summary of week two

this week, for whatever reason, wasnt as intense as last week. i made it past thursday with minimal soreness! hooray! but also boooo, cause it means i probably wasnt working as hard as i shouldve been....

my new wheels: radar tuners!

monday was unfortunately a shorter practice, because our league holds a scrimmage once a month for the recreational league, which always falls on a monday. so we started the night on our skates and quickly ran through our essentials (stops and falls), and then worked a bit on turnaround toe stops, which was especially nice, since it was a review after working on it a LOT at thursday practice. a mere two months ago i thought i'd never be able to do them, but im learning quickly, and its nice. unfortunately for whatever reason i felt sluggish that night and probably didnt skate to my full potential; i told a couple of people my feet felt like molasses. to help combat this i also ordered some slicker wheels from romo, since my skating skills are better now and i dont need as much grip. the floor at the skatium has also been redone and is not quite as slick as it was before, making my current wheels feel kinda slow and "heavy". who knew wheels could make such a big difference?

after the short practice was the rec bout. id been to several as a pre-newbie but this time i actually got involved, which i was REALLY excited about! i was a penalty timer, which means i sit in the penalty box and time skaters as they enter the box; they have to sit there for one minute. i tell them when ten seconds are remaining that they may stand, and when they are done and may re-enter play. it was kinda cool seeing the other side of the sport a little bit and eventually when my body cant handle the constant intense hits that are required of you in derby, i would love to be a skating ref!

skating backwards...where are her pads??

thursday's practice was HARDDDD. romo led it and she loves to skate backwards, so guess what we did? we skated backwards almost the entire time. my feet, especially the arches, were just KILLING me. i know i feel nervous skating backwards since i cant really see where i am going even when i look over my shoulder.  therefore, i dont feel as confident, causing me to use my feet to grip the bottom of my skates, causing a lot of cramps and pain. im working to try and unlearn that and relax my feet, and i can tell it is going to be one of my biggest challenges. i was able to pick up my speed a bit though, and i feel a bit more confident now.  the last part of practice was some positional blocking and using "lanes" on the track to create a wall that the jammer cant pass. of course all of us yellow girls couldnt do any REAL blocking, but it was nice to learn and go through all the motions and have a bit of strategy in our practice.  i got to feel a teensy bit of what contact was like when one of the girls kinda forgot herself and started shoving me around a bit. romo yelled at her that i was in yellow and she stopped, but hey, i am okay with contact! i can hardly wait to start hitting people!!

i skipped thursday practice, but it was a scrimmage and i felt i could use the rest. i did go to a local skating rink on wednesday though and skated around with a friend. any practice is good practice, right?

first league meeting

whether people realize it or not, there is a lot that goes into making roller derby actually happen. most people see cute girls skating around in fishnets with their intimidating names and kinda assume that's the end of it. when in fact, that is the end RESULT of a lot of very hard work behind the scenes. as a member of this league, as scary as this may sound, i am also now a part-owner of the league. scary, but cool! the fact that modern roller derby is "for the skaters, by the skaters" is one of my favorite aspects of the whole thing.

yesterday was my very first league meeting. we have them every other month as a way for all of us to remain on the same page, discuss concerns, give praise, share new ideas, revise policy, etc. i never realized roller derby has SO MANY committees! as a newbie i was immediately put on bout committee, meaning that on bout day, i am one of the people who makes things run smoothly, like setting up seating, taking tickets, etc. i kind of thought that was the main "chunk" of the organizational part of derby, and how very wrong i was! even when the girls aren't bouting, there is a lot that needs to be taken care of, such as publicity, merchandise, coaching, recruitment, events, insurance, safety, sponsorship, charity, graphics, website, etc.....whew! thats a lot of stuff!!! i was kind of intimidated at first, but realized that its not on my shoulders to do ALL of it; i just need to do my share. and if everyone does their share, we will thrive as a league.

