And if that wasn't enough...

...the old guard in the league are now registered with TwoEvils!!

2E is a website that lists ALL the names of people who do derby (banked or flat) around the world. It's like a database that you check before you pick your derby name, so nobody has the same name without clearance from the other person. It's actually a really interesting system for social conventions forcing people to be original with names, and it's actually been the subject of a couple of academic articles (of the "Freakonomics" slant) about how the community regulates name ownership and stuff. As an ex-lawyer and academic, I'm excited that there are even academic articles about derby, especially in intellectual property law.

We put our names in in September last year and they came up last night. 2E is run by a handful of skaters and there are a LOT of leagues in the world, so they have craploads to do and naturally there's a backlog. Of course, not everyone's name is there--sometimes someone's name gets accepted before yours (but after yours has been submitted), and you have no idea that your name has been rejected for similarity grounds until after the fact. I'm sure there could be automated systems that would bypass the manual inputting that goes on. In fact, I'm surprised that there isn't yet, but there you go!

Also, nobody in the world has my derby number yet, heh. (Of course numbers don't need to be original, but yeah, nobody up there has an emoticon mouse...)

This was a nice surprise to wake up (pretty sore) to. And there's training tonight again. Yeah.

The Other Side

I don't remember very much about what happened today. And not because I'm concussed or anything. Yes--I'm relatively injury free! Whoo!! Anyway, let's start at the beginning. We started with a team breakfast, where I thought at first I would be too nervous to eat, but then my inner fat kid got the better of me and I ate two poached eggs with fancy weird shaped toast, three hashbrowns and Tori's spinach from her eggs florentine (haha, why the hell would you get eggs florentine if you weren't going to eat the spinach?). Then we headed over to CRDL's HQ on the other side of town.

As I am clearly the goddamn Jesus of Team Munt, I had welts on my feet going into the Cannery. Last night, in a fit of mega-organization, I packed my derby bag, as well as a bag with extra clothes and a blanket (it was supposed to be mega cold today) and still had time to spare so I decided to preemptively tape up my ankles and my knee before tomorrow. I wanted to tape them a bit tightly and then have the tape loosen up overnight to accomodate for movement and stuff. Clever, huh? Well, then in the middle of the night I woke up because my feet had swollen up around the tape and I couldn't get it off and when I did I left big red welts on the sides of my feet (like on the outside of your foot where the bottom of your foot creeps around the side) and then today I had to tape over those. Ugh.

I'm glad I wore my PJ pants. They were warm and looked good.

Anyway, that aside, we got to the Cannery in the morning and filled out our paperwork and whatnot, and had a while to warm up and whatnot. It was pretty chilly in the morning (it dropped down to 0 overnight) so we were all pretty rugged up. I had brought my pyjama pants because I also don't own full-length sweatpants and the only full-length leg things I own are jeans, which I actually wore to breakfast because I thought it'd be weird to turn up at breakfast in pyjamas. But it was cold enough that I could wear my pj pants OVER my jeans, which in turn were worn over my skate pants (which were knee length but then I also wore my gaskets to make them 3/4 length, haha), and those were over my crash pads. By that stage I couldn't actually really move my legs to walk, but I was warm, so meh.

Gear check before Game 1. (photo from Slanders)

And then we started! Well, we did warmups, then a couple of pack drills, and then we were gear checking and sitting on benches and having our lineup done on a whiteboard. I wasn't in the first jam, but I was up as a blocker in Jam 2. When the first jam was going I was on the "next lineup" bench, I remember sitting on the bench next to Roller, and she was like "are you alright?" and I was just like "OH GOD WHAT AM I DOING HERE" kind of thing. Best timing to have an existential crisis or whatever. But yeah, once we were called on, then everything went. Kind of because it had to go, but meh. Either way, it was okay.

I think we had a pretty shaky start. We were nervous and it showed. I guess it didn't help that Slanders got me to jam, and I couldn't get through the fucking pack. I really wanted to jam, and I was excited that he gave me to the opportunity to try for my debut. But wow, that stuff is hard. Actually, this is arguably the most terrifying moment of the entire day:

OH GOD I AM ABOUT TO JAM AND POSSIBLY DIE

I was jamming against Pink Mist, who is on the CRDL VCRs. I think I got off the jammer line faster than her and then just got plowed into by their pack. I fell down a lot there. I don't know how many points they racked up that jam, but I think it was over 20. I really want to be able to jam, but I need to work on getting through the pack. I found prancing around on my toe stops worked, but I can't do that for the entire 2 minutes. At least I got props for being the "energizer bunny" and constantly popping back up after I took a hit. But yeah, that was a hard two minutes! I was pretty bummed I couldn't even score a single point. Gah. :(

I can't remember what was happening when I took this photo.

About halfway through, we picked up our game a little. We communicated more. People listened to their pivots and to the coach more. People worked together better, there was more touching and talking it up on the track. I also got to pivot, but I don't think I was loud enough and then I didn't pivot again after that. :P I think our final score was 130-something (to the Belters) and like 40-something to us, but I could be wrong. I wasn't really keeping track.

