FoxyPop - Swamp City Roller Rats freshmeat coach, player, and general master of cute explains her journey into Roller Derby
It was quite possibly the first status update I'd seen from Steph, A.K.A. Firefly Spirit, a nice lady I'd met in my first year of Uni (in some class I barely remember). I didn't know what derby was, but some google-aided snooping quickly answered that and tah-dah, I was interested. I proceeded to bombard Firefly with questions - when, where, could I see this in action? I was scared to commit without seeing it. After all, this was a sport. That means exercise, competition and commitment. The horror!
Turns out prospective freshies (and goodness, how novel I found it that newbies were referred to as "fresh meat") were allowed to go and watch the first league training of every month. So on the 7th of August, I toddled along to LeisurePlex by my lone-sum and finally got to see what roller derby training looked like. There was a lot of squatting and people skating in lines. The lanky guy, (Yes, GUY, what was this?!), who inevitbly ended up at the back of these lines stood out, as did the glittery "Disco Dan" printed on the back of his shirt. Oh yeah, this looked pretty cool.
Now, I hadn't planned to go alone - my sister bailed on me - but it's one of the best things I've ever done. Because, alone, I am an easy sell. When I go shopping by myself and a salesperson actually does their job, I'll walk out with far more than I had planned on. Add to this the fact that Nine Inch Diff, relentless pseudo-saleswoman-of-derby, had made it her job to talk to anyone and everyone watching the training that night. I didn't stand a chance.
"Come along tomorrow night." She said. "You'll be fine" she said.
Actually, I don't remember most of what she said as I was rather distracted when she pulled up her pant leg and showed me her injured knee in all it's swollen glory. I realised that getting injured was an unavoidable part of Roller Derby. A sensible version of me would have politely excused myself and never looked back. I've never broken a bone in my life - injury is not something I deal with well. Instead, I went home to rave to my partner about how great this weird new sport looked and how a suspected crazy woman had wiggled her kneecap around in a most unnerving fashion.
Diff had kindly offered me the use of one of her sons' helmets for the first night. The revelation that this woman had children and played a full contact sport was a curve ball I hadn't expected. Later I'd come to feel very stupid when I discovered most of the skater girls I'd seen the previous night were also mothers. Goodness knows what I was expecting they did outside of derby, but it certainly wasn't mothering stuff.
I showed up on the night of August 8th to put on quad skates since the first time my age had hit double digits. I was alone, I was scared. I might even have sat in the corner by myself had it not been for Firefly's enthusiasm and Diff's craziness.
Enthusiasm and craziness. That's a pretty good summation of the aspects of derby I took up first.
Once I got on the track, I had to be enthusiastic about myself, I couldn't dwell on how bad I felt when I fell over. The one time I did I spent the next week regretting the little pity-party I'd thrown myself. It seems ridiculous now, to think I was worried about falling over. The floor and I have a much healthier relationship these days.
The craziness came naturally. You can't be entirely sane if you think a dorky little bambi-on-skates is going to knock over a veteran like Psych-lone Bola... but I kept trying!
I might have been all nervous and alone at the start, but I'm happy to say that I'm part of a team now. Part of a community of really crazy, amazing people. I couldn't be more proud of myself for making the effort, both to improve my skating and derby-centric skills as well at to make friends and integrate myself into the league. I hope every future league member gets to feel like this, it's pretty awesome.
Still nervous though, these people hit hard!
- FoxyPop #62
Images courtesy of Sandy Carter Photography
www.sandycarterphoto.co.nz
