THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE WOMEN’S FLAT TRACK DERBY ASSOCIATION (WFTDA) ISSUE 14, WINTER 2011
fiveonfivemag.com
fiveonfive contents 34-35
4-5 advice
ask ms d’fiant and suzy hotrod!
WFTDA Rules Revisions Curious how the rules of our game are evolving? Beth Row provides insight into the WFTDA rules revision process.
6-8 business merch 101
10-15 health and fitness concussions heel pain
16-25 games and coaching
44-45
2011 WFTDA championships recap mental training I’m sorry, did I offend you?
Transgender Policies: My Story DC Rollergirl Lenore Gore shares her compelling journey to acceptance as a transgender rollergirl.
26-31 gear
36-37 junior derby derby at 15
Michael Todaro
quiz: should I upgrade my plates? boots wheels
46-47 Unsung Heroes: Referees
38-40 rookie
From skater to referee, Shantastic McAwesome explains how making the transition opened her eyes to the extraordinary talent and dedication it takes to be a great ref.
look what I did
Jules Doyle
50-51 international derby 56-62 art and media 63 classifieds 68 horoscopes
games and coaching
2011 championships J U S T I C E F E E L G O O D M A R S H A L L , D E R B Y N E W S N E T WO R K
It was another season of firsts for a young sport in Denver, Colorado, in November as the Denver Roller Dolls hosted the 2011 WFTDA Championships. For the first time, the WFTDA had a repeat champion as New York’s Gotham Girls repeated their undefeated season from 2008 to take the Hydra in a 140-97 victory over 2009 champs Oly. Unlike the 2010 Championships – which had been marked primarily by lopsided blowouts with the exception of the onepoint thriller of a final between champs Rocky Mountain and runner-up Oly – much of the excitement in the 2011 edition was in the journey to the final. Kansas City, in particular, seemed to be incapable of playing a non-thriller all weekend, trading the lead almost all game long in e ach of their four contests and nearly handing Oly an enormous upset in the semifinals. Last year’s also-ran Minnesota ejected favored Charm City
The game was tied at 119-119 with 3 minutes to play when a critical track cut to Rose City jammer White Flight left the floor open for KCRW’s Track Rat to score the game-winning points with a 14-0 – although on the next jam, Kelley Young gifted Rose City a chance at a last-jam comeback by calling a jam at 0-0 just before time expired, allowing Rose to call timeout with 6 seconds on the clock and the score 133-119 Kansas City. Rose City’s Scald Eagle won the final face-off 16-10, but it wasn’t enough for the game win, and Kansas City advanced with a 143-135 win. First-time Championships competitors Naptown (Indianapolis,
and gave Texas a run for their money, and Texas themselves hung with unstoppable Gotham for much longer than expected before Gotham took it over. Friday’s opening-round action featured two nailbiters and two blowouts. North Central 2 seed Minnesota got the weekend off to an exciting start in their game against East 3 seed Charm City; when the teams played in the 2010 Championships, Charm City steamrolled Minnesota 249-118, but this time Minnesota took advantage of Charm City penalty trouble and a very hot opening run to win 160-118. They led 94-42 at the break, but the second half almost seemed like two completely different games – Charm City erased all of Minnesota’s advantage with a 73-2 run that put Charm up 121-109 with 11 minutes to play, but Minnesota ended the game on a 51-0 run to take back the lead and eventually the victory. In the other close one of the day, South Central 2 seed Kansas City went up against the West’s 3 seed Rose City. Rose City had an exceptional weekend in September at their regional tournament and was projected by many to be he aded for a topfour finish in Denver, but Kansas City had other ideas. Led by eventual tournament MVP Kelley Young, Kansas City led for most of the first half and was up 46-19 after 20 minutes, but Rose City erased it all with back-to-back 14-0 jams to go up by a point with 6 minutes left in the first half. It was the third of 10 lead changes in the game.
