Anybody who was younger in the 90's or so probably remembers those No Fear t-shirts they started marketing. It seems like there must have been one for every sport- football, soccer, baseball, basketball... the list goes on. Seems to me, though, that they ought to have marketed one for roller derby. I've heard derby compared to rugby on wheels, but there's not really any other sport that I know of where your body is the equivalent of both a ball and a weapon. In no other sport that I know of does the difference between a good score and a bad score consist of literally, physically beating your opponents out of the way.
Yet, if that old No Fear slogan applies to all these other sports, it surely applies doubly to derby. I've heard people mention how psychological derby is, but I didn't believe it until I experienced it for myself.
A good example: Jackson, MS. There were two blockers on the other team that I couldn't seem to get past. BIG blockers. They hit hard, and when they tried to push me out of the way for their jammer, I had no choice but to go. Every time I saw them in the pack, I got distracted watching her instead of watching my jammer. What if she hits me and I go down again? What if she starts pushing me? I was so nervous that I let those girls affect my performance- but further, it was like they smelled it on me. Every time they were in, they'd come for me, like they knew I was apprehensive about having to skate next to them.
Kind of like last weekend. We played our first real bout in Panama City this weekend, and towards the end, it got rough. Not rough as in 'a hard-fought derby bout,' but rough as in I was seriously concerned about whether or not we were going to make it through the bout without a fistfight breaking out. It felt like the officials had lost control of the bout, but, worst of all, like they weren't concerned about doing anything to bring it back under control.
I was mad. I let that anger take over. Girls started using their hands, pushing and shoving. At one point, I got pushed down on the track, and I won't lie- I lost my cool completely. I reamed that girl a new one in the middle of a jam. And what did she do?
When I caught up with the pack, she went after me again. Because I was angry, and that anger made me unfocused. But what was behind my anger? Fear. Fear of how illegal play was going to affect my team, my own personal health. She read it clear as day, and she used it to her advantage.
Sometimes it's not about playing legal. This sport is rough, and the people who play it are a special breed of women. Headstrong, aggressive, competitive women who oftentimes lose their tempers when things aren't going ideally. Roller derby is very much a sport where the phrase "shit happens" applies more than most.
The issue is how much you let the fear affect you. Skate in fear of falling, in fear of injury, in fear of failure, in fear of punishment, and your performance will suffer. It doesn't matter if you're nervous about whether your knee pad will protect you or whether you're going to get pushups for not playing hard enough. When you let fear become your motivator, it's all the same. And it adds up to nothing more than weakness. Weak rollergirls cannot survive competition- the equivalent of being in a pool with sharks who smell blood.
There's no room to fear anything in this sport. Derby teaches you to be in the now- to block, to jam, to pivot for the moment and worry about the next jam when it's happening. It doesn't matter whether or not the girl who has knocked you down seven times in one bout is in the next jam or not, not when your jammer needs you to make a hole for her to get through right now.
Roller derby is all about knowing your limits, then carefully constructing a bomb and blowing them to bits. There's no room for "I can't," or "what if."
The bottom line comes down to this: let them smell your fear, and you're road kill. Destroy your fear, and make them fear you.
