Wednesday, December 28, 2011
AHHH
Recruitment is only five days away. Why am I so nervous? I've been through this once before. I know what's going to happen, and I know most of the people. Yet, I'm still nervous as fuck. What if I still suck? What if I stop improving early on? What if I improve but still never reach the level I need to? Will my right ankle always hurt like a son of a bitch after skating? Will my endurance ever improve? ;alsdkfja;lsdjf
Thursday, December 8, 2011
December Goal
My goal for December is to work on my skate form/posture. I'm doing some off-skates stuff on the weekdays and finally am getting back up on skates on the weekends. Shae helped me out a lot more than she realized this past weekend, I think. When sticky skating, I was always told to push hard on the turns and that the movement is like a half-moon. I started doing that and was going faster than I did at the beginning, but then Shae called it "scooter pushes" this weekend. It's amazing how something as simple as a change in terms can make it 100% more clear. A few laps around and I started pushing like I was riding a scooter... I've already seen a definite increase in speed. Am I where I need to be? I have no clue. Probably not. But I'm getting there!
I'm also bending my knees more when I'm skating. I can feel the difference when I do it. It's easier to get and maintain speed. It's still an area where I'm not 100%, but even 20% is better than before.
Next recruitment: 3 weeks, 4 days.
I'm also bending my knees more when I'm skating. I can feel the difference when I do it. It's easier to get and maintain speed. It's still an area where I'm not 100%, but even 20% is better than before.
Next recruitment: 3 weeks, 4 days.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Women's Sports
I follow a freaking ton of roller derby blogs, both here (stalking many of you courtesy of Google Reader) and on Tumblr. The big thing controversy today is over some douchebag writing an article for a little PoS local newspaper about how roller derby isn't a sport. I won't link it here just because many of those people are paid specifically to create controversy and make money for each page view. I won't give that douchebag the pleasure of any additional clicks from the two people who actually read this.
The thing is though - he's not the first and probably not the last to say that roller derby isn't a sport. The prime arguments that these people have are the fake names and the outfits. The names I'm not going to get into right now. The outfits however... Yes, sometimes the outfits can be a little outrageous. This seems to be primarily during certain themed bouts where leagues go out of their way to create an amusing spectacle to draw in the crowds, bringing attention not just to the league but to the charity they support. Usually, however, the women of roller derby wear a short-sleeved shirt or tank top with their team's name on it, some short shorts that allow comfort while keeping the body cool, tights to minimize rink rash, and, of course, their safety gear. What's wrong with that?
In my opinion, the problem is deeper than just what derby girls wear. It's the fact that a sport dominated by women does not garner respect in our society. Think about it - when was the last time you remember anyone talking about women's soccer/football? What about women's basketball? Tennis? Rugby? Cheerleading? (And when I say "cheerleading", I mean the actual sport of cheerleading generally popular in high school and college, not the women who wave their pom-poms during professional football games.) Gymnastics? Luge? Bowling? Golf? Out of all of those, the only sports I can remember anyone talking about are tennis and women's golf, and I suspect the latter is because I live an hour or two away from the LPGA headquarters.
Many of the sports listed get more respect than roller derby, but it's certainly not because of their outfits though. Cheerleading is a sport known for being sexualized with it's tiny skirts and belly shirts. Female tennis players wear cute little skirts rather than the seemingly more practical shorts, but no one gives them shit for that. Hell, when you do hear about female tennis players, it's usually about how hot Anna Kournikova or some other cute little blond girl is more than their amazing skills. Gymnasts often escape the sexualization despite wearing less than derby girls, though this might have more to do with the average ages of gymnasts being between 13 and 17.
If you play one of the other sports, the ones where women wear comfortable, practical clothing, you're often called "a lesbian", as if this is an insult and as if the sport you play and the clothes you wear are what define your sexual orientation and not, you know, being sexually attracted to people of the same sex. I heard this enough back when I played softball, that people don't want to come out and "watch a bunch of lesbians play softball because they're not good enough to play baseball," while the all-male school baseball team enjoyed fairly large crowds and a field that's both well-lit at night and close to both the school building and parking. Never mind that our varsity softball team often took the state championship while the baseball team was just okay. We were women viewed as trying too hard to be "manly" and therefore not to be taken seriously. You just can't win.
In summary: nothing we can do will make people like this view us with respect, not because it's roller derby but because we lack penises. We can rant and rail at this guy, but it's probably not going to do anything but make him more popular with his boss. Or we can save up the rage for our next bout and skate it out.
(BTW, I'd love someone in his local league to invite him to skate with them for a week or so. Just pop him in with a brand new fresh meat class so he can learn all the falls and whatnot, then start running some endurance drills before he leaves. Let's see how he feels about our non-sport after that.)
The thing is though - he's not the first and probably not the last to say that roller derby isn't a sport. The prime arguments that these people have are the fake names and the outfits. The names I'm not going to get into right now. The outfits however... Yes, sometimes the outfits can be a little outrageous. This seems to be primarily during certain themed bouts where leagues go out of their way to create an amusing spectacle to draw in the crowds, bringing attention not just to the league but to the charity they support. Usually, however, the women of roller derby wear a short-sleeved shirt or tank top with their team's name on it, some short shorts that allow comfort while keeping the body cool, tights to minimize rink rash, and, of course, their safety gear. What's wrong with that?
In my opinion, the problem is deeper than just what derby girls wear. It's the fact that a sport dominated by women does not garner respect in our society. Think about it - when was the last time you remember anyone talking about women's soccer/football? What about women's basketball? Tennis? Rugby? Cheerleading? (And when I say "cheerleading", I mean the actual sport of cheerleading generally popular in high school and college, not the women who wave their pom-poms during professional football games.) Gymnastics? Luge? Bowling? Golf? Out of all of those, the only sports I can remember anyone talking about are tennis and women's golf, and I suspect the latter is because I live an hour or two away from the LPGA headquarters.
Many of the sports listed get more respect than roller derby, but it's certainly not because of their outfits though. Cheerleading is a sport known for being sexualized with it's tiny skirts and belly shirts. Female tennis players wear cute little skirts rather than the seemingly more practical shorts, but no one gives them shit for that. Hell, when you do hear about female tennis players, it's usually about how hot Anna Kournikova or some other cute little blond girl is more than their amazing skills. Gymnasts often escape the sexualization despite wearing less than derby girls, though this might have more to do with the average ages of gymnasts being between 13 and 17.
If you play one of the other sports, the ones where women wear comfortable, practical clothing, you're often called "a lesbian", as if this is an insult and as if the sport you play and the clothes you wear are what define your sexual orientation and not, you know, being sexually attracted to people of the same sex. I heard this enough back when I played softball, that people don't want to come out and "watch a bunch of lesbians play softball because they're not good enough to play baseball," while the all-male school baseball team enjoyed fairly large crowds and a field that's both well-lit at night and close to both the school building and parking. Never mind that our varsity softball team often took the state championship while the baseball team was just okay. We were women viewed as trying too hard to be "manly" and therefore not to be taken seriously. You just can't win.
In summary: nothing we can do will make people like this view us with respect, not because it's roller derby but because we lack penises. We can rant and rail at this guy, but it's probably not going to do anything but make him more popular with his boss. Or we can save up the rage for our next bout and skate it out.
(BTW, I'd love someone in his local league to invite him to skate with them for a week or so. Just pop him in with a brand new fresh meat class so he can learn all the falls and whatnot, then start running some endurance drills before he leaves. Let's see how he feels about our non-sport after that.)
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