Stockholm - rollerderby and family

Practice at Ekvallen with Stockholm

So far I gotten to see a big part of my family and coached Stockholm Rollerderby!

I've picked mushrooms, cuddeled with sheeps and tried to find my moms cat. Many things happening...  I am resting my body a little, last month I skated over 45 hours... My body likes just a tad bit of rest...

It has been good times! 

Staffan, my brotehr having deeep thoughts

I picked mushrooms with my mom and stepdad

ECDX 2015

Unicorns and Unicorns

Another amazing ECDX, the pool was back this year, and that for sure was a plus!

I had such an amazing time.

So proud of Gotham ALLSTARS, so amazing to be a part of such a strong and determined team! Hard work is all paying off!! HARD SMART TOGETHER!

I am also super proud of Shoch Exchange! Super well done! It's a great experiance to be a part!

And STOCKHOLM Roller derby - you guys killed it! So amazing! 

Something like that... 

Scrimmage with Stockholm Rollerderby

Me and Blow Me having the best of times... as always

On Sunday I went to scrimmage with Stockholm, and it was superfun. I miss my old team, it would be strange if I didn't. It's a group of hardworking and compassionate women. They are among the top teams in Europe and are really deserving of the high ranking they acheived this year. Some of the most fun bouts I've ever played were played with Stockholm Allstars. I think I will always feel like I'm a part of Stockholm, it's that one leauge I just can't really leave, Stockholm is and will always be in my heart, and they say that your home is where your heart is.

I had SUCH a blast, and I'm REALLY happy that I went! I can't wait until I am back in Stockholm again and can come and play again! 

Back on skates in Stockholm

Smashed, Calla, Becky and Amy for breakfast

Got back from Brazil on Friday and a few hours later I'm at Stockholm Rollerderby practice. It was delightful and amazing to be back with my old team and it was amazing to be on skates again. It is always amazing to be on skates, but after over a month of not skating, it was extra awesome. I spent the night at my derby wife's house and got two blankets! Talk about luxurary... In the morning Becky and her gf came by, and we had American pancakes with fixings. Me so happy.

I am still unsure of my 2015 personal goals, but I'm certain about one thing, and that is: that the world of Rollerderby is expanding.

I'm currently trying to get out of bed so I can join Stockholm for scrimmage. Sometimes it's just not the easiest...

Recap of the past month... sort of...

I am sorry friends, family and others that happen to read my blog, I've really been lacking in writing and skating, dating, writing, thinking and working out. I just have not had time to reflect about anything but the current "right now" state of union.

I downloaded Tinder for a day, turned it into a real life game and met a person that made my heart skip and jump a beat. It's sort of magical and amazing.

I also practices, practiced, practices and went to WFTDA Champs and got to be a part of the team that once again brought the Hydra home. It was beyond an amazing weekend, the level of play was just AMAZING, the athletic aspect of rollerderby is just raising each year and it makes me proud and excited to be a part of the community. I also got to see lots of friends from allover the world, Mainey,Eagle, Rotten, Krissy Krash, Demanda, Mad Dog, Kasey Bomber, Nasty Trick and tons of more... Its just amazing to be a part of a rollerderby and all the great people and friends I have made.

I went back to NYC and spent even more time with this amazing person, just to realise that sometimes you just ought to follow your heart whatever other people say. So I am. I ended up NSOing a scrimmage in Philly, since I went down with Kenbo, Frozen and Carnage, my first time NSOing. I've done almost everything in derby, and now I can add NSOing to the list of things that I have done.

Kenbo, Carnage, me and Frozen on ourway to Philly

And then I went to Sweden to work and attend WET, an European WFTDA tournament in my old hood, Crime City was hosting. I was amazined over how great all the teams did. I was happy to have OMG representing Brooklyn Skates at the tournament. I just got new skates, and I played a bout in them the second time I wore them. Oh, yeah, that happened at WET, a European mixed team called EuroTräsh played Team Finland. It was SO MUCH FUN. OH, and Stockholm did fantastic, I am so happy and proud of them. They showed that they are much better than their ranking indicated. Stockholm will always have a special place in my heart!