the meeting was long, but left me very excited to be a member of this league. as a two-week old newbie, there isn't much i can do (yet), but in a few months i will have voting rights and i will really be able to get myself actively involved in running ARRG. for now, i can just be helpful and assist with as much as possible. i've flyered at events, talked to countless people about what modern derby is all about, pimped our league on my facebook page, and in a couple of weeks i will even be appearing in my very first parade as a rollergirl! i just need to figure out what my skillset is and how i will be best able to help the league, and join the appropriate committees. because if we didn't take care of this league, it wouldn't exist! and at the end of the day, ARRG exists because we love to skate, right? :)

coming up: second week of practice, st. patrick's day parade, and our march bouts!

first week of practice

so, umm....i currently can't move. let me take the following few paragraphs to explain why:

monday was our very first "official" newbie practice. it was great!! romo and some of the other girls came and brought us cupcakes and dressed up in tutus and capes to welcome us. that was a very sweet gesture :) the practice was good and we worked hard, and it was like an extension of the stuff we worked on at bootycamps. something new i worked on was cross-steps. this particular exercise is very helpful for me because i've noticed that during my crossovers my back foot gets kinda lazy and doesnt help propel me like it should, and since the back leg is really the only thing moving you forward during cross-steps, it really helped to isolate the skill i need to work on. but we continues doing falls and stops and jumps. for the first time, i jumped over a 6" cone!! before we were only jumping over the little "disc" style cones. since jumping was one of the things i was most scared of, it's really exciting to see myself making progress in that area.

artemischief

well, since monday nights always leave me pretty tired/sore, i felt kind of insane going to a league practice the VERY next day. but, as a member of the league we are required to attend at least 7 practices a month, which means i can't just rely on my monday newB practices. so i went, and the first 45 minutes were an off-skates workout, which was led by one of the league's top skaters (in my opinion), artemischief. teel had warned me in the past that she was insane, but i didnt realize how insane until last night. her workouts are TOTALLY BRUTAL. i was seriously about to vomit and had to quit halfway through; i still had another 2 hrs of skating ahead of me!

so i caught my breath and got my skates and gear on, and then julia ghoulia took over for regular practice. that was also tough. much tougher than newbie practice! its obvious the veterans have been doing this for a while and as a result, are much more agile, faster, and in WAY better shape than i am. i was huffin' and puffin' all over the rink, but i did my best to keep up. then a little later the newbies went off to the side and worked on jumping, weaving, lateral movement, and hip whips while the vets worked on contact-based drills. there were 8 out of 15 newbies there, so it was nice having some company. a few of the vets even came over to check on us from time to time to give feedback and some instruction. i really love the support and appreciate that they are looking out for us, the future of ARRG (as romo always puts it).

so i woke up this morning, after two straight nights of practice, and i felt like absolute hell. it took a serious amount of motivation to even get my body out of bed, thats how sore i was! but no matter how much it hurts, its a good kind of hurt, cause i know it's from working hard. still trying to decide whether or not i'm crazy enough to attend thursday practice as well. guess we'll see how i feel tomorrow!

february '11 bout

last night was my first bout as a member of the league! i was very excited to make my big "debut", but little did i know that would become much more literal than i had imagined it to be...

these bouts were the beginning of the ARRG season playoffs: RSA (rebel skate alliance, and our newest local team) vs the M-80s, and the Smashinistas vs the Stunt Devils. I knew it was going to be a great couple of bouts before i even made it to the all-american sports mall (where all our bouts are held); i had heard that we had completely SOLD OUT!! there's been a few sell-outs before, but it was always because of ticket sales at the door. this time, we were sold out through online presales! our cap is at 1100 fans, so it's pretty incredible to realize that derby has become so popular, and that our sport just continues to thrive and grow every day.

didnt want to pull a "christina"!

