Aloha Freshies!
Today was the first day on skates for many of you, and for others it was review so that you can be a stronger skater by December! No matter where you are on the skill spectrum, basics can ALWAYS be improved.
Throughout the Fresh Meat intake period (Sept - Dec) you may see unfamiliar faces with pretty good technique. These are Pacific Roller Derby league skaters that are joining in on the practice to work on basics and get a good workout in. Don't be afraid of them, they are a helpful group of ladies and can give you great pointers!
I will give a caveat here, though, and say that not all well-intended PRD skaters that want to help you, bless their hearts, have extensive background in derby. Like you, they started at the beginning and had to learn. They want you to succeed, but might need more time on their own skates to figure out mechanics. It's great to have cheerleaders, though! Just know that some girls helping are new themselves, and take any advice with a grain of salt as you go. If it feels bad or dangerous, stop! Absolutely do not attempt a skill we haven't learned yet if you are uncertain! This mostly applies to anything involving full contact (hits, pushes, whips, advanced agility). We will get to that crazy stuff in due time, so don't rush it. Safe skaters skate long careers. Hazardous skaters, not so much. Duh, right? You can roll your eyes, it's okay! I am dubbed the "Safety Queen," but I don't mind that title. It was earned through 7 years of skating and some super intense derby injuries. I think some risks in life are good risks (going out of your comfort zone and playing a contact sport, trying new things, learning new skills). Bad risks, however, are absolutely unnecessary (skating without safety gear, skating in locations with obvious hazards like posts/close fences, gravel, heavy traffic flow, etc). Wear your helmet on skates at all times. It only takes one fall, and you may fall just standing still. I've done it plenty. If you need to cool down, sit down and remove your helmet. If you are worried about looking cool, put some stickers on that bad boy, but remember... no helmet could mean scrambled brains. Is that worth looking "cool?" Heck no!
On to the practice recap:
Today we had 30 min of dryland training led by White Dynamite. He is your off-skates fitness instructor and will be helping you develop the hard derby bodies that you've been dreaming about! Please attempt to stick out all of the difficult workouts he throws at you... they will make you a better skater. Dynamite led you on a warm-up run, followed by core and leg work. You did some circuit training, and then I led you in some wall sit intervals. 30 secs sitting, 30 secs rest, 45 secs sitting, 45 secs rest, 1 min sitting and dunzo. If you do this at home, you can increase the length and rest times accordingly. For added legburning, work back down to 15 secs after you've increased to 2-3 min sits. Good times! Do it watching Celebrity Housewives or Hoarders, or during your next Orange is the New Black Marathon.
We got geared up in loaner gear, and only ONE SKATER forgot her mouthguard!! Omg, small miracle! I was so proud of all of you for being excellent listeners. I hope everyone found gear that fit them. If something wasn't working for you, make sure to speak up and talk to a PRD girl to get fitted correctly next Saturday. You will need to rely on PRD skaters less and less, and we will need to increase the speed in which we gear up. By next month, I will be timing you to completely gear up in less than 5 minutes, so work on it!
On skates, we checked to make sure you had everything on properly and then you started rolling around the track. We learned "SNOW PLOW STOPS" and "SINGLE KNEE FALLS," then we learned "DOUBLE KNEE FALLS." The trick with snow plows is to allow your legs to go super wide and stick your butt out, then curve your toes towards your center to brake. Please practice these if you have your own equipment. With falls, we stress to fall gently on your knees. It is more of a balance check than a hard "plop." We also worked on our STRIDE, which is how we push off from one skate to the next. Basic stride requires that you push off to the sides, not behind you. This will maximize your power in each push. Derby stance was mentioned: "get low and forward" sitting in your invisible chair. If you ever feel unstable like you might fall, sit lower in your "chair" and lean forward. This easy method will save you from a hard fall (now you see why core strength is so important!) I mentioned to "protect your boobs." This means to keep your elbows locked in to your chest. Yes, it really does protect your chest a bit, but more importantly, it helps your form... you learn not to rely on your arms for balance. Your legs are the real action in derby, which is why Tyrannosaurus Rexes would've made excellent derby skaters.
Today was the first day on skates for many of you, and for others it was review so that you can be a stronger skater by December! No matter where you are on the skill spectrum, basics can ALWAYS be improved.
