Friday, June 14, 2013


The following drill is a guest post by coach Nadia Kean (aka "Smarty Pants") of the Texas Rollergirls.

Alternative names: --
Objective: Jammer endurance, playing clean, Blocking: holding a block in a very tight pack, avoiding the need to reset to get more space
Typical length of drill: --
Materials needed: A track, a jammer cover, a stop watch, a ref (if possible)
Skill level required: Skaters should be contact cleared unless you use positional blocking only
Description: This drill was created for a few reasons. The first, my team needed more endurance in the pack. My team also needed to stay clean, even when up against massive walls. My blockers needed to stop running forward when opponents played offense against them. They needed to hold a block for as long as possible, even when their opponent was crowding their space, making it very hard for them.

Set up: pack with as few as 5 will work, but really about 7 or 8 would be best. Have 2 skaters start on the outside of the track, with the remaining skaters starting on the inside of the track. One person on the track will be designated the Jammer. Everyone else on the track is her opponent. The two people starting off of the track will be skating laps around the outside of the track around 85-100% of their ability. Of the two people starting off of the track, one will be the next jammer. The other person is pretending that she just jammed. The whole group will go for intervals. I recommend 60-90 seconds. During the set time frame, the jammer will try to get through the pack, the pack will try to shut her down and the two skaters on the outside will skate laps. As soon as the set amount of time is up, the person who just jammed will start to skate laps, along with the person who wants to jam next. The two skaters who had just been skating laps will jump back on the track. One of them will now be a jammer, the other will now be a blocker (pretending like she just completed he post-jamming laps). While in the pack, blockers should really try to block the jammer while also being completely crowded for space by the other pack skaters.

Additional notes: To see more of Smarty Pants' guest posts, click here.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Zombie Tag

So it seems like zombies are the "new" thing. There's zombie this and zombie that, not the least of which is the very popular tv series The Walking Dead. There are a few games on All Derby Drills that are based on the classic game of tag which are very good for warm ups at the beginning of practice.

Alternative names: --
Objective: Get your skaters warmed up for practice. Work on teamwork. Practice putting on the helmet covers while skating.
Typical length of drill: 15 minutes max
Materials needed: Plenty of Pivot and Jammer covers
Skill level required: Basic skating skills. Comfortable in skates.
Description: If your league is like mine, you have a bag full of jammer (JC) and pivot covers (PC). We'll use the JCs as the zombies and the PCs as the survivors. Split your skaters in two equal groups and have them start at the walls of your rink or skating space. I put one group at either end of the length of the rink. Before you start scatter the PCs around the rink. We have a five foot cinderblock wall running around 3/4s of the rink so I put them on top at random places. Give one skater a JC. She'll be the first one "infected". Take the rest of the JCs and stand off to the side. Blow a whistle to start. Whomever the zombie tags, they're now infected and will turn into a zombie. The newly infected will skate over to you, grab a JC, and go out and make more zombies. Once all the JCs are gone, blow four whistles to stop. Now you have a bunch of zombies and a few survivors. Have the zombies line up in the middle of the rink, and split the survivors into two groups, just like at the start of the game. Blow a whistle to start. Now the survivors have to skate out and grab a PC, and when they have a PC on (not in their hand) they can commence to slaughtering zombies. When a PC wearing survivor tags (kills) a zombie, that zombie falls down and stays on the track as an obstacle. The game is over when all the zombies or the survivors are killed. If you can, as an added bonus, play the theme song from the Walking Dead. The skaters will love it.

This is a good drill for teamwork. When I first ran it everyone was out for themselves during the second half and the zombies would always win. Eventually they would team up and make a big group, protecting one or two people who could then grab a PC.

It's also good practice for the mysterious and rare star pass. It's not easy to put a helmet cover on while skating away from a creature trying to eat your brains.

Additional notes: This is another drill written by our guest blogger, Brawl-n-Order.