Juniors!!

Luleå Roller Derby is starting with a junior chapter and I am SO excited about this!

We will be taking in skaters from the age of 12. The empowerment of these youngsters and the skills they will develop will just be amazing. In this sport there is no difference made as to what your body looks like. ALL can play an important part in the team. ALL get to keep or develop their own style (both in looks and in skating) and still have just as much fun and be just as much accepted in the group.

Wicked Rosie and I have been wanting to do this for a while now so it's just perfect that she and I ended up as trainers for the juniors. We've done a lot of research when it comes to training programs specifically for junior derby and have been in contact with the junior league that's affiliated with Crime City Rollers (the first and -not for long- the only junior league in Sweden who started their junior activities a year ago).

The more I am preparing for the coming term the more enthusiastic I'm becoming. So looking forward to this! Who knows, we might only start with a hand full of skaters but oh, will they have fun! Who wouldn't have fun when roller skates are involved, right?

Love,
Manic Medic

Sportswomanly behavior

What does it mean?

First of all it means being gracious winners and being gracious losers. Neither of which are easy.

Being gracious winners comes naturally to most Swedes due to this tiny little "law" of Jante. It causes people to have a completely different view on personal accomplishments than for example Americans do. It means that when you win, you will automatically look for reasons outside of yourself for why you won: you got lucky, your team mates were great (but not too great since they are a part of you in team sports), the other team got a lot of penalties, the other team was unlucky, you might have, maybe, of course due to luck, have done something right during training.

I do not agree with this chain of thought. If you won, you and your team did something right. You trained hard, you understood how to execute tactics and strategies, you read the other team's tactics and strategies and answered correctly, etc. It is your (and your teams) doing that made you win.

Of course this also applies in the other direction. If you and your team lose, you should look at what you and your team did that caused the loss. Not at what other people did so that you lost. In derby there seem to be two very common ways to react to a loss:

Savage and I in the box
Original can be found at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/morganskort/9224920002/#

1. The other team won because of our penalties.
Avoiding penalties is part of the game. So yes, they might have won because of your penalties, but guess what: it's still due to you getting those penalties. When you get skilled enough on your skates, making the other team foul is also part of the game. Yes, in the current version of the rules, getting penalties will kill you.  That means that you go into a bout knowing that you have to manage your penalties. Which brings me to the other reaction to a loss...

Me getting ready for a gear check at my first ever bout as a ref
Foto: Anders Larsson

2. The refs sucked.
This one is a huge eye sore for me. Yes, there are refs of different skill levels just as there are skaters of different skill levels. However in most cases a ref "sucking" will either not have enough of an impact (one out of seven refs making a wrong call is easily mediated through an official review) or it will impact both sides equally (several refs making several bad calls or a jammer ref seemingly having his or her own set of rules will swap sides and make the same type of calls in the second half). Even if you truly feel that the ref's abilities swayed your bout result negatively, what is nagging about it afterwards going to give you? It will give you one thing and take away one thing: it will give you refs who do not want to ref your bouts because they are not appreciated or allowed to learn during your bouts. It will also take away your possibility to learn from the mistakes you made during the bout and get better for the next one.

Especially when playing a bout at a bigger tournament or against a more experienced league (usually that entails more experienced refs) a bit of modesty is called for. The ref that you are accusing of sucking probably has reffed longer than you have played.

I think it would be of huge benefit for the sport if all players got to do some reffing. It isn't for no reason that there are seven refs out there and even those refs have to prioritize which type of penalties they will focus on (depending on the bout).

But to get back to the original topic of sportswomanly behavior, I'd like to give a shout out to Mrs. Knuckles (from Ume Radical Rollers). As those of you who read my blog know, I have gone through major back surgery and have been trying to get back to playing since then. Before my injury, opponents tended to expect the worst if they knew I was playing. Since the operation I have heard from several different people that some times people were relieved to hear I wasn't playing (every time, I chose to take that as a compliment and ignore the negative undertone, which surely wasn't meant to be there). When Mrs. Knuckles heard I was playing at the latest tournament she was very excited for me. Then, while playing against Ume Radical Rollers, I asked to jam. Of course I shouldn't have jammed. I never do at practice because it is too risky for my body at the moment. But in that bout, we were lagging behind by an unsurmountable amount of points and we had 6 minutes to go in the second half. I needed to get shit out of my system and asked to jam. I couldn't make it out of the pack and the energy in my legs was drained quickly. Even my jammer ref seemed worried when I AGAIN got blocked to the infield and had some trouble getting up. But I got up again and again and again. Towards the end of that jam I had nothing left and was trying to stay upright behind a wall of Ume blockers. This is when Mrs. Knuckled mid-jam turned over her shoulder, looked me in the eyes and said: "Come on, Mascha! You can do this!"

