Monday, May 31, 2010

Till the sweat runs off my...

So I wrote this almost a week ago... I probably should post it before writing about the most recent practice.

Practice (5/30/2010) once again and General Anarchy kicked the crap out of us, but was more or less agreed by many as the best so far. I seemed to be getting sick again (outbreak monkey), but wasn't going to let that stop me from plodding around on wheels for 2 hours.

We started out (after warming up and stretching of course) with the dreaded 25 laps in 5 minutes assessment. Unsurprisingly, I failed (19 laps...), but we did have 2 skaters pass and another 2 within spitting distance. This is to become a regular thing at practice, so I guess I better get moving faster. Our newest skater, El Guapo, picked a rough day to start, but toughed it out and had a great time.

We got to practice some hit drills, knocking your opponent out of bounds and then stopping/backing up to try and force them to draw a cutting penalty. My hits are progressing from completely unthreatening to mildly useful. Very mild though. I desperately need to work on my turn-around control, it really limits how well I can force another player to cut the track

Finally, we got to do some 4-on-4 scrimmages. It is so rewarding to see those drills actually start coming together. We staggered around and made a good attempt at things, but being our first time with both teams having a jammer, it was still quite new to us. It was interesting to see how much an actual jam leveled the playing field. Sure, some people were playing to a higher level, but everyone in the pack was able to serve some purpose. Sometimes that purpose is meatshield...

Monday, May 24, 2010

derby derby derby...


Another derby filled weekend has come and gone. Friday I got to attend Friday open skate from 1-5pm before I saw the Wheels of Justice play Denver's 5280 Fight Club. While the first half started out promising for WoJ, Denver came out strong in the second half and simply would not be beaten. It was a VERY technical game with both teams putting up huge efforts. On Saturday I drove to Salem to watch the High Rollers play the Cherry City Derby Girls. I expected to see HR do well and was not disappointed. Honey Hellfire, Sully Skullkicker, Madame Bumps-a-lot, and White Flight were all but untouchable much of the bout, landing several 10-15+ point jams and playing solid defense as blockers. Also out for HR, Minnie van Mayhem, Intensive Scare, Hurricane Skatrina, Devaskating Diva, Crusher, and others I can't remember were in fine form, helping bring about the 199 points for their team. Lots of fun, and great medicine after being so frustrated with the outcome of the WoJ bout the night before.

Sunday practice was only an hour due to a Rosebuds double-header immediately afterwards. General Anarchy started us off with some drills to get us warmed up followed by a variation on crossovers where we actively block the inside line in the curves while doing crossovers, scary right now... maybe less so later. The horse stance exercises appear to be paying off, Anarchy spent less time than before telling me to get low. Eventually we broke into groups of three and one person had to get by the other two. I ended up with Demon and Next of Ken, Next got the first shot at jammer, and due to my exquisite ineptitude at that exact moment in time, got through in relatively short time. I got the next rotation and spent the rest of the drill show how shitty I was as a jammer, never getting by Demon & Next. On the bright side I did manage to get in plenty of practice getting back up, a very useful skill right now. After Anarchy got tired of watching me pick myself up off the court we went 3 on 3 with one side's skater being designated as a jammer. Once again, everyone got to be jammer, though some were noticeably better than others. Some bumps and knockdowns throughout the drill, but not as bad as the first time we did pack drills. Bees proved to be every bit the wheeled ninja I thought him to be; I really want to see him go head to head against Speed Bump. Sadly, there was no Speed at practice yesterday. Demon took an entirely different approach to jamming, flooring much of the pack with an impressive block from the inside line before cruising through at his leisure. Awesome to watch, somewhat less awesome to be on the receiving end of. Just before practice ended I managed to get my hand skated over in a big pileup, which sucked every bit as much as I was told it would. Fists at all times, even when dialing the phone...

After a painfully fun hour of practice, the RCR Rosebuds A and B teams played, the Kitsap Derby Brats. Both Rosebuds teams played with a skill and intensity that made me jealous, but they are a great team to watch. Somehow I don't remember not getting tired when I was their age... I'll leave you with a picture of me in my new profession: Derby Janitor

Goal for the week: work on side-to-side mobility and awareness.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Loving the new boots

So finally got to put in some wheel time on the new boots. After the left of my XL-55's decided it wanted nothing to do with it's sole, Beki had them warrantied, but Sure-Grip apparently no longer made my size so free upgrade to XL-75's! In addition to a more cushy collar area they included a beefy tongue and a velcro strap to hold the ankle in place, something I put to use at open skate today.

