Best. Derbyweekend. Ever!

As most of you know, Luleå Roller Derby went to Gothenburg last weekend for a bootcamp with Swede Hurt and Mad Maloony and a scrimmage. Now I have to tell you that just before the weekend I had a total mental meltdown (all kinds of stress, unusually dark winter and monster PMS will do that). So much so that I almost didn't go to Gothenburg thinking I wouldn't be able to cope with not sleeping at home and taking criticism from Swede. In the end the lovely Badass talked me into going but I promised her a fight if the big bad (unknown to me then) Swede would ever start to "tjafsa" at me personally...

Lo and behold! I'm the first one of the weekend that physically gets pulled off the track into the infield to be (what felt like) yelled at by the lovely amazon for something that I swear I normally never do, haha! I looked over the amazon's shoulder at Badass, started smiling, nodding and counting to ten and in the end I even managed to say "thank you" and mean it. :)

After the first training of two hours, we had a short break so that the officials could get everything in order and we could get organized as a team. Loony was going to be our bench coach which felt awesome. This was going to be my third game and at the first one you hardly register what happens at all, the second one I had to coach and play at the same time and now for the first time I got to focus on playing derby. This was going to be good. We decided to treat the game as it was, a training/friendship game and everybody who ever wanted to try jamming was encouraged to do so. It turned out that that was almost everybody and at the same time our players that normally play as jammers also really wanted a go at blocking, so this was going to be fun. Everybody got to rotate and play as much as they wanted!

Loony did an awesome job at deciding who would be best at which role in which jam and in the second half we really started to gain some points. We almost beat Gbg but it ended at a 108-90. Next time we play them we'll play with serious preparation and line ups and see what happens. ;)

Why jamming works when you're 1.87 m tall and weigh 99 kg.

The next day we had another four hours of training coming at us. The tactics and skills we trained were very fitting for where we are in our derby right now, so it was incredibly valuable! The amount of times Swede told me to bend my knees, I don't know, I lost count. But it was good that she did. I've had six months of getting trained in the beginning, but from then on I became the trainer which means that I tell others but nobody ever tells me to bend my knees more.

Skating my lungs out.

The weekend had a reffing workshop going as well, which meant that for the very first time we got to play with a full set of refs. That was a nice feeling. We know we (Viking women from the North) play a rough game with hard hits and even though we try to minimize the back blocking and elbows, I know those are a problem for us. So having a full team of refs meant that we got to test out how far over the line of "too many fouls" we really were. I have to say I was positively surprised at the result. Of course these weren't the most experienced refs, but as they get better, so will we.

Our refs on their workshop with Fluke Skywalker.

Both Loony and Swede have given me a lot this past weekend and on the train ride home I heard similar sounds from teammates. Thank you ladies and thank you Gothenburg for organizing this!

So driven and inspired

From the very first training that I held with Luleå Roller Derby I loved doing it, but lately it's just becoming more and more fun! There's a hardcore bunch that really let themselves get trained and have this ability to turn a few spoken words into a practical exercise and then get really good at it as well. And then there is the bunch that works in shifts or have other reasons to not always make it to the trainings who then are super enthusiastic once they finally can be there, which brings so much joy to the trainings. Everybody seems so inspired right now and everybody is getting so skilled. I'm having a blast!

Just had to share my after-training-high with you. :)

Full frontal blocking

Wow! What skills we're seeing during the still ongoing Roller Derby World Cup in Toronto. As a beginning team (yes, we rock! But we are very much beginners) it's impossible to look at a team like Australia and say: "in two months time I want us to skate like they do." But what I CAN try to do as a trainer is to pick out two aspects of a high ranking team's gameplay and try and improve on those two aspects. The two I picked were endurance and being able to play derby facing backwards.

Derby endurance is a tough kind of endurance. You are basically skating two periods of 30 minutes filled with long intervals at 100%. In the world of training, an interval at 95% is about 10-15 seconds. Any longer and you have to come down in intensity. A jam can take anything up to 2 minutes. Yikes! Yeah. But since it can also be as short 15 seconds (doesn't happen often, but it happens), as soon as that double jammer signal comes you have to explode into a 100% sprint AND worry about getting passed 8 players of which 4 are trying as hard as they can not to let you pass. If you're unlucky enough that neither jammer is getting lead jammer (= the ability to call of the jam) you're gonna be skating at a neck breaking pace for 2 minutes. There's much more to jammer endurance, but I wont bore you with that right now.

Soo... skating backwards and playing derby. That still covers a wide range of skills of which I picked two that I feel are important. This was one:

Turning around and supporting your wall from the front both with your body and with your eyes. A while back we started actively training on letting the jammer push forward on a strong wall so that the wall gets out of play and has to let her pass. Of course the wall has to try and break, but breaking is much easier when going backwards. In comes the backwards rolling wall support. The wall support is now the one with the most perfect view over all the pack action and should therefore communicate everything she sees.

Manic Medic as wall support, Hellsparx and Evil Fairy as wall and Miss Maniac as jammer (here the jammer has almost broken through the wall already but the wall support manages to hold her back a bit longer).

Roller Derby World Cup

One day this will be available on tv but this weekend's first ever Roller Derby world cup will have to be watched online. This is where it's streamed and the second day of bouts is about to start. I'll soon be hopping on the bus to get to Pappa Smurf and watch Sweden - Canada and Sweden - France in the sweet company of some of our girls and some of our refs.

Hup Sweden, hup! .. no wait.
Sweden, Sweden, Sweden.. oj, oj, .. oh hang on...
Allez les bleus, allez les bleus, allez-les-bleus.. no.. not that one either..

RIGHT!

Heja Sverige! Heja Sverige! (say: heya sweariye!)