Mayday Mayhem!!!

The Mayday Mayhem Tournament was exactly how it sounds- utter mayhem.  Eight teams from around the country laced up their skates and made their way to Greeley, CO to battle it out on the track for the chance to win it all; glory, bragging rights, and a nice trophy.  We all faced lack of sleep, hunger, muscle fatigue, stress, and mental exhaustion, but the Foco MicroBruisers were ready to bring it, and bring it we did.

Our first bout of the tournament was against the Pueblo Derby Devil Dollz on Friday night, a hard hitting team that doesn't take no for an answer.  The girls were hungry to win and we could feel it.  Farm Fresh, a great blocker on their team, delivers heavy hits and doesn't mess around, and the rest of their is just as intimidating.  These ladies were some of the sweetest you'll ever meet, but they fought hard and really gave us a run for our money.  We kept it together, and ended up winning our first bout by over 100 points.

Next was Central Coast the very next morning.  We had played them just a few months before and had lost, so we were ready for the rematch.  Pinball, one of their lead jammers, delivered some hefty points for their team.  We had to fight to keep power jams to a minimum, and we stuck together like glue on our walls.  These ladies were confident and had a real desire for the trophy, but we managed to pull ahead and win.

This meant that we continued moving up, and we knew that it meant playing Junction City.  If you've ever seen Junction City, they have an incredible offense and some great hitters.  Killa Patra, (pretty much everyone's derby crush) is a strong and collected jammer, Vixen can block backwards like a pro, and pickle is the cutest button of a jammer you've ever seen!  That girl has mad hops.  Keeping cool on the track is pivotal when playing a great game; unfortunately we had become flustered and lost our cool.  Junction City is great at messing with your mind, and sadly it had worked on us.  We ended up losing to Junction City, but learned some great lessons in the process.  Bench attitude and togetherness is so important in keeping our game on the track.

Now it was time for a "come to Jesus meeting."  What had happened to us?  Why did we let our attitudes drop?  Why did we have so many penalties?  We all met outside and decided we needed to reset ourselves. Instead of talking about what we did wrong, we talked about what we did right.  This helped us focus on positive aspects of the last bout instead of being sucked down by the negative.

Next we were scheduled to play our third bout of the day against the Cheyenne Capidolls.  These classy ladies are super nice, but make no mistake, they were fighting to win.  They're a smart team that works hard and had drastically improved since the last time we had played.  We won 221 to 123, but the victory didn't come from points; we had fallen apart with Junction City, and had brought it back together with Cheyenne.  We got back to our game of playing it cool and listening to each other. We had kept our level heads and played a fantastic game.

Because we had lost to Junction City, we were scheduled again to play at 8:30am the next morning against Sioux City, the top team in the tournament.  So we played a bout, went to bed, woke up, then played again. Needless to say, we were utterly exhausted, but instead of hanging up the towel against a team that was obviously better than us, we came ready to rock.  We put up a great fight and although we lost, we lost by less than what Junction City lost to them by at the championship game.

The last bout for us was 2 hours later against the Pueblo Derby Devil Dollz in the battle for third place.  We started off strong but by halftime it was neck and neck- 71 to 70.  The Dollz had come for blood.  They wanted the third place trophy just as bad as we did, but by the last 15 minutes we had surged ahead.  We played smart, listened to each other, and won the 3rd place trophy.  It was a sweet victory and we all left the weekend proud of our team.  After 6 bouts in 3 days we knew that we had left stronger and closer than before.

The most important thing I learned about this weekend is managing emotions.  In a tournament or any bout situation, we all wish to play our best, which means emotions are running high.  It's so easy to get caught up in thinking "I didn't play my best," "that power-jam was my fault," or  "I gave up my point."  These failures cannot overcome us.  We need to play 2 minutes at a time.  You did great on that last jam?  Relish it, and then come back and kill it again.  You messed up and feel like you let your team down?  Let it go.  All that matters is the next 2 minutes.  Being able to compartmentalize your emotions will help you become a great derby player, and someone who will be able to calm others down.  Alright, I've taken up enough of your time!

Cheers,

The Original Skankster

My Family of Choice

Families of Choice are intimate social circles that are formed by people. The term, which is largely used by members of the GLBT community, was coined because they often experience discrimination or rejection by their own family (Family of Origin). The term and existence of these social circles, however, has become increasingly popular with younger generations who face their own family struggles or are simply looking to widen their circle with those that they relate well or spend the majority of their time with.