i made it to the venue early, since i was volunteering. i signed in and was shown to the merch table (yay! as a member of the league, im allowed to handle money now!), and stayed there for about twenty minutes until trippity hooha, one of the bout coordinators, pulled me aside. i TOTALLY thought i was in trouble for something, but it turned out that she wanted to know if i would be okay with singing the national anthem! it was pretty cool that they put so much faith in my singing talents, especially since i'd never formally auditioned or anything; i had merely expressed interest. so here i am, about to sing in front of over a THOUSAND people, and all i can think about is "i hope i dont forget the words!"

of course it went great, and i did fine (although i probably couldve done a little better, but it was a LOT of people, okay??), and i got a lot of compliments afterwards. but now, there were bouts to watch! i finished up my merch table duty and watched the second half of the first bout as well as all of the second. i feel like every time i watch derby (and i've watched a LOT, believe me) i learn something. i'm really starting to understand the fine points and strategy of the game better now.

the afterparty was a lot of fun as always, and i was able to talk derby with lots of different people. i got to hear some feedback about my tryout from one of the judges, and she told me she could tell that i had been working very hard on my skills, and that i was ahead of the pack as a result. that was really, really nice to hear. i just have to keep working hard and show everyone in the league now how passionate i am about this, and when the time rolls around, they will be fighting to draft me! haha

first newbie practice tomorrow...so excited!

trying out: not as easy as you might think...

as you know from my previous post, i had been training on my own for about 5 months when i got the email about recruitment. i had been eagerly (and somewhat impatiently) waiting, and by the time info night rolled around i was more than ready to get this whole process started!

i made sugar cookies...

not gonna lie, i felt like kind of a douchebag going to info night when i already knew half the league and all the ins and outs of roller derby. so what did i do? i baked cookies. probably made me seem like even more of a suckup, but i really did it with the best of intentions. so anyway, i pull up to the st louis skatium (where the arch rivals hold all their practices) and find the parking lots and and surrounding street completely CLOGGED with cars. "uh oh. how many girls are coming to this thing??" was the thought that immediately ran through my head. i was early too, but when i walked in it felt like there were a hundred other girls there. yikes!!! i hadnt expected this huge of a turnout, and i dont think anyone in the league did either. but i pulled up a chair and patiently listened to all the information that i already knew about buying gear, the time commitment that derby demands, etc etc.

not all leagues have a tryout process, and the ones that do probably vary greatly in intensity and difficulty, but this is how it works with the arch rival roller girls (ARRG, for short): there are three nights that you attend, with skates and all your gear, where they teach you the skating basics and the skills that are expected of you at the tryout night. these three nights were initially meant to be spread out over several months, to give girls time to practice these skills on their own time in between these nights (affectionally called bootycamps). but of course the universe hated me, and the skatium had their floors redone, so the first night was pushed back from mid-december until after the holidays. ugh, fine. i had waited this long, i could wait a little longer! this also meant that the tryout date had to be pushed back a week. ok, fine. then the weather decided to be a bitch, and we had to cancel and postpone. what was initially meant to be a two-month process was crammed all together into one month. tryouts were supposed to be january 31st, but then SNOWPOCALYPSE '11 arrived, and we had to postpone it a week.

what crossovers look like!

the skills we were taught during bootycamp were basic beginner derby skills: skating with confidence, using bent knees and a powerful stride, using crossovers in the turns, weaving, proper falling technique, proper stopping techniques, and jumping. we were also timed for speed. luckily, i knew these were the skills we'd be learning and eventually tested on during tryouts, so i had been practicing them on my own. still though, it was hard since a lot of the skills i wasnt comfortable trying on my own (jumping), and some other skills are frowned upon at the local roller rink. they wouldve kicked me out if i had been practicing falling on purpose over and over and over! but, since i had my foot in the door with the league already, i found out that skatium would be soon be open to skaters in the early morning (5-10am) sweet! i had an afternoon job, which left my mornings totally open to go skating. for a few months i would go twice a week, every week, and practice whatever i wanted to my heart's content. still, not having anyone there to give feedback was frustrating, and after a while i felt like i had plateaued as far as what i could achieve on my own.