Oona, me and Fluke at WET

So, as you can tell I've been really busy and now I'm back in Stockholm again, but heading to Florida and StateWars tomorrow. Another adventure and I get to see some of my best friends and also finally get to rest in the arms of somone special.

Going to WET 2014

Today I travel to Copenhagen to hang out with OMG and Krazy Kris for a night before the WET tournament begins. 10 European teams of great caliber face off during three days in Malmö, my old hometown. I am looking forward to see this, I am looking forward to be a part of this.

I am  part of an European Allstar team that is going to bout against Team Finland on Sunday and on Saturday, Team Sweden has practice, at 07.30 AM... I am looking forward to both occations.

I miss NYC, especially a certain person that I grown very fond of, a person that makes my heart skip and jump, but I m also happy to be back in Sweden where it all began four years ago. Sometimes it's hard to feel so torn between two different places. 

Reflections, reflections and more reflections when in Stockholm

I guess I should have seen my tiredness coming, and the sudden retirement of DNN really got me thinking, that and som much more. I am in Stockholm and I´m jetlagged watching the fullmoon shine over the empty quiet lanscape outside of my mothers house. I love it here and I wonder why I always have to go...

A year ago I posted this :http://swedehurtgoesfit.blogspot.se/2013/09/i-am-just-so-damn-me.html and I really did not slow down a single time since. I turned down a family trip to Brazil so I could manage and coach Wintergames in January  (yes the rest of Stockholm Rollerderby did a great job too, but this blog just happen to be about ME) and YES it was great to have my girlfriend come in and coach, but that is just not the point. I loved and still love Stockholm Rollerderby, I can't tell you how many hours I have spent of my office time, late nights and on the subway to answer e-mails, network, plan practices, book flights, print sceduals, find someone to coach other practices, figure out what to do when our hall space get cancelled ect ect... and I always felt stressed that I didn't do enough, that I wasn't living up tp expectations, and it wasnt always others, but also my own. I'm a strong athletic woman with endless time and energy...

I worked fulltime, went to school part-time and did derby fulltime... this is not a complain, this is just a fact. I didn't really like my job, I stayed on because it was a good source of income. I felt lonely with my girlfriend so far away and most of all, I felt underapreciated, and I know I was apreciated. I still didn't feel like I was good enough, with my hamstring healing much slower than I wanted and constanly being in pain, it made me push harder and harder. I am competative and I wanted to win at life, in rollerderby, in love, in everything.

At the end of the May I was just miserable and I knew I needed a break, a cut off, a get away. And I did... I wasn't ready to leave rollerderby so I went back to NYC. I slept, and I slept and I skated, skated and skated,. And I slept more and some more... the healing of sleep can not be underestimated. I also did some major staring into the wall and writing all my anxiety away.  I went to NYC because I needed to push myself harder in rollerderby, because rollerderby is that important of a component in my life, it was: sink or swim, and I was swimming for my dear life! I needed to progress my own skills and I needed to grow stronger and build some trust in myself. I needed to be somewhere where I felt it was ok to be just me. And I have grown stronger, I learn something new every practice, and I push, push myself because I allow myself to try new things all the time. I cannot thank OMG and Bonnie enough for letting me crash in their extra room to gain myself back.

When I got the email that I made the Gotham Allstars Charter, I felt really proud and I can't deny that my eyes teared up, because it meant a lot to me, it did not only mean that I'm a skilled skater but a teamplayer. Going to Sacramento was amazing, it is the first tournament I have ever gone to and not being rostered,  saw my team go out and perform, and I felt excited that I belonged to this team. Not gonna lie, I much rather be playing, and I will push myself at every practice to be rostered for next time. I will listen, learn and try, fall and get up again. I know I am a part of the team and being at practice we challange each other, and in that way we all become better and better and better.

