We came we sold, we conquered!

And kicked ass!
Left to right: Blonde Sedition, Dolly Diablo, Shiza Revel, Cupid Stunt and Helen Fury



Sunday morning saw a collection of exceedingly dedicated rollergirls at Cheltenham racecourse by 7.30 am ready to flog vast amounts of accumulated 'treasure' to all and sundry. It was a tough day from my perspective, Sunday morning saw me up at 5am and out the house at 5.45, allowing an hour and a half for the journey which AA routefinder told me should take an hour. The extra half an hour being to cover my inevitably getting completely lost and needing to call people for directions after stubbornly driving around hoping for 20 minutes. Which is pretty much what I did.

I got there eventually and we had a fun morning raising a total of £140 for league funds which was awesome! Our own Ms Fury obviously missed her calling as a market trader and provided much amusement in luring innocent passers by with strident promises of bargains and girls in one.

Then it was straight onto practise which was a bit of a killer considering the length of the day. Unsurprisingly a bleep test endurance exercise demonstrated once again that I'm both unfit and stamina-less although I'm working on both. What surprised me was stability when being knocked - I did a contact exercise for the first time and was quite pleased at managing to stay largely upright. Unfortunately stability was somewhat less during the rest of the session - ironically the bits where people weren't trying to knock me over were the ones I was most likely to go flying on - I need more practise.

My couch to 5k program continues, I've just started week 2 today and am quite happy with it, although painfully (quite literally) aware that my lower leg muscles are very out of shape. They'll improve and I'm surprised and delighted that my chest is coping fine with running. Apparently stopping putting poisonous tar into your lungs helps you breathe. Who'da thought? Almost 6 weeks now since I quit and I'm stunned I've gone this long.

The weekend sees us off to Birmingham for the Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames match against Middlesborough Milk Rollers. Its my first match as a visiting spectator team and I'm looking forward to it. Geoff is coming with - complete with his Derby Widow SRT t-shirt - and both the bout and the afterparty should be awesome. Photos will undoubtedly follow!

Take care, guys & girlies!

xx Rebel xx

*Hobble, hobble, ouch!*

Yup, two days after practise and I'm still owweee. Which just demonstrates how totally unfit I am. Partially the ouchies were caused by my landing rather heavily on my not-insubstantial ass and pulling a muscle in my back slightly, but mainly they're caused by my being an overweight, unfit lump.

But practise was good. I enjoyed it, lots. The endurance exercise was... tough. I have no stamina so 10 alternating laps of sprint / something else was kinda painful (not helped by the aforementioned ass-landing which meant I ended up sitting out a few laps and taking it really slowly on the remaining ones I did do). The back pain I'd say was partially the landing, partially the unfitness and partially that my back ain't in great condition after having 4 kids.

They are, however, all things which would be improved by better fitness and stamina levels which is why as of today I'm starting a running program - specifically this one which looks to be just what I need - a training program for someone who's never run for more than a bus before! Was pointed in the direction of matching podcasts which tell you exactly when to walk and when to run which sounds like genius to me.

So, back to skating. My legs were obviously slightly less bloated this week as my shiny new knee pads felt fine and supportive rather than trying to cut off the circulation to my feet and they're definitely easier to land on We also did a speed test which meant for the first time I have a timed 5 minute sprint. I was pretty happy with my 1 minute 10, particularly given that I'd been doubled over in pain 10 minutes previously. Need to be under a minute but that will come relatively easily I think.

It would help if I actually got my ass to every practise, I have missed an unfortunate amount. I dance around the reasons why using 'illness' or my favourite euphemism, 'tantrums' but the actual reason is my mental state at the time. But I doubt anyone on my team will judge me for it, I know my friends and family don't and I couldn't give a stuff about anyone else so the actual reason is I'm bipolar II. Manic depressive that is, the II referring to the type that's up and down like a bloody yoyo (type I possibly have it worse in that they stay very down or very very up for months or even years at a time. I at least get variety :p). I wouldn't be surprised if its relatively common amongst rollergirls, among (many, many!) other things a common characteristic is a need for adrenaline buzzes and limited perception of personal danger. I have both. Except when I'm down in which case mainly I just want to avoid being around anyone. Hence the missing practises. Its an issue and to be brutally honest, its not one that's going to go away but it will lessen with time, particularly as one of my main reasons for not going is paranoia - in the clinical sense - and that reduces with, well, trust.

