Mixing It Up With Women Who Like to Talk Derby

This week we continue our series of tryout columns by four writers who would like to become Vicky Hallett's MisFits partner. The contenders remain anonymous, but we'll identify the winner on May 5.

It's Monday night at the Skateland roller rink in Baltimore County, where 25 Charm City Roller Girls are practicing the right way to fall down and get back up.

Falling is an important thing to practice for many reasons, as Hammertime (known in real life as 30-year-old accountant Krisi Huie) explains from the sidelines. For instance, you get a feel for how secure your kneepads are. And you train yourself to fall in a way that minimizes injury. You do not want one of your skates caught in your hot pants.

Before tonight, I had witnessed a handful of roller derby bouts, but never a practice. What I saw at bouts was a bunch of girls, some bigger than me, knocking into each other. It looked like something I could do. Like a kid who thinks she can be a doctor until she realizes how much blood is involved, I had the misconception that this wasn't a "real" sport and that it didn't require much training.

In the old days when your mother might have skated around a banked track, the aggressive aspect was emphasized to the hilt, commonly including staged fights. These days, the track is flat and the players are keeping the theatrical names and unique outfits, but they're ditching the drama. Leagues are playing in earnest and are striving to get recognition for their sport, in which a player on each team known as a jammer tries to maneuver through a pack formed by opponents and teammates. They play to win.

Hammertime is here collecting dues on behalf of her league's finance committee, but she can't skate tonight because she sprained an ankle at practice over the weekend. As "fresh meat" (a league member who hasn't been drafted to a team yet), she is still a beginner. Once she's back on her skates, she hopes to progress to participating in blocking drills (where you make contact with other players), then move up to a level where she can scrimmage.

There are three derby leagues in the area: the Charm City Roller Girls (Baltimore), the DC Rollergirls and the Mason Dixon Roller Vixens (Hagerstown, Md.). The D.C. and Hagerstown leagues are smaller, with recruitment taking place pretty much anytime someone wants to join. The Baltimore league is more selective, with tryouts scheduled two or three times a year.

Charm City's head coach, Holly Go Hardly (Holly Ross, 27), tells me that her league's tryouts require 22 laps in five minutes around the derby track, which is smaller than your average rink's, plus three different falls and three different stops. You also need to do "whips," slinging a teammate forward from behind you, and demonstrate "pack awareness," the ability to skate in close proximity to others.

Kim D'Kay (Kim Toney, 40, a body piercer and punk singer from Martinsburg, W.Va.) has seen a lot of women join her league, the Vixens, and not come back. "When they see what we do, I think it scares them and they second-think it. It's not just jumping on a pair of skates," she says. "It's not just banging into the person next to you. It's a very intense game."

Another Vixen, Cy Kosis (Amber Mori, 30, a mother of three from Frederick) clarifies that although women of any sort can come to the Hagerstown league as fresh meat, they aren't considered Vixens until they meet the Women's Flat Track Derby Association skills (similar to the Charm City tryout). Then they'll be eligible to play against other WFTDA-sanctioned teams. To meet that challenge, league members might do 200 sit-ups and 200 push-ups in a night, plus lots of minute-long squats on skates.

In the District, trainer Hooah!Girl (Diana Dawla, 43, an Army public affairs specialist and captain of the DC DemonCats) takes her league through explosive exercises known as plyometrics (think jumping jacks), calisthenics, stretches and falling exercises for two or three hours per practice.

The girls make two or three practices a week, on average, and some consider that enough of a workout. Many also go to the gym, ride bikes or do yoga.

So I asked them: Just what does this stuff do for (or to) your body?

Toney and Mori both said they dropped pounds. Some of the Charm City girls said they lost dress sizes but not weight. And others simply got big muscles where they used to have fat. All noticed more tone and better endurance after a few months.

"Pants do not fit in new and wondrous ways!" says Flux Incapacitator (Carrie Lancos, 29), with a laugh. "They used to not fit because I'm pear-shaped. Now my quads are enormous."

"My butt got bigger, and my waist got thicker. And it's awesome," adds Lady Quebeaum, pronounced "Ka-Boom" (Amy Callner, 35, from Mount Rainier).

So it's not necessarily an activity you'd pursue especially for weight loss. Rather, it seems to be a way to work out aggression. I asked a dozen derby girls, "Why do you do this?" The answer was, overwhelmingly, "You get to hit people." They mean body slamming; players are not allowed to hit with their hands or elbows.

Lancos, who lives in Bethesda and works in Columbia, says it's the Beltway that makes her mad. Gesturing to the women around her, she observes that many here have jobs they hate or don't have jobs at all. Or they need to get away from the kids for a while. "If I wasn't doing this, I'd be an angry person."

So what if they're not all model-thin? They're strong and they're having fun. If you're a woman looking for a physical outlet, roller derby can help you build muscle. Plus, you can meet cool new people, give them bruises and go have a beer together.