Get to know your Texas Rollergirls: OLYMPIA
This is the face O makes when she puts you on the ground.
Position: Blocker
Team: Hotrod Honeys
Skater Since: November 2009
What drew me to roller derby: sexy clothes, hitting girls clean across the floor, and above all..it’s a sport
How has derby changed your life? I really don’t have much of a life now….thanks derby
Signature derby talent: my big ol’ booty
Why my competitors should watch out: Even though this is my first season, I am a very FAST learner sooooo watch out for me jamming next year ; )
When I’m not skating I’m: playing sudoku or mafia wars on facebook
Favorite music: r&b and rap
Last book you read: hmmm
Don’t tell anyone else but: I don’t know how to chew gum and I am a nerd at heart
Last meal: the hell marys…LMAO!!!
See more of Olympia at txrollergirls.com.
Training Tip of the Month
Offense! Defense! Offense! Defense!
If you’re the rookie who’s trying to break out from being a stare-bear and actually do something on the track, you should probably learn what your teammates mean when they yell these cryptic terms.
Listen close, I’m going to tell you a secret… Offense is when you are trying to help your jammer score and defense is when you are trying to stop their jammer from scoring. Super simple? Sure! But I have teammates who’ve been playing for years who still need a mnemonic device, “I have to play defense, I have to be ‘de’ fence against their jammer.”
There are a million ways to play offense and defense in derby – especially when you start getting into various strategies and scenarios. However, for the rookies out there looking for an answer as to what to do when you hear, “Hooker Bycrook (insert your hilarious derby name here), play offense!” or; “Jane Smith (insert your boring government name here), play defense!” Here’s the most basic answer:
Offense: Get on an opponent blocker, stay on that someone until your jammer is out and safe. Start by making sure the biggest threat is covered, don’t try to match yourself to someone of your own skill and figure someone meaner on your team will get the biggest threat. Controlling and containing the opponents by priority from the biggest to the smallest threat will ensure your jammer scores points. Now if you’re fancy you can try to knock that opponent down or out of bounds and give your jammer an easy score on the floor – just don’t make yourself an easy point as well.
Defense: Get with a teammate and make a wall that the opposing jammer can never get through. Jammers are freakin’ slippery little buggers and they come into the pack fast! One blocker is always going to have a hard time containing a jammer – but wall up together and she should never get through. By working as a team on defense you build a bigger fence. You can slow that jammer as a wide wall or hit her as a lateral wall, and protect each other from any offense by trading the power position. The main thing to remember while playing defense is to keep your eye on the prize and that prize is the jammer. You should be ignoring opponent blockers as they try to bait and distract you, and just focus on holding onto your prize.
Drill of the Month
Patient Jammer – Played like a normal scrimmage only the jammer cannot pass an opponent without an assist from her teammate (whip, push or block.) The jammer may frontal block opponents that are attempting to pass and reengage her. Only one jammer goes in at a time. Goal: For blockers to work on offense and containment, opponent blockers will work solely on defense, and for jammers to learn to see the help their blockers are giving them and not always go it alone.
Training Tip of the Month
Land Drills
Land drills can help with strength, balance and injury prevention. To get results you need to try to incorporate land drills into your workout three times a week. Meet a half-hour early for your skating practices, or stay late, but get it done! Personally, my favorite land drills are all old school strength training, like from 1946 or something – if I could use one of those belt machines around my waist to vibrate fat away – I would. Anyway, simple push-ups, crunches, squats and lunges can help build your strength.
There are also more creative land drills out there – especially using plyometrics, which can really help with the explosive power bursts needed in derby. Basically, you’re stretching a muscle and then contracting it quickly to gain power, like a spring stretched all the way out and then released. Your muscles will respond with a stretch reflex – a powerful braking when a quick stretch is detected to prevent injury or over-stretching. When you squat down in a squat jump, your muscles are momentarily stretched producing a more powerful jump – but if you stay in the squat a long time before jumping you’ll lose the reflex response. Try it yourself: Squat down for 5 seconds and jump straight up, and then squat and jump up immediately and you’ll jump higher due to the elastic energy gained.
Drill of the Month
You can do it on a log (lateral hurdle jumps: bring knees up and jump over obstacle landing on both feet and immediately jump back to the other side, try not to pause or sink into a squat between jumps)
You can do it like a frog (squat jumps: squat until your thighs are parallel with the ground and you ankles are fully extended then jump straight up. Rest for 1-2 seconds when you land before squatting and jumping again – do not hold or rest in the squat position)
You can do it up and down (clap push-ups: Press up into a push-up position and clap your hands before they return to the floor. Try to lift your hands off the ground even if you can’t clap. Immediately repeat without resting – set your reps based on what you can do consecutively without a rest and add one every week)
You can do it on the ground (Single Leg Lateral Hops: Draw an ‘x’ on the ground and stand in one quadrant. Hop in a circle from quadrant to quadrant. Maintain your balance and try to limit your contact with the ground. You can change the pattern that you jump, or do this on two legs instead of one, or add a rope to jump over to change the intensity)
Training Tip of the Month
Street Skating
You know you always picture yourself skating down the sidewalk in your short shorts, legwarmers and big headphones – well get out there and do it! Street skating is a great workout and helps your balance. Not to mention that rolling over pebbles will make you comfortable rolling over the track boundary, fingers, dreadlocks or whatever gets in the way of your wheels.
Keep your knees bent and your weight equally distributed to your heels and keep your feet moving. If you’re skating with a group, have a good skater at the front leading the way and one at the back acting as a sweeper to make sure no one is left behind. Call out obstacles as you come up to them and everyone in the group should repeat the warning – rocks! hole! sand! car!
