So yesterday was the last Skateful Dead practice before our debut bout. Our captain had banned us from scrimmaging with other teams this week – he didn’t want us getting injured.

The Halifax Bruising Banditas had their practice just before us. A few of them stayed back to our session. This is great as they have so much more experience than us.

We started, in groups of three, with “chest blocking”. This was new to me. When the jammer engages, the blockers, one rotates and pushes shoulder to shoulder. With legs scissored the blocker then uses a toe stop to slow the jammer down. It’s important not to completely stop the blocker as this results in a penalty against the blocker. (Also keep in mind that a canny jammer will try to trick the blocker into stopping.)

We then developed this further. Once the blocker and jammer were engaged in the chest block, the second blocker runs round to support the first. This sounds simple, but care must be taken to keep an eye on the jammer. I was practising with Captain Malice and Claire, with Claire jamming. She was being kind I’m sure as occasionally she’d just skip past me. I have so much to learn! Next we tried this with walls. I found that my arm kept getting trapped. We didn’t do this for long before it was time to scrimmage!

This was to be a “non-contact” scrimmage. Well, gentle contact. Well, we’re not terribly good at “gentle” to be honest :-)

The first half went quite well. I jammed and didn’t get a penalty! A quick break to feedback on how we felt we were doing; it was felt that walling was better than in previous weeks. A vote on drills or more scrimmage. Scrimmage won out – it usually does!

Just into the second half Adam, one of our new players, fell and landed heavily. He was jamming at the time and it seems that he just tangled his skates and fell. He didn’t get up. We cleared the floor and waited. A first aider was called, then after a bit paramedics arrived and then he was stretchered off! We carried on with some drills, but I felt that our hearts weren’t really in it. No one likes to see others get hurt. During the quiet period, whilst we were waiting for the ambulance, Mark showed me how to steer a jammer off track. Very useful thank you!

The initial prognosis was that Adam had fractured his hip! By evening though he was back on Facebook and said that it was deep muscle spasms. He needs to rest it well and will be wearing padded shorts in future. Phew!

On Sunday I managed to get in 5 hours of skating!

The first 3 hours were spent at North Bridge Leisure Centre with The Bruising Banditas. They had invited The Skateful Dead to practice drills with them. This kind of practice is one of the elements that we are missing from our training. Not through fault, but just because of time constraints. The first two hours were run by Sue. We did work on maintaining a correct “derby position”, crossovers and stops. Working on skills this way is so important because it forces you to work on your “weak side”. Every time I skate I try to make myself work on skills that I can do one way round, but not the other. Every time I’m half-arsed about it. I revert to going faster and just being comfortable.

We also did some work on lateral cutting of the track in pairs – working as though we were joined at the hip, cutting left and right. This then became trying to hip-flick the partner out of bounds. Really good stuff – I really hope that we get invited to future drill sessions, and I have things to practice next time I find myself on track, perhaps at Futsal on a Wednesday.
Sue had to leave after 2 hours. For the final hour we did a positional scrimmage with the remaining Banditas – so no heavy hitting. I really enjoyed it – I fell a few times, got rather too many penalties and scored some points. I find scrimmages help with my understanding of the game – though I have so much to learn – I find I’m often not quite sure what I should be doing as a blocker. Anyway, our team won, which is always a bonus :-)

After that we had an hour to scoot over to Whitcliffe Mount Sports Centre – once again I have Tone Death to thank for driving. We took on snacks and caffeine, put on fresh t-shirts and clammy pads and going for a further 2 hours rolling.

Adam and I had to get through our mins, and the rest of the team joined in and helped. We worked down the list, covering anything that we’d not already done. Adam plays roller hockey so he just flew through them. I was okay on most of them, but failed on standing still for 30 seconds on one skate. Not a particularly useful skill IMHO. We skipped over that one, I said I’d retry it at the end of the session. That all took about an hour. The last hour was scrimmage – what else! Ida Tackett from Banditas had come over and joined in with the session. She was a little nervous I think but enjoyed it – she’s a damn good jammer! There were a few falls during the session – more than normal. Adam landed on a skate with his thigh, that will be a lovely bruise. Dylan got wiped out one time too I think. I fell quite heavily, landing on my backside. I’m expecting – I can’t find a chair soft enough just now ;-) Then Mandy declared that we needed to calm things down, we can’t afford to be injuring each other. At the end of the game we discussed how we’d played. Walls need to be improved, players need to not query referee calls. Standard!

I still had to stand still for two lots of 30 seconds. Phil and I found a quite corner and I DID IT!