Although I have not  had a perfect life, my family of origin has generally been supportive  of me and most of my life decisions (you  can ask my mom about my bad life decisions and  she’ll readily share with you I’m sure). While I love my family of origin and share with them almost every facet of my life (admittedly sometimes too much), when the going gets rough I often turn to my family of choice.

In my life, I have been fortunate enough to have several families of choice, starting in college with the brothers in my fraternity (which was more dysfunctional than functional at times). Even though my undergraduate years in my fraternity were tumultuous, I am still very involved with my national fraternity as a volunteer and donor. I turn to my “brothers” for many things and relish the time we spend together at conventions and conferences.

Shortly after college I found my next family of choice as a volunteer firefighter and emergency medical technician (EMT). You see, in EMS, you spend a lot of time together, both on and off the clock, and you develop relationships that stem much deeper than the profession. I spent 15 years in EMS as a volunteer, working my way up to Assistant Chief before letting my certifications lapse and officially “retiring” last year because, quite frankly, I was tired. I loved my EMS family and spent most of my free time with them on vacations, celebrating weddings, and just kvetching about life. They were my rock and I still keep in touch with many of them, even though many (including myself) have moved on to new places, gotten married and in some instances have (or are having) children.

When I moved to Colorado in July 2012, it was the first time in the last 17 years when I didn’t have a family of choice that I could readily turn to for support, love and just general good times. Then I discovered roller derby. To be fair, when I lived in North Carolina I watched derby on a semi-regular basis, but didn’t have the time to be an active participant.

Enter Suzy Muffin Crusher, my next door neighbor. One day over a casual conversation on our front porch while sporting my Appalachian Roller Girls beer koozie, we began discussing derby. I shared with her my interest, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to get involved. She kindly invited me to a FoCo Girls Gone Derby bout in September 2012 and I was hooked. I started volunteering/training a week later as an NSO (non-skating official) and shortly thereafter I began working on my skating skills with new skaters. Two weeks ago, after months of studying rules, participating in practices/scrimmages and countless falls, I officiated my first roller derby tournament at the Colorado Cup in Denver

I share this history because; although I love roller derby and work very hard to be a good official, roller derby is more than a sport. Sure it’s competitive, fun, noisy and filled with both outrageous personalities and costumes. At the end of each bout there is always a winner and loser, but in the end we’re all winners because we’ve chosen each other as our family.  FoCo Girls Gone Derby has given me the opportunity to create a new family of choice. I have been fortunate enough to meet skaters, officials and volunteers from all over the US and from around the world. The majority of people I am now closest to in my life and would turn to for help are my roller derby comrades, and vice versa.

So go out and find your “family of choice”, whatever that looks like for you, because when your life falls apart, like mine recently did, there’s never a shortage of companionship, love and support to help get you through. May each of you be as fortunate as I have with finding your own family of choice.

See you on the track…   

Whistle Blower

Rock Your Body Right

Just once in my life, I would like to fall asleep like the people in a mattress commercial. I would like to lay my little head on the pillow, smile sweetly, and then drift peacefully into a restful 8 hours of dream-time. But I wont. I have a mind that is usually juggling about 19 different things and when I lay down at night my brain seems to want to go at top speeds until I pass out from exhaustion. To combat this, I have discovered pinterest. Things I have searched for on pinterest in the last week: roller derby, roller derby wedding, Aquarius, sports inspiration, skating warm up, shin stretches, octopus art, Prague, Ryan Gosling, Suzy Hotrod, life hack, quinoa, grilled cheese. You get the gist. My point here is that I cover a lot of ground on any given night, and I would like to talk about my continual disappointment in a particular area of pinterest searches. Workout Inspiration.

Despite my best efforts, I am not easily motivated to workout. I am regularly searching for the holy grail of workout motivation, the thing that will make me LOVE it. In my wide and varying, sometimes rambling, pinteresting journeys I have found there are a ton of really helpful and inspiring quotes and ideas that get me through the toughest of practices. So the natural next step was to look for "workout inspiration" in the darkness of night, right? WRONG. This yields a whole bunch of over-tan skinny women showing off bikini bodies while wedding dress shopping with tiny purse dogs. OK, that is a slight exaggeration. I am not against tans, wedding dresses, or adorable tiny dogs because first of all they're all pretty awesome and second, people have free will and all that. What annoyed me about this particular key-word search was the abundance of stuff about appearance and a lack of stuff about health or athletics to balance it out.

