Niagara Falls in late November

So much water and like Vegas in IceAge wen went to Niagara Falls on Monday morning.

It was nice and quiet, me an Loony went with Kix and Becky and got on the cheap casino bus with a bunch of little Chineese women that seemed ready to gamble their lives away.
We also got scared to death at the huanted house... totally worth it! And none of us felt like taking hte barell down the falls - at all!
Now we are gonna watch dexter and then gp shopping at Queen street - that be window shopping!

Yesterday we saw fireworks...

Rebel took us to the City Hall to watch fireworks - it was amazing. Firework accompanied by Christmas music... it was quite amazing! Walking and walking and then ending the night with some poutine and an oatmeal stout.

And then we totally FELL into bed and slept like little piglets until this morning when we woke up to a rainy Toronto. I am against RAIN!

Doing Toronto

So Rebel took us out to see Toronto today... So we started to go to a castle that look like something taken out of a medivial movie and then we went to a tiny little zoo with random animals - and a random guy gave us veggies to feed the animals - despite the fact that there were sign stating ''Do not feed the animals''.

Then we went over to Chinatown and Kensinton Market to go shopping ending in an aaamazing burrito, I have not had a burrito this yummy since I moved from USA.

We are in Toronto

Yesterday we got on the flight to Cananada, flew all the way from Sweden and landed in a VERY warm Toronto... Yayaaaa....
Me and Loony are staying with Rebel Rock-It from TORD - and we went grocery shopping this morning... and Loony found lot's of penutbutter... we didn't get it, but we got lots of other food... because fod is goood! Yayaaaa!!

Interview with me

So the Scotland Rollerderby blog hit me up for an interview... here it is... and this picture has NOTHING to do with it... but the interview is good...

Mixed practice and life in general...

Me and Jazz stopping to shop on the way from practice

Stress, stress, stress... but except the stress everything is fine... I try to battle it out with Bank of America - it is not the easiest from Sweden, I am also still trying to figure out what is appropirate to wear to office. Work-out clothes are not, dark jeans with a button down V-neck is. I am wearing heels, making me taller than most people - except from my brother and father that I happen to work with.
I am considering getting my brother into reffing, I think he would have fun reffing, I would just have to find skates in boat-size (a 14 or something).

Yesterday we had practice in Subtopia, that is a hangar that usually has circus preformances, it was my first time there. It is really big, but it has pillars in unfortunate places. But as I have gotten used to saying here in Stockholm - beggers can't be choosers...

Yesterday me and Loony led practice - I was superstressed when I got there - but after the first 15 minutes it felt much better. It was a mixed practice - so we had both our girls that haven't passed minimum skills togehter with our advanced skaters. It was the first time we did this, and it went very well, we focused on strides, crossovers, form, stops and did some small falling and skating close to each other. It is one of my pet-peeves, that girls have to learn to skate close to each otehr and NOT grab anyone when they fall. We all like our own personal space - but as a derbyplayer - there is not such a thing. And you cannot be scared of falling - that is why we wear all those pads!

When I get back from Toronto - it will be time for our fresh meat to pass their WFTDA minimum skills... oh and on the subject of Toronto I got nominated butchest of Team Sweden in this one blog...

First bout with Stockholm Roller Derby

Stockholm A-team before our intro

This weekend we went and played against another WFTDA Apprentice league, Royal Windsor Rollergirls. It was Stockholms last game for the year 2011, but also mine and Maloonys first game with Stockholm.
It was a doubleheader, so first our B-team played against a mixed team consisting of girls from the area, and they did a really good job. I had the pleasure to be the line-up runner, and the team was calm, positive and worked well together. I must say I don't mind being the line-up runner again - it was fun.

Our A-team played second against Royal Windsors A-team, and Stockholm did really well, especially when we kept our heads calm and communicated with each other. Part of the bout got really sloppy, with some high-blocks, one of them giving Hyper Nova a very sexy fat-lip. (not sure if Hyper is feeling so sexy about it). Everyone in the team did a really good job, and it was fun skating with Stockholm in a bout, and I am looking forward to lots of practice with all the girls, there is so much talent here. Tomorrow is the last practice with Stockholm in a while, bsince we are taking off to Toronto, to play the World Cup with Team Sweden.
Oh, and the afterparty Stockholm for sure won, yeah, one of the girls lost her shoes, jacket and beanie... but no horses were gained...

