Crash and Burn

Every roller girl knows how it feels to be coursing with adrenaline, counting the hours till practice, calculating the hours since you last skated, fantasizing about new equipment or hip checks or what it would be like if you could derby-fy your real life activities. It's a love affair, it's an obsession, it's a major part of a life.

And then there's burnout. Aka "the meh." It's the complete opposite of that feeling you get after dominating a hard workout, conquering a new skill, or bonding with a teammate. It's that feeling of too many nagging injuries, too much derby committee work, or too much time away from home or other activities.

That's what I'm feeling now. I desperately love roller derby. I desperately never want to go back to practice, ever. It doesn't matter how much I love my team or the sport or the workout - right now I can't bear to think about tying up my skates, putting on my always-bruising-my-hands wrist guards, or looking at my off-rink league workload. (But, I also know that as soon as my strained leg muscle heals and I get some new wrist guards, I'll be back at it as though my feelings never were lukewarm.)

When have you crashed and burned, and how did you get back into it?

Remembering the thrill

Last weekend, the Dixie Derby Girls traveled to Biloxi to bout the Mississippi Rollergirls. The first half, we played as though we had never practiced together or as though we had all just woken up from long naps in the sunshine. We were sluggish and ineffective. (Since this is my blog, now I'm going to talk about myself - talk about yourself in the comment section!)

I was playing inside, which is a position I had not yet played in a game. All I could think was, "Okay, the coaches said to stay right here and do this one thing for our strategy." At the same time, I was thinking, "Should I hit their jammer? No, I should just keep skating in the place that I'm 'assigned' to. Oh, there goes the jammer. Should I try to hit her next time around? Hmm."

At half time, after a rousing pep talk, I asked our fearless captain, Snidely Bitchslap, what I should do: try to stay in my "spot" or try to hit people. She said something inspiring like, "Just do what you think is best." That sounds sarcastic in type, but for real, it made everything come together for me. I know the basics of roller derby - it was time to stop thinking so much and start playing!

Why is it we get so bogged down with small things and forget the bigger picture? For me this was thinking about strategy instead of using common sense and implementing that strategy. For newer girls, it might be getting tripped up by a particular skill and getting discouraged instead of realizing it's only a small part of the game. Or it's getting angry instead of figuring out how to get better.

The second half was truly a triumph of teamwork. Every girl played harder, smarter, and more together. I stopped thinking and started hitting. (I haven't been so sore since playing rugby in college!) The game came down to the last couple jams, and our team really pulled it together. The win was exhilarating, but even better was knowing how well we worked together to make it happen. And we'll do it again this weekend.

Tights and tutus

Fishnets. Tutus. Belts. Socks. Laces. Tights. Skirts. An integral part of roller derby is the style that goes with it. Rollergirls adorn themselves with any assortment of accessories - bright, muted, matching, clashing, frilly, sleek, vintage, athletic - depending on their mood, their personality, and their budget.

The media makes much of roller derby aesthetics, and many skaters talk about how their outfits make them feel empowered, fun, feminine, boisterous, etc. Conversely, roller derby style also sometimes leads people less familiar with modern roller derby to think it's less athletic just because its participants have more "wardrobe freedom" than in other sports. After one bout, however, it's apparent that the apparel has nothing to do with the athleticism.

Roller derby fashion is also often practical - getting a run in your tights during a fall is better than getting your skin torn open, taking a whip by grabbing a teammate's belt is often easier than grabbing her hips, and wearing high socks can make those kicks to the shin less painful.

Although everyone has her own style, and theirs wouldn't work for me, I'm envious of how good some girls look all the time. My favorites are Babe E. Quakes, Therapissed, Lucy Ferocious, eRacer X, Grim Gracey, and 9 Lb Hammer. I'm a huge fan of tutus, belts, and matching booty shorts with tights, when other people are wearing them.

Although I'm never going to be completely coordinated or strive for ultimate cuteness, I have a history of "dressing derby" even before I'd ever heard of roller derby. These pictures are from my second marathon - I had observed that runners who stood out from the crowd got a lot more cheers, and since none of my family could be there to cheer me on, I was appealing to the crowd with my cloud-pattern tights. (Kind of like derby!)

During the summers, I amused my volleyball team by wearing random outfits to our games. My favorite is the bathing-suit-top/my-brother's-gigantic-shorts combo.



I can't say that my derby outfits or my previous sports' outfits made me feel any more tough, feminine, or empowered, but I thought they were funny!

So, rollergirls, what's your style and why? How does it make you feel? (There's an English teacher statement.)

Fans, what's your favorite style?

Women who hate other women

There are a lot of myths about modern-day roller derby: it's staged, there's punching, only women with questionable morals play, it's not that athletic, it's mainly about wearing fishnets, and on and on.

Then there are a lot of half-truths about modern-day roller derby.

When Cho Cold (who was then just Carrie) asked if I'd be interested in playing roller derby, I had never heard of it. I had never heard the words roller and derby together, and I had no reference point even after she explained the basics of the game.

So then I read everything I could about it on news sites, forums, team websites, and absorbed as much information as I could from the girls from Tragic City Rollers, who helped us so much in getting started.

In many ways, my experience has been like that of others, but in other ways, I just cannot understand why people so often glibly repeat what I consider to be a half-truth about the sport we all love so much:

• "When you're on the track, you're a different person. Roller derby lets you be someone else; you need that persona to get out there and do what you have to do."
• "Roller derby is a sport for women who hate other women."
• "Of course there's going to be drama - what do you expect when you have a bunch of women hanging out together."
• "Roller derby is more about being tough than having strategy."
• "Roller derby is the sport for the counter-culture."

While I think each of these sentiments has some truth in it, I can't stand that they are bandied about and often accepted wholesale.

For today: "Roller derby is a sport for women who hate other women."

I've heard that statement countless times from girls who play and others who are involved in roller derby in some way. That has not been my experience at all. To me, it seems that roller derby is a sport for women who often very much would like to form close bonds with other women but, for various reasons, may not have as adults.

When I was growing up, I often goaded my friends into doing daring and foolish things. Most of my close girlfriends were not thrilled about jumping out of trees onto dirty, rocky slopes or riding double on a bike on a steep and windy patch of pavement or hitting each other with thistles. (But some of them were.) Equally, I wasn't thrilled about trying on makeup or going shopping or doing other things that are generally the domain of little girls. But we were still close.

In college, I was lucky enough to meet a girl who will always, always hold a precious piece of my heart. And we were certainly unlike most of the girls around us - "demolition derby" sledding, climbing things, rollerblading constantly, and later routinely tackling each other on the rugby field - instead of wholeheartedly embracing the more common college pastimes of tanning, dressing up to go to the gym, and whatever else it is college girls do. (I'm not putting those things down - it's just different interests.)

And since then, I've wanted so badly to meet other girls like me - not women who hate other women - but women who want to meet people with their interests who are not male. Roller derby is that place.

I'd say roller derby is a sport for women who love to push themselves and their friends to do things that are slightly reckless and who want to just be themselves in one aspect of their lives. Roller derby is a sport for women who want the freedom of acting in a way that is sometimes seen as unfeminine (hitting people, being sweaty, playing a serious sport as an adult) while sharing those experiences with other women who understand that need for freedom.

Roller derby is a sport for women who may dearly love their "more traditional" female friends but also sometimes need friendships with people who understand their reckless, intense, not-always-logical sides.