 Hi and welcome to another episode of In the Studio. I'm your host Lynn Weaver. The program is brought to you by Davis Media Access and we broadcast on Davis Community Television that is Comcast Channel 15 and AT&T Uverse, Menu 99. We're also online at dctv.davismedia.org, so log on and check us out. You can check our schedule and you can view some of our other program including many previous episodes of In the Studio. Today's topic is the Anarchy Roller Derby, our very own woodland based charming and renowned group of ladies who are going to explain to us what the game is all about. We are delighted to have the commissioner of the game of the Roller Derby, Jerry Seltzer. Welcome everybody. I am delighted to have you here. So perhaps we're going to start by asking you to introduce yourselves. Jen, why don't you start? Thank you so much. My name is Jen and my derby name is Ruby the Wrecker and I just fell in love with the sport and I'm so excited. I've been skating with these girls since February. Can you tell us what positions you play? I'm mostly a blocker. But one of these days I've got to get one jam in. And I believe you're the secretary as well. Yes. Yes. Anarchy Roller Derby League. I'm the board secretary. Wonderful. And for our audience who hasn't seen your beautiful rubies, can you turn your head a little bit? There they are. Ruby the Wrecker. Thank you so much. Welcome. Thank you. And then we have Jerry. Would you like to talk a little bit about yourself? Introduce yourself. I'm Jerry Seltzer. I have the official title of the commissioner of Modern Roller Derby which serves some 1462 leagues in 41 countries encompassing 100,000 people who are skating, mostly women, but men. And as commissioner I could not be more excited than to introduce and have our very own team hit a woodland. Thank you so much Jerry. And I must say that I'm particularly grateful that you have come to our show today because you came all the way from Sonoma and you are such a renowned roller derby extraordinaire. So I'm counting on you to give us a little bit of a history later on in the interview of how the game started and the game in general, the sport I should say. But before that, Laurie, why don't you introduce yourself. Thank you Lynn for having us this evening. My name is Laurie Cleveland and I am a founder of the president and a blocker. My roller derby name is Miss Elfire, Miss Elfire because in the words of Wanda Jackson I cause destruction like an atom bomb, but at this point we're new so sometimes it's destruction mostly to my own team. Well welcome all. Now I'll start by asking Laurie how did you get involved in this bizarre sport game? It is quirky and it is kind of viewed as a subculture, but I had two brothers growing up and so we always rough-housed a lot and my mom didn't let me watch roller derby when I was a kid because it was kind of a tawdry thing to see. And as an adult I've always been interested, I always felt like it was strong women that were empowered and I started kicking around a couple years ago and I owned my own business and when my husband and I discussed it we felt maybe it wasn't a good lifestyle decision then to be self-employed and be getting knocked down all the time and the bug just kept like coming after me and coming after me and finally I said I'm going to do this and I got a taste of derby and I enjoyed the sport but didn't necessarily embrace the group I was with and felt this we can change this we can make derby a positive thing and I told my husband I want to start a league I don't even know how to do it but you know God bless Google and we went home that night and figured it out and I called a few friends and I said I think we can make this something for the women that play and for our community and that we can help give back and then came anarchy. But that's wonderful now can you tell us a little bit about the team and we're going to show a picture of the team as well so how many of you are and what brought you together how did you do advertise? We did advertise yes so we had an event called an open call and I own a business and it has a nice courtyard so we did some advertising and recruiting and there were only about four of us involved at that point and we really it was like on a prayer fingers crossed please let women show up to this and of course we offered food and beverages because people like free things and we got them there what we really tried to stress we were so like overwhelmed with like over 20 people showing up and I just said a little prayer and I'm like if I can get three or four of these women like we can make this happen and we our mission is a fun fitness and friendship and so our larger goal in all of this is that down the road we have a junior team and we're raising money and giving back to our community so but that is wonderful it is and we we got some to show up and then now what it's word of mouth and you know people are showing up at work and they're showing off their bruises instead of hiding them and their little trophies and they're like hey look what I got and other women are like wow what is this and it's such an adrenaline release but what happens on the track stays on the track when we leave we're telling each other that was an awesome hit thank you so much yeah it's gonna hurt in a few days but well we're going to go into the injuries later on in the interview but I wanted to say you know my picture when I was researching for this interview I saw lots of pictures of older dames a roller derby and they all had fishnets and tattoos and strange faces you know do you do you have oh I'm sorry here's the picture wonderful so here is the an anarchy roller derby of woodland and let's see Laurie can you point out some of the team players and some of the names sure so special the nickname I'll start with a beautiful redhead with the feathers around in the green and the purple that's devious that's Danielle but her name is D V us and she's a jammer she has a history of coming from a family of speed