Dodge, or go down!

Once again this week, I was unable to skate and it was a good job as having a slight hangover which then turned into a full blown migraine, I would have been as much use as a chocolate tea pot, but I have learnt one lesson... don’t go out drinking the day before roller derby practise! But I was told by one other team member suffering with a hangover, that she actually felt better for doing the exercise, so thought it was a good hangover cure..... but each to their own! My account of the practise may not be entirely in the right order as my head was a little woolley at this point!

We had a good turnout this week, one new skater and one skater who had been once a few weeks back. Sulu Warrior remains the title holder for skating at every practise, so I think the mascot Ram-Paige should go to Sue this week, which is a good thing as Ram-Paige was left behind at Sue’s this week anyway!

The practise was started with the more experienced skaters doing as many laps as they could for 5 minutes, the aim is to be able to do at least 20 laps and I know a couple managed this and some were very close, so things are looking really good. They then had to do the opposite direction for 5 minutes and believe me, by skating the opposite way may sound like a doddle, but it is deceptively difficult and takes some getting used to.

Then it was time for the rules test and some stretches.

Helen Fury took some time to coach the new skater, Carla. Carla hadn’t skated in years and it wasn’t long before she had got a good position and was skating well.

Following on from this, the shopping cart exercise was brought in and believe me, this is very funny to watch. It teaches the skaters to get down into a low crouching position and for their skating partner to push them around the track as fast as possible. During a roller derby bout this tactic can be used by the blockers to push their jammers through the pack so is a worthwhile exercise and when the speed gets up it’s quite frightening to be the cart and be propelled around the track! Skaters afraid of speed, don’t get Helen Fury to be your shopper!!!

For the skaters with mouth guards, they were set the challenge of skating round the track while Helen Fury practised “bumping” into them.... now having watched this from the sidelines, I was extremely glad to have been off my skates and boy did she send those girls flying! I know we have to get used to those kind of bumps happening hundreds of times throughout a bout, but it looked brutal! After the initial shock of being sent flying, the skaters picked themselves up and prepared for the next attack. Even when they were hit the second time, you could see how much better they handled it and fell in a more controlled manner, so you can see how useful this exercise is, but I am dreading my first go!

The next exercise for the “mouth guard” skaters was learning how to block correctly by bumping the skaters with your bottom/hips. To do this, they had to skate up to a chair, get alongside it and park their bottom on the chair in a controlled manner. Now this may sound easy, but believe me it wasn’t. Each skater that tried it gave it their all, but we all know we have a long way to go before we can perfect that move! I was quite happy just watching and holding the chair!!

The next exercise is the roller derby equivalent to the bleep test, and looked like a real strength zapper to me! All of the skaters had to line up at one end of the hall, then skate to the first black line, fall onto both knees, get up skate back to the wall, then turn around skate to the half way mark, fall, get up, skate back to the wall and turn around and skate to the ¾ line, fall, and so on! Knowing how much energy it takes to get up from a fall within 3 seconds and then do it again and again, I know how exhausting this can be, so my sympathy went out to the skaters.... yeah right... it looked amazing ha ha!

The last exercise looked the most fun to me, this was dodge ball on skates. Helen Fury and Cupid Stunt had popped to a sports shop on the way and had purchased 3 soft balls (tennis ball size) and the object of the game was for the skaters to skate around the track and 3 of them were given a ball each. Once the whistle had blown they then had 5 seconds to throw the ball at one of the other skaters. If you were hit, you had to sit down where you were hit and you became an obstacle for the other skaters to manoeuvre around. The remaining skaters then had to try and get the loose balls and then throw them within 5 seconds and hit their team mates until the last man was standing, which in this case was Sulu Warrior, who only just beat Anna to supremacy! This was a fantastic way to end the exercises, and everyone had huge smiles on their faces, so I can see this being a popular events!

Next it was the compulsory circle of pain, where everyone forms a circle and names a exercise for the group to complete, so for example one skater will say “10 press ups” so everyone does 10 press ups, the next skater will say “20 seconds plank” so everyone holds the plank position for 20 seconds. This continues until either everyone has had their say or time runs out. Then this is followed by stretching and cool down.

That ended the practise and it was then time to head over to the pub for a nice pint of beer/coke/lemonade or whatever tipple was required. We then launched into the first AGM for the Severn Roller Torrent League and discussed the various committee roles and elected the relevant people to the roles and discussed having a second training session and different venues, fund raising ideas, all of which went incredibly well and was done in no time. Sadly I was really not feeling very well at this point as wasn’t able to pay much attention but from what I understand everyone was pleased with the outcome.

Sadly I wont be there next week as have a family 90th Birthday party I am under orders to attend, but I look forward to hearing about the post valentine practise!

I have taken some more footage from this weeks practise, but haven’t posted them online yet, but I will post them on here shortly.

Video of the practise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-OcWplQRpk

Adios

Honor Ass xx