face and make all
the other Cenobytes fall on top of me.  Over and Over.  All. The Time.

If I could apply the same determination not to fall to being hell-bent on not letting the other team’s jammer through, I might very well suddenly become The Blocker From Hell.  But because self-preservation isn’t necessarily a factor in keeping that jammer back, my old geeky unathletic self just lets it slide (think “Daria,” when the volleyball just bounces past her).  Apparently, this Fear Factor that brings out the dormant skills in me only rears its pretty head when I’m looking out for my own rump.  So that’s my new mental drill for the next few weeks:  Embrace the Fear, and Apply it to Everything.

Being stuck at home long enough to think about things like this has also allowed me plenty of time to start wallowing in my own self-pity again – regarding my job, my hasty return from New York, and my life in general.  Derby has been a great distraction from all that, but it was kind of good to be able to step back and see some parallels in how I skate a scrimmage vs. how I skate through life.

When I took off to NYC last summer, the Plan was to stay there a minimum of 6 months – doing internships, applying for jobs, looking for Production Assistant work, and generally getting myself established in the business any way I could.  Instead, after only having spent a month there, things were beginning to not go exactly as planned, so I sort of calmly panicked and bought myself a plane ticket home, thinking that if nothing major was going to happen by the end of August (a total of 3 months), nothing would, and I should just come home and continue to apply for jobs long-distance, where it wasn’t going to cost me an arm and a leg to stay in Manhattan in order to continue to work for free.  Seemed perfectly logical at the time…

What an idiot.

Had I stayed there for the full six months, I might very likely have landed YET ANOTHER amazing internship - this time with the Upright Citizens Brigade.  They contacted me on August 31 - the very day my plane was scheduled to return me to Flagstaff – wanting to interview me for their Production internship, even stating that they thought I had a “stellar resume”.  Alas, I’d already canceled my reservations at the place I was staying, and I’d even shipped half my junk back home so that I wouldn’t have to lug it all on the plane.  And the place where I was staying was now fully booked for the next 3 months, so couldn’t have simply extended my stay.  So I went home.

Had I not canceled my room reservations and bought that plane ticket home, I also could have continued to work with my current and awesome internship peeps at the Queens World Film Festival, and maybe even had a chance to actually be there during the Festival itself to celebrate with everyone and reap the rewards of my continued contributions.  Plus, I could’ve met Lloyd Kaufman (cult film director extraordinaire and owner of Troma Entertainment, a company I was dying to get into when I happened to see one of their job postings over the summer).  Kaufman was honored at the QWFF on opening night, and I could’ve been there to meet him.  It really is all about who you know that gets you into the biz, and what you know that keeps you there.  I could’ve known freaking Lloyd Kaufman.  Himself.

Work for this guy?  Yes, please.

OK, back to derby; it may seem like I’ve digressed far & away from the whole point of this blog, but there is, most definitely, a connection.  My premature return from NYC was based on the same kind of insecurity, self-doubt, and inexperience that I feel when a jammer comes barreling up to our pack, and that's exactly why she manages to get past me.  Had I decided once and for all that I ought to Fear the possibility of failure in NYC, I simply would not have let myself fall.  People always talk about how “fear of failure” can stifle you and keep you from moving forward.  I think being in roller derby has revealed that I know how to turn that entire concept on its ear, and use Fear itself to succeed.  So from now on, I’m going to try to embrace that fear, and let it continue to save me from a fall.  ANY kind of fall – on the track, or off.

Lunatic Fringe

I kind of dogged myself when I said in my last entry that I’ve never been good at a sport.  One of my good friends from back in the SCA days (a.k.a. Society for Creative Anachronisms, a.k.a. nerds who dress up in medieval garb and swing weapons at each other) reminded me that I was, in fact, pretty good at fencing.  That’s a sport.  In fact, it’s an Olympic sport!  I did foil, Spanish Florentine, and Elizabethan Rapier style sword-fighting, and yeah, I did get pretty good.  Stick ‘em with the pointy end, as they say.  Even came in second at the Baronial Champion’s Tournament one year.  So I shouldn’t have said that I’ve never been good at any sport, because I have.  I suppose the only difference between regular sports and sword-fighting is that you:

1. Get to dress up,

2. Adopt a persona,

3. Hang out on the fringes of society…

Oh.  Duh. 

