Saturday 30 March 2013

Need new wheels? Try this!

Every time I need new wheels I get in a giant bind about all the possible things I could buy. There are so many options for what surface you are skating on and what style of wheel and if you want slims or talls or mids or whatever the hell. It is always an indecisive clusterfuck and it leaves me wondering if I have buyer's remorse or not.

Introducing the Wheel-a-ma-jig.

It's like a search engine thing for derby wheels. You simply put the hardness, hub style, height, and width of the wheel you are browsing (you can do a range for hardness and size) and it returns possible wheels that fit your criteria.

Of course, it can't tell you what wheels would be ideal for your size, skate style, surface you skate on etc.. You still need to do that sort of work yourself. But at least if you've narrowed that down (Atom, for example has a Performance Matrix which should help you get an idea of what hardness wheels to get at least) then it should make your indecision less terrible. I also would recommend asking other skaters for their opinions on wheels that they have used, or, better yet, actually getting some of the wheels and trying them yourself.

This actually came out in October last year, and I know there are a couple of new wheels on the market that came out afterwards (like the Faster Demilunes which I am dying to try out). I'm not sure if they are on this or not. But this should cover pretty much all your main derby wheels.

Happy rolling!

Thursday 28 March 2013

Bout vs Blackwater

It's been a busy week, derbywise. We had the bout on Saturday, then practice Sunday, bout review Monday, then Tuesday and Wednesday were practice. My bruises from the weekend are coming up nicely, and we're now looking forward to the upcoming bouts.

Anyway, Blackwater. So this was the place where I popped my bouting cherry, as it were. Well, properly bouting anyway. I'll try to recount some of the things from the bout.

I remember there was a lot of stuff that had to happen before the bout actually took place. I mean, not just getting there and warmups and stuff, but then there are introductions (at which I failed very clearly), captains meetings, the singing of the national anthem, random announcements, the bout demo/slo-mo jam, and THEN the bout could start. It was weird because I was so ready to bout when I put my skates on at the beginning, then all these things had to happen before we could start and it was anticlimatic and clearly I was jittery since I did a bunch of stupid things like almost crashing into people in the high five area and getting a bloody mouth in warmups.

Once the bout was underway though, I think I stopped being that stupid. I don't even remember much about the first half. We had two lineups and we just alternated those, and rotated our jammers. I didn't think I was being super effective in the first half; a lot of it was just getting used to being on the track and working with the lineup. I did feel like I was giving up my point a bit easily at some parts because I was kind of floating and there were so many things I could do at any given moment that I couldn't decide if I should do offense or defense or what the hell.

I think this was in the second jam or something.
I think our jammers were working really well and we racked up a lot of points. We also did a fair bit of power jamming, and the strategies we had been working on (passive offence stuff) worked pretty well. I think our walls could have been stronger because Blackwater were really good at getting in between us and breaking up our walls and we weren't reforming very quickly. We also had problems with being aware of the opposing jammer; a few times she snuck through before anyone had even turned around to see. (Of course, the bench is all there screaming JAMMER!! but it doesn't necessarily mean that the pack is going to notice.)

I think it was at half time when we went back to our team area and noticed that I wasn't getting the numbers on my arms redrawn on that I figured I needed to hit people more. I felt like I was good at positional blocking, but knocking down some skaters would help the jammer score some easy points. Plus, it's fun to hit a bitch. I actually wanted to see if I could take out the biggest skater on the opposing team. Of course the likelihood of that was minimal, but it gave me something to work towards.

I think I felt much better about blocking in the second half. We did a lot of backwards bridging, so you hit the jammer out, the scoot back so she has to reenter behind you, while the rest of your team is bridging so you can still take her out:
Imagine I'm the pink blocker who hits out the yellow jammer.
 
Then the other blockers peel off and bridge so I can still engage the jammer.
In practice it works better when I skate up to the next pink blocker so it becomes a 2-on-1.
OMG I AM HITTING SOMEONE. LOL.
(Actually, this was the hit that knocked the jammer out and we did
an awesome backwards bridge and forced her to cut, hooray.)
I hit the jammer a few times and she fell down, and then I ran backwards on my toe stops a bunch to make her reenter behind me. I really like toe stop work. Anyway, yeah so the backwards bridging I think worked quite well. Making sure you bring at least one other blocker with you also helps, so you end up with the jammer having to get past two blockers (which is harder than one).

Most times for hitting other blockers, throwing myself at them wasn't so great, so other times I think leaning people out worked better, but as they got tired, hitting became more effective. So I guess I'm also a late bloomer in that sense; I found my fire halfway through the bout. (I guess that works though, since people who had their fire early on were tiring out, so the amount of fire-ness overall in the team stays consistent?)

