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dragonlady7I had my first derby injury worth mentioning this morning, and I would like to take a moment to make a public safety announcement: Wear a mouthguard.
I did. I have all my teeth. Thank you.
I'm absurdly proud of it. See, we were doing a drill today where we were supposed to hit each other and try to knock each other down. This is way more boring than it sounds: the only legal hit in roller derby is to use your upper arm to hit the other person's upper arm. You can't hit on the back, you can't hit the legs, you can't use your elbows when hitting. (You can when blocking, but that's different: you don't make any motion toward the person, but rather fend off their motion towards you. It's a key difference.) So the drill was me pressing my upper arm against the other person's upper arm and attempting to apply my body weight to push her off-course and, hopefully, off-balance.
Neither my partner nor I managed to knock each other off-balance, so at the end of the drill, the team captain said, "Who hasn't fallen yet?"
I might mention that she is a huge woman, an Army veteran who teaches weight-lifting classes. She's terrifyingly awesome. We all sort of wish we were her.
"I haven't! I haven't!" said my partner, waving her arms like an idiot.
So the captain skated over and hit her real hard and she fell down, squeeing in excitement. (It actually does feel pretty cool. And in full pads, it's actually fun to fall down. We rarely hurt ourselves anymore.)
"Who else?" the captain asked.
"My partner didn't," my partner volunteers.
"Shit," I say.
"Did you fall down yet?" the captain asks me.
"mumble mumble no," I answer, and start skating like hell so I'll have some momentum when she comes to get me.
She skates up like a freight train and hits me for all she's worth.
I don't fall.
Laughing like a maniac, I skate like a fiend to get my momentum back up. She catches me, and hits me again. I don't fall.
So I hit her. She doesn't really deviate from her course, but I tried.
She catches up to me and hits me again, really really hard. I stumble, almost catch my balance, but then go down. Unfortunately I am still traveling with quite a bit of forward momentum. I land slightly too far forward on my kneepads, and so I go right over them. I land on my front, on my boobs, and squash them flat. My face hits the floor. I bounce, and tuck and roll into a ball. The wind was knocked out of me by the boob-squishing, so I don't immediately get to my feet.
"You OK?" the captain asks, booming by.
"Fine," I say, and spit out my mouthguard. My boobs hurt.
It's not for a few minutes that I notice that my chin is swelling.
I skated for another hour, so it can't have been that bad. I had a dizzy spell a bit later, but it was probably because of the headache I developed. But by now the headache's gone, and I'm fine. Eight hours of applying ice to it didn't help, and I've been getting a lot of odd looks, but you know, I'm sort of proud of myself.
It took Mia Mauler three tries to knock me down.
Go me!
Everyone at work thinks I am completely fucking nuts.
I did. I have all my teeth. Thank you.
 |
derby bruise Yep, that's my chin. It's purple. |
I'm absurdly proud of it. See, we were doing a drill today where we were supposed to hit each other and try to knock each other down. This is way more boring than it sounds: the only legal hit in roller derby is to use your upper arm to hit the other person's upper arm. You can't hit on the back, you can't hit the legs, you can't use your elbows when hitting. (You can when blocking, but that's different: you don't make any motion toward the person, but rather fend off their motion towards you. It's a key difference.) So the drill was me pressing my upper arm against the other person's upper arm and attempting to apply my body weight to push her off-course and, hopefully, off-balance.
Neither my partner nor I managed to knock each other off-balance, so at the end of the drill, the team captain said, "Who hasn't fallen yet?"
I might mention that she is a huge woman, an Army veteran who teaches weight-lifting classes. She's terrifyingly awesome. We all sort of wish we were her.
"I haven't! I haven't!" said my partner, waving her arms like an idiot.
So the captain skated over and hit her real hard and she fell down, squeeing in excitement. (It actually does feel pretty cool. And in full pads, it's actually fun to fall down. We rarely hurt ourselves anymore.)
"Who else?" the captain asked.
"My partner didn't," my partner volunteers.
"Shit," I say.
"Did you fall down yet?" the captain asks me.
"mumble mumble no," I answer, and start skating like hell so I'll have some momentum when she comes to get me.
