Any of you members of Allentown Athletix? They have a nice facility. Also, they're smart.
My team captain in roller derby is a fitness instructor by trade, and in general a fitness nut. She kickboxed competitively for years, her last season being 2003, when she retired after 18 wins, 2 by knockout. She's about six feet tall, shoulders like a bull, intimidating. She plays hard. Her squat bar, she is fond of saying, is exactly equivalent to the weight of one of my teammates (Notorious V.A.G., who is on the skinny side let's just say).
She's got impressive fitness qualifications, having been certified in several disciplines. She works for more than one gym, and takes on private clients for a hefty fee.

She negotiated a deal, via the Queen City Roller Girls, with Allentown Athletix: She teaches a class there every Saturday morning, 11:30 to 1:30. It is open to any member of the gym. (Nice, as there are no other classes there on Saturdays.)
It is also open to any member of the Queen City Roller Girls, with no need for them to sign up with the gym. (They have our names all on a list, and we just give them photo ID.) The QCRG are also being offered a really great membership rate, so we can use the facility anytime. And in return, we're giving the guy ad space in our programs, listing him as a sponsor, and we've agreed to make a couple of appearances at the gym on skates, probably leading a class or something. It's a really nice deal, and hopefully will benefit both parties enough that it continues, because I would love to join a gym.

It's an insanely good class. She leads off with some intense cardio kickboxing, not this Billy Blanks bullshit but real kickboxing. Then there's a weight training session, with lots of squats and some upper body work. There'll be a resistance-band segment once we get equipment sorted out (the bands in the room were too intense for any of us to manage; poor Stonewall Smack-Some almost took herself out with one and Dewey Decimator nearly snapped her skinny self in half), and then she finishes with a really good session of her Power Yoga-- some yoga, some tai-chi, some using the body as its own weight to strengthen and tone, and a lot of good body-awareness.

But what makes the class really awesome is the instructor. Mia's had a long successful career as a fitness instructor because she is a unique brand of awesome. She alternately barks commands, cracks self-deprecating jokes, bullies and encourages and motivates you to actually do the insane shit she is suggesting. She simultaneously intimidates and inspires. She has this way of demanding success from you by simply expecting that you will perform-- but if you don't, as long as you don't whine about how you can't, she will do her absolute best to give you support or more instruction so that you can perform.

This particular class, however, is also added-to significantly by the members of the class. This past Saturday, the most faithful members of the Knockouts were in attendance. I don't think I'm being vain to say that we are a particularly amusing and hard-working crowd. Hyper Bean, gifted with pattern-recognition skills, began to pick up on when Mia was about to tell us to do the exercise double-time, and would shout it out just before Mia said it. She also, at one point, when she couldn't grasp a combination, just started yelling and flailing, which made the rest of us laugh so hard that it was kind of twice the ab workout.
Stonewall Smack-Some is very new to the whole concept of kickboxing, and is not quick on the uptake physically. She's also Southern. She punctuated the class with comments about yawls just goin' on without her.
NoTorious V.A.G. peppered the entire thing with filthy double-entendres and suggestive comments.
I don't remember who it was who re-dubbed the Tai Chi section's "Wide Wu-Chi Stance" the "Wide Coochie Stance".

We worked our asses off, but we laughed our asses off too. (We followed it up today with a three-hour skating session and then a long brunch at a diner wherein we offended several patrons enough that they left, and also entertained one another until none of us could stand upright for the pain in our abs from laughing. Man, we work hard and play hard, I guess, but holy ow motherfucking ow. Also, ferrets on rollerskates: Hilarious. "Come on, Ferret! Keep up! Trust your gear! Take chances!" Though you had to be there.)

I strongly suggest that anyone who wants to hurt like a rollergirl hurts and is a member of, or had ever considered becoming a member of, Allentown Athletix haul their flabby ass out of bed on Saturday mornings and get in there at 11:30 and ask for the roller derby class.
The Knockouts (and most likely some Dollies, and maybe a Saucy or a Siren or two) will happily entertain you, as long as you do your best to keep up.
(I'm saying, by the way, that we're amusing and inspirational, not hot: you should take this class because it would be good for you, but not if you're going to be creepy. Most of us are married or as good as, bat-shit crazy, or lesbians, so you probably shouldn't be creepy or attempt to hook up with any of us. It's not really a good class for that. You'd be better off coming to a bout and sitting in the front row and hoping to catch one of us in your lap; it's less creepy and at least you paid us to get in.)

So yeah, there's my ad, kind of, and also it would be fun to combine (e:strip)pers and rollergirls. Anyone want to hurt like I hurt? COME ON DOWN. It's awesome.

I can't believe I haven't posted this yet.
It's taken me being home sick from work and trying desperately to do yet more roller derby crap to remind me to spread this particular bit of love.

My team's the one in the navy blue with the stripes. I'm #17, with white caps on my kneepads and red fishnets on my legs.
Check me out at 0:54 getting completely stone-cold blindsided. The awesomest part is that I did not get one bruise from that fall. Actually it didn't hurt at all, it just slowed me down.


