#refintraining

You may remember from the last blog that I had been prepping for a week that had a bunch of derby in it. Well...that failed to materialize thanks to the weather and a scheduling snafu which saw Riverworks double booked for a scrimmage and non-derby event...the non-derby event worked.  I did head up to to Hamilton and ref though. And....got new skates!  

My reffing experience was a good one. I reffed the junior team as an Outside Pack Ref (OPR) and I think I did ok. I saw what I was supposed to see I just need to up my reaction time. There were 5 penalties I went to call that were called by another ref a split second before I started my verbal cue and hand signal which led to an awkward nod and point to acknowledge that I had seen the same thing. After the juniors, I was able to shadow a full blown derby bout. I won’t lie, for most of the first half of the bout I felt like a fish out of water just trying to stay out of peoples way on the inside as I shadowed the head ref.

The 2nd half was better. I was able to see more and would have called a couple of things. I am still a little shaky on what I am seeing but that is getting better with time. I know I will have it soon enough.  Hey....look at those cool mountain socks I have!

Unfortunately for me, skating for the rest of the week was a no go due to Tuesday night cancellation due to snow and Thursday’s scheduling mishap. Thursday would have been my first night on my new skates! But it wasn’t meant to be.  Which bummed me out. Thursday was supposed to be a QCRG Juniors scrimmage that I was going to ref. Drove all the way to Buffalo only to have to turn around and go home. I was a little steamed but there was no control I had over the situation and these things, unfortunately, will sometimes happen.

I picked up these bad boys from Turnaround Skates in Buffalo. Ilana Gordon, the owner, is an amazing person and always willing to help. If you need skate gear, check her out. She definitely hooked me up.

Now...II would love to give you a skate review right now....but I can’t.  You see those toe stops?  They are huge and close to the ground. I need to get a new set of stops before I can tell you what I really think about these skates. I can tell you that they fit amazingly and for Sunday’s bootcamp I wasn’t worried about my feet slipping around in them and that was a huge load off my shoulders. Once I get the toe stop situation figured out, my skate worries will be over.

Speaking of skating...I have plateaued a bit. I am at the point where I am comfortable transitioning at slower and moderate speeds but can’t get over the mental hump I need to get over to do it at full speed. If I can get over this hump, I can then get my turn around toe stops in check which are good for me at slow and semi-moderate speeds but, again, I am still too sheepish at faster speeds to try them.  I don’t know what I am worried about...what is the worst thing that happens? I fall?  I can handle that.  At this point I know it is all in my head and I need to work to get beyond it.

This week....is going to be fun! I am going to get my new toe stops and I am going to get to ref a scrimmage between the Lake Effect Furies and the ROC Stars from Rochester.  I won’t lie, I am super nervous because those are two amazing teams. But that is how I learn. I will learn by experience. I know that is the way I learn. I can sit in front of a rule book all I want but reffing the best (and with the best) is how I will get better.  I am super excited about this opportunity.

New member intake was pretty amazing. It was great to see all the new people come out who are interested in learning how to skate and play derby. There were even 2 future refs in camp! About 25-30 people were there and it was quite the change from the 10-12 that I had been going to camp with.  It was a day of people getting used to gear and some learning how to skate from scratch. One future ref went from not knowing how to skate at the beginning of practice to being able to slowly navigate a straight line of cones by the end of it.  The vets that were in my group of skaters were very supportive of our new people. We would cheer when they did something great and offered them advice when we could.  One of the coaches from the Lake Effect Furies even came out to help as well as some of the players. Really it was a great time and I look forward to watching these skaters grow as I have since starting roller derby.  And remember, if you are in that group and reading this, never give up! You can do this! You have support and everyone is cheering for you! Everyone learns at their own pace and the person next to you might get it all in a month and it might take you 6 months or longer.  Just stick with it, You can do it! I promise! 

After boot camp, I made it to a Tuesday practice where my legs got destroyed by some off skates drills. What did I do the next day after my legs had been destroyed?  I did those exercises in my house as I am trying to build my derby muscle set. Since I don’t have the.....space?....to make it to the gym or to go running like I want, I need to keep my fitness level up so I am trying to take what I learn in off skates and replicate the exercises at home.  We also tried a new drill....well two new drills to me and I liked them. A lot. The first one was milk jug.  As a group we spent about 10 minutes skating around the track with a milk jug on the ground kicking it around like a soccer ball. It was good fun and the point of it was to get us to do things like transitions and skating backwards without thinking about it.  Well it worked for the most part. The next drill was a relay race. We split into two groups with one in turn 4 and one in turn 2.  First person starts laying on the ground and has to get up and sprint two laps and then come and tag the next person who is laying on the ground and you do this until both teams are done.  Then we did it with backwards skating...where you start laying on your back. Also fun.

