Incase you somehow managed to sleep through the many announcements (my apologies to narcoleptics and those recently recovering from a coma) QUADTASTROPHE 2010 starts tomorrow afternoon! Portland Men's Roller Derby is hosting a variety of events about town this weekend and you're invited!
See the Schedule of Events for locations and start times of the different events. Who knows, maybe you'll get to see the rare Speedicus Bumpicus on a vert ramp or get to experience the unstoppable force that is Carpe Demon's block. Odds are you can skate at least as well as I can, but no one will hold that against you.
Everyone is welcome and we hope to see you there!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
And now we sweat
Practice this morning, earlier than usual to accommodate the double header for the final day of the Hometown Throwdown (Awesome derby weekend with 6 bouts of nationally ranked teams, so we got started at 9am instead of our usual 11am. That 2 hour earlier start time meant I got less sleep the night before, but also meant a 15+ degree cooler hangar to practice in, good trade!
Speed Dealer, Earl Slick, and Macho-Mexican/Han Cholo were up from Lane county concussion and started us out with some endurance work. First up was paceline work, lapping the pack before weaving through. Next we did the elevator doors paceline which has been shamelessly stolen from the B.A.D. girls warm-ups. In this drill, the paceline constantly spreads from the center of the track to the inner/outer boundaries and then back to the center at the whistle while the people in the back shoot ahead 1-3 spots every whistle until they reach the front. It helps teach quick steps, lateral movement, awareness, communication, and some unfortunate fitness as well. Apparently roller derby involves exercise. Unfortunately, it also involved an injury. Killa'volt locked wheels during a split and went down hard on a knee he had been nursing for the last month, resulting in swelling and bruising that undid a lot of patience & time spent healing.
Since LCC can out-pace the majority of our team, they led us through pyramid sprints as an endurance/speed building exercise. A skater starts with 1 lap sprinting, then a lap coasting, then 2 of each and so on up to 5 laps and then working back down to one lap. As much fun as that sounds, again it turned out to be more exercise. I did appreciate the work though and can see places I can improve my speed and form for a more efficient stride and better lap time. In particular, I liked how this drill really helped me get a head start on my sweating for the day, something I was worried might not get going properly today, with a high of only 96 deg...
After the screaming stopped Anarchy counted us off into two teams and were we given the privilege of wearing red and black pennies that were previously used to wrap cadavers that sat in the sun. Seriously, someone needs to wash or burn those things, they are a bigger health risk than smoking or Keith Richards. I was on the red team consisting of myself, Han Cholo, Speed Dealer, Next of Ken, Silent Mob, and El Guapo. Demon, Bubba, Earl Slick, Beeswhacks, Kill Nye, Boof, and later Cupples SK8 made up the black team. Scrimmage was more heavily slanted towards what I am used to compared to the scrimmage last Monday; strong defensive walls, communication, and teamwork. Bubba took a bad fall that hyper-extended an elbow (scary) for our second injury of the day. Jams were moving at a faster pace than previous scrimmages with fewer/shorter breaks in between. I jammed a few times with moderate success, except for one jam where Bubba was invisible only to me and somehow got by without me seeing him, causing no small amount of embarrassment.
Goal for the week: Survive California, cause I'm going camping. Gonna try not to get back-blocked by a pinecone!
Speed Dealer, Earl Slick, and Macho-Mexican/Han Cholo were up from Lane county concussion and started us out with some endurance work. First up was paceline work, lapping the pack before weaving through. Next we did the elevator doors paceline which has been shamelessly stolen from the B.A.D. girls warm-ups. In this drill, the paceline constantly spreads from the center of the track to the inner/outer boundaries and then back to the center at the whistle while the people in the back shoot ahead 1-3 spots every whistle until they reach the front. It helps teach quick steps, lateral movement, awareness, communication, and some unfortunate fitness as well. Apparently roller derby involves exercise. Unfortunately, it also involved an injury. Killa'volt locked wheels during a split and went down hard on a knee he had been nursing for the last month, resulting in swelling and bruising that undid a lot of patience & time spent healing.
Since LCC can out-pace the majority of our team, they led us through pyramid sprints as an endurance/speed building exercise. A skater starts with 1 lap sprinting, then a lap coasting, then 2 of each and so on up to 5 laps and then working back down to one lap. As much fun as that sounds, again it turned out to be more exercise. I did appreciate the work though and can see places I can improve my speed and form for a more efficient stride and better lap time. In particular, I liked how this drill really helped me get a head start on my sweating for the day, something I was worried might not get going properly today, with a high of only 96 deg...