luck to face the previous year’s WFTDA champions in the opening round. In 2010, they’d gone up against Oly and lost 214-53; this year, they pulled Rocky Mountain and lost by a similar score of 198-58. Friday’s results meant that all four quarterfinal matches on Saturday featured a regional champ going up against the 2 seed from a different region. Three of those matchups were very even. In the first, Minnesota looked like they might have another upset in them as they opened up an early 51-17 lead on South Central champs Texas, but Texas followed the double-barrel attack of Vicious Van Go Go (54 points) and Olivia Shootin’ John (48 points) to a comeback. Texas turned it around to lead 91-69 with about 20 minutes to play, but Minnesota answered and made the score 92-91 Minnesota with 10 minutes to play. Penalties severely hamstrung Minnesota in the final stretch, though, and Texas pulled away late to win 141-108. A highly anticipated clash between hometown Rocky Mountain and East top seed Gotham ended with a 53-point win for Gotham that didn’t reflect how close RMRG came to the win. Gotham’s margin of victory ended up being built entirely on powerjams, as Rocky Mountain had major problems dealing with Gotham’s strategy of slowing to a crawl without engaging any RMRG blockers. Rocky consistently ended up running out of play and sending a nonstop conga line of blockers to the box. Though Rocky Mountain was up 100-85 with about 20 minutes
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IN) didn’t have much luck in their matchup with perennial contenders Philly. The 2 seed from the East buried the 3 seed from the North Central 225-68 in the weekend’s biggest blowout and held Naptown to just 20 first-half points in the process. In the other blowout game, Nashville once again had the bad
Steven L. Price (Skippy Steve)
Jules Doyle
Jules Doyle
Jules Doyle Jules Doyle
Jules Doyle Jules Doyle Jules Doyle
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Jules Doyle
feature
blood, sweat and vomit R E D D . 2 R I OT, A N G E L C I T Y D E R B Y G I R L S
Bloody hand prints on the floor, knee pads blowing sparks due to the speed and force of landing... and the vomit... we can’t forget about the vomit. This is Angel City Derby Girls’ endurance night. Our tough-as-nails skaters aren’t born, they’re made... and thanks to Shiv, Go-Go Gidget and Ghetto Fabu-Lez, the women of Pretty City (Los Angeles) can live up to our name. The air on an endurance night is a little more electric than on regular practice nights. The dusty warehouse is packed to the gills with derby girls of all experience levels. The vets chillin’ like it ain’t no thang... and the newbies already peeing in their pants from the horror stories they’ve heard. “It is a rite of passage,” says Kristi Yamagotch, a jammer for ACDG’s A-team, the Hollywood Scarlets. “It’s a good bonding experience and obviously a great workout,” she says. What this sweet-as-pie former figure skater means is that for the first time, after officially becoming a member of our league, we get to kick the shit out of you... but in the nicest possible way and with smiles on our faces. And really it is true. Our training team, and ACDG as a whole, is a pretty positive and supportive group of gals. But churning out competitive derby girls is no easy task. “Tuesday endurance nights are legendary because they create legends,” says trainer and Scarlets’ Captain, Go-Go Gidget. “ACDG training believes that roller derby is just as much about athleticism and endurance as it is about strategy and game play. Tuesday nights give us a chance to whip our girls into swift, agile and strong players.”
And that they do. Our Tuesday nights start off with skills practice and end with heavy endurance. As for skills, we cover drills in jamming, blocking or footwork for instance. Backwards, forwards, sideways, sprinting, stopping, jumping... and don’t forget about high knees, grapevine, toe stop leaping and relays. Scarlets’ star jammer and trainer, Ghetto, takes the lead here, “I come from a hockey background, so I often take drills from my past that can cross-over to help improve our skaters’ footwork,” she explains. And we learn from the best. Ghetto effortlessly moves across the floor... high tailin’ it with such dexterity and ease that it looks like she came outta the womb with skates on. After the skills portion of the evening is completed, most everyone feels pretty good. It’s all fun and games until the endurance portion. Wide smiles quickly drip off our faces as the burn of these drills sap us of every ounce of fortitude we have. This is where Shiv, Scarlets’ Co-Captain and star pivot, steps up to the plate. Never have you met a woman so positive, supportive and completely willing to turn you into a limp fish dying in a puddle of your own _______. (You pick the fluid ‘cuz surely it has hit the warehouse floor on endurance night.) Yick. “Shiv LIKES endurance,” says Ghetto with a grin. And boy, is she right! Shiv has been an athlete all her life... loves fitness so much that she just goes on three-mile-runs during her lunch break... just ‘cuz. She and Go-Go, who by the way is the creator of the one-andonly Roller Derby Workout DVD, come up with their choices of
“Repetition and positivity. Those are the keys to training our skaters. It is hard work, but it will help them on the track.”
