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Well another bout bites the floorboards.
The final Cutthroat Charmers v Dolly Rogers bout of 2012 and the final bout of both teams in their current incarnations is over. The Dolly’s won in a very high scoring game and honestly it would have to be my favorite loss of the year. This last result means in the last 2 years both the Dollys and Charmers have come away with 5 wins each. It looks like next year the league will need to expand to 3 teams due to the awesome amount of wild women we have in our league. This makes me happy but at the same time very sad. It’s been over 2 years since I was drafted to the Cutthroat Charmers. In that time I have experienced amazing wins and hard fought defeats, I have played with some bonafide roller derby super stars, debuting skaters and veterans and I’ve always felt completely at home. I feel so proud and blessed that I got to skate in a team with such an amazing collection of women. So to all of my shiny fellow members of team handsome, past and present, you know how I feel about you and it’s been an absolute honour to skate with you all. Here’s to new beginnings ! During last nights bout I did manage to achieve a couple of my goals. 1. I didn’t get ejected, in fact I got a modest 3 majors from memory and one of those was from four minors. I was a little worried about getting ejected again, especially because in the time between last night and the previous bout I also got ejected from training scrimmage and had to sit in the “party room” sans lesbian goths. Maniac. 2. I jammed. #derp #yolo Jamming in a bout for me has always been a big big big fear. I’ve been bouting now for about a year and a half and my nerves are usually not that bad leading up to a bout. Last night my nerves were perhaps higher than for my debut. The thing is, as a blocker, I know not much focus is on you, unless you have hit the jammer, and even then it’s an after thought. As a jammer all eyes are on you, any mistake is obvious to all but on the flip-side any small victory is also recognised. Basically pressure in increased 10 fold. Leading up the the bout I knew I would be jamming at least a couple of times, and it honestly scared the shit out of me. My jamming style is not what one would consider “traditional”. It’s more “blocking at speed” style. Fellow charmers also refer to it as steamrolling or cannonballing. I had so many fears leading up the bout but the biggest was either not being able to get through and be stuck behind 4 feisty Dollys, or to be drawing lots of majors and getting sent to the bin. The reality was, 3 out of my 4 jams I scored points. I also think I got lead 3 out of 4 times. I did get sent to the bin for a major *cough* backblock on my second jam but still managed to nab 4 points before the jam ended. For me this is a massive win. The weird thing was that when I actually was jamming everything went super quickly, I noticed the crowd even less than usual and thanks to what I think was adrenaline I didn’t even feel the burn. I just want to give a big shout out to my charmers, they had confidence in me that I could jam even when I didn’t and I’m so glad I can now cross bout jamming off my to do list. I don’t even think I would mind if they made me do it again sometime :) In 2 weeks I’ll be traveling to Tasmania as a Siren to play Van Diemen Rollers in Launceston which is pretty exciting. I’ve never been to Tassie before and I’m really looking forward to SSRD coming together as one team and making shit happen. Hopefully good shit. But for now I’m going to spend my Sunday in bed, relaxing my sore muscles and reflecting on an awesome game and my time as a member of such an amazing and inspiring team. <3 Blitz. p.s big ups to #rollerderp for consistent derby related lols. |
The Skates of Wrath
October 21st, 2012School of Hard Blocks
August 13th, 2012 |
Well i’m back from my holiday and back on skates. I just had my first game since TGSS this weekend and I really effing felt it. No radioactive super powers for me it would seem.
