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Are you a league/teamless ex-rollergirl looking for a new home?
Do you want to be a rollergirl?
if you live in Southeast Wales then get your arse to this!

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Multimedia Treats

Here are some pics of our last bout

And here are some awesome shorts about derby that you can watch online for free!

Rose City Rumble 

Jet City Rollergirls

AND the full length HELL ON WHEELS  - a documentary about the rebirth of roller derby in Texas in 2001 and the hard work and tough times everyone involved went through so that we can now play this awesome sport. It's long but it's so worth watching.

Back on wheels

I went to training tonight! It was awesome!! It was so good to be back. I practised some transitions, and did some endurance with my iPod on. I can remember how to skate, which is reassuring.

My eyes are now superficially healed, meaning the blurriness has gone but the epithelium (protective top layer) isn't 100% stable yet. My vision is a freaking superpower now!! I am so happy and impressed, just like everyone else who has had it done seems to be. It wasn't all plain sailing though. The type of procedure you need to have if you do contact sport involves removing part of the epithelium to access the cornea for surgery, and letting it grow back naturally so that it is more stable. This is the bit that hurts. Quite a lot.

Lots of things have been going on since I last posted, so here's a little run-down:

Fundraiser

Wonderbrawl - We beat Birmingham Blitz Dames despite BB fouling out, Queen LaQueefah breaking her ankle and SianOfTheDead breaking her finger in 6 places! Go team!

First TBB tattoo!

Can't wait to see it finished, and neither can Sian. Good use of off-skate injury time.

Missing out...

So I had laser eye surgery on Thursday (27th Jan) and healing didn't go to plan so I'm still chilling and being looked after back at the parental pad. I can't complain really, I'm going to have 20/20 vision or better at some stage. It has been pretty painful though and I still can't see that well.

Things for the Brawlers are going much better though! Tonight the team will be visited by Ivanna S. Pankin (owner of Sin City Skates) and Trish the Dish, who together started the Sin City Rollergirls in Las Vegas!! HOLY SHIT! I'm a bit gutted I won't even be able to watch, I won't lie. I'm missing out on seeing real roller derby legends in the flesh, but enough about that.

They have also awesomely offered to bench/line-up manage in the forthcoming second TBB travel team bout on Sunday (which I will also miss) against Birmingham Blitz Dames in the double header Wonderbrawl, so that will be explosive. Good luck girls.

And the home bout cogs are turning again, this time we will be holding our intraleague debut. I seriously can't wait to get a bout under my belt. Roll on April!

Bout Review

Here is a review by local culture rag, Buzz Magazine

Define "Roaring Success" In 3 Words

Tiger Bay Brawlers! I won't drone on about how awesome the travel team were, how helpful the volunteers were, how many spectators there were (600) and how much they enjoyed it, or our epic 173-37 win. I will simply post some pics and let you see again what you saw, or perhaps what you missed out on.

 A few from photographer Alex Mills and some from David Swidenbank:

and this one...

and a video of BB Bombshell jumping the apex!



It was the BEST night ever, and probably the best debut bout a roller derby team has ever had, int he UK at least. Bring on 2011!

2 days to go!

I've had a headache since Sunday despite not drinking on the weekend, and yesterday it got a lot worse. I tried to leave work early but didn't so I had to miss training. Thanks to Nurofen Plus (painkillers don't usually touch my headaches) I felt ok later on in the evening and managed to sort some more stuff out boutwise. I have tomorrow off work partly to prepare, so fingers crossed it will all go swimmingly!

Everyone is so excited!

First session of 2011

WHAT A TOTAL BUCKET OF FAIL. I did not enjoy myself AT ALL. My skates have lost all of the minute amount of cushioning they had on the ball of my right foot and over Christmas it seems that my foot has lost all of its callous (ew) so after 2 pacelines and pyramid endurance that was a mite painful. Insoles must happen. Shame I have no clue where to start on that one.

Then we did a scrimmage of travel team line-ups in one team against a mix of skaters in the other team. As a non-tt skater I ended up skating in every jam. I didn't really mind, I needed the workout. The horrible thing was, I realised I didn't have a clue what I was doing. Lately I've been aware that I'm not really a very co-ordinated team player- I respond well to being told what to do but apart from that I kind of just look out for the jammer and try and block people out of the way. I'm not sure I was even doing that yesterday. On top of that, this is my list of things to improve: fitness, stability, falling small, timing, agility. Got a fair bit of work to do...

I guess yesterday was just one of those rough sessions you have to take with the smooth ones.

Derby New Year!

And so the festive season draws to a close for another year. Much as I love yuletide, it truly is a blight on my fitness and skating ability, or at least I'm sure I will see evidence of this on Sunday at the first training session of the new year. We had a little free skate last Sunday (2nd January) as basically everyone got bored and fat. I did an endurance routine with Judge Redd and Chaz Tizer but they were doing 20 to 1 and I only joined in at 17 so it was a bit cheaty.

The bout draws ever closer, and my stress levels rise proportionately. Please world, BUY TICKETS!!
www.tigerbaybrawlers.com/starcheck