Bout night, Richmond vs Oakland

WHOO.

This weekend, I went to my first ever non-Australian roller derby bout! BAD's Richmond Wrecking Belles were playing the Oakland Outlaws, and it was their season opener.

This is where the magic happens. Yep.

The first thing I think I should note is that the bout took place in a giant shed. Like, a giant, warehousey shed. When you first got in, there was a little vendor village bit with BAD merch (note: having credit card facilities on the premises would be a really good idea if you have people who are going to buy a lot of merch) and Cruz Skate Shop also had a stand (where I pretty much took all their free stickers) and there were girl scout cookies and cupcakes and a lot of beer. There was some limited stadium seating (think metal bleachers like at kiddie baseball games) but most people were just on the floor, or standing in the back. And even the people on the floor in what we'd think were suicides were behind a two foot tall foam barrier thing that went all around the track. CRDL bouts at Tuggers had better seating, if not more capacity. (The AIS definitely had better seating and heaps more capacity.)

Delicious derby-themed cupcake menu.

We didn't see much of the Oakland warmup, because they were on track first while we were still outside in the cold trying to buy our tickets, or I was buying all of the merch from the merch stand. The Richmond warmup, though, was pretty cool to watch. They started with some laps and then did things like transitions around the entire track (so you're skating around the track and constantly transitioning), hops/juking, sticky skating with your legs crossed, and then some packwork and positional blocking. Oh and then they did their rollout going anti-derby!

I think I was pretty much going for Richmond, with the possible exception of Oakland's Jane Hammer. I really like Hammer; she's a great skater and just a really cool overall person. She's taught me a whole bunch of nifty tricks at training. She did some pretty strong jams, but bout pretty much went Richmond's way from the first jam. Richmond seemed to have four jammers that they rotated: Chiquita Bonanza, Chantilly Mace, Diva Negativa and Cutya Kackoff. Their packwork was pretty good, and Chantilly did some crazy jams where she pretty much sailed through the pack within about two seconds of getting off the jammer line. She also did some awesome apex jumps. Yes, swoon. I think she also did a couple of grand slams. Oakland had a couple of good jams as well, but they seemed to constantly have someone in the bin, which wasn't to their advantage.

Go Hammy! I am a Jane Hammer fangirl.

Actually, there was a LOT of binnage; more than I expected. At one point the bin was pretty much full, and the Oakland jammer (who was supposed to come out when the Richmond one went in) kind of hesitated for a few seconds before going back in and then the benchies had to yell at her to get back onto the track. Also, I think there was one other bit when there were too many blockers in the bin, but I can't remember. One thing I did notice though was that most people tomohawked to the bin, because you could go straight there real quick and then sit down, rather than go there, knee slide and then have to get back up before your butt hit the seat. I guess that kind of timing matters.

Refs, possibly scheming or something.

I also learned a couple of things from watching the bout. Knee starts seemed to be pretty popular, but one thing I noticed was that if the opposing team was doing a knee start, you put your blockers right up against the jammer line so they can block the jammer right away, instead of giving her ten feet to skate into and build up speed before she gets to the pack. That seems obvious now, but I don't think we really did that at VDL. Of course, then the knee starting team can always just drop to their knees right before the whistle, or (I think) after the whistle provided that the pack isn't over the pivot line yet...

Demanda Riot, moments before she took out Sheer Luxe

Another thing I saw was Demanda Riot messing with the other jammer. I was so excited to see Demanda skate. She is pretty fucking badass. She jammed about two or three times, but I don't think she was as good there as she was as a blocker. She did a lot of defensive jamming, I guess. But this one time, when she wasn't lead jammer, she used her blocking skills to just get all in the way of Sheer Luxe, since if she got far enough ahead Luxe would just have called off the jam anyway. So, instead, Demanda skated in front of her just enough to be positionally blocking her but to make it such that Luxe *could* possibly get past, and then... Demanda knocked her on her ass. Hahaha. I guess at that point in the bout it might also just be a stalling tactic, since Richmond were ahead by like 100 points anyway.

Anyway, the final score was 167-71 to Richmond. It's a pretty big margin (such that some people left early to get their cars out of the parking lot before there was a traffic jam... WTF?!?!) but it was totally awesome to watch. And then I wore my new BAD merch to training the next day. Yay.

For some good profesh photos of the bout, click here for LeVar Hurtin's official ones!

Upgrades, sort of.

I finally got my new skate snouts from Demonica Mars! I've been using homemade tennis ball toe guards for a while, but I found that they didn't give enough protection to the sides of my skates when I did slides, so I supplemented that with duct tape. It made my skates look pretty ghetto, but it did the trick.

