Having passed all my skating minimum skills means that I am eligible to compete in scrimmages, so at the last minute (literally, a few days ago), I decided to just go ahead and sign up for the mixed black and white scrimmage hosted by the
B.ay A.rea D.erby Girls (for all intents and purposes, the big girls of this region, having been around the longest and competed nationally and all that - the league we ALL aspire to be!) at their warehouse in Oakland.
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| BAD headquarters |
A mixed b&w scrimmage is where women from any other league who is scrimmage-eligible can show up, and are divided into two teams, black and white. At this scrimmage specifically, we were divided up into beginner, intermediate, and advanced, so while I was still SO nervous that I was on the verge of puking all Saturday morning, I at least did not have to worry about being hit by the likes of Brawllen Angel or Demanda Riot, two of BAD's all-star blockers who scare the crap out of me.
So yes, I was terrified within an inch of my life, even though I would be skating with girls who didn't have much more experience than I did. Five of us from PRG went: me (Viva Glam), Physical Terrorist, Foo Bar, Bughouse Cuckoo, and Slaminatrix. Slam and I were on the black team, and the other three were on the white, so we were split up.
The nervousness went away fast after we started, because I did not have TIME to be nervous anymore! A couple good hits by the white team made me realize quickly that I better focus and be on top of my game. I couldn't think about being nervous, I had to think about the white jammer.
I think I played well. I only got called on one minor penalty (you get four minors before you get sent to the penalty box, or you can just get called for a major, which I didn't), and I got in some good hits to their jammer. I also fell quite a bit, probably more due to me tripping over other people's skates, but I'm proud of how quickly I got up and caught up to the pack. And I'm proud of the fact that I tried my darndest to stay with my "blocking buddy" in the pack. And MOST of all, I'm proud of how I was able to see the situations going on... Carl spent the last couple weeks or so drilling us on power jam situations, where one of the jammers is in the penalty box (and this affects how you should behave in the pack), and this came up a LOT as jammers for both teams were being sent to the box quite a bit. Our appointed bench coach, Angelmaker, pretty much gave us the same instructions, but I think that if we hadn't spent so much time working on them, I wouldn't have really understood what she was talking about, because I just would not have been able to process that information very quickly. (It did take a lot of slow drills at first to understand what to do, when Carl first taught us about it.)
So, the black team won!!! 52-27. I had not expected such a point differential, but it was great, and we had some amazing skaters on the black team. It was a huge pleasure to skate with them all. Slam and I were thrilled, and most importantly, we ALL learned a lot and had a great time. I got lots of positive comments and feedback from Angelmaker and other black team skaters about my skating and such, so I was totally on a high afterwards :)
So what's next for me? There's a team-on-team scrimmage being hosted by Sonora for us on August 7th. I'd been debating whether or not to sign up because I wasn't sure I was ready, but after yesterday? I think I can do it :)
Here are some photos!
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L to R: PT, Foo, me, Bug, and Slam
Scrimmage virgins no longer! |
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| Are you afraid yet? You should be! |
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| First official Viva Glam shirt-with-name photo! |
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I have a lot of ink, but this is my first DERBY "ink" -
you have to write your number on your arm for refs to see |