Moving on so you can all stop looking vaguely embarrassed and uncomfortable, my chest hurts. You wouldn't have thought chest & shoulder muscles would take punishment skating but we did an exercise known as 'shopping cart' which, unsurprisingly involves one skater pushing another around the track. That bit was easy. The difficult bit was being the shopper and being pulled by the 'cart' - holding on was a lot harder than it looks and my arm strength is way less than my leg strength (even given relative scaling and sizes) and the muscles at the side front of the top of my chest really hurt. Not in a bad-oh-I'm-injured way... just in on ohmygod these muscles didn't know they even existed way.

Now gearing up to an extremely long Sunday this week, we're at Chelmsford Race Course from stupid-early in the morning doing a car boot sale to raise SRT funds which means I need to sort through vast amounts of accumulated crap and get it ready for flogging. Then its pretty much going to be straight from there to practise. But it will be good! And profitable! And I'll get to wear my shiny new SRT hoody which I got along with assorted tshirts and vests on Sunday (I got Geoff a tshirt with DERBY WIDOW on the back as well which amused me greatly. He's since gone out and bought a longsleeve orange top to wear underneath it at bouts (including the Blitz Dames match in a couple of weeks!) so he doesn't freeze to death.

Finally, a highly suspicious me, in sepia.



Take care, guys & girlies

xx Rebel xx

A Little Rollergirl Action

"She sighed contentedly, feeling her muscles clench yet revelling in the slight pain. The ache between her thighs, the tightness of her stomch, the weariness across her shoulders all served to remind her of the pleasures she had experienced. The pleasures of yesterday but with the promise of more to come..."

Forbidden sexual liasons? Almost - it was SKATE practise yesterday!

For the first time in what feels like forever I made it to practise! Last time I was there was four weeks ago - the first week after that it wasn't on, the second week I was getting pissed on the South Coast and the third week I was completely and utterly dead with a nasty virus picked up from my pal Ruth whilst on the South Coast. I was most definitely not at 100% yesterday - it was a particularly evil cold-type-bug and I'm still decidedly dodgy - my stamina levels suffered the most - I could skate - I just couldn't keep up a good level of skating performance for long but given how damn sick I've been - and that it was the first time I'd put my skates on for almost four weeks - I was pretty happy with it.

We have newbies. LOTS of newbies! Its awesome! I don't know what the roster figures are like at the minute but we had a load of new ladies there this week and there had been more on the weeks I'd missed. Its like.... WOW I go back and all of a sudden we have 3 or 4 teams worth of girls.

I do think there's something of a misconception about roller derby girls as being big, tough, rugby-playing, arm-wrestling psycho bitches. We're not - if you're even thinking about joining a league, don't be scares by the image. We're lovely :o) <-- see the lovely? We have women of all ages - from 18 right up to - well I don't want to speculate on our oldest teammate but her daughter is also in the league :o) We have mums, students, teachers, arty types, civil cervants, rugby players and I believe a girl from the navy amongst other things. We range in size from tiny, delicate little girlies right up to a whole lotta woman. Everyone is welcome - over 18s only please - and its FUN! We're at http://gloucester-rollerderby.co.uk/

So, this week's practise. My chauffer (aka my husband) didn't get lost this time so we were early. I was impatient and had itchy feet so got in some practise laps while everyone else was kitting up. I'm glad I did, I knew I'd be a bit wobbly to start with and getting that out of the way without anyone else to fall over was useful. Then it was 5 minutes of speed skating, which is where I started to fall down (quite literally, and I have the bruise to prove it). I need to curb my natural competitiveness, I was running at first for the first 9 or so laps and then my stamina gave out - pushing myself WAY too hard given how bloody sick I've been. Kudos to Sulu and Nadine for getting all 20 laps done in an amazing time - I had to stop before finishing before I actually collapsed.

Luckily the rest of the practise was a little easier, with stops, falls, crouches and gliding (yay! I feel as graceful as a figure skater. Who'd have thought?!) and some choo-choo-ing and weaving in and out of a line of skaters. All blissfully manageable after nearly dying trying to do speed laps.

Then it was pub, and with the wonderful combination of exercise, Day Nurse and two pints of Stella I was definitely on the giggly-tipsy side by the time we left. I'm still reeling from just how much a beer hits me right after exercise. I'd be a helluva cheap date. If a sweaty one.

Looking forward to next week and managing two weeks running for the second time this year...