Every woman gets to make a decision for herself regarding why she works out; why she is in the gym when she could doing anything else in the world rather than sweating like a beast on the treadmill or grunting out another set of squats. For some women, the reason is a rocking bikini body, but not for all of us so why is that the main thing that comes up? It was just disappointing when I was looking at things like "I am not strong for a woman, I am just strong" and "I may not be there yet, but I am closer today than yesterday" and then transitioned all too quickly to "Shrink your waist" and "Imagine the outfits you'll wear". It was a shock to the system. I got a little mad at our culture for a moment about it.

I have been rolling this around in my head now for a while and I am still not sure how it makes me feel. On one hand, I think that whatever gets a person off the couch is GREAT inspiration. Do whatever works for you because your health is important. Even if your goal isn't to have better health, that is at least part of the result of working your ass off (literally). Your heart will be healthier, your blood pressure will decrease, and, most likely, your mood will improve as a result of endorphins (and looking HAWT). These are all good things, right? Yes... but... why does it still irk me? Why was my gut reaction to get pissy about it and think "There they go again, making it ALL ABOUT IMAGE. Ignorant jerks. As if a woman can't workout FOR HERSELF" and so on (and on and on). It's a good thing that Mr. Maguire wasn't awake because he would have gotten an earful about it. And doesn't every man just LOVE when his partner wakes him up in the dead of night to lecture them about feminist principles poorly thought out between waves of exhaustion?

I think those pins irritate me because I am a self centered jerk and think my reasons for doing things are superior to everyone else's. And, they are superior, but mostly for me. My reasons and my motivations work for ME. And though its TOTALLY BAFFLING that sometimes they don't work for other people, that is just how it is. So I guess I will have to tolerate that other people find inspiration in other ways. But I don't have to like it. Accepting that other people care a lot about having a bikini body might actually make me sleep better at night. Or maybe that is my next pinterest topic...

Derby Love,
Mollytov Maguire

Come join our Cult!

Roller Derby has such an interesting culture.  And by culture I mean we're a mafia of awesome.  We're very protective of our own much like a family.  We look out for each other, keep each other safe, and if someone messes with one of us, they get all of us.  You would think that a set up like this would be very inclusive, but in fact we're always trying to get others to drink the derby kool-aid.  Last week, a cute little button if a girl showed up to our Thursday warm up/workout session.  Ken Minifield (our fitness trainer) brought her over to me and said, "Skank, this is Jessica.  Take care of her tonight."  This girl knew no one.  She hadn't come because her friend told her to or because she saw "Whip It", she came because she saw how this sport had affected us and she wanted to see that change in herself.

I brought her over to the rest of the girls and announced, "Hey ladies, this is Jessica.  She came to our bout last Friday and is thinking of joining our league."  I was met with clapping, cheering, and smiles from everyone in the league.  I felt so proud to be in a league where instead of being inclusive and wanting to stick with the familiar, we welcomed someone we didn't know because we knew how much derby had changed our lives.

This is the kind of attitude that needs to bleed out of us.  Instead of being shy to our co-workers about the sport that we play, or feeling like we're inconveniencing our friends whenever we ask them to come to a bout, instead we should just welcome them to something that makes us so happy.  "Hey, this has changed my life.  Come and enjoy this with me and we'll share this together."  When people see you truly immersed and happy about something, they can't help but want to know what it is. 

Many people I've invited to my bouts have fallen in love with roller derby.  My husband brings cowbells to every bout and is constantly trying to be the loudest fan in the whole place.  Some of my friends have bought season passes and shirts from my fan club.  My parents come simply because they love me.  Whatever your involvement is with roller derby, invite others to share in your happiness.  They might not fall head over heels in love with it like you did, but sharing this sport with others is one of the reasons it's so special to us.  They will mourn your losses with you and celebrate your victories, and who knows?  Maybe one day they'll strap on a pair of skates and join you on the track.

Cheers,

The Original Skankster

A Blast from the Past

Something pretty special happened to me last week. A friend from a long time ago reached out to me and thanked me for doing derby. She thanked me because hearing about my struggles and successes on the track allowed her to dream big and join her local league too. She is fresh meat and I am proud of her. This friend and I haven't really talked much in the last 10 years, but I did run into her a few months back at a bar in her neck of the woods. I mentioned that I was doing derby and it had changed my life. She said it was this brief conversation coupled with my incessant derby talk on social media that gave her the nudge she needed to do it.