It all makes perfect sense now.

When I think of it that way, it’s no wonder that I’ve stuck with the roller derby thing.  Shimmery stockings.  Character building.  Beautifully tattooed women with ‘tudes to match.  It’s basically the SCA, minus the campouts; just replace the homemade Meade with Pabst Blue Ribbon, and add skates where there would otherwise be swashbuckler boots. 

Yet, it continues to amaze me that I’m still in this – and apparently in it for the long haul.  You see, I tend to corner the market on “fleeting interests”.  I’ll notice something, try it out just to have a new adventure or two, and then I’m done with that flower and flitty-float away to the next one.  So… WHAT am I still doing with skates on my feet?!

That’s a pretty easy question to answer; you know – friends, fun, adventure, fitness, challenge… I really don’t think I need to repeat my last several blog entries to get my point across.  But I have to admit – I am actually pretty astounded with myself for sticking it out this long.  It’s not all sparkly fishnets and jammer panties, of course; there’s plenty of hard work and frustration and insecurity involved.  And if I hadn’t started skating on my own time in the parks and at the rec center, I might not have made it onto one of the teams.  In fact, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have.  I had a looong way to go when I started (remember the blog about how I damn near passed out and had to repeatedly roll over to the benches to wait out the rest of the drills?), and I still have an even longer way to go before I can get where I want to be.  But now I’ve got my MVP pass to Rollercon, and the week after that the hubby and I are traveling to Portland for a WFTDA ref workshop – and all of that takes place in late July/August.  So I guess we’re not planning on flitty-floating away from derby any time soon.  (Or ever.  Roller derby is everywhere!  From Portland to Seattle we shall travel that week.  Mo Quadzilla, prepare to meet one of your biggest fans!)

Oh, Mo - you had me at "How to jump the inside line."

Last weekend I got to go watch seven girls from our league battle it out in their very first interleague bout against the AZRD Brawlarinas in Phoenix.  What an amazing experience.  I’ve been trying to make it down to a few bouts here and there around the state, but never before got to watch some of my own friends and favorite people right there on the track, giving it all their might.  Holy crap they were awesome!  And though I was sitting there amongst those girls before it was time for them to skate and thinking to myself, “Oh these poor things, I would be absolutely terrified right now,” I did feel a tiny twinge of envy when they got out there on that track and tore it up in front of hundreds of people.  I’ve never been so proud to be a part of High Altitude Roller Derby as I was that day.  We are a fledgling league who have only been skating together for a few months, and we are going to be one hell of a force to be reckoned with – I can already tell.  My heart swells up to my eyeballs when I think about it; even as I write that last sentence.

Yeah.  I totally know those chicks in pink.

During my off-skates time, I’ve sallied forth in my vain attempts to put myself “out there” in the real world, as I’d originally planned on doing this year, and lemme tell ya, it’s been rough.  Looking for employment, continuing to try to make contact with people who know people in the video production/multimedia biz, hoping to get involved in a certain locally-produced zombie/horror film (you have NO IDEA how unbelievably right up my alley that is), even trying to send some of my writing samples out –- no one seems to be paying much attention, so derby is the one thing right now that I’m not feeling rejected at.  Thank GOD for roller derby.

So, to sum up my progress in a nutshell: 

When I started back in early January:

I could barely do 5 laps around the track without getting winded.  As a side-effect of returning from an exciting summer in NYC to nothing special going on in Dragstaff, I was drinking more vodka & mimosas than I care to admit – let’s just say that I was beginning to spend more on liquor by far than I now spend on monthly league dues + athletic club membership.  I was also planning to begin a starvation diet (because that’s the only thing that works, right?) based on public humiliation (see the first entry to this blog) and attempting to shame myself skinny.  I didn’t have that many friends either… the ones I hung out with while I was in school are all at least 20 years younger than me, and now that I’m out of school, there are no more student film projects to get talked into or crews that I’m assigned to work on.

Now:

Are you lookin' at my bum?  You are, aren't you?  Bum-looker.

