I'm Drafted!

Tonight I found out that I was drafted by the Honkey Tonk Heartbreakers!

Photo Credit: Kassy Balli 

Photo Credit: Unknown.

The whole family was there to support me, and I wish I had gotten a picture of all of us at the draft party, but it was just overwhelming (and my kids were using my phone to play Pokemon Go).  I am usually awesome at taking pics of my kids, but when it comes to documenting my own life, I just check out. Anyways, I'll probably post more pics as I get them.

I'm definitely tired as I'm writing this, but I just had to make this post.

Glitter Done!

The Final Scrimmage

Last night, Smash Effect, who was a fellow rec-league skater, but now a Hustler, told me go 100%.  I tried my best tonight, but it was not by best. I am getting over a cold, I didn't get to eat dinner because the chicken on the grill was still half raw by the time I had to leave, and I had the shakes, maybe due to anxiety? Luckily Steve put an emergency pop tart in the car like 6 months ago, so I ran to the car before the scrimmage and took a few bites of the pop tart which helped a bit with the low blood sugar feeling. I took this picture before the scrimmage. 

Out of the 9 women who are in the training cohort, 3 of them are primary jammers. Only 1 of them was present tonight, Gory (who is an amazing jammer and person) had to drop out last minute and Diamond (who is also amazing and commutes from Houston, yes, Houston) had to work.  This scenario kind of forced me to jam a bit more than I had been previously comfortable with. Before the scrimmage, I had set a goal to jam 3 times each half... I ended up jamming every 3rd or 4th jam and with the help of my blockers, got lead several times!

Peacewar was on the opposite team and she was playing every jam! I said a little prayer. And then a miracle happened, second half, she joined our team! I definitely let out a sigh of relief when that change happened.

I skated my hardest. I skated for my trainers.  I skated for all the friends I've made along the way. I skated for myself.

I will probably be sore tomorrow. I had 2 big falls where I fell on my hip. I already see a bruise developing, but for some reason, I don't think it will look as awesome as it feels. (Derby bruises often work that way. It's the ones that just show up from nowhere that are the cooler looking ones.)

Team Taco went to Tamale house for drinks and tacos afterwards and on the drive home, my message feed started going crazy. As soon as I arrived home, I checked my phone for the anticipated e-mail. Nothing. Remembering that this happened last time, I logged on my computer and checked, sure enough, I got a message from Nine that said,

"Congratulations!  You have been drafted to one of the Texas Rollergirls home teams!" 

So that's it. I made it on a team. I get to find out what color I get to upgrade my Skater On Tap bandana to this Sunday.

It broke my heart when I found out about the women who were not drafted. In my mind, I had always thought, that if I made it in, all the others would too. I hope they will take advantage of The Skater on Tap program, which has been key to developing me into a better skater.

Quick shout out to Lethal, OJ, Grit and Mega who did an amazing job training the Homies. I attribute most of my improvement in the past few months to these awesome leaders, along with the other Homies who I had the opportunity to skate with.

The journey does not stop now. It's only begun and it's so exciting!

One More Practice Until The Draft

The timestamp of this picture dates back to Nov. 24, 2013. The person in the background (horrible picture of her, BTW) was the friend (Bad Asstatine) who got me into derby in the first place. This was my first scrimmage after assessing out of primer for the first time. Nathan was just 1 year old. I had just gotten a taste of derby but the season ended, and so I became pregnant with Hannah.

The timestamp from this picture dates back to June of 2016. At this point I had passed through primer again and skated for a few more months before TXRG lost the shed. But I remember one day, our trainer, Mo asked each of us what our derby goals were. One by one, people spouted out their goals: I want to be on the travel team one day; I would like to get on a home team, etc. When it was my turn, I gave my at that time realistic goal of just staying in rec-league to become a better skater. The idea of even skating at the level of my trainers seemed so far away to me. 

Well, fast forward to November of 2019: We have one more practice before I find out if I get drafted as a Texas Rollergirl!

