In Praise of Jammers

I am a blocker. That’s what my thick body and big booty were built for. While all of us can pick out favorite blockers we crush on hard from the most popular WFTDA charter teams, the truth is that most blockers don’t see a lot of the spotlight. Unless they are derby-experienced, most fans focus on the jammers and the announcers talk about them a lot more, too.  It can be argued that they score all the points but, sometimes, it’s discouraging to blockers who may quite literally be busting their asses to provide the perfect, tenacious combination of offense and defense at the same time.

Then I started jamming.  When our league recruits someone with jamming promise, they move up pretty quickly, leaving little for the c-team. We have a game on Saturday and, of our 4-jammer rotation, only 1 is really a jammer.

The reason the jammers deserve our respect and recognition is because this shit is hard. Yes, derby is hard but jamming is harder. The reasons why people avoid the star, why there are games of “not it” at scrimmage practice – are the same reasons why they deserve all of the accolades they receive and more. I’m not the first person to suggest that it’s not a star on her head, it’s a target.  The jammers take more hits than anyone on the track and, I speculate, are more likely to face serious injury as a result. Pushing through 4 strong women is no easy task and, in about 10 seconds, she has to do it all again – making it the purest form of high intensity interval training.  She also bears more responsibility and takes more blame. If she has a bad jam or goes to the box, her whole team and coaches and many fans will notice. Blockers get to be a little more anonymous.

So, don’t judge and don’t hate. Thank and encourage your jammer even if she sucks…especially if you’re not willing to take the star.

My Last Game that Wasn’t

It’s been a year of setbacks. Some of them were personal and some of them were bigger but, cumulatively, I was feeling as though it might be time to put roller derby behind me. It was a big decision and one I truly never expected to make. I often assumed that once I couldn’t play, I’d take on a new role and stay involved but, since I felt like a lot of people would prefer if I died in a fire, saying good-bye felt like what I needed to do.

I started to prepare a little and told my closest confidantes. Their responses were so soothing to my heart. None of them wanted me to go but understood why I’d be considering it. They promised their support in whatever I decided, reminding me that we are friends, derby or not. They say your truest friends are a reflection of you and I am humbled to be in such good company.

My beloved team had a game coming up and I wanted to play with them one more time, planning to announce my intentions soon thereafter. A local photographer was offering a package that, for a truly nominal fee, he would ensure at least 10 decent photos of me from the game. Wanting to indelibly document the evening, I reserved his services. My derby wife and her fiancé would be there to support me and even my husband and son, who hadn’t attended my past several games, planned to come as well. They all knew it would be a hard night and were ready to catch me when I fell.

Then, I attended my first all-league scrimmage in months to say good-bye to some people even if they had no idea that was what I was doing. To my surprise, I had several people corner me privately and tell me that they were happy I was there and that they were sorry about the things that had happened. There were high-fives and laughing. It didn’t feel weird to be there like I thought it would and only two people were rude which was far less than the number in my imagination.

That’s when I decided to stay.

Sometimes things get to be all-encompassing and take on a life of their own. I was isolated in my sadness – partly as a defensive measure to protect myself from sinking further and partly to make sure I couldn’t pull anyone else down with me. I felt like no one cared but, in retrospect, my defenses were so thick that I realize only now that most people had no idea. I deflected others’ concern for me and rebuffed their gestures of friendship. I assumed that everyone shared the thoughts of the loudest few. Everything was so much closer to normal than I imagined and I was being judged based on face value and nothing more. It’s embarrassing, as a woman in her 40s, to admit that I let it get this bad but I am so relieved to know the truth.

Going into the weekend’s game was so much different than how I had prepared for it. I was happy and excited. I interacted with my teammates more than they were likely used to. My support team/fan club all decided to come anyway, more in celebration than in sorrow. The game itself was fun and exhausting. It made me realize how much I still want to accomplish so I am triumphantly pushing forward.

