Sunday 20 July 2014

The pack is HERE!

Our resident refs, Skew and Drew, were helping lead our midweek coaching session this week.  Often when you're skating so much is going on immediately around you that you can't see the wood for the trees.  Seeing things from a refs perspective is a great way to get an understanding of the bigger picture of a game.  I'd recommend shadowing one during a scrim if you can - just don't get in their way!

We were looking at the idea of The Pack and The Engagement Zone.  This was something the newbies hadn't covered in great detail yet, so I learned loads.

What is The Pack?

The interaction between the Jammer and the Pack, and between members of the Pack itself, is what roller derby revolves around.  The Pack exists wherever there is the biggest group of:

  • Blockers
  • Who are In Bounds (i.e. on the track)
  • Upright, not fallen over or kneeling.
  • In Proximity (10ft/3m or closer to somebody else).  Both teams must be involved for there to be a Pack.
If all these conditions are not being met, the Referees will call "No Pack!" and it's everybody's responsibility to reform the Pack, although the onus is slightly more on the guys at the back to catch up to the guys at the front.  Doesn't matter what team you're on, or what you're doing, you've got to drop it and go make a new Pack.  If you don't you could receive a 'Failure To Reform' penalty and have to leave the track!  

So, here are some examples (made using the Vienna Rollergirls' URDUMB app, which is a bit like an online magnet-board for roller derby.  Genius!)

1. This first one's pretty simple.  We have blockers from both teams on track together, and they are clearly all less than 10ft away from each other (the parallel grey lines across the track are each 10ft apart.  Player are skating from left to right).  This is a pack.


2. This next one is also a pack.  Although there is a gap between the pink and yellow blockers, it is less than 10ft.  Imagine drawing a dot-to-dot between the players.  You could do it without drawing a line longer than 10ft.
3. But now - Oh No!  We've lost our pack!  The yellow team have skated a littler further ahead, and the pink team have stayed where they are, so the space between the nearest pink and yellow players is now further than 10ft. The Refs will call "No Pack!", the yellow team will be expected to slow down, and the pink team to speed up until a new pack is made.  The Refs will then point to the new pack and announce "The Pack is here!"  You may now carry on hitting each other.

That's the basics, but once you understand pack rules, you can start figuring out how to use them to your advantage.  For example, because the back of the pack has more of a responsibility to keep up with the front, it is sometimes possible for the team at the front of the pack (our yellow blockers), to start skating very fast so that the jammer can't catch up with them.  This forces the team at the back (our pink blockers) to chase them in order to keep the pack intact.

The other thing you can do is start tinkering with the shape of the pack.  All the above examples show the pack as a roughly circular blob, but it doesn't always have to be that way.  As long as you are less than 10ft apart from your nearest player, the pack can be stretched out into a long thin shape.  This is really useful once you factor in the Engagement Zone.

What is the Engagement Zone?


The Engagement Zone is the area of the track in which you are allowed to engage with (block, assist, whatever) another player.  Any engaging outside of this area will earn you a penalty.  It's a funny one to figure out at first because it changes with the shape of the pack.  The engagement zone stretches 20ft/6m behind the last player in the pack, and 20ft/6m in front of the foremost member of the pack.  This is another reason why it's so important to always keep the pack together.  If there's no pack, there's no engagement zone, and if there's no zone in which you can engage the enemy jammer... well, you can't touch them.  Any No Pack situation that exists for longer than a few seconds is a big problem!

If you're using your pack cleverly, you can make it and the engagment zone really work for you.
Imagine it.  The opposing jammer has smashed through your pack, passing three of your four blockers.  She and the final blocker are duking it out ahead of you, but they're moving forward quickly, away from the pack.  The engagement zone ends 20ft ahead of you, and after they pass that point your blocker can't engage with the jammer any more.  She will receive an "Out of Play!" warning and have to let the jammer go.  What are you going to do to buy your blocker some more time?

You're going to bridge.  

'Bridging' is when the blockers stretch out the shape of the pack from a blob into a long thin line.  They will skate forward and stop 10ft apart from each other.  With three blockers bridging you can make the pack extend forwards for an extra 30ft!  Add on the 20ft of engagement zone and you've just given your foremost blocker loads of extra time and track with which to engage the jammer and get in her way.  It looks a bit like this:

1.  You can see the yellow blockers starting to space themselves out... 

2.  The final blocker is still engaging the jammer, because she's still within 20ft of the now massively long pack!

3.  And finally, the blocker and jammer leave the engagement zone.  At this point the blocker can no longer engage the jammer, and must turn back to rejoin the pack.  If she doesn't, the ref's will give her an "Out of Play!" warning.  If she doesn't immediately respond and let the jammer go, it's penalty time for her!





We had a go at skating ahead of the pack, judging where 20ft was, and then stopping and skating back to reform.  It's really good to develop a sense of how far 10ft and 20ft are in real space, so that you're not always relying on warnings from the referees to work out what you need to do next.  It also means you won't leave too big a gap while bridging, which can leave your foremost jammer stranded in he middle of nowhere and earn her a penalty!

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