Speed. Drills. Scrimmages. Awesome tights and fun people to
hang with. Derby is a all encompassing sport that unites women that can all
equally say “I normally don’t get along well with other ladies”. It’s our safety
net. Whether we leave work, take off our scrubs and head to derby, or pass the
kiddo off to dad and rush out with our skate bag; no matter our background, we
love what derby brings to our life.
Great teams exist, good teams exist, and basic teams exist.
Each has their ups and downs. Each type of team can bounce from one label to
another. These labels have nothing to do with skills on the track. You can have
a team that has never bouted but the team mates are fully united and are a
force to be reckoned with. You may have a team that brings home the win each
time, but the team mates struggle to get to practice, finding it a chore. What
makes a team great, is not the team as a whole; it is the individuals working as
a team to make it whole.
Derby brings laughing, kindness, exercise, and the real
meaning of friends into our lives. We laugh and chat while getting our gear on,
complementing the girl beside you on her new fishnets. Skate on the track to
warm up and jokingly bump into one or two girls, all in good fun. The coach
brings it in and stretches with announcements occur. Practice starts and with
all the sweat and bruises, you want more. Practice ends too soon. Rushing off
the track and removing all your gear, you hear girls say “That was a awesome
hit, great job” and its all love.
When it becomes a chore. Derby, like all awesome things, is
not always fun. Sometimes it get hard, sometimes it gets annoying, sometimes
you don’t want to do it. “I don’t want to show up on endurance night.” “I only
want to scrimmage.” When a skater begins to think like this, they only hurt
themselves. Derby Girls must realize that not all practices are going to be
fun. Not all practices are going to make sense. Not all practices will be
challenging. The true Derby Girl will change that for herself. Not by ditching
practice, but by changing it to fit her needs. It you hate doing bear crawls,
do them faster and put some bounce in your step, get it over so you can move on
to the next awesome drill. If you don’t like endurance night, make that the
night you dress up to the hilt in your amazing derby attire so you feel like
you are having fun. If you are not challenged during practice, challenge
yourself, squat during the straight-aways, pick up your feet, sprint faster.
You are the only one that can make yourself love every day that is derby.
At the end of the day, being with positive team mates is
what makes it enjoyable. The action and sports side of derby is a huge plus,
but without positive team mates it would be unbearable. Make the best of your
days with derby because when we are old and broken, the one thing we should all
be proud to say is “I made total use of this body and had fun doing it.”
