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!

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:

Freestyle Class at the BMO Derby Girls

Last week, hardly back from Helsinki and not having yet recovered from the 1h-jetlag (dude!) I took the train to Brest to visit the B.M.O. Rollergirls for a special workshop.

I was asked to run an agility class with lots of unknown stuff in it.

The equation was self-evident. At least to my twisted mind:

agility
+
stuff rollergirls don't practice
=
FREESTYLE SKATING

Visiting the Leopard Avengers

This weekend I was in Caen (14) to visit the local Leopard Avengers for a Sunday Workshop in an amazing roller hockey hall, with a perfect smooth ground and a glass roof, which was part of an impressive sports complex, two steps away from the city hall downtown!

MY TRAIN WAS LATE.

I missed my 16:10 train so I took the next one.

Sunday Workshop in Angers

This weekend, I took the train to Angers (Fra, 49) to run a full-day workshop for the young local league. 

I arrived on Saturday evening, and was welcome by the two girls I was staying at and the coach. After a healthy dinner, we went for a teaching equipment "shopping" session at their practice place, before heading to the Irish pub nearby, where we met a few of the rollergirls who would attend the morrow's workshop.

The workshop gym was booked from 9 to 6, which left plenty of time to get organized, talk, eat, have breaks... We finally started at 10 after everybody had found where the gym was, which was pretty tricky on a foggy Sunday morning.

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.

PRG Rookies: The New Generation

Thanks to our Fall Workshops, a small dozen of girls have been detected and enlisted in the league. 

The workshops were pretty successfull despite the late communication.

The concept had been completely revised compared to last year's... revised upwards. 

Not because we are becoming snobbish, but because our league's overall level is (hopefully) improving and we are (unfortunately) lacking indoors official time slots, so that we cannot split the slots or the gym into two to train too different levels.

Last year, the minimum required was basic skating skills, and we would enlist the new girls and validate their agility part of the minimum skills test at the same time.

This time, we were looking for girls who were already agile and who either mastered the derby interactive skills or had the potential and the skating level to learn fast.

Paris RollerGirls 2012 Fall Workshops

Dimanche 7 octobre by Kozmic Bruise
Dimanche 21 octobre by Cherry Lielie
14h-18h

Stages de 4 heures encadrés par les Head Coaches PRG, comprenant un échauffement en baskets, un cours de patinage avec accent sur les bases du patin et du derby, ainsi qu'un atelier de règles sur le derby.

Ces stages ne sont pas adressés à des patineurs et patineuses débutant(e)s, mais sont ouverts à tou(te)s:

Prétendantes au recrutement
Quaddeurs et Quaddeuses novices en derby
Derbygirls et boys de toutes ligues

School's back after summer

First day, PRG Class picture 2012-2013 -- by Sally Broyeur

 

Some sing "School's out for summer" but we'd rather sing the opposite!

It is the start of the new season and we're all excited.

Proof here with the class picture taken last week!

Don't we look cute and disciplined?

FMyLife #1: Lazy leg squats

Today, in showing the next warm-up drill to the whole roller derby class:
 

"... And then, while the first half of you is doing 5 laps, the other half is doing wall squats leaning on your toe stops like that no to..." *WHAMBAM* fall.
 

I had forgotten the lazy leg parameter in a fit of enthusiasm. FML. 

Back in the Saddle

At the physio's while warming up on the eliptor, I mentionned that my knee was hurting a bit today.  

"What did you do since last time?"

"Err--I tried to rollerskate..." 

I was clearing myself profusely when she stopped me and said that I had done right. (Right??) Yes because I'm ready now and the motor patterns will help my knee remember how it works. 

I didn't exactly confess that I had spent the three hours of practice on skates running simultaneously the trainings of the advanced and freshmeats all alone, showing all the drills. But then I won't complain if I have her blessing!

"Warm up, take it easy and have fun this weekend, you're doing good!"

Paris RollerGirls Winter '12 Open Practice

Shot: Gosh -- thegoshphotographies.blogspot.com | Art: Koz

As part of the winter recruitment wave, the Paris RollerGirls open the doors of their gym for you to have a look at what Derby is and experience what it feels like to sit in the suicide zone around the track.

In-between the two workshops to prepare for the entrance test, you can go and witness the Monday evening 3-hour training in St. Denis, just like in last september when it went like THAT.

 

Open Practice

Monday Jan. 30th, 19:00 - 22:00

Gymnase Pasteur (10 rue Pasteur 93200 St. Denis)

Metro: St. Denis Université

Paris RollerGirls Winter Workshops

Future Freshmeats, this is the second (and last!) chance of the season for entering the Paris RollerGirls! We are organizing a Winter Session made of two Workshops and followed by an Entrance Test.

