    videos  |
It has been a mad mad couple of weeks.
TRAINING Training has been awesome. Apart from lots of practice for the yellow star (read: endurance *groans*) we got to do our first scrimmage as white stars. IT WAS AMAZING ! it was “non contact” but still soooo much fun. just quietly…there was some contact but shhh :) I got to be a Dolly for the night and I now have so much more respect for jammers then I did already, which was a boat load btw. I always thought jammers looked pretty casual when they were skating around after the pack after making it through. how wrong I was. That shit is TOUGH ! I fell over on my first jam but on my second I sneaked through the pack twice and then called it off. I had always wanted to make the calling off a jam hand signals legitimately so I can now sleep a little more soundly at night :) If I could shave another 10 or so kgs off this booty of mine and improve my fitness and speed, I think I would love to try to be a jammer. I honestly see myself as more of an inside line blocker… but we’ll see ;) Last week we also got treated to a skate maintenance lesson by my first SSRD crush Bonnie Crash. I now know exactly what all the parts of my skates are called and I think I may even be able to pull them apart and put them back together again if I had to. That’s IF I had to, there’s no way I’m just doing it for funsies. Bonnie also recently offered to let me borrow some narrow wheels, lowboys to be exact, and I’m really liking them. I feel a little quicker/more agile and much less likely to lock wheels with someone. I’m just going to try them on the Carrum surface first before I decide which hardness, sorry durometer, I’m going to go out and buy with my tax return :) I LOVE this time of year ! YELLOW STAR TEST The yellow star is tommorow. I would love to make it through. It means I’ll get drafted to a team and get to update the snazzy white star to yellow on my helmet. Some days I’m confident and other days I’m not. The thing I am worried most about is Satan’s Mattress: Lying down feet against the wall, whistle blows, get up as fast as you can and baseball slide into the opposite wall without slamming into it. Rinse and repeat for a few minutes. The getting up and down quickly makes me feel a little dizzy after about a minute so I think I’ll just pace myself and concentrate on my baseball slide form. The other nerve wrecking thing is weaving pace lines, I can do them but I know my form is not always up to scratch. Here’s hoping I can scrape by on my body bridges, push ups, sit ups and endurance.. wow I never thought I would be relying on push-ups to get me over the line. BOUT FOR BLOOD : FIRST SSRD PUBLIC BOUT Seriously amazing night. The venue was amazing, the crowd was massive and enthusiastic and the action was seriously nail biting. All the girls played awesomely and was so good to see them all out there for the first time. I was blocker penalty timing on the night and I had my hands pretty full some times. Bad Dollys ;). Lesson of the night : YELL LOUDER! A big well done to the Cutthroat Charmers who took the game 112 to 100. I really thought the Dolly Rogers were going to steal victory towards the end. I can’t wait for next time in October to see a few more South Sea girls in the mix. ROLLERAMA FUNDRAISER As some of you have heard, one of the sweetest derby girls I know, Thunderhorse (aka Heather Dixon), was victim of a house fire last week which burninated pretty much everything she owned, including taking her 2 beloved kittys. To help raise funds to get her back on track there will be a fun skate night at Caribbean Rollerama on Thursday the 23rd of September. More details to come but save the date! A big love tap to everyone that has dug deep so far to help out heather and her hero dog Ceaser. Well that is it for now. Hopefully I’ll have some positive news by tommorow night, but if I don’t make it this time there is always next time and the time after that and so on and so on. I will get there. <3 blitz |
Posts Tagged ‘ssrd’
SKATESPOTTING : CHOSE DERBY.
Monday, August 30th, 2010SEMPER SKATE !
Monday, August 16th, 2010    |
CAUTION : LONG BADLY STRUCTURED POST AHEAD.
