Still Here, For Now

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here. I’m at that stage again of wondering whether to bother with this blog, seeing as I hardly ever update and when I do it’s about books (which I could do on Goodreads instead). I feel I am mostly sending words out into the void and what is the point? But until I make a decision about that, here’s a life update.

At the end of October I tried out for the main league again. It was a much better experience this time, but I still didn’t make it in. I am not a stand out, although they said my skills were good. It is fine, and they are probably right that I am not ready, but it sucks to lose yet more of my buddies from rec league. Really proud of them, but wish I could still skate with them. We also had another rec league bout on the same day and my team lost by one point. Ugh. We did play really well though, and the standard overall was great.

November 11^th was Nin’s birthday, so we went as a family to Robin Hood’s Bay to scatter her ashes. We spent a lot of time there when we were kids and that’s what she wanted. We’d meant to do this in summer but that just didn’t happen. Thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day and we all enjoyed each other’s company, and I think Nin would have been happy with that.

I was also an extra in a film, for the company Max works for. I don’t know if I will actually end up in the final cut, or if, even if I do, you’ll be able to see me or tell it’s me, but it was fun. I felt like a right prat for a lot of it, since it was all done on green screen, but I did get to fall about on some crash mats and attempt to look scared. It’s a good job I don’t want to be an actress, because I am terrible.

I attempted to do NaNoWriMo for the first time this November, and I made it to 20,000 words or so before life got in the way. But that’s 20,000 more words than I had to begin with, and I did like that NaNo forced me to sit down and write and just get words on the page without over thinking it. Just get the first draft done and fix it later. Usually when I write things it is just notes and ideas, like I have to wait for inspiration to strike before I can do anything, and this just means I don’t really get anywhere. So for that it was a good experience and I hope to continue with my book. And I would definitely try NaNo again, maybe just when I am not as busy.

And then I went to Berlin for four days, with Max and a bunch of rollergirls. We did some touristy stuff and a day of watching roller derby, as it was a tournament weekend. Berlin is a wonderful city. I’d never been before but it’s really cool to wander around. We did an alternative tour, being guided around for three hours looking at graffiti and getting a bit of history about the city. It was very cold though, and we abandoned our attempt to see a broken down theme park. We intend to go back when it’s a bit warmer and see more stuff.

And I’ll end with babies, since there are now two new ones in the world. My niece Isla was born six weeks premature last week, but she’s doing really well, she’s just very small. Her middle name is Betty, after my grandmother. It’s perfect. I am going up to Yorkshire to see her tomorrow. And then, on the same day, my friend had Annie, who is not tiny at all. I look forward to many cuddles.

Life is good.

Derby Vid

Here’s a cool video Max did of the Rec League bout back in July.

London Roller Girls Rec League Bout: Pink vs Black from Max Rees on Vimeo.

PG Trips lives!

And she was born on Christmas Day:

(Um, anyone not from the UK who may not get it, it’s after a brand of tea, PG Tips, my favourite. And also is very me since I am clumsy and trip up a lot.)

The derby name thing is something that I initially got excited about, and then became a bit of a chore as I tried to come up with something that a) was fitting and b) was not already taken. Coming up with puns is reasonably easy, but finding that unique one that will be accepted felt almost impossible. Some names I considered and then rejected (or just thought of but would never have used myself):

Tea N Tea

Tea Total

Calamitea Jane (I’m a fan of the tea related names, as my final one shows)

Thugsy Malone (Not taken, and a contender for a while, but not quite right)

Violent Hill (For the Coldplay fans)

Rio Speedwagon (I like Power Ballads… Also, there are Rio Rollers skates)

Jammer Dodger (Who doesn’t love Jammie Dodgers?! Could get confusing though)

Starbuck Rogers (For the Sci-Fi geeks. Although anything with ‘rogers’ in can be risky)

Optimism Prime (Stupid, but amused me)

Cosmic Shove (Matches my initials!)

Iowa A. Smack (Prob best if an American takes that one)

Pacey Hitter (For I still love thee Pacey…)

Anyway, my derby name is official. I have the merch and it’s on the website. I am glad about this, but I am not terribly attached to the name. It is more the faff you have to go through to get it (it took seven months) and that I had merch printed with the name on it already. If it had been rejected I don’t think I’d have bothered with another one. Anyway, yay!

