Going Butch: Roller Derby World Cup Edition -- Part Four

At long last, this is the final post in our four-part series on roller derby and butch identity. Today, we're showcasing rad butch and otherwise awesome women coming to represent their countries in the first Roller Derby World Cup. As mentioned previously, these players may not necessarily identify as butch. But they do look great. If anyone wants to be taken down, let me know!

After looking at the first alphabetical half of the contenders on Thursday, today, we're starting with France.

From Team France's site

Team France: Even though Team France does not yet have all of its team members extensively profiled, this was still a hard decision. But #HK13, Truck Off Pooky is my choice from this team. Team France showed a great sense of humour, skewering French stereotypes through its team photos. Truck Off Pooky, aside from rocking a sweet hat and mustache in her promo shot, has a great cropped hairstyle and a distinctive tattoo arm sleeve. Truck Off Pooky multi-tasks as a jammer, blocker and pivot for the Paris Roller Girls.

From Team Germany's site

Team Germany: This team was another tough choice. Looking tough, talented and frankly splendidly attractive, this is a hell of a team. My choice from the German team is #66 BamBule. With tattoos, gorgeous piercings, dramatic hair and glasses, BamBule is coming for Toronto. Details on this skater are a bit hard to come by, despite GoogleTranslate's best efforts. BamBule plays for  Bear City Roller Derby in Berlin and if I see her in person at the World Cup, I might actually pass out.

From Team Ireland's FB page

Team Ireland: #1000 Canadian Psycho is my choice from the team coming from my mother's hereditary homeland. It's not just because she's Canadian and it's not just because she's holding an axe. Skating for GTAR in Toronto, Canada, Canadian Psycho is one of the Derby Debutantes.  She is clearly hotter than Christian Bale and rocks a short hair-cut and a blood spatter far better as well. We'll see her in Toronto!

  

From New Zealand's FB page

Team New Zealand: New Zealand's Facebook page and Tumblr do not yet currently have pics of individual players, so here's a shot of their sweet logo.  It's not exactly butch, but it is awesome. If anyone can point me towards pictures of players, let me know! I'll keep an eye on Team New Zealand's sites just in case!

From Team Scotland's FB Page

Team Scotland: I have a soft spot for Scotland. And even if I didn't, it would still be a great-looking team. My pick from this fine bunch is #42 Alma Geddon, who is rocking the short hair in her promo pic. Alma Geddon skates for the Auld Reekie Rollergirls, both on the home-team Leithal Weapons and the all-star travel team, Twisted Thistles in Edinburgh.







Team Sweden: My room-mate joked that, of course, all of the Swedish players would be attractive. Naturally, she was right. But I picked Swede Hurt, who has played all over the U.S., including a final stint for Gotham Girls before heading to her current spot playing for Crime City Rollers in Malmö. Swede Hurt is the head coach for Team Sweden and gets my choice because of the sheer amount of swagger in her promo shot.

Team USA: Let's be frank - coming from a country with so many amazing roller derby teams, Team USA is a powerhouse. And they look good. My pick from this team is #90 mph Little A from the Tampa Bay Derby Darlin's. Sporting a great cropped 'do and some piercings, Little A plays for both the Black Widows and the all-star travel team, the Tampa Tantrums, of which she is co-captain. Though you can't see it here, she has a totally sweet arm tattoo.





Finally, the absolutely hottest people involved in the World Cup in December are the people who sponsor teams. These players cannot shoulder the financial burden of making it to the World Cup without you. Tomorrow, I am going to randomly select a team to donate money to, because they all need it. Again, this is the Blood and Thunder hub for all of the teams' donation and merch pages. Use it! 


Well, that's all the creeping I'm doing today. Check back on Monday for a special on the DC Rollergirls and why when blogging about roller derby, you need to do your research!

Going Butch: Roller Derby World Cup Edition -- Part Three

Today's entry is our third installment in what ended up being a four-part series about butch identity and roller derby. I'm going to pick out players from World Cup teams who, in their promo material, look rather dapper. These women may not necessarily identify as butch, but fans who appreciate short hair, tattoos, and  badass women will know who to cheer for at the World Cup this December. Today, I'll pick out players from half of the World Cup teams. Look for the second half on Saturday. We'll return to our regular posting on Monday with a feature on the DC Rollergirls.

If any players would prefer to be taken off my list, let me know! Extra special thanks to the team pages, Blood and Thunder and the Derby News Network for empowering my creeping!

From Team Argentina's Facebook page

Team Argentina: Let's be frank: Argentina is a glamorous team. Therefore my pick from them is based pretty much on sweet tattoos. #9 White Rabbit has awesome ink, featuring Jessica Rabbit and Betty Boop. She may be a long-haired bunny (not unlike an angora), but any derby fan would be happy to fawn over her tats.