I miss coaching very much, and at Sacramento this weekend TARAism came up to me, and told me how my coaching had helped her. (She studued abroad in Sweden for a year and skated with Stockholm Rollerderby) It made me warm and fuzzy inside, it also made me miss Stockholm Rollerderby.

I am very proud of being a part of Gotham, it's my home but so is Stockholm... and I often miss Stockholm Allstars, we have had som many great times together, trips, practices, meetings and dreams. We went to Florida and played three amzing bouts, we almost beat Houston, we were 50 points away from Steele City, we did get our asses kicked by Tampa... but we weren't steamrolled.

I still left Florida feeling like I had let the team down, we werent gonna go to D2 playoffs, and at the same time I got my heart broken and I had to sit myself on a flight to London to play with Team Sweden and try to smile, smile, smile even if I was breaking into a thousand pieces .  I just wanted somone to shake me and hug me and say I did amazing things. I got lost in London (like REALLY lost ) and got yelled at and I broke into a thousand pieces on the inside but kept on smiling as much as I could.

 At that point I realised I had to take off. I needed a vacation from who I had taken on to be. 

Swedish Championships in Rollerderby 2014

I know this is real late, but I've thrown my life in a crazy direction and made a bunch of rational and probably irrational changes... And it has lead to no blog in a while, since I frankly have not really had my computer around not time to write. This is about to change....

Last year I stod on the bench, coaching my team to a gold. I felt like i was a part of that gold, even if a torn hamstring the previous month stopped me from any sort of rollerderby action. It was awesome to bench, but I still love playing rollerderby too much, I still love skating fast and hitting hard, I want ready to retire. 

So this year I got to skate in the finals against Crime City. It was superduper fun but hard to play. This was my last bout with Stockholm for quite a while...  Both Stockholm and CCR played well, but in the end Stockholm took the win. This was a real hard bout to play, and both teams deserved to win. 

It was also my last bout with Stockholm for 2014...

Kicking Ass and taking names in Florida

Dear Stockholm Allstars

We rocked this weekend at the Beach Brawl... we played THREE Division ONE teams and almost beat one of them! So much fun playing!!

I couldn't be anymore proud to be a part of a team that has worked so hard!

MY GIRLS!

Fiiine ladies of Stockholm Allstars

Rocky Mountain Rocks

About a year ago I sat at WFTDACon and chatted with Pepa from Rocky Mountain. So she brought up that they were considering to play London and said "wouldn't it just be real cool if you could help us find a place to hold a bootcamp and we could play you guys"
And I was sort of "Why not, that sounds real cool"

A year later it all happened, and it was really an experiance.- I have played Rocky Mountain before, but that was a looong time ago and with a completly different team (back then I was with Gotham) at WFTDA Champs.

 I was superduper nervous and I woke up on Saturday morning with a VERY stuffed nose and a fever. NOT a great day to start the day! But after stuffing myself with all the remedies I could think of I started to feel better, and it acctually ended up being a SUPERDUPER awesome and great bout. Rocky was for sure the better team, they foremed better walls than us and their jammers were harder to hold. I still don't feel defeted, and I don't think that anyone in my team does. I thin kwe feel like we had nothing to loose and everything to gain, and we did gain lots and lots of experiance...

I don't think you will ever play competative long enought not to be nervous. I will always continue to push myself and my teamates to become better. We can always improve!

I am SO freaking proud of all of us for stepping up, smiling and performing to our best. It's something special about Stockholm Rollerderby, we have been on a long long adventure together, and three years ago when I moved back to Stockholm we talked about a USA trip... dreams... dreams and dreams... and now dreams are coming true... not only have we played a top ten Division ONE team on our hometurf BUT we are also on our way to Florida to play against THREE Division ONE teams... oh HELL yes, I am chewin my nails off...

So a HUGE thanks for Rocky to stopping by our neck of the woods and giving us a good whipping...

