So it's been a break!

have I done any sort of working out?  OF COURSE NOT. 

I have been basically treating this month as a "as little thinking about derby as possible" time.  I have been extracting myself from league responsibilities (resigned as fresh meat coach; handed off the league's post office box key to someone else*) and just spending my evenings sewing and knitting and listening to audiobooks and sleeping and all the other hobbies I have been neglecting.

Going to be taking the Hellahard in a few weeks; I will need to gear myself up for that.  Impact spectrum and all that good stuff.  I would really like to apply for Level 1 certification before the end of the year.
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*I live about five minutes from it (I set it up back in the day) and would check it for the league

So, thus endeth my first season as a referee.

Mohawk Valley Cup this weekend was my first time watching men's derby. I don't know that I'd want to ref it - too many calls that are just thiiiiiiiiiiiiiis shy of being a penalty.  It would drive the second-guessing part of me crazy.  But it was cool to see my friends play.

Jam reffing in Cortland went well - got to work with refs I adore and haven't seen in a while - so it was a good way to end my first season of being a derby official.

Here are my stats, more for my own curiosity than anything else:

Refereeing:

• Two sanctioned games (one alt, one OPR)
• Seven regulation games (five OPR, two JR)
• Fourteen "other" games (eight OPR, five JR, one alt)

NSOing:

• Two sanctioned games (penalty box timer)
• Two regulation games (one penalty tracking, one lineup tracking)
• Two "other" games (one jam timing, one lineup tracking)

 Not bad, not bad at all.  Onward and upward!

*Almost* time for a break. Almost.

So this past weekend was All 8, and it was so much fun.  I met a lot of great people, didn't screw up too badly reffing, learned that it *is* possible to do sectional rotation as OPR and not die, and realized just how annoying it is when you're penalty tracking and a player from each team has the same number (or teammates have similar numbers).

This Saturday I'm going to watch some friends play in the Mohawk Valley Cup (go Quadfathers!) and then be jam referee for a game in Cortland.  Yay for driving all over New York State!  Then we're on break until September, so it'll be three weeks of no derby. 

That will be odd.

aw geez (blush)

Our league's awards banquet was this past Saturday.  My fellow officials voted me "Most Improved Zebra".   :)

Gearin' up for All 8 this upcoming weekend; I'm very excited.

this is me with a happy face. :)

the officiating rosters for All 8 on the Floor have been put up.  I'm rostered for four games - reffing two (OPR and JR) and NSOing two (lineup tracking and penalty tracker).  I've never lineup tracked before, so I should probably read up on that.

Very excited!

it's been quiet, this is true

our league's season is winding down - all that's left is our A team going to Akron (I won't be going; a friend of the family died and that's when her memorial mass is) and the All 8 on the Floor tournament at the beginning of August.

we did have scrimmage last night, though (on the 7th anniversary of my first derby practice; yay!). I jam reffed the first half and front IPRed the second.

IPRing is hard.  I feel like I'm supposed to juggle three balls but I can only handle two at a single time.  I get so wound up about "you're gonna have to watch the bridging and the racers and letting people know when they're out of play" that I forget - oh yeah, you have to also watch for other skaters committing penalties!  Gaaah! I also need to be louder with my calls (yeah, me, needing to be louder - first time I think that's ever been said before).  It's because I'm not sure of them.  I need to rely less on the lines on the floor and more on watching the bodies of the actual people.

Anyway, I just get kinda nervous when it comes to scrimmage night - it's supposed to be the "we're here to practice, we're here to learn and make mistakes," but I feel like the referees are expected to be on point and perfect and not miss a single thing. (This is probably mostly me projecting on myself - I tend to do that a lot.)

Fortunately my fellow zebras have been absolutely 100% supportive throughout this whole thing, and for that I am most grateful.

onward, ever onward, and twirling towards freedom

Part of the WFTDA certification process for referees is a skills assessment.  It's not as long as the skating skill assessment, but it does have a speed component - 10 laps in 1 minute, 35 seconds.  Unlike the 27 in 5, though, it's not a pass/fail - just a goal time.

Anyway, in anticipation of having to do the assessment, we practiced it last night.

I crossed over and plodded and heaved and gasped and I HOPE THEY DON'T ACTUALLY EXPECT US TO BE ABLE TO REFEREE EFFECTIVELY AT THIS SPEEDED through the laps.

1:35.65.

Now hopefully I can replicate that when it's actually time for the assessment!

(I still gotta work on my backwards crossovers, though.  I can do them, and 75% of the time they're good, but there's still that 25% of the time where I'm CLOMP GLOMP CLOMP.)

Then there's the matter of the Hellahard (the rules test for certification).  At the WFTDA clinic we were given scenarios to talk through that were of the same format as the test questions (we were told that on a scale from 1-10 in ease, the Hellahard was a 10 and these questions were a 5-6) and I pretty much aced them. 

However, looking at General Hellativity's Impact Spectrum Spreadsheet, I gotta lot of work to do on that.