ROLLER DERBY

so saturday night i was hunkering down to do some writing after a morning of swimming and an afternoon of yoga, when my friend jen txt'd me and told me she was at a roller derby. it doesn't take much to keep me from writing, and roller derby might just keep me from eating sushi (okay, not really, but seriously, roller derby? how awesome!)

so i quickly got dressed and headed out to the dc armory --

this is how the street looked during the sunset . . .

in case you were wondering:

Roller derby is an American-invented contact sport—and historically, a form of sports entertainment—based on formation roller skating around an oval track, with points scored as certain players lap members of an opposing team. In past decades, roller derby had been primarily a professional or paid sport for both women and men. Contemporary roller derby is international, predominantly female, typically operates on an amateur (or unpaid) circuit, and has a strong do it yourself ethic often features both athleticism and a punk third-wave feminism aesthetic*.

* if you, like me, have no idea what "third-wave feminism" is here you go (simply there are many -ism's about them) = A post-structuralist interpretation of gender and sexuality is central to third wave ideology. Emphasizing discursive power and the ambiguity of gender, third-wave theory usually incorporates elements of queer theory, transgender politics and a rejection of the gender binary, anti-racism and women-of-color consciousness, womanism, post-colonial theory, critical theory, postmodernism, transnationalism, ecofeminism, libertarian feminism, and new feminist theory.

i mean, i probably could be called a third-wave feminist, but i am not sure defining a theory through a long list of other theories is the best way to go.

any way, here are some photos:

jen and ben
pretty much too cute really

for obvious reasons,
this both cracked me up
AND
captured the ethos of the evening

and here is kinda what it looked like
it is really hard to capture all the motion with my little camera
i saw the cherry blossom bombshells play scareforce one
not really feeling "scareforce one"

teams get points by the one player with the star on her helmet
passing the opposing teams players
so she can get 5 points for each pass . . .
seriouly, i only kinda get the rules

it looked like fun. and the people watching at this thing was amazing . . . it is definitely something to check out at least once!