Since Weds is my usual open skate day I was excited to try the new setup out, so excited that I left the apartment without my precious crash pads. Turns out I am rather used to wearing them when I skate and I felt vulnerable without them. I had the trucks considerably looser than my previous setup, hoping to improve my cuts from side to side. After a couple laps I decided that there was such a thing as too loose and gave them each a bit of a turn to snug them up some more. The first 30 minutes I just tooled around, taking a few gentle crossovers and cuts, just getting a feel for the new boots and wondering when my feet would stop complaining about how long it had been since I was on wheels... Fast forward another 30 minutes and things were good to go. The looser trucks definitely let me make seemingly effortless cuts, but at the cost of requiring a bit more concentration in the crossovers. Once the feet were feeling good about the new boots, which I think are more comfortable than the old pair (no more angry rubbed-red line around my ankle from the cuff), I started going after some of the drills and testing the waters.

All those mind-numbing horse-stances while listening to youtube music videos are paying off. I was able to get, and stay, lower than usual, something which definitely helps with side-side maneuverability. I felt more stable in an aggressively low stance with my back more upright and thighs near parallel to the floor. Later in the day I tried my luck with toe-stop sprinting starts. I can get about 3-5 strong steps before I need to start skating, but at that point I am moving at a pretty good clip, so I am happy with how those went. Also, I was happy to see that the new boots with the strap seem to hold my ankle down more effectively, no more feeling of my heel lifting out of the rear of the boot. Ghetto-tomahawks and backwards skating also felt better, eventually I hope to be able to do toe-stop sprints to immediate tomahawk stops. Very happy with the progress considering the time spent off skates (almost 2 weeks, boo-hoo... I know) and looking forward to a weekend of watching bouts and going to practice. To put a cherry on top I am going to go to the 1-5pm Friday open skate as well. Oh happy day!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Busy weekend and new boots


Wheels of Justice (WoJ) played Rat City this weekend at the Portland expo center in a double header with RCR team good vs team evil. Team evil put the hurt on team good, taking a strong lead early and continuing till the end. Unfortunately, one skater was badly injured and will be out for the rest of the season with a torn ACL. WoJ managed to hold on to a lead for the majority of the bout, taking the win over #5 ranked Rat City, hopefully trading up a spot in the rankings from #6. I was happily manning the Portland Men's Roller Derby booth with Faux Paul throughout both bouts, but managed to get peeks at each bout from time to time. In the picture above taken by Free Will, you can see Demon, myself, and Faux Paul during half time. The team got a deal to rent the booth for the night and despite initial nervousness and some last-minute hiccups in procuring/producing merchandise it was a success. Definitely need to stockpile some merchandise for future endeavors to avoid the panic-sweatshop efforts which lead up to the booth last night. Even without t-shirts or stickers to sell, we made $19 on 2-for-1 buttons Joan of Snark helped get ahold of and nearly filled 3 pages of signup sheets along with handing out dozens of handbills to interested people. Our goal was to get 2 more skating members, and with the positive response we received I would be shocked if we didn't get at least that many. I had lots of fun working with Faux Paul while meeting new interested people and talking with them about joining up. Good times, definitely worth doing again for more exposure and possibly for profitable sales as well with the right items/prices.

Also, in unrelated news, Beki at Oaks Park got the replacement boots for my skates in and had them mounted for me a couple days ago. By some freaky luck, my left boot was trying to secede from the union by separating from where it had been cemented to the sole. Initially I thought that it wasn't an issue, lots of my old shoes have partially torn away from the edge of the sole, but apparently this one was going for the full deal. Sure-grip either no longer makes the old boot in my size or possibly at all, so I got a free upgrade (thx Sure-Grip) to the XL-75 boots, which have a couple features I was curious about now that I have been skating for a while. After picking them up on Saturday afternoon, I was impressed with the new setup. Same plates, trucks, wheels, bearings, and toe-stops as before, but the new boots certainly seem to make a difference. New features include a 'power strap' that helps hold your heel down during tomahawks and toe-stop sprints, a much more cushy ankle/achilles lining, and a more heavily padded tongue with a grippy interior surface so they don't slowly rotate to the outsides of my feet like the previous ones did. Hopefully I'll get to take them out tonight or tomorrow afternoon and see if they feel significantly different.

