The off-season

On Wednesday we had our last practice session before we took a break for Christmas/NYE. So of course, it was WFTDA skills test! Honestly, I have no idea how I went; I was still kind of sick and had a massive coughing fit in the middle of the test and choked on my water and snotted everywhere. It was gross and awkward. I thinkI might have failed but we'll see.

Anyway, off-season. What does one do on the off-season? Stupidly, because it's Christmas break, I suspect it's when people stuff themselves full of food and therefore get all sluggish and stuff before they get back. We only have two weeks off but I'll be going back to Oz so I'll be away for a month or so, plus there's Christmas and New Years and two weddings to go to so I'm sure I'll come back a bloaty fat ass.

When I was a kid my mum would never make this shit (maybe once she
made ham, but I don't eat ham). We used to have spaghetti and garlic
bread for Christmas Eve, and then go to a restaurant for Christmas Day.

I also wasn't planning to bring my skates so I guess I'll have to make up for it by doing crap loads of off skate work while I'm away. I'm thinking something along the lines of:

• alternating 30,60,120 minute planks
• sit ups (2, 5, 10 sets of 10)
• pushups (2, 5 sets of 5, contingent on munty shoulder and hand, blah)
• occasional running
• bicycles (I actually like these and will probably do these until I collapse)
• lifting heavy things (groceries, wedding presents etc.)
• knee up/downs (10, 15, 20 sets of 10)
• actually stretching in the mornings and after I do exercise

Haha this is all very ambitious I guess. But we'll see how it goes.

Happy holidays! (I don't care whether this is politically correct or not; it's at least accurate if you are on holiday.)

Beefcake.

So, at Season's Beatings, in my attempt to be an athelete, I got that big ass bottle of gatorade and some muscle milk. I don't know if drinking protein shakes and whatever is effective, but if it helps me recover faster and fix my muscles and whatever, then hells yes. I also tried to eat things like protein bars and peanut butter and banana sandwiches to get my energy up.

No.

Last week, I bought my first actual pack of protein shakes. I don't want to be like super muscly or anything, just have a better recovery time after my muscles get a workout. I feel like sometimes if I skate really hard then it takes me a day or so to recover or at least stop feeling sore, so I want to improve on that. General conditioning I think will help, and so will stretching after practice (which is what BAD taught me but I've not seen any other league I skate with do that), as well as eating better.

I've generally been a pretty healthy eater. I don't really like candy, and I'm definitely not one of those women who will sit in front of the TV and eat an entire block of chocolate or whatever. But I know I don't eat very much meat and don't get protein from that. I eat mostly carbs, and my favorite foods are pretty much all carbs. Before Beatings I accidentally carbo loaded the whole week before instead of a few hours before. Oops. Yeah, I'm not good with that sort of thing. But I do want to lose a bit of weight so I have less to carry when I'm jamming, and also make it lean muscle so I can take and give a few hard hits.

So I've started drinking these protein shake things:

Fancy science shit in fancy sciency looking packaging!

It's like 500ml, so I drink half on my way to practice, and half immediately after, and then usually I have dinner when I get back home, maybe about 30-40 minutes after practice.

Importantly, it doesn't taste like ass. It doesn't taste like rich dark chocolate either, but we'll see. Anyway, I've been doing this for the past week or so and I don't feel beefier or anything. I guess I need to do this longer and more consistently to see if it's improving my performance. Maybe I will just be super beefcake in the next few months or something. Or maybe this stuff is just going to make me ridiculously flatulent. We'll see.

Now I'm beat, part 2

After my nap I had to go back to the Convention Centre (actually just down the street from the hotel) for the last bout I was in. I think the 6.5 hour break was not a very good idea; I felt sluggish and it took me a while to warm up properly. It took me the entire previous bout (Pirates vs Ninjas) to warm up, and still I felt a bit bleh.

Speed Junkie helping out her jammer in one of the other bouts.

The last bout I was in was Rum Balls vs Fruitcake, and I was on team Fruitcake. (I'm surprised there weren't any jokes about balls that I heard.)

Oh yeah, speaking of balls, I forgot to say that this happened during the day as well:

It was right after the second bout; I have no idea what was going on but it was some kind of giant inflatable ball racing thing. I reckon this would be cool to do in a swimming pool. I didn't get a go though; there was already a huge line and I was still on skates (you had to wear your gear but not skates to have a go in the ball).

Anyway, third bout. It was set up like the second bout, with the benchie just allocating positions for people. I jammed a few times, but I felt pretty tired and I didn't do any big points-scoring laps (also I think by this time people were aware of who was used to jamming and would wall up MUCH more than they did for people just "trying out" and stuff). There was one jam where I didn't even score any points and got pummelled by the opposing team and it took me like 3 laps to get through the pack. Ugh. But yeah, I blocked a bit more there and I did some good, hard hits on people, and then usually got them busted for cutting because I scooted back and brought one of my teammates with me. But yeah, I was pretty happy just to block but not do any fancy shiz.