Winner

Here is the Pet Shop Boys video featuring the London Rollergirls. The one I was in the ‘crowd’ for.

If you look reeeeeeallly closely at one point you might see my feet. Ha. Great to see LRG though.

Just a Winner with a Fat Lip

Friday night was my second bout with the Rec League. I missed the last one, so it’s been around ten months since I bouted properly. And Friday was two bouts, as I was in both Team Blacks. I’d been incredibly nervous beforehand and our teams had had a few set backs with regards to losing players, so I wasn’t feeling all that confident. Our coach later said to never go into a bout thinking you’ll lose, and I think that’s very good advice, hard as it may be at times.

Spoilers up front: Team Black won both bouts. I think I am still surprised by this and it doesn’t feel real. We won the first by one point, the second by around 20, but it was insanely close all the way through. Team Pink were awesome. The first jam we won purely down to a power jam, where the other jammer was sent to the box and our jammer scored something like 25 points. Before that we’d lost it a bit.

We had a new bench coach for the bouts too, as our original coach was ill. We ended up with the coach of London Brawling and Team England, Ballistic Whistle. If you’re gonna have a coach, that’s the one you want, but when I heard it did add to my stress levels. I (wrongly) assumed it would be taken very seriously, when we’d all agreed that it should be about the fun too, and not just winning. Turns out, Ballistic agrees with that sentiment, and gave us an awesome pep talk before the start. And then every time there was a time out or it was half time he’d pull us back in and give us another pep talk, and that really helped and made us play better as a team.

Anyway, I didn’t jam much, but I had a few goes. I wasn’t on my best form, have to say. It’s my own fault as I didn’t eat right beforehand. I was too nervous. I should have had a big lunch instead and then a snack before I went. So I felt weak and hot and, at one point, slightly faint, so I was trying to find a banana and eventually did so felt a bit better. My first time jamming I didn’t get out first but I wasn’t too far behind the other jammer. The problem was that as I was going through the pack someone elbowed me in the face. And it wasn’t my fault this time, it was a proper elbow up and back and I was not falling into her or anything. The refs said later that they saw my head go back, but I don’t think the other player was sent off. I didn’t fall down and kept going but I knew I was bleeding. I thought it was just a bit so I was trying to sneakily wipe it away (which is basically impossible when you’re being closely watched) as the rule is if you’re bleeding you cannot be on the track. Sensible rule really. So the ref sent me off but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so at first I went to the penalty box and then I was waved off to go back to my bench. I skated up and explained ‘I’m bleeding’ as everyone looked confused and a first aider came and sat me down and I took out my mouthguard. This is one of those times again where I think I’m fine but I can’t see how bad it looks, and then I see my formerly white mouthguard is now mostly red. Oh. The inside of my lip was split and the bottom cut as well. I shoved a tissue to my face and sat out for a bit, hoping it would stop so I could go back on. I declined the ice which was a mistake as I could feel my lip getting bigger as I sat. It felt huge, and kept snagging on my mouthguard. It is sore today and a bit puffy/bruised, but it’s fine.

I did one jam that I am proud of, where it was textbook. I got out of the pack straight away, mostly cos the other team was down a blocker, with the other jammer close behind. I managed to score points and call it off before they got points, and that’s what you want. It would have been nice to have more of those, but I did ok as a blocker.

The night is mostly a blur and I’m sure there’s more I wanted to write but I’ll stop there. I’m tired and achey and my butt hurts from where I fell on my skates more than once. Not even on the track, just standing by my bench. Such balance. But still, yay! We won!

Fat Lip

I do love a good derby injury that isn’t going to keep me off skates or make my general life difficult. I did possibly my best fall ever on Saturday night. I was jamming and an opposing blocker hit me. I fell into their jammer, basically hitting her elbow with my face as she brought her arm up, then skidding into her as I fell, taking her legs out from under her and having her fall on top of me. I thought my nose was bust, so I didn’t get up straight away, which means everyone takes a knee and stares at you with concerned faces and it’s kind of embarrassing.

I touched my nose then looked at my hand and it was clear, no blood, so I said I was fine. ‘I’m not bleeding!’ and all these faces are peering at me and one girl says ‘I think you are bleeding, Carrie.’ Turns out my mouth guard had pushed up into my lip when I fell, and grazed it. Blood on my mouth guard! Derby right of passage! It didn’t bleed much and I sat the rest out with an ice pack to my face. It was nearly the end though so I didn’t miss much. My face is a little tender and the graze on my lip is sore, but I’m fine.

