How Roller Derby Changed My Life

Me, with my friend Gori Spelling--love her 90210 Helmet! | Source: Marc CamposThere’s a video tape of me somewhere at a friend’s fourth-grade birthday party. It was at a roller rink, and not only did I not know how to skate, but I was terrified—clinging to the wall and moving inch-by-inch around the rink. If you told that timid little eight-year-old me that one day not only would I be comfortable on skates, but that roller derby would be a huge part of my life, I would have called you a liar . . .but it’s true.

Today, when I enter the Doll Factory and hear the sound of roller skates on Masonite, I feel like I’m home. This is where the LA Derby Dolls–a roller derby league I volunteer with–play. When I started, we didn’t have a place to put our track, and were skating in a park; now we’ve got an enormous building to host our bouts, a giant fan base(and regular celebrity sightings), and admiration from derby leagues around the world.

What won me over about roller derby was that this sport is do-it-yourself: rules had to be written from scratch, women who hadn’t skated since they were in grade school were becoming serious athletes, friends were being recruited to help with whatever needed helping – and it wasn’t always clear what that was – and all the hard workwas being done in the name of fun. It was a real community of people doing something they loved, and to me? That’s pretty exciting.

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LA Derby Dolls: Super heroines of Historic Filipinotown

Some said she was going 25-plus mph easy. I thought it could have been faster, the image a blur as the demon jammer whizzed by. Didn’t get her name but who does. Everyone of them are aliases, names like Smarty Pants, Haught Wheels, Windy City Rollers and so on and so forth.

Basically it’s badass girls in hot pants and colored shirts uniform plowing through other badass girls of a different uniform. A fastpaced action initiated by jammers jamming to score points while the blockers block. How simple can that be? Contact sports? Go see football and the likes. What we have here is collision sports. One can just imagine the sores and aches and occasional bruises. Most amazing, they’re all chicks!

Actually the players appeared to be enjoying in what they were doing — falls and all. And the tightly packed crowd roared their loudest at every hit and spill, many obviously helped along by the abundance of beer in the vicinity. An abundance of security personnel was also around just in case. The venue: The Doll Factory located just a stone throw from the FACLA building in Historic Filipinotown.

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ladowntownnews.com - Riding Hard With the Derby Dolls

It’s All Fun and Games Until You Try to Skate With the Derby Dolls’ Junior Team

 

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - For five days, I needed help putting on my socks. I had to sleep with a heating pad. My 5-year-old daughter noticed that her dad is “slow like an old man.”

Even if the back pain made me walk like Yoda with a cane, at least I could say I got hurt skating with the insane members of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls.

Except it isn’t true.

For my latest Downtown Challenge, where I take on different jobs and activities that are part of the local community, I hoped to skate with Downtown’s first ladies of roller derby at the Doll Factory, their Temple Street home.

Like a lot of things in life, it was a good idea at the time. However, if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that gravity sucks. Well, that and that 9-year-olds are much better skaters than I am in.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

For the uninitiated, the Derby Dolls are an all-women league who compete on a banked track. They were founded in 2003 by Rebecca Ninburg and Wendy Templeton, who like all Dolls have cool nicknames. Ninburg goes by Demolicious and Templeton is Thora Zeen.

Other skaters include Killo Kitty, Iron Maiven and Broadzilla. They are divided into five teams with monikers such as Fight Crew, Tough Cookies and the L.A. Ri-Ettes, the league’s All-Star squad.

While a match can look like a chaotic blur, the rules of roller derby are actually quite simple. Each squad has five players: four blockers and one jammer. With the help of the blockers, who function like NFL offensive tackles on wheels, the jammer has 60 seconds to break through the pack and pass opposing skaters. Each opponent she passes is worth one point.

It’s a full-contact sport where the women can hit the barriers at speeds of up to 25 mph. Every Doll has war stories.

“I broke my arm during a game last year, so you can certainly get hurt,” said Trixie Biscuit, a member of the Fight Crew.

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El Derby Dolls, un deporte de mujeres muy salvaje

Here is a great feature from Argentina featuring our very own Chargin Tina!

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motorsportsnewswire.wordpress.com - Versatile Vander Pluym Brings Wide Range of Talents to New SPEED™ Show — Stuntbusters

“We get to Execute Stunts People Wait Their Entire Careers to Perform”

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – October 25, 2011 – (Motor Sports Newswire) – Whether acting, competing in sports, executing complicated Hollywood stunts or simply experiencing life, Vanessa Vander Pluym’s ever-growing skillset is not by happenstance, but by design. Co-host of the new SPEED show Stuntbusters (premieres Nov. 15 at 8 p.m. ET), Vander Pluym brings several of her talents to the new prime time program, admitting to an attraction to things that scare her a little bit.

“When I was young, I was very shy,” Vander Pluym said. “I was afraid of everything … heights, conversation, dancing in front of people. In overcoming those fears, I’ve developed a rule to live by — a little afraid, do it … a lot afraid, there’s a reason, don’t do it.”

For Stuntbusters (BASE Productions), Vander Pluym works with co-host Garrett Hammond to explore and explode motoring myths, revealing the facts and figures behind the latest, fastest and hottest automotive stunt technology. Each experiment is captured at one thousand frames per second; allowing viewers to witness the physics behind the vehicular mayhem.

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