If you are alone, you are wrong. Find a friend.

My first bout was an unforgettable experience but not in a good way. As a newbie skater, I was rostered to be an alternate, available to sub in for another skater in case of injury or exhaustion. So, …. A bench-warmer; I was the team benchwarmer for most of the game. And it turns out that was pretty much ok because the short time I was on track, I wasn’t only unhelpful, I was worse than useless. But that part of the story comes later. At least at first, I was elated to have been rostered and eager to put into practice all the skills I had learned during my fresh meat bootcamp just a few months before.

But, as Bout Day approached, the nerves began to build. I had no appetite all day. I was unusually quiet in the hours leading up to the event. The lump in my throat grew to what felt like the size of an orange as we drove to the venue. I think it is safe to say that I was as nervous for that bout as I was the day I defended my dissertation and earned my PhD. And that’s saying something because I threatened to walk out of the defense room before my presentation was set to begin.

Warm up and snippets of my (#514) ~37 seconds of game play while I was still with my friends during my first bout against the Steel City Beamers in Sept 2018. (Photo credit Don Chiurazzi, aka Mr. Fancy, Five Star Fancy’s husband)

Despite my nerves, I still had high hopes and grand visions of success for my first go on the track. Perhaps I would land a hip-check to the opposing jammer, knocking her out of bounds and enabling my own team’s jammer to score a grand slam? Or maybe I would deflect a star pass at a critical jam to bring home a win for my team? Not likely but I would get my chance to try soon enough.

When we had a respectable lead towards the end of the second half, our Bench Coach told me to go out with the next line. While I nervously watched the jam clock seconds tick by, my stomach knotted into a braid as tightly twisted as the way my teammate Tank wore her hair. Before I knew it, the refs were signaling that it was time to play and so with a sigh, I clicked on my helmet, got off the bench and skated over to pack.

Before (left) and after (right) shot of a time I (far right side of each image, black shirt with my butt sticking out and my side meat wide open for a hit) was not in position with my line and alone at the start of a jam at one of my first scrimmages. The opposing jammer (Dingleberry, who also happened to be my Morgantown Roller Vixens Captain; red shirt with a red helmet cover) was lined up right behind me. The after shot is my recovering from being completely laid out by Dingle. I definitely had it coming but at least I fell small. (Photo credit Don Chiurazzi aka Mr. Fancy).

And play I did, so to speak … for exactly 37 seconds. As soon as the whistle blew, the jammers took off and slammed into our line. In the chaos I was separated from my team and well behind the rest of the pack, who had collectively skated ahead to reform. Now, I was a marginally ok blocker when things were going well, flanked by veteran skaters guiding my efforts, but in derby things seldom go according to plan. So I got separated from my safety net and I panicked, frozen in my spot like a deer in the headlights not knowing what to do. The look of terror on my face may have given my inexperience away, that or the DIY t-shirt “jersey” characteristic of skaters participating in their first bouts and within the blink of an eye, a blocker from the other team yelled “I got one”, planted herself right in my path, and would…not…move. I had been “goated”, where a lonely blocker is held back from the pack and prevented from helping their team. And try as I might, juking left and right, I could not get around this skater to rejoin my line. Before I knew it, the jam was over and I was left to skate off the track by myself.

As we returned to the bench, my teammate Pea grabbed me by the shoulders, looked me right in the eyes and said kindly, but simply “If you are alone, you are wrong. Always find a friend on track”.

Great video by Rage’s Roller Derby Clips on the offensive play of ‘getting a goat’

Truer words were never spoken in derby because we are ALWAYS stronger together. For instance, in derby, blockers have hard jobs. They have to block the opposing team’s Jammer while simultaneously working to help their own team’s Jammer to get through the line. This means that Blockers need to be able to switch from skating defense to offense and back to defense again at the drop of a hat helmet cover (aka panty). In contrast, Jammers generally seem to be the stars in derby (pun intended) and they have a straightforward job, getting past the blockers. That’s it. And they are remarkably good at it as they juke and jive and fake and dance their way across the track, especially when faced with a single opposing Blocker who somehow has to block the Jammer’s path across a 4.5 meter wide track. It might work okay for a few seconds but a single lateral move in the wrong direction by the Blocker and the Jammer is gone, speeding off around the curve. But, add a second Blocker and suddenly they can pivot on a fulcrum and cover more than half the track. Add a third Blocker and you get a Brace who can ground the super stable triangle formation and communicate the Jammer’s movements to the other Blockers. With a final fourth blocker and pretty much the whole track is covered, you are golden and the Jammer either has to risk skirting the track boundary and getting bumped out of bounds or else face the crushing defeat of an all-but-impenetrable wall of shoulder and booty. And even Jammers, who usually operate on their own, are much more effective when one of their friendly Blockers are doing offense to poke holes in the opposing line. In derby, we are ALWAYS stronger together. And as a lonely “goat” I wasn’t able to do any of that, rendering me completely ineffective.

Outcomes from the Morgantown Roller Vixens vs Steel City Beamers bout in Sept of 2018. I survived my first career jam and still retained my #1 fan, Little Star! (Photo credit Don Chiurazzi aka Mr. Fancy)

So that’s the story of my first bout. I skated more during warm-up than I did in actual game play and my main contribution to the team was getting goated. It was not my proudest moment. I was alone, I was wrong, and I learned that lesson well. In part II of this post, I will expand on this idea and talk about how this notion applies for me well beyond the boundaries of the track.