I love Tuesday practices. They are a lot of fun even though we work hard. I love all practices actually. Any time I am skates.......really....... Speaking of skates, I now have to wear two socks with my skates on and they are starting to feel loose. The time has come to start looking for new skates. I thought the starter skates would last longer than 3 months but I guess I was wrong. They would have to wait until I found a good deal and I could make it into the skate shop to get properly sizes.  Properly fitting skates are very important.

Thursday was my first ref practice! At Riverworks!  First time at ref practice and skating on that sweet sweet floor.  The theme of this practice was jammer scoring. The head ref invited some players to practice and went over some scenarios to see if we could properly score how many points the jammers had scored during the scenes.  I learned a lot about positioning and scoring. I got most of the questions wrong but I got a few of them right.  There is a lot that goes into reffing. So much to learn and absorb. This is a long process and I wish I was 22 again so I could just do school, go to work and do derby because I’d be all over this again. Sadly at 39...I have a ton of responsibilities so I can’t really hit the rule book and videos as often or as hard as I like.  But that’s life.

I hit up Turnaround Skates to try on some boots. It’s Friday and I’m in love. Well it was actually Saturday but I have been dying to use that song lyric in some form. I tried on a couple of different skate boots and fell in love. Like....way in love with these things. They felt like a cloud hugging my feet. A huge difference from my beginner skates that now feel like I am swimming in an ocean. Unfortunately, I couldn’t walk out with new skates.  They will have to wait a bit longer. I can’t wait until those babies are mine though.

Only one bout QCRG bout this week. The kid I mentioned who was sick last week indeed got sicker as I was leaving bootcamp so I had to go home and take care of them. There was a bout on Saturday and. It was a sell out. 1300 people packed Riverworks to watch the Alley Kats take on the Devil Dollies. I was penalty timer this time. 

I was a bit nervous because I had only shadowed this position in the past and tonight I was handling it all. I had help via two other experienced NSO’s stationed near me but it was still intimidating. I nailed it though. Even though my stopwatches conspired against me.  The key function of a penalty timer is to time players penalties when they are sitting in the penalty box. 30 second penalties. Players get told to stand at 20 seconds and they leave when they are told they are done at 30.  Two times, one in each half, I had a stop watch die on me.  Luckily I always had one in reserve and I was able to not miss a beat and release players when they were supposed to. I look forward to being a box timer again. Not sure if I totally like the position but I don’t hate it. That’s for sure!

I didn’t attend bootcamp this morning and I am glad I prearranged that because one of my other offspring decided to get sick at 2am and I was up dealing with that for a while. I did miss a bootcamp picture which I am bummed about but there will be others.  On the docket this week...I am shadowing again in Hamilton again, have a couple more practices and possibly acquiring clouds for my feet.  

Since it is Valentine’s Day I wanted to share a couple of derby related Valentines memes:

Woo another two derby events in two days. I NSO’d the SubZero Sirens (their mascot was SubZero from the Mortal Combat video game) vs Hammer City Harlots bout on Saturday at Riverworks and man.....it was pretty hectic. We had a full compliment of NSO’s with alternates and full ref crew with an alternate as well. Refs and NSO’s hailed from QCRG (of course); Hamilton, ON; Niagara Roller Girls; and ROC City Roller Derby. It was a diverse and experienced crew. And then there was me! Just kidding. I was the lineup tracker again and it was awesome. It got a bit hairy for the first few jams. I think the team I was tracking took more penalties in the first 3 jams than the teams I had tracked in the previous two bouts combined. After that, it settled down a bit but there were a ton of penalties called. I held it down. Even got to laugh again. There were different announcers for this bout and they again mis-pronounced my name. I might just switch it to Georgerefer now!

T-bone, an NSO from Hamilton, who had talked to me for a bit before the bout as I was confirming the players on my list matched those who were actually playing, came over and assured me that all of the infield NSO’s laughed when they mispronounced my name. I assured him that those of us by the lineup tracker chairs also laughed.  I am going to get myself a bunch of friends to come to a bout and when they announce me with the incorrect pronunciation I want them to yell “GeogREFer like GEOGRAPHY!”  I suppose this is what I get for being a geography nerd. I’ll deal with it. I am honestly just happy to be involved. And if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

Look at that giant screen. If you like derby, you need to come watch a bout at Riverworks. It is seriously amazing.