B-team score: 97 - 41
A-team score: 259 - 93

B-team
Best Jammer - TARAism
Best Blocker - Sleaze Maschine
MVP - Jazz Ass

A-team
Best Jammer - Hyper Nova
Best Blocker - Swede Hurt
MVP - Mad Maloony

Don't forget to get your Team Sweden Merch

We will be heading off to Toronto real soon, and we will bring ALL merch we haven't sold already to Toronto and are planning to sell the rest over there.
So get on this and get your Team Sweden merch before it is too late! I know you wanna get the first offical Team Sweden merch, this might be worth thousands in the future! OH YEAH!
And you will be helping us to finance the trip...
Think about it, this might be the best Christmas present for your derbywife, favorite referee, derby widow, captain, coach or just someone you really like...
(And dont forget that a gift for yourself is also a gift.)
http://shop.rollerderby.se/en/team-sweden-rollerderby/

Skating and living in Stockholm

Our Track

So I haven't really written much about skating with Stockholm Rollerderby, mostly because I been really busy with Team Sweden, starting a new job, travelling to coach or just breathing in a spare moment. I just got back from coaching Crime City Rollergirls this weekend, and I am so proud of them, Loony and myself, how far we managed to bring them in only one year. It has been sad to leave them, buty moving to Stockholm has also been a very possitive experiance. Life is full of adventures, and I love to always be on the move, but Stockholm feel very final. This is were I wanna stick my restless roots down, this is a place I want to grow.

Oh, so Stockholm practices in a Go-Cart hall... yeah... one of the big problem has is that we have a really hard time to find a practice space, and now we finally have a place we can have regular times in. We have a go-cart hall that have let us paint and we can practice there twice a week. I know it is not the dream scenario, but it is MUCH better then not having any practices at all. The floor is acctually really fun!
I still dream of our own warehouse - and I probably will until we find one, but so far so good!
I do feel at home in Stockholm, and I am very happy and content that I have moved here, I am happy with my job, I am happy with Stockholm Rollerderby and I think Loony is happy too. And we are REALLY happy to have an apartment that is twice as big as the one we had in Malmö, I think we both are very delighted about that. We  live close to the center of the city and to the subway (yes Stockholm has a subway and that makes Stockholm a real city, that and that there are over a million ppl living here)
Watching WFTDA Championships yesterday made me happy and sad, happy because Gotham won and they looked amazing, and I know how much hard work and determination that was behind that well-deserved win and and sad because I wasn't there, playing or watching. I must admit that I did miss US-derby and Gotham, watching Gotham win. Those girls are so amazing and hard-working! It makes me feel inspired to continue to work hard, skate hard and have hella fun.
But at least Stockholm is now WFTDA AP and we can start working towards world domination ;-).
But I do want to end this blog with congratulating Gotham Girls Roller Derby to their win!

Crawling in dirt and LIKING it

So we try to do an off-skate activity each week - one of the days we don't have on-skate practice. So one of our fresh meat practice fount this Nordic Military Training - that are a bunch of people that meet up and do drills no matter what the weather or time of the year it is... So since the fresh meat had a  rules session tonight, and Loony had to work -  me, Twisted and Mousetrap Mary decided to see how much fun this can be a cold November night in Stockholm when it's around 10 degrees Celsius...

We got there and they asked us if we wanted to be in the the Basic or the Rookie group - since we felt like we should hang with the kool kids, we chose Basic.. .and if this was Basic, I really do not wanna know what their Regular group is like (or I probably do... )
AND IT WAS AWESOME... I will be sooo soooore tomorrow and we probably did planks for about 15 minutes during the training, we made human tunnels we had to crawl thru on the wet grass and there were burpees, jumps, sit-ups, push-ups, some jogging, more jumping, me smiling and laughing. We had a ONE minute water break during the entire practice, and I thought I was bad in giving people waterbreaks.
Did I tell you it was fun, I kept on smiling the entire time! It was almost as fun as the Ruffie training we did with Fysgruppen in Malmö - just different... more raw, wet and dirty...I for sure have to scrub my nails before I head to the office tomorrow...

I wish I had a picture to share with you guys - but as always - my camera on the phone is just not co-operating with me... so I hope my picture painting with words have been good enough for you!

Training Fresh Meat in Stockholm

Me teaching  the Shoetown Slayers to hit with their hips (sorry, I have no picture of the STRD fresh meat)

I love running Fresh Meat practices - you can see by the minute how much everyone improve. So as most of you know by now, me and Loony moved to Stockholm and joined Stockholm Rollerderby, and yesterday we got the pleasure to coach the future stars of Stockholm.

Yesterday we tought our freshmeats how to hit - hip hits of course - since that is the most used and according to ME and Loony the most effective hit. We started very basic with just moving the hips, and bumping into each other, just for them to learn the mechanics of the hits and then slowly moving up towards a good clean hip-hit. It was exciting to see how little corrections can take you a loooong way, and it is so much fun to see how far all those girls has gotten compared to just a month ago.

I am a big fan of basics, and in derby lot's and lot's of times I run into leagues that try to rush past the basics, so they can learn something fancy, but hte fancy will come when the basics are there. So I will continue to run cross-over, partner and hip-hit drills over and over again, both for my freash meats and my more advanced skaters - because we all need it... waht doesn't kill you, will make you stronger... and most of all it will make you pass minimum skills and then it will make you a better derby player and it will put a smile on your face.