Then the stock red laces that came with my Diablos started dying, like they were all chewed up by lacing rivets and the velcro and stuff around the top of my boot. Actually, one of my laces got so mankey that I couldn't actually tie it properly or else it would snap. But I had some nice yellow laces (that took *ahem* three months to get) from derbyskates.com.au, so I thought it was time to switch those in. But my mankey laces couldn't even be unlaced through my boot; I had to cut them off with scissors.

Here's a before and after picture of my skates:

There's nothing like a few aesthetic upgrades to make your skates feel all nice and new again! Yay.

Nice things.

I've been offskates the last two weeks, not because of injury (although I think this is the first time I've been offskates for a non-injured reason) but because I had a bunch of grownup job things happening which involved travel (and I couldn't bring my skates). Is it weird that I think that the location of the nearest roller derby league to where I might be moving to is a relevant consideration for how desirable a job is? (Edit: it's PRIMARILY not because of injury; my right wrist, knee and shoulder are all still munted from snowboarding, but anyway...)

You see all the bits where it says "STOP"?
$5 says I wouldn't be able to stop on ANY of those
without getting hit by a car. Blech.

One thing I like about where I'm living in San Francisco is that the area is not ridiculously hilly. This is good for outdoor skating. You know how in the movies you see images of SF and it's all ridiculously hilly and steep? Well, that's not around here. Phew. There's a really *slight* incline but nothing terrible that I can tackle. I like going for walks in my neighbourhood to check out what the hilliness and the quality of the sidewalk are like (nothing like stacking on a chunk of cracked pavement and falling into oncoming traffic), and also how busy it is for vehicular and pedestrian traffic. If it looks good, I can skate that way later.

Today I explored a bit of the neighbourhood, and I can skate to the laundromat or to a really good coffee (and cake!!) shop. Yay. It's awesome to incorporate errands with wheels. Maybe I can skate to the coffee shop and get some cake on a regular basis... that's exercise, right?

I am really torn about who to support for this one.
I think I have a mild preference for Richmond, but I know
more people on the Oakland team, and they're really awsome.
Maybe I should just be unbiased and wear my VDL shirt
to their bout. And then I can buy merch for both teams. Yeah.

Anyway, this is a good week to be back on skates. There's BAD prak (which is what people here shorten "practice" to, although I'm curious as to why it is "prak" with a "k" instead of a "c") on Saturday and Sunday, and then Tuesday it's SCRD training. I'm seeing if I can do their league training as well on Monday and Wednesday as well as their bootcamp skills training on Tuesday. Haha, in theory I could do derby training 5 nights a week (and then BAD also has NSO opportunities on Thursday nights), but I think my personal and social and professional life  might object to that.

Oh! And BAD has their season opener this weekend!! Mega excited. I'd love to volunteer or NSO this, but I might wait until the next one, once I have a proper taste of what US derby leagues are capable of. Also, I've asked pretty much everyone I know in San Francisco to go to it, so I think I have some obligations not to ditch them. Yay.

Milestones.

Today is a big day for my league. It is our FIRST EVER friends and family bout, or really, bout to the public in any sense ever, between the PhDemons and the Cheerbleeders. I'm a little bit bummed to be missing it because I'm on the other side of the world, but this is a big step for a LOT of people in my league and I'm also quite excited on their behalf.

Varsity Bruise is the culmination of about a year of training and hard work, organization and preparation. A year ago none of us had any idea how to bout. Some of us didn't know how to skate. Over half of the people in the league weren't even in the league. And now here we are, kicking ass in front of our loved ones.

I'm really proud of them.<3

I like to hipcheck children.

I'm on the SCRD Newbies Board! Haha. I am fucking famous.

SCRD training this week was similar to last week. We brought our friend Dan as well, who borrowed some of the SCRD gear and fell on his butt a few times. I hope he had fun though! There was also another Australian (Anne) there, which was kind of crazy because that's like 1/4 of the people at training were Australian, and Santa Rosa is not even a big city!

We did the same drills as last time, so the warmup was the 25 in 5 (which I finished in less than 5, hooray!!!) and then anti-derby 20 in 5. I need to work on my anti-derby crossovers I think, because I have a tendency to coast through the turn and maybe attempt like 2-3 steps. Blah.

Pyramids tonight were good. We went 1-5 this time, instead of 4. I think I totally qualified for team munted though. When I finish my turn, I usually plow stop, and there's a pretty big space for being able to do that. So that works well. But on one of my turns I think I was standing up too straight and didn't have enough push in my plow stops, so I ended up crashing into this bench:

The bench that I skated into, and possibly broke.

