By Ever ninja’d yourself through crowds on a platform, spinning on your heel and turning sideward at the last minute to squeeze through the last remaining gap before the train door slams shut? Do you find yourself daydreaming about bumping cars that try and overtake you in slow traffic off the road dodgem style? Enter the hard-hitting, rage dissolving, high inducing sport of Roller Derby that will wring sweat from you like something not right and have you feeling like you own everything.
Skating is as much fun as you remember it being from childhood, but now instead of being scolded for hitting people, its actively encouraged. If your balance is all over the shop, it’s the perfect place to get that toned core you’ve always wanted and, as the first lesson is how to fall, it doesn’t even hurt too much. It means at the end of a stressful workday, that we are all too familiar with, you get to shed your professional skin and become your knee high sock wearing alter ego. Trust me channeling your niche inner nerd is highly satisfying and it leads to some amazing pun names, ‘Skate Winslet’, ‘George W. Push’ and ‘Brick Hithouse’, to name just a few.
Roller derby appealed to me for its sense of comradery and, now this is important – it doesn’t require hand-eye-coordination. Watching my awesome team The Oxford Wheels of Gory, do a 180° and skate backwards in perfect sync with each other is awe-inducing, add a ball in to any training drill and it is hilarious. Very few of us can catch (we have broken fingers to prove it) or throw and it doesn’t matter! Hard hitting hips, quick feet, standing your ground and flexibility are key in this game.
In any given training session your stamina, flexibility and ninja skills will be worked on, plus cool- down games of ‘hotdogs’, ‘stuck in the mud’ (tiggy scarecrow if you’re from oop north), ‘dodgeball’ (although that one ended with a pretty much immediate breaking of someone) and ‘cat and mouse’, otherwise known as ‘ass towel’, make for a great way to spend an evening. The socials can rival any rugby club for rowdiness, measure up to a medics bar crawl for fancy dress stakes and out glam any Oscars night.
Roller Derby, I just love it, and seen as there are teams around the country (both male and female) it’s worth seeing if you do too. If only to get some show off worthy bruises and release your pent up roller rage.
Original images by Chris Daniels
