The prodigal daughter, part two

So, two things happened last night at training:

1) It rained a lot and the roof leaked onto the track.
2) I got back on skates after a month of injury and got my orange star.

I was injury-paranoid so I taped up BOTH of my ankles.
I would have also taped my knee as well except I ran out of tape.

Yep. Getting back on skates was so awesome. I was kind of stupidly nervous though, like my legs wouldn't know what to do or anything like that. So I was really conscious of being down in derby stance, pushing hard on crossovers, and that sort of thing. But it all came back pretty easily, and after a few laps I was back (except for when I nearly crashed into the bin that was on the track to catch the rain). I have to stretch my ankle a lot more though, because it's still pretty weak, and I was feeling it after a while. Rav took people through training, and Sarge and Legz took me through the remainder of my orange star test. Gah! WTF! So apparently what I had left was booty blocking, whips/pushes, and jumping over cones.

What? Jumps? Hahaha. I was so nervous about that. I'm usually okay with jumps, but I was worried that the force of it would be too much on my munty feet. But anyway, there were a bunch of cones set up and I NAILED IT IN ONE. Part of it was probably because I didn't want to do have to do it multiple times, but I also happened to jump over like seven or eight cones instead of the standard five, because Legz had put two cone-tracks next to each other (one was for people to do the one-leg slalom thing for yellow star). Haha. I'm dumb.

But yeah, then it was booty blocking, whips and pushes. Jillie was partnered up with me for this, and she's kind of mega awesome at skating so I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to booty block her, or whip her (haha, last time I whipped anyone I ended up on my ass with a concussion). But she was a really good partner and gave me pointers for what to do (we had to skate around other people doing drills). So yeah, that was all good. Then Sarge and Legz tallied up the marks and I passed and got my star! Whoo!! (It was also the last session they were starring people for the year, so I totally squeaked in--no pun intended--to getting my orange.)

But when you have an orange star, you can be drafted onto a team. We got our first two teams announced as well: since we have a varisty themed league, our teams were the Ph.Demons, and the Cheerbleeders! And I'm a Cheerbleeder. Whoo! Sarge picked the names of all the oranges out of a hat and split them randomly, making adjustments for evening up the size, skill, experience etc. of the players. Boudica got drafted onto the Ph.Demons; Sarge split up me and my derby wife! Noes!!! But on the upside, this means I get to beat up my wife in the future, heh.

Oh, fine, so maybe three things happened last night:
3) I got drafted onto the inaugural VDL intraleague team.

I didn't scrimmage last night, but while I was NSO-ing (as the WORST NSO ever since I was wasn't even non-skating :P) I practiced doing some tomohawks and shooting the duck. Ha. Tomorrow is my last training session with VDL until March, and that sucks a bit. Sad face. I really want to scrimmage and 1) live up to my "Most likely to be ejected" shirt and 2) get more use out of my scrimmage tank and 3) try NOT to hipcheck everyone in the knee.

Yep. It was a good night to be back on skates.

That's right, I'm a goddamn champion!

The prodigal daughter, part one

So yesterday we had our end-of-year league BBQ by the skate park. It was pretty awesome. It was sunny and people got drunk and/or skated and I seriously made the worst "Bad Santa" present in the history of shit presents. (I'm really sorry, Bev!) Pictures to come.

This is how I feel my level of skating will be.

And [insert fanfare] today is my return to onskates! Yay!! I am going to be back from the wilderness. After being away in late October for 2 weeks and then basically getting on skates and then wrecking my ankle, I haven't had a proper skate since the time I had a concussion. (Yes, and THAT turned out well...) But yes. I have both my ankles and my knee taped up, and I am mega excited.

Also, no scrimmaging yet; my ankles need to get used to the weight of my skates first, before the weight of my skates AND several derby girls piling up on top of it. But yay. Being able to roll around is a welcome first step.

Oh, except I have to do the remainder of my orange star test. From memory, I have to do booty blocking, agility (jumping over cones), and obstacle avoidance. I have two more sessions before the end of the year and we break for the summer (I miss the last session because I'll be overseas, boo), so if I want to orange before then, it's tonight and Tuesday. I thought I'd do it Tuesday, and spend tonight kind of getting used to being on wheels.

But no. Sarge has other plans for me. Hilariously enough, this is how I found out:

WAT.

I REALLY want my orange, but I'm kind of scared I won't remember how to skate and I will fail the test or munt myself more. In particular, I'm worried that my muscles will have atrophied or something or that I won't have stability (not that I had much to start with) or that my derby stance will be shithouse. Ergh. For some reason this is much more nerve-wracking than when Boudica and I did our yellow star, maybe because last time we did ours together and now I am flying solo (she got hers when she smashed the test a few weeks ago).

 But I'll report back on how I went later tonight.

How it all started

In an IM conversation with boyfriend (who knows I am nuts about derby and I bought him skates for his birthday) today:

[him]:  WTF there's a movie about derby? Have you heard of Whip It?

http://www.foxsearchlight.com/whipit/

Hahahaha. That's so cute. :D

To be fair though, I haven't seen the movie, ever. (It apparently makes derby girls rage though, but meh.) However, it is what sucked me into derby in the first place.

Sponsored by Pro-Tec.
Also, uniform fail on the mouthguards and helmets.

I went to the Toronto International Film Festival the year it premiered and they turned downtown Dundas Square into a big flat track for an exhibition bout. That's kind of where I saw derby first and totally got sucked in. On the day, there was a big crowd there and I couldn't see what was going on, and I climbed up the back of the bleachers on the scaffolding to have a look, and they had two of the Toronto teams bouting and someone was explaining the rules and stuff as they went. It was amazeballs. And so I kind of hung there for the ENTIRE bout with my tiptoes on a piece of scaffolding, trying hard not to fall off. My arms were mega sore and my feet cramped like the dickens but it was worth it. And Drew Barrymore was there but she ignored everyone. Plus one of the people in the movie had my original derby name, which subsequently turned out to be one of the most popular derby names ever or something so... bah.

But yeah. Cutest discussion ever. Yay, memories.

Blood and Thunder!!!

