From Fresh Meat to the Zebra Herd: My Roller Derby Journey

I guess it has been a month since I last blogged eh?  It’s been a busy month. Much of it has been spent practicing playing with my team the Flour City Fear in preparation for our first two games in Cleveland.  But first I had a little reffing thing to take care of called The Fresh and the Furious, hosted by GTAR, in Toronto, ON.

I had been looking forward to #fnf2016 for a long time. Ever since Winter Wipeout where I had my first taste of tournament derby. It is a chance to work with refs you have never worked with before and learn a ton of new things. And in my case, gauge how far I have come since I started.   I had a good crew mixed with a couple of people I had been with and others I had not.  Ended up working 8 games. I OPR’d 6 of them and JR another 2.  On top of all the derbz that day, I got to hang out with many of the refs and NSO’s that I have learned from in my short derby ref career.

The week after Fresh, I headed up to Guelph to help out Royal City and Tri-City with a couple of home games. That is a bit of a drive but it was just within the maximum distance I will drive to ref derby.  The main reason I made that trip is because I wanted to work with a few of the refs who call those leagues their home. One ref in particular who has been really supportive and mentor like to me as I have been on this journey and it was great to work with him again. This event is where the best picture of the season, for me anyways, came from.  I don’t know.....I think derby has done wonders for my legs and my butt.

And finally on to the main event. The Flour City Fear debut in Cleveland against the Cincinnati Battering Rams immediately followed by our second game against the Cleveland Guardians.  I worked hard to get myself as ready as I possibly could heading in to this back to back doubleheader but no preparation could have prepared me for the heat that we encountered in that building.

Think of the hottest building you have ever been in. Add 10 degrees and crank up the humidity to 90% with no breeze.  That is what we played in for about four straight hours.  It was brutal.

We played our asses off in both games.  Cincinnati absolutely obliterated us but we put up some points and had some jams where we held their jammers to 0 points because of outstanding blocking.  We worked well as a team given how little time we have been together. I found the first game to be terribly difficult for me as a jammer. I was literally running myself into the ground attempting to break through their walls.  And I was not very successful. I took 3 cutting penalties in the first half and was absolutely exhausted even though I only played 4 or 5 jams.  During the half I calmed myself down and for the 2nd half I played more of a hybrid role. Sometimes I went out as a jammer and other times I went out as a blocker and I felt that my play improved a lot after that point.

The 2nd game went much better. I started out the first half as just a jammer and performed better than the first game. I started incorporating some lateral movement into my jams and my blockers opened up some huge holes for me.  I accomplished all of personal goals as a jammer in this game.  I exited the pack, I got lead, I scored points, I made multiple scoring passes and I had a double digit point jam. The 2nd half of the Cleveland game I played more of the ”go where the team needs me” role because by this point we were all exhausted and the heat was taking its toll.  I can’t say how proud of I am of this team and how happy I am to be on this team.  Even though we weren’t ahead on the scoreboard, we were laughing and having a good time. We were high fiving each other and a lot of the times the other team as we came off the track.  I love the class that we exuded.

Going forward I look to become a better player. I can already see where my skating has improved by being a player.  I hope going forward that my schedule permits me to continue playing and reffing at the same time because I love both for different reasons.  But the reason I love both is because of the amazing people that I get to associate myself with.

As I sit here preparing to go to practice tonight I realize that I have been skating 3-5 times a week since I got my first pair of skates in November.  When it is just been skating (like for ref practice), my body reacts well to it. It is just like any other exercise I have ever done.  For the last month or so since I have been participating in full contact drills, I have really begun to feel my age.  Getting hit and delivering hits takes its toll on your body.

I have been taking steps to mitigate the impact on my body but I know I need to do more.  I take ibuprofen prior to practices and skating so I am less sore when I am done.  This is an old runner trick that I learned early on. It is better to take the ibuprofen before you run and you are less sore after you run. I have been taking rest days between practice and running to make sure my body has a bit of time to recover. The thing I think I really need to get into the habit of doing is eating better.

Injuries don’t scare me because if I have learned one thing from running, skiing, hiking etc. you can’t play scared. If you play scared you will get hurt. I refuse to play scared and will always give my all.

I am scared my body is not going to be able to handle this. I have aches and pains in places I didn’t know I could get aches and pains.  I have derby bruises....but they aren’t visible....they are there. I can feel them but you can’t see them.

