Still, how we approach our training can be a big piece of how we feel about our training. When Estrogeena Davis asked me to guest blog for All Derby Drills and I saw how she formatted her site, I really felt a good connection and vibe – both with the organization from a really positive coaching approach and with the company of guest bloggers I was going to be in.

I’m sure at some point I’ll post more drills and visuals onto this site. For now, enjoy these:

• Squeezebox
• Pack Blood & Thunder
• Fire Drill
• Reverse Fire Drill
• Six Stride Hell
• Red Light / Green Light

Check out this fun and entertaining video featuring the animation of Rose Feratu. I love skating with Rose on the track and her animations make this pure fun.

I remember the class well because I spoke up to disagree with him. I said, in as strong a voice as I could muster, “When I was a young adult, struggling to figure out who I was, some times all I had was to know that I was not my mother. I relied on that thought until I could define who I really was.” After class, a classmate came up to me and thanked me for speaking up because she felt much the same way. At the time it bolstered my feelings of righteousness at disagreeing with my professor. Today I realize I used that because it was all I had, but I’m a much more complex person than the woman I could define within the confines of “not my mother.”

In case you’re not familiar with the concept, the philosophical concept of negativism is defining something by what it is not. Perhaps one of the most famous instances of this in popular culture is from the television series Dinosaurs. In this show, the father dinosaur is referred to by the baby dinosaur as “not the mamma.” Just like the baby dinosaur, when we only know one thing, often times all we have to describe things that are not that one thing as “not this.”

And so it goes with roller derby. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m talking about splits and divisions in leagues.

It’s been more than three years since I was an active participant in dividing a league and the impetus of that division began more than 4 years ago. I’ve watched the consequences of that split and seen those two leagues come into their own. Right now, within 50 miles of where I play, there are at least two leagues going through the splits (one of them splintered from the league I play with) and I see a lot of the same immature reasoning happening again. Enough time has passed, both in my desire to not be my mother and in my observations of roller derby leagues, to realize how absolutely right and profound my philosophy professor was.

So often individuals and groups seek change because they can clearly see what they don’t want. Rarely do those groups take the next, mature, necessary steps of saying what the do want. If you were to ask an extant, functional league what makes it exist, rarely would it say “how we talk to each other” or “how we practice” or “because we don’t have this person on our league.” No one wants to be the recipient or the issuer of hurtful words. Everyone wants effective practices that push individual and team boundaries. Everyone wants to be as inclusive as possible.

If you’re part of a newly forming league today, especially if your new league exists because a group of you fundamentally did not agree with the people or practices of another league, take a moment to turn all of your “do not wants” to “wants.” Take some time to define the nature and direction of your league in positive terms completely independent of your previous league. It won’t be long until you’ll need to make that elevator speech (30 seconds) to tell someone who you collectively are and what you want. It won’t be long until some new recruit comes along with no concept of your old league. If all you have in your schtick is based on an environment they don’t understand, you won’t be very attractive or compelling. If all you have is based on common courtesy, newcomers to this sport will think you’re crazy people to state the obvious in human interactions. Believe me, that reporter who’s writing an article about your new league won’t care how much you think the neighboring league’s owner is a dictator. He won’t care about the gossip or how deeply you feel you’ve been hurt by petty, Barbie-bitch “crimes.” He and his readers simply want to know about you and “not the mamma” won’t make any sense.

It hasn’t been easy to look at myself and define who I am in terms that aren’t related to what my mother is not. It won’t be easy for a splintered league to honestly define itself independent of the league its founders once skated for. If how you define your self today is something an outsider would say “Well, duh, every league should be like that,” then you’re still defining yourself in terms of negativism.

Create your mission statement today – personal or leaguewide – and make it strong by making it uniquely your own.

I wrote a short and sweet Flash program which will run a jam clock. From a production standpoint, I envision this being run by someone on a laptop with a second monitor mimicking the laptop monitor. The operator, possibly also running the scoreboard, would run this with the laptop facing the operator and the second monitor facing the teams.

This will keep bouts in compliance with the current rule set.

With a white background
With a black background

Contact Bitches if you’d like different colors or options.

Update 9/16 – clocks improved

• Start button disabled at beginning
• Start button disabled after clicking (prevents odd time intervals)
• Start button enabled with reset
• Correct time displays on load (but reset still required)

A poem that weighed heavily for me when I heard it on the Writer’s Almanac on NPR earlier this week. It’s worth listening to Garrison Keillor read this out loud.

