Blood!

Nah.. just a few drops that pressed themselves through my tights once I got home. I thought it was hurting a bit more than I expected. It's so funny with falls. I never really remember how I fall and then it's the marks that show up afterwards that sort of get to tell the story of how it happened.

Tonight I jammed two jams (not in a row, then I'd be dead right now) and close to the end of the second one I got tackled, lost my balance and slid on my side. Somehow I hurt myself by kicking the wheels of one foot into my shin on the other leg. But... I got up and finished the jam.

Den ska nog få fina färger tror jag

The picture isn't very good (and the injury itself isn't of the highest quality either), but I wanted to share/document it here anyways.

Derby Kisses,
Dutchess

Apex jumping

The jammer move of "jumping the apex" came up in a "rule of the day" conversation today. Saying that it's a very cool move, but also a very dangerous one.

The rule that was discussed was that you ar not allowed to initiate contact while you have both skates of the ground. I have actually seen vids (which I can't find now) where a blocker jumped shoulder first sideways into another skater, but normally you wouldn't want to put yourself in that kind of danger. The result is a major missconduct penalty (if you're lucky and didn't also get some broken bones). A situation in which it might happen by accident however, is the apex jumping that jammers sometimes do. In this vid it's done by Quadzilla (coach of the Rat City Rollergirls) while he tries to pass a full pack of only opposing blockers.

What is interesting or maybe even more of a "miss" in the current version of the rules is that it is fully legal to initiate contact with a skater that is airborn aslong as you yourself are following all the rules (skating direction, legal hitting zones, etc).

Dutchess.

Black and blue!

I'll have to wait and see but my arms feel like they will soon sport some new and pretty derby kisses, left there by the wonderfull BadAss Babuska.

We did some more jams tonight and in both set-ups the other team made sure to either have a terminator as well (BadAss Babuska) or to have a blocker that would focus on me specifically (Roadkill). In a way I feel honored that I seem scary enough to get the other team to put a blocker on me specifically, but damn it made it hard to do my job! And Roadkill was nice, she would just stuff her ass in my face or push me out of bounds, but BadAss there.. oh my.. She goes for it. You can almost see this virtual reality screen in front of her face on which some cross hairs zoom in on you and then start blinking: "Target acquired! Kill!" And my brain just goes: "don't fall on the ass don't fall on the ass don't fall on the ass, shit there went their jammer!"

I didn't fall on my ass at least.

Derby kisses,
Dutchess

25/5min

Today we trained speed speed speed and low low low. This through different excersizes amongst which the so called Finnish snake (speed). We closed of the training with the "minimum skills" test of: how many laps can you do in 5 minutes? You are supposed to be able to do 25. We can't really plot out an actual flattrack with the right sizes in the skatehall because there are some ramps in the way. But we made the long sides a bit shorter and the short sides a bit longer and hoped that it would be about the same distance as one lap on an official track. On this track I managed to skate 31 laps in 5 mins! I wont change it on my list of minimum skills yet, since I'm not sure about the total distance of these laps, but it felt good to have tried something that comes close to it at least.

At the end there was even talk of booking a training in Pontus hallen where Slaughters Daughters had their latest bout. They have a wooden floor there which is supposed to be the Valhalla of Roller Derby so I am very excited about that and looking forward to it.

Derby kisses,
Dutchess

Imaging

I just watched the one and only (top secret) video there is of me on skates. It was filmed by Djana on my very first training and oh my.. it would be nice if I could get someone to shoot some new images now and then I can show you guys the progress. Not progress because I'm so good, but progress because this is a sport in which you will progress fast, especially the first weeks.

Soo.. someone please take pics and shoot vids on a training! Nice pics please.. that make me look erm.. vicious or skilled or something. ;)

Derby kisses,
Dutchess

Offensive, defensive and refs!

Some more scrimmaging today in the hall with the sticky floor. Because of the floor we did one minute jams (instead of two mins). But man, it's difficult to play both offensive and defensive at the same time. Did I finally understand how to occupy an opposing jammer to make room on the inside for my own jammer, does the other jammer fly by on the outside! Yes there are others in the team to take care of that, but the bad thing about it is that I didn't even realise it untill after our jammer passed and I started looking for the other one... oh.. she passed us? And that happened again and again. I guess I should be happy that I can skate AND occupy another blocker now.. and should just hang in there and hope that with time I will know how to do more than two things at once? Skate, defend, offend, pace, etc etc
A few weeks ago I could only skate... a bit.

It was really nice that we actually had two of our refs (Don't know their Derby names or even if they have them yet) there as well. It meant they got training on spotting what's happening and we learned that we used way too many elbows. You don't notice that stuff in the heat of the moment so it's really nice to have someone in the middle shouting it out at you the moment you commit the foul.

Time for bed now, long day tomorrow.

Derby kisses,
Dutchess

Injury free for a week!

Feeling great! It's my first full week of Roller Derby without a single injury (or taking care of older injuries). At the same time the temperature here has risen to 0°C, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and life is getting better again! :D

At the end of monday's training I screamed out: "oh! some girls got injured but not me!! :D" I felt so ashamed as soon as it came out. Of course I felt bad for the others that did get hurt, but I was so surprised that I wasn't part of them that the words just flew out. Thankfully there were no permanent or serious injuries though.

The last two training sessions were great with lots of packtraining which means lots of actual gamesituation simulations. I'm SO looking forward to some actual bouts. This sport really does make you feel like a super hero.

Derby kisses,
Dutchess