Softer outdoor wheels will keep your feet from vibrating off your legs, but any old wheels will work. Just don’t wear your favorite bouting wheels outside because they will get torn up! The smoother the concrete the faster you’ll go. When the Texas Rollergirls skate in neighborhoods without much traffic, we have the less experienced girls skate in the street where the asphalt is rougher and not as fast while the more experienced girls cruise on the sidewalk.
Don’t be afraid to skate in the dark, down hills, in parking garages and on asphalt or brick. Skate to events, gallery openings, street fairs – always bring fliers. There’s no better marketing than girls on skates around town!
Drill of the Month
Shell Game – this rotational drill can be done on the derby track, on the street or even on foot while running around a track. In a group of 3-4, rotate relative position in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction while continuing to move consistently forward. Try using verbal and physical commands to let your group know when to shift position and vary the timing of the shift. The goal is to learn to cover the holes created by your teammates when they shift position.
Training Tip of the Month
Practice Planning
Planning a practice to satisfy a bunch of perpetually aggressive rollergirls? Piece of cake, right? Try to plan practices based on the goals of your league, the skill level of skaters, and the number and types of practice opportunities. The best practices have inter-related drills that are progressive and challenging. It’s always good to reiterate the goal of each drill so skaters know what to concentrate on and how to succeed.
Regardless of where you’re going with practice you’ll want to start with a 10-15 minute warm-up. This is a nice simple drill to get everyone’s muscles warmed up – to prevent injury – so it shouldn’t be strenuous. Now stretch all these muscles -oooooooo!! And always cool down and stretch again at the end of your practice, this will help increase your flexibility for the next workout.
Then build your practice around the derby building blocks: Endurance, Footwork, Hitting and Game Play. You might have a practice where you just scrimmage or just do endurance – but most should have a little bit everything. It’s good to figure out your league goals and what drills are gonna get you there. Who are you playing in 6 months and how can you become the beast of their nightmares? A team known for its hits? speed? teamwork? Or more generally, you can focus on a goal or two a month until you master them and then move on to the next skill. But keep incorporating old skills in so you retain your mastery! You beast! With your beast mastery!
Drill of the Month
Pivot Pack Drill - Split your league into 3-4 groups and evenly space them around a big track. Have the groups start skating and keep them equally spaced from each other. Talk to each other, pay attention to other groups, everyone is a pivot! Send 1 or 2 skaters from each group to weave through all the other packs and rejoin their group at the back. The groups should focus on positional blocking not full hits. Remember the goal is to control pack speed and have a good group mentality more than to hold the other players forever. So don’t get so caught up in holding the other skaters that you catch up to the group ahead of you – consider that going 20 feet out during a game and losing control.
Texas Rollergirls Rollercenter – 2010 Threats for the Hotrod Honeys
Chip Queso and Jim “Koolaid” Jones take a look at the Hotrod Honeys for the 2010 season. Sponsored by Derbylove.net
Texas Rollergirls Rollercenter – 2010 Threats for the Hustlers
Chip Queso and Jim “Koolaid” Jones take a look at the Hustlers for the 2010 season. Sponsored by Derbylove.net
Training Tip of the Month
Scrimmage Practice
“We should bout more!” How many times does every rollergirl feel that way about practice? And how much does every trainer dread hearing that about practice! Of course, we’re all in it to play the game! Roller derby is way more fun than skating drills. But you have to condition your muscles and use your brain to get better at roller derby and unfortunately just playing the game doesn’t get you there. You can’t force situations to repeat in order to build muscle memory and usually you’re listening more to your adrenaline than your brain during bouting at practice.
But with a little forethought you can get the best of both worlds by incorporating drills into scrimmages. When using scrimmage time to work on the specifics of the game – it’s good to repeat line-ups and plans for 2-3 jams so it can be learned and improved. Remember when you are working on bouting, the goal is to improve your game – not to win those scrimmage jams – so don’t worry about points. Unless, of course, you’re practicing counting points! Try having a hat full of strategies, challanges or plays that each team pulls from every few jams. Here are some ideas to get you started: choose one communicator who talks through the whole jam and gives a play by play, have 3 of your skaters own the front – but don’t race the pack for the entire jam, have 3 of your skaters form and reform a wall in the back for the entire jam, get your jammer through on the outside, get your jammer through on the inside, everyone man up with an opponent and stay with them through the whole jam, have everyone but the pivot only play offense, have everyone but the pivot only play defense, have the jammer only pass opponents with offensive help… there’s a million variations. Break down the game into it’s pieces and then put it back together in a scrimmage without specific rules at the end of practice.
Drill of the Month
Never-ending Jammers – The pack skates as normal but there is a pool of 3-4 jammers from both teams skating about 20 feet behind it. The coach will send jammers through one at time and send the next one when the previous one gets out or if she is stuck for a long time. Goal: For blockers to be aware of where the other jammer is; to switch from offense to defense and vice versa quickly; to set herself up in relation to her teammates and opponents to prepare for what will happen next; to skate a jam for more than 2 minutes and work on teamwork. For the jammers, it is about seeing holes where an opponent isn’t paying attention and sneaking through. The same drill can also be done with never-ending blockers being rotated into play.
Texas Rollergirls Rollercenter: Hell Marys Threats of 2010
Watch Texas Rollergirls Rollercenter : Hell Marys Threats of 2010. Sponsored by Derbylove.
Texas Rollergirls Rollercenter
NEW!!! Texas Rollergirls Rollercenter with your hosts; Chip Queso and Jim “Koolaid” Jones. In this episode, they introduce the show and show highlights from our first game of 2010. Show sponsored by derbylove. Video courtesy of Infinite Media Group. Texas Rollergirls’ Rollercenter