Roller Derby World Cup

This is totally happening in Toronto Canada RIGHT NOW!! you should check it out over at http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/ it is absolutely amazing to watch!

 

Lockout

My boyfriend is a HUGE hockey fan. He works at an ice rink, and coaches little hockey players and spends extra time with tiny goalies. (i just need to add that the only thing cuter than a tiny derby girl is a ridiculously tiny hockey player)

Anyways, being the hockey fan/snob that he is, Chris is loving making fun of the recent lock outs. Hockey went through one years ago and well, we all have that kid inside us that likes saying neener neener!

So here is a great little article from another blog about why you should watch derby during the lockout though I'm sure Chris would tell you to watch hockey :)

http://littleanecdote.wordpress.com/

I love derby skirts

Heres tonights outfit

It's been a while since I wore a skirt so I had kind of forgotten just how fun they are! Heres a close up since the material is really fun

I'm really looking forward to practice tonight, I finally convinced my friend Ashley to join and its her first night on skates. More about her later :)

You know your a derby girl when....

Checking my email this morning there was a great one from Purl (I love her she's awesome) the email started like this...
"As I was going about my daily morning routine, I came across the most recent USArollersports magazine.  Since it typically only has maybe 2 pages on actual derby I knew I could take a moment to sit and peruse the small amount of pertinent info before tossing the mag into the recycle bin.   The one article that I actually smiled at was called: You know you're a derby girl if:"

She then challenged us to come up with our own lists so here's my ten

You know you’re a derby girl when:

1. you give away a whole box of stuff to make room in your closet for a box of tools, bearings, bearing cleaning system etc.

2. you bug all your all your friends all the time about joining derby because you cant imagine life without it

3. you have more booty shorts then underwear

4. you promise crazy favors in exchange for a babysitter during practice times

5. you regularly visit adult shops in search of new awesome tights

6. planning your work outfit for the next day includes covering hug bruise/floor burn/permanent marker numbers

7. you struggle to remember real names and don’t recognize new team mates without leggings and a helmet

8. your fears about breaking your leg aren't cost or pain, but how long you wont be able to skate (and what about so and so who didn’t come back....)

9. your teammates come into contact with your boobs and butt nearly as often as your boyfriend

10. you realize that half your friends on facebook are other leagues and skaters

Monster Hats and Lost Derby Shorts

So I've actually been researching and working on this long post about slow derby and the strategy behind it, that being said I have to share my new monster hats.....



This is Aidens favorite :)

I also just found a whole bunch of half finished derby shorts! So as soon as the elastic waist bands are in I'll let you take a peak.

The TaTa's they are distracting...

I really wanted to post something glorious and inspirational today. Last night I was paying attention like no other, and even though I was feeling a little frustrated I just knew there was writing material to be found.

Then I led the stretches and Purl stared at my boobs.

Their rather large you see (always have been) and while I am used to people staring at them, bumping into them, asking if they are real etc. derby girls and my boobs have been a whole new experience. Unless it’s a turtle neck or a tight traditional t-shirt the neck line will probably gap and show some cleavage, especially if I'm bending over. So while demonstrating a stretch I guess they looked impressive, which I was told, it wasn’t the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last but it blew my concentration.

If you’re looking for some derby inspiration then you should totally watch the North Central Playoffs this weekend. I'm fascinated with the differences from region to region and seeing all this amazing skating is doing interesting things to my psyche I think...

Wheels

I am getting new derby wheels! These ones from RollerBones :)

See when I went to watch Western Regionals with Reckless RollerBones had a booth, and Reckless got wheels and I was jealous. So I found them, and I’m getting them (I love online shopping!) I can’t wait!

