With more than a few nerves at play, Diana Clement laces up for roller derby training.
I blame my disgraceful behaviour on Facebook. An old friend I reconnected with is a roller derby coach and the inner rebel in me fancied trying the sport. Just once.
So one sunny afternoon I found myself driving to Papatoetoe, home of the Pirate City Rollers, for a "Fresh Meat" course. This is a training course on the basics of roller derby and leads to a "skills test" to ensure that you're not a danger to others.
I pulled over before I'd even left the North Shore and questioned whether I was sane. Roller derby isn't quite tiddlywinks and few women of my age would consider participating in such an aggressive, contact sport.
In roller derby, two all-female teams compete on an oval track. Four "blockers" from each team try to stop individual "jammers" from the other team getting through the pack and scoring points.
The participants dress up in outrageous costumes and the sport attracts decent-sized audiences. Players adopt roller derby personas such as Mia Vendetta and Chevy Impaler.
Last-minute panic aside I arrived at Papatoetoe's roller skating rink, donned my quad rollerskates, helmet and padding, and got out on the rink for my first session.
Roller derby requires a fair degree of physical fitness. In particular it uses the gluteal, hamstring and quadriceps muscles, which need considerable strengthening. After my first training session I was stiff a couple of days. Despite being physically fit, I'd rediscovered muscles that I'd lost touch with at least 20 years ago.
I used to skate competitively in my younger days, and after a shaky start quickly regained my agility and speed. So quickly, that the instructor suggested I could be fast-tracked to the skills test.
But there is much more to roller derby than simply skating at speed. While clearly related to other skating disciplines such as artistic, speed and roller hockey, roller derby comes with its own unique set of skills.
The training sessions I attended focused on agility, falling, blocking, and "hitting". The latter, for the record, isn't what you'd imagine. It doesn't involve fists, or even elbows. It's more heavy-duty shoulder-shoving to stop your opponent overtaking you. I should say, this can still put your opponent off balance and cause some nasty bruising - or worse.
Nonetheless, roller derby wasn't quite as aggressive as I expected. If you've seen the movie Whip It, which I did after my sessions, not before, you'd be forgiven for thinking anything goes.
In reality, there's a rather long rule book setting out what you can't do and the penalties involved. You get penalised, for example, for ramming the back of another player.
One useful skill I learned early was to do a sudden "snow plough" stop in front of another player, forcing her to run into me and lose points.
The gear is expensive, but provided free for Fresh Meat courses, which astoundingly cost only $2 a session and sometimes last up to three hours.
If you want to go further you'll need to buy skates, a helmet, knee and elbow pads and wristguards.
I didn't finish the course and never did get to play my first bout. The travelling back and forth to Papatoetoe got to me and so did one of the coaches, whose interpersonal skills rated somewhere around zero on the emotional intelligence scale.
Would I recommend it to others?
The answer goes to one of my fellow Fresh Meat skaters, a well-built mother of four, who said: "this is the sport for girls who don't like sport".
Information
Find out more about the Pirate City Rollers (Auckland) by visiting piratecityrollers.com, facebook.com/piratecityrollers and emailing piratecityrollers@gmail.com
Other clubs:
* Hellmilton Roller Ghouls (Hamilton)
* Northland Nightmares (Whangarei)
* Mount Militia Derby Crew (Tauranga)
