I attended a Gotham Girls Boot Camp and lived to tell the tale

Another goal I had for 2011 was #4. Attend at least one bootcamp hosted by another league. On October 1, I got my chance! I attended a Gotham Girls Game Strategy Camp and got to skate my tail off for 5 hours, plus a lunch break in the interesting area surrounding their warehouse.  So much sweet graffiti. NYC <3. Roarshock, Eloda, and Doc attended off skates and took notes.

The boot camp started off with some off-skates jogging, jumping, and skipping around the track.  I saw Gotham do this as part of their warm up at Eastern Regionals. Then we did some dynamic stretching, which felt really good! I felt so warmed up and ready to move. (Two days later would be a different story, when I was pretty much unable to move.)

It was a good mix of skating and talking about strategy. I learned some interesting stuff about how to work in a better wall, the importance of being able to stop quickly, and I even had an "aha!" moment when doing a jammer drill.  I also kinda figured out how to almost do a hockey stop.

It was kinda awkward for me at first being the player who brought three coaches with her to the clinic, but in the end I was really glad. Some girls there were the only representatives from their league, so during strategy talks they were also fussing to take good notes. My advice to anyone attending a boot camp: bring an off skates person to take notes for you! The other thing that was bad at first was when I was working on a drill that I wasn't doing it right, I occasionally heard hey Short, you need to get down wayyyy lower!  Ahh, all eyes on Short Temper >:(  But then when I was practicing hockey stops and sometimes even getting them right I wanted to be like Roarshock, Roarshock, did you see what I did, DID YOU SEE???


Another one of our coaches, Hanna Solo, attended the jammer bootcamp a couple weeks ago. Between her and the rest of our coaching staff we've already done a bunch of new drills, and I think offskates warmups are going to become a regular part of Thursday practice. I am starting to recover quicker from them ^_^.  I really do like the offskates warm up drills Gotham showed us though, because it really does make me feel warmed up and ready to skate, more than any other drill I've done before.

Gotham Girls Intraleague Championship Bout Recap

Last weekend, Shrimp Scampi and I headed to NYC for the Gotham Girls Intraleague Championship bout featuring the Bronx Gridlock vs the Queens of Pain. Bronx Gridlock features notable skaters such as Bonnie Thunders and Ginger Snap. Queens hosts my fave Gotham Girl, The Beirut Bombshell, as well as Hyper Lynx and Suzy Hotrod.

Scamp and I got down to the City on the earlier side, and spent the afternoon in Union Square and made a pit stop in Times Square as well. Scamp got like 3lbs of Hellions colored M&Ms from the M&Ms World store! My favorite candy!

Anyway - the bout. The Bronx took the lead off the bat but Queens was close behind. I have never seen a Gotham intraleague bout before, so it was really interesting to see Bonnie Thunders faceoff against Suzy Hotrod (and also apparently the last time anyone will see it... maybe...especially as speculated by someone in the costume contest).

This bout also featured Hyper Lynx as a jammer frequently, which was neat because Gotham's top jammers in interleague play include Bonnie and Suzy, with Hyper Lynx being more of a backup jammer. I love watching her play, though. It was also interesting to see Bonnie and Suzy faceoff against each other. I've never seen more jammer on jammer action - they both really go after each other if they are neck and neck as they race around the track.
More thoughts and pics after the jump

NYC on Saturday

http://www.gothamgirlsrollerderby.com/

I'm headed to NYC tomorrow for the Gotham Girls Championship Bout at the City College of New York in Harlem.  What's better is that one of our fresh meat, Shrimp Scampi, is joining me!

As of the publication of this post, it looks like tickets are still available.  I've never been to a Gotham home game - they usually play at Hunter College ... so I speculate the bout location change is to accommodate more fans. I've tried to get tickets to Gotham games before but I always wait until the last minute when they've sold out already. So I'm super stoked I was able to nab tickets yesterday!

Gotham has several home intraleague teams. Their Championship Bout will see the Bronx Gridlock face off against the Queens of Pain. The main reason I am excited to attend this event is because former Hellion (and a league co-founder) The Beirut Bombshell is on the roster for the Queens of Pain! Bombshell moved to NYC a little over a year ago, so I only had the privilege of skating with her a few times. We were so proud when she tried out and made it to Gotham. Over my time involved with HoT, I've met her several times and she is definitely one of my roller derby roll models.

Gotham is ranked #1 in the WFTDA Eastern Region.  I will also be seeing them next weekend in Chicago at the WFTDA Championships!

Anyway, I think we plan to spend some time in NYC during the day on Saturday...Shrimp Scampi has never been so I've got to show her the sights! Times Square is clearly in order, but what should we check out beyond that? We can't wander off too far as we've gotta be back up in Harlem by around 7pm. I hate to just limit to midtown Manhattan, but I think that might be all we have time for.