i got a full-time job and the practices diminished a bit, but i still made a few practices where i got up at 4:30am to be at the skatium by 5, so i could skate for an hour before i had to leave for work. it sucks getting up so early, but i always feel great after i skate, and i never regret going, so i kept up with it as best i could. i couldnt help but feel that at that point, i was almost OWED a spot in the league. come on, who else was getting their ass up at that hour to go skate? barely anyone thats even IN the league even did that! but i didnt want to get cocky, because i had no idea what kinds of skills the other girls were hiding when i sized them up at the very first info night.

thankfully, the 60 girls that showed up at the info night was reduced to about half that number on the very first night of bootycamp. the talent level was mixed, but definitely a bit higher than i had expected. however, i felt that personally my stamina and comfort on skates was great, and that all my practicing had paid off. yess!!! i just had to keep working and keep practicing the skills they were teaching us, and i would be ready for tryouts.

newbies have to wear yellow as a signal
to the veterans so they know not to hit us yet!

tryouts were yesterday. i was SO nervous leading up to it that whole day; i could think of nothing else while i was at work and when i got home i tried to take a nap and failed MISERABLY, since my heart was practically pounding out of my chest. i visited romo at the shop and talked it over with her, and i realized that it really is no different than preparing to give a big speech or singing a solo in a musical. you just have to trust in yourself. if you have done the proper work to prepare, your body will take over and do what it has been trained to do, and everything will turn out great. so thats exactly what i did. i just kept a level head and didnt overthink it; i did the skills that were asked of me to the best of my ability and that was that.

it was after the tryouts were over that i got REALLY nervous. i felt i had done well, and that all my hard work had paid off and served me well that evening, but there were 21 of us that tried out and i knew there wouldnt be spots for all of us. the hour that passed between the end of tryouts and when i finally saw my name on the list was a total haze, i was so incredibly nervous. but then i saw it on the website link that was provided to us, and i was SO incredibly excited. i had PASSED TRYOUTS! 15 of us had made the cut. then my phone and my facebook started to blow up. i received such a huge outpouring of support from my friends and my family, and i felt so incredibly elated and satisfied. i had set a goal for myself, worked hard, and as a result, achieved it. i really felt like i had earned that spot, and it felt SO DAMN GOOD.

so now it's the day after, and the fact that i am a derby girl has sunk in a little, but not completely yet. perhaps it will next monday when i attend my first newbie practice as an ARCH RIVAL ROLLER GIRL. but for now, i just feel like little old mindy :)

i must explain that my celebrations arent going to last long. because now that i have passed tryouts and become a member of the league, i am still only at the beginning of a very long derby journey. i must attend newbie practice on monday nights, pass a rules test, pass the women's flat track derby association (WFTDA) minimum skills test, and i have to get cleared to hit and get hit by other girls. once all that is done, THEN i can submit myself to the draft and hopefully i will get drafted to one of our four local teams. for now, i am in newbie limbo, and i know i wont see actual playtime for several more months. but let me tell you: i am so incredibly happy to be here!

next week: first REAL practice in yellow!

where it all began...

hello! i am starting this blog to document my trials and tribulations as i enter the world of roller derby! i am not the greatest writer and this blog will mostly serve as a way for me to look back on everything that's happened to me. but if you enjoy reading it, all the better! now, let's start at the very beginning (its a very good place to start!):

i had seen and heard about roller derby probably not long after it's modern-day inception (austin, year 2001), but i was only 13 years old at the time and never paid much attention to it; any thoughts involving derby were probably something to the effect of "those girls are weird. i dont like the way they dress!". but over the years, the sport evolved, i grew older, and a little movie named "whip it" was released. i went to go see it in theatres and thought to myself that hey, this was pretty damn cool. i knew right away in my heart of hearts that i would LOVE to play this sport, but didn't feel brave enough. so i went online and found that there was real live roller derby right here in st. louis! the arch rival roller girls www.archrivalrollergirls.com popped up on my search and as luck would have it, there was a bout the very next weekend. so i dragged a friend to come with me, just thinking i would go watch it once and it would be a unique way to spend a saturday night.

