So I woke up early this morning with jetlag by proxy, which is ironic as L continues to snooze rather soundly and appears to have fixed her body clock in super-quick time.
Luckily for me, the internet decided to post some of interesting articles about derby strategy and rules overnight to keep me occupied, and so I thought I'd share. I am making a concerted effort to learn rules and strategy (having realised that being able to transistion does not a good derby skater make) and articles like this are an excellent resource. If anyone out there has anything they think I should be reading, please let me know!
Hot Across Buns neatly sums up my thoughts on the Slow Derby controversy that surrounds high-end play these days. There's more out there on this than I really need to point to, needless to say Anya Face makes the argument better than me.
Over at Roller Derby: Inside Track, Tank makes a very interesting case against minor penalties. Not having scrimmaged myself yet I can't really say anything about the effect for players on cumulative minors, but having NSO'd and watched a few bouts I can imagine that no minor penalties could make for a very interesting change in the pace and style of play.
Still at Inside Track (seriously, if you're skating and not reading this website, you are missing out), Mike Chexx talks about the growing professionalism in derby and what this means for the sport. For my part, I started playing derby because I loved the counter-culture, fishnets-and-fuck-you aspect of the sport but after six months hard graft at the rink and beyond I'm playing it as a sport. Admittedly, I still adore the facepaint, the legwarmers, the familial love at the games and would rather play for fun with good people than in a rigorous, loveless training environment, but I've learned a lot about the athleticism involved and the potential that the sport has and would love to see it go in that direction. As Mike points out, there is a place for both professionalism and punk rock in derby if we play it the right way!
Straight-up tips from Wry and Ginger on how to counterblock a backwards shoulder hit, though the background makes the text difficult to read unless you've just sniffed a Vivid.
Finally, some Imperial-measures-using type (Hellions of Troy) has worked out how fast a skater needs to go to do 25 laps of a WFTDA track in 5 minutes. If I was going to be a stickler about it, I'd find out the length of the route round the track taken by most skaters (inside track on corners, going to the outside track on the middle of the straightaway to make a circle shape- means you can maintain a steady pace all the way around improving efficiency) but an average works fine for this. the comments section is fascinating too, especially on the reason the track os the shape it is (thank CAD and an odd-sized Texas rink!). During my fastest five minutes, I was averaging 11.8mph or 19km/h. I'm quite pleased with that.
Today we are mostly learning how to surf at Muriwai beach, which promises to be an interesting experience! Hopefully we'll get some quality beach time too as the weather is looking good. D wanted it known that his pizza last night was a healthy option, as he hardly used any cheese. An awesome cook and health-conscious? I am a very lucky girl...
Showing posts with label roller derby. Show all posts
Showing posts with label roller derby. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 January 2011
Derby girls and other animals
Just a short one as it's late, today's been pretty full on.
The three of us went to Auckland zoo today, and had a brilliant time. One highlight for L was seeing a family of pukeko being all dinosaur-like and cute in a stream. It's pretty awesome being able to share my adopted country with someone who also thinks that native dino-birds are one of the best things in the zoo.
We did a lot of walking (though it doesn't count as exercise as you're stopping every minute or so to look for meerkats), and in a fit of Scottish frugality made cheese rolls to take with us for lunch. I have to say, eating those and watching the orang-utans play and interact, feeding crumbs to a cheeky songthrush was a far better dining experience than sitting in the overpriced cafe, eating chips and watching other tourist types try to keep their broods in order.
I don't think homemade pizza with garlic bread was the healthiest dinner option, but L and I worked it off at the rink in the evening. I hadn't thought I'd get any skate time while she was here, but she mentioned she'd like to get some exercise in and that she wanted to see what all the derby fuss was about, so off we went to the evening session. I managed to sneak in a 5 minute 26 1/2 laps (would have been faster, but for people practicing other things on the rink which required dodging skills), and we practiced some drills with Mia Vendetta giving us lots of handy advice, but mostly it was ambly skating, nattering with derby ladies and catching up on the festive period gossip. L managed to go from clutching the wall all the way round to doing laps without the wall at all, which I thought was pretty good going given the parlous state of the rink floor as a result of the rain!
I don't want to post pics of L here without her say-so, so here's me doing a passable job of skating backwards while she handles the camera. I'm feeling a LOT more confident with my transitions now, just need to keep on at it...
The three of us went to Auckland zoo today, and had a brilliant time. One highlight for L was seeing a family of pukeko being all dinosaur-like and cute in a stream. It's pretty awesome being able to share my adopted country with someone who also thinks that native dino-birds are one of the best things in the zoo.
We did a lot of walking (though it doesn't count as exercise as you're stopping every minute or so to look for meerkats), and in a fit of Scottish frugality made cheese rolls to take with us for lunch. I have to say, eating those and watching the orang-utans play and interact, feeding crumbs to a cheeky songthrush was a far better dining experience than sitting in the overpriced cafe, eating chips and watching other tourist types try to keep their broods in order.
