Roller Skate It Out

To my elders,

Tonight was my first day of Roller-Skate-Boot-Camp. Seriously. Like, proper Roller Skates, Quads. With 4 wheels. Mine are black with neon purple wheels. Naturally. So why am I learning to roller skate? That is quite simple: Roller Derby. No, I'm not playing. I'm not cool enough for that. And by "cool enough" I mean I a) so can't take a hit, and b) and waaaayyyy too much of a newb skater to be anywhere near good enough to play.

Lesson learned: How to stop, How to fall, and How I should be standing. Which basically involves squatting. I may need to start doing lunges or something. I feel muscles I didn't know I had. And was out Sweatin' Tall Josh. But it was awesome. I feel like, well, more to the point, I no longer feel like I'm going to die just trying to skate in a straight line.

Now, I am crap at winter sports, and diving, actually, because I can't lean forward. Leaning forward = hurting yourself. And my base-r instincts won't let me do it. But skating is close to the ground. Ish. And squatting means when you fall, not If, When, it either onto your padded knees, or not that far to your bum. Which ain't so bad.

So I am feeling a false sense of confidence. I will get moderately good without ever having fallen, and then, one day, probably in a couple weeks, I will completely wipe out and will have to start over again. Or basically over again. But I'll get there. And maybe, just maybe, I will be ok enough at this that I can ref properly, on skates. Because that is the point of my Roller-Derby based Roller-Skate-Boot-Camp. So I can become a "Roller Derby Cop" as one of my co-workers said. Aka a Referee.

-K

Whip It, for real

To my elders,

So last weekend I went to visit E for the Elliott Brood concert. Which really did rock. I did not turn my pan into a bowl however. Its called using the flat side of the wooden spoon, not the edge.

After our eventful Friday of a late night concert, we decided to take it a bit easy Saturday and saw a Hitchcock double feature (Psycho, which was actually pretty creepy, and surprisingly progressive, even though one of the pivotal screens is ridiculously famous, its only half way through the movie, so the rest is still a) a surprise, and b) really interesting and The Trouble with Harry, which I had seen before, but the dry humour came off better the second time). And then Saturday night came and somehow, one thing lead to another and we ended up going to Roller Derby. My first ever roller derby bout, actually.

Now I, like many a young person before me, had seen the Drew Barrymore/ Ellen Page movie Whip It last year when it came out, and I, like so many other people, walked out saying "I am going to track down a roller derby game and go. Because its awesome." I then proceeded to never actually do this. So with E and myself encouraging one another, and feeling a little stupid and shy along the way, we made it to our first game? Tournament? Whatever, I sat through an entire sporting competition of my own volition. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

I must say, Whip It really does help to understand the rules of Roller Derby and what the heck is going on, cuz its confusing to watch for the first time. Though the teams did give us a demo to help out the "first timers." But that's really where the similarities kind of stopped... The game we went to was populated with, well, some of the people you'd expect to find at, you know, a roller derby game, your average alternative kids of many varieties. But there were also your standard twenty somethings. And your middle aged parent types. And old people. And thirty somethings with small children. Seriously. SMALL CHILDREN. Wearing Roller Derby t-shirts. I am perpetually impressed by this generation's parents of being cool. Well, when they're not being neurotic. Oh, and the players do actually dress like the girls in Whip It.

Moral of the story: Roller Derby is awesome. And kinda hot. And if small children can go to a match, so can you.

-K

p.s. Montreal Roller Derby game. July 9th.

p.p.s. Slaughter Daughters rule.