Another thing I'm really happy about that we decided on in Stockholm is that we have 30 minutes off-skate before OR after each skate session, I can feel us all getting faster and more explosive... one day we will ALL be like Beater from Montreal (dreamy eyes)... and I think the Freashies had a good time doing lateral jumps and planks with me yesterday... because I felt it in my quads today! But not to forget - off-skate training keep your injuries down... get stronger... and stronger and then we can all take hits better and just keep on going and going and going...

Loong and awesome Team Sweden weekend

Oh, I love my Swedish girls! Not only have Sweden TWO leauges that are in the WFTDA apprentice program - but we also have a Swedish national team that are going to compete in the first World Cup ever!
Oh yeah!
OH YEAH!
And I am now officially EXHAUSTED...
over and OUT!

Team Sweden went to Finland and some more...

Alotta Riot, me and Barbara Barfight

As the first nation vs. nation Sweden played Finland in Helsinki - and it was fun and an amazing learning experiance. Getting the team ready for the world cup this bout showed our strengths and weaknesses but also that we really have fun as a team. I love this team - it is so much fun and makes me so proud to be a part of!

Maito Karhu (yes it is Finnish)

This weekend is our last Team Sweden training weekend before we are heading to the World Cup in Toronto in three weeks! Don't miss out on buying some of our really cool merch - you can find it online HERE.

If you feel an urge to donate some money to Team Sweden (and why would you not) you can always hit up www.teamswedenrollerderby.com and klick on our donation button. There you can also learn a little about all the 20 girls of Team Sweden.

How I love off-skate work-outs....

I love bootcamps that has off-skates

So I was one of those girls that started derby because I thought it looked kool, I probably just wanted to go out and hit some girls, or hit on them, I probably liked the thought that the other girls were going to wear short skirts...
  Honestly, there could be tons of more to this story, but I don't think I put that much thought into why I wanted to do derby, except from that I had just discovered that I thought roller-skating was fab and I was really looking for something to do except spending my money at the Wild Rose  or some queer club, being terrible at talking to chicks I thought were hot, and have crushes on my friends and getting my heart broken and mending it by tequila and jumping into bushes... (there were some really good times in there too) I also had the very attractive habit of chain-smoking...

Well, long story short, I found derby and I loved it, I skated, skated and skated some more, I learned to jam, I learned to hit and got used to get hit. I got more fit than my sorry smoking ass had been in ages, I quit smoking and actually became good, no I became a GREAT derby player. I started to add extra skating sessions, I skated around Green Lake and I went to speedskating classes - I was having a grand ol' time learning to skate and playing derby. At some point I felt like I hit a wall, it was like it was telling me ''here but not further''  and I just could not figure out what I was missing.... It wasn't until I transfered to Gotham, I found that last little thing that was so easy to add in - but that just had not caught up to my brain yet... OFF-SKATE!  Off-skate made it possible to take my derby to a new level. I became stronger, felt better about myself and most of all - I became a better derby-skater!

It made me remember back in the days when I was a competative snowboarder - when I would get up before the sun rose (I lived in Tärnaby, yeah, not the sun not rising doesn't really mean that much that far North) to go for a jog before we would head down to class. We would do both strenght, agility, endurance and plyos several times a week, and I remember being sore - but also having one of the best seasons of my life, and with the least injuries too...

Off-skate practice is crucial to make you a better derby-player, it is not everything, but I promise, adding off-skate into your weekly practice scedual is gonna make your team so much better... and you know what? Just half an hour twice a week makes a big difference... Yeah - I know I am crazy...

OFF-SKATE is FUN!! Mostly because it makes me a kick-ass derby player my team can relay on but also because I can impress impressive people like Krissy Krash, Beater and Mad Maloony... yeah... that too... muuuscles... muscles... he he he he (btw Mad Maloony claims she is impressed by me - mission completed)

Catching up on myself....

Crime City vs. Berlin

So sometimes life just go crazy - and the past few month been like this, and it will go on and on until the end of this year, but that is ok. I really have not had time to sit down and write... but it has been great times!

Nordic Light was a great success, and two weeks later we bouted Berlin - won, and that was mine and Loonys last bout with CCR. We were soooo sad to leave Crime City, but sometimes life takes you places that aren't determined by derby. So now we live in Stockholm... and we joined Stockholm Roller Derby, and I get to see my family very much. Well, not as much as I want to - yet, since ever since we moved here things been really intense.

First we had a Team Sweden weekend in Crime City, then we went to Helsinki to play Team Finland, and then I came back to Stockholm, just to leave for UK, to coach in Northampton at Sk8te Heaven for two weekends. I had a great time coaching and seeing friends that I haven't seen in quite a while and also got to skate with London Rollegirls for two sessions. Not to mention I got to see Team Swedens two London bound ladies, Knickerblocker and Kit Kat Power.

Ehm... I probably done a thousand other things too - like moving ALL our stuff, coaching CCR, off-skates, painting our new appartment, going to IKEA, coaching STRD, starting a new job, attended derbyrelated meetings... yeah... and much more....