Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The good times are gonna roll

Grab some popcorn, sit back and enjoy this week's post :)

A lot has happened since my last post. Firstly I made a pretty big decision, I decided to quit the Western Sydney Rollers and join the new Hawkesbury/Hills Area Roller Derby league (or H.A.R.D for short). It sucked not being able to train anymore with the freshies I started off with. I hope one day to meet them on the derby track in a bout, it'll be fun and weird all at once bouting against your friend's. I wish WSR all the best and look forward to coming up against them on the track one day. My reasons for leaving were the fact that training and future bouts would be closer to home, I could still play indoor soccer as it wouldn't clash with derby training, and lastly being trained by Atomic Cherry who I have the upmost respect for all played a part.

H.A.R.D officially kicks off this Friday night with an info night, training and general skating. To say we're all massively excited is an understatement. The work that the executive committee has done in the short space of time has been nothing but amazing. They've been given tasks at the last minute and have performed them all, seeing what they've done in such short space of time only makes me want to put in even more effort to help our league succeed. The guys and girls I've met so far have all been brilliant, they've welcomed both Ness and I, it's like one big, happy family pulling in the same direction.

Our executive committee managed to get us on the front page of both the Blacktown Advocate and Rouse Hill Times to advertise our new league, here's the link. I must admit I was proud seeing it on the front page and I was pretty chuffed seeing my derby name in the articles :) The theme of our league is army/military hence the shirts. Here's a pic of our executive committee from the photo shoot



While I was still off injured I was trying to come up with a derby name. I was trying to think of something that would suit me, something that would kick arse and have something to do with derby. I tried using my name and a play on the name of various characters I liked in shows and movies I watched. It was while I re-watching The girl who played with fire that it finally clicked. I love the heroine of this series Lisbeth Salander, she's truly kick arse and always dishes out punishment to those who deserve it. So I came up with Lisbeth Slammeder :) I also picked number 33 as my shirt number which is the number I've had for a few years now for indoor soccer which I was chuffed about.

Last week I finally made my comeback from injury. I managed to get through indoor soccer on Monday night. I finally started skating on Saturday morning at Skatel for the first time in almost a month. It's amazing how much of a difference not skating a few weeks makes I was completely stuffed by the end of the session, I suppose going to boxing class before I went skating didn't help. Cherry was filming us and when she filmed me she pointed out how wonky my right ankle is when I skate and what I can do to fix it. I was just happy to be skating again after being out for so long. Towards the end both my knee and ankle started feeling sore so it took a bit easy after that.

In other derby news a brilliant article got put up on Facebook, it's called Just keep roller skating - surviving the path to bout night. As a freshie I've felt the frustrations that are mentioned in the article numerous times and no doubt I'll be experiencing it again in the future. Even if you don't do roller derby it's well worth the read.

Roller Derby is the fastest growing sport in Australia so it's no surprise that there's more more leagues popping up. Apart from ours the latest one in NSW is Macarthur Area Roller Derby (M.A.R.D). Hopefully more leagues pop up over the next year.

Lastly lots of people love watching roller derby for the big hits. I present to you the biggest hit I've ever seen in roller derby. It's about 40 seconds in, no matter how many times I've seen it I still look on in pure amazement



Until next week...

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Rehab is for quitters

This week has been all about making the best out of a crap situation. Getting injured at training last week left me in a foul mood for the first few days because I felt as though whatever progress I had made would be lost and I'd be starting at the beginning again. I realised after a few days that negative thinking wasn't going to help me get back on the derby track. I spent the past week resting my leg as much as possible, it ended up being productive as I was able to catch up on some of the DVD's I've bought but not had a chance to watch :)

It's only in the last day or so that the pain in both my knee and ankle has cleared up enough that I could now consider the next stage in my rehabilitation. Unfortunately it wasn't putting on my skates and carrying on like nothing happened, it's all about building the strength in my leg before putting it through the tough demands of derby again. I was thinking that I'd probably be able to do it for a week before I could hit the skates again but I was a bit disappointed when I got told it would be 3-4 weeks not 1 week. Although I'm itching to get back on skates I want to do derby for years to come not just a few weeks so if I have to spend a few more weeks off skates to prolong my derby career then I'll just have to be patient. I'm pleased to say I dragged myself out of bed at 6:30 this morning to go to the local pools and do walking laps in the pool. I got until the 30 minute mark before my knee and ankle started to hurt so that's some progress YAY! I've got a list of other things I can do over the next few weeks that'll help so if all goes well I should be back on skates at the end of the month FINALLY!

On Wednesday a group of us went to the skate park at Glenbrook. Although I wasn't skating it was great fun watching them take on the various ramps. I so wanted to be out there taking it on, it looked scary, tough and fun all at the same time. It reminded me of the Tony Hawk's pro skater games that I still enjoy playing on the Playstation (yeah I'm just a big kid)


Since I've been stuck on the sidelines this past week I've been watching people at training especially those who already bout to try and pick us some pointers. Sometimes it gets a little disheartening seeing them make it look so easy. I start thinking am I ever going to get up to that level?

In other derby news a new local league was formed on Friday night. They're called Hawkesbury Area Roller Derby or H.A.R.D for short hehe. I think this is brilliant news for the derby community. I believe the more competitive leagues we have the better. It's the fastest growing sport in Australia so there's definately a demand. I'm hoping more leagues pop up in NSW, us skaters have more competition and the fans have more bouts to watch than they can poke a stick at.

I saw this posted on Facebook, it's a great read: My top 7 tips for fresh meat