Since the last blog post I have also found out there is more mens derby out there than I thought. I have been told of movements to start mens derby in multiple cities near me. If some of the rumors I hear are true....I might be playing derby after all. Which would be totally awesome.

Last blog posts I mentioned I had something funky going on with my skate. It ended up being my insoles. My new insoles are a lot thinner than my old ones and gave me more room in my boot. Since I am already wearing skates a 1/2 size bigger than my foot, it was an issue. I went back to my old insoles for practice this morning and it paid off.  It was not an auspicious start. I fell twice during warm ups doing mundane things like skating and plow stops. I thought I was in for a rough practice. While I did continue to fall a lot, I think it was my best practice yet.  Our normal coach took a well deserved day off and we had a new coach in.  We worked on some transitions, turn around toe stops, skating backwards and then linked them all together with a few drills. At the end we did....wait for it.....wait for it............keep waiting.......LAPS!!!!!!!!

Before we did laps, we were asked if we wanted to do laps and this exchange happened:

“Who wants to do laps?”- Coach “I don’t know if you heard, but I love laps” - Me “Oh yeah?”-Coach “You also like getting punched in the face by me.” - Freudian Trip “I also like getting decked by Freudian Trip whenever I mention that I love laps” - Me. FT is pretty awesome and had another awesome line earlier in practice “Yes, I know I am going as slow as my grandmother.” “Now that I think about it, my grandmother probably can’t go this fast.”

We split into two groups and paired off. No one wanted to pair with the freak who loves laps so the coach was my counter and I went first. I didn’t fall this time and I set a new personal best, 26.75 laps in 5 minutes.  That’s .25 of a lap off of where I need to be for assessments.  I think I am good for that.  The benefit of having the coach as my counter is that I got some great feedback after the fact. I was told I had a great pace until lap 20 and then that is where my form started to go bad. I think Lap 20 is where I fell during my first assessments and that is still stuck in my head.  I’ll tell you what, it was great feeling to know that I set a new personal record.  The coach went in the 2nd heat.  She only did 29 laps. She said she was having a slow day.  “Only” 29.

Now that I am close to my laps goal.....it is time to own the cones.

I’ve been told by my fellow boot campers that I am learning much quicker that most. That inspires me but I also don’t want to discourage them because I came in in the middle of boot camp and have picked skills up fairly quickly. We all learn at different speeds. And you can’t compare how you are progressing with anyone else. It is a process and it takes some people weeks to get it and other people years to get it. But you eventually get it. And that is awesome, because roller skating and derby is awesome. No one is going to give up on you so you shouldn’t give up on yourself. I also fall a ton. But I subscribe to the derby philosophy of “If you ain’t falling, you ain’t tryin’!”  It’s our version of “If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge anything!”  A lot like snowboarding, learning to derby is about letting go of your fear of falling. Derby girls, guys and refs are proud of their derby bruises. I know I am.  

I’ve been trying to balance derby and family lately. Prior to having kids, I would always take my nieces and nephews for sleep overs, ski trips, camping...what ever.  Now that I am in a more difficult place in life and I have kids that need watching, people have stepped up to help watch my herd while I get to participate in derby and I really appreciate that. My sister has been amazing and I can’t say enough about what she does for me and what she means to me.  Sitters are expensive man. But I think I want to try to take them with me to practices because I feel like I am becoming a burden to those who have been helping me. Derby has kept me focused and well....sane, during a time where I could have crawled in a hole with a truck full of double stuffed oreos and consumed them in a night. 

Compared to other sports I play/have played, once you gather your derby equipment....your gold. Think about it...skiing/snowboarding you can pay 400 dollars and up for your gear and then every time you go it will cost you at least 50 dollars between lift tickets and food.  For me and my herd to ski it costs about 250 dollars a shot after lessons, rentals, lift tickets and food. That is only if I find a deal. Paintball? I used to play and ref that. After your initial gear purchase which is at least 300 dollars for everything you need....every time you play you are flushing at least 50 dollars down the drain in paint and air. That doesn’t include tournament/ event entry fees. Derby costs me my monthly dues and a yearly insurance (which is only a double digit figure). Depending on the league, your dues can be less than the gym membership you pay for each month that you don’t use. Another reason I want them to come to my practices is that I want them to see how hard you have to work to become good at things. They keep asking me when I am going to coach or ref and I keep telling them that I am not going to coach but as soon as my skating is good enough I can start learning the other things you need to learn to be a ref.  They were also excited by the fact that I found out a derby league in the Niagara peninsula has Junior derby that allows boys to play. I told my oldest this and his reply was “Since we are going skating tonight, can you teach me derby stance?”  Sure kid. I can do that.  He skated a lot better that night and then wrote this in his school journal when he got home:

 That last line says “I was really hitting some good speed and not falling.” 