I’VE PASSED MY MINS!

More fluids and then the rules test for four of us. The requirement is 80% or better from 45 questions (36 correct answers). I’d spent some time playing on Sausage Roller’s handy Android app and got 41/45.

So that and the mins means that I’m now allowed to take part in bouts!

Over the May Day bank holiday I had full weekend of skating.

On Saturday the weather allowed me to get out to People’s Park for 4 hours. Much of this was spent messing around. I also helped a young disabled lad with his skating. I used to see Zed in a wheelchair with his carers and always said hello. Over time his mobility improved – he still needs support but he can walk and just recently he turned up wearing roller blades. With help he is very happy to roll around the park. We don’t have any formal arrangement, but his dad is keen for me to help. I’m told that skating has helped with the circulation in his legs. He tires quickly, so  rest breaks for him are frequent – so it’s really not much work to hold his hand while he skates a little. I did do some practice; slalom in my quads – they are so clunky compared to inline skates when it comes to cornering!

Sunday was practice at Whitcliffe. We practiced walls for an hour then scrimmaged. The scrimmage, to start with, felt very one sided. A change in the mix of players fixed that. Mandy makes a lovely bench/line up manager – telling those that are confident to take care of us newbies. It was a good session – one without injury!

Then on Monday I made it to People’s Park again for a couple of hours. Imogen and Ash came too. Mo did a little skating. Ash helped me with my plough stop – it is getting better, but there is plenty of room for improvement.

Last night I made it over to Midweek Masterclass, an informal practice session that is organised by Leeds Roller Dolls.

It takes place at the Futsal Stadium in Cottingley near Leeds. At practice we’d been told that the surface at Futsal stadia is odd and that we should get some experience of it. The European Championships in July are taking place at the Futsal stadium in Birmingham.

The surface is made up of what seem to be plastic tiles perhaps 25cm square. I started off a little gingerly. As you roll across the surface you feel the tile joins and they make a very plasticy sound. I imagined it to be the real world equivalent of skating on Lego, except that the surface was smooth and grippy. I gradually built up speed around the track, expecting to slide out on the curves, but I didn’t.

I’d seen from Facebook that Dempsey Hammer was over from Belfast Roller Derby. She was looking for somewhere to skate and would be there. We had a chat during warm up. She was very kind about my transitions, which in truth are okay on my good side and a bit shonky on my bad.

Then Andy got Tony and me practising side steps. My “not enough knee bend” bad habit didn’t help. We did that for a bit, but quite frankly it’s not very interesting. The aim of side stepping is to keep your back to the jammer and to keep the wall tight and level. It needs to be done at speed. I found my skates wanted to escape forwards/backwards. Something to practice little and often I feel.

After more whizzing around, mixed in with occasional attempts at various minimum skills, I got chatting to Andy again. He found out that I had my skate cones with me and that was that. He set up a slalom down one side of the arena with a jump at the end. More cones formed another slalom so he could show off his grapevine/barrel roll skills. The slalom/jump was great. I can strike “jump over a 6 inch tall object” from my mins.

Then Dempsey, Andy, Tony and I set up “10 cones spaced no more than 150cm apart” around the track and slalomed through those “in under 6 seconds”. Strike another min off the list.

We finished with a little 3 wall/jammer practice – yeah, I fell on my arse – but no practice session would be complete without that.

Thanks to Tone Death for the lift there and back, Andy Slam C Nesbitt for the training and Dempsey for jamming with us :-)

I was grateful for an easier practice session on Sunday. I took quit a heavy impact last Sunday and my neck had been quite painful for a few days. Nothing that ibuprofen didn’t take care of, but not what I wanted.

So this week we had a shorter session, 90 minutes. Some of it was spent discussing walls, what else, before we got stuck in. Gillie ran the session with big Andy. The topic this week was power jams and how to bridge. The practice started gently until Andy told Ashley, one of our monstrous jammers, to hit a bit harder. I was glad to be on Ash’s team! (An aside, I read a recent post by Jason Fried titled “You Play Like You Practice”, that was brought to mind during the session.) Andy warned us that we would face teams/players that won’t slow down when they hit the wall. That in the bout against Zom-B-Cru on 26 May we will be facing a few A-team players. We will get knocked down. It will hurt. Umm :-/

Andy then played the role of jammer. I was surprised by his style. Rather than hitting the wall at full speed he came to a dead stop just behind it. Then he pushed and pushed until he got through. I’m hoping that most jammers will be like that! :-)

The other thing that Andy said that stuck with me was that his team have been practising walls for the past three months. Just walls. So they are important.