My personal best (as of 3/13) is 25 laps in 04:56.  I might have a mimosa every now and then or a girlie little cosmo, but that’s it (unless there’s an afterparty with the girls – then the rules temporarily change!).  Because I don’t like to drink too much the night before I go skating, and I go skating almost every day, so… yeah.  I’ve learned to cook things that involve chicken and brown rice and vegetables, and have managed to lose some weight along the way, but mostly I’ve started to build muscle, and I can see the difference in my waist, thighs, and booty.  In fact, I actually have a booty now, rather than what was beginning to look like a couple of pillows smashed together and melted into a pair of Parthenon columns; used to be you couldn’t really tell where the butt on me ended and the thigh began.  AND I now have 53 new friends – all of them interesting, unique, and amazing in their own way. 

It deserves repeating:  Thank GOD for roller derby.  

Hippie chick (hip-check) day-glo (eyeshadow) chickadee (rollergirl).

Yeah, I like these women.  I really do.  All of them.

Who knew that there were something like 53 badass chicks in this sleepy little hippie town of ours?  Don’t get me wrong – I have my share of hippie chick tendencies too, but sometimes… sometimes, you just want to wail on people.  And derby’s the perfect (and legal) way to get your aggressions out – among friends.  Where else can you get slammed across the room by someone and then go out for a beer with her an hour later?

I know what you’re thinking.  Men do that all the time, right?  But that’s just it; derby is OURS.  It’s a women’s sport.  It’s the only sport, in fact, that men had to copy – not the other way around.  We had it first (thank you, Leo Seltzer!).

Anyway…

This week’s Saturday practice seemed to mark a turning point for a lot of us.  We continued to work on basic skills, honing our blocking/hitting abilities, and playing cheeky, drill-oriented games like “Dumb Jammer” and “Follow the Douchebag”.  So we scrimmaged for the last hour or so, and this time, everything seemed to really come together.  I heard a lot of us talking about it later on; it’s as if the utter chaos is finally beginning to morph into controlled mayhem.  Controlled mayhem is what it’s supposed to look like.  Ask any derby ref.

Let me just say that, although I still get butterflies before practice, there’s something about gliding those fishnet stockings up my legs and smearing on the charcoal eyeliner that rips those butterfly wings to shreds and pulverizes them into a tasty paste that you can spread on a cracker.  That’s another thing I love about derby.  You can wear more black stuff on your eyes and bright red lipstick and sparkly neon green eye shadow than your inner 13-year-old ever dreamed of getting away with – OR you can show up in public with absolutely no makeup on.  Either way, you look awesome, and ain't nobody here gonna judge you, girlfriend.  In fact, if your mascara starts to smear all over your face from the sweat, it just makes you look tougher. 

Yummy yummy yummy I've got love in my tummy

So there I was, fishnets intact, thigh-highs looking boss, eyes sufficiently blackened from the first two hours of practice, and I’m handed the jammer panties.  The whistle blows…

What happened next was a perfect combination of my team doing a bang-up job of blocking the other jammer, me spotting an opening that my eyes couldn’t believe was there (but believed just enough for my brain to take advantage of), and sheer luck: I got lead jammer. 

When you’re this new to the sport, getting lead jammer in and of itself is like, you’ve won... take your victory lap.  And that’s exactly what that first lap feels like, except that you haven’t really made any points yet.  Meantime, the other jammer is hot on your heels and out for vengeance, and you gotta decide quick – plow through the pack again and pray that the stars line up in your favor just the way they did before, or call off the jam to prevent the other jammer from racking up points before you do.  So when it looked like I was toast, I called it off.  But it still felt pretty damn good.

*snort* mmm-hm-hmm, yeh, I got lead jammer *snort!*

I think I may be a little more prone to being overly-surprised and utterly amazed with my badd self when I pull off something like that because I’ve really never been very good at any sport.  In fact for an entire year of high school, I figured out a way to ditch P.E. after the coach took role, and I never got caught, because it happened to be during the “first lunch” period, so I just went to lunch… twice… and never got caught roaming around the school looking like I was ditching something.  I did try to play softball and run track for a while, but I was often the captain of the bench warmers, and my performance in track was pretty non-sequitur – only placed in three or four sprints that I can remember, and that was most likely because my opponents were tired from running other matches all day long.  My friends (whom I still adore) played Dungeons and Dragons and periodically went to the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  You get the picture…