Two posts in and a sore ankle!

What is it about obligatory blogs that makes me lame at updating when I promise to? I'm exactly the same on my professional blog, yet I manage to write reams and reams of angsty stuff on my personal blog on a pretty much daily basis.

Either way, 3rd week of the new year and second post - in my defense, I didn't actually make the second week's practise however that's not really an excuse not to post.

So apology done, I'll turn to this week's roller derby session which was somewhat away from the norm in that we had a guest skater running it for the first hour, due to car trouble with our regular trainers. Justine Credible happened to be along to make up for missing her own Birmingham Blitz Derby Dames practise on Saturday and with 10 minutes notice managed to run what was an excellent first hour. I was also rather happy in that in the real, non-derby world, she's known as my friend Charlotte (more accurately, my husband's friend Charlotte but I've adopted her for my own!) and we don't see her enough.

I was ecstatic that the weird photographic memory I have for text kicked in for the rules test in that the first time I'd even looked at the rules was in the first 10 minutes of our car journey there. I knew the answers to almost all questions asked of people, and apart from being thrown briefly by the on-the-spotness of my own first question, held up fine. I'm not a swot - I'm just fast at memorising things!

We did get our regular trainers, Helen Fury and Cupid Stunt when they arrived late due to car trouble and practise was fun and exhausting. I did manage to fall badly, felt me ankle twinge at the time and now, several hours later its quite painful. Usable but I don't think I'll be running anywhere for a couple of days. Knocks, bumps and twinges all part of the fun though, and it was entirely my own fault for going faster than I am stable with around a corner.

It also turns out that almost no-one on the team can skate backwards, myself included which made for an interesting snail's-pace relay exercise. I suspect its one of those things where once the technique 'clicks' in your brain, its fine but until that happens its completely counter-intuitive - your entire body is geared up to making the motions to go forward and can't handle reversing them.

Finally there was drinks at the pub and this week I was able to actually have a beer (as I'd made Geoff drive me there - in my defence he wouldn't have wanted to miss seeing Charlotte anyway). Drink good, I'm a lot more sociable with alcohol in my system and it was a lot of fun.

New Year, New Blog

I'm Steph - AKA Shiza Rebel of the Severn Roller Torrent roller derby league and this is my shiny new blog, created right on cue after the first practise of the first month of 2009.

So... roller derby. Firstly, roller derby is FUN. Skirts, skates and stripy socks - what more does a girl need? That was pretty much the attraction for me - the whole image of be-who-ya-wanna-be that surrounds the sport. Gym posing has never held any attraction for me, I can't run for toffee and my hand-eye co-ordination is awful. Roller derby is a sport I can see myself being OK at and I love that its not something where you're expected to be super fit (or super young!) to be able to do.

Also, did I mention the stripy socks?

So... first practise of the year, and my first practise with my new rollergirl name. It took me ages to choose a name. Morgan le Faytal was a close second (and probably more appropriate) but I finally went with this one because - and you'll laugh at this - I already use a variant of it at selected internet haunts so I know I'm comfortable with it. Plus the song from which its taken is kickass. So thats why the name. If we're shortening it, I'll go with Rebel please which has a certain irony to it given what a mouse I can be. I'm very very shy and learning people is proving at least as hard as learning to skate.

Today's practise went well. Its great seeing just how much people are improving week on week although personally I felt decidedly wobbly, it being three weeks since my last practise AND having sat on my backside and ate my weight in chocolate and mince pies over Christmas. This wasn't helped by post-practise munching of many, many things that aren't on my metaphorical diet sheet but I was starving.

Its... harder work than it looks from the outside and my thighs are seriously going to regret it tomorrow. I really need to make the effort to work on my leg muscles away from practises as they're decidedly out of condition. I also really need to put some more effort into learning how to stop. I can do forward. I can fall fine. I can't stop though which is a little embarrassing. Once or twice would be OK, failing every time just smacks of lack of effort.

I'm also embarrassed to say I still haven't managed to fix all my teammates names in my head. I almost know everyone's real name, but only a handful of skater names which I really must put right.

I'm going to leave it there for now. I've two more practises this month (I think) on the 10th and 17th. The 24th isn't happening as our hall isn't free and some of the girls are off to watch the Edinburgh team kick some ass, which sadly I'm missing as it coincides with someone's 30th that I promised to attend months ago and the week after I am on the south coast.