week 7 and HEADSHOTS!!

name soon to be revealed!

last week wednesday i had the supreme pleasure of getting my roller derby headshot taken! usually the league waits a little while to have the new girls photographed since dropout rates tend to be kinda high (roller derby is not for the wishy washy types!), but we got lucky and our league photographer, lynn terry http://www.lynnterry.com/ agreed to let us new girls get our picture taken. i was so very excited/nervous! she was a total delight to work with and put me at ease right away. the picture turned out pretty good, dont you think? i decided to bring my wooden shoes to use as a prop in the picture, since i know i want my derby name to have something to do with my dutch heritage! i've got a few names in mind, but i have to wait another month or so before i can officially submit anything to the master roster of rollergirl names (view the amazily HUGE list for yourself at TwoEvils). once i've picked, i'll let everyone know!

last weekend was also the gatekeepers first bout of their first local season! it was at a great venue which was new to me: queeny park in ballwin. the drive there was particularly heinous due to SNOW, but my mom and i managed to make it there. the guys were relying on me...i was scheduled to sing the national anthem! i felt kinda nervous about it but i know i did just fine. it was also interesting to note the difference between men's and women's derby. i asked romo what she thought some of the differences were and she noted the men seemed to skate faster and rely more on speed, and were using more shoulder hits as opposed to using their hips to hit. i agree with her statements, but i do feel that the men rely a bit more on brute force, whereas i can see the women using more tactics and "mind games" on their opponents. can't wait for the rest of the season and watch more of their bouts! i feel very fortunate to have arguably the best men's roller derby in the WORLD right here in st. louis!!

suri o'killer

this week in practice we spent a great deal of time working on our hips!! it really amazes me what my body is capable of...who knew by sticking my butt in the right direction i could knock someone down?? retired m-80s skater suri o'killer came out and show us new girls how it's done. she was so helpful! i especially liked the drill where we skated through a line of veteran skaters and got to practice putting hits on them, and then having all the vets hit us! i remembered the advice eli and bevo gave me last week and kept my stance wide and didnt put my knees together, and i definitely felt a lot more stable when receiving hits. yay for improving!!

we also got to start putting everything we've learned together all at once by skating in some practice jams! its very challenging when youre out there at first because so much is happening all at once and you have to keep track of what everyone on your team is doing as well as everyone else on the other team! fortunately watching a lot of derby helps and god knows ive watched plenty in the past year, so it wasnt as overwhelming as it couldve been.  then on tuesday i did the off-skates workout (thanks for letting me feel the burn, julia ghoulia!), skated in the warmups, but then spent the rest of practice (which was really a bunch of scrimmages) working as a non skating official (NSO for short). i was standing in the center of the track for a while keeping track of penalties and points, and after a while switched to being a penalty timer. i need practice being an NSO, because in a few weeks i will be accompanying the rookies (non-rostered girls, lots of girls from the group that tried out ahead of mine) to columbia for a bout, and i will be NSO-ing there. i'm very excited about it!

well, that's it for this week. who knows what the future holds??