I tried to baseball slide to stop myself from smashing into it (on the assumption that if I did I could slide under the bench seat) but then I somehow managed to smash my shoulder into the bench, and then also move it like a foot until it was pressed up against that wall. The legs are iron or something, and it made a really big noise. Then I fell on the ground on my side and sprawled all over the dusty floor. The legs are now at a slightly weird angle, but later in training there was a guy sitting on it, so clearly it's still functional. Ha. I also am getting a big bruise on my shoulder from that crash. How's that for a souvenir? Pictures to come.

Oh we also did hipchecks! Offskates though, but nonetheless hipchecks. Due to height issues I was paired with one of the junior derby kids (hahahaha) and we practiced hipchecks on both sides. I got my first taste of derby fandom though when junior derby kid was like "are you a real derby player?" and I said "yes, I skate with a league in Australia" and she was all like "Oooooh" (and then she said "please don't hurt me", but anyway). So, hipchecks with a little kid. The trick is to get your foot in front of theirs (and over) and then check them, rather than check them when you're just next to them. You get more push that way. And then to defend that you lean into the check so the person who is checking you has to not just knock you so you are facing straight but then also sideways. Yeah. I managed to hipcheck said junior derby kid so hard that she fell over. Hahaha. She did hit me back pretty hard though, so yeah. I also taught her how to also dodge a hipcheck by leaning the other way. Haha. She was so cute. Then I gave her fist bumps.

UPDATE: Here are the bruises I got from crashing into the bench!

The square bruise on my arm is just the impact with the bench. It was only purple for like half a day, and then started turning yellow already, boo:

I have absolutely no idea where these ones came from, but it looks like I've been bashed in the shins. I thought at first it was a bad baseball slide where the wheels hit me in the shin but that can't be right because the bruises don't line up with my wheels:

Moonwalker toe stops

This is their official product description from Powerdyne:

Moonwalker Toe Stops from Powerdyne are designed in a distinct "tear-drop" shape which gives more flex, bounce and extra control. The signature dimples on the stopping surface offer more bite when stopping and starting. Every Moonwalker toe stop is made from a natural rubber compound that is bonded to a lightweight aluminum stem for outstanding durability and consistency on every skating suface including wood, sport tiles, cement and outdoor surfaces (moon surface testing TBA....) Moonwalker toe stops join the PowerDyne lineup in 3 unique colors Mint, Electric Yellow and Blood Red.

Oh god these things are SO CUTE. I got the red ones, to match my Diablos, but if I had black or white skates I would have probably gotten the mint ones. The yellow ones are actually this kind of horrible vomity lime yellowish-green that makes your eyes bleed. I'm not sure if these are out in Australia yet, but they're still pretty new here in any case. Anyway, I've had a few sessions on them now so I guess I can review them and whatnot.

Holy toe stop holes, Batman!

I do like the fact that the moonwalkers have the holes for extra stopping power. I think in theory that is supposed to work like how car tyres have treads on them, instead of just being a big rubber donut. Also, the toe stops are a little bit rounded at the bottom so you can bounce back from getting knocked (if you're using your toe stop to readjust yourself) and they're made out of this rubbery stuff that is a little bit firmer than the stuff that Gumballs are made from, but they still seem to be pretty good for stopping. Tomahawks are fun to do in these guys, but they took a bit of adjustment from my old stock stoppers, which you had to stomp pretty hard on your toes to get to stop. These ones make it easier to stop even if you just gently apply pressure to the front of your skate. Yeah. I also found it easier to turn and jump in them, but I don't know if that is a result of the new bushings/toe stop combo, or just the toe stops.

They're also pretty fat stoppers, which makes running on toe stops (and also pushups on toe stops, planks on toe stops...) slightly easier to do. I think the only other thing I can think of that is better for toe stop fatness are the Snyder Speed Stop toe stop, but that's also because they're toe stops with a big flat piece on the end. These ones are fatter than the regular Snyder ones, and I think about the same size as the Gumballs. There's less material in these ones though, because they're not completely round like the gumballs are, but kind of taper towards your skate. I don't think that counts much for weight though.

The red on the stoppers is slightly duller than the Diablo red. Boo.

I think they're going to be a competitor for the Gumballs: they're equally as light (it's the aluminium bolt I think), and they're both soft and squishy and quite grippy. However, these ones seem to be slightly grippier than the gumballs, and don't seem to mark as much (in my "rubbing both of the toe stops hard on a glass surface" test), for what that is worth. Plus, they come in cute colours.

