Baby flamingo acquires whistle! - Jam Timing

I had to use this picture.  I had to. She's so classy 

I've been having a go at Jam Timing.  Our NSO-organiser-person is good enough to let us have a go at any new NSO skills we want to, so since I feel like I've got the hang of the Penalty Box I've been trying some new things.

Scorekeeping was my last one, but with our usual Jam Timer absent it seemed like a good time to don the stopwatch and whistle and have a go at bossing around every single senior skater I know, most of whom I am still in Newbie Awe of.

Oh dear me...



So the rules of Jam Timing are pretty straightforward in principle.

• Once a jam ends, the skaters have 30 seconds to get in position for the start of the next jam.  The Jam Timer has a stopwatch and times that 30 secs.  While the teams are getting in position, you also get in position, standing by the inside edge of the track at the front of the pack, whatever formation they're in, so they can all see you. Pivot line is a good place to be.
• You yell a 5 second warning to let everyone know the jam is about to start. (In practise drills we sometimes yell a 15 second warning if we've got a team missing from the track, but obviously in real games this won't happen).



Karate chop action!

• At the start of the jam, you blow one loud, sharp blast on your whistle, accompanied by a karate chop motion.  Then immediately leg it back to the centre of the track so that you don't get run down by the refs, who will be zipping along the inside of the track following the pack.
• You're also timing the 2 minute jam (which is why you're called the Jam Timer.  Clue's in the title!)  If no one's called off the jam by the time that 2 mins is up you get to do it.  You blow four quick whistle blasts, repeated three times.  On the final 'beep' of the first set of blasts you reset your stopwatch and begin timing the 30 sec interval again.
• If a jammer ends the jam, the Refs will give that same whistle signal, and you get to join in.  But secretly you hope that doesn't happen, so that you get to end the jam yourself :)
• You will also have the Period Clock, a second stopwatch that times the two 30min periods of the game.  Announce the start and end of a period with a 'Rolling Whistle' (explained below.)  The period clock will be paused during Team Time Outs and Official Reviews.  As long as there's more than 30secs left on the period clock, you can have another jam.  If there's less then the period ends.

Bonus Features

• If a team requests a Time Out (they can have up to three in the course of a game) you run into the middle of the track and stand there, timing 1 minute on the clock.  You also make a 'T' shape with your forearms, using the arm on the top of your 'T' to do a little wave towards the team whose Time Out it is. 'T' - wave - 'T' - wave - and so on and so forth.  If you feel like an Air Hostess, you're doing it right.
• If the officials and refs want a Time Out for an official review, water break, or whatever, you run to the middle of the track again, and this time touch your shoulders with your hands, looking a bit like a strongman or someone making the 'M' signs from the song 'YMCA'.  Officials meetings can last as long as they want, so watch them to find out when they're done.
• At the end of all Time Outs, and also at the end of the half time interval, you give a 'Rolling Whistle" long whistle blast of the kind that you would use to get someone's attention if you lived in America. You can see it used here, in one of my favourite movies, at 16 secs) only do yours louder and longer!

HOWEVER!

Actually there's no however.  It's not that hard once you figure out what you're doing, but a lot of it comes down to being aware of everything going on around you, which I definitely wasn't the first week I tried it.  I was so focussed on my stopwatch times and getting a decent blast out of the whistle that sometimes I missed really obvious things.  Because here's the thing, when you're the Jam Timer, YOU ARE THE BOSS OF EVERYBODY.

A Refs could technically start a jam, but they have other things to be doing so they'll just leave it to you.  You're telling them when the jams starts too.  The skaters on both teams may be scary and soooo much more experienced than you, but the whole point of scrims is help everyone be game-ready so they are relying on you to order them about like the officials will do when it's a real game.  It took me a while to understand that I had permission to call the shots on all these amazing people I usually take orders from, and to permit myself the confidence to really belt out the commands.

It reminded me a bit of being a lifeguard again, yelling "No running on poolside!" at unruly children.

"FIFTEEN SECONDS!"

That's another thing.  Since it's a scrim and not a real game, if the jam interval is running down and one or both of the teams aren't heading back to track, sometimes I'll give a 15 sec warning.  It gives everyone a sense of how long the interval is and let's us make the most of our valuable practise time, rather than waiting around for people.   Aaaaaand sometimes I won't give the warning, because they really ought to be back on track already and in a real game there won't be such leniency.  (Also, it's quite fun watching the slow team scramble for the track with only seconds to go.  I'm sure it's good for them :D )  As Jam Timer, it's up to you to make the call, not to pander to them and wait until they decide to mimble back over to the track.  Assume they will jump when you say, because they will.  Ultimately they all just want to play roller derby and you're helping make that happen.

You've also got to have half an eye on what everybody else is up to.  Again, because it's a scrim, sometimes valuable strategic discussions are happening between jams, so even if the interval runs out I might let them finish.  Aaaaaand sometimes what starts as strategic talk devolves into random chatter, so I need to cut them off.  Aaaaaaand sometimes random chatter actually moves back into valuable strategy, so I thought I was going to cut them off but now I'm not.  And sometimes everyone's ready, but someone forgot their mouthguard or some laces came undone so you need to pause and then re-confirm that everyone's ready to go before starting the jam.

And sometimes you just can't get the bloomin' stopwatch to reset, so you've just got to pretend like you know exactly what you're on about, or guesstimate, or just make it up.  

I was much better at this the second week I was Jam Timer, because I'd gotten over the initial tunnel vision of mentally going 'What am I meant to be doing?  AM I DOING THIS RIGHT? WHAT IF I RUIN THE ENTIRE SCRIM! AAAARGH!!!" and getting the stopwatch to work.  After that initial deer-in-headlights experience, the following week I knew what I was meant to be doing well enough to feel confident in my decisions and be more flexible to the changing situations in the scrim. 

Needless to say, I did not ruin the scrim.  Not even remotely.

I did fudge a few times, and bluffed my way through.

But hey, none of the skaters knew that!