Then we had a bit of a break and got to watch the Red Bellied Black Hearts take on Sydney RDL, which was pretty awesome. It was a close game, and I saw some neat things to try out. One thing the teams would do is knock the jammer out of play with their power blocker, and then have another blocker drop back so that the jammer have to get past a wall of two people, one of whom could keep knocking them down while the other one pos blocked them.

After that was a potluck game, with a mix of players from various leagues. Rav and Smack also played with them, but that was right before lunch and I was hungry and got hot dogs instead.

Yay, so we had a bit of a team meeting at lunch, and talked about what worked and what didn't. Then Uzi and Slanders tried a new strategy and split us into two groups and did lineups within those groups. (Of course, if the previous lineup's jammer/blockers were in the bin and got released in your jam, then you still got to play with them.) So we did that in our second game, which was against the Black Hearts.

Unidentified butt

I found the RBBH game more fun than the Belters one. We were friends with some of the skaters, and I think the Rollers as a team were much more cohesive and worked together better. Melee pivoted a lot on my lineup and would literally throw me into the path of the jammer and I would take them out. Ha ha ha. I think my designated role in the team is the Human Cannonball: I did a lot of getting pushed into blocking people, and once I was in position I could pos block them okay until someone hit them. I also managed to do a few hits of my own and also knock a few people out of bounds, which was much more than what I had planned to do. But yeah, you hit the jammer out of bounds, and then back the fuck up, so they have to enter the pack behind you. I tried this a few times but I need to go back much faster. Rav did an awesome one when she made Bebe (on the RBBH) go through the ENTIRE pack. Hahaha. But yeah, I felt much, much better when everything was done. Our final score for this one was 71-38. This is the BEST differential we've ever had as the Rollers, and we were so psyched about it. Our plays were working, and we were actually working as a team, rather than a bunch of individuals with coordinated action. (Um, if that last sentence was just like a WTF, it's probably because I've been spending too much time working on my dissertation and talking about different kinds of collective action. Basically, the idea is, "yay, stuff was working"!)


No injuries either, hooray. But at one point in the first game Jillie hit Dirty Torque, and then she backblocked into me, and I fell and she fell on me and then Jillie went flying over both of us. Also, after the first game when you do your "high five line" thing past the other skaters, Wrecks gave me a big hug and lifted me up. But she was on skates and so was I, so she fell backwards on her skates and I crashed on top of her and we both went sprawling on the track. Ha ha ha. I'm surprised I didn't get hurt. But that's a good thing. I have bruises on my back but that's minor and wasn't on my list, right? :P

It was a great day. I felt really awesome when we were done, and there were hugs and smiles all around. Then I went home and had a shower and nearly passed out in bed even though it was only like 4:30pm.

AND I FORGOT MY SKATES. YES. I LEFT THEM AT THE CANNERY BECAUSE I AM A MORON. Melee very kindly is looking after them for me until training tomorrow night but seriously, who the fuck does that!?! And they're Antiks!! And it was my first bout!! Seriously. Haha, so now I am no longer a bout virgin and I don't have my skates.

These are my peeps.

Also, I somehow managed to eat three hot dogs at lunchtime and then skate without throwing up. Yay me.

Hardly! I got 1 minor in each game. Heh.

The Cannery Challenge, 2012

VDL has a team called the Dishonour Rollers. It's the rep/travel team, although the furthest it's travelled so far is to the other side of Canberra. It's made up of some amazing skaters. They're fast and hit hard. And they're coming out to play tomorrow at CRDL's Cannery Challenge. Basically, the CC is where CRDL hosts a bunch of teams and there's a series of bouts (or half-bouts) so we can meet other teams and whatnot.

I'm not unfamiliar with the Dishonour Rollers. I went to the first Cannery Challenge last year. I had provisionally made the first DR team ever, but then I stupidly wrecked my ankle and couldn't skate and benched instead. And that might have been a good thing because a lot of people got injured. (I wrote about it here.)

Then there was the TGSS team bound for Adelaide, and I was on that but we had to pull the entire team out due to injury and insufficient numbers.

Then there was another CC earlier this year, but I was overseas.

But tomorrow, I am going to be a Dishonour Roller. And I mean, actually skate as a Dishonour Roller. I'm excited, but at the same time, I am fucking terrified.

YES PLEASE.

It's my first bout, or bout-type thing, and I'm on the rep team? WTF. What a place to start. Everyone else on the team has bouted before, so I guess the whole first-bout-ever jitters don't really work for them. But yeah. I sometimes wonder how I got here; I mean, the rest of the team consists of either really fast jammers, really strong giant wall blockers, or pivots that actually understand game strategy and can employ it. I'm not fast (or I can be off the jammer line because I've improved my footwork when I was overseas, but I get held up in the pack. There's a lovely video of me somewhere on the internet where I take off from the jammer line really quick, and skate straight into Rubi Doom's butt and fall down. Ha). I can't really hit hard, although I much prefer positional blocking someone than hitting them and possibly getting majored or injured or whatever. And I have some REALLY minimal conception of derby strategy. I watch the videos and stuff on youtube, but they might as well be speaking French to me. (I actually understand French, but not enough that I can process it as fast as a native speaker, so you get my drift.) For someone almost done with a Ph.D., I can't get my brain to work for derby purposes. So yeah, it's no wonder that I'm just a little bit nervous.