I like how it is an emu and not a kangaroo as everyone would expect.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of months or so, you should know that the first ever roller derby world cup is on in Toronto! It started early this morning Australian time, and it will be going for the next three days. You can watch the bouts live from DNN here: Click here for awesomeness

I'm mega excited about this. Having an international tournament for roller derby raises the profile of the sport, and makes it clear that it is something that's not just played by a handful of 400-pound lesbians (which is actually how someone tried to describe it to me once, really), or that it's all like in "Whip It" when people go about punching each other or something like that, and it gives the sport a greater degree of legitimacy and visibility. Derby girls are actually athletes, and this is a pretty good opportunity to show the world what they can do. Plus, on a more obvious and less philosophical note, it's like all these amazing skaters all descending in one of my favorite cities in the whole world. Fuck yeah. My brain is exploding from all the awesomeness. Or maybe it's because I'm mega-hungry right now.

There are a crap load of countries actually taking part in it, so besides the obvious USA (of which there are two?), Canadian, and Australian teams, there are also teams from Finland, Argentina, Scotland, France, Brazil and Sweden, among others. I probably would have liked to have seen representation from parts of Asia, like Japan and Korea (because I KNOW they have teams there, unlike China or Honkers which don't have any derby to speak of) but hey, this is the first ever international derby tournament so if this is what it is going to be like in its early days, imagine how awesome it would be in years to come.

Here's a video of Team Australia's first bout of the tourney against Team Germany:

Shortstop is frigging awesome, around the 2min mark. I also like when the person taking the video is all like "scheisse!!" randomly. Ha. Australia also won 136-53.

Team Australia v Team Finland is on in like 35 minutes!!! USA v New Zealand in 15!! I don't think I will be doing much work this weekend. Also, now I know how my housemate felt when the Rugby World Cup was on for like a month (he's a Kiwi, go figure). :D

Oh yeah I almost forgot

Last weekend Boudica made an honest woman out of me!

It was the day after my birthday and I had a party at my house, and then at one point she got all the derby people together in the backyard and we were all standing around, and then she derby proposed and then gave me this mega cute necklace with a bearing in it. And I think I said something like "What the fuck? Yes!" And then everyone cheered.

So here we are getting married:

(Photo: Elastomp)

Er, ignore the fact that I look like a slutty pikachu and she is dressed like Officer Serious Lady. Also, I was apparently too excited about the fact we were getting married to be able to do up the necklace myself so she had to do it, all Patrick Swayze-like.

And then of course there are customary mandatory hipchecks!

(Photo: Elastomp)

But anyway, it was a lovely ceremony. Then I proceeded to drink too much vodka and run around on a wrecked ankle and get hipchecked into a fridge, but that is another story.

Here is a picture of the necklace itself; it is MEGA cute. (I am bad at self-portraits with it around my neck...) But yeah, so I have a yellow one, and she has a purple one. And now when she messages me it's like "Hi wifey!!" which is super awesome. Eeeee.

Apparently people thought we were already married?! Well, we both are pretty awesome... :)

The Cannery Challenge Post Mortem

So, today was the big day. Team breakfast at 8am (where I ate my own breakfast and part of Sarge's and half of Diazeslam's raisin toast and some extra hash browns and grilled tomatoes--I fucking love hash browns). The team was obviously pretty nervous; of all the teams at the challenge ours was the only one with no bouting experience. Anyway, preparation for the challenge also involved going to the supermarket and buying the following:

• One slab of 60 bottles of water
• 30 bottles of gatorade
• 1 box of oreos
• 6 bags of candy
• 2 boxes of those nutri-grain cereal bars
• A fuckload of bananas

After that it was on to the Cannery. Basically, the Cannery is this giant shed that CRDL has which is taken up mostly by a giant concrete derby track. Anyway, there was a quick team meeting, then gearing up and getting ready for our first bout aginst a CRDL team. Whambulance was also nice enough to tape up my ankle so it didn't look all fucked up. It was a better job than I did, so yeah.

Excellent strapping job, Whambo.

Anyway, then we set up our bench. But boo, early on crapballs: I got sacked from benching because you were only allowed one benchie and the designated alternate (who was Sarge). So Bubbles had to do lineups and panty bitching and give people water and write their numbers on and everything. On the other hand, this meant that I had a free ticket to watch the bout!

I don't actually remember that much about that bout except I was yelling a lot. I think VDL was psyching itself out and it showed. One thing I noticed happened a lot was that the blockers weren't really helping out their jammer, so the jammer would be pinned behind a whole row of CRDL blockers and our blockers would be skating ahead. And there was too much bossing around and shouting and getting aggro at people from the bench which made it kind of hard for the skaters to hear actual instructions from Sarge.

Lineup sheet, Bout 2, 1st half.

Marie was the first casualty of the day by copping a shoulder (I think?) to the face and almost breaking her nose. I didn't see what happened (Boudica and I got sent on a mission to get a big fat permanent marker to write people's numbers on their sweaty arms) but we got back just in time to see her fall. Then she got up and had a towel over her nose and was icing it a whole bunch and stuff. That was kind of scary. Anyway, I don't really remember that much as I said, but the final score was 21-180-something or something like that.

Clearly people were rattled after the first bout. I guess that is to be expected; if this is a baptism by fire, then it really was a fucking good one. Marie was still out, and Sarge had a serious talking-to with everyone to make sure that they listened to him when he was yelling out instructions from the bench and stuff. Bubbles and I were frantically redoing the lineups since we had to take Marie (injury) and Rubi (exam) out of it. Also, note to self: remember that there are two halves of the bout; so you need about 40 lineups, not 20. :P Oh yeah and there was some general VDL/CRDL interesting interactions; most of them were really nice, and I guess it was weird to expect anything from how that was going to go. But I did wish I got a photo of me standing next to Bo-Rap; she was on skates (so taller than ever) and I had jandals on. I think the top of my head reached her boob. Ha.

Anyway, then suddenly it was time for the second bout. This time it was "Team Potluck", which was a combination of people from a bunch of other leagues. I was benching this one, and holy shit I was hoping that everything would go well. The first half was awesome! NO MAJORS FROM ANYONE!! That made doing lineups SO much easier. I feel that I need to yell more sometimes and be a bit more assertive, but for most part I think it went well. Plus scorewise we were doing pretty good: we were like 30-something in the first half (which was more than tht total score for the previous bout) and the margin was HEAPS smaller.

