Hi! I'm a Jewish trans woman named Evy! This is my side blog. I use it to talk about gender stuff, post selfies, and reblog occasional trans related things. My main blog can be found here.
So my league now has a B team, not sanctioned, but still, a full on B team. We won our first game, which was excellent, so we had pretty good hopes going in to this game.
We started with 16 skaters and an alt signed up (the other team was also fielding 16 and one of our skaters was a jammer just coming back to contact in the last month or so, both teams were fine with it). 2 skaters couldn't make it due to injury and illness, so we were just at a flat 15.
The floor was perforated sports court. I learned to skate on sports court so I thought I understood what it would be like. I was wrong. This floor was non newtonian. It would start out super grippy until you put enough weight on it and then you'd just slide out. Also, because it was perforated, it couldn't really be properly cleaned, which means that it was a massive biohazard risk. Also it was rigid enough to act like a cheesegrater. Also it was literally slippery enough that your kneepads would slip out from under you when coming up from the floor.
The game was called due to injuries and time with 12 minutes left in the second period, we were down two skaters unable to skate due to injury, and had had multiple other skaters go to the medics due to various minor injuries.
The referees kept on telling us that we needed to try and control ourselves, and all due respect to the refs, but we were controlling ourselves as well as we could, we couldn't even fall small properly without our limbs going all over the place. What a time.
To the trans person wondering if its worth it, yes, yes it is. Yes you may end up burning down everything, but flowers blossom and trees sprout so much stronger and brighter after the fire. It may hurt, and it may irrevocably change your trajectory, but sometimes that's the only way to grow. If you're scared, it's ok. I was scared too. The only way to move forward is to change. We'll be waiting for you.
So last night after practice (I'm coaching fresh meat now, oh how far I've come), my derby friends surprised me by showing up at my house to hang out for a bit. It was an absolutely lovely time, I had a blast. We went to McDonald's, and I got chicken mcnuggets. And after my friends left, as I was sitting there eating the last of them, I was thinking about how bad these nuggets were.
And I realized that I could just not get them. And then I had a bit of a bigger realization. You don't have to make a big deal about doing things, you can just decide to do them. I grew up eating kosher, only dairy outside of the house, kosher meat inside, waiting between milk and meat meals.
I'm going to do it again. I don't know how well I'll stick with it, how consistent I'll be, but I'm going to try. No more ordering delivery of burgers, no more eating meat out. Just doing a small thing to reconnect with who I am.
I'm not tagging this post. It doesn't need to be seen. I just wanted to write the words down.
I haven't been roller derby posting here in a while, in part because I need something to post on cohost and in part because after a while practices become really routine. You show up, you warm up, you practice skills, you do some blocking skills, and then you do gameplay drills. It's fun, but not much to write about ya know?
However I wanted to give a little update for two reasons.
we have our final game coming up, and because I was still on my rookie skates from 2019 and I'm very hard on them, I broke my skates and am now gonna have to bench for a game that I've been the main contact for organizing for. AHHHHHHH. But its fine because there's someone to captain the team while I'm on the bench.
Hello my fellow co-captain who found my blog once because there aren't that many roller derby blogs out there, you're wonderful and kick ass and I hope your hip feels ok.
I ended up bench with my co captain because they also ended up unable to skate last minute. They did lines, I did calls, and we both did it pretty well, and my team's skaters kicked ass. There were gameplay scenarios that kept cropping up that we literally had practiced again and again, and it paid off big time. I'm so proud of my team and so happy for them.
It was a tough season, but my first season of roller derby is in the bag, finishing off with a win.
I haven't been roller derby posting here in a while, in part because I need something to post on cohost and in part because after a while practices become really routine. You show up, you warm up, you practice skills, you do some blocking skills, and then you do gameplay drills. It's fun, but not much to write about ya know?
However I wanted to give a little update for two reasons.
we have our final game coming up, and because I was still on my rookie skates from 2019 and I'm very hard on them, I broke my skates and am now gonna have to bench for a game that I've been the main contact for organizing for. AHHHHHHH. But its fine because there's someone to captain the team while I'm on the bench.
Hello my fellow co-captain who found my blog once because there aren't that many roller derby blogs out there, you're wonderful and kick ass and I hope your hip feels ok.
Alright, so had another bout yesterday! It was an away game, and we had to drive around 5 hours to get there. We didn’t win, but we had a lot of fun. I’m putting the rest behind a readmore because my god I rambled and talked a lot.
So it was a doubleheader, starting off with our travel team facing their travel team, followed up by a “freshie scrimmage”. Only seven of us fresh (me included) could come, and two of us were skating with the travel team as well. First half of the travel team game, the five of us sat and watched. The place was packed, and they were pretty much all cheering for their home team. It was incredibly close, back and forth the entire time. I hope that it’ll fade with time, but right now, I have the most nervous stomach ever before a game. Just running back and forth to the bathroom, nibbling on food for energy and pacing back and forth. But it was fine because I had *responsibilities*.
