My beloved league, Red Deer RollerDerby Association, hosted Operation Skate and Destroy  over the last weekend. I had such an amazing time!

Here’s a breakdown of my weekend:

Saturday – Bootcamp:  5 different coaches providing skill and skill building insights. RDRDA’s own Team Canada skater TAZ started the morning off by kicking my ass with off-skate dynamic movements (and in the same manner destroyed my plan to “save” my legs for benchmarking the next day). I got some great pack skill and strategy techniques from Coach Lime, learned some interesting agility drills from Tye Die. Also had the privilege of learning the finer points of hitting and jamming from RDRDA’s Hollywood Homicide and Razor.

Saturday evening – Nightshades Bout: Worked the door for the first half of the bout, but got to see how FAST the pack was moving to keep RDRDA Alum Spaz in check. RDRDA features some of the BEST blockers and it was amazing to see how good the Nightshades were able to control the pace of the bout in the 2nd half and come back to victory!

Sunday morning – Benchmarks: I had the most serious nerves. For those who don’t know, benchmarking is a minimum skills assessment that basically ensures you’re capable of playing the physically demanding sport of derby. Well – I did it! This was a HUGE milestone for me, and there are so many people whose efforts have helped me along the way to get to this point.  I won’t list them all, but pretty much anyone who as seen me on skates has had a hand in both improving my skills and enabling me to skate.

Which brings me to the point of the whole weekend for me – my Bout:

Yes. That’s me. Laying a hit onto Adoll Hitter. And she did go down, if I recall correctly. Next time I’ll be hitting with my eyes open, so I’ll be able to SEE what I’m hitting. Lesson to all: CHECK YOUR BLIND SPOTS.

I barely remember it. Super thanks to Anthony Canada (who shot the photo above) for creating a record of the fact that I actually played and didn’t dream the whole thing up.

Monday –  Bangover. Given I skated for HOURS and I was skating pretty hard throughout that time, it wasn’t particularly surprising that I had a REALLY hard time walking the next day.  Tendons in my knee were inflamed. Stairs were the enemy.

The point of this whole story is that I’m REALLY looking forward to doing it all again. E-Ville Beaver Bash, here I come!