The Pursuit of Derbyness

[Photo by Maja Baska]

January 2007. A year after my step dad Ernie died. I was sitting around the house all single and despondent on my summer holiday. Most of my friends were coupled off, the usual crap. I was bored and dug out a pair of second hand quad skates that my mum had given to me. I put them on and began rolling around the concrete courtyard of my share house. With nothing better to do, I drank beer and posed for photos in my pink cowgirl hat, new black cut off jeans and skates.

The photos would make their way onto my MySpace page later that evening in an attempt to look cute and attract the attentions of a cowboy up north. I’d learnt to skate after my mum left my real dad and remarried Ernie. I was seven. Ernie probably paid for the skates and the lessons. We hadn’t been able to afford anything until mum married him. The skates were white boot skates with blue and red stars on the side. I loved them and I loved soaring around the roller rink in them, so dangerous and free.

You see Ernie was much older than mum and he already had four adult children with kids of their own when he married mum. My full brother and I were in infants school when Ernie and mum got together and before we knew it, we had two new baby brothers.

On the night that 82 year old Ernie passed away, mum was in outstanding form. She told me very matter -o-factly that neither myself or John had been named as Ernie’s children. We weren’t in the will, not that he had anything but boxes of National Geographics to inherit, but as of that moment we were not his children. Talk about zapping the grief. I was livid. For twenty five years I’d been his dutiful daughter or at least that’s what I thought I was. It didn’t help that three months earlier I’d written to my real dad, whom I’d only seen once since I was five. He returned my correspondence with a phone call and introduced himself as “your big bad dad” and told me to visit him on the Fathers Day that September. And when I couldn’t, for lack of public transport on a Sunday, he called me back up and told me to “go and get fucked” and refused to take any of my calls, forever after.

So there I was on my skates in my yard with a digital camera full of angry vulnerable but somehow cute photos of myself on wheels. Determined not to break under the haunting stink of fatherly rejection, I did the only thing a girl can do. I went to my desk with a bottle of whiskey and uploaded the photos and left wads of “hey how ya going” messages on friends MySpace pages. Hello world. I need attention.

The next day I had a comment posted on my site from a lady called “Evil Doll’ who was setting up a roller derby group in Brisbane. The group was actually called the Australian Roller Derby Association, which caused outrage to a handful of women in Melbourne. So I thought I had better mention that in case they are reading. ARDA soon shrank into being a Brisbane only thing. I had no idea who this Evil Doll was but she must have seen my skate-bearing profile picture on the squillions of pages that I’d left comments on. I replied back to her with a note about how cool Roller Derby looked and to let me know if one started up in Sydney. It was the first time I’d ever heard of roller derby.

A month later, a lady called Breakin Bones Betty, who also turned out to be one of my work clients, saw my comment on Evil Dolls page and invited me to meet up with other random women in Sydney who were interested in setting up roller derby. I thought back to my shitty holidays in January and how great I’d felt on my skates. Right then I decided that I needed to become a goddess on wheels and forget all about my ‘rejecting fathers’.

With no real idea of what derby was, I got busy Googling the subject. In my spare time I’d lace up my skates, grab a beer and roll gracefully around my courtyard. I can’t tell you how tough, cool and generally excellent I felt. This feeling was empowered somewhat by my flat mate’s two scruffy terriers that were terrified of my skates. Plus I had three posters of Olivia Newton-John up in my bedroom. Xanadu. Xanadu-ooh-ooh-ohh. I needed something new. I needed my old friend Roller Skating in my life. Forget going to gigs every weekend. All the music scene had ever gotten me was dead end Rock and Roll boyfriends and lost weekends for a decade running.

I realised that this roller derby game was actually really interesting. It was physical and strategic and you got to wear fishnets and hot pants. It consisted of two teams of women. Each team puts five women on the track. The track is an oval shape, similar to the size of a basketball court. Each team has one jammer on the track who is identified by a star on her helmet. The jammer scores a point each time she passes an opposing player. While scoring points, the jammers race each other around the track for a period of up to two minutes.

The jammer that first gets through the pack first is called the lead jammer. She can call the jam off at any time. For instance, if the lead jammer has gotten through the pack and the other jammer is stuck, the lead jammer can effectively stop the other jammer from scoring points by calling off the play. The rest of the players skate in a pack creating walls and taking out members of the opposite team. They play defense by clearing the other team members out of the way (knocking them over) and they also play offense by assisting their jammer through the pack. It’s a bit like grid iron. Football on Wheels.