From the CARD site

Team Australia: My pick from this fabulous team is #58 Dodge 'n Bolt. Her sweet haircut and great smile are enough to catch the heart and mind of any rollerfan. Coming from Coastal Assassins Roller Derby along the Sunshine Coast of Australia, she's playing for the national team come December.

From the Team Brasil site

Team Brasil: Brasil featured several awesome short-haired players, but I have to give my pick to #7 Lobster from the Capital City Derby Dolls in Ottawa. Though she plays in Canada, her heart is clearly in Brasil. And who could refuse that grr-face? So long as pinching isn't a major penalty, she should do great this year.

From the Montreal Roller Derby site

Team Canada: Oh, Canada. So many rad butch options on my nation's team. However, there can only be one, so my pick is #3X Smack Daddy from Montreal Roller Derby. Smack plays on Montreal's travel team, New Skids on the Block and wears a mustache with panache. Watch out for the paddle.

From Team England's site

Team England: Wow. This team's roster looks amazing and made my choice pretty darn difficult. My pick for England is #16 Violet Attack from the Birmingham Blitz Dames. Within the league, she plays for the Sirens. Her mohawk alone could be enough to make a fan switch patriotic allegiance. (Sorry, Canada!)

From Team Finaland's site

Team Finland: Finland has the best hair in roller derby. You heard it here first. Picking one player was a wrench, but #54 The Blizzard was my final choice, because you gotta have blue hair. Currently living in England, The Blizzard plays for Bristol Roller Derby, of which she is a founding member.










Ultimately, if you want to see these ladies in December, donate to their teams. Almost every World Cup team has a Paypal account or a similarly easy way of donating set up for your use (just click on the team names above to get to their sites!). As I've said before, getting to the World Cup is not cheap. These players deserve your support. After all it's no good waiting to see sweet derby action if the team couldn't pay for flights. Skip on your latte today and put that fiver to the team of your choice. Click here for Blood and Thunder's list of fundraising and merch pages!

Check back on Saturday for the second half of my feature on World Cup players. New Zealand, I'm coming for you!

Going Butch: Keeping Roller Derby Dapper -- Part Two

Last week, I posted about how leagues can make themselves more welcoming to butch players. Today, I'll make some suggestions for keeping your fine butch self styling on the track. Also, I've included pictures of cute girls.

Notes: pics have mostly been taken from DapperQ, which is a fabulous site.

Clothing

Clothes do not make the butch - confidence and swagger do, but clothes can certainly help. Keeping in mind that you're probably wearing a team uniform, you can still keep yourself dapper. If your team uniform includes both top and bottom - unlike, say, a team shirt with whatever you like south of your navel - try to look for more masculine cuts. If your team wears red hot-pants, see if you can find red shorts. If your team wears tank tops, consider switching it for a vest or a collared shirt, or wearing a collared shirt underneath a team shirt. So long as you match the colour and the font of your name and number, you'll still fit in with your team and maintain your identity on the track.

If so long as you wear the team shirt, you can wear what pants you like, consider longer shorts. With these, cut, collar, and pattern can really bring out your dandy side. Consider pin-stripes or pairing them with suspenders in your team colours. So long as your name and number are visible, you're golden

From DapperQ

Accessories

Personally, my favourite butch accessory is the tie. You'll want to depend on your own common sense and perhaps check in with your health and safety committee to see whether you can incorporate a neck-tie into your boutfit. Alternately, consider tucking the tie into your team shirt or the bowtie. Geeky yet classy, the bowtie signals butch confidence and a sense of humour without leaving any material dangling to get caught on something during a jam. Tips for tying a bowtie are here!

If there's any room in your shorts for back pockets, consider a well-tucked hanky. You'll want to keep it from falling on the track and getting under someone's wheels, however. Consider taping that sucker in. You'll also want to consider the hanky code, lest you give another player the wrong idea.

From DapperQ

Wrist cuffs! Bring attention to your hot fore-arms with cuffs and bracelets pushed up past your wrist guards. You'll want to be sure you don't mind getting them banged up - unless you like your leather cuffs thoroughly worn, keep them at home.

Derby Names

If you haven't already chosen your name, consider how a derby name can reinforce your butch identity. Not every player has to be a Beyonslay (though that is a damn fine name). Consider butch celebrities you can honour with your name. At the time of this post being written, k.d. fang isn't taken. Rachel MadCow, WandaSykesYouOut, Amy RayGun, Jenny ShimmiesYou, and Alison Wreckdel are all free, too. You saw them here first.

