Before
I get started on this post, I'm going to preface this by saying that
I am in no way singling out any one person, or even any one league. I
still have lots of friends that skate WFTDA derby for other leagues
and this is not a post to state how much they suck or how other derby
is so much better. Those who are my friends on facebook are ones I
trust and who agree with me to a certain extent.
That
being said.
I
started playing roller derby a little over three years ago for a huge
league in my area. I had seen their championship bout a couple of
years prior and fell in love with it. I loved the outfits, the
attitudes, and the fact that these women were accomplishing an
amazing thing while simultaneously flipping the bird to conventional
attitudes. Fuck, those women were awesome. They wore ripped tights,
booty shorts, they had great makeup. They skated around the
track with an intensity and rebelliousness I admired immediately. I
knew I had to do it.
I
joined the rec league with high expectations. I poured my heart and
soul into derby. Six months later, I decided to try out for Fresh
Meat.
Lo
and behold, I made it.
My
hopes rose even higher, with the prospect that I was that much closer
to getting on a team. My ultimate goal. The thing I wanted above
everything else in my life. Literally. As the days went on and my
Fresh Meat career lengthened, I put derby above everything
else. I was skating 4-6 nights a week, participating in 2 committees,
and going to every single bout put on by our home teams. I was
basically home long enough to cram food in my mouth and leave again.
My family life suffered, my friendships suffered. I couldn't
complain, though, because "everyone has lives outside of derby,
you're no exception." as I was told by coaches and leadership at
the time. I nodded and grinned as big as I could, because it was
true. I was also told that the league supports skaters with families
and busy lives, and I wholeheartedly believed it. Because a league
that says it supports and empowers women couldn't possibly be
unsupportive of women with families and kids and lives, right?
Right?
Right
around my one year anniversary on Fresh Meat, my enthusiasm became
harder to come by. I had been through 2 or 3 drafts at that point,
and hadn't been picked. But I wasn't going to let that get me down. I
gladly rolled over and exposed my belly to the league again. I pushed
harder and invested everything I had, mentally and physically into
the league, because that's what was expected of me. Anything less and
I was deemed "not dedicated". I saw it happen multiple
times to other people. There were no good excuses for missing
practice. We had an 80% attendance policy, but were expected to use
that 20% as "emergency padding" in case something
devastating prevented us from getting to practice. We were told that
if we showed a consistent 80%, we would probably still not get
drafted. We needed to be at 100% or higher to even be considered. I
was starting to become a husk of a person, my obsession with getting
onto a team becoming the only motivation to attend practice. I didn't
care about having fun anymore (I wasn't), I didn't care about being
empowered ( I wasn't) and I certainly didn't care about the amount of
dedication I thought it took to get to the top.
As
my second year anniversary approached, I had made it through 6
drafts. I had watched as spots opened up on teams, only to be
disappointed when a vet skater came back and took that spot under the
new "immediate draft" policy. I listened as others would
fawn over visiting skaters, begging them to transfer and join their
team instead of focusing on the talent that was waiting on Fresh
Meat. I tried to ignore it when skaters from other leagues told me
team captains had visited and attempted to recruit. From the outside
looking in, it seemed our league was hurting for talent. While
attending a training committee meeting, I overheard the head of that
committee tell another skater that "If someone gets on FM who
doesn't show potential to join the A travel team, they are a waste of
our time." Verbatim. If you were not a talented skater from the
get-go, you were considered a waste. Our travel team was consistently
in the top five rankings in the nation, so our league was focused and
dead set on being number one. They trained their travel team hard,
and that trickled down to home teams, and then Fresh Meat. Nobody
cared if you weren't having fun, they needed to be number one and
they were willing to steamroll anyone who didn't show enough
potential to get them there. It no longer mattered how much heart and
soul you had for derby, how hard you pushed yourself, how much
personal improvement you made, or how bad you wanted it. Home team
skaters were no exception. Only the best ever got rostered, and in
some cases, only the best were allowed to scrimmage, rendering the
less talented skaters even more useless by not getting any game time.
We were still expected to shut up and show up, though. We were
expected to sell tickets to events we were not skating in. We were
told not to cry if we weren't drafted or rostered because that showed
we were poor sports.
