Kent Roller Girls supporters turned out in force to cheer on the All-Stars and the Kent B team The Knightmares at the Bay Arena in the second home game of the season on Saturday. The A team won with 266 points to Portsmouth Roller Wenches’ 189, defying predictions and causing KRG to leapfrog PRW in the European rankings.
Continue reading Kent Roller Girls Dominate Portsmouth Roller Wenches
It’s been Mental Health Awareness Week this week and it got us thinking about how important it is to take time out from your day to day life and look after yourself. For many of us, roller derby is that escape; from work stress, family drama, our own negative thoughts and keeping up with the unrealistic expectations that get put on us.
We collected a few statements from people within our league that talk about the struggles they face and how roller derby fits into their self-care routine. Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Week
Welcome back to part two of our 27 Tips for Passing Your 27 in 5! We hope you tried a couple of tips from part one and we’d love to know how you all got on, why not leave us a comment?
Part two brings you even more skating stars, your favourite KRG players and plenty of off skates tips to hopefully keep you motivated and push you to reach those tricky last few laps. First up is a roller derby mega-star, Lady Trample.
If you are brand new to roller derby and you haven’t heard of her yet, I recommend calling in sick to work for the next week and binge-watching any Victorian Roller Derby League (VRDL) games you can find online! She is a fearless jammer for this team (who are currently sitting at the #1 spot in the world) and when she’s not on track you can find her shredding up skate parks with Chicks in Bowls, encouraging and inspiring quad skaters all over the world.
Passing your minimum skills can be tough! Most new roller derby players come to the sport having never really skated before and some without having been involved in a sport for a number of years. Although we are all keen to get on and learn how to play the game, if we don’t manage to nail that one-foot glide or get stuck on the cone weave or the 27 laps in five minutes, it can be really frustrating.
Passing your 27 laps in five minutes is perhaps the biggest obstacle for a lot of skaters so here at Kent Roller Girls we decided to reach out to some of our own personal skating heroes to pick up some of their best tips for nailing those laps and acing the minimum skills test in general. They replied with some incredible nuggets of skating wisdom.
We hope that you find something here that makes the difference for you!
Our first tip comes from Abi Crowe (Muscle Crowe) a KRG fresh meat success story who went on to play for London Brawling (LRG) and Windsor’s A Team after learning the basics with us and passing her minimum skills.
At Kent Roller Girls’ last home game, a group of KRG members got together to showcase and sell their crafts and creations. El-Viral is KRG’s head NSO and a member of our recreational league; she explains where the idea came from:
“One thing I’ve always loved about roller derby is how it brings together such a diverse range of people. Everyone starts their derby life as a group of strangers sweating and falling over together in a sports hall and discussing nothing but the hardness of your wheels. However, as you get to know people, you start to learn their likes and dislikes, and their ‘real life’ jobs as well as the different skills they have.”
Creative skaters: El Viral, Frankenmeanie (back right) and Dread Block (in the green kneepads).
Kent Roller Girls will be taking on the Portsmouth Roller Wenches on the 26th of May at the Herne Bay Arena. Roller derby is an aggressive, fast paced, full contact sport played on roller skates and this game looks to be a close match, with the two teams having faced each other on track several times over the years and being very close on the European rankings. The photos on this page are from the last time we invited the Wenches to our home at the Bay.
Continue reading Kent Roller Girls Set to Take on Portsmouth Roller Wenches
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers in the world! Today we want to give a special shout-out to those who juggle the responsibilities of being a parent, with the commitment of joining a roller derby league. We wanted to find out how the mums of KRG find time to fit in those off skates workouts, find babysitters for short notice games, cope with missing bedtimes and still manage to be a bad-ass role model for their kids!
First up is a family with two derby mums who want to show their kids that anything is possible with skates on your feet!
Lucy (Luce Cannon) and Michelle
My whole family loves skating. What started out as something for me to escape to, has become something that my family has discovered they can enjoy for their own reasons. I love to skate with the boys, my oldest son and I have enjoyed artistic skating together, my littlest son is desperate to be able to do a spin on skates and wants Spiderman skates immediately. Now my partner has taken up skating, although it is limited due to disability, and she now knows the rules of roller derby far better than I do.
