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... 

Playing Paris again...

I was waiting for snow - and I got snow and I got to bout against Paris...

Last time I played Paris was when I was living in Malmö and played with Crime City Rollers - it was CCR's first away bout... adn to Paris we went screaming JE MA PELLE GUMMIBEAR (don't ask and I don't have to tell you)

My day started with me waking up really early to watch a streamed game from Portland with GnR (Rose City hometeam that Eagle plays on) playing  Sockit Wenches (my old Rat City hometeam) and that was fun and then I could fall asleep for a two more hours before I had to get up and bring the Parisian girl I was staying with to our venue. Since it was a Sunday bout we started much earlier than we usually do.

So we were clearly ranked over Paris, but Stockholm is a team that never takes anything for guranteed, because everytime we do, we end up playing like shit (true story)... So we played our best and Paris played well, they are really good skaters, but we really pleayed tight and managed to send their jammer to the box quite a few times...

I played a COMPLETLY penaltyfree bout... I am VERY proud of thar, I been working hard on being penalty free and lots of times my penalties are because I try to do too much instead of trusting my teamates of being where I can't be. I was told that me and Ryssen had some beutiful watterfalling on some poor Parisian jammer and that we all looked really strong together on track.

I could not be anymore proud of my team, everyone has stepped up to the plate, we all work well together and I feel really secure stepping on track with my team. I know that the days I'm not playing my best, everyone else are, and that what makes my team so amazing and strong, everyone are fighters and we lift each other up. It's hard work to captain, but it's also the best feeling to have a team that is as awesome and hardworking as Stockholm, coming to practice late Friday nights and working their asses off with smiles and eyes set of greatness... 

Final results....

STRD Allstars team meeting

Our Allstars are all moooodels..... 

So another day with no practice, so we had a team meeting instead. I love my team, everyone are so sweet and silly, we also have a few new additions to the Allstars, that I hope will work out really well. It feels like the season hasn't really started yet and people are just done decompressing from last season...

We are playing Crime City on Saturday. That will be fun and also my last weekend trip in quite a few weeks.

Don get me wrong, I love to travel, but it's really tiering, and I wanan be home and cuddle!

Look HOW excited we are... probably need less cupcakes and more beer?

Balancing your life

Trust and balance - it's waht we are trying to build in life...

We all love rollerderby to death, but it's a lifeconsuming activty that takes a lot of effort, time and mental energy. In the end, it's all worth it, but sometimes on the road of all meetings, practices, little dramas, hurting limbs and just in general the stress and lack of time does take a toll on you. 

On top of that most of us also have something we like to call our REAL job - that place were we earn money so that we can continue to play that sport we love so much! 

Somedays I wish that I had an extra day in the week, and preferably a few extra hours per day aswell... just so I could fill it with some extra practice/admin/friend/dinner and most of all SLEEEEEP!

Balancing your life when you try to build, improve and run a team/leauge is not the easiest thing, and sometimes you have to remember that you do it because you love it and that rollerderby is not the only thing in the world, even if I do think rollerderby is one of the most important things in life. Rollerderby makes me smile and it also makes me cry...

Right now I 've been in that sort of mental not so pepp funk: Two weekends of bouts after each other, it is not only hard on your body. It is also hard on your mental state, especially when you have to travel to a bout, it sorts of makes a mess of your daily routine.  I tend to be too tired to unpack my bags the day I get back home... and then I tend to never get home early enough to get it done... . I currently have piles of things/clothes laying on my floor, and I am in a dire need of doing laundry... or I soon have to start wearing my "outside panties" (those are the panties you were ontop of your leegings for bouts) as my underpanties... and that is just NOT acceptble...

All focus is currently on the tournament in Berlin, and it's hard to sit at work and not start to write line-ups in your head, or mentally go thorough that last bout in your head and make notes on what we have to improve as a team and as induviduals. I love to skate with Stockholm Rollerderby, those girls are all really amazign people, we respect each other and we skate well togetehr. My mental state has not been the best the past days due to things that are not rollerderby related, and I hate to see it when it affects my derby, and my team. I wish I was one of those people that could feel very passionate about my job, I really don't, my job is a means of getting the funds to do more rollerderby.