The break. First up Japan was one of the best experiences of my life. The people, the efficiency, the scenery and their sense of humour was exactly my cup of tea. I will be returning in the future, hopefully I can take my skates with me next time. As I’m sure many derby girls can agree that even a 2 week break of skates hurts your fitness so an almost 8 week break of relaxation and non dieting left me equal parts fearful and excited to be strapping on my skates again. If I said I was missing derby while I was away that would be a lie. For me at least, derby really does take it’s toll on you. The time commitment alone can definitely seem overwhelming even after 2 and a half years of it being in your routine. In addition, the punishment to your body on a regular basis can leave you feeling like you’ll never be sans bruises again. Everyone needs a break from time to time and I’m glad I had mine. What I did miss was the people. It’s the people that brought me back and it will always be the people that keeps me hanging on. If I didn’t love my league and especially my charmers it would have been VERY easy to walk away rather than push myself back onto the track. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the game. But the love of the game for me will never be enough on it’s own. I’m now 30 and while I am very excited about the direction derby is taking in Australia I know I will never fit the professional athlete archetype that may in the future dominate the sport at least at the highest level of competition. I AM glad to be back though and I am having fun again. It is obvious though that I really need too step it up before our next bout in October. I feel like my hits have been more ferocious since I’ve come back but at the same time they are sloppy and less refined. My head is also not 100% in the right space either, I’ve been forgetful on track and taking longer to get my head around strategies. This brings me to : The ejection. On Saturday night I got my first and hopefully last ejection for racking up too many major penalties. The last being called with 7ish minutes left on the clock after sitting out a few jams. I always wondered if I’d ever get fouled out. Normally I tend to get a maximum of 3 to 4 majors. Saturday was different though. What bothers me most was not the penalties on the track, some I don’t agree with (naturally), but at least a couple were hard earned. It was the two, including the 7th that I secured on the jammer line because I wasn’t focused that are eating me up. The first was coming out of the penalty box. I was told to coast to break the pack and instead took a knee earning myself a major destruction of pack. The second was me being half a second too late to take a knee before the whistle… I’m still having flashbacks… The cry of “5 seconds” OK so everything after the whistle may have only happened inside my head and actual events were much less obvious. Less obvious enough in fact for a majority of people to not even know I was ejected until I came bounding onto the track with an embarrassed grin after the game without skates on. For a brief second there is a small sense of glory involved, people cheer you on and tell you it’s a good thing because it shows you are out there actively doing things, people call you a badass and you stand around flexing and fist pumping (at least in your mind). However that small glory very quickly turned into embarrassment. Everyone was great to me after the game, No one spoke down to me and there were many people that just hugged me and called me brutal. That made me feel much better at the time but in truth when I got home I really just felt like a dickhead. The fact that everyone on the charmers is so understanding and positive makes it feel even worse that I let them down. That is the worst part by far, feeling like you let the most awesome group of women down by being careless and knowing they deserve better. I know this seems overly dramatic, and do you think I feel let down by other people getting expelled? Hell No ! For me though it all comes back to how I racked up those 2 penalties and how stupid it was of me. This has honestly been one of the most emotional experiences for me since I started derby and has made me question a lot about how I play. I couldn’t sleep Sunday night because I was going over and over the mistakes in my head, searching for answers to why my head was not on straight, what I could have done differently, how I’m going to reign in the other penalties I got. I’m confident that I will learn from this experience and be a more reliable player next time. I have not lost my passion for the game and am going to just use this experience to improve. The fact I have such a great team behind me is definitely the major driving force. I love you Charmers, every last one of you. Ok so enough baby tears and gushing.. I have consumed my cup of concrete and am currently in the process of hardening. Just as a last word I’d like to say a big I love you to my wifey from the very the start, Razorbec. We started out together at the same VRDL boot camp and worked our way towards South Sea, with a little push from her I might add, which I cannot thank her enough for. Razor has been inspirational in her determination to get where she is today and I have been extremely proud of her the whole way. I know she has helped so many of the girls in the league never give up, no matter how hard it can be on the way up. Razor had her last SSRD bout on Saturday and even though we were on opposing teams it was an absolute honour to skate with her then, and for the last almost 3 years. I look forward to meeting you on track again in the future. SSRD will miss you sorely, but not as much as me. <3 Blitz. |
Game Of Throwns. TGSS Edition.
