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Protec Street Gear FOR SALE (50% Discount) 

GEAR	PRICE	SIZES LEFT
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Wrist Guards	$15	L
Helmets	$29	M/ L/ XL

 
If you’re interested in purchasing contact Kit Cat via email: cat_euro@hotmail.com 

Raw Meat - the dress rehearsal!

Skaters came out in style this week for the Raw Meat dress rehearsal.  Face paint, sparkles and spandex were the themes of the night, proving that derby girls and guys can make even the most nerve-wracking of tests a fun and colourful event!  After a brief warm up from the rainbow and ballet themed 3 Veg, skaters regrouped into the eight colour teams delegated in the first week of Raw Meat.  Each group moved between the four testing stations and four wait stations, brushing up on skills and asking last-minute questions of the trusty trainers and helpers.  Marshall Stacks led stepping and weaving drills, while Bam Bam Belial led t-stops and snow plows and Rolla Junky took skaters through stride, coasting and cross overs.  The 3 Veg cheered on skaters pushing through 1 minute and 5 minute endurance drills.

We were so, so, so impressed by what we saw this week - not just on the track, but also in the cheering and discussions with ADRD league helpers taking place on the sidelines.  We hope you all had a good chance to speak with trainers and helpers and nut out all the last-minute skills and techniques you wanted to go through.  If there is anything that you are still unsure of, please email us or reply here to start a discussion.

Remember that what we are looking for at the Raw Meat test is safety first.  In other words, for example, are you sturdy enough on skates to be prepared to hit and be hit by other skaters without risking injury during Fresh Meat?  Or will you be able to stop safely when you are skating in a pack?  That means that you don't necessarily need to be the fastest, the strongest, or the most experienced skater to pass Raw Meat - you just need to be safe enough that we can feel confident knocking you around during Fresh Meat!

The Raw Meat test will run exactly as it did in the dress rehearsal.  So if you didn't cover a skill last week (eg. backwards skating through cones) then we wont be testing you on it this week!  We wont be throwing in any random, crazy skills just to trick you - promise!  The only difference is that we will be down-scaling to six groups so that you don't have to wait around at the wait stations as much.  That means that you may be with a different group of skaters than who you went through the dress rehearsal with.

We will be giving out results on the night (probably outside, so bring a jumper!) and then heading to the Wheaty for a well-deserved celebration/commiseration beverage.  So make sure you book those child/dog/hamster sitters for an extra hour because we want you at our beer-drinking table!

Happy skating and see you all for Raw Meat celebrations on Thursday!

With love from the 3 Veg ( Honey Carrots/Hell Grazer, Minty Peas/Wolfe Whistle and Creamy Mash/Silk Spectre)
xox

Raw Meat Week 3

Raw Meat Week 3 was brought to you by the Skato & Moe Show, Team Stacks/Mel/Gatey and a whole bunch of sweaty freshies!

Warm Up

For Week 3 warm up Bride of Skatan & Moe Skeeto had us rolling in circles before launching into a quick game of stuck in the mud that involved team air punching to release a 'stuck' skater.  We then went on a journey with a team of air hostesses who had skaters shuffling left, right, jumping and stopping on their synchronised signals.  Warm up finished with five minutes of those endurance laps that you all love to hate!

Stride

Training was led by Marshall Stacks, Melvin Star and Gateway Girl.  Melvin Star had us skating in sweet synchronicity with a series of laps skated in a 4-skater snake, focusing on long, even strides that were nice and deep, without kicking or losing rhythm.

Stopping

Marshall Stacks introduced us to a fight-to-the-death battle of 'Princess of the Rink', making skaters t-stop and snow plow on whistle blasts, and eliminating the slowest stoppers until only one skater remained.  Remember that, like derby, your beautiful snow plough (or hip check or block) means nothing if you go out of bounds!  Those lines are there for a reason, so try to stick with them!

Hints:

For the snow plow, Marshall Stacks recommends we "sit down into the saddle!" - bend your knees and sit down into the stop.

For the T-stop, Melvin Star says that "it's all about the back two wheels [of the back skate]" - don't let your back ankle twist or bend, or you risk serious, painful and derby-ending injury!