Scrimmage was good, for once. We’ve been playing in our teams for the last few weeks and poor Team Black are not doing so good. I’m Team Black by the way. But it came together tonight, we were working much better as a team, communicating, all the basic stuff we’d been rubbish at. Unfortunately there are only a few of us ‘old timers’ and a lot of newbies, and that means our strongest players will likely never be in a pack together, cos we need to help the others. This is v sad for me as I work well with a couple of those girls and I never get to skate with them. We went on in one jam together tonight, and it was beautiful. We sat on the other jammer for ages, knocking her out of bounds, making her v tired, while our jammer went round and round picking up points. We came off like, ‘Yeah! That is our winning pack baby!’ And then our bench coach pointed out the next team was all newbies and was struggling. So, no winning pack. Gah. Maybe we’ll get one jam in together.

Bout next Friday. As long as we play as well as we did tonight I’ll be happy. I had a lot of fun, and that’s what’s important.

Fresh Meat: Version 2.0

It’s been around 16 months since I started playing roller derby by joining Fresh Meat. My first post about it is here. I like to think I’ve come a long way, baby. And so on Saturday I helped out with the newest Fresh Meat intake at Earl’s Court. It is very strange to me that last year I was one of those girls, bambi-like on my skates, unable to do much of anything, since I’d never learned to stop when I skated as a kid, and now here I am teaching others how to skate. Weird.

There were 84 at the session and 60 odd of them went on to be assessed to get into Fresh Meat. I had a group of 9, and they were all very nice, good attitudes and tried everything. I don’t know how good a teacher I am. I was trying to demonstrate stops without saying ‘you just kinda do it’, since that is unhelpful. But some of it is hard to explain. I hope they did find me helpful anyway. They asked me questions about how to do transitions and crossovers, since we’d moved quickly on from the stops and I got them to do other stuff. Katy Peril told me to make them skate lower so their legs burned so I made them do the low skating drill, where I screamed ‘Floor!’ and they had to touch the floor, and then it gets evil when I’m going ‘floor floor floor floor floor’ so they have do stay down. I’m not mega evil, I did it with them.

When I did Fresh Meat I hurt for almost a week afterwards, but it was worth it and it felt like I’d achieved something. I wanted them to feel that too. After the assessments we got pizza and sat down to decide who made it in. Everyone was laughing at me because I was being too easy on everyone, but it’s because I remember how bad I was when I started, and that I would not have made it into Fresh Meat if we’d had the same criteria then. The standards have changed and you really do need to be able to skate well now, that’s how popular it’s becoming. There are even skate sessions held independently of LRG and the rec league for people to get good enough at skating in order to pass the skills test to get into Fresh Meat. It’s crazy. But also kinda cool, that people give up their own time to do that. I feel bad for the ones who will get the email saying ‘Not this time’. It’s like I’m crushing dreams. And with a little help and practice they could be good. I’m a decent enough skater now, but it’s only because I had that time and training.

After that we watched the two bouts and the UltraViolent Femmes won the championship. That’s my fave team. No more home team games til January, which makes me sad.

Goals

Lately I feel like I’m regressing when it comes to roller derby. I feel like I should be further ahead than I am, especially considering I’ve been playing for over a year now. I know everyone moves at their own pace, and when I look back on where I was when I started I have achieved so much…but I want more. The only person who can sort that out is me, and as with many things I am my own worst enemy. Because I say I want it, but do I want to work for it, or do I just want to wake up tomorrow an amazing skater, an amazing derby player? I know which one I’d choose, even if I’m not all that proud of it. I like the easy way, and I don’t think there is an easy way in derby. There’s the blood, sweat and tears way.

So I made a list of things to focus on. There are many more things I could add but it’s probably best to start with these, to try and get to grips with them and maybe feel a little better about my progress. Because at least I’m trying.

1. Jump/step more

I am not nimble, I am not agile. For the most part I skate like I have bricks strapped to my feet. Jumping scares me. Hell, skating fast scares me, let alone leaping through the air at speed. But, as they say, there’s no real point playing derby if you are afraid. You don’t want to get hurt? Don’t play. If you’re going to play, give it your all.

