Article Contributed on: 5/30/2009 9:29:31 PM
Thursday night's practice was wicked fun. We had our first chance to jam in the Douglas County Fairgrounds Event Center where we play our first bout on Friday, June 12th. We normally practice in one of the barns at the Fairgrounds. And while there are no animals and the floor is swept clean of hay and scat my dogs still go crazy for my knee socks when I come home. Even after I peel them off and bury them at the bottom of my laundry basket my littlest dog (at 50 lbs) still can't get enough of me or should I say the lingering residual scent of llamas or goats or horses that once shared our practice space. But not Thursday night, on Thursday night the only thing my dogs could smell on me was wicked fun.
I don't think I am the typical derby girl if there is such a thing. I don't think derby is a substitute for repressed office aggression.I don't enjoy knocking girls down. But that could be because I haven't learned the art of doing so and keeping upright myself. I don't like falling or smelling like Icy Hot or falling asleep with the heating pad under my bum. So, I am often asking myself WHY. WHY do I keep coming back?
Even as I put on my bum saver (think hockey padded pants) and yanked my skort over them, pulled up my fluorescent pink and black striped knee socks and donned my Castle Rock 'n' Rollers t-shirt I couldn't help thinking what I would hurt tonight or how many times I would fall. For our dress rehearsal we planned to scrimmage against ourselves. Our coach divided us into two teams under our captain (PoundHer Puff Girl) and our co-captain (L'No LowKO). Half of us wore black tops while the other half wore white but no two bottoms were the same. We had to look hot, we are derby girls after all and our paparazzi was waiting.
Three, count them, three whole paparazzi came to our practice - DC8 News, DC Press and the one and only YourHub.com to film and interview the newest derby girls on the block or should I say in your hub! (To meet some of these girls check out the YourHub.com articles by moi.) While we warmed up forming a pace line and performing the CHASE THE TAIL drill where the girl at the front of the pace line speeds up and away from the line to join the pack at the back of the line we found we were being followed around the track first in the county golf cart then by a cameraman on a skateboard filming us.
The black team beat the white team, 233 to 188. I only fell twice. Both times forward onto my pads instead of backwards on my bum. We looked good and I am not talking about our outfits. We worked together as a team to hold our opponent's jammer back and assist our's. We blocked and knocked each other down and out of bounds. We served our penalties in the box. We rotated positions between jams and screamed encouragement to both sides. Smells like wicked fun.