Mrs. Knuckles
Foto: Lars-Olov Gärdelid

Shitty City Rollers bootcamp (and the art of hearing your bench)

Wow what a weekend. As many of you have been able to read on Facebook, I have finally played my first game again since I got major back surgery almost exactly a year ago. It was a huge emotional experience. I cried during the third jam, during half time I full on sobbed and I shed some more tears during the final jam of the scrimmage. I had finally done it!

I have fought hard to be able to come back. To prove my surgeon wrong. To be able to play the game I had come to love so completely. It has been an emotional roller coaster with both peaks and periods of deep sorrow. But that's a different story than what I want to write about now and I'm not done yet.

Since my surgery I have benched for my own team (amazing journey in tactical improvement), Royals (very exciting to coach a team I didn't know) and now last weekend I benched for Oulu in their scrimmage against Umeå Radical Rollers. By now I had quite some experience benching, but I was still very nervous. I mean.. who the hell am I to tell Kata Strofi to call it, right? Yes I was star struck. Very much so.

It was an amazing experience. The team consisted of very green rookies, higher level intermediates and Finnish national team players. Different levels of experience require different things from the bench coach and it was awesome to try and manage that. I was snapping people out of being lost, making people feel good about what they did right, trying to extinguish anger at themselves for doing something wrong, calming down overly excited players and getting derby-gasms from the communication I had with Kata while she was on the track. Wow!

Easy hand signals and mouthing some words, a small nod back and forward and all was understood and would be executed. Where the rookies wanted me to yell louder, Kata seemed to hear me even when I whispered.

It really proved to me again that hearing the bench is a skill. It's a skill that you have to train. When doing scrimmages on your practices, have someone bench you. Try out different systems, different hand signals and different atmospheres at the bench and find out what works for you and your team. And then practice with it. Make it the main point of certain drills to watch and listen to the bench. An important part in this is getting the rest of the team to stay calm. Don't let them create any disturbance in your communication no matter how well meant or passionate it is. They should focus on their inner zen or on the tactics for the next line up.

Thank you again Shitty City for a lovely weekend. You have no idea how much it has given me. <3

Me on the left together with Tiny Tourettes, Monster Midge and Hellsparx blocking Kata.
(Photograph stolen here (see video on same page))

huh?

© Fotograf Carolina Makkula

I guess sometimes I just lose sight of that line between what makes sense in my head and what makes sense to others...

© Fotograf Carolina Makkula

And sometimes I get really passionate.. don't remember for the life of me what I was going on about. Different advantages of inside vs outside transition? The fine line between a back block and a not-back block? No idea what so ever.

Life plays!

That's what the Swedes say when things in life go the way you planned or hoped for and all is good. Or when you are just having a very good day with lots of fun and no worries.

I've had a breakthrough in my rehabilitation and I am still on a high from it. I guess a time overview is in order:

• - January '12: one of the discs in my back herniates but it is treated with physical therapy. I have to stop skating.
• - March: the pain is gone so I have one week left to train for our bout in Malmö. I notice that I have balance problems in my left leg though. I sort of play the bout but have problems skating and getting up from the floor after falls. I just missed strength in my left leg. I did not get new pains. One week after the bout we have a conference in Stockholm and during that weekend the pain comes back. 
• - April: mid april my pains have gotten so bad that I have to take an ambulance to the hospital. After a few days in the hospital I start showing symptoms of Cauda Equina syndrome and after a week in the hospital I get a emergency decompression surgery. The pain is gone immediately, but I have problems with paralysis in both my legs and can hardly walk. No prognosis is given since it's hard to tell if the nervdamage is permanent or if it will be able to heal. Nerves heal very slowly IF they heal and they give me a year to do most of my healing, after a year not much will change anymore. 
• - May: I can walk with one crutch.
• - June: I can waddle without any type of walking aid. I tried on my skates but couldn't stand on them without holding on to someone or something. Didn't dare to lift a foot. 
• - July: I can stand on my skates by myself,I can roll a bit by pushing off with my left foot and quickly placing it back safely besides my right foot. Lots of arm-flailing. Exhausted after two laps. 
• - August: I can skate with short strides of both legs, I can do cross overs to the left. I can skate a few meters on my left leg alone (but can't change direction) and as far as before january on my right leg alone. 
• - September: at the beginning of the month I do a coaching on skates (has been off skates so far), I can start to watch others while rolling again. I can do transitions to my favorite side. I can still not take one single cross over to the right. In the middle of September I get serious back pains again and end up on full painkillers (all the way up to morphine). I can feel the pressure building in my back and the strength in my legs decreases noticeably. Two weeks later it's all back to how it was and I'm dreading to get on my skates. Scared that I will be back to where I was in July. I put them on, get up and skate a few strides, ready to fall. But I don't fall. I relax and try out crossovers to the left... they feel easier than before. Against all odds I try some cross overs to the right and find myself actually doing them. I test transitions and find I can do them to both my favored side and my hated side. This is insane! My legs are doing what I'm telling them to do! I ask Badass if I can try a few hits on her. You know.. very carefully since I haven't skated with any form of contact since March.. people haven't been allowed to get within one meter of me while I was on skates. I give it a go and it feels great! Almost like coming home after a long trip around the world. It wasn't more than a cute little tap, but man did that feel good! I even managed to be part of some pace lines with hits. Giving and taking. 