After the screaming stopped Anarchy counted us off into two teams and were we given the privilege of wearing red and black pennies that were previously used to wrap cadavers that sat in the sun. Seriously, someone needs to wash or burn those things, they are a bigger health risk than smoking or Keith Richards. I was on the red team consisting of myself, Han Cholo, Speed Dealer, Next of Ken, Silent Mob, and El Guapo. Demon, Bubba, Earl Slick, Beeswhacks, Kill Nye, Boof, and later Cupples SK8 made up the black team. Scrimmage was more heavily slanted towards what I am used to compared to the scrimmage last Monday; strong defensive walls, communication, and teamwork. Bubba took a bad fall that hyper-extended an elbow (scary) for our second injury of the day. Jams were moving at a faster pace than previous scrimmages with fewer/shorter breaks in between. I jammed a few times with moderate success, except for one jam where Bubba was invisible only to me and somehow got by without me seeing him, causing no small amount of embarrassment.
Goal for the week: Survive California, cause I'm going camping. Gonna try not to get back-blocked by a pinecone!
Monday, August 2, 2010
I am (not) The Plow King!!!
Once again I am behind in my posts, so I'll summarize to date as best I can...
(8/1) Practice happened again. Skatie Kat joined forces with The Whip help direct the circus of misery, and was an excellent resource for seeing how the things we were doing looked when done correctly. Captain Obvious, having recently failed a durability test involving him, a car, and asphalt (seriously though, get better soon), was an extra set of eyes offering encouragement and input along with one of our newest members who is getting skates/gear the middle of this month.
Because we have aspirations of someday bouting LCC, and by someday I mean mid September, The Whip and Skatie pushed us through the skill assessment list, but not before my least favorite endurance drill ever. The 50 in 15! Fifty laps around the outside of the track, Speed Bump seems to like this one (because he can do it... healthy bastard) and once again led the charge. I kept pace with the fast group for the first 10-12 laps before admitting I was a failure on wheels and shifted to inside the track where I kept skating for the remainder of the 15 minutes. After the Bataan Death March on wheels we circled up and started stretching, then started into the checklist of things I need to work on.
We made it as far as the whips and hip assists before time was up for the day. Plow stops continued to be something that other people do, and some of the stepping stuff (seriously, who walks around in skates...) was awkward to say the least. My cross-body whips were another area that requires immediate improvement, but everything else I did seemed to be up to snuff. And by up to snuff I mean how a person might look if they did it during a seizure.
As the time was winding down, it became apparent to those with the whistles that we hadn't skated enough. 25 laps in 5 minutes, which attainable still isn't something I do for fun. But I completed them once again. Then I cried.
(8/5) Our first outdoor practice this year.
Captain Obvious ran the show for the 4 of us (Myself, Next of Ken, El Guapo, and Stovepipe) who made it, using the area & supplies to try and make the best of our time. Lots of maneuverability and basic skills work. Plow stops still weren't impressive, but I could reliably shed some speed and stop from a slow pace within 20ft. Later, Cupples showed up (OMG!) and ran us through some form skating and more basic skills work. Skating outdoors ~3/5 stars. Skating outdoors in the blistering sun <1/5 stars... El Guapo's super-kickass snakeskin skate boots totally made it all worthwhile though!
(8/7) Endurance practice.
Ever walk through a desert? While walking through that desert did you ever think to yourself "This would be better if I skated across this desert while Skatie Kat constantly told me to skate lower and went 2x as fast as me without breaking a sweat"? Well if you have wondered that I can tell you that it really doesn't make it any better. On the bright side, I did get to work on using my long legs to really get some lengthy strides to achieve (relatively) faster speeds for a given effort level. Also, I did not puke or cry, so I consider the whole thing a success.
(8/8) Practice
Holy crap, we have a full team! 14 people were there, and while some were still fairly new, we had a bench worth of players in the same structure. It felt weird... but in a good way.
SBA pushed us through some warm up exercises and then we were right into the meat & potatoes... The sweaty man-on-man action that is pushing drills. I was paired with Carpe Demon and Bubba Fett during different drills, both of roughly the same weight class. Demon showed me the source of his secret power (besides raw power itself) and we worked on getting a leg in front when steering another player off the track. Once that other player gets a leg in front you are really fighting an uphill battle. If that player is Demon then you are just delaying the inevitable, cause you can only do so much before he cheerfully steers you off the track.
