You may have noticed that
most roller derby teams are populated by women (and as an aside, there are
plenty of men's roller derby teams) and that these women train hard and slam
into each other a lot.
What you may not notice at
first is the incredible confidence and drive that roller derby has helped these
women to achieve. Keep watching, though, because you will eventually see it. It
only gets stronger in each player as the season goes on, no matter how many
points they win or lose by.
Roller derby is also a very
welcoming sport and offers a place for women and men (and junior players!) to
become part of a team. No matter your age, race, body type, athleticism,
sexuality, gender identity, religion, or class--roller derby is for you. In
fact, if you never felt like you fit into team sports in school or always felt
like you couldn't do it, you should try roller derby! As Bonnie Thunders,
super-star derby player for the Gotham Girls Roller Derby, stated in an interview with the Huffington Post :
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| Bonnie Thunders of Gotham and Team USA |
"[Roller derby is] kind of secondary to the more popular sports, which allows it to attract the people who didn't fit in in the primary sports.”
As a fat woman, roller derby
has been the only thing in my life that has inspired me to become more
physically fit and to increase my skill set to improve my team. For the first
time, I feel like I am a part of something and not an outsider looking in. I
have gotten teased and harassed for being big in weight and physique as well as
for not being as fast or fit as others. Fear kept me from the gym and from team
sports until the ripe old age of 31.
This is nothing new for derby
'girls' as any one of them can tell you. Contrary to popular belief, a lot of
us wear clothing that is quite normal for a team sport! We need to move around
so we wear tight shorts and leggings or tights and tank tops because boy, it
gets hot when you work as hard as we do. We sweat, get disgusting, stink to
high heaven...and love it. We build sisterhood with our team-mates (and often,
the opposing team, too!) while we work on team strategy and toward building up
each others’ strengths and weaknesses.
A lot of us, no matter our
shape, size, height, race, etc., hate our bodies. We struggle to either accept
ourselves or to fit into an idea of what we should look like. It doesn't help
that everywhere we turn, we are bombarded with images and messages telling us
how inadequate we really are. I have always had a hard time, still have a hard
time, loving my self and my body. I thought roller derby would be a sport for
fit, athletic women and that I would have a hard time keeping up. I thought
that big girls wouldn't be welcome in any sport save power lifting and shot
put.
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| Demanda Riot of B.A.D. |
I was so wrong. Roller derby
takes ALL kinds. Look at the stars of our sport like Demanda Riot, Jackie
Daniels, Bonnie Thunders, Scald Eagle, Bork Bork Bork, Beyonslay, and on and on
and on. My point is, women of every age range, weight, height, build, fitness
level, ethnicity, religion, and race play roller derby. Will roller derby help you
love yourself more? It did for me. Will roller derby help you lose weight?
Maybe. I haven't lost a pound yet but I replaced a lot of fat with muscle. Some
do and some don't. You can't join just to lose weight, though. Roller derby
requires you to WANT it.
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| Bork Bork Bork of Windy City |
I see it as my job to lift up
all of my derby sisters with me, letting them know when I notice them for any
reason and trying to be as tactful as possible with criticism. When we have bad
days, it helps to have a team full of inspiring women to look up to. No one has
told me my ankles are too fat, as my childhood ballet instructor once told me,
and no one has told me that I need to remain a certain size or shape to keep
playing derby. I get positive reinforcement and constructive criticism, both
things I have learned to crave from my coaches and teammates alike. The only
thing roller derby requires of you is the dedication and fitness you are
willing to put into it to get better.