Anxious is probably an understatement.  I can tell when I've been thinking about something a lot because I start to dream about it.  Last night I dreamed about Math Pentathlon (because I'm coaching it and we had a practice today) and the draft. I dreamed that I was the only person not drafted. Yikes! 

I wish I could confidently say that I know that at this moment, I've got what it takes to be drafted. I mean, there are a few girls in the pool who I just know will be drafted. They are just that good. But I have doubt and some insecurities about my abilities.  There are practices where I leave feeling great about what I accomplished that day. (My hockey stops are improving and on slicker floors, I'd say that they are actually pretty good.) But then there are practices where I get blown across the line by Peace War, that I am reminded just how inexperienced of a skater I am.

In the past 6 months (since I last tried out) I've definitely noticed a big improvement in my skills. I am waaaay more stable as a blocker and can do a fair job of defending against a non-travel team skater. I've even become more confident as a jammer as I have become more comfortable on my toe-stops and have become stronger to push through walls.  I am agile. I'm starting to understand more of the big picture of derby, and I know with more game play and spectating, I'll start to be able to come up with strategy in the moment.

We scrimmage this Thursday. I'm going to give it my best. When I jam I'm going to imagine my baby is on the other side and fight. I'm going to track jammers by staying low and stable. I'm going to open up holes for the jammer by playing O. I may  will even hit a friend or two, or three. Oh, and if I make a team, I get to unlock an achievement reward: a new pair of skates.

Thursday. [breathe]

Jammer Focused Practice: Mind Blown!

Happy Birthday, Bohnnes! (It's probably spelled wrong...sorry)

Ya'll! Tonight was probably one of the most pivotal practices that I've had in my derby career. I'm tired, I have a long work day ahead of me tomorrow, but I have to document this before I forget. 

Awesome jammer-specific practice! I wanted to get a picture with Hauss, but she had to rush off to travel team practice. 

 So one of my derby idols, Hauss the Boss, led our practice tonight. I remember seeing her jam in the first derby game ever that I watched on Youtube and I was amazed with her agility, speed and sweepy line to line movements. Fast forward to try-outs, she has been nothing but positivity and encouragement. Unfortunately she is retiring (hopefully she'll come back soon) after this season, but I even had the privilege of chatting with her during a shift at the ticket booth and she is a totally cool chick! Best of luck Hauss, as you do all the adulting things!

Up until today, I have always found it difficult to get past a wall without the help of offense. Taking the line was pretty much a sentence for me to be knocked out of bounds, but today, Hauss broke things down and I feel way more confident taking the line to get past blockers.

You can definitely say that tonight's practice helped me fall in love with jamming a little bit more...

We first talked about ineffective practices of jammers. Then, she showed us a move that helps us move the blockers line to line, but then sets us up in a position to be explosive. You basically do a mohawk and then you put the toe stop down from the non-leading foot. We practiced that going line to line. It was weird at first, because it's the opposite of what I usually do, but I started to see how much more nimble and agile that helped me to be.

Then she taught us how to use the mohawk to whip our hips in front of the blocker, while using our opposite shoulder to catch them.  Essentially, you get to use the blockers momentum of pushing you to propel you forward.

The final skill that she taught us to do extended the previous skill a bit, but this time, getting low and sticking your butt out as you move away from the pack after the whip around.

One of our last drills was led by Lethal, another amazing all around derby player and trainer. She worked with us on juking

At the end of practice, we scrimmaged and I was able to get around the blockers using the skills that I learned tonight. A week ago, if put in the same situation, this would not be the case.

I'm excited to see what other skills are out there for me to pick up. I now feel more confident to jam and that's a win! Thanks Hauss!

The Interviews

So this afternoon, we had the "speed dating" style interviews. We met at the Highball, which is one of the league's sponsors. Each set of team captains sat at a little booth and we all took turns in a rotation and talked with each team for 5 minutes.

The most asked questions are as follows:
- Why Texas Rollergirls?
- Why are you trying out now?
- What sort of cross training do you do outside of derby?
- What can you bring to the team?
- How do you handle conflict and drama?