Riding the Track

Can I say that you all looked ridiculously good riding the track this week!  Skaters made like a rectangle and embarked on a quick game of derby high-five around the track, thinking about cross-overs and nice, long strides along the straightaways.  Why?  Because good stride and good sense riding the track will save you time and consume less energy!  And that can make all the difference in those endurance laps, not to mention the difference between a good jam and a bad jam!

Weaving

Marshall Stacks began our weaving session with an eyes-closed minute of zen, asking skaters to silently rock as far forward and back as possible until we found our true centre of balance (yes, we saw some of you fall over - but at least you pushed yourself to your limit!) - this centre of balance is different for everybody, so it's important that you find the stance that works best for you, your height, weight and ability.  With our new found balance we ventured out amongst the cones, weaving on one foot (agh!), both feet, and in big slaloms across the track.

When weaving, remember to turn with your knees and think about your hips.  For wide slaloms across the track, Marshall Stacks recommends using a bit of 'sticky feet' if you start to run out of power.  Melvin Star spoke about skating with your legs apart - like scissors - to create a kind of carving motion across the track.  Lead with the left leg to go left, and with the right leg to go right.

10 Minute Masterclass

Training finished with a series of stations set up to allow skaters to concentrate on the one skill that they want to improve.  For t-stops, remember: knees bent, weight to the back leg.  At the weaving station, Bride of Skatan reminded skaters that the movement came more from the hips - keep the top half straight, weight on the heels, and point with your knees and toes.  At the snow plow station D'Juana Fightme recommended to "really squeeze your glutes!"  Phew, what a lot to get through in one training session!

Cool down & stretch

After a long training session we shook out all the 'serious' and reclaimed the 'silly' with a game of Follow The Leader that had skaters roof punching and mexican waving amongst a mash-up of manic moves.  Marshall Stacks brought us the "After School Special" during cool down, giving us the "honest truth" that being a derby mum "is shit".  She asked skaters: Do you have a support group who will look after your kids and a partner that will accept being your 'derby widow'?  ADRD has a minimum training requirement, with no allowances to parents, workers or those with other commitments.  "The pay off", she says, "is that my kids think I'm a rock star!"  You will find yourself amongst a beautiful sisterhood of derby aunties, and your children will have a mum that is contented and independent. Furthermore, they will learn to respect strong independent women, and will learn all about appropriate hitting (as opposed to inappropriate aggression).  But you will need to weigh up the pros and cons of being a derby mumma - make sure that you have balance in your life; at the end of the day, derby isn't everything and your family life, work life and sanity is important too!

Final words
Gateway Girl: "Your fiding the track looked f*@#ing amazing!"

Marshall Stacks: "That's the most improvement I've seen in an hour!"

So see you all next week for the final dress rehearsal for Raw Meat!  Happy skating!

Raw Meat Week 2

(also known as "Shit: don't eat it, do it")

Week 2 saw our derby stadium graced by some lovely ladies with many, many, many years experience on skates.  Old but not out, the Nannas (Flo, Gerty, Agnes and Hazel) led us all in some warm up drills that proved to be useful both on the track and in the kitchen.  These included:

+ Putting the scones in the oven (getting low, using your knees, and keeping your back straight so you don't fall in!)
+ While you're nice and low, wiggling around like there's a spunky person behind you (and being aware of the insides and outsides of your feet when you lean left and right).
+ Crossing your legs back and forth to keep the wee in!
+ And don't forget those celebratory roof punches!

While the Nannas went off to make a cuppa, Rolla Junky and Tricksey Belt'em led us for the rest of the training session.  They had skaters hitting the wall (literally!) with stationary snow ploughs, before practising t-stops across the stadium.

They then took slaloms and weaving to a new level, with skaters weaving between cones on one foot, carving with both feet, and skating backwards.  Junky reminded skaters to stay in a low derby stance, "like you're doing a shit" otherwise "you'll eat shit" when you fall on your arse!  Nanna Hazel reflected on her many decades of life experience, stating that "you take baby steps in life... and in derby", reminding skaters to take small steps (literally).  Tricksey extended our ability to carve (weaving leading with one foot) by explaining how trucks work and helping skaters to adjust their own trucks (remember to read Foxy's post to fix your own!).