She also told me something that broke my heart a little. A few years back, she ran into a player for a very prominent local team and asked about joining, but this person was not very polite or encouraging. She thought derby was for jerks and spent a long time dreaming about it but demotivated to do it. I can only speculate about this made her feel, but it would make me feel bad. As if that person could see failure written all over my face and that derby was for other people. People who were cooler than me. People who were more athletic than me. People who had crazier hair, or more tattoos, or less body fat, or more confidence, or... something. Now of course, she knows better. Derby is for everyone! Weeeee!

From what it sounds like, her league is similar to mine. They're a bunch of rad women who encourage one another to push harder and be better. She is learning to find the love of gliding on eight wheels, and from what it sounds like, will be hitting and falling very soon. Oh the days of being fresh meat... It made me reminisce about my own experience. Learning the T-Stop or doing Plow stops until you can't walk the next day were things that I had to go through too, and not that long ago.

I remember a lot about being where she is now. I hope that sharing my experiences will help her as she moves up. I am glad that my words have inspired even one person and, frankly, its why I share them. When I was new, I can remember having "derby anxiety" every week before practice. I would be so nervous to go because there were a whole lot of "what-if's" swirling around my head.

What if I couldn't do this? What if they ladies didn't like me? What if the things my ex said about me were true? It was that last one that was a big damn deal to me. That man thought I was the laziest overweight complainer of all time. He was always trying to get me to go to the gym and I just couldn't. Something that was unknown to either of us at the time was that I had a serious health issue that was causing me a lot of pain. I had been suffering from it for pretty much as long as I could remember and had been called a hypochondriac for just as long. Because of this, I had normalized the pain and it made me really depressed.  Before this diagnosis, I thought I was destined to be fat and unhappy because that was just the way my body was built.

Anyway, there I was, overweight, depressed, lonely, and hurting from a horrific shit storm of a breakup that left me empty, tired and used up. When I found derby, it wasn't an immediate love. There were nights that were crying in the bottom of the shower, there was a lot of self doubt, but eventually learned to surrender those things to people who knew me better than I knew myself at that time. My trainers were experienced and had worked with new recruits of all skill levels for years. I had to learn to trust that even though they were strangers to me, somehow I wasn't a stranger to them. At least my body wasn't. They knew how to work with it and mold me into a teammate. So, to the ex who didn't think I could do it: F#@K YOU. And to the future derby player from my past: THANK YOU. I thought I was getting the derby blues, but between talking to you and missing the last bout, I am ready to hit the track again. Sometimes, the smallest things make the biggest difference. That and a little trip down memory lane to remind myself why I play.

Derby Love,

Mollytov Maguire

P.S. To my fresh meat friend: we have shared a lot in the past, things that were both beautiful and difficult. I am so excited that you're a derby girl because, hopefully, we get to make a new relationship built on happier times for us both. See you soon, let me know when you're ready for that derby date!

Boutfits for Everyone!

When I hear the word "uniform" I immediately become incredibly bored. Thoughts of lycra, mesh, sweaty, smelly garments pop into my head and I immediately want to think of something else.  This is not the case with derby.  The uniforms are fun and sexy!  Why?  Because derby ladies are fun and sexy, and we're anything but boring!  We're fun, loud, aggressive, exciting ladies and we want our clothing to reflect that about us.  We play a tough, grueling sport, but we want to enjoy what we do by feeling free to express our individuality.

Now, the most crucial part of the derby outfit is the tights.  Don't ask me why, I don't know.  The rule of thumb it: the louder the tights the better.  Whoever has the best tights wins a secret competition between all of us ladies, and we're always excited to show each other our awesome finds.  From fishnets to solid patterns, our tights probably reflect who we are more than anything else we wear.  When I'm feeling sassy I tend to wear lace and fishnets, but when I'm feeling fun I like to wear more patterns.  Next time you see a bout, pay attention to the tights being worn, and you'll learn a lot about the derby girl you thought you knew.

A lot of people like watching the sport of roller derby, and although the athleticism makes it appealing, I know quite a few people that come to see the booty's.  Ladies in booty shorts as far as the eye can see!  What's not to like about that?  It's a major plus to our sport, and it just so happens that booty shorts are incredibly comfortable to play in.  Now, booty shorts are not for the timid- it requires a certain amount of bravery to wear them in front of your family, co-workers, and friends.  But hey, if we weren't bold we wouldn't play roller derby.