3/4 of Team Sparklebutt: Slam Gamgee, me, Shirley McSlain.
All our pants are different shades of sparkly yellow.
(Photo credit: Jugglenaut)

It also turned out that three other people on my team had bought gold or yellow derbyskinz during the day, so we made it such that we had a Team Sparklebutt lineup. It was really fun. And it was just hilarious because our strategy was basically just to stick our shiny butts into the opposing team's faces and let the camera flashes do the work. Of course, that wasn't REALLY our strategy, but it was fun anyway.

I also didn't pivot the entire day. The first bout I was more focused on just getting my jamming/blocking skills done, and the second bout I was only ever given the jammer panty when I was in the lineup. The third bout I was given the pivot panty, ONCE. And then on that jam when we went to line up I looked and the pivot was in the bin. FUCK. So then I had to rip the pivot panty off my helmet and throw it off the track, only I ended up throwing it at an opposing blocker, who of course was like WTF is this and then the whistle went and we had to kick the panty off the track. Whoops. But I had to do that because otherwise there'd be two pivots and WTF is that bizzo. Anyway, we lost that bout as well and I was so knackered at the end of it.

Protip for jamming: be fueled by the sheer terror of getting hit.
(Photo credit: Jugglenaut)

But then, afterparty! Only there was a little bit of clusterfuckery and the venue was at capacity so we couldn't even get to our own afterparty. And then they had a buffet but they ran out of food. But we ordered food at the bar and then Shirley brought me a beer which was nice of her. She was on my team and a really good, shouty pivot. Then there was a lot of 90s hip hop, and then some spoken word/rap thing which got weird very quickly (e.g. one of the rappers was talking about how when he was 9 he got raped by his babysitter and then there was another one where basically the entire rap was "fuck the police"). We were all super tired by that point, and just wanted to leave, so it seemed to be a good time to bounce.

The next day we loaded back into the car and drove home. But that was all pretty hard to do; I woke up and my joints were stiff as fuck and I could barely walk. Even now I have to pick up my legs with my hands to cross them or get up stairs because my legs are so sore. But yeah, now I've bouted, had a great time (thanks, RCR!!) and I met a whole bunch of super awesome people, and it's good to be home.

Now I'm beat, part 1

OMFG SO MUCH FUN. I'm super tired now and just got home and my brain, arms and legs don't work properly, but I'll see if I can write this out before I forget.

We drove up to Richmond yesterday at 6am, and we got to the venue around 9:15 or so. The event was hosted my River City Rollergirls, and they were all super fun. My first bout (with Banned Aid) was at 10:30, so we got there, got our gear on and warmed up for a bit. It was at the Richmond Convention Centre in one of their big convention hall/pavillion things. They had set up the room so there were rows of chairs around a bit marked off as the track.

Inside the pavillion, from the corner. It was a big room.

The surface we were skating on was polished concrete. It was just the floor of the room, and outlined with a rope that was duct taped down. Basically, it was slick as fuck, and REALLY hard to fall on. There was no give (unlike the roller rink floor at NRV). Basically if you fell, you just went THUD and then slid for about 20 feet. I had four of my old super Gs on as well as my new yellow bullets, since my pink bullets were 91s. And even then I had trouble slowing down. I tried doing some plow stops on it and it took a LOT of push to try to stop within a reasonable distance. I tried hockey stops and almost fell on my face. It was tough.

SO SLICK. I'm surprised I didn't break my face.

I think the first bout was my favorite one of the day. It was Zombies vs. Vampires, and I skated for team Vamp so I didn't have to bring multiple shirts. Haha. 40 (our benchie) had done the mass email where we all introduced ourselves, so at least we felt like we had known each other a little before we met. Lineups felt pretty organized, even though we'd all only met each other. We were encouraged to try whatever positions and stuff, and it was all for fun and experience, so why not?

I have to admit I was pretty nervous jamming though, but once I got into the hang of it it was fine. On my first go as jammer (I think jam #4 or something), I appparently forearmed someone on the way out of the pack and didn't get lead, but then the other jammer got binned so I had to jam the full two minutes myself. I think I scored like 17 points on that one; it was super awesome and I felt great afterwards when I fell onto the bench. Haha. Also, because of the floor, there were times I came out of a corner and almost just fell on my ass for no reason. I think everyone was skating slower than what they were used to because the floor was so weird. But it was good; once we got the hang of it things picked up.

I need medical assistance and chapstick.

