Skate Hate

(You’re welcome for not getting all Averil Lavigne in that title…)

The Hellrazors are on the season break- also known as 8 weeks we had planned to work out, stay fit and perfect skills at Open Skate but, for the most of us, turns into couch potatoeing, doing all the things we put off during the season and rationalizing with the slogan, “Well, I’m on a mental break from derby, as well.” It is also a time to throw on your Hazmat suit, clean out your skate bag, and attempt to get the scent of the smothered runt kitten out of your gear. And it’s time to decide if you deserve new skates.

Skates are the worst. Correction: they’re the best in that it’s a huge part of ROLLER derby and we all love to skate, but they are impossible. Absolutely impossible. Skates, when first purchased, feel like you’re getting your feet bound to be more attractive in ancient cultures. I’m fairly confident that every new pair of skates makes your foot shrink half a size. After the initial pain of feeling like every bone in your foot is rolling onto the others, you start experimenting with lacing techniques. This is the 3 month period where after every practice and bout, you fantasize about running them over repeatedly with your car. Then you have to adjust the truck to make sure they’re tight, but not too tight. Let’s not even go into the equations of trying to choose the correct wheel. (It’s something to the effect of: Derby Postion divided by how many laps you can do in 5 minutes times stickiness of surface subtracted by ability to balance times 5.32- and if there’s one thing Facebook has taught us, it’s that none of us can remember what order we do equations in.)

Anyone own math so they can solve this for us?

But back to skates. Buying skates initially fills you with an excitement and joy that is hard to rival. Sometime between the purchase, the drive home and then actually putting them on, that fire of joy turns into the slow burn of “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Times infinity…

That being said, Santa, I’ve not been so charming this year, but I never have. How about we switch it up? Since the previous arrangement makes me the Rockefeller of NJ with the amount of coal I have, I have an idea. Instead of WE be good to deserve new torture devices to lace to our unsuspecting feet, YOU be good and bring us all a new pair and then we will behave somewhat accordingly in the coming year?

A little derby history for your Monday

It often comes to my attention that when the majority of people hear the term “roller derby,” they think of a pile of angry women all punching, tussling and biting one another on the track- scrapping like enthusiastically rabid kittens. So let me make something perfectly clear- since we are not currently playing in the East Coast Penitentiary Roller Derby league, we actually don’t go around throwing chairs, jumping off of ropes, swinging wildly at one another or taking bong hits (thanks for that stereotype, Whip It!) before careening into one another at high speeds. We have actual rules and a governing body.

No. Just, no.

Derby has changed a lot since its inception back in the early 1900s. The original version of derby was an endurance race. Teams would skate days on end tracking miles and the first team to make it from New York to Los Angeles – on a map that translated miles skated to geographical location – would win. Let’s be honest, that sounds about as interesting as watching, well, people skate in a loop while a map slowly lights up. Thrilling!

Endurance races were the basis of the sport well into the start of the 19^th century, which never makes anyone feel better during endurance practices. While I’m fairly confident that we’ve put enough miles to go from NYC to LA and back a few billion times in our years of practices, I’m not confident we would want to be starring in long distance, 16 day races over thousands of miles. Derby started to morph into what it is now because, typically on corners, skaters would try to pass one another and end up in a pile of limbs, wheels, and PG-13 rated language. Naturally, that was everyone’s favorite part about watching it. Original roller derby actually has as much in common with current day NASCAR as it does current day derby.

Television (it’s always about entertainment Roller Derby Hunger Games coming soon!) pointed out to the inventor of derby that the crashes, hits, and whips were everyone’s favorite part, so why not just have a game filled with that and leave all the nonsense about mile tracking behind? And he said no, absolutely not- NEVER, it’s about endurance. Yet public opinion and money always wins in these situations so the execs just found a bunch of people who knew how to skate- and the full contact sport of derby was born. The salary was typically $250/wk, which I’m fairly confident in late 1930s that was the equivalent of A LOT. (I am correct – it is $4098.76.)

Thus began the inception of roller derby that a lot of people still think of today. Women punching, clotheslining and tripping each other in tiny shorts seems to have struck a chord in people and it seems to be the ‘go to’ image when hearing the words “roller derby.” But modern-day roller derby, starting as a grassroots movement in the early 2000’s, opted for reality. No more choreographed bouts- it’s not been like that for a long while. We still have the heavy hits, the near misses, and, yes, a lot of tiny pants, but it’s not a free for all on wheels. We play a real sport based on points per skater passed, not crowns to the last one standing. For a while now, derby has been based on athleticism and skill, not camp and staged fights. And, again, all those pesky, pesky rules. Assuming we misbehave like uncontrollable mental patients with wheels when hearing the term “roller derby” would be like assuming someone runs around covered in grease with a mullet and yelling catch phrases when you hear they wrestle.