And then there were like 4 injuries in the second half! Legz fell and fucked up her ankle or something, and Diazeslam might have broken her wrist. Tank got shouldered in the neck (WTF??? And nobody called anyone on a major for that) and Junk got smashed in the knee. I was frantically amending the lineup every couple of minutes or so; originally Bubbles and I had the plan to have two lineups that we could rotate, but then we just ran out of people. I felt kind of bad making people do like 3 jams in a row or something but we just didn't have enough skaters for that. :/

There were also a few dodgy calls. There was one when Jillie was jamming and BOTH the jam refs were calling no lead jammer... wtf? And a lot of hitting out of target zones happened, and cutting, and not much seemed to be called. I understand that everyone's still learning though, so yeah. Early days for all of us. Sarge did put in a formal complaint I think though.

2nd half lineup sheet. You will note that shit got crazy around Jam 8-9.

We didn't have enough people to continue the bout (we were down to a full lineup and maybe 2-3 on the bench), so we called it. The final score was 57-81, which I reckon was fucking awesome. I think I ended up doing an okay job for seriously having seconds to make decisions about the lineup as people got taken out of it due to injury, and we didn't have too terrible a time. Plus afterwards I got to hobble around the track and high five the random PotLuck people, not that I had any idea who they were. But yeah, overall, I think we did a really good job in the second bout and recovered a lot to pull the score as close as it was. So, hooray. :)

Oh yeah and I met ShortStop! Like about fucking time. Brad was running the BBQ and I wanted to get some food in me before the second bout (which was the one that I was benching) so I went to get a vegie burger and she was there! And Brad was all like "Shorty have you met Mouse, she is like your evil twin who is following you. She had a party on the weekend and all the derby girls were at your party first and you both have pikachu costumes although hers is sexier" or something. Hahahaha. And then there was no tomato sauce because someone put out like 4L of BBQ sauce or something instead so she got some and put some on my burger for me. Hahahaha.

And league drinks tonight! FUCK YEAH DRINKS.

Off the beaten track

So here I am in week one of injury. Bleh.

In other news, VDL is doing its FIRST EVER IN THE ENTIRE WHOLE WORLD bout on Saturday! This is extremely exciting news, since this is the kind of thing we have been working towards. A while back, I was listed on the roster but needed to get my orange star before I could. But then everything went to shit and because I was overseas and I am now injured there is no way I was going to be able to bout. Boo.

Bubbles' lineup list

But here's the silver lining. I can't bout, but I can still be on the team (technically speaking), because they need bench bitches! Bubbles (who was also injured) and I are officially the team benchies, which means that we are in charge of making sure the skaters line up in the right order for the upcoming jams and seeing who can go on in what position and making sure people get enough breaks and there are enough people on the track and whatever. Specifically, she's doing lineups and I'm panty bitch, which means I make sure people have the right helmet panties and also track penalties so we don't send a jammer in on their third minor or something stupid like that. Sarge and Marie (as captain) will also be in charge of strategy.

Homemade penalty tracking list, v. 1 I can't find a blank one on the internet, WTF??

Bubbles and I had a practice go at doing our benching jobs yesterday. Holy crap, benching is fucking hard and also frustrating! Seriously, we set up about 20 lineups in advance, and only the first one actually turned out the way that we wanted. It's really hard to do a lineup because you might have someone in it but then they are already in the bin, in which case you have a split second decision to put someone else in. And you have to take into consideration things like jammer positions are much more brutal and exhausting (so it seems) than blocking, so you can put a jammer in for one jam, but not for multiple jams in a row, whereas you can for someone who is a blocker. And then you also need to think about the fitness levels and individual skills of the skaters; some of them will be able to do multiple jams, then have one jam off, and then go back in. Some will need more than one. Sometimes you will have a really good combo that will work against particular people on another team. And you need to factor ALL of this stuff in in less than 2 minutes, while keeping in check who is in the box and how many minors/majors they have!

Homemde penalty tracking list, v.2. I don't *technically* need that last "minor" column, since that many minors and you're ejected. But oh well. For the sake of completeness, why the hell not? (Also, anal retentiveness compelled me to list skaters in alphanetical order.)

Seriously. It's challenging in this really interesting way, and I think I can grow to like it. Of course, it's not as awesome as being able to actually skate in the jams, but it is something I think I might like doing. I like putting things into different combinations, and making sure that official shit goes down as it should. It's pretty administrative in a way, but benching is an important role and probably one that would be just as important to master the skills of, as well as skating.

I still want my ankle to get better though. But yay, new skills.

Inevitable injuries

In case you didn't know about derby girl mentality, in my world:

Yes they are!

I was always a pretty accident-prone kid. I wasn't clumsy or anything and I don't think I bruise that easily, but I was always running around in the playground banging my shins into the monkey bars or falling over and getting scrapes or something like that. Once I fell on my head because I tried to swing off the monkey bars upside down and flip onto my feet, and of course I failed at that. My mother had a lot to put up with raising me, because pretty much every second day I would come home from school with some new cuts or bruises. But I was always really gung ho about pain and injury. Unless it was stupidly bad, I would keep going until I fell apart and/or had to go to hospital. One time I even got blisters all over the bottoms of my feet because I really wanted to play tag on the painted concrete tennis court we had at school, and I didn't have runners so I just took my school shoes off and ran in my socks, and my feet got all burned. I think I was six or seven years old. My mum had to pop the blisters on my feet that night when I got home.

Totally from punching.

Derby really brings out a similar attitude in me I think. I am usually not a pussbag or drama queen when it comes to injuries. Hell, I have a completely screwed up and cartilage-less knee because I was injured when I played hockey and still liked running so much I ground it all down. Stupid, I know. But anyway, I like getting new bruises sometimes because they are trophies of a sort. My league has an injury page where people can post of their pictures of bruises and cuts and whatever. There are some pretty impressive ones! I have permanent bruses on my knuckles from my wrist guards being a bit too long, but they aren't huge or anything, even if they are pretty original for where they are.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite pictures of my injuries:

In this picture:

Corked thigh, Recovering torn ligaments x2 and torn tendon, bruise from attempted baseball slide, Pulled groin muscle from plow stops, Gout/arthritis in my big toe knuckles, Blister scars from breaking my feet into my skates, bruise from a skate wheel to the shin, Ground down/no cartilage in my knee joint (prederby injury), Bruises from my gasket being too tight, Bruises from deflecting a soccer ball with my leg and a bruise from where I think I poked my leg and it bruised.

Other injuries aren't always that awesome. In the early days of training, we were doing speed laps and I fell over someone on my side and hurt my shoulder. At the time I thought it was just sore and whatever, and I continued on with doing laps. I think we had to smash out as many as we could in 5 minutes, so I kept doing that. All I got was a little bruise there though, so it didn't look so bad.