Finally we played “Queen of the Ring” – perhaps it should have a different name when men are playing? I didn’t do particularly well, going out quite quickly. We also welcomed a new player, Adam (IIRC) who is good on quads having played hockey. He remembers me from my days at YMCA with Imogen. It’s a small world :-)

Here I have compared the current (version 4.10) WFTDA Minimum Skills Requirements to the previous version.

In the main the list below gives additional skills. I have omitted items that are unchanged or where the new document simply explains at length the details of the skill. An example of such is T-Stops. In the old document no definition was given, the new details which wheels should be used.

Where a skill has changed materially I include it with the change highlighted. An example being the speed requirement is now 27 laps in 5 minutes, not 25. Where a skill is no longer included I have listed it struck out; some falls for instance.

It should also be noted that the skills have changed from a requirement to being “strongly recommended”  or “recommended” at some levels of play. I would imagine that most, if not all, teams will continue to consider them a requirement before play.

Basic Skating Skills

Skating Posture

• Demonstrates stability, with centre of gravity down and forward
• Demonstrates ability to skate low with bent, flexible knees

Stride

• Shifts weight completely from foot to foot without stumbling

Crossovers

• Performs reverse crossovers, crossing over the right foot to the outside of the track

Speed and endurance

• Skates at least 25 27 laps around regulation track within five minutes
• Accelerates from a standstill to complete one lap within 13 seconds

Stops

• Skater must come to a complete stop from a brisk pace within 4 seconds, using proper form and without losing balance

Other skating skills

• Performs one-foot glides with each foot for the length of the track turn and straightaway with good balance
• In low stance with one foot completely off the floor, able to balance weight over the other foot for at least 5 seconds
• Maintains speed sufficient to complete the glide and does not flail limbs
• Performs smooth, quick lateral cuts, crossing the track at least three four times on each straightaway and twice at least three times on each track turn
• Backwards skating within track boundaries. Maintains moderate pace skating backward around the entire track

Recovery Tactics

Knee taps

• Performs each knee tap without coming to a complete stop
• Taps a single knee without breaking normal skating stride
• Performs two consecutive single knee taps in stride, with low recovery

Double knee slides

• Knees do not make contact with ground at exact same time
• Returns to active skating within two three seconds
• Recovers without using hands to get up
• Momentum used to initiate the slide is continued into the recovery to normal skating motion

Figure 4/Baseball Slide

180 Degree Turn Single Knee Fall

Four point fall

Balance and Agility

Standing and stepping from a standstill, maintaining control of wheels (not rolling)

• Grapevine
• Shuffle
• Quick steps
• Ability to balance on each foot from a stationary position at least 30 seconds

Hopping

• Hops over an object at least 3 6 inches in height without touching the object or losing balance, while skating at a moderate pace
• Jumps with both feet simultaneously, but does not have to land with both feet simultaneously
• Hops laterally at least 18 inches from a brick forward speed

Weaving

• Manoeuvres through 10 cones, each no more than six 5 feet apart (not to exceed 50 feet), placed through the straightaways and track turns, in less than 6 seconds

Transitions

• Turns 180 degrees without breaking stride, maintaining a moderate pace
• Turns clockwise and counter-clockwise from front to back
• Turns clockwise and counter-clockwise from back to front
• Turns 360 degrees without breaking stride, from a moderate pace. Using two 180 degree turns in a row, without breaking stride, is acceptable

Pack Skills and Interactions

Whips

• Taking and providing hip, belt and clothing whips

Weaving and moving around obstacles

• Demonstrates weaving through a single-file line of skaters, each an arm’s length apart, at a moderate pace

Unexpected obstacles

• Testing all skaters in a pack of at least four other 4-10 moving at a moderate pace. All skaters demonstrate the ability to perform safe knee taps and slides at unexpected times in the pack. Pack skaters must avoid the downed skater(s) without going out of bounds, falling over them or causing unnecessary hazard

Leaning

Bumping

Blocking

Positional blocking and leaning

• Demonstrate ability to plough stop in a pack without tripping other skaters in the pack
• Demonstrate ability to use plough stop to slow another skater

Yesterday marked a week since I bust my lip at a Skateful Dead practice session. The injury is no longer apparent, though my lip is still a little numb. In ten years skating it’s the worst I’ve done, which isn’t too bad.