A few weeks into my online derby fascination, I receive a text from Breakin Bones Better about a meeting at the Marlborough Hotel in Newtown. I head into the pub and take a seat at a table with eight women. They’re all vastly different from one another. There was a nurse called Trippy Longstocking, a writer and designer called Saskia Pistola, an environmental activist called Missy Biff, a student called Titianaknockerova, a handicraft journalist called Hot Lips Cruelihan and hippy marketing chick from the Opera House called Tiger Lily. I hadn’t even thought about thinking up a roller derby name, which is a lot like an alter ego. I decided on BloodCatBabe and I hated it from day one.

Beers were bought and contact details were swapped. The meeting wasn’t very long. The trivia guy was setting up his speakers and we were all about to get blasted by the trivia questions. However the consensus was very clear. A league was to be built. I’d worked on the start up of FBi radio and had experience with not for profit Incorporated Associations. I volunteered to write the constitution, fundraise, get insurance and set up an AGM. Basically I volunteered to do all the hard difficult boring stuff.

In July 2007, we had our first General Meeting. Twelve of us turned up, along with a man called Neill Jones otherwise known as TJB (The Jones Boy). The meeting was held in an underground meeting room that I’d hooked up for free through my job at the University of Sydney Union. The airless cupboard-room was across the hall from the Footbridge Theatre and all through the meeting we felt the gentle rattle of trucks passing overhead on Parramatta Road. TJB was a lovely drinking buddy of mine who worked in politics and had let me rope him into chairing our first meeting. Hot Lips Cruelihan put herself forward as President, Breakin Bones Betty as Vice President, Saskia Pistola as Secretary and myself BloodCatBabe (uggh) as Treasurer. The other 8 girls voted for us. The Jones Boy declared the meeting a success.

And that’s where the hard work began.

We had no idea there’d be so much paper work. Mountains of the stuff. Skater policies and more skater policies. You can’t have grown women skating around at break neck speed trying to knock each other over without some kind of law and order. There were training documents, there were the World Flat Track Roller Derby League rules to understand, interpret and adjust into a rule book for our skaters. Websites, membership program, financial accounts, fundraising. We needed two grand to get skating insurance and nobody had ever heard of us. Half the Committee left within the first three months. The bitching was suffocating. President Hot Lips Cruelihan lived up to her cruel name and became famous for picking on people, and when challenged, would scream “harden the fuck up” into your face. Lovely.

While we were waiting for our insurance to come through, we were skating outdoors. Marrickville High School was brave enough to let us use their outdoor bitumen basketball courts. Bad move. When you are skating fast and take a fall on that surface, it is ugly.

We were having one of our first attempts at interpreting the rules, all skating rather badly in a pack. Wobbly as hell. Some girls had speed skating and artistic skating backgrounds and were more advanced. I wasn’t one of those and for the entire two and a half years that I was a Roller Derby Girl, I struggled and was terrified.

Now because we weren’t really playing, just walking through the rules on skates, we weren’t wearing all of our protective gear. Which meant no helmets and mouthguards. Just the knee pads, elbow pads and wrist guards. Naturally, as we walked through the rules and the different strategies that we’d read about online, our enthusiasm grew. One animated demonstration led to another rather heavy-on-the-body-contact-demonstration and before we knew it we were actually trying to play roller derby, serious.

It is important to understand that when you play roller derby, it is always about the corners. You need to get the ‘in front’ advantage on your opponent as you round the corner so that you can knock them down. The corners are the easiest place to knock skaters over. Getting in someone’s way or stopping them from being able to defend or assist is called blocking. It often equates to knocking them over. The legal blocking zone for making body contact is between the shoulders and knees. You are not allowed to bump or push anyone in the back. You are not allowed to shove or punch with your elbows or hands. But you can shoulder slam someone, which is known as a hit. You can ram them with your backside, known as a booty block. As long as it is all done in the legal blocking zone.

One of the more advanced skaters name was Death Star*. It is not an exaggeration to say that she could budge a car with her very persuasive booty. We were tearing around the corner when Death Star got the better position and with a substantial booty block, she sent me sprawling into the ankles of the rest of the skaters. She went down as well, which often happens because it is hard to lean and balance beyond the edges of your skates when making a hit.

We both thudded to the bitumen. I went arse over tit and my left leg went flying up in the air. Death Star was under my leg and amidst trying to cover my face against the passing metal skates and keep my head from smacking on the ground, I sensed that my skate was heading for her head. I managed to keep my leg in the air long enough for her to roll out of the way. Nobody stopped to help us (that is not kosher in derby), they tore off down the track. Shaking and grazed, I hobbled to the sidelines and sat there stunned. What was I doing?

