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.

Mental Beat-down

I've reached a roadblock... albeit probably mental, but successful in stopping me in my tracks and chipping away at my confidence.

Taking a break from derby September-February was the best and worst thing I've ever done. I needed the break. I was wore out and burned out on the tough travel schedule we faced last season. I needed some time to recollect myself, to focus on some other areas of my life that needed attention.

But I missed it. I missed my girls, my family. I needed the stress relief and the outlet that skating provides to my mental health. The physical health benefits as well... its amazing how quickly you lose "it".

Coming back felt great.... I felt like this being my 3rd year playing, things would finally "click" more for me. I know its a constant fight... pushing the limits, pushing the comfort levels to be the best skater I am capable of being. But first contact in, and I took a brutal hit to the knee during a drill, most likely worsened by the fact that my supporting muscles are weak and not able to protect my knee as well, and all of that confidence is gone.

As a jammer, I realize that a very large and very real percent of derby is a mental game. Its a game that tests not as much your ability to knock others down, but YOUR ability to get back up. I've been working a grueling 7 day-a-week, 75 hour work schedule, with my only other free time devoted to skating. But as much as I NEED to skate, when I enter the rink, I'm already mentally tired. I want to forget about all the tasks looming before me and focus nothing more than derby. Somehow, that's not happening.

After my little knee snafu at the beginning of February, we pushed right into scrimmages. I felt like a baby giraffe, and the knee was compounding the problem. Lined up on the jammer line, and promptly got stuck in the pack, time-after-time-after-time. Mentally, I wanted to make excuses for myself: the teams are lop-sided, we have a lot of newbies, I'm easing back into it to guard my knee, etc.

But the reality is that I'm mentally out-of-shape. I'm letting each of those failed attempts at getting through the pack eat away at my confidence. I'm allowing myself to let fear and self-loathing affect how I skate. It changes the way I approach the pack, it stops me from trying to get around that stubborn blocker. And the worst part is, its mental and the only person I have to blame is myself.

I left practice last night after a particularly frustrating scrimmage wondering if I am not ready to be out there yet. No exercise can help with mental struggles-- its an internal problem that only I can overcome. But I began feeling like my super-low confidence and mental strength may be putting myself at risk for even more injuries, like I'm a walking accident waiting to happen.

I want this year to be the best... I want to grow as a skater. I want so bad to be a valuable asset to this team. But right now, I just want to crawl into my little hole and stay there for awhile.

What do you do to get mentally tough? What pulls you out of the derby-funk haze?

Comments much appreciated.

We are all FAMILY.

You see the attitudes. The smack talk, the power hits, the brutal knock-downs, the bruises and even the occasional broken bones. You hear about the skirmishes, the penalty box confrontations, the ejections, and the expulsions.

But what you might not hear enough about is that at the end of the day, as we unlace our skates, we are the most loyal and fiercely protective family that anyone could ever ask for. Derby is more than the aggressive sport, its more than the persona we portray on the track. It is a lifestyle that we've chosen, and a family that we have adopted for better or worse as our own.

Whether it be the trust and respect that is earned by one another in the throes of bout-time battle, the solidarity in running a successful business and community champion, or perhaps the fact that getting 40+ women together 3 times a week things start to "sync" up (if ya get my drift), the outcome is a family of like-minded women who despite it all, have your back through thick and thin.

Whether its your derby wife you call in the middle of the night when you need a sober ride home, or the army of derby girls that comes to your rescue when a relationship goes south and you want him out NOW, or the crew that will pull miracles to save you from 2,000 miles away.... you come to know that despite whatever headache may face you on track or at practice, your family is solidly and firmly rooted behind you.

This family extends beyond the confines of your own league. Almost like the cousins you hardly know and only see once a year or every other year at best, skaters on competing leagues are part of this family. Because while we may hate each other for two 30-minute periods, at the end of the day we all do this thing we love -- we play derby. And it doesn't matter which team we're on or what positions we play, we're all there doing the thing we love together.

Which is why when I read that a fellow derby girl is in need of help, I don't even think twice about helping her. I've never met Sk8 Outta Compton, a recently retired skater from the Atlanta Rollergirls team. I don't have to know her personally to respect what she has done for this sport and what she accomplished in her skating career. But even though I never had the chance to know her, or skate against her, she is family and she needs our help. Those satchels will be used in my skate bag proudly, and I will print a big #310 (her derby number) on them to remind me of my far-away derby sister and her new journey.

I'm proud to call all of the strong women in the derby-verse my sweaty, stinky, and often PMS-y family, and am proud to know that if ever a time comes where I have to put in the derby-distress beacon, that an army will be there for me where ever I might be in my life. How has YOUR derby family come to save you? Share your stories in the comments!

Be sure to visit Sk8 Outta Compton's blog. Read her story. See how you can help.

Derby Presents

Ever since they started popping up at derby practice and bouts everywhere, I've had a severe case of Zuca bag envy.

Well, I officially have my own Zuca bag of awesomeness, and how much more eRacer X-ish can this bag get?!?




It's appropriately named the Zuca ZOOM bag. And its mine! Yay for derby presents!