She skates up like a freight train and hits me for all she's worth.
I don't fall.
Laughing like a maniac, I skate like a fiend to get my momentum back up. She catches me, and hits me again. I don't fall.
So I hit her. She doesn't really deviate from her course, but I tried.
She catches up to me and hits me again, really really hard. I stumble, almost catch my balance, but then go down. Unfortunately I am still traveling with quite a bit of forward momentum. I land slightly too far forward on my kneepads, and so I go right over them. I land on my front, on my boobs, and squash them flat. My face hits the floor. I bounce, and tuck and roll into a ball. The wind was knocked out of me by the boob-squishing, so I don't immediately get to my feet.
"You OK?" the captain asks, booming by.
"Fine," I say, and spit out my mouthguard. My boobs hurt.
It's not for a few minutes that I notice that my chin is swelling.
I skated for another hour, so it can't have been that bad. I had a dizzy spell a bit later, but it was probably because of the headache I developed. But by now the headache's gone, and I'm fine. Eight hours of applying ice to it didn't help, and I've been getting a lot of odd looks, but you know, I'm sort of proud of myself.
It took Mia Mauler three tries to knock me down.
Go me!
Everyone at work thinks I am completely fucking nuts.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 02:33 am (UTC)It's really nice, for once, to find that my size is a natural advantage for something. All these little skinny girls can skate circles around me but they can't knock me over, ha ha!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 12:47 pm (UTC)KW
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 02:35 am (UTC)Once we're on teams I might get several bruises from the same person, so I don't know that naming them for the inflictor will be a successful strategy in the long term.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-30 08:35 pm (UTC)(...Of course, there's a good chance I would've started crying once I got hit in the face. I only aspire to badassism.)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 02:37 am (UTC)There's adrenaline, I think. I cry at all kinds of things, but you know, my chin didn't even hurt at the time. My wussy reaction came during the next drill, which involved falling down: I fell down, as I was supposed to, and then couldn't get back up for nearly five seconds, which is a damn long time during a race.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 01:34 am (UTC)Next time, you'll put her on the ground!
darius
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 02:31 am (UTC)I'll get her one of these days. :)
Except that they keep making the attendance policy stricter while cutting or canceling the only practices I can make.... Grumble.
Re: completely fucking nuts
Date: 2006-10-31 06:13 am (UTC)Re: completely fucking nuts
Date: 2006-10-31 02:26 pm (UTC)"They don't actually want to do it," Z always says.
It's kind of like, better you than me. Z has a particular talent (and i blame him for this roller derby thing) at making bad ideas sound good, and getting people to go and do things that are probably stupid, for his amusement. It's probably not smart of me to take up this hobby. But I'm sort of beyond the time of realizing that it's not smart. Oh well.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 06:49 am (UTC)I am impatiently waiting for your first real match.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-31 02:23 pm (UTC)This is Fred, a bruise sustained in a fall by the girl who knocked me down. http://www.queencityrollergirls.net/img/photos/fred.jpg
I think mine will be called Alfonso. (I'm naming them like hurricanes. That way I'll never have to repeat a name. Well, not for six years anyway.)
My most dramatic riding-related injury was when the buckle on the reins tore a gash in my finger. It bled everywhere, and worse because I was on a trail ride at the time (we didn't have an arena) and had to walk home. Mom had guests over, and I didn't know, so I came limping in leading the unrepentant horse, with blood all over my ratty pink shirt and dirty jeans, and it looked like I'd been attacked by Indians or something. Which was great for the president of the PTO or whatever...
But yes, a terriffic crash is always more satisfying when you've got a visible mark.
> first real match
I don't know when that will be. We've got team captains picked, and we're doing skill assessments next week (we have to meet certain criteria individually to qualify the team for membership in the Women's Flat Track Derby Association), but God only knows when we'll be ready to bout. We're actually at that critical phase now where everybody's put in so much work but we're not seeing any results, and I'm worried we're losing members now, but there's a lot more work to do. This isn't easy.
But it'll be fun, and I'm almost decent at it, so maybe... I hope they video our bouts.