Socks.  Socks.  Socks.  I love socks.  Socks can be individualized as tights, and there are some great ones out there.  My derby sister, Mome Rath, for Christmas received over 20 pairs of brand spankin' new socks from her boyfriend.  I cannot describe my jealousy.  I seriously almost murdered her for them, but instead I just decided that I have to go shopping instead...

The Skirt.  Although not as common as the booty short, the skirt is a great option for turning up the sass.  Tutus are the staple; super loud and crazy fun to play in!  My personal favorite is the catholic school girl skirt; both feminine and wicked hot, it's easy to skate in and bound to make my man drool a little bit.

The one piece of our uniform that people tend to overlook is our helmets.  Highly decorated and adorned, this piece of safety equipment takes on a whole new purpose.  They protect our heads from crazy falls, but it gives us another opportunity to use stickers, paint, and cover things in glitter!  Using your helmet as flare is a time-honored tradition, one which should not be taken lightly.  If there's a skill a derby girl really needs to know, it's how to apply glitter.

Well now that you have the fashion breakdown of the derby boutfit, you need to know that it's not the reason why we play derby.  We play derby because we're athletes, we believe in sisterhood, and we enjoy being challenged.  This is what roller derby is really about; not fishnets and booty shorts, but empowering ourselves to become something better.

The Woman of my Dreams

So, I went to the dentist last weekend. I had a cavity that needed filling and a cleaning. I am not usually the type of person who gets uptight about that kind of thing. I am the "fake it until you make it" kind of gal, the one who smiles like she means it, even when she doesn't, because eventually she will. Chalk it up to lessons learned, but I have found that smiling and laughing even though I don't mean it is a lot easier than telling people about all the dark, nasty, shit that permeates most of my thoughts. Anyway, for whatever reason, I was a little nervous about this visit and I decided that liquid courage wasn't in the cards for a 10am dentist's appointment, so what did I do? Put on my Cinderhellas jersey. Seriously. And the socks that say "Bad Ass" with arrows that point upward. I wore derby gear to the appointment and it worked out pretty well for me.

The dentist and nurses were amazed with my ability to grin and bear it, to take their shenanigans in stride, and laugh when I just wanted to scream "Get your effing hands out of my mouth!" Needless to say, the appointment went fine, my pearly whites are a bit pearlier than they were the week before and I felt like a rockstar. I thought to myself about how I was learning to use my on the track confidence to take care of muh BIDness off the track. How else did I parlay this new found knowledge of using derby in my regular life? Well, Mr. Maguire didn't appreciate my "That's a major" comments in the kitchen, but it did help when I was making a big presentation at work I successfully hyped myself up by thinking "You've got this Molly!" Since when did my inner monologue make the switch? It changed from the name I was given to the name I had chosen. Wow.

I have always been a  person who thinks that the words we choose to say (or not say) speak volumes for us. I remember the moment I realized that I no longer thought of myself as a girl and that I thought of myself as a woman instead, that my monologue had changed. In my own head, when I thought about myself I wasn't thinking "I am a pretty awesome girl" and I had made a full time change in my head to "I am a really kick-ass woman." This realization made me carry myself a little better and it was the leap that gave me confidence to be the kind of woman who does roller derby.

Last week's blog from the Original Skankster really made me think not just about investing in myself for the future, but also that the investments of my youth had become returns in the present day. Not punishing myself for the mistakes of the past was the best choice I have ever made. It has allowed me to be older and wiser but not infallible. I get to be a woman of distinction, a woman who knows better (but doesn't always act that way), and most of all the woman of my dreams.

I look back on the difference between who I was at 20 and who I am at 30 and I am downright proud of some of my accomplishments. The ones that make me puff up like a little peacock are not the ones that are sitting on my parents mantle. There wasn't a picture to mark those occasions, it was just the fact that I knew that I could do more. I could move to a foreign country full of strangers. Or, that I could survive and THRIVE after the worst heartbreak I had ever known. I do wonder what the next decade will bring and if the changes that I will see in myself between 30 and 40 will be as dramatic but one can only hope. I am, after all, a work in progress. Roller derby has been an EXCELLENT tool to sculpt me into the woman I want to be; the kind of woman that kids I don't yet have will be proud of.

Here's to doing more than hoping I will be that woman. Tonight, a raise a glass in honor of the girl that was, the woman that is, and the woman I have yet to become.

Derby Love,
Mollytov Maguire