I needed that!

Photos by Danny Ngan! Love that man!


So bout day has come and gone. And my love for derby has been rekindled. You see we had been going strong for about 18 months. From February 2010 to August 2011 it was non-stop training to skate, to ref, to call penalties, form a group. All the work required to get a fairly functioning ref group was pretty vigorous and after a year and half most of us were pretty burnt.

So from August to October I've been on a break/leave/burnout phase. I hemmed and hawed about leaving the league. Tried to figure out how to scale back, and trying to decide if I wanted to do this at all.

Saturday night brought it all together and answered all those questions. There is nothing like a good bout to bring back the fire!

I've had to make changes to my derby routine. Now, along with my new work schedule, I only attend once a week. I get together with my lady refs for food and then go to practice. It makes the whole process of going to practice a lot more enticing.

The bout had some trying moments. One of the refs slotted to skate didn't show. We're pretty sure she didn't realize she was on the roster while she was on leave. So that put us down one skating ref. I stepped in for one game, and one of the newer refs stepped in for the other.

Yeah so I haven't been on skates since August. Not a step! And I hadn't called penalties since Rollercon, again in August. I was feeling nervous.

The problem was I went to Rollercon and ended up demoralized. I skate reffed twice while there and it was not a good thing. Rollercon is flat track. I ref banked track. The rules are not super different, but between the differences, the new environment and the entire flat track skater culture I was super off my game. It sucked.

So I came back feeling like I sucked as a ref.

Enter Saturday's game. Upon realizing I would be skating I geared up and went to do a little warmup. Could I still do this? Umm yeah, not a problem. Actually I couldn't tell I had missed a day of skating! Thankfully after skating for close to 2 years my legs had not forgotten a thing.

So now the issue was the penalty calling, oh yeah and pack definition. This was a major problem for me at Rollercon. I think in retrospect I was just spooked. Also flat track skaters skate backwards which really freaking screws me up.

During the game the penalties were sooo easy for me to see! And pack definition was so prominent! It was like taking that break allowed my brain to process all the stuff I'd learned over the past 2 years. I felt awesome!

And it was a freakin amazing game! The teams were really evenly matched. I saw so many incredible, and clean, hits. What an awesome game to start back up with!

Anyways. It went great and now I am so very for-sure, back in derby!