Had a whirlwind of misadventures since the last post, so some summarizing is in order...
Went to Bend, OR and skated in a renegade derby bout with Earl Slick, Speed Dealer, and Han Cholo from LCC and Hurt Vonnegut from CCDG whom I promised I would mention in this blog... so there you go, Hurt. She actually knocked me down for the first time at that bout, but being allowed to scissor kick does make things easier for her. The bout was VERY different that derby as I know and love it and it definitely took some getting used to. The track was about 1/2 the size, the jams only one minute, and the rules virtually non-existant. It was fun once I realized it didn't count as sports by my standards, and I definitely saw potential to pick up some bad habits mixing both styles of play.
Lots of practices between then and this weekend, where I have been slowly making progress improving the horror-show that is my form, and working on my hits. I had the unique joy of having a rib get popped out of place at an LCC practice (where that same rib was pounded 3 more times because someone didn't have sense enough to sit down...), but it got popped back in at practice the next week, and is almost completely back to normal now. So much fun...
On Saturday, Hotboxx, Stitches & Bones (both of STDD), and I drove to Seattle and played in the Rat City open scrimmage. We got there a bit late so the ladies opted to get the USARS day insurance that let them skate with the boys. We got to skate with several Rat City travel team skaters including Anya Heels, ReAnimate-her, and Carmen Getsome. Also, Puget Sound Outcast Derby was there in force, so I finally got to skate with the most established men's derby team on the West coast. Radillac, G. No-Evil, and all the rest of the PSOD crew were awesome skaters and very friendly. I'm definitely looking forward to skating with/against them at the Wild-West Showdown in March and possibly sooner than that for a scrimmage as well. Good times!
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Teamwork: more than just socialist propaganda?
Another Monday night scrimmage come and gone with Lane County Concussion. They (LCC) scrimmage every Monday, often with a handful of women skating with us as well, which is cool until one of them skitters around you like you were standing still. Clearly the result of girls maturing faster than boys.
Getting to regularly skate with new people helps broaden your horizons and forces you to develop your book of derby lore beyond the limited chapters your team might subscribe to. It also means you have to create trust and understanding in a couple jams to avoid being decimated by those choads in the white shirts for the next hour and change. While some people have enough experience or are good enough at following quick instructions to instantly fill the gaps, others struggle to play like they are anything other than a team of one. This recent scrimmage was a good example. One team had a slightly better blocking lineup than the other, but was prevented from outright dominating the entire evening through solid communication and teamwork by the other blockers. When our team worked as a unit, life was good. When we devolved into four individuals each trying to take on the entire opposing line, not so much...
Cohesive play and strong communication are essential to successful pack play. Being able to collectively go from trapping for easy points to a kill-line when your jammer is in the box for blitzing someone in the tramp-stamp is critical and can mean the difference between an unfortunate 20 point swing and an annoying 60 second pace-line while your friend with the star sits in the corner and thinks about what they have done wrong. In my experience, guys seem to have a hard time with this concept. I have had moments of trapping someone in the back and having to physically grab blockers from my team like a deployed parachute to prevent them from chasing a blocker on our jammer at 20', all while yelling at them loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage in the next two generations of their offspring. It is mildly frustrating, kinda like safety lighters and child-labor laws. I have considered suggesting some sort of a ear-bud radio system, but then I would probably hear a bunch of grumbling about being too demanding or how that Buzzed guy is a loud douche. Obviously there is room for improvement here.
Getting to regularly skate with new people helps broaden your horizons and forces you to develop your book of derby lore beyond the limited chapters your team might subscribe to. It also means you have to create trust and understanding in a couple jams to avoid being decimated by those choads in the white shirts for the next hour and change. While some people have enough experience or are good enough at following quick instructions to instantly fill the gaps, others struggle to play like they are anything other than a team of one. This recent scrimmage was a good example. One team had a slightly better blocking lineup than the other, but was prevented from outright dominating the entire evening through solid communication and teamwork by the other blockers. When our team worked as a unit, life was good. When we devolved into four individuals each trying to take on the entire opposing line, not so much...
Cohesive play and strong communication are essential to successful pack play. Being able to collectively go from trapping for easy points to a kill-line when your jammer is in the box for blitzing someone in the tramp-stamp is critical and can mean the difference between an unfortunate 20 point swing and an annoying 60 second pace-line while your friend with the star sits in the corner and thinks about what they have done wrong. In my experience, guys seem to have a hard time with this concept. I have had moments of trapping someone in the back and having to physically grab blockers from my team like a deployed parachute to prevent them from chasing a blocker on our jammer at 20', all while yelling at them loud enough to cause permanent hearing damage in the next two generations of their offspring. It is mildly frustrating, kinda like safety lighters and child-labor laws. I have considered suggesting some sort of a ear-bud radio system, but then I would probably hear a bunch of grumbling about being too demanding or how that Buzzed guy is a loud douche. Obviously there is room for improvement here.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The beatings shall continue until morale improves!