We got there early so had the opportunity to watch the Banditas practicing. It was odd to see Gillie skating rather than instructing. Rob and I had a relaxed chat before Sally suggested the should get our skates on :-)

A good warm up is essential and as usual the session started this way. Then we carried on with wall work; practising “three walls” initially. There are usually four blockers forming a wall but there will be situations where one is in the penalty box. It seems that we took a while to get back into the swing of things. We played various other scenarios finishing with three blockers, two acting as a wall with the third trying to take out the jammer.

The main failing was wall reformation. At times there were mixed messages on where the fall should reform and even if we should form a wall or just disrupt the opposing wall. I feel my performance was mixed. I stopped the jammer sometimes, let him through other times. More practice required!
The sessions fly by, so I don’t quite know when, but towards the end it was decided that we should scrimmage! My first!

There aren’t many of us, so we played with three blockers and a jammer each. We were short of referees too (Skating Officials in Derby parlence), so penalities in some cases were on an honesty basis :-) It was excellent. I got to jam, failing quite spectacularly with two penalties in my two minutes wearing the star! In the last jam, Rob, jamming, wiped me out when I tried to block him.

A really good practice session, lots to take in, and only minor injurys this time :-)

So this week I got some outdoor wheels for my quads.

The Skateful Dead have bouts coming up and if I’m going to make the squad I need to  achieve my “mins”. If I’m going to stand any chance of doing that I’m going to need to get some milea

The wheels are Reckless Envy hybrid, designed to be used indoor and out. They have a hardness rating of 80a, much softer than the 95a wheel that my skates came with. I have skated outdoors on the 95a wheels – they were so noisy! The new wheels make my quads sound similar to my inlines. The wheels leave the same kind of marks on the ground where I’ve made tight turns. Very satisfying!

I was hoping for sunny dry weather today and I was not disappointed. I made a later start than I had hoped, getting to People’s Park before 11am. I spent some time just skating up and down and around getting used to the feel of the skates. There are two differences that between quads and inlines that I still need to think about whilst skating. First, turning. Inlines pivot on either a toe or heel wheel. Quads don’t. Second, braking. I don’t have brakes on my inline skates. I either use a t-stop, spin stop or slide stop. T-stop works on quads, but the toe-stops take some getting used to and they get in the way for tricks.

Minimums

The aim of today’s session was to make some advance on achieving my minimum requirements. I avoided practising stops and falls today, asphalt is not kind to pads!

I marked out a line of cones at 120cm to form a slalom. Because of the width of the skates I found I kept clipping the cones. Rather annoying, 120cm on inline skates feels too big, I generally set them at 80cm. After a few goes I managed it, but not, I’m sure, in the manner that is expected – leading with my right foot on heel wheels only :-) I found 160cm spacing doable, the requirement is for no more than 150cm from memory.

They I moved on to gliding on one foot. Right foot is easy. Left foot I’m not comfortable with. Then 180 degree rotations – jumping during travel so that your facing the opposite direction. Backwards to forwards I can do, forwards to backwards I can’t. Again I found I hit the “one sided” wall. Very frustrating. Backward cross-overs? Nah!

I have a frustrating time ahead…

Yesterday we had a two hour training session at Whitcliffe Mount Sports Centre near Cleckheaton.

We followed on from the session on Wednesday evening, practicing walls and blocking. We played various scenarios, wall of three, walls of four, jammer and assist. Our walls are improving I think, we just need to co-ordinate better.

About half way through the session I was at the back of the pack. I don’t know if I caught another skater or tripped up over my own feet, but I took a fall, face-planting the floor! If I hadn’t have been wearing a gum shield I would have lost some teeth. As it was I just bust up my bottom lip. It’s nothing too bad, more damage inside than out. My top front teeth know that they’ve taken an impact too. Staff cleaned up my blood from the track and the training continued. I sat out for ten minutes then gingerly rejoined. I practised stops out of the main action for a bit, but then got stuck back in.

The rest of the session went really well. Big Tony got us organised into a decent wall and we held the jammer back quite well. I fear my poor blocking allowed him through on the inside a few times :-)

Then we did “25 in 5″. This is one of the minimum skills that is required recommended before skaters take part in scrimmages or bouts. The rules have just changed, so now it’s “27 in 5″. Gillie counted me round and I managed it!

We cooled down then took team photos in preparation for our first bout coming up on 26 May.

I was out for dinner in the evening, wine helped sooth any aches and pains. Today? I ache! The sign of a good workout :-)

Thanks to Gillie and Mark for another good session. Tony for the lift there, Lawrence and Carly for the lift back. Carly for organising a birthday card and a cake with a candle.