WHAT A GREAT COME BACK SURPRISE!
Not being very familiar with the PODIO platform used by Bear City Roller Derby to communicate within the league, I'm very often (always) missing points, small or big... Fortunately, I also have concerned friends who help me out!
Explaining my upcoming Team France / World Championship 15-day trip to one of them, the day before I left, she pointed out that I would be back just on time to enjoy Bonnie and OMG. Wait, you got me lost, here. What?
This is how I learned that there would be a (free!) private BCRD workshop on the Saturday and Sunday following my return, i.e. 5+4=9 hours of Gotham coaching. Groovy!
WON OVER BY VERY GOOD QLT COACHING
I was quite excited about the idea of the workshop, and I was all the more positively surprised about what I found: A very high quality coaching, both in its form and its content.
Two very dedicated and accessible skaters, passionate and methodical. A great complementary pair with one skating technician and one team sports expert.
The structures of both sessions were quite similar, starting from individual skill drills, and building up in making more complex combos and introducing more context and player interaction, finishing with scrimmage situations.
Most of the moves explained had already been seen, especially during our Tuesday skills sessions, so that there was no revelation so to speak. Which is quite positive in a sense, at least we are on the right track! Yet, you could always pick a useful tip or two, and I mean it. If you know me a bit, you must have got how demanding, critical and fussy I am about pure skating technique... not to say unforgiving.
AN OVERVIEW OF THE SKILLS BROWSED
The individual skating skills were broken down, then demonstrated by Bonnie Thunders while OMG was re-explaining the moves live during the demo. The different techniques were mostly about braking (hockey stops on two feet, one foot, powerslide, plow), direction shifting (mowhawk, edges), and backward skating (involving two previous skills). Each skill was associated with its final derby goal (blocking, jamming, how and when), and their origin was specified. And I'm not talking about chicken or corn, but about skating techniques: either coming from hockey, artistic or speed skating... Which is a great way to constantly but subtly insist on the advantages of variety... *wink of the eye*
I may repeat myself in saying that VARIETY IS THE KEY, but to me it is an idea worth fighting for and consequently worth being hammered home. Variety of techniques, variety of viewpoints... You may know the trick explained but have you ever used it in that context, or in that discipline? You may know the trick explained but have you ever looked at it from that angle? EVERYTHING IS CONTEXTUAL, EVERYTHING IS REUSABLE.
Let's close that necessary digression. Both sessions ended with scrimmage situations.
Saturday finished with two mini-scrimmages on 21 points, A-level followed by B-level, in order for the New Yorkers to assess the general adjustments needed that could be worked on, for the second day.
Sunday finished with a mixed scrimmage and concentrated on first passes only (the jam would end when both jammers had passed the pack), in the continuity of the wall drills seen previously.
NON-VIOLENT DERBY? YES PLEASE.
I would like to leave the last paragraph to OMG's philosophy about blocking, which is, to put it simple, supporting non-violent derby (physically speaking). Which suits me quite well given my body type. I guess there are two reasons to it:
- The first, practical and obvious reason, is that not having a strong build (either) trying to knock opponents down is not the best option.
- The second reason, more insiduous and psychological, is that you don't want to hit/hurt your opponent, you want to make them experience a neverending failure in not letting them past you, making them feel you are in control of the situation in never breaking contact, not giving them room to move, and not giving them the opportunity of a fresh start.
The concept is: when you hit someone, they get a break that is physical (no contact) and psychological (reset, new try); when you keep them behind you, possibly bumping them from time to time in order to modify your stance as well as to let them know who's the boss, but without losing contact... then that's another story...
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