Ultimately, butch identity is a beautiful, powerful thing. Derby deserves more of it and the butch women who love derby deserve to feel able to represent themselves. It's amazing what a tie can do for a girl or a boi.

Coming up next Thursday: a post about cute derby players looking dapper, so you know which teams to throw your helmet panties at once the World Cup starts.

From DapperQ, Photo Credit: DJ Vito Fun

Going Butch: Roller Derby for the Happily Non-femme -- Part One

DC Rollergirls Logo

Generally, roller derby features a hyper-femininity without the passivity that society often associates with being feminine. Instead, derby girls are commonly pictured as stereotypically sexy and feminine in addition to being born ass-kickers. There are fishnets and booty shorts to go with that black-eye, we assure potential buyers of tickets to bouts.

Of course, there is an argument to be made that the kind of aggression that derby is often marketed to have doesn't, in fact, break through gender stereotypes, but retreads how we conceive of female aggression, namely in terms of the cat-fight. That isn't actually my main point today, but the problems presented by the popular conception of derby as ultra-femme aggression affect something close to my heart, specifically that it can create an environment unwelcoming to butch women.

I'm writing this post today partially in response to the fact that my blog stats page informed me that someone Googled "roller derby butch" and ended up on my blog.  I searched it myself to see what was out there. To be clear: there aren't a whole lot of relevant results for that search, in part because derby is not often marketed as being friendly to butch women.

How then, can leagues work on ensuring that women who don't go in for knee socks can still feel welcome in their local derby league? I have three suggestions.

If you have the credit info for this, let me know!

1) Stop relying on the pin-up. Derby's love affair with the retro fun of pin-up photography is fun, but it's not all we are. As a league, as a producer of posters, bout guides, team logos, websites, etc, try harder to depict derby in more diverse ways - there are so many different ways of being a woman and cuban heel stockings don't define all of them. Our imagery tells prospective players whether or not they are likely to be welcome in our league. Is your marketing welcoming to butch women?

2) Explore what falls outside stereotypical femininity. This is not to say that we have to give up being femme on the track. Hot pants are fun and I enjoy when my team-mates rock them.  But you don't need to be wearing glitter make-up to skate in a jam. Support your fellow players who don't go for stereotypically feminine wear. What's empowering for you might be stifling for them. As a team-member, consider how your team's uniforms, logo, and brand may be saying, "No bois allowed".

3) Market directly to butch women. Derby and diversity can go hand in hand - the excitement of derby league involvement in Pride Parades is proof of that. In Toronto, we even have the yearly Clam Slam - an all-queer derby extravaganza. This is not to say that a queer woman is necessarily a butch woman or vice versa. But putting up a poster indicating that you accept *all* women in your league in spaces that support butch women (such as your local queer bar or a meeting space for folks who don't go in for gender normativity) is a good step toward making your league more friendly to butch players and ultimately stronger for that diversity.

By the amazing Cristy C. Road for Bitch Magazine, 2005

On Monday, look for Part Two of this post, a more in-depth discussion of suggestions for butch players who still want action on the track while being themselves. There should also be a Part Three featuring amazing butch players and role models in Canada and farther afield who I may or may not have crushes on.

Wheeling in Winter: The Roller Derby Off-Season

With November well underway, it's a time that derby starts to go dormant for the year in some countries. With WFTDA Championships coming up next week, derby girls are having their last hurrahs until spring. Season-ender parties and final bouts are popping up and would-be fresh meat in bigger cities are likely being told to wait for next spring's training camp.The Winter season, at least in Canada, is time for derby folks to practice, cross-train and have visions of spring bouts dance in their heads.

But keeping motivated is essential. For players who find being without bouts to look forward to hard on their derby dedication, the gym and skate nights at the local roller rink are not your only option.

Many recreational leagues don't have down-time: experienced players can volunteer their time as trainers and new skaters can always learn something - rec leagues often feature very experienced skaters who, due to injury, availability, or preference, have decided to skate recreationally. Low-contact leagues also emphasize strategy and positional blocking, since checking is out of the equation: it's a useful way of thinking about the game we love and it will improve your performance come spring. Refs are always needed, of course, and many rec leagues play and practice all year. Consider learning something new from your derby sisters on the other side of the rink. Volunteering your time (and likely being bought a drink afterwards) is something you can look forward to.

But what are your other options? Outdoor skating on ice is a kind of cross-training that will keep you  engaged (and frequently features hot chocolate), but wearing your knee pads is essential unless you fancy limping away from the rink as I did last year. Depending on your snow-fall, outdoor skating on your quads is a possibility, but it's important to remember that drivers may have less control on the road, again depending on the weather conditions in your area. Additionally, drivers may not be expecting skaters on the road - keep it on the bike paths.

