Sync

Team sports like roller derby can provide accountability and a grueling workout. + Enlarge

You may have gathered from the last three installments of this series that I’m not an exercise-inclined person. I’ve also never been too interested in sports. As a clumsy kid with a pathetic sideways cartwheel and a penchant for accidentally face-planting on the vault, I often came down with sudden “stomach aches” for many a gymnastics practice or competitive meet. I didn’t have much more luck with team sports: I dabbled in basketball, soccer and volleyball, but didn’t stick with any for more than a year. I have a nasty elbow scar from my one and only game of tennis. It’s a sad list of failed attempts.

So of course, for my fourth and final piece on fun fitness, my editor upped the ante and asked me to practice with a local amateur sports team — women’s football, lacrosse, rugby — anything that piqued my interest and would take on new players in central Arkansas. And why not? Local community sports are a perfect workout. You’re having fun, making friends and have built-in accountability to show up for a rigorous workout every week.

If I were in my 70s and lived in Arizona, I would join the senior citizen cheerleading squad, the Sun City Poms. But I’m not and I don’t. In my mind, there’s only one other option that glorious — roller derby. The Sun City Poms may have sequins and hairspray, but roller derby has retro appeal with roller skates and knee socks.

Full disclosure: My editor at Sync, a member of Little Rock’s own Big Dam Rollers, was hesitant to cover a sport she’s involved in, but I’ve been itching to do a story on Little Rock’s roller derby scene for a while now. I even pitched a story on the topic before I knew that she played. So getting to actually participate in a practice was a dream come true.

It was also a klutz’s worst nightmare. I can’t go a week without banging up some appendage or bruising a body part. And I haven’t been roller skating in years, meaning the last time I did I was in braces, trying not to fall in front of crushes and holding hands with my BFF to a soundtrack of Backstreet Boys and old-school Britney Spears. It’s been a while.

I needed to know what I was getting myself into, so I checked out the Big Dam Rollers bout against Oklahoma’s Sisterhood of Steel on Jan. 14. The game only confirmed what I already knew: These women were badass. They hurled themselves onto their knees and forearms with abandon, threw their bodies against each other and shoved one another. And they were fast. The cluster of women — the pack — trying to block the point-scoring “jammers,” often slowed to a pace that looked reasonable (if you take away all the aggressive pushing). But the jammers were speedy, zipping around the track and flinging themselves into the horde, looking for gaps big enough to pass through.

If I’m fast, I thought, I want my derby name to be the Vomit Comet.

Turns out, I’m not that fast. But I’m not as terrible as I imagined either. I attended a Thursday night practice, open to anyone who’s interested in trying out the sport, at Skate World in Little Rock. Coach Slambert trains newbies, or as they’re called in roller derby, Skater Tots. I brought my own mouth guard, but Slambert outfitted me in skates, a helmet, wrist guards, and elbow and knee pads, and explained that I would be training with other tots as the players scrimmaged.

But first, we did laps. Lots and lots of laps. I stayed on the outside lane to avoid being trampled by the speedy pack (they skated two or three laps for my every one), which would feel like being hit by a “freight train,” as my coach put it. After 25 laps in one direction, I started to feel the burn in my legs, but we kept going for several more rounds. But that was nothing compared to the “Suicide” drill that came next.

I was quickly taught a few “falls,” which are safe ways to go down during a bout, and obviously very important to avoiding injury. For example, keep your arms and hands tucked in, unless you want your fingers rolled over by a dozen women. Then I was let loose. Our task was to skate across the rink, completing three types of falls on the way, and then skate back to our original point as fast as we could. We fell first to the right knee, got back up, fell to the left knee, got back up, fell to both knees, got back up, performed a “baseball slide” fall (which looks exactly like a runner sliding feet first into home plate), got back up and sprinted back. Huffing and puffing commenced after about two of these.

The experienced derby gals broke off to scrimmage while the skater tots went through drills with Coach Slambert. We practiced various ways to stop; slamming into the wall doesn’t count, though I tried it anyway. We learned to control our wheels by standing completely still, then slowly walking, feet rotated out like ducks. We maneuvered through cones and glided on one skate. We even hopped! We worked on more falls, which got less scary the more I practiced. The real fear I had was falling the wrong way, i.e. on my wrists or butt. I did that too. And yes, it hurts. I’ve had a heating pad on my behind all night. But the experience was still a blast, and could whip (get it?!) anyone into shape in no time.