After a handful of similar drills, we scrimmaged. Not that little 4 vs 3 stuff we have done in the past, I mean full on 5 vs 5 scrimmage. It was great, we even got to use the benches. Injured skaters and coaching staff officiated and it was go-time. It felt really good to really scrimmage, even more than our first short-sided versions. Cupples showed up and was good to go, I look forward to watching him & Speed Bump go head to head someday. Pack strategy, communication, and awareness was present on both sides, and we got to see our hard work shaping up. Unfortunately, I took a finger to the eye that almost touched brain (good luck washing that out from under your fingernail!) midway through, which tore a contact and left me with a bit more of a handicap than my standard ineptitude. Since I am about 90% testosterone, confirmed by my very-real doctor I assure you, I got back in the mix a couple jams later and had a blast with no serious decrease in performance.
(8/9) Lane County Concussion Practice
Since we are on mutually good terms with LCC we figured a bunch of us would head down to their practice and roll with them. I had been once before an knew that they were all good skaters with endurance that I would pay good money to get in pill form. They had a pretty good turnout with us there (4 PMRD, 9 LCC skaters, + SBA & Cpt Obvious along to officiate/observe). We started out by doing some core exercises in the center. Each skater called out an exercise and we all did 10-15 of them. Apparently derby involves exercise, which was a shock to some of us PMRD folk. Once we had successfully developed washboard abs, the paceline of doom began. I had seen this before, but that doesn't make experiencing it any less traumatic. LCC's paceline move about half-again as fast as ours often do, and they had some aggressive drills while they burn out the laps. I wasn't going to show weakness by quitting so I hammered down and pushed all the way through, but it was still awfully trying. Apparently more endurance practices are required... damnit.
Once the speed-skate was over sides were chosen and we scrimmaged like nobody's business. I was on the white team with a couple guys I knew from my previous visit while the other 3 PMRD skaters (Demon, NoK, & Bubba) were on the black team. About 3-4 jams into the scrimmage I realized how badly I missed my teammates. Our (PMRD) defense and pack work is very different than theirs (LCC) and playing against our guys without that same support was frustrating. Demon & Bubba continually carved through the pack, moving/leveling anyone who tried to oppose them while NoK continually filled gaps in their lines and held blockers/jammers up as we made attempts to mix things up. At halftime, Speed Dealer noted that the 3-man wall they (black) were building by turn 2 was reliably shutting us down, and we needed to do something about it. Unfortunately for our team (white) by the time we got our tactics working it was too late and the other team had too much of a lead to catch up. Awesome to scrimmage 2 days in a row, but I was wicked sore the next day.
Goal for the weekend: Work on lateral stepping and knock-down blocking.
(8/1) Practice happened again. Skatie Kat joined forces with The Whip help direct the circus of misery, and was an excellent resource for seeing how the things we were doing looked when done correctly. Captain Obvious, having recently failed a durability test involving him, a car, and asphalt (seriously though, get better soon), was an extra set of eyes offering encouragement and input along with one of our newest members who is getting skates/gear the middle of this month.
Because we have aspirations of someday bouting LCC, and by someday I mean mid September, The Whip and Skatie pushed us through the skill assessment list, but not before my least favorite endurance drill ever. The 50 in 15! Fifty laps around the outside of the track, Speed Bump seems to like this one (because he can do it... healthy bastard) and once again led the charge. I kept pace with the fast group for the first 10-12 laps before admitting I was a failure on wheels and shifted to inside the track where I kept skating for the remainder of the 15 minutes. After the Bataan Death March on wheels we circled up and started stretching, then started into the checklist of things I need to work on.
We made it as far as the whips and hip assists before time was up for the day. Plow stops continued to be something that other people do, and some of the stepping stuff (seriously, who walks around in skates...) was awkward to say the least. My cross-body whips were another area that requires immediate improvement, but everything else I did seemed to be up to snuff. And by up to snuff I mean how a person might look if they did it during a seizure.
As the time was winding down, it became apparent to those with the whistles that we hadn't skated enough. 25 laps in 5 minutes, which attainable still isn't something I do for fun. But I completed them once again. Then I cried.
(8/5) Our first outdoor practice this year.