The Center of Gravity

by Ron Padgett

The military Jeep was said
to have had a high center
of gravity, therefore
subject to tipping:
if you took a curve too fast
you might turn over.
A person with very short legs
has a low center of gravity
and will not tip over easily.
The ottoman likewise.
When a person is lying flat
he or she has the lowest center
of gravity possible, as does
a sheet of paper on a table.
People floating around
in outer space have little
or no center of gravity
because there’s not enough gravity
to have a center.
Gravidanza is the Italian word
for pregnancy, which sounds
more serious than the English word
and may remind us of sentences such as
“The situation is very grave.”
Every situation has gravity,
it’s a question of how much.
People too have gravity—
of manner, of morals, and of body.
It is good to have gravity
but not too much of it:
like a bag of cement,
you might not be able to move
around or make ethical distinctions.
But with too little of it
you are flighty, your feet
hardly touch the ground.
Though cement and flightiness
have their charms,
it’s better to find
your center of gravity
and have it be the place
you radiate out from.

Once I lay in bed ill, unable to move,
but in my head
I was flying and bouncing around.
But illness has no charm
and when it becomes very grave
your gravity edges toward
the most perfect center of gravity ever.

My dog, Babe

She also stretches – a lot. And she can run very, very fast. She’s kind of a klutz, so when she runs through the woods she’ll trip over something and stumble, but eventually, and still with forward momentum, she gets her paws back under her and continues to tear around the woods.

The other day, on one of the many roller derby forums I read, someone wrote to the group and said (I’m paraphrasing) “I’m a big girl. I’m large and tall and pretty new. Every time someone hits me, I fall over. What can I do?” She got the standard responses on how to be low, work her core, practice balance. All good things. I told her about my dog.

Every living creature intuitively knows how to be stable and to not be moved – at least until they put on skates. Yes, you need to have a strong core. Yes, you need to have good balance. But you don’t need to have a wide stance. I’ve seen fantastic skaters take hits while skating on one foot – the narrowest possible stance. You don’t need to get low – although doing so can be a good way to avoid a block.

Option 1 – Relax. I realize not all of you have 12lb dogs. But I’m sure you’ve dealt with a pet or child or protester who did not want to be lifted and they simply went limp. I’m talking about the kind of “relax” which you can practice with yoga, which starts with your hair and goes down to your toe nails. The kind of relaxed where you’re so loose, even your skate laces start to get loose. That kind of loose and relaxed. It doesn’t come from repeating in your head “Don’t tense up.” When my dog goes limp, she feels as though she weighs 60lbs. It’s as though through her relaxing she channels all the gravity of the planet to her little body. If you need a visualization, that’s it. Melt right into the track and take on all the gravity of the whole track. When you’re relaxed you won’t be knocked over. When you’re stiff like a board, all the core strength and all the wide stance in the world doesn’t stop you from being easy to knock over.

Option 2 – When relaxing doesn’t work or in addition to relaxing, squirm. Again, imagine that pet, that child, that protester who doesn’t want to move. Flailing can earn you penalties, but there is just about no way you can move your feet (on our league we call it “happy feet”) which will earn you penalty trouble. Move your body up and down, your feet all sorts of crazy ways. If you’re a moving target, your opponent will not get a lock on you. It is also impossible to be tense when you’re moving. Add a bounce to your skating and your own hitting and you’ll be much stronger and more powerful that trying to jab at opponents.

Requirement 3 – Breath. You can’t move without oxygen and you can’t relax when you’re holding your breath. Breathe in before a hit, breath out during contact. Me, personally, I’m a grunter. Like Billie Jean King kind of grunting. Like Mad Max kind of grunting and growling. Grunting and screaming is a way to expel air and energy, but that energy fills the space around you. I’ve had targets cower in the microseconds before I hit them, simply from my growl. No matter what, don’t hold your breath while giving or receiving a hit. It makes you tense and you can have the “wind knocked out” of you which hurts and momentarily disables you.

Option 4 – Have fun. Really. My dog’s life consists of barking for treats, sleeping near me, and playing like she’s still a puppy. She’s 15 now and if it weren’t for her teeth, you wouldn’t know it. She knows nothing but pure joy when it’s time to play and run. With that, nothing stops her.