Buying Derby gear is a new thing for me, I haven’t been previously financially stable enough to even think about new wheels. I have never had wheels that didn’t come with my skates. I am a big believer in reuse until dead simply out of necessity, sometimes I think I get so caught up in my reuse belief that guilt for new items gets in the way. Part of it is probably being a mom to, I feel like if there’s the money to buy it for myself than there has to be something Aiden needs more. It’s a vicious cycle. Thankfully, Aiden’s birthday and Christmas are coming up, the cupboards are full of food and my boyfriend got more hours, hence the miracle of new wheels. What’s next? Perhaps some wrist guards that don’t have deteriorating Velcro……

Derby Outfit

tonights outfit for practice :) a close up of the shorts too as they are my newest creation!

ignore my slightly messy room

ruffle shorts!

Rose City Rollers I love thee!

I really love Portland. I day dream about moving there and know ridiculous amounts of useless information regarding the place. One of my favorite things to do in Portland is watch roller derby, the Rose City Rollers are the bomb.

and so are their fans....

The one standing on the stairs in the pegacorn vest was entertaining as hell! The thing I liked the most about the Rose City Fans is that they were generally positive, all their regular cheers are in suport of their team and there was only one (hilarious) instance of a unified cheer directed at the other team. They really were a ton of fun to sity with, especially after sitting below the drunken shit talker earlier in the day. Kinda got me thinking about the difference fans can make, sitting with Rose Citys cheering section was fun, and even though I already wanted them to win I certainly was more vocal about it.  When I was sitting below the terrible B.A.D fan for their game against Denver I started out unsure of who to cheer for and then felt like cheering for Denver just because of how terrible she was.

Rose City won against Rat City and will be going to Nationals! You should have heard the fans when that happened...

Saturday at Western Regionals!

Disclaimer: these are just my opinions and observations; for super awesome recaps (if you couldn't watch) visit www.derbynewsnetwork.com

First game yesterday was Angel City vs Bay Area, we slept in a little bit and got there about half through so the only observation I really have is man did I feel for those Angel City girls. Final score 227-70 in Bay Area's favor. Ouch. And the ouch just kept on coming with the next game, Tuscon vs Denver final score 387 - 18 in Denver's favor. Watching the skating here is amazing, just the scores don't do it justice, the teams with those high scores are still working pretty hard for those high scores. Though that game was the biggest blow out of the day.

The next game, while the next game is probably going to be the majority of my post here because I still really don't know what to think. Rat City vs Rocky Mountain promised to be a good and intense game, and it was on a whole different level.

Right away Rat City used an......interesting strategy. Lining up stacked right up against the jam line and not moving. This does several things, first it forced Rocky Mountain to play their game because if Rocky skated forward to get the game moving they broke pack, jammers jumped off the line and the Rocky jammer is stuck and Rocky can't block the Rat City jammer while they are out of play. Again, if Rocky takes a knee to break pack then the other team is standing and has that first defense. It was crazy, because Rocky didn't want to give up any advantage and there were (i think) two jams were everyone stood still on the track for the whole two minutes. When you get the crowd chanting skate in unison its pretty bad.

My opinion of Rat City did not improve as things continued. One jam stood still for 2 minutes and all Rat City did was take one girl of the line and put a new one in her spot. So the next jam stood everyone on the jam line  for about a minute 15 seconds, then people were skating and the jam ended again before any points were scored. A rather upset fan behind me "F*** you Rat City!! Great strategy, you can't lose if you dont skate!!!"  which was about how everyone felt, except that Rat City was losing. They were down 20-30 points and while they were preventing Rocky Mountain from scoring anything they were killing their scoring chances as well.  During one of the two minute stand stills a skater from Rocky Mountain skated forward and started figure skating.

The sad part is that when the two teams were skating it was amazing derby! I have a new derby crush, #21 from Rocky Mountain who held the jammer over halfway around the track on her own and then delivered huge hit resulting in a jammer on her ass out of bounds scenario. We sat with Nik Yo Face and she was in love with Rocky Mountains # 27 and I cant say that I blame, the girls skeleton leggings were enough to make me love her, but she was an amazing jammer as well. Ending score was 117-107 to Rocky Mountain.

