On July 9, our regular 5 to 7 Raw Meat session at Thunderbird Community Centre is cancelled, so that we can go on a little field trip to watch some roller derby!

Join Raw Meat Vancouver at Minoru Arena in Richmond to watch the TCRG’s All-Stars take on Portland’s Axles of Annihilation. Tickets are $15 in advance, or $20 at the door, and you can get them from TCRG.ca or your friendly neighbourhood derby girl. Doors open at 6, the pre-bout scrimmage starts at 6:30, and the All-Stars take the track at 7:30.

Don’t despair, we’ll be back on the 16th at Thunderbird, 2311 Cassiar St., from 5 to 7.

Homework

Just because we aren’t skating, doesn’t mean there isn’t homework. You’ve been roller skating a few times a week, and doing a bit of strength training, right? Excellent. Now think on this. If you are thinking about trying out to play roller derby for the TCRG this year, the tryouts will likely be in September*. If you make it into the league, Fresh Meat training is 5 to 9 hours of skating a week. If you are only skating a bit now, could you handle skating that much after tryouts?

*Note: Raw Meat isn’t affiliated with the TCRG. This is a guess based on what they’ve done in other years. Contact the TCRG directly for more information about tryouts.

Besides skating, what other exercise are you doing? If you want to minimize your risk of injury, cross-training is highly recommended. You should try to do at least 20 minutes of strength training 2 or 3 times a week, as well as some no-skating cardio (biking, swimming or running). Don’t forget flexibility, as well. Yoga or a simple stretching routine will go a long way to keeping you bendy and agile on the track.

Your homework this week is to make a plan to gradually increase your roller skating and cross-training so that by September, you know that you can skate at least 5 hours a week and still be healthy and strong (assuming you want to tryout).

DO NOT dramatically increase what you are doing and hurt yourself! You know your body, you know what is realistic for you. You get absolutely no points for pushing yourself and getting hurt. That’s why the homework this week is to make a realistic plan for improving your fitness and time on skates gradually through the rest of the summer. Set some weekly goals for yourself, stick to it, and you will be rocking it come the fall.

Who Can Come to a Raw Meat Roller Skating Lamb Session:

Raw Meat Vancouver Lamb sessions are open to women who are not ass-hats and would like to roller skate with great people. If you want to learn roller skating skills, roller derby skills, and have fun, please join us. The Raw Meat Lamb sessions is cancelled for Saturday, July 9, but will begin again on July 16. Sessions run every Saturday from 5 to 7 PM at 2311 Cassiar St. Vancouver, with a special 3-hour session on the last Saturday of each month.

Raw Meat Vancouver Lamb Sessions have no roller skating skills requirements. As long as you have all the correct gear (roller skates [quad skates], helmet, knee pads, wrist guards, elbow guards and a mouth guard) you are welcome to attend and skate with us. It is also a requirement of our venue that we use white or light toe stoppers and cover your knee and elbow pads with white or light hockey tape to avoid marking the flooring. No gear, No tape, No skate.

Don’t be afraid to attend these sessions if you are a complete newcomer to roller skating. This is the perfect place to learn to roller skate. We will teach you everything you need to know. On the same token, if you are an advanced skater, come on out! We’ll keep you hopping with our evil floor worms. Want to know more? You’ll just have to show up!

The Rules:

We have two simple rules at Raw Meat: 1. Don’t be an Ass-Hat. 2. Be Safe. There is zero-tolerance for breaking these rules.

We operate in a strictly non-contact environment – no hitting, pushing or overly aggressive skating. But we will cover roller derby drills that involve safe touching of teammates and hip/arm whips. If you’re not ok with touching people, roller derby may not be the sport for you, but you won’t have to worry about getting shoulder checked with us.

We also run an advanced session on Saturday mornings. To attend these you must pass some basic skills testing. If you would like to attend one of these sessions and you are not a currently certified TCRG league skater please contact us or come to one of our night sessions and talk to us about your skating level.

See You All Saturday!