TBT this is what I looked like last tiem I played Rocky.... 

Bout against Crime City 2014

Crime City is our biggest competion in Sweden, last year we played each other 3 times, and we beat them twice and them us once. So this weekend we went down to play them again, it was sort of a big deal since two of our main blockers left Stockholm. Emma Ryssfemma is doing the babything and Kix acctually moved to Malmö, and was going to play against us. I would lie if I said I wasn't nervous.

Playing CCR is always really emotional, partly because that they are my old team and also because so many of the girls on the team are my good friends and teammates on Team Sweden.I want them to do good! This being the first time for us to bout without Kix, and having her play against us, was of course also a factor that made the game a little extra emotional.

At the same time I was SUPEREXCITED to have two new girls on our Allstars playing their first bout with us, and both Panica and Mounty did amazing. The entire team did freaking amazing, I am really proud to be a part of this team, to captain and coach. Everyone has such a great attitude and their heads on their shoulders, we skate well together and push each other! I like that!

The bout was close, Stockholm took the lead from the beginning, but it wasn't like it felt like we were winning at any point, Crime City really gave us a run for our points. And once again this gives me so much hope and happiness for the future of Swedish rollerderby.

I got awarded MVP, and that always feels really good, but without my team being so awesome I would not be able to play as well as I did.

In three weeks we will be playing against Rocky Mountain, and that will really be something... the last bout we play in Sweden before we head over to Beach Brawl and play Houston, Steele City and Tampa... yikes! It's EXCITING and sooo amazingly crazy. I rememember two years ago, when talking about bringing Stockholm Roller Derby to USA, just was a dream, something we barley thought ever would happen... and NOW, it's what's happeing! 

EXHAUSTING scrimmage, but fun!

Lately we have had so many people at scrimmage that we almost have felt like people don't get enough playtime. Yesterday my dear friends was NOT one of those days!

BSTRDS (our B-team) had a bout in Hamburg on the Saturday, and since our Allstar team has a few cross-overs we were running low, and half of the leauge seem to lay in their beds suffering from a really bad case of the seasonal flu.

So we only had 17 people showing up at practice, 5 of them coming straight from Hamburg! So the 7 allstars taht showed up ended up playing the rest of the leauge (the remaining 10 people). It was fun, even if I wish that htere would have been more people, but noone can complain that they did not get tracktime...

Well, I mean - skating every jam for two hours does leave little room for complaining...

I had a great time, even if we cut the scrimmage short about 30 min, because people were just getting exhausted and we could feel the injuries hovering. Instead we did a drill, and used the remaining time for some freeskating and fun. The whole practice/scrimmage was really amazing, and it made me think how far our rookies have come, they really can hold their own! 

My legs really are feeling EXHAUSTED today, I am worried that it might be the flu moving in on me, my joints and my body is hurting and I'm feeling really tired. BUT we have practice tonight, so I have to shake that feeling and put my head down and get better... Beach Brawl is just about two months away... and before that we will be playing both Crime City and Rocky Mountain!

Last night I spent at my mohters with one of my best friends visiting from Paris. Went to bed quite early borrowing my moms iPad and watching LRG vs. Atlanta.

This picture is completly inrelated to teh text (it's VR Nordic)

Another crazy week: Recap the past week

If you haven't noticed, but my life is crazy busy, it seem like I'm always on the move, on my way somewhere. I like it, but at the same time it does take a major toll on my sleeping habits, I'm always so wired up I have a hard time falling asleep, with insomnia as the result. So coming in to this past Friday I was operating on an average of four to five hours of sleep per night, and that is not at all enough. Especially not if you are working out as much as I am.

One of the reasons I get up quite early is work, but also that before work i wanna catch some chatting time with my girlfriend that lives in Portland. Yeah, that is the westcoast of USA, so we are working on a nine hour difference. So I make coffe and chat with her, either facetime or just voxer before I head to work.

