Well good day to you, Derby Fans!
Yes, I know… 2 months and 12 days later, an update. What can I say? This summer has been turbulent, erratic, unpredictable, frustrating, inspiring, and in general… an “Interesting Time” in the Chinese sense.
The one constant has been Roller Derby, mostly because I needed a constant, and I needed Derby. I wasn’t able to attend ECDX, and I was very upset about that. I had managed to land a contract position as a Desktop Support Tech at Frontier Corp about 2 weeks before ECDX; but with my budget as precarious as it was, and no vacation time because of it being a contract position (and ECDX falling on my first week) I wasn’t going to try and swing it. Gotta act like an adult sometimes, I suppose.
I heard a lot of great stories, and watched some of the footage via the Live Stream… and am determined to make the trip next year.
I did skate in my first double-header, tho… and I’m skating in my first tournament in Long Island on Sept 3rd at the Empire Skate Showdown2011. And yes, I did skate at Enchanted Mountain… and also took my OPR Act International and skated in Hammer City (Hamilton, ONT).
The best news is, I am now gainfully employed in a full-time position, with benefits. I’m working at RIT, in the Image Permanence Institute as a Product Support Technician… the team is great, supportive, fun, accepting, quirky, and welcoming… and accepting of my Derby habit. In fact, a bit of my interview with the team involved an explanation of how Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby worked… and not even of my doing… they asked!
As far as where I am in Referee Development? My immediate bit of accomplishment is shaving another minute off of my 10 in 1:35. Last night I finished in 1:40… and that was with being in an anemic state thanks to Day 2 of “Sucks to be Female” week. 5 more seconds… I just need to scrape off 5 more seconds.
I am desperately working on being more agile on skates; particularly with starts and stops. Skating OPR, there are a lot of starts, stops, reversals, explosive accelerations, etc because of pack strategies; and frankly the RCRD teams are intentionally all over the place as they fight to control the pack. I’ve been refining a quick turn that starts with a plow stop and reverse, merges into what’s basically a half Tomahawk on the left toe-stop; while the right foot starts a toe-stop run in the opposite direction. It’s kind of convoluted to explain, or break down… but when I’m trying to keep up with the pack or rush back into position to pick up the pack on the next pass it’s a bit more fluid and becomes second nature. I’d be interested to see if there’s any footage of it; and see what it actually looks like. The downside is a LOT of wear on my left toe-stop… which is the one that consistently tends to work itself loose anyway… to the point that the left toe-stop is now amusingly misshapen. So on occasion the toe-stop rotates in such a way that when I try this little quick stop & reverse it catches weird and my foot tries to slide out from under me; or the toe-stop doesn’t catch at all and I end up rolling in an odd arc until I can right myself.
The biggest thing with this (and my reverses in general) is that I still take up a lot of real estate to do it. I do a wide plow-stop, my reverses are wide (there are times when I feel like I manage to take up the entire 10-ft safety zone!) but my feet tend to migrate back to shoulder’s width by the time I’m stopping. I suppose it isn’t a big deal; since I’m not stopping within a pack… but I think a tighter rotation would just look better, you know?
There are countless other skills I will need to work on; not just skating but actual Referee positions. I’ve been working a little with Inside Pack Ref and Jammer Ref, I don’t foresee skating as a JR before the end of the year… and frankly I’m ok with that. I am still having some Out-Of-Play vs In-Play recognition issues… I haven’t quite figured out what my mental “ON” switch is for that, yet… but it’s something to work on. For now, I know I’m skating OPR for 1 bout at ESS… I may be NSOing, the schedule hasn’t been released yet. So I’ve got a week and a bit to get my brain in the game; even with quirky practice stuff going on. I know I can do the job well; I just need to be consistent about it.
photo courtesy of Derek Lang
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