Next game was Bay Area vs Jet City (oh my god can you imagine skating twice in a day?!?!). This moved at a faster pace, and shocker they lined up on the pivot line! Though I still saw more moving backwards as a pack then I have ever seen before. This was another one of those oh I gosh I feel for you girls bouts with the final score being 302 - 55 in Bay Area's favor.

At this point Reckless and I got back on the MAX and went downtown to find some lunch. We ended up finding this amazing little restaurant called Pastini's where I had the most amazing stuffed manicotti for like 10 bucks. We finished it off by splitting the equivalent of chocolate lava cake with whipped cream, needless to say I didn't eat the rest of the day.

Not gonna lie, I didn't pay too much attention to the 5:30 game, I was way to full and enjoying some stimulating conversation about strategy, boyfriends, and derby butt cheeks. I was also trying to figure out how many beers Reckless had had. Sacred City vs Denver ended 220-59 in Denver's favor.

The final game of the day was absolutely amazing, the crowd was huge and I'm not sure anyone expected Oly to have to fight that hard. Oly vs Rose City was definitely the game of the day and I'm so incredibly happy I was there. That was Derby. Rose City did an amazing job of holding Oly and at the half the score was something along the lines of 68 - 65 Oly. It was incredible. Rose City's Fans are the most awesome people, I saw people dress up as I think unicorns/pegasus all over the place, and talk about a sea of purple I wish I had remembered my camera. There's so many things to say about that game that I'm going to write a seperate post, in case I have you wondering though Oly won 161 - 132.

Now I'm off to day 2 of my grand derby adventure!

Western Regionals!

I'm so incredibly excited to be heading out to Portland today after work to watch the Western Regional’s in person on Saturday and Sunday! Reckless and I will be right there immersing our selves in Derby amazing, seeing more games and action at one time then ever before! Overload? Maybe. I figure it’s like thanksgiving, eating too much and being perfectly happy with it.

I'm practically shaking with excitement at the idea of watching teams like the Oly Rollers, Denver Roller Dolls, Rose City Rollers and Bay Area Derby Girls, too name a few. Its going to be amazing, and if your new to watching and would like to learn all you can you should definitely spend a few minutes (hours) perusing www.derbynewsnetwork.com the site is awesome and I always learn something new. Their Western Regionals Preveiw was extremely enlightening this year and did nothing but make me wish even harder that I had more paid time off.

Right now I am indulging in watching the first game between Jet City and Tucson, want to watch too? Go here http://derbynewsnetwork.com/live/bouts/2011/09/game_1_tucson_v_jet_city you can watch the games live for free all weekend! I know there’s at least one viewing party in lovely Walla Walla, got any scheduled for your area?

The Kid Rules

This is the kid, shes four and I love her very much! It happened before I was expecting but I love being a mom. Sometimes though, sometimes its inconvienent. Like this week, this week the kid over rules derby.

I missed practice last night, and I am going to miss practice on thursday. Last night was a combination of errors, ultimatley resulting in a very upset clung to mom child. I was already late and at some point decided F*** It. Im going to sit on the couch and snuggle.

Thursday is special needs preschool orientation at the same time as you guessed it, derby practice. Good thing we have sunday practices, if i dont get some derby soon nobody is going to be happy. Oh, and thank God for my sewing machine! Because when there isnt practice theres always shorts to make.....

Pause

It’s been a while since I posted anything, I’m sorry. Usually Derby and I have a very strong relationship, I love it, don’t want to miss practice, can’t wait for the next derby event. Last week didn’t work out that way, the week before wasn’t so hot either. First, my little family experienced some medical issues, these were frustrating and took our attention away from everything else. That was the first week that I didn’t attend practice.