I tear my shoulder and all I get is this measly bruise?

But then I couldn't rotate my arms, like in a windmill. Actually, I couldn't even raise my arm anything really more than 60 degrees or something. It sucked. I went to the physio. The verdict: torn rotator cuff, and also torn bicep (where it joins my shoulder bones). Gah. It was awful. I couldn't do pushups or planks. In non-derby land, I also didn't have the strength in it to pull my seatbelt on in the car, or push a shopping cart. This was about 3-4 months ago maybe. My shoulder is still a bit sore, and definitely weaker than my other one. I can do pushups and planks and whatever else now, but even sleeping on it for too long is a bit painful. I know it's still recovering, but it still has time to go. I just really wanted to get back on skates. I didn't need to take time off skates, but I couldn't do a lot of the things we were doing at the time, like four point falls, or crawling through people's legs during stuck-in-the-mud. That sucked. But at least I could skate.

Then, two weeks ago, I was trying to whip Boudica and I fell backwards and smashed my head on the track. I thought I was fine, and I didn't feel like I needed to go to hospital then or anything. The moment my head hit the track, I kind of just saw these bright flashes and then I tried to get up (there's the 3 second rule, remember) and couldn't.

This is what stuff looked like when I was concussed

But at the time I could read stuff out loud without getting all garbled and confused, and my pupils were dialating or whatever. So it didn't seem that bad. I refused offers to be taken to hospital, and instead went to my office to do some work. I was reviewing a paper that I had written to send off to a journal, and I started getting really sleepy reading it. It was about 4pm. I thought maybe the paper was just mega boring or something and that was why I was getting tired. Then I decided to go home because I wasn't really being productive at work. I live five minutes away, but when I was driving I couldn't actually see the road. Like, my vision was all blurred and I had to concentrate really hard on the road in order to drive straight. That was super scary. I called my friend Chris and he drove to my house (since clearly I was in no condition to drive) and then he took me to hospital. The triage nurse was a derby fan, so that was awesome, and we had a pretty good talk. Haha. Apparently I had problems spelling things when I checked in, and I couldn't recall my phone number properly. But yeah, resting up and having some ibuprofen and everything seemed to work out okay. I am probably still mildly brain damaged or something though (which isn't that great for my non-derby life, since I need my brain to finish my Ph.D.)

Gratuitious ass shot, with Batman underpants!

On training at Tuesday we were scrimmaging, and it was fantastic. I love scrimmaging. I can usually get through the pack really quickly, and I also had my first proper turn being lead jammer! I made several passes before I called it, but it was awesome to be able to do that on my first jam. I also took a bunch of pretty hard hits and fell a few times and got some mighty ass bruises. The colours are just coming up as I write this. They're pretty awesome. And they match!

But anyway, back to scrimmaging. There I was, skating away and jamming my little heart out. Then, about four jams in, two people stacked in front of me. I tried to avoid them but fell. I stacked but not badly, so I was thinking I could get up and skate around them before they got up. But when I was getting up, I took two steps and rolled my ankle. Fucksauce. They had to blow four whistles. Seriously, I couldn't even lift up my leg to rotate it to see whether anything was broken. Two years ago I rolled my other ankle playing soccer, and tore two ligaments and a tendon, so I know how it feels, and it certainly felt pretty much the same when I tried to skate. I had to sit out for the rest of training on the sidelines, icing my ankle and sulking because I couldn't scrimmage. About ten jams later, I had been icing it for a while and I thought I'd test it out. I asked Sarge if I could go back on. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Sarge, can I go back in and skate?

I did get a nice hand-meat bruise though.

Sarge: I don't know, can you?
Me: Sure I can! I want to skate.
Sarge: Okay, stand up then.
(I stand up)
Sarge: Stand on one leg.
(I stand on my munty leg)
Sarge: Move your weight around like you are doing a one-leg slalom.
(I do that, and try to look as if my leg isn't hurting like the dickens)
Sarge: Well, if you think you can do it, put your skates on.

I put my skates on. Then I take like two steps, and with the added weight of my skates on, pain is seriously shooting up from my ankles. It was awful, like I was gasping so much from the stabbingness in my ankles and up my legs that I couldn't even swear properly. Instead, I just had to sit back down, take my skates and helmet off, and then go and watch Sarge give everyone else a pep talk in the huddle. Lame. At least I could be useful as bench bitch, I guess. But there was seriously no way I could skate. In fact, there is seriously no way I can currently skate. This sucks.

And what is worse is there isn't even any bruising to show for it. Gah.

This is what my legs look like right now:

Stupid compression bandage. But lesson learned: I need to listen more to my body when it is screaming at me because I am putting it through a whole world of pain. Otherwise, I will just put myself into a situation when I'm going to get MORE injured, and that will mean MORE time off skates. And that is just too much sadface for me to handle.

Brick and mortar

Slightly blurry picture of the shop interior, featuring Dax the dog.

I'm in Toronto at the moment, but unfortunately I don't have a whole bunch of time to do derby-related stuff though, which kind of sucks. (Explanation: I had to fly here for a funeral. Gah.) But I did randomly get to google roller derby stuff, and there are so many teams in Toronto!! SO exciting. Check out their website, at Toronto Roller Derby. So much stuff! Plus there is lots of info there about the upcoming Roller Derby World Cup, which will be held in December this year. Squee!

Alas, I didn't get to bring my skates with me (well, it would be kind of inappropriate for the occasion I think), and the derby season seems to pretty much be over here. If I were here for longer, I would probably see if I could borrow some skates and go to a training session. The fact that a derby girl or boy can go anywhere in the world and get to train with other leagues is super awesome. Anyway, the cool thing about the site is that they linked to a skate store in downtown Toronto. Now, I've never actually seen a real roller derby store before, because we just ordered our freshie kits from Sydney Derby Skates and Derby Skates, but they don't have an actual store. But today I had some spare time apart from doing family stuff, and headed down to Rollerbug Skate Shop near Ossington.

Squee, cute-as-fuck skates!!

It was pretty cool, to be in an actual skate shop! They had tons of space so you could test stuff out, and the store was pretty new in that location so it looked awesome. Skate stuff is WAY cheaper here than in Australia; it's kind of stupid. Plus there was a dog in there! Anyway, here's a photo of the store. Check out their Moxi Ivy skates! SO CUTE. 