Man, I love my kids.

I wish I could play mens roller derby. I can’t because there isn’t a league that is within reasonable distance of where I live...but if there was, I’d totally play. And I alreaady have a great derby name picked out if I ever get the chance!. I have a love for derby...actually if you ask my sister or SWGMID, I’ve probably crossed moved from love territory to passionate territory because I catch myself talking about it when I don’t mean to. Since I can’t play, I’m learning to ref. If I can’t ref, I’ll NSO. If I can’t NSO, I’ll......well I’d figure something out.

There are a ton of volunteers in every derby league that keep things going. Many of the NSO’s, referees and other people who keep things running are the friends, significant others, spouses and family members of participants that get them hooked. Even when players retire they stay involved via these avenues. It is rumored that all derby photographers are friends who were lured to a bout with their camera and are then locked in a back room between bouts so that they never leave and leagues will always have amazing pictures. True story.

Since the last blog post I was able to NSO another bout and attend another practice. NSOing was another learning experience and this time the announcer said my name right! Yeah!

Saturday I had to go to Buffalo to clear out my office because a new graduate student is moving in there. I also decided to stop at the skate shop and see what they had. When you join derby there is no “just stopping at the skate shop” thing that exists. Every time you go in, you get something. Even if it is just a pair of laces. It also helps that the two people who run Turnaround Skates are pretty amazing people. This day I left with a new pair of insoles.

Sunday’s bout was the QCRG Queens Court team vs The Bombshell Battalion from Alliston, Ontario. (Sidenote: Ontario has a lot of derby leagues. Rollery derby seems to be almost every where. I can think of at least 5 leagues within 2 hours of Niagara Falls) I saw some tactics from the visiting team that I had never seen before. When ever their jammers would get out of the pack, or be sitting in the penalty box they would take their helmet panty off. There were a few times where we (the lineup trackers) thought they were puling off a star pass but in reality they were trying to hide the position of the jammer on the track. You would think this would be illegal because it confused the officials and the fans right?  Well....in my studying of the rule book, I found out that it is only against the rules if they do it as the lead jammer. You learn something new every day! 

Also...I was right....I do look good in pink.

I’ve been reading the rule book a lot and it isn’t as difficult read as one would think. I’m slowly picking up the rules with emphasis on slowly. I want to concentrate on my skating until I pass my assessments and then I’ll hit the rule book harder. I figure if I can read scientific articles on a regular basis, knocking off a 79 page rule book should be no problem.

Sunday’s boot camp was cancelled but I made it to another Tuesday practice and SWGMID was able to drop in!  It was pretty cool to skate a practice with her. This week there was someone different running the practice so it was a change of pace. The support and positivity was still there with an added sprinkle of innuendo and dirty jokes. We worked on the usual transitions and backward skating. One of these days I will be able to do a backward crossover. This day was not that day.  I can now skate multiple laps backwards without falling and carrying some speed. PROGRESS! I think I am on track to possibly pass my next assessment. There was also another bonding moment between Bilbo and I. If by bonding you mean me making a sarcastic comment and her coming after me. All in good fun!  

My skates were doing something funky all practice. My one foot was a little squirrelly and I was consistently losing it in the turns. I couldn’t figure it out. At first I thought it was my new insoles that I got. While I do have a little more room in my boot because of them, that wasn’t it.  I did have a loose toe stop but that wasn’t the issue either.  Then I decided to chalk it up to a bad night. At the end of practice I happened to wiggle one of my trucks on the bottom of my skates and I had one on each foot that was way way way loose.  I tightened these up and took a few practice laps and everything seemed to be back to normal. We’ll find out the next time I skate.

Speaking of gear modifications, I added a sticker to my helmet!

Not sure how I feel about that. It is a laptop decal that I cut and stuck it on my helmet. I think I am going to inquire about a special helmet sticker that I won’t explain to you....I’ll just have to show you when it happens. 

On that note, I realize these blogs are probably becoming more mundane as time goes on and I will try to continue to entertain.  If there is anything you would like me to blog about or if you are interested in me possibly posting a guest blog from other people. Let me know. I am very receptive to feed back.