This week is just as busy as any other week - tonight the Stockholm Allstars has a meeting at my house... I can offer ppl to sit on my piles of laundry (mmmm sexy)... ehm... and tomorrow night is practice somewhere where we might have a booking (we are struggeling to find a place to practice) on wedensday me and one of our players aer going to bet on horses at the racehorse track Solvalla and on Thursday we will try poledancing... with we I mean the ppl from Stockholm Rollerderby that want to try... since it's one of our girls running the class... this one I will FOR SURE blog about...

BUT there are sometimes those crazy thoughts in my head... what would I do if I didnt have rollerderby... would I eat out more? Would I travel to India? Would I acctually have taken the time to go sailing this summer? Would I have a girlfriend? Would I be really good and amazing at my job...? Would I plan a trip to the Alps to snowboard with some old friends? Would I go to Bali to surf? Would I really learn how to play rugby?

I really don't know, and sometimes I really DO wanna know, and sometimes I really DON't wanna know... But I say as I have done the past weeks "Can we take this after Berlin?"

LRR vs Stockholm

We got up at 4 am to take a flight to bout at 5pm... It was a little stressful when the flight ended up being 45 min late and seriously - trying to get nine derby people to across London is quite like herding cats!
I stuffed my face with food and we managed to find the venue after a train, a subway and a bus... You can't say that London doesn't offer a wide variety of travel options.

So we scurried into the venue, threw our skates on to try the floor that was super odd - slick but grippy. Hard to explain - but it was just weird, but it's the same for everyone.

The game was fun, hard hitting and very, very exciting. London Rockin Rollers has a very good team, and really got us all working hard, it was great to feel that our hard work payed off, but I wasn't even sure we won when the last whistle sounded. The scoreboard was really hard to see, and at one point I looked over an I could have sworn it looked like they were up with 40 points.

Oh, and afterparty was stellar - at a pub and of course half of the team ended up in their sports bras - just seem to happen, good thing I have invested in a pretty one. And LRR was also celebrating that their leauge been around for FIVE years, just like STRD and me... Amazing rollerderby...

Today me and Loony will be goin to London Roller Girls practice, LRG is the other London leauge, the ones that came in fourth at eastern regionals, and that will hopefully be stellar!

You never need too much sparkles!

Packing - washing - leaving for airport

This year I was supposed to do less traveling, it did not really work out like that, I just done different traveling. I've travelled less for coaching and more for my own selfish rollerderby pleasure, and that is sad and fun at the same time. I love coaching, but at the same time I miss to just skate for my own damn sake and learn from others...

What to pack? does those look like Stockholm to you?

Still, this weekend Stockholm is playing Rainy City, and they have their venue right outside Manchester, a new travel first... so I'm once again washing and packing and getting ready for another airport ride to Arlanda to get on another flight. Airports has sort of lost their charm, but at the same time I have a special love for them.
So I have to remember passport, flight confirmation, the few pounds I have left from last trip, skates, pads, armbands, boutshirt, something to cover the ass up.. .what... hm.... boardshorts, hotpants, skorts, jeaggings? I miss packing with Loony - she is so much better at this than I am... I probably will finish packing about 10 mins before I have to leave for the airport... oh, I need to bring line-ups and my helmet too... ugh... what else... does everything fit in my backpack? Do I need more than one pair of shoes? If only one pair of shoes... converse or Nike?
Will it be sunny? Or will it rain? Should I bring a jacket? Wheels? What wheels should I bring? Stingers? Will they be to grippy? Should I stick with G-rods? I do like slide... ugha!
Oh, and painkillers, since I had an incident the other day... Kimizooka our new girl, who now is mine and Beckys Bro and personal trainer has given me some... oh...
I love to go on team trips... this is gonna be exciting.. .except from all those choices and the packing... ahhhh....