Unfortunately they didn't have like ANYTHING I wanted; I wanted to check out some gumball toe stoppers and they had run out, and the smallest set of hired hands wrist guards were still too long for my stumpy finers. Boo. However, Triple8 is apparently putting out a new line of derby-specific pads next year, since now they recognise that most skate pads are designed for guys that are much bigger than us. The current small size for guys is probably what should be a smallish medium for women, so if you're small for a woman you're pretty much fucked unless you can find junior sizes. But it was cool; I talked to a bunch of people in the store about derby and how it's taking off in Australia and everything, and they were really excited and supportive and we talked about the World Cup and everything. I wish I had some VDL merch to give them! Oh and I considered buying a set of Scabs, but I didn't really need them. Oh wells.

Almost famous!

So about a week and a half ago Rubi, Boudica and I got interviewed by a local magazine about roller derby and our impending roller disco fundraiser. I have a suspicion that the reporter was secretly interested in doing derby herself, and that's why she got that project.

But yeah, the interview was fun, and getting to gear up and talk about derby and then also pose for a bunch of photos while we were all in our derby gear and looking badass and everything was kind of awesome. It's my first interview in regards to being an athlete! Hahaha. I should have flexed my (beefy T-rex) arms for the camera more.

You can read all about it here.

Haha, I come off as being so administrative in the interview. She did ask me a lot about the numbers of members and stuff, and it was weird and nerdy that I could just rattle those off from memory. Heh.

The first rule of derby is...

Don't be a douchebag.

Nobody likes these things. Nobody.

No, really. I know this sounds obvious, but it's actually hard to stick to this rule sometimes. I guess with all the big personalities that it takes to actually do derby, plus the fact that it's an aggressive and dramatic sport, things can sometimes spill over or people will read things into offhand comments or actions when there was no bad intention there in the first place. There are little things that might be mildly irritating, but you push through them because that's what you need to do to actually do derby. But then those things escalate. And then, before you know it, you have a full blown league crisis on your hands. And nobody wants to have to deal with that.

Why does it happen? The douchebaggery phenomenon (as I'll call it) is partially sociological: A lot of talking goes on in derby (notwithstanding any stereotypes about its inevitability, given we are having large groups of women hanging out together). There will be communication problems: things get misconstrued and misinterpreted. Given the large number of people who do derby, it's also inevitable that you will have subgroups or cliques form. You will end up being better friends with some people than others. Hell, teams are an obvious instance of subgroups within a league, not to mention all the informal socialising-y groups that also will spring up.

Sheep can be bitches. (Photo: Martyn Peck)

However, I think part of it is also symbolic. Derby is all about inclusion, or at least it prides itself on being so. So maybe when someone feels like they are excluded or isolated from the rest of the group, then it becomes more hurtful than in situations where inclusiveness isn't such a big deal. Everything else being equal, it might be worse to be excluded from a group in roller derby because it's not just about not getting to skate, it's the fact that you're not getting to skate with a particular group of people. And so if it's more hurtful to do that, a natural response might be to resent the fact that this is happening.

Anyway, I'm not a sociologist or psychologist or anything like that, but this is all well documented. Interestingly it seems to happen to EVERY league that I have come across, to some extent or another. Bonnie D. Stroir blogged about it here, and Bunnie's got some nice offerings for how to deal with it here. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. Skatelog has a whole bunch of entries about different aspects of how to address conflicts within a league, and that sort of thing. I'm not sure how much I can really offer on this perspective, but here are a couple of ways of breaking down the "Don't be a douchebag" rule into some nice, tasty and easily-digestible chunks:

There is no "I" in "team", or "league" for that matter

Notice it says "we're", not "I'm".

I often wish that you weren't allowed to have the number 1 for your derby number. For symbolic reasons, I don't think that any one individual should get to be "Number One", as it were. Of course, if your entire team wins something and then you are all collectively Numero Uno, then that's awesome, and good for you. But nobody should be in a position where they are more important than anyone else in the team. The whole point of being in a team is that you have an aggregation of individuals, where the interests of the team are supposed to be paramount (or else you just have a bunch of individuals skating around, not an actual team skating).

Everyone is a moral equal
This is often a hard one to remember. I think it's almost the converse of the previous point. Whities and freshies are just as important and valuable to the team as someone who's scrimmaging or on a travel team or is a captain or holds a committee position or anything like that. They are just as much a part of the league as anyone else, and should be treated that way.

But note: when I say that everyone is a moral equal, it doesn't mean that you have to treat everyone exactly the same. That would be stupid: it would mean throwing freshies into the deep end, or having sessions where scrimmaging skaters aren't learning anything. What I mean here is that everyone deserves equal respect for their skating ability and their capacity to learn and grow as a skater. The weakest skater in your pace line isn't dead weight; she just needs more of your support, not more of your yelling. If you can do backwards crossovers that's great, but realise that not everyone can, so have the time to give newer skaters pointers. The whities and freshies deserve just as much praise and encouragement for something they have achieved as someone who is drafted onto a team, even if that thing is a T-stop. What we sometimes need to do is just step back and see the skater as a person, not just as a particular rank or skill level. In short: equal respect, and equal consideration. 

The only round things in derby should be wheels.

Shit happens
Sometimes you just have a bad day. Deal with it, but realise that you are having a bad day and don't take it out on other people. Not everyone is psychic. They will not will know that you are having a bad day or what your problem is unless you tell them. (I'm guilty of this myself sometimes, but I'm trying to get better.) The fact that you tell them that it's only temporary will be something that alleviates the tension as well; you won't be seen as a mega-bitch who is constantly PMS-ing and people will actually be sympathetic if you talk about it. And maybe sometimes all you do need is to rant and get it all out. There are people who will, believe it or not, listen to what you have to say. Keeping things to yourself and letting them stew is an excellent way to lose perspective.

Remember your roots
As people become more advanced, they sometimes forget where they came from. Sometimes we don't understand why someone can't plow stop, or why they are complaining that their back hurts from being in derby stance for five seconds. But that's just because those things are second nature to us now. I think it'd actually be interesting for people who are of bouting level to watch some freshies train. (By "interesting" I mean "humbling" here.) We all came from the same place. Everyone had to learn how to skate at some point. For some people, that was twenty years ago. For others, it's last week. Remember that. Be patient.


Know when to shut up

Not part of team uniform.