Be sure to keep in contact with your fellow league-members. Other derby players will keep you excited as the days get shorter. Chances are that you came to the game for the challenge and the company: keep both part of your winter derby experience and you'll be ready for spring.

The Accidental Athlete: Fitness and Roller Derby

Let me begin by saying that I am not the most dedicated derby girl. Sometimes I  miss practice and sometimes when it's go all out or not throw up, I opt for the latter. There are derby girls who are incredibly fit, whose bodies are well-oiled and fishnet-covered machines. I am not one of those women.

Yet last night, I went jogging with my room-mate for the first time in about three years. And while I didn't keep up perfectly, I kept up a whole lot better than I did last time. My room-mate, a military reservist, is kind of my hero when it comes to fitness: she has amazing drive and her ability to maintain a commitment just blows me away. I couldn't help but note that while I'm about twenty pounds heavier than I was during that last run, I have better lung capacity and endurance, and, dare I say it, I'm more fit.

Typically, when I call myself fit, I mean that I fit into about half of my wardrobe at any given time. But the last time I zipped up my Docs, I had to loosen the laces to let the boots fit my calves. Despite my inconstant heart, derby is having an effect on my body - not just on my confidence and my social life.

And my ability to earn my level-three skills bearing necklace!
Photo credit Rosemary Van Gelderen

In some ways, I feel like this happened accidentally: I've never really felt like I've improved in terms of my fitness level in derby, perhaps because what I tend to focus on is more my skill testing. But it happened anyway. It turns out that I'm proof that anything - anything - is better than just sitting on your bum. When I was focused on other things, say, my cross-overs, I was getting fitter without realizing it.

Vansterdamn teaching me. She's awesome.
Photo Credit: Natalie 'Vegas' Buragina

And this is why roller derby is better for you than stair-climbing, in my estimation. The sport has so many potential payoffs - the challenge, the friendships, the confidence-building, and as I've found out, the slow but steady progress of one's fitness level.

Roller derby tricked me into being more fit. And I couldn't be happier about it.

Portrait of a City on Skates: Roller Derby in London, Ontario

I didn't skate until I moved back to London. Since getting here, I've been really impressed by the derby community and what a determined skater can get out of the city. I'll be profiling London, Ontario based on a few key areas. If you're considering relocating to London and want to keep derby friendliness in mind, consider the following points.

Chances to Play?

London itself is home to both low-contact, recreational roller derby and full-contact derby. LOCO Roller Derby, my home league started in London but has since spread to Stratford, Brantford, and Kitchener. Also within the city, you can find the Forest City Derby Girls, a robust local full-contact league featuring the star Thames Fatales and the Luscious Lunch Ladies, their newest team. Just under an hour's drive can take you to Woodstock, Ontario, where you can find the Woodstock Warriors, another new full-contact team.

Chances to Watch Bouts?

The only public bouting currently available is through FCDG. They bout at the Western Fairgrounds. Tickets are usually $12 - $15 and the show is well worth it. Both LOCO and the Woodstock Warriors put on  public events, both on and off-skate, often in the form of fundraisers for the leagues or local charities.

Where to Purchase Equipment?

London's listings on Kijiji are always worth a look if you're in the market for used wheels and skates. The Board Shop is usually worth checking out for protective gear and Shock Doctor Mouthguards are available at any of the city's Source for Sports. The only local consistent source for skates, wheels and other equipment is Rollersk8s R Us, which offers a fresh meat package, used and new skates, and 10% off for derby players.

For those willing to leave the city, Hamilton's Rough House is one option. Rollerbug and My Roll Life (opening soon) in Toronto are two derby-owned shops worth checking out as well.

Members of the leagues around London are often willing to split shipping from online stores like Rollergirl, which has highly competitive prices and selection in addition to being derby-owned.

Where Can I Practice?

During the months outdoor skating is possible, London's park systems are very skate-friendly. Connected by bike paths, they offer routes with a variety of difficulty levels, often within a stone's throw of the Thames River. These routes can be busy, so consider skating during off-peak hours and skate with a buddy whenever possible. Here's a PDF of the parks!

The North London Optimist Community Centre is the most popular indoor skating option in in the city. They offer adult skates on Wednesday night starting at eight p.m. Family skates occur from one to four on Saturdays and Sundays. Be forewarned that Wednesday nights are often very busy and are not usually recommended for beginners. Weekend skates are much more relaxed at NLOCC.

Additionally, all of the leagues listed previously host open practices. Depending on their home rules, your first skate might even be free.