Its Dodgeball time!

"If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!"

I should be good at both! This weekend is the 6th Annual Dixie Derby Down n Dirty Dodgeball Tournament. It's my 3rd year at the event, and its always a great way to start spring for a fun day in the sunshine.

The event is bigger this year, and so far 22 teams have pre-registered, with more sure to sign up the day of the event.

Come out to Dublin Park and watch or register a team and play!

More details are at: http://www.dixiederbygirls.com/dball.htm

Preseason Scrimmage -- March 13, 2011

To prepare for our upcoming regular season, we decided to have our first intraleague bout since probably 2007-ish, and to give it even more nostalgic atmosphere, we hosted it at Roller Time, our practice home.

For those who weren't around then (myself included), before DDG started playing other WFTDA teams and scheduling bouts with other cities, they had two intraleague teams within the league that fought for championships: The Red Hot Riots vs. The Thrill-Killers. Now, despite being on the same league overall, there is always some pent up animosity and bitterness that comes with the competition-- and this was an especially heated rivalry (re: DRAMA!) back in the days from what I'm told. The concept was abandoned completely when DDG began playing bouts at the VBC.... many very grateful to see it go, and very vocal about it never returning again.

So, it was a BIG huge deal to be playing an intraleague bout after all this time of it being such a taboo topic. Some whispered about the "Riots vs. Killers" dark aura that lingers at RollerTime. Its almost a bit of a legendary curse (reaffirmed with the rather forgettable loss to Memphis last RCR) that plagues the hardwood. But with the growth direction the league has taken, it was time to put away the bad juju and just play some fun-filled, no pressure roller derby with our teammates.

The day began with laughter and the unsuspected flying of the Red-Hot Riots Flag during track set-up. There were plenty of laughs abounding... and we knew that regardless this day would be a-okay.

We faced off PINK vs. BLACK. I would take the jammer starting line first for the pink team against Ebbin Flow. She got through just ahead of me to claim lead, but I was able to pick up the first point before she called it off. Injured-Asian Invasion was coaching us, and she had me jamming and then immediately going into the next pack as a power/outside blocker before coming out to rest for a jam. I took the jammer line again in the 5th jam, taking lead and scoring 5 unanswered points. My game-high jam came in the 9th with a 20 point jam, and the rest were quick 3 and 4 pointers before a call-off to keep ahead of the Black team.

Blocking I felt great too, with several big take downs and great holds against black. Bitchy Valens and I held off the black jammer against a full-strength black team for several great laps when all the rest of ours were in the box. My favorite photo of the night captured one of my bullying hits on Sarah Von Knockaho. I seemed to pick on her a bunch this game, with some knockdown hits that left for a great highlight reel.
The final score had us up 188 to 111. We had a great time, no one was hurt, and we had some great real-time practice in front of our most faithful fans! I can't wait to get our regular season started in April at the VBC!

PERSONAL GAME STATS:

• Skated in 15 out of 33 jams (45.45% of the game)
• Jammed in 8 jams (24.24% of game as jammer)
• Of the 8 jams, declared lead jammer 6 times (62.50%)
• Scored a total of 42 points in the game, an average of 5.38 points per jam
• Plus/Minus was +32
• Served 2 minutes in the penalty box during the game (13.3% of my track time), once for a major track cut, and once for my 4 minors: 2 elbows, 2 track cuts.

Up Next: First home bout of the season, April 9th against Alamo City in a WFTDA Sanctioned bout at the Von Braun Center South Hall.

Coming back together....

And just as suddenly as it disappeared--- POOF! eRacer X got her MOJO back!

I had a lot of great advice about my recent mental beat-down, lots of encouragement from my team, and one statement that really drove it all home.

"You need an instigator--a shit talker. You need someone to really just piss you off. Not in the throwing punches kind of way, but the 'gas to the fire' way."

That came from a very good friend and one of our officiating staff-- one who inexplicably knows me better than I probably know myself and one who is wise beyond reason. She was right. I just needed that extra push to engage the "Dammit, I'm not gonna TAKE this anymore" survival mode. It started with that one extra-determined fight to break the pack in practice, and that had a ripple effect.

All of a sudden, I AM taking that outside corner to out maneuver the last blocker, I AM riding that inside line and holding up against the hits trying to take me down, I'm juking, cutting, weaving, bobbing and I AM breaking through that pack to score.

The fog lifted... that allowed me to resharpen my mental awareness... seeing when to call it off, knowing when to race in the pack, when to stall, where to help. My hits improved, my timing improved, my PLAY overall just did a 180. By far, the most critical and strongest muscle in my body -- my BRAIN.

It seems silly now that all these things that are so second nature to me now could be so easily lost in a mental break-down. But they were, and I'm even more hyper-aware that if I can suffer from a case of self-inflicted Mentally Beat Up bruises, then its quite possible that there are many others on my team that may also need the extra assurance.

I've always considered myself mentally strong... I can push through pain, I know what it is to give 110% effort and the rewards that come with the exhaustion. In my drag racing career, I depended on my confident ability to stay cool in even the most sudden/life threatening situations. So that mental breakdown? It caught me completely off-guard.

I know the antagonist route that ended my journey isn't going to have the same effect for most. I'm weird like that... you get me mad, I dig deeper and come back harder. But it makes me very aware that our actions can have a very real and lasting effect on our teammates.

From now on, I'm going to watch my words. I'm going to look for those chances to help and encourage my teammates. I'm going to be the POSITIVE light at the end of the tunnel for someone else in their fog.

Because at the end of the day... we are all in this together.

On the plus side

Well, I may be sucking as a jammer, can't hit a 2lb baby out of bounds, and can't even get my stance straight, but on the PLUS side.... my clothes are way too big again!

At least I'll look good trying.