Working in the name of derby....

Haz wheelz - you wantz?

I love rollerderby to death, it is the most amazing thing I have ever gotten involved in and it has given me soo much, and I am giving back as much as I can, somedays I just feel so drained.... sooooo drained.... SwedeVix Skateshop takes time - but so does Crime City Rollers....

I used to just be just a skater, and then things have just added on, and I am amazingly happy to help as much as I can, but sometimes it get very draining, it is like swimming in mud (not that I ever tried, but I can imagine it is not very easy), I take one step forward, just to be shoved back two...

I still decided that it is ok, as long as I work hard and I see everyone around me work hard, I am fine with it,  I am even fine with being the hardest worker, I do like to work hard, keep my spinning head spinning, and I guess being a little dizzy at times makes life easier to deal with. (until you puke, ha ha ha) As long as things do go forward, and I get to skate more and more and more.....

We just picked the team that is going to Paris, and I'm thrilled, because it was so hard to pick, and decide who the alternates were going to be, since everyone are so hardworking and dedicated. Being a coach is not easy at all, but all things considered, it has made me a better person, derby has made me a better person... and the team is looking better and better.

....even if my dear girlfriend think I do take too much work on and that I spend too much time on meetings... but this weekend we are going to Stockholm together to be announcers at Stockholm Rollerderbys bout against Hamburg... ohhh... and the theme is cirkus... MOHAAHahahAHHAhahaha

Coching, slacking and skating

me and husse

It is interesting to coach in so many ways - there are the people that work so hard and never realize how amazing they are, since they always believe they can be better, and then there the ones that think that they are better than everyone else and therefore don't have to work hard, there are the ones that easily get distracted by personal issues and there are the ones that blame other people for not succeeding. I think I might have a little of everything in me, but I am mostly a person that see all the wrongs I do - and therefore never get to enjoy the moments I truly did really well, because I could have done better.
It annoys the hell out of me everytime I do something dumb on the track, go for a big hit and whiff or run into someones back - and that will be played in my head over and over for the next weeks... but I have to learn to also remember the great moments... we are almost always our worst enemies - if we let our personal stuff get in the way of our performance, if we belive that it is others that stand in out way of success or if it is plain lazyness... me myself is the onlyone that can surpass my own expectaions and I am also the only one that can truly give myself the pat on the shoulder.
It is probably a good thing that I didn't become a gymnast, because I probably would have killed myself in the hunt for a perfect score. And now I just strive to become a good coach, to make everyone work harder, overcome the little things and win together... and also have fun, fun, and fun together...
I have said this a thousand times, and will probably another thousand times

''Hard work will always win over talent, when talent don't work hard.''

Just imagine when talent is working hard, then the hard workers just will have to work even harder... I guess I'm an odd-duck, but hard work and sweat makes me happy, and it inspires me, and I think it is fun.

Another day of coaching with Loony

Me trying to figure out the line-ups the past weekend...

Mondays we have 17.00 - 19.00 o'clock practices, and that is all good, those practices are open for everyone in our league - and we try to do lot's and lots of basic skills, working towards minimum skills for the girls that yet have not passed them, but also for everyone to really nail their basic skills, I belive that you can always get better.
There is nothing wrong with working on basics even when you have passed minimum skill, to be honest, it is called MINIMUM skills, and that means you have lots, and lots left to learn.
I like to run basic-skills practice with Maloony, I love to see when our girls crossovers get cleaner, faster and steadier. I love when our girls push themselves and get better than they ever thought they would.
It is so awesome to see that more and more of our girls are reaching the level where they can bout, and how they push themselves to be better and having fun in every stride...it is fun to sweat, and it is fun to push yourself...
But tomorrow we have the first travel-team practice, and I'm superduper excited about that... WHOAHAHAAa - we are going to Paris in exactly a month!