So this derby thing has become both a personal challenge and an adventure into the unknown world of athleticism.  Admittedly, it’s kind of become an addiction, but believe me baby, there are worse things to be hooked on.  It has, actually, led me to put aside or temporarily ignore the things I was planning to do with the year 2012, like hunt for a full time job in multimedia or video production, clean out the garage, organize my craft room, etc.  But I wasn’t really doing any of those things, anyway.  After having to return from an amazing summer of internships in NYC at the end of August 2011, I found myself lying on the sofa, day after day, watching marathons of god-awful shows like Hoarders, rapidly gaining back all the weight I’d managed to originally lose in order to look fabulous on the streets of Manhattan in the first place, and second-guessing all my hopes and dreams.  Every day I felt worse, and the worse I felt, the less I felt like doing anything about it.  The downward spiral.  So at least now, I feel better physically, I can actually eat real food without it all turning into cottage cheese on my thighs, and I’m getting to experience, for the first time in my life, what it’s like to really, truly improve in a sport where everyone is rooting for you, after all. 

Pity party gets no cake.

The pity party is SO over, and I guess I’m using derby as the new launch pad for rebuilding my self-confidence in an economic world where hunting for a job brings forth whole new levels of rejection and feeling like transparent cellophane.  I do need to start tempering my derby with some actual long-term goals in my life.  Otherwise I’ll end up completely broke and living on the streets with no way to support my derby habit.  If worse comes to worst, maybe I could just start up a group of Rollerheads – nomadic homeless people who just follow derby bouts around the country and live off the land, lentils, and supporting each other via quirky arts & crafts.  Like I said, I do have hippie chick tendencies…

"Where's the next bout, man?  I'm running low on acid."

Jam On It.

Okay, so maybe I got a little sentimental over all this derby stuff.  Sisterhood.  Warrior Priestesses.  Wearing tutus.  What can I say?  I’m a Pisces.  I’ve been known to get a little… carried away.

Or maybe I’m just getting a little bit obsessed.  Yeah, that’s probably it.  I mean, I’m skating pretty much every day now, plus I’ve bought all kinds of gadgets and thingamajigs to soup up my skates, and I’ve upgraded all my protective gear to the real stuff (not the used stuff you buy off the little 14 year old thrashers).  It’s pretty much ON, at this point.

And the Fear Factor is finally beginning to wane. 

We’ve been holding a second practice during the week this month that just involves scrimmages.  Basically, an hour and a half of pure, full contact mayhem.  At last week’s scrimmage practice, I freaked for some reason.  In fact an hour before practice, I started feeling squirrelly and getting all weirded out.  So I just kept getting ready and ran with it, figuring once I got to practice, it would subside.  Not so much - no.  And wow did I ever get pissed off at myself for feeling like such a wuss.

Later on, I think I figured out the culprit.  I’m reading “Down and Derby” by Jennifer Barbee and Alex Cohen, and had just got to the part where they interview a girl who was actually paralyzed by the sport.  She’d been in a pileup during a bout and a toe stop happened to smash directly into the back of her neck, snapping her neck and rolling into her spinal cord, and now she’s in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.  I’d just read that part the day before scrimmage practice, and there it sat, festering in my unconscious, feeding the fear and making me wonder if joining roller derby might turn out to be yet another one of the notoriously bad decisions I tend to make with my life.

But come on, I mean, it’s a contact sport, baby.  Either you’re in, or you’re out.  You can’t just join a sport like this and hope to never get hurt.  Everything I’ve read and heard reminds me that it’s not a matter of if you will get hurt, it’s when.  So when I got home after practice that night, I had to really sit down and ask myself, ARE you in?  Or are you out?  Decide NOW.

I don’t really think there was a decision to be made.  I was so mad about being afraid to take a jammer opportunity that night that I’d obviously already made up my mind.  (For those of you who are new to derby, the "jammer" is the one who tries to break through the pack and makes the points for her team; the star of the bout, essentially.)  The very next day, I ordered some pusher wheels and got a membership to the athletic club so that I can practice skating in the mornings – rain, snow, or shine.  Nope - no deliberation necessary.