So initially I was actually planning on writing a post after every training session until our yellow star test. I now realize this was a tad ambitious so I figure I’ll do a training summery every 3 or 4 weeks to cover any new stuff we’ve done and then post about other derby related happenings. So here’s a run down of all the stuff we’ve been doing over the last few weeks :) I had my first SHED training session, quite exciting and bloody cold. I finally got to experience first hand the notorious Dandenong training ground. I had been told in the past that the floor was slippery as hell, well that has certainly changed, I couldn’t plow stop to save my life! One thing was still holding true however, the closeness of the the track to the wall. I almost met intimately with said wall a number of times during the night. We basically went through the yellow star test requirements (which I’ll hopefully be sitting on the 31st of this month *cold sweats* ) This entailed: 60 second body bridge, 50 sit-ups and 20 push ups. Blergh I made the 60 second body bridge..just.. but I’m going to need to work on those push ups… Endurance : 1 min @ 50% capacity, 2 min endurance working on form, 1 min break and then 5 min endurance with a warm down… I was feeling pretty tired after this. I think I performed about as well as I did for white star but I need a clicker to count my laps because my head always loses track and starts looping thinking music. Wide weaves and falls. I think I almost have the weaves down going in either direction. Squat skating : 2 mins of on/off squatting according to whistle blows and then 1 min full squat while skating, 1 min break and then another 1 min of skating in full squat. This as I’m sure you can imagine was the definition of pain. Next up was my favourite game: satan’s mattress. I nearly died….apparently this is on the test and we have to do it for 2 mins… dear god no ! or should that be dear satan no !? After drinking a litre of water it was time for some weaving pace-lines. I’ve come to enjoy weaving pacelines, they used to terrify me. I always worried about knocking people over of getting in someone else’s way. I find myself much more comfortable now and able to use speed control when I never really could before. Even with a belly full of water making swoosh swoosh noises I still made it through without stacking. The final drills of the night were the most fun. we were split into 2 groups taking it in turn to be a blocking pack and a jamming pack. as jammer’s we first had to make it through the pack by stepping through and the second time we had to try and make it through at speed. This was so much fun !! I like blocking but jamming is so cool. I really don’t know if I’ll ever get to be a proper jammer, I need better fitness, a leaner booty and a little more confidence but right now I’m loving these drills. Lesson of the evening, get a smaller mouth-guard ! I was chewed up pretty bad this week for again not having my mouth-guard in properly.. my fault completely..pretty sure i’ll be vigilant from now on, even if I am choking on my own drool. *PAUSE* See just after I wrote this up we had another training session with a buttload more new stuff..so I started writing that one up…and then there was another training session and I started to write that one up and then…I’m sure you see where I’m going here…too much jibber jabber ! In summery, the training sessions up to now have been alot different to boot camp and they are a hell of alot more fun. We’ve learnt so much that I can’t distinguish the individual sessions but a run down on some of the stuff we we have done up until now is: making and breaking walls, surge blocking. weaving pacelines, blocking pacelines, baton passing, transition stop races. The most fun so far would have to be the endless jammer drills where we have 2 packs, one pack blocks and one pack filters through jamming. So fun and so scary. When we’re not covering so much new stuff all at once I’ll break it down a little more but right now my head is swimming with new drills..and dreams of what kind of player I’ll end up being. Besides the training on Tuesday’s I’ve been helping with more NSO jobs. blocker penalty timing! I get to sit in a chair, wield 2 stop watches and wait for people to rack up the penalties and then yell at them to go back and play. With great power comes great responsibility ! Unfortunately I only seem to get one or 2 people to time per scrimmage session..Bring back the biff ladies ! IN OTHER NEWS : OH MAH GAWD I got new skates. BIG GREEN ONES. The wife has named them snot wheels and who am I to argue with her, she totes wears the pants. I decided to just go with rebels again because I’ve been really happy with mine. They are getting a bit ratty which is why I wanted a new pair but overall I’ve never had so much as a blister from them so i don’t see why I would want another boot…I may however get an aluminium plate at some stage in the future. Big shoutout to wayne at derbyskates.com.au and J-F for helping me out. I got a really good deal on the skates as well as the bearings and wrist guards and I got them all within a week and a half *feint* So I’ve finally had a chance to sit still and write a blog entry… expect more soon, hopefully not as stupidly long. The yellow star test is in two weeks so I’m once again soiling myself…oh and i’m nervous too :) I will be starting my push-up and sit-up routine at home tomorrow I swears ! *hurrrrrrr* OH OH MOST IMPORTANTLY The first ever SSRD public bout is on the 28th. CLICK HERE for more information and score yourself some tickets ! There is also a promo video here . It’s going to be an awesome night and I get to time the blocker penalties for reals *gasp* Hope to see you there ! Phew epic post. If i could give you a strawberry freddo frog for making it this far I would! xx BeeDee (lol…just thought I would try that out…fail) |
IN SPACE NO ONE CAN HEAR YOU SKATE
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010   videos  |
She finally did it, she finally got her arse to a proper white star training session. Now I don’t feel quite as guilty claiming to be a derby girl. Still I have a lot of attendance to make up if I want to qualify to sit my next test. In my defence a bad bout of tonsillitis and birthdays did seem like pretty good excuses at the time.
