Toe Stops are Optional

Mallory for SkateXpress

With the start of the new 2014 season, I started to take over the weekly Agility Sessions at BCRD. I ran my first class (in English!) last week and decided to strike hard in doing a toe-stops-off course. Throughout my (short) quad skating life, I have always encouraged people to free themselves from that stops addiction: that habit may be the easy way at first but it will end up limiting you.

Some people are all for it, some strongly stand against it. I am in-between the two, not because I am an indecisive person, but because of personal convictions.
Toe stops are there, at your toes, it would be a shame not to exploit them. Yet, they should be used in full knowledge of their pros and cons. Here are my thoughts about that optional device that juts out of our derby plates.


WHY TOE STOPS ARE ONLY ADD-ONS

Toe stops are part of your skates. Indeed. But they are not essential to them: The job of your skates is to make you ROLL, a task in which toe stops are NOT involved. They are an add-on, a device that can be used for the STOPPING PART. You could argue that stopping is a stage of the rolling process: The rolling has 1) a start (gaining momentum), 2) a body (the rolling itself) and 3) an end (stopping). Just like everything in life, and, in order to stick to the subject, just like any movement and trick. Never isolate elements from their contexts.

Good Side, Bad Side

You've got a clumsy foot. Guess what? We all have.
Tone it down and use it to improve both your legs' dexterity!

Lately I ran an agility class during the Team France Bootcamp following the Patin Français event. The subject was "stops" and we obviously worked on both sides. Several girls told me in confidence that they were very sorry and ashamed of having a clumsy leg. I decided to make a small speech on the normality of it. Here is a more developed version for everybody to enjoy.

LEGS ARE LIKE ARMS

Let's tone down disillusions right away: there is nothing less normal than having a leg clumsier than its sibling. Legs are like arms. Try to write with your bad hand. Disaster, right? Transpose it to your legs and you will realize that you're not doing that bad: at least you can walk on two legs!

Indeed specifics are trickier with your unnatural side, and WILL ALWAYS BE but you can reduce the gap between your two sides with work.

The idea is not to equalize the abilities of both legs, but to make sure that your body at least knows the move on both sides, so that if it has to do it, it will know how to get away with it.

Coping with both sides (add front and back to the list too) is a way to improve your agility as it opens your field of possibilities and your instinctive awareness. Once again, variety is the key!

First strides as a Bear City Rollergirl

FRESH DERBY NEWS! It has been a while. For those who would have missed a chapter, I have moved to Berlin (as explained more thoroughly here). Here is a feedback on my first impressions about my new league, BEAR CITY ROLLER DERBY.

A (not really) BRAND-NEW WORLD (but still a lot new)
 
Berlin was no complete unknown territory to me, I had already been there several times for skating events, in freestyle and more recently for the EROC, where I represented the Paris RollerGirls as their head coach two years in a row, in 2012 and 2013 (French HERE).

I had also skated quite a few times in the Bombshells' training venue, first time back in 2011 for a bootcamp run by Suzy Hotrod and Swede Hurt; I also took part in the 2013 EROC scrimmage (in 2012 I had crutches), played a bout as a Paris AllStar against the Inglorious Bombshells last April and joined a couple of practices the following week while I was at it... with already the idea of moving in mind.

Coaching the Criminal Nurses

I made a detour on my way back home, after our ultimate game of the season in Dublin, to visit the CRIMINAL NURSES in Aubenas (FRA, 07). It was amusing to meet derby people who already knew about me before I started derby! Such a small world. Got less awkward once the presentations made.

OK, I know you are going to read this. It was a really comfortable 'awkward' though -- in a funnybot way. Honest, natural and just PERFECT:

Bootcamp Team France "Born to Reform"

A dozen members of the 2011 French selection who made it to the World Cup in Toronto (Dec.'11) gathered to organize a huge advanced French bootcamp on January 5-6, 2013, entitled "Born to Reform". The aim was to share experience throughout on-skates and off-skates classes and conferences.

The event was divided into three different cycles: skater / coach / staff, with specific classes according to the cycle you had applied to.

Honestly, I would have loved taking part in that bootcamp.
Coaching was fun too, though.

BOOTCRAMP Berry

This weekend, I was coaching in a BootcRamp in Bourges (fra) together with Wheely Wonka and Cherry LieLie, while Maëlstrom and Watzé were running a ref clinic in parallel.

The Paris RollerGirls were in da place, baby!

The event was extremely well organized and ran smoothly from A to Z. Seven out of the nine of us who were staying at Mojo Mama's place were sleeping in Oto's room (her two-year old son). Three words: Pa-ra-dise. It is only one word indeed, but it is worth three at least. Tons and tons of toys. A room carpeted with mattresses. A childhood dream!

Thank god the bootcramp participants did not see us like that, we would have lost all credibility. Forever. Ever.

Saturday. Cracking start.

Most of us arrived on Friday evening, but the event started on Saturday at 1PM. Yet, we were in the gym at 9AM to help setting up the track and everything, and we all had lunch together after a brief but efficient general presentation: organizers, coaches, refs and participants.