I did note to myself that gee, look how pissed off you are right AFTER practice – you’re so brave after it’s all over, but we’ll see if you freak out again right before the next practice comes around.  Turns out, I was still more than sufficiently pissed, because I never questioned it – never even for one second considered skipping practice – just went.  And rocked it.  And when someone handed me the jammer panties (see below - the one with the star), I took ‘em.  Yes, I put on my big girl panties and dealt with it.  

So there I was, my very first jammer try, and lo and behold, I broke through the pack!  I think I might have even smiled a little as I skated back around to try and break through again, and then the ego went “Oh lookie there, you badass, there’s an opening; go for it!”  Next thing I knew, I was in the penalty box.  

Yeah, I saw an opening alright… it was right along the inside boundary line, and as the opposing team realized there was a hole, they blocked it up and sent me out of bounds, and what did I do?  I skated completely out of bounds, passing at least four people, and kept on skatin’, all pleased and jolly with my badd self – until the ref’s whistle screamed out and I heard “INSIDE CUT, JAMMER!” 

Woops.  heheh.

But hey – not bad for a first time, eh? 

So by the next scrimmage practice, I was full-on determined to get with it.  Full throttle.  I’ll jam anytime they say, said I to myself.  And so I did.

I had two opportunities to jam during scrimmage.  The first time, I managed to break through the pack three times (at least I think it was three times - but maybe it was only two and my ego got all inflated again), and maintained my position as lead jammer before calling off the bout.  HELL YEAH that was FUN!  The second time, I broke through the pack once and was hot on the heels of the lead jammer, but by the next time I tried to break through, the opposing team managed to block me out pretty good while the lead jammer broke through and called it off.  STILL FUN!!!

I’m thinking that I might just like this jammer thing. 

So when Holly Ween, our amazing guest coach from NAZRD came up and hosted our Saturday practice, she asked the group, “How many of you want to be a jammer?” - my hand shot up so fast that I actually looked up at it.  Was that MY hand in the air?  Huh. 

Yet another little awesomeness about joining derby is the fact that my husband has gotten jealous enough that he went out and bought himself a pair of skates, and showed up to the first “Who wants to be a ref?” meeting last Saturday.  Now he’s coming with me to skate around at the athletic club in the mornings, which really helps to motivate my sorry ass out of bed, because as a derby girl, I can’t very well let HIM go skate without ME, now can I? 

This'll be Gary and me, pretty much in a few weeks.  Pretty much.

From what I hear, he’s got the analytical mind and calm temperament to make a great ref.  I’m just thrilled beyond all boots and wheels that he’s doing this.  Now we can both get into great shape and feel better physically, and at the same time spend time together and push each other’s limits.  He times me on my 25 laps, and I’ve gotten down to 25 in 5:42.  The goal is to make 25 laps in under 5 minutes, and I only have a few weeks left before I’m going to be put to the test to see whether I can actually do this – among many other things I gotta know how to do.  I figure if I can shave off two seconds per lap within the next few weeks, I’ll make it.  But BOY do some days ever seem harder than others.  I think there’s something to be said for letting yourself rest for a day or two and then continuing your training after your muscles have had a chance to re-knit themselves, ‘cuz the quad muscle in my right leg is killing me.  Softly.  With its song of pain.

But the most debilitating aspect of derby – the Fear – is being conquered, one scrimmage at a time.  I still need to work on learning how to hit.  It seems as though every time I try to boot a girl out of the way to help my team, she sort of politely snorts at me and skates away, as if she’d like to say, “Awe, that was cute, Pippi!  You keep workin’ on that while I go pummel your team’s jammer, OK?  Bye now.”

Yeah, okay.  I’ll get you next time, darlin’.  Maybe not now, maybe not the next bout, but I’ll get you, my pretty.  And your little jammer, too.

Skate. Through. The Fear.

I had to just rename this blog.  Obviously.

Never in my life have I discovered something before that would make me want to focus not so much on my weight, but on being in shape.  Yeah, sure – they’re intertwined, but they can be totally different things, depending on why you have a certain body image, and what is influencing you to want to “look” a certain way.  So now, instead of wanting to look like a movie star, I want to look (and feel) like an athlete.