Captain Obvious ran the show for the 4 of us (Myself, Next of Ken, El Guapo, and Stovepipe) who made it, using the area & supplies to try and make the best of our time. Lots of maneuverability and basic skills work. Plow stops still weren't impressive, but I could reliably shed some speed and stop from a slow pace within 20ft. Later, Cupples showed up (OMG!) and ran us through some form skating and more basic skills work. Skating outdoors ~3/5 stars. Skating outdoors in the blistering sun <1/5 stars... El Guapo's super-kickass snakeskin skate boots totally made it all worthwhile though!
(8/7) Endurance practice.
Ever walk through a desert? While walking through that desert did you ever think to yourself "This would be better if I skated across this desert while Skatie Kat constantly told me to skate lower and went 2x as fast as me without breaking a sweat"? Well if you have wondered that I can tell you that it really doesn't make it any better. On the bright side, I did get to work on using my long legs to really get some lengthy strides to achieve (relatively) faster speeds for a given effort level. Also, I did not puke or cry, so I consider the whole thing a success.
(8/8) Practice
Holy crap, we have a full team! 14 people were there, and while some were still fairly new, we had a bench worth of players in the same structure. It felt weird... but in a good way.
SBA pushed us through some warm up exercises and then we were right into the meat & potatoes... The sweaty man-on-man action that is pushing drills. I was paired with Carpe Demon and Bubba Fett during different drills, both of roughly the same weight class. Demon showed me the source of his secret power (besides raw power itself) and we worked on getting a leg in front when steering another player off the track. Once that other player gets a leg in front you are really fighting an uphill battle. If that player is Demon then you are just delaying the inevitable, cause you can only do so much before he cheerfully steers you off the track.
After a handful of similar drills, we scrimmaged. Not that little 4 vs 3 stuff we have done in the past, I mean full on 5 vs 5 scrimmage. It was great, we even got to use the benches. Injured skaters and coaching staff officiated and it was go-time. It felt really good to really scrimmage, even more than our first short-sided versions. Cupples showed up and was good to go, I look forward to watching him & Speed Bump go head to head someday. Pack strategy, communication, and awareness was present on both sides, and we got to see our hard work shaping up. Unfortunately, I took a finger to the eye that almost touched brain (good luck washing that out from under your fingernail!) midway through, which tore a contact and left me with a bit more of a handicap than my standard ineptitude. Since I am about 90% testosterone, confirmed by my very-real doctor I assure you, I got back in the mix a couple jams later and had a blast with no serious decrease in performance.
(8/9) Lane County Concussion Practice
Since we are on mutually good terms with LCC we figured a bunch of us would head down to their practice and roll with them. I had been once before an knew that they were all good skaters with endurance that I would pay good money to get in pill form. They had a pretty good turnout with us there (4 PMRD, 9 LCC skaters, + SBA & Cpt Obvious along to officiate/observe). We started out by doing some core exercises in the center. Each skater called out an exercise and we all did 10-15 of them. Apparently derby involves exercise, which was a shock to some of us PMRD folk. Once we had successfully developed washboard abs, the paceline of doom began. I had seen this before, but that doesn't make experiencing it any less traumatic. LCC's paceline move about half-again as fast as ours often do, and they had some aggressive drills while they burn out the laps. I wasn't going to show weakness by quitting so I hammered down and pushed all the way through, but it was still awfully trying. Apparently more endurance practices are required... damnit.
Once the speed-skate was over sides were chosen and we scrimmaged like nobody's business. I was on the white team with a couple guys I knew from my previous visit while the other 3 PMRD skaters (Demon, NoK, & Bubba) were on the black team. About 3-4 jams into the scrimmage I realized how badly I missed my teammates. Our (PMRD) defense and pack work is very different than theirs (LCC) and playing against our guys without that same support was frustrating. Demon & Bubba continually carved through the pack, moving/leveling anyone who tried to oppose them while NoK continually filled gaps in their lines and held blockers/jammers up as we made attempts to mix things up. At halftime, Speed Dealer noted that the 3-man wall they (black) were building by turn 2 was reliably shutting us down, and we needed to do something about it. Unfortunately for our team (white) by the time we got our tactics working it was too late and the other team had too much of a lead to catch up. Awesome to scrimmage 2 days in a row, but I was wicked sore the next day.
Goal for the weekend: Work on lateral stepping and knock-down blocking.
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