Eastbourne Extreme

Today was an early start as the Wenches were off to Eastbourne to represent themselves, as part of Eastbourne Extreme were we were to help further interest in Roller Derby by taking part in a exhibition bout along with other teams from the area including “Brighton Rockers” and “Bristol Harbour Harlots”, aswell as skaters from "Eastbourne Roller Dolls" and while the original intention might have been to compete against each other for bragging rights, but thanks to a variety of circumstances in the lead up, the day ended up being quickly adapted with the skaters representing the various teams forming two mixed teams. Meanwhile I was taking up NSO duties as bout timer, which would not only place me in prime position for observing ref’s in play, but also allowing me to take full opportunity to pick up any advice that I could from the more experienced ref’s which today included “Reckless Rowley” who might be a familiar face to anyone who has seen the Helsinki ref’s guide to hand signals and again he proved highly knowledgeable on all things Derby, while also providing a great demonstration in pack refing.

Although I’d never NSO’d before I was keen to try and as bout timer, I was responsible for timing both the bout, which for this bout was to be split into two 15 minute periods, in a slight change to the usual 30 minute periods, seeing how the main focus of today had been switched from competion to promotion for the sport, which despite my own belief that the popularity of the sport is on the rise, there are still a lot of people who have never heard of the sport and Eastbourne Extreme in many ways provided the perfect platform to not only promote the sport of “Roller Derby”, which is something that was certainly achieved, despite my initial concerns that being at the far end of the festival, would have reduced our audience potential, but come bout time we soon found that we had attracted a decent sized crowd, while by time we had run through the first period plans were already being made with the Event staff to build on what we had established today.

The first of the two bouts today, was held inside at a local sports centre with only the minimum of spectators seeing how it was more for warm up purposes, than anything else but when there is a chance to get an extra bout into the day I was hardly going to complain, while also giving me chance to get the majority of my mistakes out of the way, to help further my own personal illusion of professionalism by the afternoon bout. Still I have always maintained that the best way of learning is via trying and making mistakes; as by making these mistakes it helps highlight the areas which you need to work on to stop you making the same mistakes again. Still it was during this first bout that R.I.P McMurphy added to her reputation by taking out one of the Harbour Harlots’s skaters, which certainly got her marked for the remainder of the day, with members of the opposite team frequently advising their skaters to watch out for her and despite her attempts to downplay it, I know that she got a decent kick out of having what was no doubt one of the hits of the day.

The second bout of the day was to take place outside due to the festival location which would be a departure from the more traditional floors of sports halls being replaced with the less forgiving concrete, which having spent the early part of my Derby career training on concrete I know all to well how little fun it is to slam on it. Still the change in normal skating conditions didn’t stop the skaters from putting on a great exhibition bout, with the weather brightening up enough to dry out the track, after initial concerns of the second bout being called off especially with the weather frequently threatening rain throughout the day, which thankfully stayed off long enough to hold the bout before it poured down.

In all it was defiantly a great day of Derby action and it even without anyone watching I doubt that it would have made it any less fun, while credit is definitely due to “Cherry Pileup” for putting together such a great day, despite the numerous factors which threatened to throw the day off, yet she didn’t allow it to faze her while maximising the use of the ref’s, NSO’s and Skaters she had. I also have to give credit to the Wenches for once again representing themselves as a team to watch, even if we also might have lost a few wenches in the lead up due to Injuries and other random circumstances, but once again they did us all proud.

Thanks to Portsmouth Roller Wenchographer Samantha for the photos

The Wench Awards 2011

Recently the Roller Wenches celebrated their first anniversary, which also came as a time for reflection as well as celebration, for it's only on this first birthday that we as a team realized just how far they had come, from a team which started with a handful of skaters with dreams of making their mark in the Derby community, to now being a bout ready league complete with a dedicated Zebra Squad, which I'm proud to call myself a member of as well as running fresh meat sessions to find more like minded ladies to join the Wenchy revolution and which has already started producing skaters more than capable of skating with the more established wenches. To further mark the occasion I was given the honor of hosting and tallying votes for the first ever "Wench Awards"!