That
year several aspects of my personal life turned themselves into a
crisis. By the summer I was in full on crisis mode, trying to deal
with some pretty bad shit. Derby finally took a back burner to my
personal life. My attendance was abysmally low, because dealing with
my crises was more important to me than showing up. I was informed in
August that I was no longer welcome on Fresh Meat due to my poor
attendance. I was devastated. Not only was I trying to pick up the
pieces of my personal life, but the one thing that offered me solace
in that time was being taken away. I appealed to the board, and was
told my appeal would be considered at the next training committee
meeting a month away, and in the meantime I should come to practice
as normal. By then, my life had started to stabilize and I was able
to dive into derby once again. During that month, I did EVERYTHING. I
went to every practice, every bonus practice, every team practice,
even if I didn't get credit for it. I wanted to show them my
dedication was back in full force, and it was. During the meeting, I
stated my case. I said my personal life was under control again and I
was ready and willing to give derby everything I had. The committee
consisted of several team skaters and two FM skaters. I answered
questions, and agreed out loud that in hindsight I should have
communicated more about my struggles. In my head, I was still
wondering what good that would have done, however. Everyone has
personal problems and I know I would have gotten a "suck it up
and show up to practice anyway" speech. I was not empowered, no
one gave a shit about me because I didn't fit the social mold, I
wasn't a super star skater, and god forbid I put something above
derby for once.
It was a unanimous vote.
I was out.
Even the two FM
skaters voted me out. I cried harder than I had cried in a long time.
Derby was all I knew at that point. I was invited to keep
volunteering and try out for Fresh Meat again in a couple of months.
I laughed, and I laughed hard. It just went to show the attitude of
that league. "We'll keep you on Fresh Meat for two years, make
you feel like shit the whole time for not being super talented, and
kick you out when you have a crisis in your personal life, but please
keep volunteering and doing shit for us and maybe we'll consider you
in the future sometime"
In
November that year, myself and a handful of other girls, some of them
whom had also left that league, banded together and started our own
league. A Renegade league. We wanted to bring back the showmanship
and the campiness that is embedded in derby's roots. We wanted to
bring the fun back into derby, for EVERYONE, not just a select few.
We wanted to empower all women again. Anyone who wanted to skate with
us would be welcomed into our fold and not judged based on
appearance, social skills (or lack thereof) or talent. We planned to
have a cohesive and respectful relationship with the flat track derby
league in our town, and planned on presenting ourselves to the
Executive Director as soon as we had a drawn out business plan and
got ourselves organized a bit. Word spread like wildfire, though, as
it does in derby, and soon I got a call from her asking what the hell
we were doing. I explained to her what our plan was, and how we
wanted to offer a different derby option for anyone who wanted it. I
told her that flat track derby has been going a different direction
than a lot of people had expected, and we wanted to be there for
those that don't want to be a jock. She advised me that if it was
showboating and campiness we wanted, we could probably have special
bouts or something to entertain the fans. I respectfully told her
that with a league that laughs at and mocks fishnets and themed
bouts, it couldn't happen. That league was too far absorbed into
being “athletic” and getting into the olympics to let anything
like that happen. We later received an email stating we are
attempting to start a competing business and the league skaters would
be expected to sign a non compete agreement so that they couldn't
skate with us. We were then openly mocked on social media. Friends of mine who were
still in that other league told me about several skaters that
couldn't stop badmouthing us. Is this really the roller derby women
want to join? A league that considers anything different from them
illegitimate? Is it really so wrong to have different ideas and goals
for roller derby than what is set for you by your league? Why would anyone want to stay in a league where they are openly mocked and ridiculed? One of my good friends, when experiencing frustration during a skill plateau (which is common and normal) was told to "put on her big girl panties and quit crying about it." Does that sound supportive or empowering in any way? When I hear "I don't wear derby skinz, I only wear athletic gear now." following by a snort and giggling gossip after that person walks away, my faith in that league officially goes down the toilet.
I
have had more fun in the 8 months I have been skating renegade than I
did in almost 2.5 years of skating flat track derby. Yes, we are
still a baby league and we have our issues just like anything else.
But all of us still remember what it's like to first start out.
People who don't show crazy talent right off the bat are encouraged
instead of condemned. We don't have tryouts, we don't have Fresh
Meat, and the only thing that keeps a person from getting rostered is
if they haven't reached a point where they are safe to bout. We just
recently implemented an attendance policy, but it's not set in stone
and if a skater is struggling, she feels safe enough to come to us to
work it out. We don't care about winning as much, or being number
one. We care about everyone having a good time and playing some motha
fuckin roller derby. Just because we skate Renegade doesn't mean we
skate dirty, dangerous, or we aren't athletes. We train clean and
mean. Our first priority is safety and fitness, our second is the
show. 99% of the haters that criticize Renegade have never even
watched us skate. Our first bout is coming up on October 19th,
and I can honestly say I am honored to skate with each and every
person on my team, regardless of how they look, and regardless of how
they skate.
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