Oliver Wood: Scared, Harry?
Harry: A little.
Oliver: That's alright. I felt the same way before my first game.
Harry: What happened?
Oliver: I, uh, I don't really remember. I took a bludger to the head two minutes in. Woke up in hospital a week later.
~Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, just before Harry's first Quidditch game
This kept popping into my head in the weeks leading up to my first bout. I didn't wake up in the hospital though, thankfully. Ha ha.
A lot has happened since my last post about passing assessments. To sum it up, I don't think I missed a single practice from that day until our March 30th Shamrock 'N Roller Derby invitational, as I was doing my best to prepare for my first real game. This was a double header, first a fresh meat bout and then a vet bout, and our URGE skaters were mixed in with girls from various other teams. Some of them traveled hundreds of miles to skate with us. It was an exciting day, especially for me, Psycho Sis, and Lilli Smack, as it was our very first bout!
If you know me at all I'm sure you can imagine that I was freaking out for weeks over this. When I signed up for derby I had no idea how I could ever be in a bout. Just watching my first bout made me a little uncomfortable. But I knew I wanted it--needed it--so I took it one practice at a time and just hoped and prayed I'd grow into it. Over a summer, fall, and winter of practices, I mostly did, but as the days ticked off and fewer practices remained between me and the bout, I started to panic a little. Finally, the last practice before our bout was finished and I realized the next time I laced up my skates it would be for competition. I wasn't really worried about getting hurt; I was worried about being totally confused, awkward, and useless. I was glad, at least, that this wasn't a regular season bout and that I'd be skating with other fresh meat.
Finally the big day arrived and I tried not to panic as we pulled up to the rink. Luckily I had crafted some items to sell at our merch table and had to spend a few minutes helping to set that up. It was nice to have a project to keep my mind busy at the last minute. I padded up and stretched with Psycho Sis, whom I was glad to have on the Lucky Charmers team with me. She suggested we just think of it as a practice and do our best as always. Good idea. We met our team, had equipment checks, and lined up on the bench.
As it turned out, there were plenty of vets for the vet bout but not enough fresh meat to fill two rosters. This meant a few vets had to be added to the fresh meat teams. Some of them were really talented vets. Some of them ended up skating a lot, too. In particular, there were a couple of awesome power blockers on the Fresh Peeps (yellow) team. As such, mostly vets jammed on our team and it was challenging even for them. It felt good, though, to have a few vets there to push, pull, and yell directions at us. I need that very much and imagine I will for quite some time.
I had wondered and worried about what it would feel like on the track during a jam, and it was mostly what I expected. Chaos. Sort of an out-of-body experience. I think it was in my very first jam that I remember thinking, damn, I feel like I'm on The Price is Right. A few different people were yelling at us to do things that must have been plainly obvious, only it's a lot harder when you're the one thrown into the fray with everyone looking at you. Over the boom of the announcer's play-by-play, the music, the shouting from the other team's bench, and the general chatter of spectators, it's hard to make out one set of directions and determine if it's the set you're supposed to follow. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but this is why I was so glad to have vets on the track to help us.
It was also a relief to find that when you are called for a penalty, it is not easy to miss as the referee skates up and yells it right at you. I had been worried I'd miss getting sent to the box and then get another penalty for insubordination. Going to the penalty box was tricky and I'm glad we practiced it. There are only three seats per team in the box, and one is reserved for the jammer. If you, as one of four blockers, are sent to the box and the two blocker seats are already full, you must check in at the box and then be sent back into play until a blocker seat is vacated, at which time you must go back to the box to serve your penalty. When I read these rules, I thought, good to know, but surely that's a freak occurrence. Wrong! It happened to me twice. At least once I looked around as I was skating and found that I was the only blocker left on my team!
Photo Credit: Kit Ruff. I think this is just before I got called for blocking out of play. This is all URGE girls--Juicy Dat on the left, Arson jamming, and me on the right.
I wasn't in that many jams and that was okay with me. It was a lot to take in anyway! I think the worst blooper from my first bout was accidentally getting in the way of my own jammer. Blush. I went to the box at least once for blocking while out of play after chasing the other team's jammer too far without realizing it. There was another penalty I can't remember. It might have been illegal blocking of some sort, perhaps back blocking or low blocking due to a fall. There were times when I needed to stop or slow down and didn't do it fast enough. I need to work on quicker stops and 180's. One time when I needed to fall back but wasn't, one of the vets pulled me back by the waistband of my (stretchy) skirt. Yoink! It must have looked like something out of a Tom & Jerry cartoon. Maybe I'll start wearing a belt. Anyway, I tried my best, which is all I can do, and there were a couple of times when I felt I got something right.
My fresh meat teammates. Third from the left in green is Psycho Sis, blocking Lilli Smack as she jams. They both did great. Also, the URGE's Cambo Breaker is right behind them, shadowing a ref. Photo credit: Kit Ruff.
As for my fresh meat teammates, Lilli Smack jammed remarkably well for the Fresh Peeps, scoring a bunch of points in her first bout. Psycho Sis did a good job blocking for the Lucky Charmers and I kept thinking how well she was performing in this bizarre new atmosphere that you just have to experience to understand. I think we were all sent to the box at one point or another, along with most of our vets. In the end, the Fresh Peeps won, we congratulated each other, and watched the Cadbury Cream Hers and Blarney Stone Hers play the vet bout. The Cadbury Cream Hers won. Then we all crowded together for a photo, cleaned up the rink, and had a great time together at the after party. Invitationals are fun! I'm looking forward to doing it again.
This first bout was a messy, chaotic whirlwind for me and it took me several days to mentally recover. I meant to write about it sooner but needed time to process it first. I'm glad to have had the experience. I had to have my first bout sometime, and I'm happy it was a fresh meat invitational. During the bout, and especially in thinking about it once it was over, I gained a better understanding of how all those rules work in actual play. Some of our drills make a lot more sense now, and practice somehow isn't nearly as overwhelming. I feel better about hitting and blocking after experiencing a bout. It'll be a while before I overcome the nerves and confusion, get enough experience, and learn enough to reach my full potential of usefulness in a bout. I'm getting there, though. It's not always easy, and it may not be pretty. But I'm getting there.
The group shot. I'm in the back row, fourth from the left in the green shirt. A huge thanks to Kit Ruff for the photos, because they are awesome and because my husband was running the scoreboard and serving as head NSO and didn't get to take any pictures at all!
