Why roller derby is stupid

Tempers flare, frustration unleashes, we screw up and feelings get hurt. People sometimes take home emotional pain along with the physical bruises. BUTT — If we keep our commitment to relating honestly, to doing better, and to being accountable when we mess up, we can keep on building a strong community together. Individually, and as a group. Are you in? Recent post. Chronic Pain in Derby. Derby and Depression.

The Pacifist. Open House. Roller Derby Is Inclusive There, the image of a sanitized sport for the 21st century is complete, a quintessential sporting look resplendent in the uniformity of appearance among the different nations. It seems unlikely that FIRS would invest the kind of money or political leverage necessary to advance roller derby into the Olympic Games, nor does it seem an incredibly likely choice for the IOC to include at this time.

WFTDA, meanwhile, is focused on grassroots development and the prominence of participant voices. Nevertheless, across the many forms of derby there are reputedly now more than 1, local leagues worldwide, lending some credence to the idea that derby is an emerging sport. Away from officialdom, the modern aesthetic continues its quest to grow and alter perceptions. And increasingly that means strong challenges to old-worn sensibilities.

Participants hail from a surprising array of professional backgrounds. Some profess to inhabit double lives, choosing to separate their daily grind and the people who populate it from the nights they spend under nommes de plume such as Cannibal Cupcakes and Streetcar Named Destruction on the derby track. Cannibal Cupcake is the track name of Warner, the marketing professional from Plano.

Grounded in the roots of the sport, she was attracted to the camaraderie of the derby network. More than the competition, Warner is attached to the idea of how the women of flat track are self-sufficient, pulling the strings of the entire organization, running the league as a business entity under their own steam. The year-old skews slightly from the outlook offered by Warner. In her job as a GIS technician in oil and gas, she is surrounded by men all day.

So derby offers a rare opportunity to mingle among women. Like for me, I was pretty sedentary, so getting back into skating was physical activity. Kerri Delaney, or Sloane Gunman, may be an outlier. The Canadian transplant to Dallas is a former college and professional basketball player, playing overseas in South America and Europe.

At 41 and with more than eight years behind her in derby, she is one of the more enduring performers in a sport where longevity is not always evident. When I started, that was still a thing.

Good for you. This isn't Feminism or even Post-Feminism. This is stupidity packaged up as escapism for mooks and people who "like it" in an "ironic" sense i. I didn't get it then and I get it even less now. I'm surprised that this time out it's lasted as long as it has but make no mistake - it's a pointless fad with numbered days.

There's a limited shelf life to this kind of stupidity. I'm getting sick and tired of being asked, "Wow, did you go to the last derby bout?! I have a life.

Extreme concentration, core engagement, and other aspects of the game often conspire to make players somewhat less than photogenic. Hours of practice in skates usually precedes an unfortunate fate for feet. You get calluses, your toenails get worn and fall off, your bones shift, you get fallen arches. He actually recoiled from my foot. I had a blister on my blister. Flying, crashing bodies skating at velocity will become heavily bruised, with players sporting black eyes and large-scale blemishes.