i attended my first bout in january 2010. i was mesmerized from the moment i walked in; there were girls rollerskating around the hallways right in front of me! i knew right away this was something very very cool. at my urging, my friend and i picked seats in the splash zone (i was always the little girl who loved to get soaked by shamu at sea world), and as i watched the game unfold i knew i was hooked. the girls were all so self-confident and strong and unique, not to mention totally badass! i knew right then and there that i wanted to be one of those girls. but it seemed really intimidating, so i just poo-pooed the idea. still, i got home and immediately sent recruitment an email, and received a reply shortly thereafter that recruitment was currently closed. i secretly sighed in relief and decided i would just be a spectator for now. this didnt stop me from going to sports authority and trying on a pair of "roller derby" brand skates though, and feeling terrified when i realized i could barely stand up in them!

anyway, time passed, i attended bouts, and suddenly in may 2010, i received an email. recruitment was open! attend one of these nights to learn more about the league and start the tryout process! i was like, "cool! i can go to a meeting"....then i read further. i had to buy equipment. equipment is expensive. REALLY expensive. plus i had already promised work i would attend some late-night function on BOTH of the nights that they had info night. bummer. so i figured i was too poor to do this anyway, so i let the info nights pass. however, i knew i was still interested in roller skating, so i started going to a local rink, rollercade www.rollercadeskating.com and just started skating around in circles for the first time in years. one of the regulars told me there were rollergirls skating there and i thought, oh cool! let me go talk to them! who did those girls turn out to be? teel and brandie, both of whom were trying out for the current round which i had passed over. they were so nice to me and i even exchanged numbers with teel, agreeing to meet up and skate more later.

that was around the time my stepmom called and told me that she could tell i was really interested in roller derby, and that she would sponsor my efforts and help cover the cost of my skates and gear. well....shit. i remember tryouts being a week or so away at that point. my dad said "maybe you can talk to them and see if theyll still let you in?" but i knew it didnt work that way and i would have to wait. i celebrated with teel when she passed tryouts in july, but secretly wished i could've been doing it with her. brandie wasnt so lucky; i had heard she didnt pass. so i solemnly went to a little place called rockstar skates www.rockstarskates.com to go buy my gear.

this is where i met a real rollergirl for the first time! and who better to meet than joanie rollmoan (known as "romo"), who had just opened up her own brick and mortar roller derby shop right by my house. she was very kind and sold me my gear, but i was too scared to say hi when i saw her at one of the bouts. but still, when i get passionate about something, i try to immerse myself in it as much as possible. so i attended all of the bouts (even when i had to go alone and sit alone cause i didnt know anyone), read up about derby online, and scoured the arch rivals website for player bios and any morsel of derby knowledge i could get my hands on. then romo invited me to come watch roller derby regionals streamed live at her shop, and since i was so hungry for derby, i went.  not only did i go, i stayed. all day. every day (being out of work at that moment gave me lots of free time). and i met lots of people from the league! i kept wondering and kept asking about tryouts, and every time i asked it seemed the date had been pushed further and further back. i was starting to wonder if i would ever get to try out!

but the burden of having to wait was also the gift of time. i had many months to practice and feel comfortable on 8 wheels. i even brought my skates with me to the netherlands and skated a practice with the amsterdam derby dames! http://www.amsterdamderbydames.nl/ i slowly assimilated to derby life here in st louis. i met more and more of the girls who skated, and the people who made it all happen, such as NSO's (i found a familiar face in brandie, who decided to bide her time until the next round of tryouts by being an official!), referees, superfans, and the male derby players as well. i started attending the parties and started talking to people and not being afraid to ask questions.

then suddenly, in november 2011, it was time! i got the email! RECRUITMENT WAS FINALLY OPEN AGAIN. the process i had been waiting for, for MONTHS, was finally about to begin....

(tryout process, from info night to tryouts, in my next post. stay tuned!)