Three months in and the slog continued. New skaters were recruited. We grow to twenty, then thirty. We get a proper venue at an indoor basketball court. We pick our way through You Tubes overseas and website chat rooms for training tips. The Victorian Roller Derby girls are up and running and host a national camp that a few of our girls go to. I don’t. I use the excuse of having no money. But I think it is just because I’m terrified.

More girls join. They are bigger heavier, more tattooed, pierced and radical looking. Each new girl in derby terms is called Fresh Meat. We struggle to engage the Fresh Meat with volunteering. There’s so much to do. I fling off emails to friends and family, apologising for missing everything and never seeing them. My recently new and very wonderful boyfriend hangs in there with me. Quietly and patiently.

Training ramps up to seven hours a week, but once you factor in the travel to the out of town training venues, it takes up twice as much time. I can’t say I ever liked training. I liked the fitness and the warm ups. I loathed the contact drills.

Training. We sprawl on the sidelines with our endless padding and Velcro straps. Lacing up skates, gaffing on protective padding that has lost its Velcro stick. Warm ups commence with free form skating. My favourite. Gliding around the track, air streaming past you. Wheels spinning. Perfectly balanced in long strides. Confident and graceful. All toughed up in your derby gear. The sisterhood around you. Girls joking. Laughing at each other falling over. There’s talk of nights out and who got the drunkest.

At Tuesday night training our first drill is pace lines. Here we skate in a tight line, just an arms length in front and behind each other. We lurch off slowly, building up to a solid speed. The correct derby stance is similar to that of snow skiers, only lower to the ground. Thighs parallel to the ground so that you are low enough to touch the floor with your hand as you skate. The pace line speeds up and we count down the 100 laps. It takes about 20 minutes. Regardless of the season, sweat runs in buckets under our plastic padding. Each girl leads the pace line for 5 laps and then a whistle blows and she sprints around the track and joins the end of the pace line and there is a new leader. Thighs burn and the left side of our collective backs cramps as we lean into the anti clockwise corners the way a motor cycle rider does.

We break for stretches, legs already shaking with exertion and then we’re into drills. Today it is ‘whips’. We group into pairs and skate around together, one skater following the other skater, both gaining speed until the leader in the pair sticks her arm out. A signal for the other skater to sprint forward, grab the arm and be flung forward at a terrific speed. When done correctly, the velocity of the person giving the whip is transferred to the person coming from behind and by the time they’ve sped past you and let go of your limb, you’re left almost stationary having passed on your motion to them. More than once I am whipped with such force that I am unable to stop and crash into a brick wall.

Next drill, we form into teams of five and take shoulder hits called blocks and the almighty booty blocks. Whatever the style, it is all about physically shoving the other person out of the way.

I’m taller than, but not as strong as, the other girls and I have to crouch as low as I can so that the area where they can legally hit me is as small as possible. I skate along signing Kings of Leon ‘my thighs are on fire.’

The knee drills are a killer. Anyone with knee issues is quickly injured in the drills and does not return. We skate hard and fast around the track and on the sound of a whistle, we drop to our knees. Hands are not to touch the floor. To mix it up we do baseball slides, porn star falls (knees first, then elbows, with bottom in the air) and quick drops on one knee for a split second before springing back up. Six months into training our buns are made of steel.

Halfway through every training session my legs are shot. Buggered. A jelly mess. Even after a year of training, they’re still shot. To minimise injury, we scrimmage at 70% of the intensity of a real game. But it doesn’t really work like that. Hot Lips Cruelihan blindsides a number of people and takes them out for no real reason, other than she can. Including me. We all pull ourselves up off the floor and go after her with fury. Derby is about hitting the shit out of other people, there is no such thing as revenge in derby. It is a goddess given right. Hit the shit out of that bitch, with your shoulder that is. Do or die. A really talented skater is able to zoom in front of you and then slam back at you with the back of their shoulder. This is b a d. It has happened to me a few times. You-will-hit-the-floor-backwards-like-you’ve-been-hit-by-a-train.

The trainer calls us to our positions for a scrimmage. My guts sink. I don’t want to. I pray for the roof to collapse and for training to be cancelled.

A team captain forces me to the starting line with a jammer’s star on my head. The first time I jammed, I had my eyes shut I was so scared. I hobbled home and lay aching in bed repeating to myself, I am never doing that again, I am never doing that again.

Then one training session, I actually make it through the pack as a jammer. It was gold. Gliding through the gaps, ditching blocks. Sprinting out in front of the other jammer and taking the corners at daredevil speed as the breeze cools your flushed cheeks. Burning thighs and aching knees fade. Suddenly you’re a super goddess on wheels. A hell bent roller chick with magic derby powers.