Anyhoos… FIRST TRAINING SESSION Before we were even allowed to get on the rink, we new white stars had to first pass the basic written rules test. I was fairly nervous about this during the week as I had still not sat down and read all the rules. I was just hoping to get by with what i’ve learnt along the way in the last 12 months. Luckily for me it turns out I knew more than I thought. Not sure on what my mark was but i was just happy to get out on the track. It was fairly intimidating at first, not that I was made to feel that way by anyone of coarse, I just was a little overcome by the feeling of being a little noob in a big pond of total awesomeness. The skating was amazing fun. It was so cool to not be doing to same old drills over and over and over again. I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I was going to be but I think that’s mainly down to everyone was super friendly and helpful. So here’s the 411 on what we did. 1.PACE LINES
By the end of this I was pretty buggered. the line was so long it took ages to get to the front. 2.MAKING WALLS
3. WATERFALLS 4. BLOCKING AND JAMMING
We did this a few times making sure everyone got a crack at each position. I’ve decided i don’t mind inside blocking and the jamming was heaps fun but I’ll probably change my mind about that when theres more than a pack of 2 to deal with. 5. MAKING AND BREAKING WALLS That was the last drill for the whiteys for the night. I love the fact that when I played RTCW online, new players had white names, anyone with a white name was considered a noob or a “whitey” because they were so new they couldn’t work out how to change the colour of their name, or play with any skill. It does however feel much cooler calling myself a whitey now even if we are not allowed to scrimmage until we hit yellow star. So the whiteys did we did a quick warm-down skate, a stretch and got to sit around and watch the higher level skaters do their scrimmage, a worthy compromise. I am seriously equal parts excited and terrified at the prospect of being able to scrim eventually. I got to try my hand at penalty tracking which I’ve never done before. This was pretty cool. I’ve always wanted to do some NSO activities. Big thanks to Andrew for being so patient every time a purple penalty was called. Pretty sure he would have been sick of me asking “what did he say?” “is this right?” “what was that?”. NOTE FOR NEXT WEEK: obtain hearing aid so I can hear the coaches and refs and remember to buy my purple and red singlets for team drills. Much love to Bonnie for the sexy loaner for the night <3. Despite from my truancy on the weekend training front I have still made it to the previous 2 Tuesday sessions. The first was the info night but last weeks was much more fun, It was the SSRD first public bout !! Well semi public, it was for friends and family only but it was still awesome to watch. I was running the merch stand with Megsy for the first half with an army of junior derby queens in the making. It was good volly job here because we could still see all the action. It really got me pretty excited to think that maybe sometime in the next 12 months I’ll be out there as well. Check out the video on the left of the girls in action and nurse pain grand-slamming it up :D The first real public bout will be on AUGUST 28TH, more details to come but save the date ! NEXT : Friday night training. woo. |
LIVIN’ THE WHITESTAR LIFE
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010   |
Phew I think it’s pretty much sunk in that I actually made it to my white star. Having said that I still haven’t skated at any training sessions yet.