Rollergirls come in all shapes and sizes, and they can use their own unique body type to their personal strategic advantage.  I, with the long legs and not-so-Nicole Kidman body, can skate fast and hard and at the same time really get in someone’s way (once I truly learn how to block).  A skinny chick of any height can jam up to a pack and shimmy right through.  A short, voluptuous girl can be a force to be reckoned with for a jammer and anyone else who gets in the way of her team.  It takes all kinds of beauties to make up a derby league.  And for a group of women to find solidarity and fierce friendship in a sport, while being perfectly fine with their bodies just the way they are, well… it kind of makes you all misty-eyed, when you think about it.

So not only have I found a sport that makes me appreciate being tall (something I always hated growing up), I’ve really started to come out of my shell as far as just being myself.  Growing up tall and painfully shy is not a great combination, which is probably why I got into theater in high school and joined the Society for Creative Anachronisms after college.  ANYTHING to play dress-up and take on a character that is anyone but me.  But I was still too tall for a lot of parts I auditioned for – regardless of my acting talent, and I had to make all of my own clothes in the SCA because nothing I could buy off the garb-makers would fit me correctly.  That got time-consuming and expensive.

But the character you take on in Roller Derby IS yourself.  It’s you, to the power of ten thousand.  Your deepest desires.  Your inner warrior.  Your True Self after stripping away all that crap the magazines, movies, media and society say you’re not.  All that’s left is what you ARE, raw and unedited, and you celebrate exactly that.

Would YOU tell them to go back to the kitchen?

I was thinking the other day about the Marion Zimmer Bradley type of “Sisterhood”.  You know – The Mists of Avalon and stuff.  Yeah - it’s kinda like that.  Warrior priestesses.  No men allowed, unless they’re the Druidic type who can contribute knowledge and skills and share a mutual respect for the magic of the universe.  And the warrior priestess rollergirls get to be Dark.  Sinister.  Amplified.  Even a little bit Raunchy.  All that stuff society (still) says we really shouldn’t be.  What can we say?  We’re female.  All that power and darkness is in our nature. 

So this week’s practice marked a couple of turning points in my own personal growth.  I was able to skate all 25 laps without stopping (last week I only made it to 19 before losing my breath, turning beet red and having to roll into the center), and I managed to skate through EVERY drill without having to sit anything out.  I’m absolutely amazed at the progress I’ve made in the last 5 weeks of skating.  Last week while I was skating at the park, I noticed something different; something “clicked”.  I can’t really pinpoint what it was, but all of a sudden it was like I was gliding instead of trudging.  As a result, I had an extra boost of confidence going in to Saturday’s practice, but it went south really quickly:

No joke, there I was, smiling from ear to ear after completing all 25 laps (and feeling like I could’ve done 30), and then I completed the “suicide” drills (falling on one or both knees, getting back up, falling again, repeat) as well as the pace lines (weaving through a moving line of girls toward the front), ALL without having to stop and catch my breath at ANY point.  Awesome!!!  And then we started a game where you practice blocking, hitting, and being hit.  Oh – and falling. 

So I took a hit that sent me onto my face.  No kidding.  I’m talking the side of my nose and my upper lip hitting the floor and skidding a bit.  Face-plant, plain and simple.  It was a perfectly legal, in fact very skilled hit, but the way I allowed myself to fall was definitely not the way a derby girl should let herself fall.  At first I thought my nose was going to start bleeding, because it does that at the slightest drop of a hanky – always has.  But the flowing red curtains did not fall, o my brothers and sisters.  Not even a little malenky bit.  I just had a slight scrape on my upper lip, and a renewed appreciation for my mouthguard.

Just put it this way - I can relate to the one whose face you can't see here.

But then came the Fear.  It creeps up on you like it’s your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth.  All of a sudden, I wanted to go sit on the bench and wait out the next bout.  I had to tell myself, over and over, that this was simply your next challenge, grasshopper.  Do.Not.Quit.  Skate.Through.the Fear.  So I stayed in – even though the Fear had managed to weave its way intricately through my neurons and synapses and plug the dopamine transmitters and cut off the supply of adrenaline and endorphins, I stayed in. 

Frankly, Scarlett, your Fear is self-inflicted.