When I lost my 60-65 lbs., I did it by eating properly and exercising a lot.  I am still getting the exercise but my diet is crap.  I need to find that drive to eat healthy again.  If I am going to be the jammer that I know I can be in my head, I need to get my body into the shape I need to make that happen and that doesn’t happen by shoving pizza down my pie hole.  I have been good with breakfast and lunch and snacks. I usually lose my diet at dinner.

It was a busy derby weekend for me. Friday we had the QCRG end of the seaon Awards Banquet. On Saturday I reffed 4 games in two different cities.  I reffed a double header with some of my favorite ref friends in Stratford, ON and then reffed another double header with some of  my other favorite ref friends in St. Catherine’s ON.  No....I’m not going to rank who are the better ref friends because both sets have had major influence and impact on my development as a ref and I can’t thank them enough. However I will say that one certain head ref has an obsession with “Hamilton the Musical” like I do and that might rank her up as my favorite ref ever.  Especially when she drove by as I was leaving, rolled her window down, stuck her fist up in the air and shouted “I’m not throwin away my shot!” 

 That was a lot of derby in one day for a person.  But that wasn’t the end of the derbz for me over the weekend. I played in my first scrimmage as a player on Sunday with the Flour City Fear and some of the wonderful people from ROC City Roller derby. Some of their A and B team players showed up and we mixed up the squads. It was a blast.

I was very nervous heading into it. Up until that point I had only participated in a handful of practices where I was allowed to hit or be hit. I definitely had the shakes lining up for my first jam.  Oh, did I mention I am a jammer?  My first jam I took some big hits. This was a lot of not being hit before and deer in the head lights wtf am I doing out here kind of stuff. But I kept pushing and I think I actually made it out of the pack. The next time jamming, I actually managed to get lead!  I’d like to say it was my amazing jammer skills and footwork that got me out first, truth be told it was my amazing blockers Schramm and Hater Tot that cleared the biggest lane in the history of roller derby for me to skate on through.

Getting lead is a wonderful rush. I don’t know how to explain it. I guess it would be like when you score a goal in hockey or soccer.  It makes you feel like a million bucks. From this point on I settled down on my nerves and concentrated on the game at hand.  I have a new found respect for forearm penalties.  As a ref you don’t realize how easy it is to get an arm up on someone or push them or accidentally grab them.  I probably committed 25 forearm penalties and I need to work on that.

At one point near the middle of the first half, I was jamming and I took a hit from one of the ROC Stars named Star Spangled Bam Her that felt like my skeleton had removed itself from my skin and was floating through the air away from me.  I got in in the 585 and I landed in the 716.  That is how hard I got hit.  I bounced right back up. I hurt...but damn it I wasn’t going to give up.  Again...somehow I think I ended up with lead on this jam but man did it hurt.  I proved to myself I can take a huge hit and keep on going.  I wanted to high 5 her after the jam but never got the chance to because I ended up taking a penalty and had to go to the penalty box between jams.

I could give you a play by play of the rest of the day but the gist of it is that I learned a lot, had fun, got hit and gave hits.  I was unsure about playing but no longer. I’ve got this.During the game our bench coach gave me feedback and I did my best to implement it into my game immediately. I love the fact that all the women who showed up from ROC City to play with us were so supportive. It was very easy to keep a positive attitude no matter what happened with that type of support. I can’t wait for my first games in Cleveland on July 23rd. It is going to be a blast!

It was brought to my attention that I haven’t blogged in a while.  I guess that is true. It has been a while. Life has become busy and so has my derby life.  Actually, derby life has calmed down in some areas and picked up in other areas.

As far as reffing goes, I was able to get my first 2 WFTDA sanctioned games under my belt. I was OPR for one and ALT for the other.  Both great experiences and I worked with some top notch crews.  I was able to attend a ROC City scrimmage and ref with them and that was amazing.  The refs that ROC City have in their organization are top notch.  I learned a lot and had a ton of fun while doing it. I look forward to doing more of that in the future.  Which will happen more often because.........

I am now a dues paying member of the Flour City Fear which is the mens team based in Rochester.  I was pretty much hooked after attending my first practice. This team is a great bunch of guys who have come together because they love derby. There is a good mix of new comers, experienced coaches/players and those of us who know some about derby and are trying to take it to the next level.  Joining this team left me with a dilemma.....I can’t use GeogREFer as a player because it has the word ref in it.  So I had to think of a name I could use to play under.  Sure....I could have gone with just my last name on the back of my jersey but I really like creative names.  It took a while but once I found my name, it hit me like a photon torpedo hits a klingon warbird.

Skating for the Flour City Fear its #1701 Jean Luc HitsHard!