On a light-hearted note, at some point in time this month I had my 3rd derby-versary which means I’m now working on my 4th year. In terms of many things, that’s not very long at all. High school and college are longer. Let’s not even think about relationships (good and bad), children, home ownership, cars, etc. But in the derby world, a LOT has changed. For example:

You know you’ve been playing derby for more than 3 years if:

• You’ve propagated a derby meme on MySpace
• You miss the ability to use only your derby name in your online profile (also MySpace)
• You remember a 2 skater box cap including the jammer
• The first derby movie you saw was a documentary
• It only took a week or two to get your name on the Master Roster
• You don’t own any t-shirts that don’t have your derby name and number on them
• You own at least one “special teams” scrimmage shirt (ECE, home themed bout, etc.)
• You own several pairs of skates corresponding with your skating ability growth
• You have derby correspondance with skaters in other countries
• YouTube has at least one video of you skating
• you’ve played three 20 minute periods and thought it was challenging
• you have a small list of people you know who “used to play derby”
• your friends have given up on trying to get you to do anything non-derby and now plan to come to your bouts
• you remember rule books that were closer to 10 pages long
• you stopped buying other teams t-shirts because, unless you can put your name and number on it, you have too many league t-shirts
• most of your tshirt collection is black, white and red
• you’re a master with iron ons and fabric paint
• you know someone who’s had a derby divorce (or been divorced/widowed your self)
• it’s taken a while, but you’ve finally settled on the pad odor treatment that works best for you – and it works (mostly)
• you’ve been in no fewer than 3 derby photo shoots
• you can have an intelligent conversation about the comprative strategic efforts of no fewer than 6 WFTDA leagues
• someone has told you “dangle derby” is a disrespectful term
• you’ve written comments on DNN
• your dressing habits in the real world have been affected/influenced by derby
• you’ve completely lost track of injury and bruise counts
• you’ve signed someone else’s body parts for the sake of derby (fans or bruises)
• you know that sharpies are required gear bag equiment
• you have a separate make up bag for derby (this applies to guys too)
• your helmets have gone through several renditions
• you’ve at least once considered changing your derby name then thought better of it
• people have slowed down on sending you every derby link and newsletter article they’ve seen
• you no longer collect bout programs for the bouts you’ve been to/in
• goofy faces are just as “normal” as smiles in planned photos
• attire (such as leggings) which you would not have been caught dead in, much less in public in about 5 years ago now make good sense
• you own an array of wheels for an array of possible skating surfaces and you’re opinionated about them
• you’ve skated in at least one parade
• at some point you’ve played roller derby in an area that is normally parking
• you’ve had to learn to call old derby friends by the names given to them by their mommas
• when you see a man in gold leggings or a lace skirt, you no longer automatically think he’s in drag or assume he’s queer
• when making vacation or travel plans you’ve visited at least one league for a practice far away from home

Once we are skilled enough to start scrimmaging, the first thing we need are shirts which comply with the rules. I’ve been skating enough and with enough different leagues and challenge bouts, that having the ability to print my name and number quickly became a priority for me. I have a permanent silk screen I use to do my name and number and my derby wife’s name and number.

Once in a while, though, a whole team needs help or you pick up a different name and number for a challenge bout. This is when knowing the in’s and out’s of truly do it yourself printing can make you look super professional.

Using a Paper Stencil for Silk Screen Printing

You can make 6 to 8 impressions with a simple paper stencil and a quality silk screen. The ability to quickly reuse the screen is not only great for the environment and your budget, a whole team can crank out shirts for a pick up game.

What you’ll need:

• A silk screen stretched on a frame*
• Water based silk screen ink (I use Speedball products)
• A squeegee
• Heavy paper
• Exacto knife
• Masking tape
• A work area
• A “platen”
• Items to be printed

For my first test, I chose to make a stencil that didn’t have any loose pieces. Using Illustrator, I selected a font and printed out the outline of a derby name and number on an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper.

Using an exacto knife, I cut my stencil out of the paper.

Using a paper stencil makes a good print for 6 to 8 shirts

I chose to tape my stencil onto the screen on the back side then mask around it on the screen, but you can place your paper stencil on your first item to be printed, then lay the screen over it. The ink from the first impression will hold your paper stencil in place for several impressions.

Then I masked out the area, slightly wider than my squeegee, around where I was going to print on the top surface of my screen.

This screen was given to me by someone on the Burlington Bombers (thank you, Yofune Nushi!), but you can purchase a screen for <$30 new at an art supply store or used or reclaimed ones on eBay for less than that.

You will need to find a “platen” which is larger than the area you wish to print. The platen is the board that will go on the opposite side of your shirt or item to be printed which you will press against. In this case, I’m using an old college text book but I have used wood, plywood, boxes, and other items kicking around which make a solid, smooth surface.

I position the text book platen inside my shirt and center it vertically and horizontally where I want the print to go.

Squeegee, ink, scoop, tape and platen

I wrap the shirt tight around at least the top and bottom or sides so it stays somewhat tight on my platen. In a commercial shop they may use a bit of spray adhesive. Since we don’t have a press or a lot of other fancy things here, I’m more inclined to buy extra shirts in the dollar bin at my local Goodwill or Salvation army than spend money on yucky glue and chemicals. Your mileage may vary.