Other more interesting questions included:
- How do you react when someone makes you angry on the track?
- How do you feel about being told what position to be trained as?
- How do you feel about being a benched player?
- What sort of commitments do you have outside of derby?
- What hobbies do you do outside of derby?
- Would you be willing to lift weights besides doing body pump?

I pretty much kept it real, even exposing some of my weaknesses to the captains when appropriate. I figured, they need to know what they are potentially getting involved with. Being so vulnerable and open about my weaknesses actually affected me more than I thought it would. I think at times we try to bury our weaknesses, focusing on our strengths, so when those weaknesses are brought to the surface, it does not make you feel too fabulous.

The Hells asked me to give them a 1 statement elevator pitch about myself. I was a bit surprised because the other captains basically asked me specific questions for me to answer. Bragging about myself was probably the most nerve-wrecking part of the interviews.

Given some time to think of it, I think this is what mine would be.

I am creative and I like to solve problems. As a "Jack of all trades" who loves to learn and figure out how things work, I always give it my best. 

While we were waiting for our next interview, we had some time to mingle and one of the questions that we discussed was who would be your top choice. Everyone was reluctant to share, but eventually we all did. I already had given some thought about who would be a good fit on what team, so to hear their answers was kind of a neat confirmation of my suspicions.  (My predictions for the mid-season try outs were mostly wrong, but it's fun to think about.)

When I went into the interviews, I also went in with the mindset of figuring out what role each team could potentially play in my derby journey and interestingly, I've come to conclude that each team would contribute something very different to my growth path... which is pretty amazing in itself.

All this speculation is fun and super exciting, but I need to get drafted first.

6 more practices.

- 

Half way through try-outs!

Silly Picture! Photo Credit: Booty Queen

Practice with the Honky Tonk Heartbreakers
Today we skated our final home team practice with the Hearts. The practice was a bit more lower in intensity, but for the most part 50% of the practice was what we did with all of the teams. I like that there is some consistence across the league, but that each team also has the freedom to do their own thing their own way.
The Hearts are definitely a Hufflepuff team, on the Enneagram, as 6w7 or a 7w6.

I've skated with many of the girls on this team this summer when I skated with the Homies, so it was a very comfortable environment for me. Trigger, one of the captains, also happens to be my "Big" and has been super supportive throughout this journey.

For each of the practices, I've been mostly blocking, but jamming a few times here and there. As I am trying to figure out what position I like best (I feel like I'm both still pretty weak at both positions), I have been gravitating towards working on blocking because I feel like any derby player needs to be a decent blocker.

I've been watching a lot of footage, specifically watching Hauss, OJ, Trigger, Zook, Darbie, and Grace on how they get through strong walls and I've learned that 1. It's ok to be hit out, and that sometimes when you get hit out, you gain a little bit more control of the situation and have a better chance of getting through. and 2. When a jammer is really stuck behind a solid wall, offense is key to get her out.

I'm still working on my hockey stops. Now I'm working on making them more sharp and snappy and also improving on my weaker, outside hockey stop. For blocking, I'm really trying to focus on getting low and making as much body contact with the jammer as possible. And then when jamming, I'm really trying to add in more jukes and fakes before I hit.

Today I didn't do my best with blocking, but I was able to get out of the pack a few times with the help of amazing offense from blockers. I even got whipped twice by Manecki, something that has never happened to me before. She basically was able to see an opening, grab my shirt and swung me around an opposing blocker and then I got through. I really enjoyed skating with her today. She's got a calm intensity vibe and really knows the game well. #derbygoals.

Tomorrow, we have interviews with the captains. I was told that each person basically goes before a panel of captains and are asked a bunch of questions. I'm actually super excited about this part of the try-outs and hope that I can remain authentically me and not revert to mirroring the people I talk to.

So then, we have 6 more practices until we find out if we get drafted and then the draft party is at the Highball on Nov. 24th from 3-6 pm.