June 17th, 2012            |
I finally found my new derby name, well it would be if I wasn’t already so attached to being called blitz. The name has 3 major pros:
I present to you : Dread Stark *Squeeeeee* Now my new identity crisis has been covered I’m not sure what’s left to write about….. Oh that’s right THE GREAT SOUTHERN SLAM OMGSWTFBBQLOLS. I’ll break this bad boy down day by day. DAY ONE Day one started at the never before seen by me time of 4:45 in the am. I along with my carpool buddies, Tristan, J-F, Drew, Zom.B.Smasher, Cookie Crackhouse and Devastatin’Dotti drove out of the Melbourne city limits and on the road to Adelaide. The road trip on the way there can be punctuated by a few key moments that set the fun bar pretty high for the rest of the weekend. 1. Riding the slide in Nhill 4 people at a time. 8 hours in with J-F and Drew napping the the backseat things were looking grim up front. Most of the time was being spent communicating in various fart noises and spotting the USS Enterprise in the clouds. After getting our 5th or so wind we finally arrived in the sleepy town that is Adelaide. First things first and after checking in I was driven by J-F and Dotti to to the showground in the Jetta (aka the Fetta Regretta) to test my wheels out and get my arm band for the next 4 days. The floor was good for my atoms. It was a pretty surreal experience being out there on the track for the first time, everything looked just like it did 2 years ago and it made things very real for me, in a good way, I was now ready to play. The day ended with all of us packed into a hotel room, eating over priced pizza and lounging in our onesies. On a side note : my onesie is a bumble a bee which just happens to be SSRG’s mascot…awkes !!!. Battling to keep our eyes open everyone settled in for an early night. DAY TWO : ACTION We started track-side watching both Geelong and Sun State Battle each other for the first game of our pool. We would be playing both these teams today so it was important to see what we were up against. Sun State are Australia’s second best team so anyone playing these ladies was going to have a tough time. SSRG came out victorious and it was then our turn to start warming up for our game against the Bloody Mary’s. Warming up in our uniforms was brutal, thanks to sadies *salute*, I was sweating more before the game than during but at least I know i was properly warmed up. It was good to see everyone in their new cute uniforms bounding around in excitement. The game started out like it did last time, hard and fast. To be honest alot of the game is a blur. Time was ticking away and we only has 2×20 min halves to play in. By half time SSRD were down by around 40 points. The great thing is this time no one was down about it, everyone was switched on and positive.We had a plan for the next half and we just wanted to get in there and execute it. And execute we did. Changing up the strategy saw us claw back 40 points and gain a lead. Everyone was playing their part and we were playing better as a team than I have ever seen. When the final Jam was over I literally squealed “we did it” and then followed the team chants of fuck yeah ! Amazing moment… Winning against Geelong was a HUGE moment for me. Last time we played I had Glandular Fever and was feeling pretty depressed after they spanked us so hard. After getting a Sirens tattoo I never really felt like I had earned it until today. Today was my first win as a Siren, and in my opinion the best game I have played so far. What makes this victory even sweeter was that we did it without some of our old key players (Mad Mel Arena and Flyin Nun’Chucker <3 who are now rightly VRDL A-Team alumni). As a team we adapted to what was happening on the track, refocused and managed to come back with a win in a very close game. Seriously I was delirious with happiness after. The smile across my face was disturbing to myself and I was embracing anyone that came within a 10 meters radius of me. Belated apologies to those I stink hugged. Final Score : SSRD 110 to GRDL 96. Yay. It wasn’t long however before we had to go and prepare for our second game against the Sun State Roller Girls. At this stage we knew it was going to be a domination but the positive energy from the last game kept everyone in high spirits. We lined up for the second game, smiles on our faces. Those smiles were then smashed off our faces with almost German like precision…Only temporarily though. SSRG played quick, they played efficiently and they played smart. We saw alot of plays we have not really focused on in the past but will no doubt be working on in the near future. By half