After much voting amongst the wenches on the awards to be featured, which in turn created some controversy amongst some of the wenches, especially when it came to categories such as "The WILF Award" aka: Wench I'd Like to F**K. Still despite this I stood by my choice to go with the categories which got the most votes, with so many ideas for awards, had I not narrowed it down, it would have ended up with "The Wench Awards" having more darn categories than the Grammies.

So allow me to now proudly present the nominees and winners of the first ever Wench Awards

Best Afterparty Performance

• Crash Bang Trollop
• Mary Slagalene
• Brookslide
• wench's do "lies" by fleetwood mac

Walking Wounded (Best Injury)

• Brookslide
• Cherry Massacre
• Hanoffee Pie
• Little Lethal
• Crash Bang Trollop

Best Wench Couple

• Harold Bashup & Crash Bang Trollop
• Leah & The Dutchess of Crutches
• Little Lethal and Mary Slagalene

WILF Award

• Crash Bang Trollop
• Brookslide
• R.I.P McMurphy
• Moscow Cruel

Best Boutfits

• Halcyon Daze
• The Dutchess of Crutches
• Harold Bashup
• R.I.P McMurphy
• Smack Torque
• Mary Slagalene

Best Pants

• The Dutchess of Crutches
• Smack Tourque

Biggest Contributer Off Track

• Steve Dirty Pantz
• Harold Bashup
• Crash Bang Trollop
• Moscow Cruel

Best Ref

• Rudyard Crippling
• Chris
• Jostling Joyce

Best Coach

• Crash Bang Trollop
• Harold Bashup
• The Dutchess of Crutches
• Lunatic Lolly

Most Committed Wench

• Halcyon Daze
• Harold Bashup
• R.I.P McMurphy
• The Dutchess of Crutches
• Moscow Cruel
• Tily

Best Improved

• Hel On
• Smack Tourque
• Suzie
• Brookslide
• Harold Bashup

Best Jammer

• Brookslide
• Halcyon Daze
• The Dutchess of Crutches
• Helen

Best Blocker

• Moscow Cruel
• Smack Tourque
• R.I.P McMurphy
• Brookslide

One To Watch / Rookie of The Year

• Julie
• Tily
• Charley Ray
• Halcyon Daze
• Lou'd Behavior

MVP

• Slam Boleyn
• The Dutchess of Crutches
• R.I.P McMurphy
• Halcyon Daze

The added bonus for the winner of "MVP" is that the winner also becomes the face of our first bout poster, an although all of the nominees would be worthy of winning this award it was an honor this year bestowed on our head coach "The Dutchess of Crutches", who over the course of the year has carved out a fearsome rep not only with the wenches for her coaching and on track skills, but also in the appearances she has made at mixed bouts since passing her skills test and it's a well deserved win for the Dutchess.

Once again I offer my congratulations to all the winners and everyone who was nominated.

Albums To Train With

One of the toughest things I've found since I started training, is motivating myself to do extra training outside of the scheduled training sessions. Currently I go to training on sundays and if my work schedule is particularly good, I try to make our tuesday "Fresh Meat" sessions, which I enjoy as it tends to focus on the basics of skating rather than the contact side, which is an area I certainly need to improve, if I'm ever going to get through the Ref Level 2 skating exam. The other training session we hold each week is our main wenches practice on friday, which like sundays tends to be more focused for myself and the other members of the "Zebra Squad" on creating our own drills and combining them in anyway we can with whatever main drills are being run.

Still when your skating solo it can be particularly hard to get into the right mindset and it's a problem, that has come up frequently in conversations I've had over the last couple of weeks with many of the fresh meat, with many struggling to get into the right mindset for training, often allowing themselves to get psyched out by the more established skaters, while the other main problem being that it's just hard to get out there and run drills by yourself, which as anyone who has been in this sport awhile will tell you is certainly key to getting better. Now I'm not going to bullshit you and claim that I'm any diffrent in fact I frequently find myself, fighting the urge to see how many episodes of "CSI: NY" I can get through rather than push myself to strap on my skates and get some darn training done, knowing full well that I'll feel all the better for it. My main technique for motivating myself is largely down to having certain albums on standby, which help get me more into a training mind frame. So for anyone struggling for some training music here are some of my current top picks for training.