2. Focus on positional blocking

There is no point me going for the big hits, I am just no good at them. More often than not I am going to fall myself when doing them, which isn’t helping anyone. I need to remember to positional block instead. Sit on that other player, lean and push them where I want them to go. Try to remember to create ‘friendly sides’ for the jammer. I am forever getting in the jammer’s way, and as someone who does jam a fair bit, I know how annoying that is. You want your blockers to read your mind and make the holes where you want to go, or open up that little gap you see.

3. Work on offence

As above with the being a big scaredy cat: Stop it, and work on your hits, woman!

4. Really push myself in every jam

And again with the ‘own worst enemy’, I don’t always try my hardest in every jam. I’ll hang back as a jammer when I should be pushing through. I have no excuse.

5. Get lower!

The oft repeated refrain heard from my very first practice and yet still, I don’t get as low as I should.

6. Focus

Pick one tactic/thing to work on well in each jam, that’s what scrimmage is for, to try things and learn. So in one jam do the jumping/stepping, in another just positional blocking, in another not cutting the damn track, etc.

7. Communicate

I am getting better at this, I am finding my voice, but I can still do more.

8. Read the rules

Again. And again and again. Stop being a numpty and forgetting things I should know by now. (Saturday was the many penalties we gained because I forgot about reforming the pack. Der.) If I could stop losing my head completely during the jams that would be great.

And that’ll do, pig, that’ll do. For now.

London Rollergirls Promo

This is awesome and you should watch it.

London Rollergirls Promo from Steve Brown on Vimeo.

My own roller derby career is going great. On Saturday I hit one girl into a wall and made another cry. I swear I am not a track bully and did not do either of these things on purpose. I guess they just happen…

Trying

Last Saturday I tried out for the main roller derby league. Spoilers: I didn’t make it. I didn’t expect to though. There is so much I need to work on to get to the level needed. My agility, my stamina, stability…to name a few. Even though it was expected I was still a little disappointed, as I think anyone is when they’re told they’re not good enough. But I will shake that off and go back to skating with my beloved Rec League. There really is no down side to not making it, I get to skate with the best ladies around.

So…tryouts. In my head I was totally ok, since it was mainly for the experience and I was trying to enjoy myself, but nerves did get to me. I tried not be too hard on myself and be proud that I tried, because it was nerve wracking, but I don’t think I did my best. I don’t know if my best is good enough to make it either, but I think I could do better. My body had other ideas and went all jangly. I also felt like I’d failed the moment I got there, which is so not the attitude to have.

The tryouts apparently weren’t as hard as last time. It was mostly like a regular practice but ramped up a bit. We did some drills, doing stops and falls. I couldn’t do a hockey stop but my derby stop is down. That’s one of the things I should be proud of. When I started I couldn’t stop at all, or turn, and now I can do both and pull off a derby stop. And! I can do it with a spin or a jump. Yay me. Ballistic Whistle, Kamikaze Kitten, Dalai Harmer, Raw Heidi and Frightening Bolt were the ‘judges’. No pressure or anything. Every time I skated past them I fell down. No lie.

Then we did some blocking drills and it was just carnage. Everyone working alone to either protect their jammer or slam the opposing one. I jammed a few times and took some hard hits. I had back twinges and hurt my knee at one point. Later we scrimmaged for an hour. I jammed twice. My first go wasn’t good, but I’m happy with my second go. I got lead and made it through a few times. But we weren’t allowed to call it off, I guess so the judges could see the pack work for longer. I can’t tell you how knackering it it was. I’ve got to up my endurance.

I can’t say I enjoyed the thing really, even though I tried to. I don’t remember much about it, it went by fast. We had a talk from Raw about being in LRG and how much work it takes – extra practice, committee work, working every bout. It’s a lot, and that’s something to think about too, if I decide to try out again in future. Right now my derby life is mostly fun. I skate, I hang out with my buddies, I volunteer at some bouts, but it’s not my life. I love it immensely, but I don’t know if I want it to be my everything, and that’s sort of what you sign up for.

Some of my Rec League buddies did make it, and I am so proud of them. I knew they would, because they are brilliant, but I’m going to miss them not being at practice any more. I will cheer louder than anyone when they skate in their first bout though.