The next week I just felt a little uninspired. The honeymoon phase for me and roller derby has been over for a long time, someone hipped checked those rose colored glasses right off. I still loved it though, even more whole heartedly than before, “See me?? I see these flaws and I LOVE them!!” I’m past that now. Right now the theme seems to be “damn, shit just got serious.”  

Derby complicates things. It takes a lot of time, energy, patience, money, etc. The ratio of reward to stress that I have at this time is probably about 60:40. I figure that if stress ever trumps reward than I need to quit, what’s scary is how real of a possibility that happens to be. Roller Derby started as a lark, and turned into my savior. Being at practice was an escape from being a young mom, having an uncertain relationship, caring for a disabled child, worrying about my siblings, not going to school, working full time, you name it I was forgetting about it at derby practice. Then, derby turned into one of those things to worry about. Now my excitement is tentative, my love flowing a little less freely. I see issues I want to help fix, but I worry about the expense, the toll derby could be taking. The fear is, how much is this worth?

A month or so ago someone told me that I had reached an evaluating stage in life. Whatever, it goes like this; someone turned the overthink switch to ‘on’ and forgot to tell me how to turn it off.

Even with all this I’m excited to go to practice tonight, the off switch may be broken but at least I found the pause button. Here’s hoping I don’t break it.

Brain Dead and Magenta

I have had the worst case of writers block in my life the last few days. It’s been a traumatic stretch. Maybe it’s because I’m using all my creativity writing procedures at work, or perhaps its because home is a stress stew right now. Either way it’s annoying.

Also annoying is the gorgeous bruise on my thigh from the bout on Saturday, I slide into the penalty box on top of someone else’s skate so its not even a cool story. It hurts, like whenever I move. I had been taking the stairs at work, but the elevator and I have become reacquainted.

Isnt it prety? Its like 7 inches long with the trail of little bruises

Hopefully I will have something better to say after practice tomorrow, we are voting for the 9^th board position. Any public speaking done in derby format is usually hilarious to some degree.

Purple is my favorite color

 I have 9 bruises right now, 6 of which are on my right leg. That particular leg is like a magnet I swear! There are two scars on the shin from skates being run down it and one bruise has been there for nearly a month, every time it starts to go away I land on someone’s skate again.  

Before practice yesterday I noticed that quite a few of my possessions are purple and decided it’s a good color, I then promptly smacked into the end of my bed creating yet another bruise. Good thing bruises are generally purple.

Purple is also one of the colors for my team (red is the other one). A team which is traveling to Boise this weekend for our last travel game this year, this is incredibly exciting for me. Travelling can be stressful; it has a lot of up sides and a lot of down sides. Upside – getting to skate! Downside – riding in the car for hours. Upside – meeting new awesome derby girls! Downside – being away from my family. Upside – getting mini derby vacations with my team! Downside – vacations cost money. It’s definitely riding the derby emotional roller coaster.

I’m still excited though! A non-derby friend of mine is coming along and I adore road trips with this girl. We’re heading up on Friday the day before the bout which I don’t always get to do and this means leaving work early hooray! My derby wife is riding with us and is going to run the merch table during the bout (she’s awesome by the way) and we’re rooming with Reckless and Grenade at the hotel. The rooming is especially awesome because these two are hilarious and splitting rooms 5 ways makes everybody happy.

Really it’s all just generally awesome. Which is why its so fantastic that we wear red and purple, they are awesome colors, and purple is one of my favorites after all.

Derby Love

I wasn’t going to go to practice on Sunday. Its not that I didn’t want to go, I REALLY wanted to. However the boyfriends job had different plans, with no way to get there and no babysitter (my daughter is 4) I was stuck. And then Reckless called! I text her to say that I couldn’t go and could she please tell who ever was running practice that it wasn’t for a lack of trying. About 2 minutes later the phone rang and sweet Reckless told me to be ready I had a ride and a babysitter.

