1.8.11

Four weeks until my first official roller derby bout.
I feel like I'm going to vomit.

This is unlike any other sport I've ever participated in, but in a good way. Unlike basketball or soccer, I give this my absolute all. You can't half-ass roller derby, because if you do you will be demolished. You can't sidle up to someone and expect them not to plow over you. You can't roll over to the other team and say "Hey, my back is killing me today, can you take it easy?" This is a sport where if the other team sees you have any type of athletic brace on to stabilize, say an ankle, they will target you over anyone else. If an opponent sees you're a little wisp of a girl, you will be hit hard.

I've never bouted, but if I was the opponent, and I saw you with an ankle brace on, or a scared look in your eye, I would demolish you. Roll you over and not look back. If I saw that you're a little tiny thing with no muscle, I would target you whenever I could to make you feel like you don't belong on the track. Derby is a mental game as much as a physical one. You keep getting hit hard, you get demoralized. If you keep putting people down, you get a boost.

Roller derby is a sport.
It is definitely, without a doubt in my mind, the sport for me.