Highest Rated Comments


SmartyPantsRD17 karma

Hey! You skate with Buffalo!

You're going to be an underdog so often that you really need to go into games thinking about yourself and your team rather than the competition. It sounds like you shut yourself down before the game even started! I'm lucky enough to play some of the best skaters in the world, so many skaters that I compete against are so talented, that if I hyper focused on their talent I'd never step on the track! I'd recommend that you go into every practice and every game expecting it to be hard, so that you're not surprised when it is hard.

SmartyPantsRD14 karma

Of course I've seen Whip It. The team in the game was the Holy Rollers and I skated for them for about 7.5 years. The movie was extremely accurate and if you were on either TXRD or LADD at the time there were a ton of really awesome inside jokes that you could catch. If you think it's a movie about WFTDA and flattrack derby, then you will think it's a fake. However if you watch it and keep in mind that it's a movie about the origin and early days of bank track roller derby, then it's pretty accurate.

SmartyPantsRD14 karma

I started derby in 2003, back then you'd practice "planned plays" as much as you practiced other aspects of the sport. You'd go to a practice and one of the things you'd drill is jumping over a hurdle-like device, and you'd do that for about 30 minutes. One of my most favorite planned plays was to get in a fake fight on the rail, flip on to the announcers booth, which made an extremely loud noise, then jump back on to the track and finish the jam. This type of stuff is part of our sport's important history. It freaks a lot of people out, especially hose that do not know much about the origin of derby, but it was super hard to pull off and was simply, straight-forward fun. I'm super happy that WFTDA rules are different from the early day bank track rules, but I wouldn't take any of that back at all.

SmartyPantsRD14 karma

Last year I was realizing that my brain would give out before my body. For example, in a scrimmage at the 20 minute mark I would start to make mistakes or get penalties, so I decided to do an exercise in which I'd go to the gym and do super hard-core cardio on a machine and then play Sudoku, so I had to exercise really hard and also concentrate on something else. I also do this with listening to a really intense pod-cast, my brain is one place, my body is in another.

SmartyPantsRD14 karma

I was jamming at practice the other day, and i was thinking, "oh god, I have to jam until I get out of this massive pack?!?" but I didn't stop moving my feet and then before I knew it I was out and I was lead. I have a friend, Olivia Shootin John. She is one of the smartest players in roller derby. She can block and she can jam, she's a double threat. When she jams it is insane. It's as if the pack is a locked door, and on the other side is a room and in the room is a tiger and her two children, and she has to get through the locked door to save her kids. When she jams, it's as if nothing else matters. She just goes and goes and goes and goes and goes until she's out. I admire that about her, and I try to do that every time I jam. Good luck to you this season!