During one of our power jams. Ape and I were both rookies
and we were the only two blockers on the track. We managed
to send of two Blackwater blockers for destroying the pack, whee.
I also think we need to do more work in terms of actually doing something when the jammer isn't around. I felt like we would be like "oh here's the opposing jammer, let's hit her. Oh now she's gone, let's stand around until she comes back", which is actually probably quite boring to watch. Plus I'm sure fucking with the other team's walls and whatnot throughout would throw them off a bit.

Oh, and about halfway through the second half I got to jam. Before the whistle blew for my first time as jammer, there was a time out. The anticipation was horrible. I felt like I needed to pee and throw up and crap my pants all at the same time. But once the jam was underway, it was okay. I somehow got lead and then on my scoring lap I managed to make it through and call it before the opposing jammer got through. I need to pick up my feet more. Also, I did fall a bunch. That's something I need to work on: not falling when someone smacks into me. It's just so much easier to fall, but I got sucked back into the pack a few times as a result. I guess the way you get better at that is just to get pummelled a whole bunch and try to stay on your feet? I'm not sure what other drills there would be for this...

The final score was 206-347 to NRV. I learned a whole bunch, and going to the after party was also awesome! Now we get to do it all again in a month, wheeeeee.

Monday 25 March 2013

All of the rookie fails.

Officially now I have bouted in a full (although not WTFDA sanctioned--that might be the next step) bout. Hooray! And I wasn't munted (well, severely). Hooray! The weather was awesome; a couple of us drove up to Appomattox together and it was nice to get the road tripping experience in as well.

I'll write more about the actual bout in a little while, but this is just a list of some of the things you should NOT do during your first bout.
Another thing that I should do for a bout:
Provide a picture for the program.
(But yay, I'm actually in a program!!)

I guess I didn't really have pre-bout jitters or anything; I did a bit of work earlier in the day, made myself two peanut butter and banana sandwiches, ate a stupid amount of breakfast burrito and packed my gear. We got to the skate place with plenty of time to spare, so there was no rush to get ready or gear up as we went to hit the track.

Then I went on to commit all the rookie mistakes possible in the history of roller derby.

During warmups we were doing the "three people in a wall and a jammer tries to break through the wall" drill and I got elbowed in the face and busted my lip. DURING WARMUPS. The bout hadn't even started yet and I was already bleeding. And the EMTs weren't getting there until right before the bout, so I had to stop warming up and go and wash out my mouth and mouthguard and everything, but there wasn't any ice so I just had a fat lip for the first part of the bout. Interestingly, getting elbowed in the mouth was exactly what happened in my first bout for Season's Beatings too. My prebout ritual is now eating a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and getting a bloody lip from a teammate. I'm 2 for 2.

Then, when the bout was about to start, I fucked up the rollout by almost plowing into our bench manager.We were doing an intro when we skated around the track in a pack, and when your name was called, you skated a lap, high fiving the other team as you went, and then rejoined the back of the pack.
What normal people did.
Gritz was announcing, and she had a little description of everyone based on their derby names. So mine was something about "cruel and unusual punishment", and then I got very excited and started skating my lap. We were right about to go into turn 3 when I started. I took the corner too fast and almost smashed straight into Smack in the high five line, but she was right in front of the Blackwater team so I could either skate into her, or into the opposing team. I think I made the right choice. :P Still, that was embarassing as fuck. I don't even know how that happened.

What I ended up doing. FML.

I also managed to projectile vomit (well only a little bit) on myself and possibly an opposing blocker in the second half of the bout. I was jamming and back blocked someone. But I backblocked them so hard and because they were taller than me their butt basically went into my stomach.

The drill, or the jam, or whatever.
The downside was that I was full of gatorade and breakfast burrito and bananas and water and clif bars and it was like getting punched in the stomach, and all that predigested food had to go somewhere, so as I sat in the box it came up a little. It wasn't like I was skating and barfing on the track at the same time, but it was enough that I had little chunks of undigested gatorade-clif bars-banana on my wrist guard and in my mouth guard and a bit on my pants. Go me. And I was only in the box for four seconds, so I wasn't feeling too amazing when I got out and finished the jam.

But seriously. Who the fuck does that?! At least I didn't puke on the track. It would have been worse if they had to stop the bout because I had barfed all over the track and it was ruining people's skates.

I think those were the main things that one should probably not do in their first bout. Okay, so maybe I didn't commit ALL of the rookie mistakes in history. I didn't forearms anyone, I didn't multiplayer block anyone, I didn't hit anyone with my elbows (I think). I spent a total of FOUR SECONDS in the box for the entire bout. I'm not sure if that means I wasn't working hard enough or something. Or maybe I was playing very cleanly.