Throughout the Fresh Meat intake period (Sept - Dec) you may see unfamiliar faces with pretty good technique. These are Pacific Roller Derby league skaters that are joining in on the practice to work on basics and get a good workout in. Don't be afraid of them, they are a helpful group of ladies and can give you great pointers!
I will give a caveat here, though, and say that not all well-intended PRD skaters that want to help you, bless their hearts, have extensive background in derby. Like you, they started at the beginning and had to learn. They want you to succeed, but might need more time on their own skates to figure out mechanics. It's great to have cheerleaders, though! Just know that some girls helping are new themselves, and take any advice with a grain of salt as you go. If it feels bad or dangerous, stop! Absolutely do not attempt a skill we haven't learned yet if you are uncertain! This mostly applies to anything involving full contact (hits, pushes, whips, advanced agility). We will get to that crazy stuff in due time, so don't rush it. Safe skaters skate long careers. Hazardous skaters, not so much. Duh, right? You can roll your eyes, it's okay! I am dubbed the "Safety Queen," but I don't mind that title. It was earned through 7 years of skating and some super intense derby injuries. I think some risks in life are good risks (going out of your comfort zone and playing a contact sport, trying new things, learning new skills). Bad risks, however, are absolutely unnecessary (skating without safety gear, skating in locations with obvious hazards like posts/close fences, gravel, heavy traffic flow, etc). Wear your helmet on skates at all times. It only takes one fall, and you may fall just standing still. I've done it plenty. If you need to cool down, sit down and remove your helmet. If you are worried about looking cool, put some stickers on that bad boy, but remember... no helmet could mean scrambled brains. Is that worth looking "cool?" Heck no!
On to the practice recap:
Today we had 30 min of dryland training led by White Dynamite. He is your off-skates fitness instructor and will be helping you develop the hard derby bodies that you've been dreaming about! Please attempt to stick out all of the difficult workouts he throws at you... they will make you a better skater. Dynamite led you on a warm-up run, followed by core and leg work. You did some circuit training, and then I led you in some wall sit intervals. 30 secs sitting, 30 secs rest, 45 secs sitting, 45 secs rest, 1 min sitting and dunzo. If you do this at home, you can increase the length and rest times accordingly. For added legburning, work back down to 15 secs after you've increased to 2-3 min sits. Good times! Do it watching Celebrity Housewives or Hoarders, or during your next Orange is the New Black Marathon.
We got geared up in loaner gear, and only ONE SKATER forgot her mouthguard!! Omg, small miracle! I was so proud of all of you for being excellent listeners. I hope everyone found gear that fit them. If something wasn't working for you, make sure to speak up and talk to a PRD girl to get fitted correctly next Saturday. You will need to rely on PRD skaters less and less, and we will need to increase the speed in which we gear up. By next month, I will be timing you to completely gear up in less than 5 minutes, so work on it!
On skates, we checked to make sure you had everything on properly and then you started rolling around the track. We learned "SNOW PLOW STOPS" and "SINGLE KNEE FALLS," then we learned "DOUBLE KNEE FALLS." The trick with snow plows is to allow your legs to go super wide and stick your butt out, then curve your toes towards your center to brake. Please practice these if you have your own equipment. With falls, we stress to fall gently on your knees. It is more of a balance check than a hard "plop." We also worked on our STRIDE, which is how we push off from one skate to the next. Basic stride requires that you push off to the sides, not behind you. This will maximize your power in each push. Derby stance was mentioned: "get low and forward" sitting in your invisible chair. If you ever feel unstable like you might fall, sit lower in your "chair" and lean forward. This easy method will save you from a hard fall (now you see why core strength is so important!) I mentioned to "protect your boobs." This means to keep your elbows locked in to your chest. Yes, it really does protect your chest a bit, but more importantly, it helps your form... you learn not to rely on your arms for balance. Your legs are the real action in derby, which is why Tyrannosaurus Rexes would've made excellent derby skaters.
After a water break, we broke these basics down just a little bit more by doing them in a straight path across the rink, allowing PRD volunteers to give individual feedback on form. Then we learned about "T-STOPS." These are tricky, but super helpful in crowded skating situations. You can practice T-stops at home like Peku mentioned, by holding onto a wall, squatting, and after kicking one leg behind you, slowly dragging that leg in towards your standing leg, flat on the ground. Your feet will actually form an "L" shape, not so much a "T." Just sayin.