Later on, I mentioned to Pantychryst that I apparently didn’t know how to fall.  She graciously offered to show me, since I'd joined the league soon after everyone had gone through that drill.  What she started to explain to me was how to fall on one knee, then both knees, and get back up.  Ummm, well, gee – that sounds familiar.  Is that all there is to falling?  “Of course,” she said.  “You just have to stay low – in derby stance, arms in front.  Then you’ll fall on your knees instead of your butt or your face.”  


Was it really that simple?  Endorphins, adrenaline, re-enter the building.  Fear, begone.  (Well, not completely gone, but at least I no longer had to convince myself not to go sit on the bench before each & every subsequent scrimmage bout.)  Hunter S. Thompson once again whispered in my ear, but this time he said, “Fear is just another word for ignorance.” 

By the time practice was over and we were cooling down, I was able to congratulate myself for not only making it through the entire 3 hours physically, but mentally as well.  We’ve added another practice during the week where we work on nothing but scrimmages: an hour and a half of straight bouts.  That’s what I need to work on the most, because that’s what scares me the most.  If roller derby was nothing but skating fast for a long time and falling on one knee and doing T-stops, I’d be getting close to having nothing else to learn.  And how boring would that be?  It’s the mental stuff that’s proving to be my biggest challenge. 

You can get seriously hurt in derby.  I’m well aware of the stories.  You can even get yourself paralyzed or killed, in rare situations.  But hell – you can get killed walking out your front door, or driving to the carnival, or riding a horse.  Sure, it’s less likely you’ll get seriously injured doing those things, but sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways.  You never know when your number is up.  So why not continue to push yourself and challenge yourself to do things you NEVER in a gazillion years thought you’d find yourself doing?  It’s the only way to really get to know yourself, your limitations, and your potential. 

Besides all that, it's an athletic sport where you get to play dress-up.  Who could ask for anything more?

Hit. Block. Fall. Repeat.

To quote the late, great Johnny Cash (or Trent Reznor, depending on your preferred version of the song), I hurt myself today.

Not very badly, just enough to make typing a bit of an effort.  And sitting.  I took a couple of awesome hits on the derby track during the scrimmages – one of which laid me out flat on my back.  Luckily on that one, I caught myself with the first three fingers of my left hand.  I’m sure that softened the blow.

Later on, I took a hit that sent me straight onto my keister, and my tailbone went, “AYEEEEE!”  I wasn't aware that my tailbone could talk until that very moment.

The fingers are fine, for the most part.  At first I thought I’d just jammed them somehow, but after I got home and two of them swelled up to the size of small sausages (not to mention the pretty purple color underneath, just where the joint bends), I figure they’re probably sprained. 

So it’s official:  My very first derby injury (although minor), and I’m okay with that!  Booty and fingers will be a bit sore for a few days, and I’ll be fine.  I did call the local skate shop and ask them if they can order those sexy padded shorts.  I’m not too keen on what might happen if I take another bum plunge.

Which leads me to my next point:  I need to learn how to fall.  Obviously.  Duh.  Which leads me to my NEXT point:  I need to learn a LOT of things.

You see, there’s this list of things we need to learn.  It’s called the WFTDA Minimum Skills Requirements.  It’s the one where you find out you need to be able to do a list of basic stuff in order to play on an official team.  Stuff like, be able to skate 25 laps around the track in under 5 minutes, come to a complete stop from a “brisk pace” using two approved stopping methods, fall on one knee and do a 180 degree turn and get back up in under two seconds without your hands ever touching the floor.  You know - basic stuff.

So I’m going through this list in my head and we’re doing drills where you skate in a long line around the track while each person in the back of the line weaves her way up through each girl all the way to the front of the line, and I glance over at the Fresh Meat group.  They’re learning the stops, the knee falls, you know – the basics.  I can skate.  We’ve established that.  I can even skate pretty fast and do pretty decent crossovers and weave through a line of girls.  I’ve never tried what’s called a “T-stop” in my life.  So I moseyed on over (wait, I guess I rolled over) to the Fresh Meat group and gave those drills a try.  Not bad!  Still could use some work though… and my basic skills test is coming up in a matter of weeks.  It’d be pretty ironic for me to be able to burn up the rink with my lightning fast skating and not be able to actually come to a regulation stop, yes?

