Saturday 21 December 2013 12:06 2 Comment(s)

Roller derby. The sport that everyone loves to hate, apparently it's a pointless and aggressive sport so I've been told when people find out that I play roller derby. I find this odd because the initial reaction is either:

"Oh my God, isn't that really dangerous, like you punch and kick each other? Why would you do that?"
or
"You don't look like the kinda girl who would be involved in THAT."

Then I get bombarded with odd questions as they start to get very curious. I get the whole, "So what do you do with the ball?" followed by, "So what do you actually do then?" when I say that we don't use a ball.

Trying to explain roller derby to someone who already has a bad opinion of the sport without even researching what it actually involves is like telling a very stubborn child that, no, they cannot open their Christmas presents yet because it isn't Christmas yet  which is often followed by a confused one eyebrow up look to indicate that what I am saying makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

I simply tell them the basic rules and to youtube some videos as I have no time for judgmental remarks just because I do a sport they do not understand. At one point, I was actually embarrassed that I played roller derby, because of the negative reactions from people and them looking at me like I am the spawn of Satan. At this point, I was also losing my love of roller derby. Luckily I snapped out of it shortly after that and decided that I no longer cared what other people thought of the sport because I love it and have met some incredible people through it.

Yes, my relationship with the sport is a love/hate one, with it being more love than hate. The times that I lose my love for the sport is normally when I hit a huge wall that i can't get pass but I have such wonderful team mates and they encourage me and help me back up. I cannot thank my team enough for never letting me quit and always being there to listen and help out. This is why I keep coming back week after week because I know that just because I can't do something as well as someone else, it doesn't make me a crap skater. Also the competitive side of me loves bouting season so I tend to kick my butt into gear and just work as hard as possible!

Here's to the exciting tournaments (Heartland Series and SW:UK) that Dorset Roller Girls will be playing in in 2014!! ♥

This has turned into a babble of nonsense so I will stop here.

Beckie xoxo