Yes, yes, before you get all "you shouldn't worry about it because you made the team so you must be good and whatever", I guess I'm self-doubting because I've never actually tested my mettle in the field, as it were. Training and scrimmage at VDL is one thing because it's like, hitting your friends and you know how they react to stuff and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Hitting strangers is a different thing. Especially strangers who have frigging represented Australia at Blood and Thunder. In a way, I want to hit someone who meets that description, to say that I did. I'm sure that tomorrow night I'll be all like "WHOO THAT WAS SO AWESOME" but now, I'm just a bit bleh. Stupid nerves. Winning the afterparty might be an option though. I'll probably need a drink or two.

This shouldn't suggest that I plan to lose the bout.
I'm just planning to not lose the after party.

 My goal tomorrow consists of one thing: TRY NOT TO DIE.

(Subsidiary goals: do some good positional blocking, maybe even hit someone, maybe get through the pack and score at least one point if I get to jam)

Also, I have a list of things I would like to not injure, in order of highest preference of "it is crucial that this thing works" to "meh, I guess I can recover from that":

• My brain. If I get any sort of head injury, I can't do my Ph.D.. And I need to do my Ph.D.
• My hands/wrists/arms. How the hell do I type a dissertation if someone's broken all my fingers by skating over them?
• My pretty face. Well, not really, but you know. Also, I would really like to keep all my teeth.
• Ankles. I have TWO cruddy ankles already, and they will be taped up as much as they can. Also, no blisters on my ankles would be nice.
• Knees. That shit hurts, but not as bad as ankles.
• I can deal with bruises. Just no lacerations or shit. It's a bit rude to bleed all over someone else's nice derby track. Also, I will try very hard not to vomit everywhere.

The team's meeting for breakfast tomorrow, and then we're going to do some ass kicking after that. It's an all day event, so I'll try to update on Sunday or Monday or whatever. I will see you on the other side.

D.I.S.C.O.!

Okay, I'm more of an Avengers lady than a Justice league
one, but this will have to do for pretty badass art.

Being part of a budding league means that there's a lot of financial stuff that has to go on to keep the league afloat. It's hard sometimes, but you do what you have to do. Things like venue hire, insurance, getting spare kit and running bouts can really suck out a lot of money, and our day to day funding is just from our league members when they show up to training and pay their dues. So making sure the league is financially afloat is a big thing that I don't think people are usually aware of as going on behind the scenes.

Anyway, hopefully we can boost that this weekend. My league is having a roller disco on Saturday, complete with a fundraising auction (with some REALLY nifty prizes donated by people in the league and our league sponsors). We've got the fantastic Sydney Derby Skates donating a brand new pair of Riedell R3s for the auction, and free dinners from local restaurants, a fancypants new skateboard worth $200, sports massage sessions and all these handmade artsy things from the people in the league. For my part, I've thrown in a new SCRD shirt and some nifty things from the Californian skate culture, like an issue of Hellarad(!!) and some stickers and whatnot from Cruz Skate Shop and BAD. (I miss those guys...) It's great to see all these different people showing support for our league and wanting to see it grow. A lot of the organization for this took place while I was overseas, and I'm really proud of how the league is pulling together to make sure that this goes off without a hitch. Remember a lot of these kids didn't even know how to skate a few months back, and now they're throwing all this effort into our fledgling league.

So yeah! People of the Interwebs, if you are in Canberra this Saturday and you want a bit of badassery to spice up your fine evening, come support the roller disco. Tickets are available here.

Photos will be posted up here soon enough next week, but I'm a little bit torn about what to go as at the moment. I've got Batman undies, and an Iron Man T-shirt but neither of those alone will make a costume. Also, being crunched for time doing a Ph.D. means I can't make anything really elaborate, and I think at least three people are going as Hit Girl (who would have been one of my top picks). Maybe I should just paint myself green and go as the tiniest Hulk in the world. Suggestions are welcome!

Somebody reads this!

I randomly checked my traffic sources for this blog today, and found that one link that people were using to read my blog was Roller Derby AU.

Roller Derby AU! Haha, I read that thing all the time. But how does that help people get to this blog? So, I had a look at the page and my blog is listed there as being a derby blog that people can click on from their website, right next to a whole bunch of other blogs that I read and was inspired by when I started skating. I have absolutely NO IDEA how this happened, but yay.

I originally started this blog in a fit of narcissm and preemptive nostalgia just to chronicle what it was like to learn how to skate and what my journey was becoming a derby skater. It was mostly for me, and I'd read all these other blogs and look at what other people were doing in their leagues and see if I could get inspired from that. Some of the fresh meat stories that I read are things where I'll actually laugh out loud in my office and think "yeah, I did that too!" or something like that. So here I am, paying it forward. Maybe someone will read this and get inspired to do derby, or be able to relate to the random ramblings that I leave here. Either way, I'm happy to share.