This week, I have busted out the old me – the real me – and I am so incredibly glad to be back.

Eric took these. So grateful for his constant love and support.

If you feel like laps are your worst enemy, maybe they are.

When I was still fresh meat, desperate to pass my laps, I recall approaching my trainers and telling them that my legs felt as though they were seizing up. It started as cramps in my feet and traveled upward, the excruciating pain becoming stiffness and the feeling that I had no control over my own body. It started after just a few laps and intensified until I stopped but, once the laps were over and I stretched a little, it went away like nothing had even been wrong. Well. They looked at me like this was the most absurd thing they had ever heard.

So, I decided it must be me since it didn’t sound familiar to anyone I was telling. I did everything I knew to do. I started running to take cardio fatigue out of the equation. I paid for private lessons with one of our coaches to work on my technique. I lost 30 pounds. I tried different combinations of wheels and bearings thinking it might help but nothing ever did and I decided that something in my legs was just too weak* and I hadn’t found the right thing to make them strong enough. Since laps were the only time I felt this way, my theory made sense to me.

Through the strength of my will (and some important encouragement), I passed my laps after 15 months of trying and, for awhile, I put it out of my head. I had new things to focus on, new experiences to gain, and I felt like the laps would just get easier but they never did. Wanting to up my game, I renewed my mission to solve this problem and consulted with a personal trainer to help me overcome it once and for all.

“Sounds like you have compartment syndrome,” he said. What? I had heard about this! Tera Bites had surgery for it before we met – but her story about the great lengths she went to in convincing her doctor to check it out made it sound rare or improbable so it never occurred to me that it could be the problem I was having, too.

I saw a sports medicine doctor and he agreed that my experience was consistent with chronic exertional (also called exercise induced) compartment syndrome of my lower legs. He explained that it often onsets with a repetitive activity; in my case, just plain skating in circles. It isn’t a problem in gameplay because I’m doing other things with my feet and legs. Since I recover from the pain pretty quickly and, in my entire life it only impacts me while I skate laps, my doctor does not recommend surgery. If it got worse or more limiting, I would push him to do it but I am 42 and want to make the most of the derby time I have. 

What is this Compartment Syndrome? It’s a condition where your muscles are too large for the fascia that contain them. To give you a gross but effective visual, think about when you eat chicken. There is a thin, white membrane surrounding the different muscles you eat. That is the fascia. When that fascia is too constricting, you build up pressure during exercise that can cut off the oxygen supply and cause permanent muscle and nerve damage. Why does it only happen for me during laps since, clearly, my lower legs are at work all the time in derby? It’s kind of like priming a pump. 

I’m ridiculously stubborn and I’ve been in denial about it ever since. Recently, after warm-ups at practice involving at least 8 straight minutes of just laps, I never really recovered through the rest of practice. I still hurt a lot the next day and I was afraid I had done the permanent damage I had been warned about. I decided to do the smart thing for me and stepped down from my spot on the B-team because it required me to (and I wanted to) push myself harder than I could afford to push.

I am sharing this detailed account because I hope it might help someone get to this answer faster than I did.  That said, I am not a doctor and I am not giving any advice other than, “If any of this sounds familiar to you, please see a sports medicine specialist.” They can tell you what’s up and give you advice. Mine said I can continue to play but I needed to listen to my body so that’s what I’ve finally decided to do. There is a lot of pressure to be a beast in derby and all of us risk broken bones and concussions every time we step onto the track but there is not a lot of empathy for having limitations much less accepting them. 

It’s really hard to firmly say I can’t when this sport has done so much to convince me that I absolutely can. 

I’m lucky because I have a wonderful derby wife and an amazing real life husband who cushioned my fall with their love and support. Leadership on both sides of my transition were kind and understanding and my J-Villains welcomed me back with enthusiasm. I am happier with “my secret” out because I feel more empowered to manage my condition. 

*I am risking my credibility in admitting this since I could probably lift a car with my legs but this really is what I was thinking!