Place your paper stencil on your print surface where you want the print to go.

Using my plastic spoon, I spread ink along one edge of my design on the tape outside my print area so that when I run my squeegee over it, it will evenly cover the whole area and have ink left on the other side.

Take your squeegee at an angle (about 30 to 45 degrees from vertical) and with pressure like you’re taking water off a windshield, spread the ink down and through the screen. If your print area is wider than your squeegee, make a second pass. This is called “flooding” because you are flooding all the little holes in the screen with ink.

Place your screen on top of your stencil so the flooded area is over the paper stencil, covers your whole area to be printed but does not extend past your stencil.

With your squeegee, push the ink back in the opposite direction being sure to pick up all the ink at one and and run it all the way to the end where you laid it with your scoop. I like to hold my squeegee at a 90 degree angle and almost feel like I’m scraping the ink through the screen and to the other end of the screen. If your image is wider than your squeegee, make additional passes in the same direction.

Some times, especially with thicker inks (like white or gold), I like to re-flood the screen spreading the ink back down the screen and pushing it back up again.

All the time you do this, you are holding the screen on your surface with one hand while running the squeegee with the other.

Final test shirts

In my example, I did the yellow shirt first without flooding the screen before placing it on my shirt. I had taped my stencil to my screen. Without flooding the screen, I didn’t get a good impression. After lifting the screen and flooding it before placing it on my second shirt, I got a very good impression on my red shirt.

If it is your first time, I recommend printing with darker water-based inks on light colored shirts. The inks are easier to work with and get through the screen.

Cost of this DIY project:

$20 for screen (which I got free), <$1 worth of ink (those containers cost $10 at my local art supply store), $.05 piece of paper, $8 squeegee, $3 roll of masking tape, $2 for two shirts at the Goodwill store.

You can make your own screens too! A lot of my early screens were made from reclaimed frame parts at my local art supply store. It cost me about $5 to make a frame and they sell the “silk” (which is polyester) by the yard.

If you’re going to do a lot of these, there’s nothing quite like a commercially stretched screen on a really good frame. Larger frames like this one are tricky to handle though because they are so much bigger than the area you’re likely to print.

Many moons ago I was in the car business. And, yes, for a while I was a salesman. For those of you not in direct sales, let me tell you a bit about what it’s like to be a car salesman. When you first get going in this, you’re trained by your managers and sales team. You have no preconceived notions about what sells a car and what the customer needs. You listen to the customer. You listen to your sales managers. You study the basics of sales. Then it comes time to get out on the floor.

New car salespeople generally do really well! After years in that business, I understand why. It is because they haven’t learned about “no.” New sales people look at each and every customer as a new opportunity to help someone meet their transportation needs and desires. They rely on their managers, as a team, to help them serve the customer best while meeting their own bottom line.

After about 6 months into being a car salesman, the new salesman thinks she has it figured out. She gets “smart”. She thinks she’s “heard it all before” and one customer’s needs and objections are just another version of the last. She doesn’t listen to her managers because she “knows it all.” These are the kind of salesmen who starve for a few months. At this point, she’ll either quit, or stick it out and remember how to be part of a team.

There’s a lesson here for derby as well. When we’re new and fresh we listen to our coaches and captains. We understand the principles of derby. We know about blocking and staying on our feet. We trust our teammates. When we run through a pack we’re not thinking about what it will feel like to land on the floor because we just haven’t had that experience. Everything is all new and shiny. We’re out there to give our best and show to our teammates we have what it takes to be a part of this amazing sp0rt and we want to, we deserve to, be recognized.

Then, for some reason, after a couple scrimmages and bouts, we “think” we have it all figured out and we, for a while, stop being part of the team. When we come upon a particularly challenging opponent we remember what the floor felt like after she blocked us there. When we approach the pack, we think about how hard it is to work through this set of blockers. We remember the time it felt as though our team was too busy playing their own game instead of helping us and we don’t trust them. We remember our failures and it holds us back. Worse than that, it holds our team back!

If you make it through a year of derby, like a car salesman, we begin to remember we’re not in this alone. One of the most amazing and inspiring aspects of derby is at least every two minutes we get to start with a clean slate. If you’re one of those skaters who is feeling as though you’ve reached a plateau, its time to recognize the rest of your team. Its time to trust in your coaches, Captains, and teammates. Its time to remember that this is a new jam and forget the last one – no matter how awesome or devastating it was.

Get through that pack. Trust your teammates to make holes for you. Stay on your feet – you don’t know what the floor feels like and even if you did, it can’t be that bad.

Every two minutes or less is a new jam. Make it the best one you’ve ever had.