Pretty good name if I do say so myself.  All the cool Star Wars names were taken so I went with Star Trek because....well...who doesn’t love Captain Picard? The name also comes with a built in number!

I am looking forward to learning how to hit and to play in some games.  I am hoping to be ready to play by July 23 when FCF has a double header in Cleveland against the mens teams from Cleveland and Cincinnati.

I have a lot of work to get to that point and not a lot of time to do it.

Speaking of July, I have been accepted to ref in the  ________ and the ________ tournament in _________  on _______ . I am looking forward to working with __________, ____________, and _____________ as well as others I haven’t had the opportunity to work with before.  I can’t wait to get more ________ and _________ experience as well as maybe get to work the ________ position for the first time ever.  

The title is so lazy but I don’t have the energy to think of a better one. Man....so much has happened since the last blog. And I don’t really know how to or want to put it all into words so I am just going to hit on some highlights. 

Last weekend I had the pleasure to NSO at Beaver Fever in Waterloo, ON which is a WFTDA recognized tournament and I was able to learn from some of the most amazing NSO’s I’ve ever met.  The people I worked with in the penalty box had so much experience and I learned a few great tips on how to be more efficient and to make my job easier.  Communication between the penalty box and the crew head on the inside of the track was freaking amazing.  I never realized that so much can be relayed with positioning of hands and head nods.

The weekend before I was able to ref a double header at the league that started my derby interest (NRG) and that also went well. I love going up to help them out. There are so many great and fun people in that league and I would travel many many hours to help them out if I needed to.

Did I mention I happened to get 27/5 in front of my head ref and he said I was good to get back in the league ref rotation. This felt like a gigantic weight lifted off my shoulders.  I know I will have to do it again going forward, everyone has to, but to be able to get back into the rotation before the end of the season means a lot to me.

I know that I have a lot of work ahead of me.  When WFTDA opens up their certification process again, I want to have all the skating skills I need to get my Level 1 or Level 2 certification.  This certification includes 3 backwards laps with crossovers and 10 laps within 1:30 among other skills combined with experience reffing different levels of games.

This weekend I am going to practice with the Flour City Fear. They are the men’s team that plays in Rochester. This is going to be a fun experience. I am going to be able to learn how to play derby as opposed to just learning the rules.  I am super excited for this opportunity. I don’t know if it is going to lead to me playing mens derby, but at the very least I am going to experience it and see if I enjoy it. I expect to fall on my rear a lot. But I am going to have a lot of fund doing it and I know it will help improve my skating even more.

For all of you struggling on part of your game, hang in there. It will come. It might not happen as quick as you want it to, but it will happen.   Yes, I need to listen to my own advice :P

Of course now.........now I will need to come up with a derby name that doesn’t have the word “REF” in it.

I was able to ref at the Winter Wipeout tournament put on by Wellington Roller Derby in Mt. Forest, Ontario.  I had a blast at that tournament. I jam reffed 5 games and OPR’d 1 game. I learned so much. Both ref crews were amazing and there was feedback at every turn.  To add to the games that I reffed, I NSO’d for 4 games as well.  I was a wee bit busy, but that was the best part of it.

I definitely look forward to reffing more tournaments in the future because it was a ton of fun.

I’ve had a couple people who read the blog tell me that I make derby seem easy because of how quickly I picked it up. Derby is hard. I seemingly breezed through all of the skills for assessment except for the laps at the end of January. That day I hit 26.75 laps. I figured it was only a matter of time and I’d have them. Every official attempt since then has seen me at 26 or I fall before I can finish.  It is absolutely in my head and I know. Those who watch me skating my laps can see it.  If I make one mistake they can see my frustration peak and it throws me out of whack.  Every time I fail my laps, the mountain inside me grows. I need to get over this mental hump. Physically, I can do this. In practice when we do the cadence drill, I can hit 27. In practice I have hit 27.  When I skate on my own I can hit 27. When I assess…..well that seems to be another story.

This past weekend I had my second official attempt at laps since last assessments.  I felt like it was going well. I fixed a couple of the issues that had plagued me with my stride in the previous week and I had people there cheering me on.  I appreciate the support. And it means a lot to me. At about lap 24/25 I lost my balance and fell. It felt like I pulled something in my side but I skated it off. Pride was hurt. Frustration boiled over and I had myself a derby meltdown in the corner while the next groups skated their laps. Luckily SWGMID was there to help me pick up the pieces. Derby broke me on Sunday. I’ve never felt more defeated. I won’t lie….I wanted to hang my skates up and not go back.