I hope this means I won't be such a derp in my future bouts. I just get a bit overexcited at the prospect of actually bouting. Hopefully that is all (or mostly) out of my system. No pun intended, but you get the idea.

But it was fun, and I learned a lot from it, whee! More on the actual bout later.

Saturday 23 March 2013

Bout day is here.

There are many mountains in derby. You pass fresh meat, you get to scrimmage, you get drafted to a team, you do your first bout.

Today is bout day. It's the first time I will get to bout for a team representing my league. I will get to do a rollout. I will get to wear a team jersey with my name on it (see below) I will get to do a 2-3 hour road trip with my teammates and leaguemates to travel to the bout venue. I will get to play derby with people with whom I've trained and practiced with for the last couple of months, and we know how each other work. 


I don't know if we'll win, but that seems secondary to actually getting to bout right now. It feels like it's been a long time coming for me. But, as the Chinese saying goes, for every mountain, there is a higher mountain. So the challenges will still be coming, which is good for not stagnating.

I'll write a report up of how the bout went later today (or maybe tomorrow, depending on how tired I am), but if it was anything like the practice bouts and scrimmages I've done, things will be good. This is one mountain I've been looking to get over for a while, and I'll be happy to have conquered it.

Also, don't forget that any part of a good uniform involves sparkly yellow derbyskinz (they look better with a butt in them):



Friday 22 March 2013

China establishes its first Roller Derby League

A year or so ago I was lamenting that there wasn't a roller derby league in Hong Kong. There's been some general speculation that roller derby isn't something that has taken off because of cultural perceptions of women (apparently evidenced by the fact that the leagues in Asia are predominantly run by expat women), a lack of interest in the sport given that China already dominates in approximately 352035623 other sports, not to mention potential opposition from the state.

It looks like things might be changing. Meet the Shang-High Rollers. There's a Derbylife Article about them here.

It makes sense that the first roller derby league in China is in its biggest city, and once they get a foothold it'd be really interesting to see how far this can spread across the Middle Kingdom. There is already a sister league forming in Beijing, and I think as interest and momentum gathers we can hope to see leagues starting up in other cities too. I think that China is the last major country without the presence of any derby, and in the past year we've seen derby make its way to Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and South Africa. If this takes off then future Blood and Thunders could be very interesting, especially as the sport becomes more global and less dominated by traditional western democracies with skate venues and sponsorship and whatnot.

The Rollers noted on their blog that they've been having some trouble securing a venue. I'm not sure if this is due to actual opposition to derby (or even that it is devalued so the practice space--which is a skating rink--can be used for other non-skatey things like BADMINTON). I know that space is pretty limited in big cities in China, so even trying to do an outdoor skate might be tough. However, I think time on skates might be good for practice and also exposure, even outside a rink.

Anyway, imagine how much untapped potential for derby there is in China. I'll be keeping my eye on this one. I just hope that eventually derby makes its way to Honkers...

Thursday 21 March 2013

Dirty dancing transitions

This is a really simple trick to practice transitions without even really thinking about it! We used to do this at VDL when we were learning transitions, and I introduced it to some of the skaters at NRV tonight and they liked it, hooray! I call it Dirty Dancing Transitions for want of a better name, but you have to maintain lots of eye contact as you do moves together, and the transitioning looks like something they could do if Dirty Dancing was done on skates.

Now I've had the time of my life
No I never felt like this before

With a partner, start facing each other, not too far apart, maybe like 15-20 feet (depending on how much speed you want to do this at). Skate towards each other (1), and look each other in the eye. Maintain eye contact as you pass each other and turn around (2), so you end up skating backwards (3).

Red arrows indicate the direction you're skating in.

I should really work on my paint skills.

This means that you'll both end up transitioning, and because you're not focusing on your feet, the transitions will come naturally and quickly. You can also check to see if your transitions are working well, if you turn around and your partner is directly across from you, not veering off to the side.

Remember to practice transitioning on both sides--if you have a bad side, try to partner up with someone who also has that as their bad side so you can both work on transitioning on that side at the same time. 

As you both get better at it, you can increase your speed.

The question is... who gets to be Patrick Swayze?

Saturday 16 March 2013

Running the fence

Have a single pace line, about a foot away from the inside track line. The last person in the pace line is the jammer, and they have to get through the gap made between the skaters and the inside line. If they cut the track, they have to stop, go back and reenter the pace line from whoever they cut in front of.
It's really not a lot of space.


As the jammer, you have to pick up your feet a lot. (I know I don't do this as much as I should.) Since there's not much room, you can't propel yourself by sticky skating or whatever; there's not enough room really to have both your skates on the ground side by side.