I don't think homemade pizza with garlic bread was the healthiest dinner option, but L and I worked it off at the rink in the evening. I hadn't thought I'd get any skate time while she was here, but she mentioned she'd like to get some exercise in and that she wanted to see what all the derby fuss was about, so off we went to the evening session. I managed to sneak in a 5 minute 26 1/2 laps (would have been faster, but for people practicing other things on the rink which required dodging skills), and we practiced some drills with Mia Vendetta giving us lots of handy advice, but mostly it was ambly skating, nattering with derby ladies and catching up on the festive period gossip. L managed to go from clutching the wall all the way round to doing laps without the wall at all, which I thought was pretty good going given the parlous state of the rink floor as a result of the rain!
I don't want to post pics of L here without her say-so, so here's me doing a passable job of skating backwards while she handles the camera. I'm feeling a LOT more confident with my transitions now, just need to keep on at it...
Monday, 10 January 2011
The loneliness of the workshy skater
Working in the education sector has its drawbacks. Mainly, these drawbacks are between 5 and 6 feet tall, belligerent and can swear at me in several different languages. To make up for having to deal with such ongoing professional issues I get an obscene amount of time off. I think they worked out it's cheaper to give us 13 weeks holiday a year than it is to clean up the ensuing mess that would result from accumulated stress and pent-up rage if we didn't get regular breaks.
With all this time off, I get to spend lots of time skating in the rinks that are opened over the school breaks to give bored childminders something to do with their charges. What actually happens is that I get a whole, glorious rink all to myself, to do whatever I like in (if I don't mind the occasional small child trying to hit me with a football).
The hard part comes in amusing myself after I've done all the grunt work. Say today, where my 2 hour session was pretty much on my own (apart from a welcome interruption from the lovely Pina Collider in the last 30!). I started like I do every public skate session, with a warm up and then heavy heavy endurance/cardio. Instead of my beloved sets of five minute/25+ laps today, I did pyramids. If you don't know, pyramids is one lap as fast as you can go, then a 30 second rest. Then two laps, then thirty seconds. After five laps you're starting to feel a bit put out, but thankfully after five you go down to four, and then so on back to one. Getting off my backside for that final lap always feels like an amazing leap forward in the development of my willpower, but it does wonders for my fitness!
So, after the grunt work, what to do? I've made it my mission (apart from trying to fit 30 laps in 5 minutes) to master turnaround toe stops before the league starts back in earnest in February. Here's where not having a proper job works in my favour. I get hours of empty rink to over the same things as often as I want, in my own time, and find what works for me. I estimate I've spent about 30-40 minutes per session these holidays doing nothing but turnaround toe stops and backwards/forwards skating. That's a lot of practice! I'm not 100% on it yet, but I can do it at speed and not cause damage to the floor, so with any luck I'll have it cracked for next month.
The rest of the session was lots of practice of the skills test basics, and skating, skating, skating. Tomorrow my sister arrives and I'll be off the rink for a couple of weeks, but I've squished in a lot of skating over the last two days that I think I'll survive until I can get on a rink again. I'm hoping I can get in a lot of walking and swimming with the sibling while she's here so I stay on the fitness wagon, apparently she's keen to get out and about while she's here so all to the good!
Foodwise, this morning was toast and peanut butter and lunch was some leftover curry and brown bread. I'm currently enjoying a crisp, cold apple before I turn the spare room into habitable space. It may take some time.
With all this time off, I get to spend lots of time skating in the rinks that are opened over the school breaks to give bored childminders something to do with their charges. What actually happens is that I get a whole, glorious rink all to myself, to do whatever I like in (if I don't mind the occasional small child trying to hit me with a football).
The hard part comes in amusing myself after I've done all the grunt work. Say today, where my 2 hour session was pretty much on my own (apart from a welcome interruption from the lovely Pina Collider in the last 30!). I started like I do every public skate session, with a warm up and then heavy heavy endurance/cardio. Instead of my beloved sets of five minute/25+ laps today, I did pyramids. If you don't know, pyramids is one lap as fast as you can go, then a 30 second rest. Then two laps, then thirty seconds. After five laps you're starting to feel a bit put out, but thankfully after five you go down to four, and then so on back to one. Getting off my backside for that final lap always feels like an amazing leap forward in the development of my willpower, but it does wonders for my fitness!
So, after the grunt work, what to do? I've made it my mission (apart from trying to fit 30 laps in 5 minutes) to master turnaround toe stops before the league starts back in earnest in February. Here's where not having a proper job works in my favour. I get hours of empty rink to over the same things as often as I want, in my own time, and find what works for me. I estimate I've spent about 30-40 minutes per session these holidays doing nothing but turnaround toe stops and backwards/forwards skating. That's a lot of practice! I'm not 100% on it yet, but I can do it at speed and not cause damage to the floor, so with any luck I'll have it cracked for next month.
The rest of the session was lots of practice of the skills test basics, and skating, skating, skating. Tomorrow my sister arrives and I'll be off the rink for a couple of weeks, but I've squished in a lot of skating over the last two days that I think I'll survive until I can get on a rink again. I'm hoping I can get in a lot of walking and swimming with the sibling while she's here so I stay on the fitness wagon, apparently she's keen to get out and about while she's here so all to the good!
Foodwise, this morning was toast and peanut butter and lunch was some leftover curry and brown bread. I'm currently enjoying a crisp, cold apple before I turn the spare room into habitable space. It may take some time.
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