Since I have been drafted as the captain, and all our coaches were skating, it fell to me to make sure we did an off skates warm up and geared up and all that in time. Pretty straightforward, wait for the intermission to finish, then do a 10-15 minute warmup, gear up, and we’d be ready with a few minutes left!
Well we did the warm up, and we went and geared up, wearing our white jerseys because that’s what we heard we were supposed to wear, and went out to watch.....18 minutes left in the half. The game was going super slowly, so we were ready early. And then we found out that we were actually supposed to be wearing our black jerseys. So we went and changed. First game ended, our team losing by just a hair, and we go to start warming up. We were having some of the All Star skaters skating down with us to help out so that we wouldn’t be completely gassed, and it turns out that they didn’t bring enough black jerseys....so we switched once again to white.
I’d love to give a detailed account of the first half, but I can’t, aside from remembering a very satisfying hit I gave to the other team’s jammer that got them just out enough to draw a cut and give us a powerjam, and an incredibly powerful hit by one of my friends while I was blocking with them that set the other team’s jammer absolutely flying. It was beautiful. We were playing incredibly well, and we ended the first half in the lead. A great feeling.
Unfortunately, in the second half, the other team had a fire lit under their ass and we were starting to lag, so they were quickly catching up. I wasn’t jamming, there are enough strong jammers on the lineup that I wouldn’t have been helping, but I was the pivot a number of times. And one of those times, our jammer got tired enough and we were down enough to do a star pass. First attempt, I reach for it, almost grab it....it gets dropped. Jammer gets it again, I get back in position, grab it, and get out.
Now, generally speaking, if you’re the pivot and you get a star pass, you’re going around as fast as you can, and you’re going to try and score points, but you’re not expecting to score anything, because the other team’s jammer should call it. I went around, and they weren’t ready for me, and I scooted on by without getting touched. 4 points. My first points as a jammer in roller derby, and it was on a star pass. They still didn’t call it so I kept on going, and got slammed into by the other team’s jammer. We both went down, I got back up, kept going, and this time got caught by their blockers. Tried to fight them a bit, but I was gassed, and the jam timed out. Three more points. 7 points on a star pass. The other team’s jammer got 20 on the jam, it was a monster jam for them, but fuck it, I’m going to ride that high of scoring some points for a while.
We ended up losing, they just managed to come back strong enough and we were tired enough that they managed to make up the difference and then some, although we gave them a fight all the way to the end. But what a game. I honestly don’t have a lot of things that I want to critique and work on, aside from like...stamina.
I like the feeling of winning. I’d love for us to actually manage to hold on and win a game soon. I find myself liking blocking more and more, and I think I might stay as a pivot for a while, although I’d like to end up jamming again, but I need to work on things before I’m ready.
I like this sport. I like the camaraderie, I like the exhilaration and speed when I get the helmet cover and go flying down the track, I love catching and holding a jammer and giving a good offence... roller derby is pretty great.
It feels cool in my apartment right now. it is not. It’s just so much more comparatively cooler then the absolute humid hot nightmare that was the rink.
Final practice before the tournament. I....still don’t feel prepared. I am, objectively, as prepared as I can be. Maybe its just that playing against All-Star skaters is a bad comparison when you’re a rookie and playing in a rookie tournament. But multi two minute jams where I just couldn’t get out are disheartening. On the bright side, I apparently hit hard enough to surprise one of the very good blockers, which was a great feeling. Not enough to knock her out of the way, but I’ll take it.
We’re likely going to be 8 people at the tournament. Which is. Not a lot. Even for twenty minute games, its not a lot. At least we’ll get a lot of chances to skate!
Also I’ve come up with several proposals that will change how our league is run in various ways (for the better I hope), and am going to be putting them together and presenting them soon, because I am incapable not getting stuck in. Ah well, such is derby life.
So! Second to last practice. My legs hurt, and finding my puppy dog energy was uhhh. Hard. But even though I have a lot to criticize for myself (I was forcibly reminded of what the Bad Place is for jammers, and when blocking I just couldn’t seem to make contact), apparently everyone else thinks I did just fine.
However, my friend, who drove me and two other friends to practice, took an arm to the face during one of the last practice jams. And split her lip. Badly enough to need stitches.So we all piled into her car and drove with her (because she insisted she was fine around the gauze in her mouth) to her place so she could go with her husband to the ER.
Terrible thing to happen to her, and the skater who’s arm it was was mortified, but goddamn I love how close of friends we all are, how absolutely unconditionally here for each other we are. It’s....not really something I’ve had before, and I’m really grateful for it.
Another derby practice tonight. We’re skating in the deiced hockey rink with the travel team for the rest of the practices until the tournament (a combination of pride weekend and Canada day means we’re not doing anything on Sunday until after the tournament). It was a bit jumbled, but that happens sometimes. Lots of working on pack and offense and using pack as offense and sweeps and whatnot.
I did get an opportunity to jam, which has only encouraged my belief that jamming is the most fun you can have on eight wheels and that maybe just maybe I’m half decent at it?