skaters so she's a really fast person that the rest of us that are blockers are going to help her get through so she can score points right next to her is belladonna barbie and that's Teresa Teresa has I believe she has a medical position in an office during the day right next to her is ruby the wrecker we're staying in the back row yay and then there's myself I'm the only one who did not take my mouth guard out during the picture the gentleman in the hat is our personal trainer that comes and helps us once a week and I think we call him one more j u a n because he's always telling us to just do one more and we can't stand doing the play or that's our coach the man without hair that's loudmouth he came by that name honestly we have Amy next to him she goes by lesbian rolling this is where my 42 years of age we've got crash and burn is in the front row that's terry lita de mayhem is kneeling down but not exactly in the front and that is didra she works at uc davis and next to her is christie and she's in nursing school so she's our nearest loose wheels we have a couple of guest skaters over to the other edge that come and skate with us when you're doing a wonderful job identifying well if i don't okay but i'm leaving one in the front so that's bb and she goes by fatal fierce and i'm sorry to whomever i can't see in that picture it doesn't matter it doesn't matter thank you so much for doing that too um okay sorry oh i just recognize erica but i don't know her derby name i don't remember but it it yes erica but it gives you an alter ego yes so you're we have women that we have a history teacher on our team that's very quiet and i would classify her as an introvert i'm very definitely an extrovert and we have some other ladies that have joined us that on our normal everyday paths of life we would have probably never met each other and everybody comes here when you start strapping on the gear all of a sudden the personalities morph a little bit i'm not going to say they change but you see people come out of their shells and become this character that we could i couldn't be that working in my business that i own if i ran up and hip checked every person that i had the opportunity to i yeah i this is would not be good well what you're saying is is very very interesting because you're almost speaking like um actors in some ways it gives you a chance to be what you'd like to be perhaps or you're just trying out a different personality and that's very important as so it's the culture and the uh the philosophy of it uh not just the game which is fascinating yes exactly and i think it gives us a chance to embrace the side of ourselves that society may normally frown upon yes but in this realm in that context it's and desired yes and that's what brings the crowds yes uh jerry would you agree with that to characterization not quite okay i think what it seriously overlooks a lot of people who are as old as i am would identify roller derby with what they saw in the 1960s and 70s and that's when i promoted it my father invented the game in 35 leo selzer leo selzer and then the uh legendary leo selzer he is to me yes definitely and um i ran it from 1959 to seven 1973 um we are on um ktv u in san francisco k o v r in stockton and we taped and had live games all through the bay area and it was very athletic five to six days a week but it was also an exhibition similar to the harlem gobetrotters but not quite all that foolishness so i shut down roller derby in 1973 i started bas tickets in this area and then eventually became executive vice president of ticket master for the world and all of a sudden 40 years later some ladies down in texas for some reason and this is the wonder of the internet and social network they said let's start roller derby and they did and one lady had just come out of boxing training um and named la moerta and that's her skating name and they said which we call they said well why not about i still have trouble with that i still call them games but that's where bout comes from the object of the game which we ought to get into is very simple there's five members of each team it's the only game where you're allowed to be on offense and defense at the same time the object is for the skaters to break out of the pack circle the track come up from behind and for each member of the opposing team they pass they get a point that's as simple as the game is there's no ball there's no pellet there's time periods but i think here's the most important thing and this is the only objection so i have of just saying yes uh we're going to have a name we're going to have this espn has rated the 10 toughest sports participatory for men and women and roller derby is one of them uh they they go to boot camp there's intensive training crossfit a lot of work and these don't think these people are not athletes the championship team of two years ago the only rollers from olympia washington was entirely composed of the olympic speed skating championship team ice skating and they brought a whole thing into it so you see so many things in this that say it's a way of life for women it's an escape from their everyday life while they can still keep it but they build this relationship um as i say there's a hundred thousand in the world just two weeks from now there is going to be the roller con in las vegas five thousand people will come from around the world extraordinary uh from australia from singapore from uh china from woodland from woodland well let's take a look we have a video of a clip of the game so we can the current game or the old game uh well it's a game it's not the anarchy game but it's a it's a very short video that illustrates uh how the game is played very so i think our our viewers who may not uh know anything about the roller derby will enjoy it hopefully so the basics of flat track roller derby brought to you by the hammer city roller girl the game of roller derby is played on roller skates the players wear helmets elbow pads wrist guards knee pads and not much