I jammed a few times again after that, and also did some blocking. They were only half hour bouts, so not very long at all. At one point I hit a girl out so my jammer could get through, and as she got through she thanked me by hitting me in the mouth with her elbow. :P Then for the rest of that jam I was skating with blood on my face and in my mouthguard and all over my teeth. Gross. When that jam ended, I had to go to the EMT to get my mouth and mouthguard rinsed out, and stop my mouth from bleeding. But then I was on my 4th minor and binned, so I had to sit in the bin while washing out my mouth and spitting into a cup and icing my lip which ended up getting all fat and bloody. Ugh. I have to say, for team Vamp, I'm not really liking the taste of my own blood. I am however happy to report that that was the extent of my muntings; hooray!

That was pretty much the end of the bout, and we won! Hooray. I was about to jam the next lineup but then we ran out of time. Actually, it turned out that I was always going to jam the next lineup when the bout was over. WTF. Haha. Every time we did the hug/high five line I had a jammer panty on my head. HA. But yeah, I felt really good after that bout; in the hug/H5 line random people from other leagues and in the audience were congratulating me and talking about how I did well and stuff and all these little kids wanted high fives. :D Hahaha. It made me feel less sucky about my skating abilities, and I think I am slowly getting over my fear of jamming and taking hard hits.

Ghetto icepack, and lunch sandwich

Anyway, after that bout the EMTs gave me a towel covering a makeshift icepack, which turned out to be a rubber glove full of ice. It was fine, but then then it was lunchtime so not very good for eating. I stayed and watched the co-ed bout (Hanukkah vs Christmas) and that was fun; Gritz was in that one and she knocked some boys over.

The second bout (sugar plums vs. candy canes) was after the lunch break, and some of the girls on the Vamp team were also on that one, so we had an idea of how each other worked. I don't think our lineups were as organized. Our benchie basically designated people positions, and unless you said something you were put into some position; like she just handed out the jammer/pivot panties instead of like in the first one with 40 when had chairs designated J, P, 1, 2, 3 and you could sit where you wanted to try out that position.

All I did for that bout was jam. I jammed like every 3rd one I think. It was exhausting, but I pulled in some points (although not enough for us to win, boo). I need to work on my conditioning. I think I really like jamming; I like finding holes and pushing through people and I forced a couple of out of plays because I would just come up on someone positionally blocking me and roll right into her butt and push her out of the way. It was fun. I have to admit that I also like that the commentators got to the point when they were like "and it's Chairman Mouse jamming again" and people would cheer. :D

Random wares for sale at Beatings

But yeah, I think our defense was good for that one, but we just didn't score many points because for half the bout the jammer was in the bin. :P So we ended up losing. But it was still a fun game, and then it was time for a massive break! I had over 6 hours until my next bout, so I did a bit of random derby shopping (pink astro-nuts for $6/8, yellow sparkly derbyskinz(!!!) for $20) and checked out some of the other stuff they had. In retrospect I should have probably got some wristguards without the slide-on thing like what mine currently do, but instead the velcro straps, just because right now my fingers are so crooked that it sucks to put those wristguards on. But I forgot to. Whoops.

I ended up going back to the hotel and then doing a bit of work and then passing out. When I woke up, I had a bit of time to get ready for the third bout, but I'll write about it in the next post or something,

It's beatin' time!

Well, it's just after 5:15 am and I'm fully awake for Beatings. We drive up at 6, so I'm doing important things like updating my blog, putting on at least most of my bout stuff and moisturizing my legs. I'm excited to be bouting, like, FINALLY. I'll probably also stay awake for the whole drive up even though I should really sleep--I went to bed last night at 10 and was still awake at 12:30 because I was so excited. :D


Wish me luck!

Derby girl problems

Packing for Season's Beatings is ridiculous. I'm doing three half-bouts in the day, and all I need for that is my gear and maybe some spare clothes to wear the next day (and maybe in between bouts). Normally all my gear (and my water bottle) fits into my backpack, and I just carry my skates. This is what I do for practice.

All this gear (except skates and helmet) fits into this bag.

But for a road trip I have to also take an overnight bag, yeah? So I have to bring my toothbrush, and at least a clean shirt for the trip back. My bouts are at 10:45, 1:30, and then 8:00. So I've got a chunk of time in between, so I was also planning to bring my laptop to do some work--I have to write my classes for next week. And then I decided to buy a bunch of food for energy between bouts and after going to the store, I somehow ended up with:

As if you can't tell that I have an eating problem.

