Excuse me, may I borrow your flamingo? - GYSD & The One Stopwatch method

This weekend I hoofed it up to Leeds to NSO at the Great Yorkshire Showdown 2014!  This is a full day tournament where 6 teams from throughout Yorkshire battle it out in single period games.  The winner gets bumped up to the next round until, in the eighth and final contest, a full length game between the two remaining teams.  Fun day out?  Eight live roller derby games in a row?  Getting my NSO on?  Sign me up!

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?

Fledgling Flamingo discovers the importance of paperwork - Penalty Tracking + HNSO

Last weekend I NSO-ed at my first ever away game down in Bedford!  It was also my first ever time Penalty Tracking, and boy was it a baptism by fire...

Here I am, concentrating hard...

Baby Flamingo does a Dance! - Penalty Tracking

For an upcoming game our team needed a Penalty Wrangler and Tracker, and since we didn't have a volunteer I've gone in for some re-training!  The main thing is learning the hand signals and codes (letters) for each of the penalties a referee might give, so that you can recognise them from a distance and write them down.

When running through them all I couldn't help noticing that they form a lovely 90's style dance, so I had a go at putting them all together.  My friend suggested the perfect song!  This took about four takes to get right :P

What to do when things aren't going your way

I've realised that my roller derby life at the moment seems to have a theme.  The theme is that things are Less Than Ideal.

• I can't make as many Sunday practises as the rest of my group.
• The midweek practise, which I can make, has a gummy floor.
• I'm not as fit as I'd like, or as brave, or as agile.

But I've realised that don't want to complain about these things any more.  They are true, but complaining would be the wrong response, it won't change the situation, and I don't want to be that annoying girl whinging in the corner all the time about how things are sooooo baaaad for her.

Take the floor, for instance.  It was horrible.  I hated it, at least for the first hour of practise.  But saying "I can't do this... because of the floor." would be a complete cop-out.  I'd be whinging and excusing myself for performing badly and not trying my hardest.  The correct response would be "I can do this, IN SPITE of the floor.  Screw you, floor!  I shall skate on you anyway, no matter how crappy the results!"  I've been reading some other skaters blogs recently and something they all seem to agree on is that (although we all have our legitimate meltdowns) to try something terrifying and bite the dust is far better than to do it half-assed for fear of falling.

SO, let's carry this theory on.  I can only make half of the Sunday practises for the next 6 weeks or so.  I hate that, but that's the way it is.  I can't change it. I could go to practise and make excuses for myself and why I'm behind everyone else, or I could say "Hey, look how much effort I'm going to give, in spite of having missed a few sessions."  I want to be the first up on skates, I want to be practicing my laterals and transitions while the others are still doing up their laces.  I want to get the most out of every drill, make note of every bit of feedback I get from my teammates, coaches and refs.  When I can't skate, I want to be cycling, and doing my leg-cercises at home so that when I am on track I've given myself the best chance of kicking ass.

No more complaining.

Let's skate.

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...

Skate maintenance 101

How skates work, what all the bits do, and the basics of how to make sure they are in good working order and don't fall off.  Info courtesy of King Typical.  Warning: contains copious amounts of diagrams!