We then moved on to cross-overs, for which Tricksey taught us the importance of good cross-overs to maintain and quickly build speed, as well as get out of tight spots in the pack.  We started by pushing with the outside leg alone, with "no cheating or there'll be smack down!" before moving on to exaggerated cross-overs and, finally, full cross-overs on the track.

Rolla Junky and Tricksey Belt'em finished the session by extending our understanding of riding the track.  Junky reminded us of the importance of awareness and getting used to looking behind and around you.  Remember to turn your shoulders and point to where you want to go.  The trainers challenged us to count how many cross-overs we can do while riding the track and Tricksey pointed out that short strides take much more energy, while long strides give more speed with less effort.

We finished the session with those wonderful endurance laps that all skaters come to love.  But remember: while it's good to get your speed on during those endurance laps, most of derby has very little to do with skating fast!  It can be really hard to skate well when there are lots of people on the track.  But if you can stay on the track, really work on how you can skate slow, skate safely, avoid other skaters, and really refine your technique, you'll be well set for skating effectively in a pack!

Enjoy, and see you all on Thursday!

Silks / Creamy Mash
xox

Injury prevention

Some notes from Stoj'n'Weave...

 

Warm up properly; if you find that you get 'shin splints', cramps, headaches, asthma, or feel like you're trying to 'catch up' during the warm up then get here 10 minutes earlier and do a walk around the oval/car park, some stair climbs in the foyer for a few minutes. An off skates warm up can make a world of difference to some people.

 

Balance your exercise for posture and sanity.  You need to counteract all that time spent in derby stance during normal day living - use weights, body weight exercise and a lot of stretching through the chest.

 

Areas to avoid making too flexible = shoulder girdle and cankles.

 

Core work....I'm a little 'funny' on this one...crunches and ab work lying down is very um...it's not up with the times really and the only time we would use our abs lying down is in bed...or getting up off the floor in one big effort rather than repetition of using hip flexors...so take every opportunity you can to incorporate core work that involves you standing or kneeling, basically not lying on your back like a la cocaracha!

 

Go to bed before midnight! This is something I struggled with when doing the derby..bit amped after training...eating dinner late...going to bed after midnight...= bad bad bad!

 

Post training meal needs to be high in protein and still have some carbs in them for recovery.

 

Recovery. The same workout should not be repeated back to back. Cross training is the best way to avoid injury.

Raw Meat Week 1

Oh my goodness, what a big start to Raw Meat 2011! I hope you all enjoyed getting to know each other as much as we enjoyed getting to meet all of you. In the excitement and nervousness of things it’s easy to forget exactly what happened. So here is a reminder:

Hell Grazer (aka Honey Carrots) welcomed all the skaters and went through basic house rules.

Team Vain (Vaderella and Brain of Morbius) graced us with their lycra unitard and velvet-endowed presence, taking skaters through a series of warm up drills that included skating in groups of particular numbers (ie. Groups of 5) and making letters in a synchronised skate group.

Violent Krumble, GoGo Fiasco and Bam Bam Belial were our head trainers for the night. They covered: 

Stride – skating on one foot, skating low, staying in derby stance, touching lines on the ground while skating, falling safely (“like a rag doll”) and not grabbing other skaters when falling (“fall alone”). Remember: bend your knees and keep your head up.

Cross-overs – pushing with one foot at a time, then exaggerating the pushing motion and, finally, doing complete crossovers. Remember: push with both feet and make your cross-overs nice and deep.

Riding the track –moving in a rectangular shape around the track, coming out wide on the straightaway and cutting in tight across the apex. Remember: turn with the shoulders, look around the track, and communicate when you’re overtaking on the inside or outside.

T-stops and snow-ploughs – practicing stopping at each cone laid out on the track. Remember: for t-stops lean on the back foot and keep feet close together. For snow ploughs use pigeon toes, bend your knees, and dig your heels in.

