Ruling the Day: Organizing a Rules Practice and Other Rules Resources

This past Saturday, our fearless refs The Tank and Om Nom Chomsky put together the second of two rules practices organized for the league. The first went over the basic rules of derby in terms of the game's structure and the second focused on penalties. Both referees fielded questions and worked intently to help the league's players understand key details of the game we love.

Some skaters understandably might balk at the idea of a rules practice: there's an assumption that if you play, you must know the rules implicitly. But Saturday particularly was kind of a revelation: multiple times, I heard skaters say variations on "Oh, so that one infraction is pretty much all of my penalties ever. Ah. I see."

Roller derby is a complicated sport and there's no shame in not having things completely figured out, so long as you're trying to learn. The more you know about the game, the smarter you'll be able to play, and the less time you'll spend sitting in the penalty box (as our refs pointed out on Saturday). Not only will your performance improve, but you'll probably have more fun and certainly more skating time.

I've written before regarding how a rules test should be mandatory alongside a skills test to mark skaters as ready to play. But how, as leagues, do we encourage our players to learn? Cracking a book and wading through the rules can be intimidating, but it's essential that we get players to do so and in turn realize that the sport's rulebook isn't just a quagmire of big words and sub-clauses. The rulebook is actually pretty user-friendly, but the trick is helping users to get friendly with it.

Rules practices are godsends to players in need of  some explanation. Getting referees to lead players through the rules and explain them will clear a lot of confusion. Our refs decided to encourage players to obtain their own copies of the rules and follow along. A combination of explanations, questions and clarifications shed a lot of light for players new and old. The cupcakes and cookies probably helped as well. When organizing a rules practice, it's important to stress to players that this is also part of derby, that this is as much an investment in their success as doing pack drills and also to trust your referees to lead the practice. They know their stuff.

Other resource ideas include starting up a league "Ask a Zebra" Facebook page or message-board thread, depending on what kinds of intra-league communications your league primarily uses. LOCO's Ask a Zebra page on Facebook took a little while to get started, but once players realized how useful it was, it's become busy doling out answers that other players can learn from too. Another resource is Roller Derby Rule of the Day, also found on Facebook. Of course the mother lode is WFTDA's Rules page, combining Q&A with PDF resources.

The truth (about roller derby) is out there. Help get it closer to home by making sure your league's skaters have multiple ways to access it, discuss it and learn from it.

The Rules: For Derby, Not Dating

Naturally, transitioning into a trainee ref has offered me some new perspective on the game. What's come to my attention recently is how we, as lovers of the sport, relate to its actual rules. This will naturally vary from league to league - depending on the league's relationship to WFTDA and/or its level of competition, for example - but there seems to be a widening gap as the game spreads. In our rush to don the fishnets and learn transitions, sometimes we forget the particulars of the rules that shape the sport. Roller derby has a complicated rule-set and media coverage often confuses the issue further, but we owe it to our skaters to have them know the sport they're playing. I don't mean this to suggest skaters don't know the game as a living experience. Skaters know the tension at the jam line, the chasm where we failed to block correctly, the sweat and accidental cross-team boob-grabs (which, er, are illegal) that make up the sport.

But the living experience of derby is based on the foundation of the rules. Rules that every skater should be familiar with, beyond the basics. Knowing the rules allows us to play smarter and have a potentially valid reason when calling a ref an incompetent jack-ass (as occasionally does happen). A standard rule-set and equal familiarity with it is what can let a bout occur between any two teams willing to go toe-stop to toe-stop. And let's not forget that the rules do change and that players should be part of that continuing conversation.

So, how do we address this gap? We educate our players. We explain how the handbook affects their life on the track.We increase dialogue between referees, coaches, NSOs and players. On an official level, we require a rules test alongside a skills test if a player is going to be certified as ready to play. More broadly, we start and support efforts to translate the rule-set into other languages.

We owe it to our players and our sport to know the game we love.  And if you can access this post, you can read the rules.