Skating Skills

So what does a skater have to know before flying around the rink amidst a pack of fierce competitors, each one on eight wheels?

Well, the scoring objectives, of course. And the rules. But for sheer survival, she had better know how to skate!

Before entering into WFTDA-sanctioned Inter-League Competition, each skater must meet designated minimum skill requirements (initially and then annually). These requirements fall into six categories:

1. Basic Skating Skills
2. Falls
3. Balance / Agility
4. Skating with Others
5. Blocking
6. Rules

Knowledge of the rules is tested with a written exam. But the rest of the skills test is administered in the rink in skating gear.

Proficiency in the basic skills includes proper skating posture, stride, crossovers, speed, endurance, and stops. The skater must complete 5 laps around a WFTDA regulation track in a minute or less. To demonstrate stamina, she must also skate 20 laps within 5 minutes.

... let me catch my breath ...

She must perform “one-foot glides with each foot for the length of the straightaway with good balance,” and “move easily and fluidly from one side of the skating rink to the other.” It sounds like grace in motion.

But a clue that it’s not ALL about grace is the required ability to fall "safely, accurately, and naturally…” – I think that I could fall naturally – “… with quick recovery.”

Oh.

A skater is required to maneuver through 10 cones, placed 6 feet apart, covering both straightaways and turns. She “squats and coasts” and “squats and propels” again on both the straightaways and the turns.

In skating with others, the skater is tested on whips, pushes, pacing (“varies speed while being sandwiched between 2 skaters, maintaining an arm’s length distance without falling, tripping, overtaking or running into another skater”), weaving, leaning, bumping … You get the idea.

Blocking skills require the ability to take hits and check as well as perform “with good posture and without loss of balance or focus” body blocks, frontal blocks and stall blocks.

The final - and perhaps most important - requirement for a derby skater is not tested until later. It's not tested on paper, and it's not really tested in the rink. The test may come on a chiropractor's table, or while soaking sore muscles in a hot bath, or when applying ice to welts and bruises. The ones who pass it are those who return to the rink for more. The test is passion.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s take our hats off to the certified athletes in the roller derby rink!

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Photo by Kat Deem