Anyway, trans march is coming up on Friday. My cousins are going to be there to watch and cheer me on, and I’ll get to march with a bunch of other derby folk. It’s a long way from my first trans march, when I knew no one and marched alone, defiant and proud. My extended family is supportive, but more then that, I have a whole bunch of friends who support me as me. I don’t have to walk alone, I can walk (or roll, weather depending) with people by my side.
So today was gameplay scenarios. Which then turned into actual no bullshit jam practice. Which then turned into actual full on scrimmage with only thirty seconds between jams.
And we likely did it for longer then our actual games in the tournament will be.
There's no more Sunday practices left, just a few Tuesday practices. And you know what, I think we're ready. Bout day is coming! And I'm excited!
Ah heck, almost forgot to write my little dairy entry thing.
Legs were a bit sore today, which had me worried, but I think I did an alright job. Today was jammer skills and offense, which I was really looking forward too.
The one big issue is that the people who were practicing against for the most part were our coaches, who are very experienced skaters. Nothing like trying to juke time and time again and just getting caught Every. Single. Time. My one solace is that the upcoming tournament is going to be against people who are guaranteed to not be experienced skaters either.
At this point I honestly think that we may win a game or two. Its going to be tough, but I’m looking forward to it.
There were a lot of other things that happened, from getting smacked in the face (its ok Meg, it happens, I was fine), to bearings exploding, to wheels falling off, but now I’m showered and cleaned and fed, and so very very content.
This sport is hella fun, and I’m so glad I get to take part in it with some truly fun and cool people.
Went to the all stars practice again today. Probably going to be a regular thing I do now, its good practice. Last week I more or less watched, did some individual drills, and helped out a bit.
This week there were two other fresh skaters there with me. That means we had enough to do drills. We had enough to almost form a line. We were going up against our A team, our travel team, as a bunch of rookies.
I didn’t die. I didn’t fall too much. I got a few hits in, and got hit a few times. It was chaotic as fuck, and in one drill, the poor all star jammer who we were supposed to be giving offense too would probably have been better off if we weren’t on the track, but god it was fun and good practice.
32 days to game day.
No deep revelations or anything like that today, just a good clean practice. Today was all about pushing, 1 on 1s, 2 on 1s, 3 on 1s. For anyone reading who doesn’t play derby and has no idea what I’m talking about, pushing is...what jammers do. We try and push our way through the pack so we can get around and keep scoring. Or we try and juke around the pack so we don’t have to do any pushing and can just get the points.
1 on 1 blocking is almost always a bit of a hail mary on the part of the blockers. You aren’t going to hold a jammer for long, but maybe you can hold them long enough for your friends to get back to you and help out. It is HARD. I fell a number of times, and didn’t manage to hold the jammer for very long. But then again, when I was the jammer, I was knocking people down all the time, so.
2 on 1 is standard blocking more or less. You can either do it so the jammer is facing two butts, or only one butt and the other blocker helps hold them steady and move them to stay on the jammer. We were supposed to be just doing two butts, staying together and staying on the jammer. I was blocking, and somehow, we ended up not only doing butt and brace blocking, but did at least one switch during it. It felt very cool.
3 on 1 blocking is how you start every jam, assuming something hasn’t gone horribly wrong with your blockers getting penalties. Two butts, and a brace. The brace tells the butts what’s happening behind them, and the supports them when the jammer hits them at speed. I jammed and blocked, we all did, but god, jamming is so much fun. I trying to juke them out, but got caught and had a clean solid hit to the inside, then got to push for a bunch longer before finally managing to get to the front of them and do a little spin to get out. I love jamming.
And it looks like I’ll get my chance to do some jamming! With eight people on our team, we’re all going to be doing a little bit of everything. Luckily, the games are only 20 minutes long in total, so 10 minute halves. We can do it for 10 minutes. I hope.
So I went to our travel team’s practice today with a friend. The idea was that we’d do the warmups with them, and then just use the massive space to practice skills out of their ways. My friend ended up participating as an impromptu tryout, and while I got in some skating practice, I ended up helping run the practice. And I maybe agreed to help be a bench manager for them?
Also, the floor. The floor where I normally skate is tile, like you’d see in a school hallway. It’s. Slow. Skating it in is like skating through molasses. This was a deiced hockey rink, so concrete. Nice concrete. Y’all I was going so fast. I love concrete.
So today was one of the funnest practices I’ve had the pleasure of attending in a long time. Part of it was because this was the start of game prep, and a bunch of my friends who I haven’t seen in a long time were there and skating with me.
But a large part of it was a bit of a deliberate attitude adjustment that I made with myself. I made a playlist of some pump up songs, and reminded myself that I’m doing this to have fun, to get out there and skate and have a good time. And I skated better, I skated faster, I had more energy, and I had more fun!
We were doing a rules review, so most of it was sock derby practice jams with the refs explaining different rules as they went, but with one exciting change.
There’s a term that gets used a lot in derby practice, facilitating. Basically the idea is that you want to actually get a chance to practice the skill, so the jammer or blockers need to facilitate that, not just go full out.
We weren’t facilitating here. We were just going full out. Was it messy? Yes. Was it the most tactically sound gameplay ever? No. Was it fun as hell? HELL YEAH!
