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...