I had one primary goal and another secondary goal if the primary goal wasn’t met. Primary goal was to get my 27/5. Secondary goal was to at least finish on my feet without falling.  I’ve tried just about everything to get laps out of my head. I’ve been told as soon as I get my 27/5, I get placed in the leagues regular ref pool which ads a bit of pressure. Which is my goal. It is there, but I can’t seem to get across the finish line and the longer I take, the more my frustration grows and that is making it worse on me. I need to learn how to forget about all of that stuff for 5 minutes.

The one thing I can say that has changed since I hit 26.75 laps is that I am in worse physical shape since that attempt due to not watching my diet. If I am going to make this goal, I need to watch what I eat and exercise more. Lunch break at work has now turned into gym time and I eat at my desk after I work out.

I am going to make my goal of 27/5. I just don’t think I am going to get it fast enough to accomplish my goal of reffing on my home track again (outside of the Queens Court game May 1) before the end of the season.

Since the events of the last blog I have only had the opportunity to ref once even though my league has had some bouts. I’ve skated in scrimmages and practices and I am learning how to jam ref.  At first I was stupid nervous…but now having done it 5 or 6 times, I kind of like jam reffing.

I’ve been dealing with a confidence issue since the events of the last scrimmage. I go between times where I want to give up and others where I just want to skate my butt off to achieve my goals. There never seems to be any in between since that fateful Monday.  Life goes on and it won’t wait around for me to wallow in self pity. One thing that I didn’t allow to change, I am always the first one on the track at practice/scrimmage/bouts and I try to utilize any track time I have to practice getting better at my skills.

This past weekend I had 3 days of derby. First up was for QCRG where we had a Friday night double head. Their were so many NSO’s signed up to work that I only worked one of the bouts which freed me up to do some volunteer work at will call for the event.  It was nice to do that. I also got to sit and watch the 2nd half of the bout which, i’ll be honest, was the first bout I have had the luxury of watching at QCRG. Since I joined the league, I have NSO’d or reffed all of them. The 2nd game was between the Furies and Orangeville who just gained their WFTDA status last week.  It was a hard fought bout and Orangeville won. It was a bit of a shock but Orangeville played a hell of a game and deserved it.  

Next up on Saturday night was an NRG double header. I have a blast every time I do anything with this league.  Every league is full of fun people but this league I think has an over abundance of fun people.  I helped oversee the Lineup Trackers for the first bout and learned Inside White Board for the 2nd one. It was a fun night. I think I may have laughed more than I should have for this event because the people I worked with were amazing. I hope to ref up there if a spot is every open when I am available.

And finally Sunday comes…..a triple header in Ancaster and I am reffing all three games. The day started out good. I went and picked up my kids and started to head up to Ancaster for the day.  The Canadian border agent asked me where I was headed and I told her I was going to ref roller derby in Hamilton. This got the kids and I hauled into immigration. Apparently she had never heard of derby and thought I was either running away with my kids or getting paid to do it even though I assured her it was volunteer only.  The woman in immigration chuckled when we walked in and quickly had us on our way

Most of the crew for the junior bouts.

Two junior games and HARD’s Peach Cup. I volunteered to jam ref for the juniors games and that was a lot of fun. It was an experienced crew which eased my nerves a lot. I also advised everyone to give me feedback as we went a long and to feel free to tell me I am doing it all wrong so I could make my game better.  When you work with an experienced crew, you learn a lot. For the first two bouts, I learned a lot about communication between the Pack Refs and the Jam Refs. It is amazing the confidence you gain in something when you are placed in a situation where it is required that you do it. I made a couple mistakes. Forgot a lap point at one time but I corrected that at the end of that jam. And at one point in the 2nd game, I had a brain fart and followed the wrong jammer out of the pack.  That was a bit embarrassing but the other jam ref had done the same thing in the previous half so we had a good laugh about that.

The final game was the championship game for HARD. I was rear OPR for this one and I skated my tail off.  This, by far, was the fastest pack I have ever been on. The other OPR and I decided that we would try to maintain our position on the outside of the pack instead of doing the rotation.  For the most part, we kept up. There were only a few jams where I needed to peel off and pick up the pack in turn 3 and 4. But man…I skated my butt off. This bout being the final of 3 for the day made for a long day. I felt good about my performance and everyone has told me I did great. 

I really enjoy refereeing and NSOing. I absorb all the feedback I get and try to step up my game whenever possible. The next blog will most likely be in a couple of weeks after I participate in Winter Wipeout 2016.  This is a tournament in which I will be reffing at least 6 20 minute games over the course of a day and I can’t wait.