Variation: have the pace line again, but on the outside line. This makes your jammer have to work much harder since they have to go faster to cover more distance.

Variation 2: have the pace line, but have your hip sticking out a bit over the line to offer some resistance to the jammer as they are getting past.

Thursday 14 March 2013

A possible #Rollerderp contribution

I'm a huge fan of #Rollerderp. I check it every day even though I know nothing will have been updated in the last twenty minutes since I last checked it and whenever, but I do it anyway.

If I knew how to make a video thingy for Rollerderp, it would be this. This is totally how I feel when I have to take out a skater twice my size:


(Okay, so it's considerably longer than the normal Rollerderp 2-second video loops, but it has a miniature pig in it, which is AWESOME.)

Monday 11 March 2013

Today, after almost two years of skating...

 ...I am finally on a roster for a bout I will actually get to bout.

Yes.

So, last night I had a dream that I was buying warpaint for derby, and then today the roster went out for NRV's B team bout against the Blackwater Rollers. Coincidence? I think not. (Yes, I have dreams about derby. I often hipcheck Ze Boyfriend in my sleep.)

Okay, so I've been on rosters before. At VDL, I had been drafted to both the Cheerbleeders and the Dishonour Rollers, but I never actually got to do their bouts since I was overseas or injured. I did the CRDL Scrimmage (which was terrifying at the time because I had NO idea what I was doing) and I also did the mini-bouts at Season's Beatings last year.

But this upcoming bout will be my first proper bout with a team that I actually am in a league with. I will get a jersey with my name on it, and I will get to hit people in the name of my league. These things matter; it means that I'm not such a late bloomer after all (although I admit I was getting worried that if I didn't have any bouting experience and I had been skating for years, people might think there was something wrong with me).

It also will be the first time I get to do a rollout. Yay!

Friday 8 March 2013

And the torch passes

Remember my Diablos? They were my very first pair of derby skates that were mentioned in the first entry for this blog all the way back here. I stoped using them after a while because they turned out to be the wrong size for me, and I learned that the hard way.

Anyway, they have a new home! One of the freshies has inherited them, but at least she has the smarts to not skate on those horrible stock Evos that come with them, and she has Poisons instead. I'm sure they feel much better than the rental skates that she has otherwise been skating on. Plus, I'm glad the Diablos are getting put to good use and not just wasting away in a closet because I was dumb and got the wrong size skate.

It's awesome when you have a pair of skates to call your own. When I first got my skates I slept with them in bed (before they were dirty and skated on) because I thought they were so fantastic. I'm not saying that everyone does that, but hey, I was excited.

Anyway, here they are on their new owner:

Note asymmetrical laces! All my footwear has asymmetrical laces.
Also note horrible looking Adventure World carpet.
Yay! Happy rolling, Sarah!

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Elevator

When you are walling up as a blocker, you shouldn't be relying on just being an arm's length away from your blockers; the closer you can get to to them, the stronger your wall will be, and the harder it is for the jammer to get through.

Have a double pace line, where each person is skating about a foot apart from their partner. This is as if the elevator doors are "open". When someone yells "close" you have to basically have your shoulder/hip/thigh touching your partner's, like you are learning into each other. So basically, you've got a pace line, that is opening and closing as you skate.

We skated around just practicing "open" and "close" first, but hey, after a while, that's not much fun. So then we had someone who had to run through the gauntlet we'd created. So when the "doors" are open, if you are in the back of the pace line, you had to run through as many open doors as you could before they closed. And when they closed you had to slow down so you wouldn't back block the blockers in front of you. And then when they opened again, you ran again, until you got to the front.

The red jammer is trying to get through the pace line, but should maintain their speed
when the doors close. This is also a test to see how fast the blockers can close their gap.
As a jammer doing this, you've only got about a foot of space between the blockers. But that's more than enough. It's also important that when you run you don't kick your feet out sideways because then you'll be clipping people's wheels and kicking their skates out from under them.

Just make sure when the elevator doors open you're not seeing this:


Sunday 3 March 2013

Team Pie revival!

We had the derby prom last night (which I'll write a report about soon) but one of the awesomest things to come out of it was the fact that Pumpkin told me she read this blog, and then asked if I wanted to start doing Team Pie at NRV.

I think I need this shirt.
Or maybe I should also get this shirt and then
I can use them like scrimmage shirts.
HELLS YES! I love Team Pie, but the kicker here is we're going to make our own pies (or maybe baked goods generally) and bring them to practice instead of going to McDonald's for their pies, even those pies are deep fried and like 2 for a dollar. The idea of homemade pie is making me hungry already.

YAY TEAM PIE! I am excite.