Anyway – I’ve started a separate workout program at home where I do 30-50 minutes a day of strength and cardio training.  Gotta build up that endurance.  And weather permitting, I switch to my outdoor wheels and go skate around Foxlgenn park during the week.

So far, the scale hasn’t moved.  Still the same weight I was at the end of my last post.  But at least I’m getting exercise.  (I will admit, though, after that Pratt fall, I don't much mind having a little extra junk in the trunk.)  However, I’ve managed to cut extremely down on my cheese intake *whimper* and ever since I really got into derby, I think I’ve had something like two vodka/Perriers at home and two 10 oz brewskies at Mother Road Brewery downtown – with the derby girls.  That’s it.  No mimosas, no sparkling wine, no experiments with the leftover Captain Morgan’s Private Stock that I save for, well, experimenting.  It’s funny how your body can sort of tell you what it’s craving and NOT craving, based on your conscious lifestyle choices.  So that’s good, at least.

What?  I sound a little down in the dumps, you say?  Geez – first my tailbone talks to me, then I start hearing the voices of my readers.  (Maybe I hit my tailbone harder than I thought.)  Well, yes, you could say that right now, I’m seriously questioning my ability to do this thing.  We had some awesome scrimmages today where I was usually a blocker, but I felt like every time I had an opportunity to take someone out, I “sort of” bumped her, but deep down... deep, deep down in the furthest recesses of my mind....

(wait for it...)

I didn’t want to hurt anybody. 

My brain just couldn’t go there.  I didn’t want anyone mad at me for pushing them down. 

Yeah.  I know.  I can hear you all screaming and laughing and carrying on.  Something about “You joined roller derby and you don’t want to push anyone down?  BWAHahahahahaha!”  That’s okay.  I’ll wait…

Everything OK now?  Have you caught your breath?  Have a sip of water, it’ll help.  Alrighty.  Where was I?  Oh yes.  Hitting.  Blocking.  Bumping people out of play.  It’s not in my nature!


Of course then you suddenly realize that there’s only one way to avoid having a bunch of derby girls pissed off at you:

MAKE THE HIT.

So I need to learn how to get tougher.  Meaner, even.  Not vindictive mean, just... more aggressive.  Besides, this is exactly what I meant about trying something out that's way the frak-hell out of my comfort zone.  I said that, did I not?  And now I'm faced with it, head-on.  It's time to decide.  Do I do this thing, or do I hang up my skates and piss it all away?

Well, for one thing, I've spent a lot of money just to get started in this.  Would be a shame to quit now.  Besides, if it wasn't challenging and scary, I might as well just go back to belly dancing or perfecting my Pirouette turns and "jazz hands" - stuff I've already done over and over again throughout my life, because I always do what I already know how to do. 

Enough of that.

Let's do this thing.

"Gee, I hope the ground is soft..."

You fall a lot in derby.  And I fell today.  A lot.  So my brain is going, “You kept falling down!  That’s a bad thing!  You suck!” because that’s what brains are conditioned to say when you fall down.  Like, you know, on the sidewalk.  Or walking around your house.  Or running track.  Falling down while sprinting a 100 yard dash is not good.  Falling down on your way to first base:  No bueno.  Falling down in derby:  Muy bueno.  That means you’re actually playing the game.

I’m hoping that my brain sees this as I type it out, and processes it, because right now, I’m feeling kinda pissed off at myself.  Like maybe I just can’t cut it.  I must be able to learn how to:  A. Fall without spraining something, and B. Block that girl.  If I can’t figure out how to do these two things, I will A. Hurt myself very badly, and B. Never make the team.

So I’m going to end this blog with a derby joke, because I’m running out of jokes of my own right now.  Peace out.

Three men were sitting together bragging about how they had given their new wives duties.

The first man had married a secretary and had told her that she was going to do dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple days, but on the third day he came home to a clean house and dishes washed and dinner cooked.

The second man had married a school teacher . He had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the cooking.  The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The third man had married a rollergirl. He told her that her duties were to keep the house clean, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed and hot meals on the table every day. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything, but by the third day some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, enough to fix himself a bite to eat and load the dishwasher.

o=o o=o   o=o o=o  o=o o=o   o=o o=o  o=o o=o   o=o o=o