Lady Trample shares her journey into the wonderful worlds of roller derby and ramp skating
Derby or ramps? I often get asked if I had to choose just one, which it would be. But why should I choose? It’s like choosing between burger and fries. Why not both?
I am a proud member of the “Whip It” generation. Shortly after falling in love with the movie and swooning over Drew Barrymore and Zoe Bell, I discovered my local roller derby league in Auckland, New Zealand. This was right as the sport was in its peak of its public popularity, so I waited in a massive line to get in and watch my first ever roller derby game. It was a Pirate City Rollers home game featuring Alpha Beta Slammers and Dead Wreckoning. It was love at first sight. Within a few weeks I had roller skates and a dream. I was going to play roller derby. My best friend Leah Morris (soon to be calling herself “TutanKarnage”) and I ventured out to our local roller rinks, boardwalks, and underground car parks taking any opportunity to lock down the basic skating skills so we could try out for the team. When we showed up for the freshmeat program we found we had overprepared. We spend the weeks relearning all the basic skills we’d self trained, and then got to the good stuff: contact.
I was first introduced to ramp skating shortly after my first bouting season. I was taking a skater named Michelle ‘Cutthroat’ Hayes on a skating tour of Auckland. She asked me to take her to a skatepark. I was skeptical, but I took her to Victoria Skatepark. I watched in awe as Cutthroat jumped on the ramps and took her first few pumps, dropped in, and stalled. My eyes fell out of my head and rolled onto the ramp.
That day, Cutthroat taught me how to pump, and the next day we came back and I learnt how to drop in. My every spare moment was absorbed by my new found love of ramps. Shortly after we had a small crew of rollers and I wanted to share our journey with the world. I knew that there would be more skaters out there who, like me, had no idea you could take your quads to the skateparks. I wanted to share the stoked that I felt every time I went to the park. That is why Community in Bowls was born.
But then something strange happened. I started getting messages from skaters pleading for help because their leagues had banned them from park skating. Like a confused puppy tilting its head to the side as it tries to understand the world in front of it, I just didn’t get it. Why on earth would teams do this? How do they even have the authority or audacity to try and control what people do outside their allocated training time? There were all sorts of inconceivable tales about skaters breaking themselves by simply going to a park.
Skateparks can be dangerous, and complicated and risky, but the problem is a lack of preparation. Derby skaters were rolling into the parks with blind confidence and expectations of being instantly rewarded with skills that take days, weeks, months, and sometimes even years to cultivate. One does not simply shred the gnar. There are layers of base work before you can confidentiality carve up a skatepark.
One does not simply shred the gnar.
I can understand a team not wanting their rostered players to head off and learn a new hobby right before a big tournament or being concerned about the well-being of a player who is trying risky new manoeuvres the weekend prior to a game. Ramp skating is no different to any form of cross training in that respect. Numerous teammates have had to take breaks and recover from gym sessions, yoga, mountain biking, or even a rough massage. The key here is the approach to the new territory.
The two worlds have similar learning curves. We don’t wake up one day and know how to play roller derby. We learn how to roll, pick up speed, fall down, and catch ourselves. We learn the lay of the land, the pulse and flow. The roller derby track has a direction and jams. Skateparks have lines and runs. We need to go in open eyed, open minded and, especially, be patient with our progress.
“The park teaches things incrementally. Choices to be brave add up” — Sarah Hipel
My time at skateparks has helped me get better at roller derby. Obviously not all ramp tricks have a direct impact on my derby skills, just as not all derby skills improve my ramp tricks. It would be hard for me to convince you that a slide has its place on the track,or that hours of pushing a four wall helps me stall. But the more time I spend on my wheels, the more confident I become.
Roller derby is a team sport, and the team has a goal: to win. But when you roll up to a skatepark, whether alone or with a crew, it’s just you and the bowl. No one cares if you don’t reach your goal. You will not let anyone down, or fall short, or get a penalty. You can only get a little bruised and battered, which also happens in derby. You might learn a new trick. Or you might not. Ramp skating is not for medals or glory. You get to progress at your own rate. That’s the beauty of it.
And the more we skate, the less we think about skating. We become both less and more intentional, almost automated in our movements. Skating becomes rhythmic and familiar. Whether standing at the coping or jammer line, we get to look forwards to the lines we could take around the pack, or bowl, and focus less on how our skates are going to execute it. The ramp teaches more than footwork. It teaches patience, commitment and focus, but more than anything else it teaches us to be brave.
“I no longer feared any blocker after slamming to the bottom of a thirteen-foot vert ramp and surviving” — Vanna Jayde Curtis
So to anyone out there feeling dragged in two directions, I can tell you honestly you don’t have to choose. There is a way to skate ramps recreationally and play derby competitively. Sure, I alter the way I skate depending on where I am in my season, but I very rarely stop ramp skating altogether. I bring the notch up or down on my ‘intensity’ in the skateparks depending on where I am in a season. During season breaks, when there are no games looming over me, I push harder and reach for tricks outside my comfort zone. It’s all about balance. And, to me, balance means doing all the things that make me feel complete.
Lady Trample has been playing roller derby since 2011, and currently plays with the Victorian Roller Derby League. She is also the founder of Community in Bowls and has been skating in skateparks since 2012. She has a polyamorous relationship with roller derby and ramp skating.
If you need further convincing that you don’t have to choose between roller derby or ramp skating, follow #cibcrew on Instagram to see other derby skaters—including Sarah Chambers, Brawllen Angel, Loren Mutch, Octane Jayne, and Scald Eagle—making the transition. Ready to begin? There are tutorials on the Community in Bowls website to help you get started. Just remember to take it slow and be patient.
June 14, 2021: We edited this article by removing a pull quote from veteran park skater Duke Rennie that said “Women’s roller derby is single-handedly saving roller skating. When derby’s over the bowls are calling.” While Rennie intended this to be praise of derby, it lacks the essential context that quad skating is a legacy of predominantly Black jam-skating communities that have been quad skating — and enabling roller rinks to stay in business — for decades. This was highlighted by Reddit user u/wheelbigsecret, among others, who wrote “We have a good jam skate scene in our area and those people support my team and give tons of helpful tips to our new skaters when they show up at the rink. Even my hometown rink in the middle of nowhere has a group of regular jam skaters who are mostly people of color. I’m not comfortable with the way derby players have a tendency to white wash rollerskating. We owe a lot to Black Americans for keeping our rinks alive.”
June 14, 2021: We also updated references to “Chicks In Bowls” to “Community in Bowls” to reflect CIB’s change to a gender neutral name.