Weaving – weaving through lines of cones, and doing small weaves (slaloms) on the track. Remember: use your knees to direct where you want to go.

As a cool down, the 3 veg led skaters on a quick round of ‘keys in the bowl’. This involved skaters pairing up and getting to know one another and then introducing their partners to another couple, and so on.

Finally, Stoj’n’Weave (with the vocal assistance of Hell Grazer and Wolfe Whistle) took skaters through a stretch – her wise words on stretching will be covered in the next post!

Phew! That’s it for Week 1! What part of training did you enjoy most?  And what would you like to see more time given to?  Let us know!

Skate Tech 101

So you're about to start Raw Meat (exciting!) and there's already a bunch of stuff to worry about. Basic skate maintenance is one more thing, but it really can give you a shortcut to improving as a skater. Your skate set-up can really make a difference to your technique. There's some basic stuff about skates that makes a huge difference early on, but you'll also need to know it for the rest of your skating life.

The Anatomy of a Derby Skate

It all begins with the anatomy of the derby skate, so check this diagram, thanks to Ivanna Spankin:

http://www.sincityskates.com/images/random/sincity_derby_diagram.pdf

When you buy a pair of skates, unless they've been made specifically for you, or some clever derby girl has owned them before you, they will come pre-assembled from a skate manufacturer. More often than not, there's some stuff that needs tweaking. Skates usually come with a basic tool, or you can get one for around $15 from any skate shop.

Adjust Your Trucks

A common problem is having trucks that are too loose or too tight.

When you lean to one side, your trucks lean with you, and that makes the two wheels on that side curve into a small arc, and you turn. If your trucks are too tight, the wheels won't move and it will be really, really hard to turn corners.

But the trade-off is that loose trucks are harder to balance on, so you also don't want them too loose until you're comfortable with your balance on skates.

(If you're really interested, these skate geeks wrote an article that explains it in more detail:

http://quadskating.com/skates/roller-skate-trucks.htm )

If you flip your skate over, one truck is the short metal bit you can see running across the skate between the two front wheels and the other truck runs between the two back wheels. You adjust your trucks by tightening or loosening the large nut in the centre, which is called the action nut. Use a skate tool or wrench to adjust your trucks.

Which way do you turn the nut?

Anti-clockwise loosens, clockwise tightens. I remember it using Rosie the Riveter's old mnemonic: Lefty Loosey - Righty Tighty

Only adjust the nut one quarter turn at a time, and then forcibly wiggle the wheels back and forth to check how much the trucks are moving, and maybe adjust another quarter turn, and so on. You want them to move with a little bit of pushing effort. Try skating on them once you've adjusted them a little bit, and adjust further if you need, but don't loosen them too much all at once!

Also, your trucks will gradually get looser over time by themselves, as you skate on them.

Check Your Wheels

Next thing with factory-fresh skates is to check your wheels. Too loose and they'll fall off; too tight and you are gonna be working a whole lot harder to get anywhere. Check them all, because they are likely to all be set differently. (Gah!) You want your wheels to spin freely without rattling on their axles. Use a skate tool to adjust them. A good way to adjust them is to gradually tighten them to the point where they only just won't turn, and then loosen them off a quarter or a half turn of the axle nut until they spin without stopping for a long time.

Make sure all eight wheels are set to pretty much the same looseness.

This video shows you how to check your wheels:

Laces

A super common complaint for skaters with new skates is numb feet. Some of it's getting used to skates and building up strange little unused muscles and learning balance, but some of it can be helped.

Some people (me included) like their skates loose around their toes to beat numb-foot (I just made that term up) but tight around the top for a more stable, secure feel.

You can simply skip a couple of holes near the toes and start lacing from the third or fourth hole up.

Or you can lace the first few holes up, then skip a few, then lace the top ones.

Or you can double-lace. To double-lace, get two shorter pairs of laces. Lace halfway up each boot using the first pair. Then lace the top half using the second pair. That way, you can have one tension in the bottom half, for your toes to wriggle freely, and a different, tighter, tension up the top.

Which lets you worry about skating instead of the pain in your toes.

That's it for now... see you on the track. x