I hope that embed thing worked. We'll see.

Just wanted to share. Next one's Feb 2nd!

So once again it's time to shamelessly pimp roller derby.
There's a bout this Saturday night.
The most fun part:
I am not skating in it. It is the other two teams vs. each other.
So! I will be at large, in the crowd, relatively free of obligations!
This is absolutely unprecedented-- I've never actually been able to watch a roller derby bout before. I sort of half-expect I'll get sucked into doing some job or other.
But I'm just so psyched.
So if anyone wants to come... I can actually drink this time, too!! I'm so excited about all this I can't even explain.

And the bout is Mardi Gras themed. So I'll be wearing my team uniform, as is expected, but I'll also be wearing some Mardi Gras-themed costume bits. Costumes are encouraged in the crowd, as well.




Come on down. I promise it will be fun. We might sell out again. And watching a crowd of [numbers may not be disclosed due to fire regulations] doing The Wave was an experience I look forward to repeating.
But if you're coming--- Let me or (e:zobar) know!!! I'll look for you and maybe I'll even be able to sit with you!!!

Come early-- we usually start letting people in around 6:45-- because we had standing room only last time and you want to score a good seat so you can see. We will have bleachers this time, but I don't know yet how good the view will be from there.

Two things.
1) The sister of an online acquaintance is moving to town and asked me for the normal advice about moving to Buffalo. I gave it to her, mentioned (e:strip). Said, where are you going to be living?
The apartment complex across the street from (e:PMT)'s!
How funny is that? So maybe she can get to the bottom of whatever those weird people were doing with their windows across the street.

2) SHAMELESS PIMPING.
I appear in a pinup calendar for the Queen City Roller Girls. These calendars did not sell out at our first bout-- although our first bout did. This would not be a problem except that these calendars kind of cost us a lot of money to print, and are going to rapidly decline in value as the year goes on. So we've got to sell them to make back our money, so we can make an even hotter one next year. Etc.
So.
We put them up for sale online.

Click the banner that says "2008 Calendars!"
Or, here's the order form, wherein you also can buy tickets:

They are $11.
$1 from every purchase benefits Crisis Services.

These calendars are really fun, and a bit hot, and mostly cute. Each month features the skaters from the 2007 season who were born in that month and also wanted their picture taken. The pictures were ALL taken by a skater on the league who taught herself portrait photography for the occasion and did all the work herself. It's really a totally grass-roots thing, but looks pretty professional and slick.

I am sorry that there are not cool preview pages for each month. There should be. Low-res versions and outtakes of the photos are up on the Myspace of the derby girl who took the photos.

The cover:


An outtake that I just think is cute:

The Knockouts won!!!! The Knockouts won last night!!!! OMG!!!
I can't even believe it.
It was so close, so fucking close, I couldn't even tell you, we were sitting on the edge of the bench holding hands through the last jam. It was intense. We were down in the first period with penalty troubles, but we brought it up to a tie in the second and we kept getting ahead by ten, they'd get six, we'd get two, they'd get four, we'd get four, they'd get two, for forty solid minutes of gameplay. It was insane. It was brutal. I got the shit knocked out of me. A lot of the girls write their numbers on their arms in marker and I had black marker all up and down my shoulders and arms from slamming into them. I had nice cloth armbands with white numbers and they're all grungy with other girls' marker.

The final score was within ten points. But I don't have the stats yet.

That was my sixth bout, that I've skated, since February of last year. We're coming up on the first anniversary of that one. I've skated for the Sluggers, the Knockouts, and the QCRG travel team. And I've never had a victory before, never gotten to swarm the track and cry and hug people and shriek. It's been close before, it's been so close, but I've never actually <i>won</i> before. So it was a really intense experience. I want to say it's changed my life but of course it's too soon to tell. ;)

Better still, WE SOLD OUT THE VENUE. We sold every ticket!! We sold 500 tickets in presale, and there was a line across the parking lot when we opened the doors. We packed that place, it was standing-room-in-the-fire-aisles only. We sold out of beer twice. We packed that house and rocked the fuck out of it. It was a good game, a smoothly-run show, and my Knockouts finally fucking won.

I'd say I could die happy, but I've got the rest of the season still to go. The next one's Feb. 5th, the Dollies vs. the Saucies, and then my Knockouts get next crack at those Saucies on March 8th. (The Saucies went undefeated last year while the KOs went winless. Some of us felt they weren't so gracious about it. So we've got a score to settle.)

This is going to be an awesome season. I don't know if any of you made it out, but if you did, let me know what you thought-- all I really know is that it was an incredible experience to be involved in.

Also I feel like I got plowed over by a fucking Mack truck.
And yet?
I don't have a bruise on me.
No trophies! No fair.

Photos to follow-- at the moment I got nothin'. Didn't bring a camera, couldn't have taken any pictures anyway.