Album: Spend The Night
Artist: The Donna
Key Track: Who Invited You
Why?: Sure thier bass player Maya Ford is amazingly hot, but there is more to this pick than that, seeing how it is also one of my favourite albums, with the songs on this album having an element of fun, rather than trying to make any kind of statement like so many bands feel the need to do these days. Still for one reason or another "The Donnas" have never really broke the UK, despite remaining steadily popular stateside, which is something I've never been able to explain as they have so many fun and upbeat tunes, but then this country for some reason still considers junkie wasters like Pete Doherty as being who we should be listening to. Still never being one to just listen to just whatever NME or Q magazine tell me I should be, I’ve remained a big fan of this band and got my first introduction to them through this album and was instantly hooked, from the opening rifts.

Album: Sounds of Science
Artist: Beastie Boys
Key Track: Sure Shot
Why?: The Beastie Boys were one of the first bands I got into and this album providing a great overview of their career, taking in not only the hits, but an assortment of b-sides and rarities, showcasing their range of styles from old school hip hop (Shake Your Rump) to rock instrumentals (Gratitude) and even the occasional dip into punk rock (Egg Raid on Mojo). I tend to pick and mix from the two cd’s worth of material on offer here, but something to suit most skating moods, even if several of their earlier tracks such as “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” and “Fight For Your Right To Party” have been noticeable omitted from the collection.

Album: Start Something
Artist: Lost Prophets
Key Track: Make A Move
Why?: I’m not a huge fan of this band, but this is still a pretty solid album with all the tracks mixed from one to the other, which makes them sound a bit weird when you try to separate the tracks for playlists, but when played together sound great with the band still managing to create enough of difference between tracks to help them stand on their own, including the “Incubus” inspired “I Don’t Know”.

Album: Body Count
Artist: Body Count
Key Track: Body Count’s In The House
Why?: Another album to help you get your Derby head on and one that I like to dig out when I’m on my way to training, just because it helps me get pretty amped up for a hard training session or generally keeping unruly wenches in line. Originally titled “Cop Killer”, this album along with the release of N.W.A’s “ Straight Outta of Compton”, helped Ice-T and Co. upset countless parents when they were first released, even though they seem pretty timid in comparison to most modern Rap albums, despite still containing enough F’ing and blinding to still shock the more innocent of listeners, aswell as some great riffs even if the subject matter can get overly samey at times, but even Ice-T openly admitted that the album was more about raw anger with the band also paving the way for the likes of “Rage Against the Machine” and “Limp Bizkit”.

Album: Smash
Artist: The Offspring
Key Track: Come Out and Play
Why?: Once upon a time “The Offspring” were a pretty decent pop punk group, frequently being compared to “Green Day”, who like this band would also sell out for the big bucks of a mainstream label, with their much being more progressively mainstream with each release. Arguably their best album, though I’ve always been hard pressed to choose between this album and it’s follow up “Ixnay on the Hombre”. Still while I might have resisted the urge to list a bunch of Punk rock albums on this entry, while also wanting to avoid the cliché opinion that Punk is pretty much the backbone of this sport and that everything must in someway be related to that particular genre which, might have been true in the beginning but the sport like the image has certainly moved on since those early days.
“Smash” is a great mixture of fast paced tracks and more down tempo stuff, while also containing several personal anthems for myself like “Bad Habit” and “Genocide”, which pretty much part of the late 90’s soundtrack for myself, with this bad certainly playing a big part in the evolution of my musical tastes at the point of my life and it’s this album which not only helps bring back that rebellious spirit, but also help remind of what this band once were.

So theres five of my top picks, but what does everyone else train to?

What's In A Name?

One of the early defining moments of your Derby Career has to be that joyous moment when you see for the first time, your chosen Derby alter ego on the official name list (as you can see from the crappy photoshop image above), which recently I had the pleasure of happening to me, as “Rudyard Crippling” is now officially registered and all my own to merchandise the hell out of, should I feel the urge to. Still it’s good to know that it’s all official and that I won’t have the ever present risk that my chosen Derby name snatched away from me by some equally witty person, who happened to submit their name registration before me.