It will follow the same pattern as the Summer Session (which is fully explained in THIS ARTICLE). The principle is also described on the flyer here (click to enlarge):

The workshops are meant to explain the different skills that will be needed to pass the entrance test. The content of both workshops will be identical, browsing all the basic individual skills: falling, stopping, crossing, jumping.

The workshops will start with a short hour of Derby Rules run by our Refs, and the three hours of skating run by our Coaches will be preceded by an off-skates warm-up.

These workshops are not compulsory but are a good review to avoid surprises on the Entrance Test day, and are a good opportunity to meet some of the main protagonists of the league and to get an idea of the overall atmosphere.

Paris RollerGirls Entrance Test



Click to enlarge!

What's the finality of new recruit workshops?

The Entrance Test!

To close the 4 workshops, the last being this Sunday (Sept.18), the test will take place on Oct. 2nd at Jules Noël Skatepark, a park under a dome tent, so that we just don't have to bother about the weather.

The test will be about all the drills that were explained during the workshops, to check the general skating ability of the girls. But if you know the basics of skating you don't have to worry: We're going to check if you know how to stop (T-stop, plow stop), how to fall (one knee, two knees, four points, 180° fall), how to jump (10cm), and how to slalom (10 cones, 180cm wide).

As for the equipment, unlike for the workshops, this time quad skates are compulsory, as well as the rest of the protections (knees, elbows, wrists, helmet, and mouthguard).

If you don't have all of these at home, you can still have a look at Hawaii Surf and you should find what you need!

If you're interested in taking the test,

just send an e-mail (compulsory) at recrutement@parisrollergirls.com.

Paris RollerGirls Summer Workshops



click to enlarge

In order for the new recruits to get ready for the integration test, the Paris RollerGirls organize workshops in August and September.

The integration test, the MIST (Minimum Individual Skills Test), is a mere security formality. It will deal with skating basics such as falling, stopping, jumping, crossing... The workshops are not compulsory, but they are meant to point out and explain the drills that will be specifically needed for the MIST.

The idea is that as a Derby League, the Paris RollerGirls are going to teach you how to Derby, not how to Skate, so that you need to have a basic skating level to start the real stuff :)

The workshops will be run by qualified Coaches (Amelia Scareheart, Kozmic Bruise and Wheely Wonka) with their assistants (Cherry LieLie, Joan Get27 and Truck-Off Pooky) for the On-Skate part; and by the Paris Refs (Brute et Peste, Maëlstrom and Watzé) for the Rules part.

All the sessions will have the same content -- you can see the program on the flyer -- but run by different coaches so that there will be different hindsights to the drills. They will take place on Sundays from 11AM to 3PM, i.e. a short Off-Skates to warm up, 3hrs. On Skates and 1hr. of Basic Rules. Check out the flyer for the dates!

Derbyversaire

We had our first bootcamp about 2 months ago, it was the first bootcamp in France, and it was huge! I was also a means to celebrate the first birthday of the PRG: it was our Derbyversaire.

We had various workshops during two days, ending up with scrimmages. Everybody from the PRG was in a team with special missions, all the Advanced took part and it enabled us to meet our future opponents.

My girl filmed the two days and I found the motivation to edit the rushes a couple of weeks ago. The video was just published two days ago... Good memories from our first big event! 

Paris Rollergirls Derbyversaire 2011 from Paris RollerGirls on Vimeo.

Derby Training

Training Schedule

The Paris RollerGirls have two official trainings per week in the gym, on Saturdays and Sundays: 7 hours/week to scrimmage yeah! The ground is soft and sticky, which is quite tiring but we say to ourselves that it's just a 2-in-one training+extra work-out...

During the week we are responsible for our personal trainings (on and off skates). Now that the sunny days are back, we are meeting outside to skate together, and I must say that we see each other nearly every day now!

 

We have the incredible luck to have three amazing American Derby girls to coach us: Amelia Scareheart, Fifi Lafoe and Dixie Pixie -- Mimi, Fifi and Pipi (er--yeah...)! I feel really honored to have the priviledge to have such quality training. All the more that it's the first time I have coaches: With Freestyle, I'm used to train on my own in the streets, come rain or come shine, and coaching myself. It's a big luxurious change to have somebody behind your back to tell you to do this and that!!

 

I rarely Freestyle now. I really need a break, I came so near from being disgusted... But I still skate a lot, to go from one place to another... and I try most of the time to do it with quad skates to become more and more agile with them.

I'm having a go at street roller-dancing too, and I really like it. It's a bit like doing Freestyle but with quad skates on. New challenges, and I need to work on my upper-body... very interesting work.

As for the off-skates workout, I'm doing body training, jogging and stretching!