We did one of my favorite drills, "Space Invaders." This involves standing in derby stance and basically doing what I do. From a stand-still, we stepped to the right and stepped to the left, did right and left crossovers (basically a grapevine), stepped in circles, stood on our tippy toes, jumped in the air, touched the ground, and did ballerina twirls. All of this is great agility work. You can do the grapevines off-skates to improve your crossovers on skates. Try it out at home! The lower you get, the easier it is to perform the crossover.
Next we did a relay. It was exciting! We formed lines of 4 and sprinted to the halfway mark to do a double knee fall, got up, sprinted to the end and did a snow plow, turned around to sprint back, tagged our next buddy in line and did a rock star double knee fall! We increased the skills on the second relay by making it a single knee, alternate single knee fall and then an optional T-stop at the far end. I think ya'll did fabulous for your first day!
We went on the track again and did an introductory drill to learn about "PACE LINES." This involved "STICKY SKATING" and arm's length from a person in front and in back of you in a line, going DERBY DIRECTION (counter-clockwise) on the track. There were four pace lines. After a few laps around the track, I had the person leading each line drop to the back so that the next girl in line could lead. This drill should have allowed you some real-speed practice on how to do a snow plow or use a T-stop to slow down, as well as how to pace yourself with other skaters in your pack, or line.
We got water and took gear off, then watched a brief demo of a live-action scenario where we had PRD skaters demonstrate a "LINE" for a "JAM." One line from each team has 4 BLOCKERS and 1 JAMMER. In a jam, a full "PACK" consists of 4 blockers from each team and 1 jammer from each team. The jammers wear a STAR HELMET PANTY and the PIVOT blocker wears a STRIPE HELMET PANTY. A jam is started by the refs with one whistle. A jam lasts for 2 full minutes, unless one of the two jammers establishes LEAD JAMMER. Lead jammer status is achieved by successfully passing all blockers from both teams legally and in bounds before the opposing jammer. The jammer, once clearing the pack on her INITIAL PASS, must sprint around the track. When she enters the pack on her second pass, she begins to score points for each blocker (and sometimes jammer) on the opposing team. All she has to do is pass the opposing blocker's hips legally to get her point. A jammer may accrue 1 point for each blocker/jammer on each pass, so a good pass will earn that jammer 4-5 points, depending. There are plenty of things that can go wrong and earn a blocker/jammer a trip to the PENALTY BOX. You will learn about penalties along the way in your derby adventure, so I'm going to stop there before your head explodes!
We talked a bit about expectations at the end of today. Missing one or two practices is okay, but always let me know so I can jot it down. If you miss more than three or know you are going to miss some for whatever reason, get with me so that I can talk to you about that and develop a plan. It doesn't mean you're doomed or shouldn't skate in fresh meat, but you will be missing a lot of material.
Every Saturday we will incorporate new skills. When you learn new skills, you can continue to practice them outside of Saturdays, but if you do NOT attend that Saturday when a new skill is taught, you are at serious risk for injury if you attempt it without a knowledgeable vet helping you to learn the skill correctly. There are some excellent skaters in PRD that can give you great tips to improve skills, so do reach out and ask questions on the facebook group. Seek out a derby mentor to help you with skills that are tricky for you. Be accountable for your own development as a skater by learning about the sport, looking up bout footage on www.wftda.com or www.derbynewsnetwork.com, and volunteer as an NSO at PRD bouts. Be accountable for building yourself up into a lean, mean, derby machine! I can't make you show up, and I can't make you work out during the week. You have to do it for yourself. I know you can!!
I mentioned that this is the beginning of a journey with your fellow freshies, and that right now, you ARE NOT COMPETITORS. That comes later. Right now, you are each other's support system! Get to know each other. Arrange workouts together, especially off-skates workouts as you get ready to order your gear. Speaking of gear, order it! Put in a group order for your gear to save money on shipping. Questions? Ask on the Fresh Meat page on facebook... there are a lot of PRD girls on there that have background in this and have been in your position. Remember, we all start somewhere! Don't be discouraged. Some days it will feel like you are climbing a mountain, while other days you'll have a huge breakthrough...a true "ahAAA!" moment. Be there for each other for all of it, and be supportive. Pacific Roller Derby is lucky to have you, and I am extremely excited to help you as we start at the beginning. Welcome to roller derby, ladies!
xox, Calamity
