The terminator

Today we did a lot of contact training and at some stage we even tried a couple of jams! Yay!

We were eight in total so four in each team. With a track that was a bit smaller than an official flat track that worked out just nicely, I think. The teams were made up of two experienced girls and two pieces of fresh meat. The tall miss Maniac was on the other team and was guestimated to be holding the inside of the track. Since I was tall too I was told to go up against her and keep the inside of the track for our jammer in stead. Let me tell you that the name "miss Maniac" was given to her and not without reason. With any hint of upcoming action the lovely lady gets a spark in her eye and assumes the derby position. But I survived (psst, I don't think she went all out on me) and took most of the beating. Even managed to open up the inside of the track a few times for our Dolores DeSade to jam through.

During the second jam I got a hole new role. One that I hadn't heard of before and would like to try out with a more seasoned opposing jammer at some stage: "terminator", oh yeah, you read that right. The role of a terminator is, well, to terminate the other jammer more or less. You skate at the back side of the pack, so you have a little more room to cut the track (zoom from the inside to the outside or the other way around) and when the opposing jammer reaches the pack you take her out by skating into her side and her falling or skating out of bounds because of that. I didn't quite get the timing right yet, so I mostly ended up very close in front of the opposing jammer and bootyblocked her in stead of taking her out, but that was fun!

After the jamming we did some more blocking and jamming exercises and yes... I fell on my butt again... I really hope that I will kick this butt-falling-habit soon.

Derby kisses,
Dutchess

PS: I expect the bruise count to go up after todays tackling practice with Dolores DeSade. I'll see what it looks like tomorrow. Moar jams!!