We are allowed to skate on Fridays and Saturdays right away but not Tuesday scrimmage for a few weeks due to SSRD preparing for and holding their first mini bout. Unfortunately work held be back last Friday and I couldn’t make the first session and i was away for the Sunday sesh. It’s pretty funny that I’ve been skating so hard to get in and once I’m in I can’t make training… cross my skates that this is not going to be a running trend. Ideally I’ll make all 3 sessions a week. I really need to work on building those delicious derby muscles. nom nom. We were still allowed to go Tuesday session this week. It was our induction night where we went through the rules, of which there will be a basic test on in 2 week *yikes* Time to put my “work funded” rules set to work. Although from what they asked on the night I seemed to know more then I thought. While we were not able to skate this Tuesday it was cool to watch some of the SSRD girls hard at work practicing for the family and friends bout next week. We finished up the evening with a league meeting where the ladies went through the new policies while I munched on the Doritos dutifully supplied by my wifey and delicious baked goods supplied by Erika <3 The highlight of the night I have to admit was Alex officially handing my white star sticker for my helmet *cue explosions*. No more artists interpretations for me ! Hopefully next blog post I’ll have something skate related to talk about, praying that it’s not injury related. Oh SSRD are running a fundraiser on the 30th of July to help raise much needed fundage. It’s an 80’s roller disco being held at skateworld in Carrum. for more information clicky clicky ! |
WHITE STAR : THE FINAL SKATIER
Monday, June 28th, 2010  |
These are the voyages…*cough* sorry, got a little carried away…
So white star test, the bane of my existence for 7 or so months, was finally upon us. I was fine up until the morning at which point I became a bundle of nerves reminiscent of the exact situation I was in last year. So much nervous energy.. I couldn’t sleep in or sit still around the house. I just wanted to get it all over with. We started out basically stretching and practicing everything that was going to be on the test to warm us all up. I have to admit I didn’t really push myself too hard at this point because a) I didn’t want to wear myself out and b) I didn’t want to hurt myself before the test had even started. And then came the test *gasp* Now from what I remember (which is probably not 100% accurate) my results went something like this : ENDURANCE Laps: 25 laps in 5 minutes = 3/5 – Increased fitness will help with number of laps. Last time I got 19.5 so at least I can actually see some progress there. Stance and cross-overs suffered due to me being so tired. Increased fitness should in theory help me improve everything to do with endurance. STOPS T-stops = 4/5 – Possibly need to get a little lower. FALLS 1-point = 3/5 Needs a quicker recovery, be in better stance. JUMPS Basic jump: 4/5 – Need to increase balance so I don’t seem as shaky when landing. GRAND TOTAL 3.44(3.4) out of 5 WHITE STAR PASS! WOOTLES :D While we were waiting for the results we played some tag games and practiced some whipping, lots of fun. There was a pretty good vibe going around. Everyone seemed so relieved the test was over. Wifey had organized a dinner booking down the road for everyone after the test which was a great idea. It was really good to sit around with everyone from the coaches to other white star takers and completely stuff our faces, relax a bit and totally stink out all the other punters. Awesome. So this means that just under a year of me buying my first pair of derby skates I am officially in a roller derby league. I’m not sure it will fully sink in until the first training session but I’m just going to relax for a little bit now… maybe… anyone for rollerama?? :D The good news (besides the obvious) is that I don’t have to write a boot camp experience for the third time. From this point on everything is going to be pretty new to me. This means more challenges, probably more tears but hopefully a lot more progression towards perhaps, one day, being able to play roller derby in an official capacity. I really hope that everyone that didn’t make it the first time goes back for the resit in a couple of weeks. I know how crappy it feels to not make it the first time. It sucks hard. Just quietly, I was pretty upset the first time, a lot more then I probably communicated to people. I felt completely defeated. Honestly though, I have no idea where I would be now if I had just given up the first time. Derby is not easy, it’s not ever going to be easy and if it was easy I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be all that interested. Stay with it girls. It won’t be the same without you. See you soon <3 |