Since i have work and I go to school part-time and I also do a whole bunch od derbywork for my leauge and so on... Yeah, and the nights I don't have derbypractice I do off-skate activities such as Fighting Fit or just go to the gym and do some weights. So... with this all said, I have very little time for my really fab and new apartment... ha ha ha... you catch my drift. It maes me miss living with someone and feeling sad about my girlfriend being so far away, I am so not motivated to keep my apartment looking as fab as it could be.

Well, last week was crazy busy:

 Monday night was boardmeeting, the last meeting of the 2013 Stockholm Rollerderby Board. We had a really great board, and I'm going to miss our meetings, I do think the new board will do a fab job. 

 Tuesday was practice on our sticky floor, we have to take a bus out to an island, and me and Loony laid track for the first time, I think it went better than we expected... We made teh track to long first, but after one lap, we could feel it, and adjusted it to be right. It was a great practice Loony ran and I gotta go over a thing that Fisit Cuffs explained so amazingly in Dresden.

Wednesday was the Annual Leauge Meeting (lasted for 4 hours and we got unicorn cake Crash made) and we voted a new board in. I am no longer on the board of Stockholm Rollerderby, that means I can put more time and work into WFTDA, European Rollerderby, Coachign AND playing myself of course!!

Thursday was Fighting Fit and Panica our new transfer skater joined together with CrackHer, and it was superduperfun, even if the part where we did 300 kettlebell swings felt a little taxing. But hey... it's only about 65 days left until Florida....

Friday was practice, only four people showed up for the off-skate part, but the ones that did, we were superfired up, maybe a little sore since the kettlebell swings from the previous day. The onskate part was run by Sloppy, and it was superfun and everyone looked amazing. I am so proud of how much Stockholm Rollerderby progress all the time, how we push ourselves to become faster and better at all times, how our rookies and our Allstars always are developing and pushing themselves. 

Saturday morning I got up superearly to catch a train at 06.21 to head down to Malmö, to watch Malmö play Copenhagen and for the Sunday Team Sweden practice! But that's all another blog...

What the fuzz and buzz is all about

No longer on the team, but hella fighting spirit...

So Stockholm Allstars are aiming to become more fit for the Beach Brawl tournament in Florida, the first weekend of may. I know, I write about it a lot, but it's because it's something I've dreamed of doing ever since I moved back to Europe. To have a team that is excited and good enough to go to US and play, and we finally  are there now. 

It's so awesome to have a goal, the team having a goal together, to play and aim to climb in ranking. Over a year ago we went and played our first big tournament together in Berlin, we prepared for it at length, and we did real well. I was really proud of the team taking third behind Berlin and London Rollergirls.

In March last year we went to Berlin and beat them, but after that it was like the air just went out, people moved and decided to take breaks from rollerderby, leaving us with to few and  unmotivated players for the Gent tournament. We just didn't seem have it in us, the aim, the spirit nor the drive.

This time it's different, it's like the entire team is buzzing, pushing, skating and wanting. Everyone are showing up at practice, ready to go, to push themselves and excited to go to Florida. We need to create a winning mind, to want this equally and to be excited for progression.

A few things I'm personally doing to become better and more fit is for sure the Fighting Fit class and recovering my hamstring. We are reintroducing the Friday off-skate before/after practice and we will have monthly team meetings where we do some bondage.... Oh, I mean bonding.... I still have some sessions left with my Personal Trainer that I was using before and after Berlin, and I'm thinking of maybe activating those. I am also really looking forward to when I can start biking to work, I probably could already, but there is something about not wanting to bike in February. It should be snow, and somewhere in my mind I do wanna hang onto the thought if it being winter... 

A hundered of it all

Go go go go.....

