Stockholm Rollerderby Bootcamp

Kix and MadFish getting ready to skate

So as I mentioned in the last entry, we had a bootcamp here in Stockholm, it was during the Stockholm Winter Games, that is a big sports exhibition in Älvsjö, we were given a whole lot of space, so we were able to have two tracks, one regulation and one 90% and a little information/merch table. We had girls from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and from about 17 different leauges. So it was super-exciting! It was the first larger boot-camp that I worked that I also got to lay down the timetable for. So with all the things in mind from the bootcamps I have worked the past year, I did my best to give everyone a variety of on-skate classes, but also some off-skate classes that are valuable for everyone.
We parted the girls into three different groups, Blue, Yellow and Red, and everyone got a ''wristband'' in the color of their group, to make it easy for us to indentify and for them to remember...
As most of you that reads my blog on a regular basis, you know that I think off-skate exercises are SUPER IMPORTANT for becoming a successful derby skater, so all levels got to have an off-skate session. For the girls that hadn't passed minimum-skills (rookie girls) we also let them do sock-derby (but with shoes on) as a part of their off-skate session. Sock-derby is, for you that doesn't know, a scrimmage in full-gear, but without skates... so instead of skating everyone is running. It is superfun! All regular derby rules apply, but we shortened the jams down to a minute.... me and Loony had a blast refereeing this!
The intermediate and advanced girls both got to scrimmage, an hour each day, and we made sure it was not the last thing of the camp, since it usually ends up in exhausted girls getting injured. And during the scrimmage all the referees that had their little referee camp got to practice calls and all what they do, so that worked out really well. We had invited Riff Reff up from Stuttgart to lead the referee camp - and we had referees of different experiance from allover attend, and from what I saw, they were having a great time!
We also had Fluke run an off-skate Rules class for the intermediate and rookie girls, since there are always lot's of questions about rules, and who is a better person to answer them than a referee? HyperNova was kind enough to come and go over the basics of gear, she is a little of a gearhead and always a good person to ask about different wheels, plates and boots.
Becky Lawless, Twisted T, Mad Maloony and me ran the onskate classes, and we did everything from crossovers to hitting and jammerline starts. Our last class the girls really look exhausted, but I guess that is a good sign, that they got lots and lots out of the classes and a work-out. Loony ended every day with a partner-strech that was amazing, since we all are very likely to forget to strech if noone makes us do it.
In the end we had three prizes (sponsored by SwedeVix) for three girls that just stood out a little extra, I do think that everyone worked so hard and did such a fantastic job, but sometime there just are girls that stand out, just a tiny bit more:
Best Attitude: Mrs Knuckles - Umeå
Hardest Worker: Obnoxious Li - Gothenburg
Most Improved: Cursed Nurse - Norway
Overall I must say that I loved the vibe of the weekend, everyone had such a great attitude and skated so hard and really listened, and I appreciate that.
 I had a really great time putting on this bootcamp, and everyone else did too, so I hope we have the opportunity to do it again. And it felt really good to be able to send some of the girls from remote or really new leauges off with a whole set of new tools! I also wanna do a speacial shootout to Sleaze and Hell for being our event coordinators, making sure we had what we needed and a little extra... and of course to all the STRD skaters that volonteered. Oh, and then we had a GREAT afterparty... with dancing and all that jazz...
Amazingly fun everyone!