Janette “Rocksteady Betty” Sotelo
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photos by Janette “Rocksteady Betty” Sotelo
torture for the evening and then Shiv kindly lays out the instructions and participates in the drills with us. We all push ourselves to our breaking point, if not to become better skaters, then to at least not let Shiv down. A disappointed glance from her is like watching a baby seal get pummeled. It feels awful. And not because she’ll yell at you, but because she (and, hence, you) know you can do and be better. “Repetition and positivity,” says Shiv. “Those are the keys to training our skaters. It is hard work, but it will help them on the track. The women who come to endurance night show a direct improvement during game time.” “Endurance night IS what makes you a great roller derby player,” says Rachel Rotten, Captain of ACDG’s Rocket Queens and a Scarlets’ charter player. “It pushes you past your own perceived limits, and forces you to really dig out strength you didn’t know you had. On my first night, I lost it. My body crumpled under me. My legs wouldn’t hold me up. My arms shook uncontrollably and I lost my nerve.” But the more you come, the better you get... and Rotten is a perfect example of this. She powers through practice and makes it look easy. Bear crawls, sprawls and falls, jammer hell, queen of the track, star jumps, situations, burpies, get-ups... the list goes on and on. After just a few minutes of the endurance portion of the evening, hearts are racing, sweat is dripping and the weaker skaters fall a bit to the side and watch in awe as the vets finish their drills, as if they were ravenous for it. “These girls grip the inside of the track and push the rest to the outside. I have been hopped over, one leg scooted and mohawked more times than I’d like to count. Their beauty and fierceness on the track is unmatched,” says Marcella “Hooks” Silva, a fresh meat 2 skater. “I may not be the best at these drills yet, but I am becoming a better, stronger skater.” “These muscles won’t build themselves,” says Duchess Von Damn, Scarlets’ infamous hitter. And while this is obviously the truth, many shrink from the challenges of the evening. With quotes like: “I literally couldn’t feel my limbs,” “I swear, after she hit me, I honestly lost minutes of my life,” and “As vomit was tickling my
tonsils, I heard the worst noise... like a donkey braying, and it was coming from me! I was hyperventilating.” (Good one, huh?) But really for those of us with even the slightest inkling of selfpreservation, it is understandable that some would find this practice a bit masochistic or at least un-enjoyable. But the gains outweigh the pains! “I feel bad for the girls that have to leave the track to vomit,” says Shiv. “Barfing is the worst. But I am always super stoked when they come right back out and keep going. It does get easier.” One of Shiv’s best lines is, “It will never be this hard again,” but some of us beg to differ. “Every endurance night, I swear, I have been the most physical I have ever been in my life... then the next endurance night rolls around and I have been the most physical I have ever been in my life,” says Janette “Rocksteady Betty” Sotelo, a fresh meat 2 skater. “I threw up three times in one practice, the next week I cried and thought I was going to pass out,” says Sergeant Bomber, Rocket Queens blocker. “But at least I know that I am not pussyfootin’ around. I am accomplishing my goals and proving to myself that I belong on that track playing the sport that I love.” And man, we do love it. I can’t think of a single thing that could make me do the things I do on a Tuesday night other than roller derby. “Oh, Grandma’s dying? Yeah, she was getting old. I’ll just stay here on the couch eating cheese.” Ha! So, while it is one of the toughest nights of our week, ACDG embraces endurance nights for the sheer advantages it gives our players: the mental toughness, the strength, the agility and perseverance, not to mention the highly under-rated ability to swallow the vomit that has made its way into your mouth. It’s also sorta fun to go to work and explain the stigmata on our palms from the endless bear crawls, but I digress. So come one, come all... join the many Angel City Derby Girls, and other league players, who flock to our Tuesday night practices like Shiv was the Messiah. You might wish you skipped it while you’re in the thick of it, but you will certainly leave proud of yourself and grateful you came!
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