I wrote this Friday, but didn't have any wifi in Dresden to post it.Giving a hundred percent, today at Fighting fit we as usual did a bunch of punching combos that made me confused. It's funny how "knee, jab,cross,jab, elbow" can be so hard when I have no problem blocking a jammer while looking for my own jammer and getting hit by the other team... I guess I know why kickboxing never really stuck on me and why I love rollerderby.
Never mind, the fighting part is the most fun when we get to wrestle, we did some sparring yesterday, but I'm just not into hitting anyone and I really don't like to get punched at all. I'm not really taking the class for the fighting part, but for the second part when we really get a workout.
Yesterday we got the mission of doing 100 burpees, 100 kettlebell swings, 100 squats, 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups. We got to break it up as much as we wanted to, and whoever finished first would win wraps for the hands. Hand-wraps to have in the boxing gloves, ou know the kind Rocky would sport... You know what I'm talking about... Too my surprise I finished first, well JUST at the same time as Thunders. Since I'm a terrible counter I did do 10 extra burpees... So I got the wraps, which will be me from some pain, my wrist does act up sometimes...  We are kick-ass... It's really cool to see that it's a bunch of STRD girls that show up at almost every Thursday practice. It's Kimizooka, Thunders, Chaos, Slinky and me from the Allstars and Alpha, Ziggy and Asstroid from BSTRDs. I wish we were more girls from the Allstars. In March when we don't have Tuesday practices I think we are planning on all coming twice a week. 

Yeah, I think the byproduct of getting fit for BeachBrawl will also get us into getting fit for bikinis... Ha ha ha ha... Whatever that means...

Stockholm Allstars getting ready for Florida

Some people aim for Beach 2014, meaning that they are supposed to be ready for a bikini summer of 2014, Stockholm Allstars are getting ready for BeachBrawl 2014... BeachBrawl is a tournament in Florida, and we are playing really highly ranked teams... teams that are almost 100 spots above us, you would say that we are taking on a lot, and if you say that, you are probably right. Still, it's such an amazing opportunity, Steele City, Houston and Tampa Bay, we could not have asked to play against more amazing teams!

AND the BEFORE we go we have TWO bouts here in Sweden, first we are going down to Crime City in Malmö to play our annual match-up. Always a very tight and nervewrecking game, and in April we are playing against an American team coming to Stockholm. Yeah, we are not shy when it comes to take on the top teams of the world, we might get beat down, but only so we can get up quicker... yeah...

Yesterday we had an Allstar meeting, planning for Florida, doing some teambonding, me making hot apple cider and some of even went for some ice-skating before. Ice-skating REALLY is fun, except from when you forget that ice-skates don't have toestops and you fall flat on your face. At least hte flatfallonyourface entertain the rest of the people, and we all almost do it. Freaking Chaos is amazing on skates, she does some really impressive hockeystop and running out of it. yeah... at least I was very impressed by the footwork and wished I could do it... one day, one day... I must admitt I feel like such a amatour on the ice with NEverest, Slinky and Chaos, that all have very solid hockey/Rignette backgrounds... damn those sporty girls, All I have to come with is competative snowboarding... 

We are going to Florida

We known for a while that Stockholm Rollerderby are going to Florida for the Beach Brawl, and we been very excited about it. We already got shirts and held two bootcamps, where the proceeds are going towards our Florida trip. So dont hesitate but buy a shirt here: http://shop.rollerderby.se/se/klader/linne/

We knew we were going to get three sanctioned WFTDA bouts , but we had had no clue what teams we will be facing off until yesterday. We are playing Steele City, Tampa and Houston... Such great and amazing teams... Can't lie and say that it doesn't make me nervous, but I believe in my team and that we can accomplish anything that we really put our minds too. It's going to be fun and amazing to play in US again, but this time with my Swedish team!  

All of a sudden it felt so real, it felt like we were on our way, and this will really happen! I'm excited and this will be one of the most exciting things that has happened to Stockholm Rollerderby. And it's really exciting that Berlin are going too... Berlin are such an amazing team, and I have many great friends in that team, they went to US two years ago and did amazing. Damn, time flies and it's amazing to see how far we all have come... 

And here you can see all the match-ups for the Beach Brawl... http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2014/01/beach_brawl_lined