else the track is flat not banked each 30 minute half is broken down into shifts called jam the group of eight players at the front is called the pack the pack is made of players who play the position of blocker behind the pack is the two jammers the jammers are the most important players on the track and are marked by a large star on their helmet when the whistle blows the jammers try to skate their way through the pack and out the other side but they will be met with the hips booty and shoulders of the opposing teams blockers when two bodies make contact on the track this is called a block once the jammers have skated their way through the pack the first time they're ready to begin scoring they earn a point every time they legally pass a member of the opposing team the team with the most points at the end of the game win the jammers will fail to earn points if they pass the opposing blockers illegally any player who performs an illegal block will earn a penalty so what's illegal elbows tripping back blocking and passing out of bound any player who receives a major penalty has earned a trip to the penalty box the jam ends when the lead jammer places her hands on her hips or when two minutes has elapsed 30 seconds later a new jam begins and the whole thing starts again dynamite would you uh how would you rate this this clip is it uh accurate i think so it gives a really good description of what jerry do you what well yeah our game was bank track and there's still some bank track but obviously the cost and the ability to set up and tear down it's a flat track game now mainly and you should know there's over two dozen leagues within 60 miles of us so they will be skating other cities uh from ronald park up to uh mendicino um you know all through the area so there's going to be competition around and we do not want to scare the women who may want to participate you come out you're going to get in the best shape of your life and the other thought is well gee i'm not 18 i can't do that part of uh on the website of facebook there is derby over 40 there are 2300 members around the world of women and some men who are between the ages of 40 and 70 and they are not skating a masters type game um as she'll tell you they have to qualify on all the same principles as everyone and they're very strict on what they uh the capable of doing because you want to keep injuries to minimum yes and let's talk about injuries uh and i'm going to ask with uh jen uh jen uh ruby the wrecker uh what are the most common injuries that that you see with the roller derby uh players well bruises are the biggest injury i think along with rink rash and that would just be a nice little scraping of skin against whatever surface you're skating on um so i think most injuries are pretty minimal like that you're not going to walk away with a black eye or and hopefully probably not a broken arm um and maybe some concussions could happen but you wear helmets but if you fall and you hit your i mean hopefully there's not too many injuries it really comes down to the training that the league offers you and being smart on your skates and really having a strong core jerry mentioned the amount of work that gets put into it and that's why we have a personal trainer that comes once a week and puts us through a regime that he encourages us to do throughout the week a lot of us have our own personal trainers that we see i personally i started derby in january and i'm about four or five sizes down from where i started and my first practice that i went to i thought i was going to die i was coming off a respiratory infection i had an asthma attack i couldn't make it around the rink i felt like i was on uh ice i it was not the skating that i remember and i haven't told you how sexy you are we you know i in doing research for this too when i was like okay i dig this and i i really like to hit all right i know that sounds bad but i had brothers and my mom would say i'm going to cook dinner you guys go outside and wrestle and don't come back in until everybody's tired and so i started thinking they're like more so than that there's got to be more to it than just chicks dressing up and knocking each other out and i upon doing research i found out like according to the presidential fitness program based on a 143 pound woman if she skates moderately for an hour she can burn close to 700 calories skating moderately we are on that track two and a half hours at least two to three times a week so you're really going to ask you how often do you practice so we practice wednesdays fridays and sundays and we practice right now at an outdoor um inline hockey track in woodland it's at the corner of southwood and ashley wednesdays are the nights that we take in our new skaters we do have seasoned skaters there that are furthering their skills because as gerry mentioned we do have we are chartered yes and so different leagues based on their geographical location tend to lean one way or the other to a rule set each rule set that a league associates themselves with has what they call their minimum skills and i think that ours is two or three pages long and it requires you from the basics of fluid strides using your arms we learn about six different ways to fall properly so that it becomes muscle memory so when you do take that impromptu hit or you trip you're not even thinking about it your body goes into that position you're tucking your fingers so that they don't get skated over we also have to when we hit the ground we have got to be up in three seconds that's the rule so it's it's all about a quick return and being safe and we have to jump a minimum of six inches in the air both feet up at the same time we have to jump 18 inches laterally we have to skate 27 laps in five minutes it's very humbling oh you we have people who are supreme athletes that get out there and they have to do these items and this is only on roller skates not no in lines in lines no in lines quad skates only quad skates yes jerry you wanted to one thing