Derby names are within the community one of the most important parts of the sport, outside of general skating ability and toughness, for these names form the basis of the characters we choose to play and it’s these characters which add to the colour and general fun of the sport, while helping us to escape yet further still from the hum drum of our work day week, which if your working week is anything like my own, will generally consist of listening to people complain about minor issues while generally trying to get through the working day as quickly as possible. Unsurprisingly the idea of getting to escape this necessary daily grind and play around as your warped alter ego, who when it comes to my own Derby ego is still a work in progress, but at least with my name being made official it at least means that I can now start to build a character, rather than create one and have to start completely from scratch when the name gets rejected.

Meanwhile with the team edging only closer to fielding our first official team and my confidence as a ref growing, I decided this week to update my Facebook profile to reflect my Derby alter ego, especially with so much of my Derby communications happening on there, not only with my own team but also with other teams and refs as well.

The original plan had been to have “Rudyard Crippling” in quotation marks between my first and last name, but alas for all the money which Facebook makes on a daily basis, it can’t for some reason handle this request. What is more frustrating about this situation is that some of the wenches have been able to get their name set out like this, which according to “Smack Torque” is down to harassing the admins, who are nigh impossible to contact, though honestly I would have thought that it would be easier to have the site accept quotation marks, than having to justify my reasons to the admins, for what is essentially a straightforward and simple request, still despite the fact the site makes millions of dollars a day and has had it's film legacy secured by the uber amazing David Fincher, I must continue to battle out my name rights with them.

So for now I'm not going to grumble but instead work on merchandising myself like a Mutha Trucker!

A Quick Update

Team Photo taken for Portsmouth News 15.01.11

So since the last post on here was almost two months ago I thought it was way due an update on here, even more so when the team continues to go from strength to strength, to the point were we have been forced to setup a waiting list for potential new skaters, with the interest in the team only growing since the team got featured in two local papers, with “R.I.P McMurphy” even becoming our first featured cover girl (or should be Cover wench?) for "The Daily Echo". Needless to say it was an interesting conversation trying to explain what derby was to my Grandparents, much less my Granny Mac referring to me by my derby name, after I sent them copies of the articles.

R.I.P McMurphy - The Southern Echo 15.01.11

Still while we might have a girls queuing up around the block to earn their place, sadly the same cannot be said for our hunt for Referee’s which so far has only attracted a couple of people, which in a way I can understand, especially as being a ref might not seem like the most exciting role to play seeing how you have the dusty tome, which is the rules of Roller Derby to memorise while the derby gals are having all that fun, skating hard and knocking lumps out of each other, but I’ve been honestly surprised by how much fun being a Ref is, especially seeing how fast paced this sport is, just calling penalties and looking out for misplays is strangely exhilarating and with stripes being so sliming what is there not to like about the role?

As part of my on going training regime for the role, I have frequently found myself sponging whatever tips and info I can off the ref’s from other more established teams, especially seeing how I’m the first ref this team had, so lacking in any form of senior ref to learn from, which only makes it all the more amusing when I have my fellow ref’s advising me to speak to the team’s Head ref, which via the process of elimination would mean that person is….err well me and seeing how talking to myself didn’t seem overly constructive, I have spent most of these last few months, no doubt bugging the hell out of any ref, willing to field my numerous questions. One person in particular I can credit as being a big help would be “Scoot’her” who is currently a ref with the “Brighton Rockers” and who was also nice to come and run a training session with the team, which was not only great in terms of giving us new drills to try, but also helped re-inspire my Derby Ref dream by helping me to refocus my efforts and to also show me a standard to aim for, which honestly really helps especially with not having a more senior ref in our league.

Outside of training it’s safe to say that my attempts to complete “The Roller Derby Challenge” failed miserably, thanks to various events which meant that I not only fell behind, but was left completely unmotivated in terms of running drills or anything else concerning the challenge, but I guess there will always be next year. Still in the meantime I’m still skating hard, even though I’m finding now that my gear is holding me back, in particular my skates, which are currently still the same Roller Derby M1 Vipers I started with, which I know a lot of skaters frown on and generally write off as being crap, but they have been good skates to learn with but now I generally find myself needing the next level of skate, so hence the reason I'm currently working stupid amounts of overtime in the forth circle of hell, better known as my day job (who contractally can't be named), trying to scrape the extra cash together to get myself a pair of Riedell’s, which would ideally be my next skates and which currently continue to elude me, thanks to bills mysteriously appearing as soon as I get close to the funds I need, so looks like I’m gonna be with my current skates for abit longer, unless some nice person at Riedell’s decides to send me a pair (hint hint).