Now the things that are left to pass my min skills again is the strength and stamina in my leg muscles to get up from the floor fast and often. Hmm.. come to think of it, I might have some trouble with unexpected obstacles. I noticed that my leg can't react very fast yet. So this coming period I'll be focussing on explosiveness, strength and muscle stamina.

Coaching trap #1: power-tripping

Thank god I have been well aware of this one before it snuck up on me. It doesn't mean I don't do it. Just saying I'm aware of it. It's a delicate question that has tightrope dancing as an answer.

The biggest tool in navigating this trap is setting goals. Both team goals and individual skater goals. You are there to help the team and the individuals reach their goals. You are not there to create your personal dream team and conquer the world. At least that's the case at our league. All are welcome to join and if you put in the work (and have passed your minimum skills) you are encouraged to play no matter if the work you put in payed off or not. Motivation and fun are key in our league. Inclusiveness.

That means that the coach is only there as a catalyst. The players express their wishes of what they want to accomplish (their goals) and you provide the means for them to get there as long as they themselves bring the motivation.

Ok, sounds as a nice ideal that should eliminate power-tripping coaches, right?

Well, yes and no. I have quite a lot of background knowledge when it comes to training. I combine that knowledge with what I find online, see in games, hear from other coaches and see on our own trainings into drills that I think the team needs to get to those goals. While doing those drills it's me that's holding the whistle, it's me that's registering testing results, it's me deciding (out of safety concern) who gets to participate in which exercise, how to deal with lengthy "water breaks," how to deal with late comers. It's me deciding when I want them to die in a heavy training, or when we'll focus on skills or tactics.

That's where the tightrope dancing comes in. Use and recognize mirrors when they're being held up in front of you. Why did you decide on letting that late comer do those extra speed laps? Why did you decide to give a cold shoulder to a complaint and in stead pushed that girl to push her self even harder: "your legs can't cary you anymore? You're standing here talking to me while your legs are holding you up. Go!"

That's when you use a mirror: was that my ego, enjoying the power rush, or did that have a function towards the goals of the team/skater?

Punishing the late comer with some speed laps has had as a result that the only other time during this season so far that people have been late was when there was a big accident on the main route to get to our venue. That means more effective training time for the hole team which will result in better chances of reaching the team goals.
Pushing the girl to push her self longer, harder and further was done with one of her goals in mind (getting better results at 25 in 5). It showed her that she still had reserves left when she thought she was finished.

That's one of the reasons why goals are so important. They really are your number one tool. You can (or should be able to) always link your decisions to the pursuit of those goals.

I guess this post is making me sound like a drill sergeant, but I'm far from. As I said at the start, I'm just the facilitator for the skaters to get where they want to be and hopefully their will, hard work and motivation and my enthusiasm and knowledge of training will get them there. :)

Wanting to be better

I love the current wind of motivation that blows through our league. Most of the girls want to become better and are able to put words to exactly what it is they want to get better at. That makes my work easier since I can design the trainings based on what they want to improve on and harder because not everybody wants to improve on the same things of course. It's a good thing they don't because a team of 14 skaters with exactly the same skill sets would not be very interesting or successful.

It also gives us a chance to focus on certain skills. The last two weeks we've been focussing on very specific skills that we then put to the test in a series of jams the last half hour of practice last night.

© Carolina Makkula Photography