There are a lot of people in a league. You won't be friends with everyone. By all means, talk to everyone and try to be friends with everyone, but you will inevitably gravitate towards some people more than others. Not a problem in itself. The problem is when you start bitching about people for something they did. If you have the balls to do it, say it to their face. Otherwise, don't say it at all.

This also goes more generally for having grievances about your league. If you have a problem, sort it out internally. Interleague issues are by definition just things to sort out within a league. Deal with them within your league then, obviously. But remember that you should keep an united front for the public to see. Dirty laundry doesn't help anyone, and if anything it might scare off newbies from joining if all they see is a giant shitstorm of drama in their faces.

Interpret charitably

Holy shit. I actually want this; it's a couch/punching bag combo.

A lot of comments get made. Some are nice, some are not. Some can be nice or not nice, depending on how you decide to take it. People can be passive-aggressive. But why not give them the benefit of the doubt?

For all you know, that facebook status update that says "I am having the worst day ever, everything sucks" isn't in relation to a poorly-made ref call or some altercation they had with you on the track. Maybe the person just found out they lost their job, or a loved one, or something else. Believe it or not, not everything is about derby.

Unless they say something like "OMG I hate [some particular person] because they did [some particular thing] at [some particular place] and [some particular time]", you can't be absolutely certain that their rant is directed at you. So don't think that all the ranty comments on facebook or whatever are about you or derby or the league, because they're not.

Finally, STFU & SK8
The best way to not be a douchebag is to just avoid the drama llama in the first place. If you see it brewing, take action to nip it in the bud before it blooms into a giant clusterfuck. If you're pissed at someone, talk to them about it. Then, if that doesn't work, skate out your rage. But complaining about shit doesn't help anyone. If you all realise that you are in it together for the love of roller derby, then keeping that shared goal in mind will help you overcome your obstacles.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Not my biceps (yet).

I’ve been skating for about 4-5 months now. At first it was just once a week (an hour on Sundays), but now I have a regime of two on-skates training sessions and one off-skates fitness session per week. The two on-skate ones are two hours each, plus one has a half-hour of light off-skate fitness. The actual off-skate fitness session is an hour of strength and core work, agility and endurance drills. We do box jumps (hilarious because I am the shortest person in the league and I have to jump boxes that are up to my thighs, and those same boxes are mid-shin for some people), kettlebell workouts (two-handed swings, weird Turkish getup things), ladder runs and a shit load of squats. Pretty much it’s 10 reps of each, in a circuit. Then, there are sit ups, front/side/back planks, push ups, lunges, sprints and god knows what else. Oh, and then on Friday I deadlifted my own body weight. Fuck yeah. And my arms aren't hurting anymore now, either.

One thing that I have noticed is that my body is changing. Not in the pubescent “I’m growing boobs” sense but in the sense that I am actually developing muscles. Or rather, I am getting back the muscles I used to have from serious-hockey-playing days. That’s a welcome return. My thighs are pretty fucking beefy, relative to the rest of my body. My ass is less flabby and bony, and more firm, according to unspecified sources (woohoo, derby booty). I still have stupid T-Rex arms, but doing more weights and push ups will fix that. I think I’m currently the heaviest I’ve ever been (barring poor eating habits at the end of high school due to exam stress), but I’m okay with that because it’s mostly muscle.

And today I saw that I have lines on my back. Like, tone lines, fuck yeah. I would like to get some of those on my front so I don’t have a beer gut. I often measure the amount of fat I have on my stomach by scrunching the fat and skin around my belly button and seeing how big of a butt shape I can make it go in. I know that’s gross, but I was inspired when I saw it once on an episode of Jerry Springer years ago, so go figure. (By the way, I really fucking miss that show.) Happily, the gut-butt I can make now is substantially smaller than it was six months ago. Fuck yeah.

Welcome to Team Pie, where there are at least 1.3 pies per person.

My metabolism is also going kind of crazy. After I skate I am a fucking eating machine. I can inhale a burger and fries like nobody’s business, and after our weeknight skate sessions we sometimes have Team Pie night, which is a bunch of us hanging out in McDonalds and devouring a fuck ton of pies and burgers and attracting the attention and ire of weirdos. Last week at Team Pie I ate three burgers, two things of medium fries, two things of medium Fanta (I hate coke) and half a pie. Fuck. That’s actually kind of disgusting. Plus if Team Pie is a weekly event (which it has been the past month), it’ll soon become Team Bowel Cancer. This week I skipped Team Pie for a slightly healthier option (oven bake fish, oven bake fries, panfried asparagus, chocolate milk). I think it’s about the same volume of food, but I actually feel better the next day about it (both in terms of diminished sluggishness and guilt). If I can eat well and continue working out as much and as hard as I am now, I’m kind of excited to see what my body will look like in another 6 months.

Quodpot Update

On Saturday we had that quodpot game (that I mentioned in this entry) against the Uni Dragons. The game itself wasn’t really that important (and that’s not because we lost 3-1), but holy shit can we really live up to the derby girl stereotype.

Not a sweatshop.

But let’s start a bit before that. So, despite the fact that quodpot was a 5-minute game, I think we’ve put in a total of at least 10 hours of effort into things like procuring warpaint, shopping for boutfits, planning and strategy, painting shirts, making team pie and general awesomeness. On the Tuesday before, a couple of us scoured factory outlets and sex shops for appropriate things to make boutfits out of. I don’t know when things from sex shops would ever be “appropriate” in non-sexual contexts, but here you go. Fishnets, frilly knickers, tutus and plaid miniskirts and hotpants were on the agenda (I don’t think we actually found any hotpants in the sex stores, wtf). Then on Thursday, I had to submit the names of the team to the HPC people, and they thought what we had come up with was pretty hilarious. Yay. Then on Friday, after fitness training, I had the quodpot ladies come over and we painted our shirts and ate pie and generally had a fantastic time.

Fuck yeah, homemade strawberry pie.

And then Saturday we basically rocked up two hours early to get our boutfits and warpaint on. Most people did the football-style black/red stripes across their cheekbones, but I opted for a big fat black vertical streak over one eye. In retrospect it just looked like I had hair over my face like an emo kid, so maybe next time I’ll try it in red. Junky brought her kid and we warpainted him too. And then walking out onto the field was seriously awesome. The reaction we got was fantastic, from both the HPC and other random people like parents and announcers and the reporters from the uni newspaper. The only exception was at one point when a little boy saw my shirt and asked his mum what a “golden snatch” was. Titter.