Still with so many of the team getting close to passing minimum skills and hence allowing us to field our first team in the derby leagues, I’m only working harder to cram these rules and learn the various hand signals and whistles, so here’s hoping that it all eventually slots into place, otherwise I guess their might be more than a few confused folks, wondering what sort of confused version of the YMCA I appear to attempting on skates, which while no doubt amusing as hell, really isn’t constructive in terms of reffing.

The Roller Derby Workout Challange Begins

So the holiday season has been and gone and what would normally be a season spent in a food induced coma, while attempting to get the blood alcohol level up to the point were you sweat wine, was sadly not to be this year thanks to catching a darn cold, leaving me feeling half dead and totally drained most of the time, which honestly isn’t the most fun way to spend the holidays. Hopefully you guys had a better time of things than me while the Derby world continues to beckon as the Roller Wenches enter a new year, with the goal of getting basic skills passed, so that we can finally get out there and start making a name for this team and carving out our own derby legacy and it’s clear already that in the months since the team formed, who the core team members are and the ones who really want this, especially with several of the team including myself signing up for, what could be seen as the derby version of a post holiday detox, known simply as the “Roller Derby Workout Challenge”.

The challenge is essentially an intense (read insane) eight week program combining both exercise routines and meal plans, designed specifically for Roller Derby skaters, with the intention of taking your regular training routine to the next level. This is also the kind of program which really tests were your breaking point is and forces you to push on through and this is just the feeling I’ve got just from reading through the exercise and meal plans…it’s safe to say this is going to be a tough eight weeks.

Why am I subjecting myself to this? Well partly it was being spurned on by several of the wenches taking part, which knowing other people going through the same thing, tends to make these things easier as you can spurn each other on, to go the whole distance rather than just giving up around week two. The other main reason is just down to the desire to get better at my chosen sport; despite currently training as a ref at the moment, I still feel that same desire to push myself to get better and plus it’s a whole lot more fun than just joining a gym.

So over the coming weeks I will be posting how the challenge is going, if only as a further inspiration to keep going, especially when things get tougher, as we move into the later weeks of the challenge (joy), but then I guess this why it’s a challenge, rather than a giveaway.

As part of this challenge I will be also be required to complete Homework assignments, the first of which I have completed below.

1) What do you think will be the hardest nutrition guideline for you to follow?

No doubt reworking my meal plans, so that it’s more centred around certain foods rather than set meals.

2) We want you to think before you eat, do you think before you shop?? Name three derby owned businesses.

Blood and Thunder Magazine, Wicked Skatewear and Derby Vixen who is truly the queen of custom toe guards.....do any of those count??

3) What is one thing that you have in your fridge or pantry that you thought was healthy but may now be rethinking?

Noodles though honestly it’s probably for the best, seeing how my attempts to use them in stir-fry in the past, have usually ended badly, as a greasy cold mess…yummy.
Honestly though I not sure how the meal plans will play out, seeing how I currently have around £20 a week for food, so will do my best to stick to them or at least rework my existing meals to be more inline, with what I should be eating, so if any part of the challenge which I’m going to fail I think this will be the part I do. Still surely it’s better to make some kind of change to what your eating rather than no change?

4) Do you know your league history? Who founded your league and in what year?

The “Portsmouth Roller Wenches” were formed in June 2010, by Laura “Luna Lolly” Burrell (though don’t quote me on her being the founder). The team inspiring the short lived men’s team “The Scurvy Dogs” who also came together that same month, though despite the best intentions, fall apart in September due to lack of interest. I signed up with the Roller Wenches as their first ref (in training) around late October with Michelle AKA “IC Hell” also signing up for ref duties shortly afterwards. The team now roll onwards with their training with the intention of getting the team to bouting standard.

5) How did you come up with your derby name?

“Rudyard Crippling” was the result of much scrawling down a huge list of names and then being forced to eliminate 99% of them, due to someone else already having claimed them. It ended up being almost by accident that I stumbled across the name, having picked up a copy of “The Jungle Book” and suddenly realising that “Kippling”, sounded a lot like Crippling and hence the name was born.