So with the added skating (LCC & zebra with STDD on weekdays) comes added bruises, aches and pains. On Monday a 70-year old that skates for LCC, Merby Dick, and I got tangled in a pack midway through collapsing like a dying star and my arm ended up on the receiving end of one of his skates, as did my helmet. Don't worry, the helmet was ok... as was Merby, that dude is a tank.
Injury is probably the most feared aspect of the sport. PMRD has seen 3 skaters sidelined with injuries from practice alone. How do you play and avoid injury? As I understand it there are two major factors: training and luck. Unfortunately, you can only influence one of them, and I don't mean in the breaking mirrors kind of way. Everyone has to pass minimum skills to bout, and should be doing so to scrimmage as well. Some skaters I have spoken with about this has said that often minimum skills alone are not enough to make someone a safe skater. Sure, you can fall small when you're told to and are actively focusing on doing it, but what about when that refrigerator on wheels comes out of no-where and drops the hammer on you?
It takes a good bit of training to properly fall small when you are going down on someone else's terms. In my case I was promised a thorough beating topped off with no small amount of sprawl drills before I really learned my lesson and started turning into human origami when I felt the horizon start to shift. Even still I have my moments. Also, I had to change my view of taking a knee. I went from looking at is as admitting defeat or losing control to thinking of it as hitting a reset button. It should take less than a second to return to skating from a proper knee fall while that full on sprawl that you get for losing the fight with gravity will cost you a good 3+ seconds in many cases. That little difference in recovery time is all that their jammer needs to squirt by, or an opposing blocker to put the bad-touch all over your own fun-sized teammate sporting the star.
Hopefully your team/league is at a point where all your fellow skaters are as disciplined as you are, but thats not always the case. Other skaters are, oddly enough, your main source of face-plant fodder. Even when they're on your side a bad misstep can quickly result in the track punching you in the stomach. Worse still, when a teammate/opponent falls poorly they can trip others which quickly spreads like ripples in a pond until the whole pack is gut-surfing through turn 2. Skating with unsafe skaters who are participating beyond their skill level is often dangerous and you certainly should feel free to speak up to your coaches/teammates if you have concerns. Even the most seasoned skater still does minimal fall drills on occasion to keep skills sharp and check their form, so odds are you can benefit from them just as much as I can.
So get out there, lock those wheels, get the snot knocked out of you, and hit that floor... just practice doing so safely before hand.
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Injury is probably the most feared aspect of the sport. PMRD has seen 3 skaters sidelined with injuries from practice alone. How do you play and avoid injury? As I understand it there are two major factors: training and luck. Unfortunately, you can only influence one of them, and I don't mean in the breaking mirrors kind of way. Everyone has to pass minimum skills to bout, and should be doing so to scrimmage as well. Some skaters I have spoken with about this has said that often minimum skills alone are not enough to make someone a safe skater. Sure, you can fall small when you're told to and are actively focusing on doing it, but what about when that refrigerator on wheels comes out of no-where and drops the hammer on you?
It takes a good bit of training to properly fall small when you are going down on someone else's terms. In my case I was promised a thorough beating topped off with no small amount of sprawl drills before I really learned my lesson and started turning into human origami when I felt the horizon start to shift. Even still I have my moments. Also, I had to change my view of taking a knee. I went from looking at is as admitting defeat or losing control to thinking of it as hitting a reset button. It should take less than a second to return to skating from a proper knee fall while that full on sprawl that you get for losing the fight with gravity will cost you a good 3+ seconds in many cases. That little difference in recovery time is all that their jammer needs to squirt by, or an opposing blocker to put the bad-touch all over your own fun-sized teammate sporting the star.
Hopefully your team/league is at a point where all your fellow skaters are as disciplined as you are, but thats not always the case. Other skaters are, oddly enough, your main source of face-plant fodder. Even when they're on your side a bad misstep can quickly result in the track punching you in the stomach. Worse still, when a teammate/opponent falls poorly they can trip others which quickly spreads like ripples in a pond until the whole pack is gut-surfing through turn 2. Skating with unsafe skaters who are participating beyond their skill level is often dangerous and you certainly should feel free to speak up to your coaches/teammates if you have concerns. Even the most seasoned skater still does minimal fall drills on occasion to keep skills sharp and check their form, so odds are you can benefit from them just as much as I can.
So get out there, lock those wheels, get the snot knocked out of you, and hit that floor... just practice doing so safely before hand.
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