Fuck yeah, Smashkaban. (Photo: Rachel White)

We had our own rollout too! I gave the announcer person our HP Derby names and she read them out as we ran onto the field. She stumbled over “Whore Crux”. Actually, what’s with so many HP things that can be punnified into including the word “whore”? Like, really. Uni Dragons had something lame like “Player 1, Player 2, etc.” kind of thing. So, before we played quodpot, we totally won on awesomeness points there. And we looked a fucking lot better than they did.

The match itself was kind of tough. We had a good strategy I think, but I just couldn’t hipcheck this beefy dragon boating boy who was marking me. I tried and I would just bounce off him. He was seriously about twice my size. Juking worked really well, however, and I managed to get a quodpot (is that what the water balloon thing is called?) into the bucket by just twisting around him and then running like hell. Haha. My only regret was not smashing more water balloons onto the Uni Dragon guys when it became clear that we weren’t going to win. That would have been much more derby girl-esque to do methinks.

Oh noes, I am being chased by a beefy guy. (Photo: Rachel White)

But it was a good day. We got heaps of great publicity for the league, and we’ve had people contact us and want to join on account of our presence on Saturday. And we got to strengthen our ties with other university clubs, so maybe we’ll get to do more inter-club things like that. We also invited the HP people to skate with us too. I suppose quidditch on wheels is pretty close to roller hockey.

Oh yeah and then Hufflepuff won. Fuck yeah.

Here's an awesome photo montage video thing that Eleri did. I can't embed it because I don't know how to, and blogger only gives me the option to use YouTube. Boo.

This girl will self-destruct in 10… 9…

Derby girls (and boys) are often described as being somewhat crazy and hardcore to do roller derby in the first place. I don’t know if the claim is true or not, and I don’t want to really get into that whole side of it. But training with the yellow stars (while they’re doing their orange star tests) is definitely a step up from the whities. As much as I think it’s important to make early derby training as accessible and friendly as possible for people learning how to skate, there comes a point when you really just want to be able to do get into the tough and aggressive smashy side of things.

We did pace lines with (non contact) weaving, whips, booty blocking, pushes and the like. But my favourite drill by far is the obstacle avoidance one. Basically, one person skates around the track while a pack of 4 other skaters spontaneously fall in front of them. The pack skaters can fall however they like; they don’t have to fall small or in any of the ways that you’re actually taught. The person skating has to avoid crashing into or tripping over the fallen skaters, and can do this by stepping around them or falling and then getting up, or (my favourite) jumping over them.

This is what you are trying to avoid doing (with skates on)

Boudica and I didn’t get tested on this tonight, because we’re pretty much the newest yellows and we aren’t getting tested to the same degree for our orange stars as everyone else. But we got to be part of the packs that fell in front of people. Sometimes strategy was needed to try and fuck it up for the person who is avoiding obstacles; sometimes it was just a matter of getting in front of them and getting all in their grill (or legs, as it were). But yeah, I certainly didn’t think that throwing myself under the wheels of oncoming skaters would be as fantastic as it was. I ended up doing a lot of really big sprawls; maybe it’s because I’m pretty little anyway so I wanted to spread out more to increase the potential for fuck-uppery. A lot of what I did was a cross between a superman dive and a starfish. I did slide a lot as well, which was cool. And once the person had avoided you, you basically skate as fast as you can to get in front of them and try again. Bahaha. I did manage to trip Ravish, and after a moment of satisfaction doing that (because she’s an awesome skater), then it was right back up to throw myself under her wheels again.

This is how I sprawl.

It was stupidly fun. Given that you’re pretty much not padded where your vital organs are, I’m surprised that nobody ruptured a kidney or got some wheels in their spleen. I did get some skates VERY close to my head, and I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not skate helmets are really that good at preventing concussions. But I wasn’t kicked in the head or anything which was good. Hooray for not getting brain damage. And apart from a bruise on my sidebum(??) from constantly throwing my self on the ground in the same way, I didn’t get any real injuries.

I can’t wait until I get to do it again. And maybe this time, maybe I’ll get to avoid them so I can jump over people too. Yeah, maybe I do have a bit of a self-destructive streak.

Oh, and then after we got kicked out of the gym we decided to get our orange star fitness shit out of the way. This meant that a bunch of us did pushups and situps (5x10 of each) and planks (60 forward, 60 for each side) on either a hard concrete basketball court or a duck shit-covered wet patch of grass. Well, we are crazy and hardcore like that.

"Dealing with" fresh meat

I've been posting on Skatelog, because it is an awesome resource for contacting other leagues and finding out how other leagues do things.

One of the discussions we are having there is about how leagues are "dealing with fresh meat". Now, I don't really like the term "dealing with"; it sounds like they're a problem or something. They're certainly not. But I found out that some other leagues seem to have a "tear them down" attitude where new skaters get yelled at if they can't keep up with the vets. Some leagues say that derby is tough, and so only the people who are sufficiently tough mentally (to withstand getting yelled at and so on) will make it in the game. Maybe a baptism of fire will work for some, but I don't think that is the right way to go, generally speaking.

I'd like to think that I was a T-bone. Or maybe a sirloin.

New skaters are important for leagues because they breathe new life into them. I mean, our league is pretty new as it is, but I think it's important to be dynamic in the league's personality and the direction that we want it to go in. I think that's important to nurture freshies because they are, whether we like it or not, necessary for the future of derby as a sport. You can't have roller derby being so popular if nobody does or supports it. That just seems to be obvious.

What people tend to forget is that fresh meat are simply people who are interested enough in wanting to do derby that they will go to a training session. If they are interested, then why treat them like shit and make them lose heart in something that we (as skaters) find to be one of the most awesome things that a human can possibly do? How would you feel if you were shit at something because you're new at it, and people were a dick to you for that? If anything, being nice to freshies is really a lesson in humility. We were all once shit skaters, and I'm pretty sure that the reason we stuck with it was because we were, whether we care to acknowledge it or not, encouraged by people who were better than we were. When you've got minimal skills, any acknowledgement of improvement is valuable.

I think it's important to give freshies the help that they need to develop into good skaters. We used to throw people in the deep end, and some of them would find it so difficult they'd be scared to come back. Nurturing them (without babying them, of course) lets them develop the skills and confidence that they need in their own time. In addition, including the freshies in off-skate bonding helps them stick with it too. I guess people who are freshies aspire to work harder to be whities and then yellows, because you can see people in your cohort move up, and you've already developed bonds with them and you'd want to move up too.