Again, I make it through the pack as a jammer. There is nothing better. Whack. Opponent down. Slam. There goes Cruelihan too. Ha!

By the time we’re two years in, we’ve got fifty skaters. Half of these are at advanced level and ready to play a full derby bout. And half of the advanced skaters are sidelined with injury. The League breaks into two demo teams. The competitiveness doubles. The bitching and fighting triples. I count up the derby hours each week, I’ve been clocking in 20 hours. When the line-ups are announced my spirit sinks. I’m on a team with most of the girls that I don’t like. I’m on Cruelihan’s team. I’m devastated, but you can’t cry at roller derby. I suck it in.

The demo games roll out in a cramped basketball shed. The media take our photos. Volunteers flock. We get on TV. Girls want to join. Men have finally put their hand up to referee on skates for us. It is going well, but only just. Half the executive committee aren’t talking to the President Cruelihan. It is causing lost sleep and I’m disheartened once again when the last of my two good derby friends throw in the towel and quit the derby bitchin.

January 2009. Two years after I first put on those skates way back in that courtyard. I’m excited. We’re only a few months off our first official derby bout and season. I’ve come this far and all I can think of is skating in that first real game. I spend a month of work lunches on the phone to sporting venues. Finally I manage to convince one young venue booker to let us use his precious indoor floors. A real venue. Two courts. Scoreboards. A grandstand. Changerooms. We’re in business.

Another Tuesday night training scrimmage. There is more focus now. The skaters know that this is serious, we’ll have a crowd of 1000 watching us soon. I’m at the back of the pack when another girl falls and grabs me on her way down. I fall backwards and throw my hand out to stop me from landing on my tailbone. I jar my shoulder and I can’t use it for a week. Then I sleep on it funny and it freezes up completely. It doesn’t get better and when I try to skate and take a fall, I compensate and end up pulling my lower back.

Hurting your back in roller derby is the one silent collective fear that we all share. If you’ve ever found yourself at the bottom of a 200 kilo pile of women with metal skates in your back. You can’t help but wonder, how much would it take? What would have happened if your spine had twisted just a little bit more? No one ever mentions the thoughts about wheelchairs. We turn up the volume of our bravado.

I watch for weeks on the sidelines. A few more of my friends decide to quit. New girls join. I’m straggling behind now. Shoulder / back / shoulder / back. I keep pulling one or the other. I start to lose the ever addictive feeling of wheels spinning. I’m getting cold feet. I try to quit, but I every time I do, I remember what it feels like when you’re skating as fast as you can. It feels like you’re flying.

Saturday training a few weeks before the official season. Our usual venue has double booked us so we head to Moore Park outdoor basketball courts. When we get there it starts raining, so we head to the Fox and Lion pub next to Fox Studios and listen to a special guest derby skater all the way from America. We order drinks and listen to her explain defensive and offensive tactics. I order whiskey after whiskey. I’ve already second guessed what is about to happen. The training committee read out the line ups for the first season. I haven’t made the compulsory quota of training sessions due to injury. I’m not on a team. I have failed.

A few days later I email everyone and tell them that I’m leaving derby. I tell them (still a little undecided) that I will continue to help as a volunteer. And then just like that it is over. That same day I fall over jogging and take all the skin off my hands and knees. The wounds are gruesome. It is a sign. There’s no changing my mind now. That’s the end of my roller derby career.

It is now four years after Ernie died and thinking back over all that crazy roller derby business, I wonder about my fascination with roller skating. I lie awake at night and rationalise why Ernie ever bought me skates or lessons. Why he sat through weekends of roller rinks with noisy kids and music blaring. I’ve thrown myself all over a track and let other skaters trample the shit out of me. I’ve knocked women over and slammed them down as hard as I can. I’ve drowned myself in voluntary paperwork and raised thousands of dollars. And I just don’t know. Perhaps he cared for me. Or maybe he just wanted to get out of the house.

I think back to the Fathers Day just past. My very wonderful new boyfriend leaves me on the lounge with tissues, whiskey and a rerun of The Pursuit of Happyness. I didn’t feel up to visiting his folks for lunch that day. I watch the screen rather pathetically and ponder all my losses. Later that afternoon, my wonderful man returns unexpectedly with an arm full of flowers, expensive wine and a felafel kebab for my dinner. I stare at him with wonder. His light eyes smiling at me, all chuffed with himself. How on earth did I deserve such a beautiful man? I don’t know if derby was healing or not, but in amongst the pursuit of derbyness, and all those fun loving ego driven women, I somehow lost the attraction to bad men.

[* Not her real name. For all intents and purposes, she could well beat the shit out of me next time I go to watch a game.]