time we had 4 points on the board. The best thing about this is they way we treated this almost like a win. I think everyone was just super relieved we had points on the board and we weren’t going to have to do a pants off lap after the game. The second half was much like the first but we managed a few more points. I managed to land some big hits on their jammers taking them out for… like a second or so but it’s better than nothing! In this half I did however have my favourite derby moment ever: Last Jam I lined up as the only SSRD blocker against a full suite of SSRG. There was joking from the bench and some laughs. Normally this is pretty much my nightmare scenario but today it just felt fun. The whistle goes, the SSRG jammer steps out and I managed to block her off the track.. all by myself…against 4 SSRG girls….*faint*. I don’t really remember the last part of that jam as I’m pretty sure I was continuously high fiving myself in my head for the next 30 mins. Final Score : SSRG 193 to SSRD 13. Ouch. Loosing to SSRG was *almost* as much fun as winning against arch rivals Geelong. I know everyone learned a massive amount from this game and the SSRG’s were very gracious afterwards and even gave us pointers which were much appreciated. As hard as it is sometimes, swallowing your pride and going into a game where you know bad things are going to happen can be one of the best experiences ever. It’s extremely humbling but you just learn so much and you still get to play the best sport ever in the process. If your interested both games should be up on DNN soon. DAY THREE OH THE PAIN. It became apparent after I literally rolled out of bed that it was just as well that the Sirens had not qualified for day 2 as I have never experienced DOMS of this magnitude. I could barely walk and my cold had come back to grace me with barry white-esc pipes… if only for about half an hour. We went back down to the showgrounds for another day, We watched VRDL start to own people for a little while before taking interest in the challenge bouts, specifically the ones featuring Quadzilla and Razorbec. Tears of pride welled up as I saw my wifey actively blocking Quadzilla and even better, got lead jammer on him. WIN. Days filled with derby go faster than I remembered. before we knew it 8 hours had past again and it was time to go back to the hotel. We headed back after around 7 for some hard earned dumplings and a spa at the hotel. I slept the shit out of sunday night just as I did the previous night. DAY FOUR PAIN. WORSE. ARGH. Back at the showgrounds it was the day of the big final between SSRG and VRDL just like 2 years ago. I had a stint on the merch table before the game and was lucky enough to get squatted by Dayna Might. I don’t know how that girl does it but it was one wild ride. Time for the VRDL/SSRG final and my allegiance was torn. I love VRDL but I was also freshly smitten with SSRG.. I decided to just sit back and watch some fine derby in action. I think the most exciting thing was seeing my old fellow goon nun’chucker out there for the first time. It was incredible to see the changes in her already incredible style since she left SSRD. In my opinion the skill gap between these 2 teams and the rest of Australia is still quite large. So it’s pretty exciting to see them play each other when they get a chance. VRDL came away with the win, not quite the 1 point thriller that it was 2 years ago but it just shows you that as good as VRDL are they can still improve, I’m looking to see how they will be playing the game in another 2 years. As soon as the final finished it was pack up and waddle to the car time to get back to Melbourne as soon as possible. I had to work Tuesday much to everyone else’s annoyance. The drive home seemed to go pretty quick, everyone shared the driving and i was back on my own bed by 3:30 the next day. I have not yet experienced the post TGSS blues and I don’t think I’m going to. I am just thrilled I got to be a part of it. I had an absolutely amazing time with some of my favorite people in the world and I wouldn’t change any of it ! I’ll be back home in 4 weeks from the land of the rising sun. I’m already looking forward to getting back into to training and put some of the TGSS experience into practice. The whole weekend really has re-inspired my love of the game. But for now…I’m Outy! <3 Blitz P.S A big thank you to all of the SSRD NSO’S, Refs, Volunteers and Supporters, TGSS was a better place for having you with us <3. P.P.S A massive congrats the the SSRD Banshee’s on their debut bout and win last night against NSR/LCRD. P.P.P.S 2 years on.. I still want Swish Caraboom’s babies. |