Since the track was taken over to the expo center, no practice today. We had discussed doing a Portland Parkways event as a team, but several members had conflicts and ultimately the weather didn't want to play along so it didn't happen. Gonna try and get in an extra day of Oaks open skate to make up for it, but it isn't the same. Horse stance has been slow going, kinda boring to just stand there not falling down while your thighs complain. Hopefully it pays off and General Anarchy (who's most recent shirt says Coach Dickwhip, awesome!) gets to find another aspect of my existence to improve upon through creative ridicule and encouragement. We'll see.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

HITS HITS HITS!

Second 2-hour practice today. General Anarchy (aka, The Whip) was in a fairly good mood, sprawls were limitied to only 6, and whistle drills weren't overly soul-crushing this week. Best of all, HIT DRILLS. She (Anarchy) paired us off in lines on the inside and outside of the track, designated which side was dealing the hit, and sent us on our merry way. A couple things quickly became apparent. First off, despite his waifish 180lb physique, Speed Bump can hit plenty hard, regularly flooring his opponents or at least sending them out of bounds. Second, staying in an actual low derby stance is vital, it is the difference between getting knocked over and being inconvenienced when someone plows into you. Demon regularly street-sweepered anyone unfortunate enough to be paired against him with relative ease, though Speed Bump did manage to put him down a couple times when he landed a strong hit on his terms. I got to be a trauma sponge, falling about as often as not when presented with a decent hit, and tried to deal out some hits of my own in the process. Unfortunately, I still think my hits are about as threatening as a pack of wild pugs, but that will improve with time. I really gotta focus on blasting through my target and commiting to the hit when I make my cut.

After hit drills we did some jammer drills where one lucky individuals had the task of getting through 5 blockers unaided. A couple of the faster/better players actually pulled it off a couple times, but Anarchy expressed her surprise at our mediocre competency... but not before making us do push-ups for letting a single jammer through the first time. Everyone got a turn at being the victim/jammer, no exceptions. When my turn to suck floor finally rolled around I was surprised to find that I could actually make a decent stab at things, nearly getting through on one of my better tries. Of course, this only leads me to worry at how well a 'good' jammer will ninja their way through the pack, especially when he has 4 friends wrecking shop to help him through.

After a few rounds of squish the jammer, Anarchy upped the ante and gave the jammer penny to Speed Bump and also gave him a friend to help him get through. The blocker from his team had the job of getting into the pack and just blazing holes in their lines or causing havoc to let Speed through. Turns out that adding just one blocker makes a noticable difference, but by then we had made decent headway in working together, so it wasn't a complete slaughter.

Practice ended with some of the team going to skate the Springwater trail. Since my legs had long since turned to mush by then and my left skate was trying to forcefully divide like a single celled organism, I was not amongst them. Gonna be sore tomorrow, but I am happy as a clam with the team progress.

Goal for the next two weeks (no practice next weekend):Skate lower, apparently I need to be dragging my sack to avoid being yelled at...

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Pack Skate FTW!

So after missing last week's practice to go to CA to compete in the HPVC contest (PSU team took second, best in college history to date) I spent a week hacking and coughing up chunks of lung. When Sunday rolled around I felt more or less like I was ready to skate again, so naturally this would be our first 2-hour practice.

The Whip was late arriving after attending an RCR board meeting just before practice, so Faux Paul took whistle duty and had us doing combinations of pyramid sprints and other general warm-up drills. After about 20 minutes of thinking I might not die The Whip showed up and any foolish hopes of survival were dashed against the rocky coast of her merciless rule.

Apparently in the practice I missed they did more pack drills and I was sorely jealous. This was wasted jealousy. We were handed pennys, and practiced 4 vs 4 for what to do when one side's jammer was in the box. Initially this meant a messy free for all of those who could hit trouncing those who could not. While I still don't feel great hitting, it turns out I can soak up a decent hit without too much effort (thx gravity!), so I really enjoyed this. If your team's jammer was called out in the box your side had to get out front and speed the pack up, and the other team tried to catch one and slow things down. After a couple pile-ups Susan had us just use positional and booty blocking rather than laying each other out. Good times...

Another new drill was what I dubbed the conga line. first we were spaced out at arms length and the rearmost person weaves to the front. After a couple cycles the rear person did self-assists off each person. Then we finally got to do whips. Alternating inside and outside we slung our teammates ahead of us until it was our turn. While I'm a bit heavy to properly get a significant boost from most of my teammates, it works great in reverse. Even The Whip said I was good at giving whips, which I considered a huge success for the day.

Goal for next week: Skate lower so I'm not constantly being told to stay low all practice.