6) Attach a photo to your note that conveys how you feel going into this challenge. It can be of you, or of an object, or something you find on the web.

When ever I think of this challange I keep thinking of Rocky style montages.......so on a similar tact here's "Montage" from "Team America World Police"

So that's the easy part done, now onto the not so easy part, which will not only be sticking to the exercise plan, but doing it every day which seeing how I'm having to give up caffinee as part of this challange, it's gonna be real intresting to see how this goes.

The Hunt For Stripes Begins

So Portsmouth is still in the grip of a blizzard, giving the more work shy yet another reason to skive off work and were my own work place is concerned only adding to my daily personal hell I call the working week, listening to moronic customers complaining about their TV not working, or the fact that they have no broadband, which in the grand scheme of things really isn’t overly that important. Still it's not that you could tell this from the stream of expletives that I usually find myself on the receiving end of on a daily basis, but then I’m sure you could take any group of people involved in this sport and they would be able to regale you with their own similar tales of their daily mundane work lives, but then this is what makes Derby such a great sport, for no matter how crappy a week you have had, you can pretty much guarantee that by the end of a good derby training session you will be feeling a whole lot better, but then again this is no doubt the reasons that so many players refer to it as being their “Therapy”.

The other downside to this sodding snow is how like the rain, it prevents any additional training being done, making the Sunday training sessions only all the more important especially when it’s still such a daunting list of basic skills that are still to be mastered, with this almost obsessional need to cram in further training, leading to me spending the morning running around the garden attacking the snow with my wife’s hairdryer while shouting “Die you bastard snow!”.

Sunday's training session marked the final training session of this years derby season, which was made a little more special than usual, with the local paper showing up to do another article on the team, which i'm sure once it gets published I will get transcribed onto here for anyone who is intrested, especially as I’m real curious to know what they think about not only the team, but the sport on a whole, for although it is steadily becoming more recognised as a sport, rather than it's misguided public idea, of it basically being an excuse for folks to strap on a pair of quads and beat the snot out of each other, an image which is changing along with public opinion, especially as derby continues to grow and evolve with each passing year, though I do wonder if the sport will ever become mainstream, especially when it was such mainstreaming which lead to the decline of the sport in the first place and it’s truly the punk DIY aspect of the sport, which continues to help the sport grow, rather than sponsorship deals and fake celebrity status’s overshadowing proceedings.

Meanwhile as I continue in my attempts to learn the rules, which is getting there slowly, while occasionally throwing out fun interesting facts, in particular this rule.

9.4.2 Referees must be uniformed in a manner that makes them easily identifiable as the officials for the bout, e.g. a black and white striped shirt.

So according to this rule, it means that the ref pack can wear pretty much what they want, as long as they are all wearing the same thing to indentify their position, despite this fact the majority of ref’s tend to favour the traditional zebra stripes, rather than something slightly more erm….shall we say exotic, which this ruling leaves pretty open to personal interpretation. These traditional stripes not only make it a lot easier to keep a uniformed pack, especially when importing ref’s from other teams to cover the bouts, which is certainly something that we may end up having to do, when the team does become bout ready. In the meantime before I get too far ahead of myself, I still have to pass not only minimum skills, but also a ref exam as well which is reallyall the more daunting, especially when I look at the sheer amount of revision I still have ahead of me, which is something I wasn’t expecting to become such an epic task, much like finding my own set of strips, for as tempting as the Ann Summers outfit that Michelle had recommended, I really didn’t think I could pull it off, which I sure was a cause of much mass relief for the wenches and anyone potentially considering attending any of our future bouts.

Still it would seem that finding a set of ref stripes here in the UK is far from the easiest thing, with the usual sources like “Amazon” and “Ebay”, all drawing a frustrating blank, so now it currently looks like I will be having to import my shirts, despite some unique ideas from “Zebra Huddle”, which again only highlights how DIY the derby community can be, with stories of finding discarded “Foot Locker” uniforms to one ref spray painting his own stripes, achieving an effect described a “Distressed”, though short of mugging “Foot Locker” employees I think that importing shirts will still be my best option, though seeing how the majority of stores will also do the back plate I can also see it saving on another big headache when it came to sorting that out, much like trying to find skates for my darn hobbit feet, but then no one said this was going to be easy.