i want to say is that there is protective equipment that is required from knee guards to elbows to helmet and that's checked very carefully don't think you're just going to get out there of course and not be protected the other thing and i know she's about to tell you this if you haven't been on skates for a long time or if you are on skates yes on wednesday here's where you should come yes so wednesdays is our open intake for new skaters last night we had six women show up and it was very refreshing it was all different ages we had a 19 year old and we had someone close to 50 and it spanned throughout there and we like to say that they look like baby giraffes in the beginning trying to walk it's very stilty and about an hour and 40 minutes later i had six women who were skating fluidly doing what we call crossing over it's an equal transfer of weight in order to propel yourself around the track and it's amazing to see people get that confidence when they show up and they don't want anybody to look at them and they're falling down just standing it's amazing what you can teach you to skate and so you can go to our site it's anarchy derby dot com i was going to call for that we have a say that again anarchy derby dot com a a n a r c h y d e r b y dot com and it was on facebook we are on facebook on facebook you'll find us under anarchy derby dames so anarchy derby is our league name and anarchy derby dames is the name of our first team and we our goal is to have about five or six teams to have a junior team but to start we need women to show up on wednesdays all right we have some loner i'm going to think about it although i've never skated it doesn't matter we have women who have never skated that show up and we teach them to skate in our era of roller derby 80 percent of our skaters had never skated before but they saw it on television and they came and they wanted to one of the very important things and that's what these ladies are working on and if i can help i will they're trying to get a permanent facility here in yolo county so that there will be one place they can come to year around so i'm sure you're gonna hear more about that in the future well this is very nice it's very interesting that you brought that up jerry because i was going to ask about the the locale or the oval rink uh is that the what you refer to as the the facility no it has to be some an indoor building so that in the winter they're not skating outside and i know they're working on that right now there's nothing they can say right now but but that's going to become extremely wonderful and i imagine you have sponsors then and you do some fundraising yes to both of those we we are in our infancy as a league so we are ever evolving and growing and all the movement has been positive and forward we had a fundraiser and we did donate we're donating a portion back to the autistic foundation program in woodland oh this one yes we want to help as many areas in our community as we can we're not bowding right now so as far as sponsorship what we're asking from our community and we have about eight businesses right now that are sponsoring us so they're letting us come in and hold events in there so that we can get our name out in the community and get more skaters and get more support it is imperative that we get a building because we are adjusting the times that we skate on days that it's 108 yes you know we you need we need to be inside where the environment is controlled or we really make sure that everyone's hydrated and that we stop and give them that chance to get hydrated uh when it rains we won't be able to skate outside this city's been very gracious in letting us skate there and it's it is nice because we're outdoors we hang the banners of our sponsors out there so they're getting advertisement three times a week but ideally my goal I believe if you put things in the universe they will come to you Jerry I would love for our league in five years to not only be a flat track league but to be a bank track the the closest bank track is uh at los angeles or ever at washington so what do you mean by bank track so i'm gonna let jerry take that jerry if you have that book there roller derby the roller jam yes we traveled with the bank track and we could get it on a 30 foot trailer actually the bank was about three feet high it was about a five foot bank went to a straightaway and came around it's like the speed track that you may see in in bicycle races in the olympics and we used to take that we could set it up in three hours tear it down and one sold out madison square garden sold out the oakland stadium over here 35 000 people my goodness so i mean roller derby was huge yes and it's going to be again but the fact that woodland now will be on this national map one of the 600 leagues in america and we'll end up eventually playing everybody so it's not just your local high school anymore it's now it's growing the anarchy do you hope that it will become an olympic sport at some point um that's going to be a long way off a long way great roller sports have not been added to the olympics for a terribly long time the application was made as a demonstration sport in 2020 and it was just turned down i think we're more interested in getting a national television setup eventually the national network that's a national league a national network it's going to happen this is the fastest growing women's sport in the world and men are competing now but not to the level of women it's wonderful i've learned so much i'm afraid we're out of time do you have a one second through second comment here i wake up every day waiting to go skate wonderful well thank you so much ruby the wrecker the commissioner and the missile fire anarchy derby dot com it's what's for breakfast wonderful lunch and dinner and thank you all for watching um you can stream us uh you can you can watch this program again by going to our website at dctv dot davismedia.org thank you for watching i'm your host lin weaver see you next time