I really like my league because of how it treats the freshies. We seem to be friendlier than a lot of other leagues, and more supportive of our new members. I think the reason the league is expanding so quickly is simply because, besides training a whole heap every week, we have an open-door policy where people can just come and check out what we do whenever. Hell, I would know: I have to do the paperwork for new members, and we get about 1-2 new faces at each training session. And then there's the community. You might come for the derby, but you stay for the people who are there.

Boys, you have been adequately warned.

So about a month ago I met a guy and we went on a date. He seemed okay. He said he had been to another bout earlier in the year, and he knew some of the CRDL girls, so yeah. And he seemed to be sufficiently interested in derby (and other things we had in common, like nerdery and comic books and gaming and whatnot) to warrant going on a a second date.

I think I mentioned that there was a bout the week after or something. Obviously I'd be there, so he also bought a ticket so that we could hang out there. So, our second date was at a roller derby bout.

We sat in the suicide section with the other peeps from my league, and of course a lot of what we (as in me and the other people in the league, not me and him) were doing was analysing what was going on in each jam, how the packs were formed, where the holes were, strategy and whatnot. I think I also made some effort to explain what was going on to him as well, but it's hard to do that and also watch the jams, you know? Or something would happen and I'd react and he would be like "what just happened" kind of thing.

Anyway, after that there is a post-bout party, so we went to that. And of course there was a lot of derby talk, and watching derby videos on people's phones and random hipchecking. That was also when Sarge told me and Boudica that we were going for our white star reassessments. I wanted to stay and talk to the people in the league, but I was pretty sure he was getting antsy so we made our excuses and left. Plus, I had my reassessment the next day, right? I was also giving one of the ladies in my league a ride home, so (probably sadly for him) there wasn't any at-the-car-makeout-session or whatever, if that was what he was after.

I got a message from him the next day saying something like "I had fun at the bout. Usually I'm okay to hold my own among strangers, but whe 90% of the discussion is "derby derby derby" I find it hard to keep up. Next time I will be ready for it."

Next time?

I don't think so.

The moral of the story is this: derby will come first. You fuck with that at your own peril.

FUCK YEAH YELLOW STAR

So Boudica and I were supposed to go for our yellow stars on Sunday, with Pitts and possibly Jaxhammer as well. After training on Sunday, I booked the gym hall for an hour today so we could have a skate around and run through the test as a practice. I told Sarge about it on Tuesday, and he was like "oh cool I'm not doing anything on Thursday so I can come down and have a look and give you some pointers" which was super cool of him.

Check out my helmet. Also note WFTDA rules test on the floor.

Anyway, so we show up there and set up the track. And then we started going through the test. We did our 5-in-1 first, which is basically doing 5 laps in a minute to pass. I fucking stupidly played soccer yesterday and corked my left thigh and had a mega bruise on my right (just where the kneepad sat). So putting weight on my left leg was kind of shitballs. And of course there's a lot of that when you're crossing and it's your inside leg. But I managed to get the 5 in 1 done in 59 seconds. :P Boudica did it in 57! I am sure I could go faster but I was doing dumb shit like not counting my laps (and I thought I was done after 3... really?!?) and that sort of thing. I didn't feel like I was really in the groove for it, but oh well.

Oh, and one-leg slaloms. FUCKING CHRIST. Seriously, I did these okay last Sunday when I was casually practicing, and for some reason I think my nerves got the better of me. It seriously took me like TWENTY goes before Sarge suggested that I go into the slalom on the left side of the cone, so I go to the right between the first and second cones. And that totally makes sense because on my left leg I tend to drift to the right. Why the fuck didn't I think of that before?!?! Duh. But after he suggested it I got it in ONE go. Seriously I don't think I'm the right kind of smart for derby sometimes...

Then we had to do a coast and squat for one straight and a corner, and then a lap of squat and sticky skate. And some falls (baseball, 4-pointer, 180 degree one-knees).And OMG 60 second plank. Normally when we do it off skates I'm fine with it and can hold it for more than 60 seconds, but for some reason today on skates I felt like I was dying! But that worked out okay. As did the 40 sit ups and 40 pushups (which I managed to do properly, even on my munted rotator cuff).

But fuck yeah. I passed, and so did Boudica. It was awesome. I just felt really good about getting it, even if at some points I just squeaked through. I'm sure I could do the 5-in-1 better if I had another go, and also the one-leg slaloms.We aren't saying anything about it yet until Sarge officially announces it on Sunday, but yeah. Awesomesauce.

Of course, right after that, we were onto some orange star stuff! Hahaha like for serious. I really like the 5 jumps in a row, and we also practiced the 2m plow stop. God that shit is hard. But I can't wait to start doing it! And whips! And hits and all that stuff! Scrimmage time here we come!

Thanks, interwebs!

So, I have been a long-time stalker, and maybe third-time poster over at Skatelog. I really like it; it's a great forum for all kinds of people who do all kinds of skating to just talk about skatey stuff like gear and tips for doing things like backwards crossovers and whatever.

Anyway, I got a message on there from someone from another league in Australia! And mind you that I'm not super active or anything on this site at all, so this was exciting:

Heya MadMouse,

I've got a friend in Canberra who's about to get a freshie pack and start skating, I'm coming to visit her on CRDL finals weekend and we're gonna have a skate together. She lives in [SOME PLACE], do you know of anywhere around there thats a nice surface to skate on? Though really, we'd travel as far as we needed too

Oh and I see you're a member of the Varsity league! How is it going for you all? I've loved seeing your league build through FB I'm in a new league in N/E Victoria (NERD) so I know how fun / frustrating and exciting it can all be!!

Thanks in advance,
[AWESOME PERSON]. 

Yay, that made me feel awesome. People follow our league on the interwebs! And they've seen it grow and everything! Haha. Anyway I emailed her and said that she was welcome to skate with us any time she wanted, and of course her friend was too. I gave her some tips for places to skate at around here, and she will come and check out our training sessions when she is in town. It's way easier to be all like "yeah come hang out with me" when you do derby than in some other weird situation like internet dating or something like that. Although I guess in the derby context if the other peson was a creeper you could just hipcheck the shit out of them.

Did you know that October is National Roller Skating Month?

 Well, apparently it is.

Check it out here.

Ronald Reagan wasn't my president so technically it's not National Roller Skating Month in Australia, but whatever! :)