I almost cried.  This is what they mean by derby family, derby community, derby love. Its awesome, something I wasn’t expecting when I signed up for this and as far I can tell, the biggest best benefit to skating in circles 3 nights a week.

It was a small practice, and to be honest I could have missed it. There wasn’t any enlightening strategy and the fat lip I have today is annoying, but I am so glad I got to go. Serious case of the warm and fuzzies over here.  

this is Reckless :)

Grumpy Scrimmaging

Last night I was grumpy. So was the girl next to me, and the one in front of her. I don’t know why I was grumpy, I don’t know why so many others were grumpy but we were. We didn’t get much scrimmaging done, and that’s ok. Sometimes we big girls just need a laugh or two, we need to let go and play a little bit and make nice. So we did; we played cat and mouse and it was wonderful.

Cat and mouse is this funny little game where people lay in pairs all over the floor and a ‘cat’ chases a ‘mouse’. The mouse skates around erratically looking for a pair of other ‘mice’ to lay down next to, there can only be two people in a pair so the outside mouse now has to get up and evade the cat. If the cat tags them then the rolls reverse.

We have played this game several times and it’s usually funny, last night it was hilarious. Nik Yo Face had this awesome strategy where she skated between two sets of ‘mice’ only about 6 feet apart, I’m not sure she ever was the cat. People danced on their toe stops, and skated with desperation akin only to the possibility of actually being eaten. The whole group collectively groaned for whoever had to try and chase our light-footed ref and screamed encouragement at the unlucky soul trying to evade him. Newer skaters wowed the vets with daredevil evasion techniques and the vets teased each other mercilessly. Coco Crusher ended the whole thing by slide crashing into a wall and then shaking with laughter (a relief since we have a bout in a week and a half).

Being an adult is tough; there are days the world stomps on you and the onset of grumpiness can’t be helped. On days such as those it’s very nice to know that there is a place I can go and relive the grade schools years for 20 minutes. It’s nice to play, another of a billion reasons why I love Roller Derby. Even though two skaters ended up with ice as a result of a mere two minutes of grumpy scrimmaging I’m kind of grateful it happened. Because I got to play with my friends and that’s amazing.

of Sunshine and Dunk Tanks and Derby Fundraisers

First off, Happy Belated Fourth of July!!! Monday had me running all over the place, the most interesting destination being my shift at the league fundraiser where we hosted a dunk tank. “Step right up, dunk your favorite derby girl!!!” and make her sinuses ache the next day.

Getting dunked is not the worst thing I have ever volunteered to do, however it’s certainly not my favorite. At least it was almost hot outside. Anyways, here is a list of the 10 things I discovered about Dunk Tanks and Fund Raisers.

1. Lots of people like dunk tanks, especially dunk tanks run by girls who scream and yelp when they get dunked.
2. Being the dunkee is not nearly as fun as being the dunker
3. Water will go up your nose, there is nothing you can do to prevent it.
4. At the end of the day your group energy will be shot, and if you want to keep making money you will have to keep shouting.
5. It warms peoples hearts when you let the little kids run up and push the button after they don’t manage to hit it with the ball, however this is exhausting and probably dunks you way more times then necessary.
6. That water is ‘effin cold!!!!!
7. Not many people look good through that tank window after their seat has collapsed and dumped them in freezing cold water.
8. When there is a dry girl on that platform sales increase 10 fold. Everyone wants to be the one to ruin her hair style.
9. If you have kids, and they are there they will want to dunk you repeatedly. This is actually good for business, someone actively trying to throw the ball makes the crowd stop and watch. (just don’t let them cheat and push the button.)
10. Part of being a derby girl is being a bit of spectacle. You cannot put that away for the fund raisers because then no one gets interested. Be a SPECTACLE, people are interested in different why do you think freak shows made so much money??

There you have it folks, my words of wisdom on Dunk Tanks. Useful? Probably not. Relevant? Only if your fund raising committee head is crazy like ours. Entertaining? I certainly hope so.