• A bottle of muscle milk (cookies and cream flavored!)
• Nutter butters to eat in the car on the way up to Richmond
• 4 bananas
• A bag of dried cranberries
• Two boxes of granola bars (they were 2 for $5...)
• A fucking huge 64 oz bottle of gatorade bigger than my head

I was going to make peanut butter and banana and chocolate sandwiches from two bananas, and bring the other two up just to eat. But now I have way more shit than can fit in my derby bag because of this stupid bottle of gatorade. Also, that's not to also mention that I am bringing a hoodie to wear in between bouts, a water bottle, and maybe my microfleece blanket because I can't wear pants with my gear on.

I also have a bag of other small skatey things: spare 88A wheels
(in case I need to switch out my new 91As), 3 different skate tools,
spare laces, bandaids, blister bandaids, two kinds of strapping tape,
an ankle brace, and a partridge in a pear tree.

What to do? The obvious solution is to make my overnight bag my derby gear and assorted food bag for things to have at the bout, and my backpack for the measly things I need for overnight. So that's what I ended up doing. This means that all my stuff will stink, derby or not. But now my street clothes will smell like derby stank, and my derby gear will smell like bananas. What the fuck. It is super ridiculous; this is all the stuff I have to bring for the bout (as opposed to the hotel):

And this is all the stuff I have to bring for just staying there overnight:

Fucking ridiculous, I tell you.

This gatorade bottle is so big it makes me tired to hold it up for this picture.

Pre-bout crafternoon

Season's Beatings is this weekend!! Squee!!! I am super super stoked. It's offically my first bouty type thing; but I wouldn't say a real proper bout since they're only half hour bouts, and it's not like with a team I identify with. But still, smashy time! I feel like I'm behind the curve on this one really.

It's being hosted by the River City Rollergirls, which is a pretty awesome team. I am skating in three bouts, and conveniently in each I picked the team that would mean I've only got to bring one shirt (red). Heh. It's also the newbie level ones, but whatevs, I think intermediate by US standards is a bit out of my ability range right now. Plus I am just coming off a munting so it's not like I want to get REALLY smashed.

Anyway, what is getting me excited is the fact that the team sent out one of those mass emails when you get to know the other people on your team, and everyone is so excited about this bout. I hope it's okay and that we don't suck super balls, but we'll see. They're from all over Virginia and even Maryland and North Carolina. And I painted my shirt last night, which was super fun. This post is all about arts and crafts, yay.

Basically, I didn't want to fork out money for fancy printing and whatnot, so I was going to do a homemade version. But I have pretty shit art skills, but I don't want something that looks super shit, you know? Beth (who is at NRV and also skating in all the same bouts as me, yay!) bought some fabric paint to do her shirts, so I borrowed it. But I have shit paint skills too, so what to do? Well, I have fabric paint, and I just need to get the paint onto the shirt in a not crap way. Some people suggested stencils, but 1) I'd have to make/buy stencils, and that is annoying, and 2) last time I tried stencilling anything we were doing the Prisoners of Smashkaban shirts and we ended up doing the inverse instead of the print.

But it turns out that there's an easy solution. I printed out my name, cut it out and pinned it to the shirt. Then, with a sharpie, I just pressed onto the paper until it soaked onto the shirt and did the points on the edges of the letters. The font I use for my helmet is pretty much all triangles, so it wasn't that hard to do. Then it was a question of just joining up all the triangles.

Of course, it wasn't super fantastic looking at that point because it was just the outline of the name and all done with a pile of triangles. It actually looked pretty ghetto. But it was working. The spacing wasn't too bad either; I put a phone book under the shirt to keep it from wrinkling too much when I was drawing the outline, and the pins kept the paper bits in place.

When it was done it looked something like this:

A kindergartener could maybe have done better, I suppose.

Okay, but that's just the outline! Then it was painting time! I got a super cheapo paintbrush for like 28 cents from the art store, and it was just a question of putting the paint on the shirt. The paint actually had a really thin nozzle so I could do the outlines and then just color in with the brush. But the brush turned out to be a bit fatter than what I required for painting, plus if I wasn't spreading the paint evenly you could still see bits of red under the black, so I had to ditch the paintbrush and I ended up using cotton buds instead. What a waste of 28 cents.

Hi, my name is Chai Mo.

And then, it was done! Beth said hers took like 3 days to dry, but I did my one a lot thinner than hers and set it to dry over a heater when I went to derby practice. Then I did little touchups when I got back and today it is more or less dry although a little crunchy. I just don't want to wear it on Saturday and have the paint transfer permanently onto my back or something, that would be gross.

But yeah, here's the finished product:

I ended up freehanding the number because that was easier.

 Yay, so I get to wear it on Saturday! Also there'll be a couple of people going up to Richmond (like 3-4 hours away) where it's beind held. We're leaving here Saturday at like 6am and driving up so we'll get there in time before my 10:45 bout. I'll see if I can get some pictures of me wearing it on the weekend. Whoo! I am so excited to get my smash on.