BAD training this week

BAD HQ, still with the tarp from last week's flooding

BAD has a training regimen where the end of the month has the toughest drills because they do a monthly intake at the beginning of the month and get progressively harder. This weekend, we were trained by Jane Hammer on Saturday and Mindi on Sunday.

I liked saturday's fitness training. We did jump rope and high knees for 20 sec on, then 10 sec off (where you handed the jump rope to the person next to you) for  a total of 5 minutes or so. I like jump rope. It reminds me of being a kid, yay. Then we did lunge crawls across the room and some yoga stretches, so that we were all stretched and warmed up for when we put our skates on.

This week, the theme seemed to be positional blocking and getting all up in someone's face. (Not literally, although that would be fun.) First, we did sprints in 10, 15, 20, 30 sec intervals, and some lateral stepping (to the inside/outside line). Next, there was a quick head swivelling exercise to make sure everyone could skate forwards while looking backwards or sideways, and then it was onto positional blocking with partner. Basically, one person acts as the jammer and skates behind the other person (the blocker), and the jammer just goes inside/outside and the blocker has to mirror them and stay in front of them.

Sometimes we have the stereo on when we train.

Next, we did a positional blocking drill in a pack. There were about 12 of us, so we had 4 jammers and the rest were blockers. The blockers started by just skating and doing the lateral stepping drill so that it was more of an obstacle avoidance drill, and then later got together and moved inside and outside as a pack to stop the jammers. You had to be touching at least two other people, and could move people around as necessary. The jammers went through one at a time. Hammer also explained that there was a X-XXX system, in terms of contact for drills like this. I think it went something like this:

X: no contact, i.e. just positional blocking
XX: light contact, like nudging and holding people for a couple of seconds in a block before letting them go (if they're not going to be able to get out without smashing people)
XXX: full smashy smashy contact.

Not everyone was cleared for scrimmage (boo, and maybe phew), so we just did XX.

The drill was pretty fun. You really needed to communicate, and even though the pack was pretty big (8 blockers for one jammer), the jammers could still get through. I also got thrown into a jammer as a cannonball, hahaha. Actually, that happened to me a few times. It works great for stopping them!

I actually made this for a VDL training session a while ago, but it's still so true.

Then the session was over and we did a warm down with crunches, pushups and these oblique twists where you hold your helmet in front of you like a steering wheel and have to sit up but twist your body so you can touch your helmet to each side of you (next to your thigh) while your feet are facing forwards. Then we did some bicycles (lying on your back, touching opposite elbow to knee) and that was it! Then I went to Ikea and ate a bunch of Swedish meatballs and pork ribs.

Plastic tiles, and the agility ladder.
The plastic tiles take some getting used to.

Sunday was more of the same, only we were trained by Mindi and Edith Shredder. Shred was pretty cool; she gave me some tips on stepping in between people (since I'm little and that's going to have to be my move to get through gaps). We did the pack skating drill again, and this time I got really, really low, much to the chagrin of some of the other girls (some of them are over 6 feet on skates). I seem to cause people a lot of lower back injuries to tall girls. Sorry. :(

We also did agility ladder stuff, and this time I didn't step on my own feet. Yay, progress! We also worked on our ankle and knee strength by hopping in the ladder squares. (This was offskates; I think I would fall and break my face if it was on skates.)

Finally, we finished by splitting up into three groups: super fast people, medium people and people who were beginners (and had spent the session learning how to do crossovers). Basically, each of the groups does one lap sprinting, and then the next group goes, and so on, so that your recovery time is  whatever time it takes for the other groups to do their lap. That was pretty fun, until a stray leaky bit in the roof dripped water onto a spot on the track on the turn and people started falling all over the place. Then, we just did some situps and planks, and that was it.

Sunday training is at night until about 9pm, so afterwards there's usually some hanging out and having beers at BAD HQ. There's a vending machine with beers for a dollar, and then this week one of the girls brought two trays of little gourmet sausage things in, because she worked for a catering company and an order fell through. So it was like I trained really hard, then stuffed myself with beer and food. Actually, this seems to happen a lot. Hooray.

Here are a few more pictures of BAD HQ:

Gear cubbies!! The top left one says "FREE
WHEELS!" (also bearings, bushings, etc.) Surprisingly, this does
not stink as much as you would think it would from the picture.

BAD wins classy prizes.

More stuff next week! Next week is also the first week of February, so there'll be a nice big intake of new skaters for skating with.