Amanda HugNKill asks for it:
I’d love to hear about what a typical week looks like (derby-wise) for a home team skater, as well as someone on Fresh Meat. Practices, endurance, scrimmages, off-skates training, the whole experience. How much time and physical effort can the average skater expect to expend on Fresh Meat vs a home team?
“I can’t – I have derby.”
Hi Amanda! Everyone’s derby experience will be a little different. One team skater might spend 10 hours in the gym outside of practice, and another zero. Being a team captain or holding a board position are a couple of realms of time-sucking that I can’t fully comprehend. First, here’s a general idea of what’s expected from everyone.
Fresh Meat
- New Fresh Meat start at 5 hours a week of practice. Scrimmage-cleared skaters play 6-10 hours a week.
- 6 volunteer hours a month for the league
- Tear down the floor before each Expo or Coliseum bout
- Work each Expo and Coliseum bout. FM do almost all merch, Ask Me About Derby, etc. They also must pick up the floor afterward.
- Set-up and tear down for Hangar bouts. When you throw your nachos on the floor, skaters have to pick that up. Just sayin’.
- Part of hangar cleaning rotation. (Yes, we clean the place periodically.)
- Attend league meetings
Team Skaters
- At least 4 hours required practice a week. More optional, and sometimes required by specific teams.
- 6 volunteer hours a month for the league
- Team-level job (May or may not count for volunteer hours)
- About one bout a month
- Plan and attend team events and fundraisers
- Tear down floor in rotation with other teams
- Set up/tear down for most hangar bouts/scrimmages they’re not playing in, and all Expo and Coliseum bouts
- Hangar cleaning rotation
- Attend league meetings
Travel Team Skaters
- 7 hours of TT-dedicated practice a week plus required off-skate workout time. Most probably average more than 11 hours of practice/skating/off skate workouts each week.
- AoA skaters must do 2 volunteer hours a month. WOJ skaters are exempt.
- Lay down floor in hangar after each Expo/Coliseum bout
- Team-level job
- Several bouts a year, home and away, with travel
- Plan and execute team events, fundraisers, and boot camps
- Attend league meetings
- Assist in at least one home team practice per month
And, yes, we all pay dues. AND I’m sure I forgot a few things.
Let’s take my last week for example and tally this up. First we’ll look at the required stuff; for attendance, team requirements, and volunteer hours.
What Frisky did last week
- Team practice – 2 hours
- Scrimmage – 1 hour
- Coaching Fresh Meat – 2 hours
- Bout - 4 hours
- Team Pictures – 2 hours
- Writing this blog – 1 hour
- Endurance – 1 hour
That would be a total of 13 hours this week. “Oh, that’s an outlier, what with 4 hours of bout and all,” you say. Yep, it goes up and down, but there’s always something. I missed our team dinner, league meeting (it was my birthday!) and the Heathers/Cherry City scrimmage, too. Now let’s add on some other incidentals for the same week:
- Cross Training – 2 hours
- Attending TT practice to learn strategy – 2 hours
- Reading email and league/team forums – 1 hour
- Driving to and from hangar – 3.5 hours (I should not have tallied that. Now I’m depressed. My car radio doesn’t even work right now.)
- Chiropractor appointment – 1 hour
Add on getting ready for the bout while watching Western Regionals DVDs, doing massive amounts of laundry, etc., and that’s at least 10 more hours. So, yes. About 23 hours of my week went to roller derby-related pursuits. If I had made it to the afterparty, it would have been about 25. (Sorry! You can buy me a drink another time!)
With a full-time job and a husband at home who likes to see me sometimes, I guess I should stop feeling guilty for things like buying pre-chopped broccoli. Or about not doing more roller derby stuff. Which I actually feel worse about.
How’s that, Amanda? Was that a long way to not exactly answer your question? Roller derby is time-consuming. I’d say that Fresh Meat skate more than team skaters, but team skaters often have more commitments. Travel Team skaters put in insane amounts of work, TT-only or not. We all have to run the league as well as try to be the best roller skaters and athletes we can be.
Did I scare anyone off? Do you see now why you shouldn’t ask roller derby skaters to just do one more thing?
The skaters are just so in love with the game that we’ll do whatever it takes.
I would say a fan-hosted derby appreciation celebration would be in order… if the skaters only had the time!
The fact that our fans show up at bouts is appreciation enough for us! Bringing a friend is even better.
Lovely and informative post.
I still don’t see how you women manage it.
But then again, I am a lazy codger.
How many hours is it when you add in all the commutes?
Chris, I added up my commute above. That’s based on a 40-minute roundtrip from my house, 5 times. I rounded up because when practice is before 7 on a weekday, I leave straight from downtown and it takes about an hour to travel those 5 miles.
We have members who live 5 minutes away, and ladies who live in Hillsboro, Vancouver, you name it.
Here are some questions for you: where do teams typically get their uniforms? Do you make your own, or do you special order uniforms from magical derby design companies? Or does it vary depending on the team?
Also, could you explain how the season works, game-wise? I’m new to the whole scene, and I’m trying to get straight in my head how the home team battles works (with teams from the same league battling each other), and everything. Basically I’m curious how the regional and national rankings go, and I can’t seem to find info on this in the basic derby FAQs.
Some girls can add in 4-6 hours a week commuting to and from the hangar.