Spreading the love....

Our visiting skaters Fox and Faran (pic stolen from their www)

You guys know how important I think minimum skills are - and I really URGE everyone to take it seriously. I'm not so strict about it because I don't want people to scrimmage and play derby, I'm strict about it because I want people to be safe on the track before they get on the track.
Minimum skills just prove that you are ready to scrimmage, because you have the basic skill set and the basic understanding of derby. For some girls it takes six weeks to get there, and for some girls it takes six months to get there, it depends on how often you come to practice, how motivated you are, your fitness level when you started and your previous experiances. Most girls that have some sort of sportbackground tend to catch on faster - also if you are more of a fearless person. But to be honest, one of our most promising freshies have no previous sport background... so motivation and throwin in extra time on the skates outside of regular practice usually helps.

Coming to practice is the key to passing your WFTDA minimum skills - if you come twice a week and work hard, you will pass. If you just come whenever - you probably will pass one day... Watching derby is also really important, and just coming to scrimmages and bouts and NSO will teach you a lot. Rollerderby is a fullcontact sport, and as any sport it takes a bit to build the muscle memory and understanding. And it is the FULLCONTACT part that makes me so strict about the minimumskills, you might not only hurt yourself, but someone else... The more comfortble you are on your skates, the more comfortble you will be around other skaters, and the more comfortble you are around other skaters, the more you will improve your derby skills... and one day you will play your first bout, just come to practice and work hard!

At our last minimum skills test we had two girls from Västerås Rollerderby come and take the test, and they both passed, we in Stockholm Rollerderby were really happy to see that rollerderby in Sweden are growing, and we are also very happy to be able to help, coach and push everyone to the best of our knowledge.