Take a roll on the wild side Jamnesia: The Moving Target Phenomenon

People who are new to watching or playing roller derby always want insight on what runs through my head when I’m competing, how do you DO that?! But before delving into the inner machinations of my mind, its imperative to understand the foundations of the sport itself.

Roller derby is a full contact sport with two positions: blocking and jamming. Blockers are playing defense and offense at the same time, trying to keep opposing skaters behind them while pulling their jammer to the front. Jammers are the ones with the star on their helmet, they score points by lapping members of the opposing team. The game is played in two-minute segments called jams, and for the duration you wear that star on your helmet you’re wearing a target.

I’ve acclimated to being on the track with a bounty on my head, and I know that when I’m competing indecision spells downfall. There is a lot to consider in this position, if you are the jammer who gets out of the pack first, you get the advantage of being able to end the jam whenever you want. But even if you don’t; you must be aware of where the other jammer is, where your blockers are, who you’ve scored points on and how many, while simultaneously trying to get past a wall of blockers who want to hit you so hard you are launched into orbit.

So how DO I do that? The important, but mundane part of that answer is I spend half of my time at practice drilling skills until they become muscle memory, at which point it becomes a tool in my kit. The other half of practice I spend running gameplay scenarios and going skate-to-skate against blockers who are like family. If you’ve never been in a family with forty other highly competitive people who have a stake in making you better, take it from me; people who love you skate hard and hit hardest.

So, what’s going on beneath that teal helmet? It’s bout day and I’m standing behind the jam line. The jam timer holds up their hand and yells “five seconds!”, there is a moment of anxious suspense when I access my most versatile tool. It’s not something that can be easily trained or instilled in you, I call it jamnesia.

When the start whistle blows, I instantly lose my ability to form memories and tap into a reservoir of wild, primitive energy. I am now a creature driven by the limbic system, fight and flight responses. I can’t afford the seconds it takes to agonize over whether I should juke right or hit the wall and break them apart—my brain assesses the situation in an instant and my body moves of its own accord. One moment I’m driving my shoulder into the diaphragm of an opposing blocker—I’m almost through! --the next moment I’m the one being driven to the line. They are using their bodies to corner me against the inside, but I know what’s coming and I am trying to slip the trap when the impact sends me on my way around the sun.

Somewhere across the track I know the opposing jammer is picking up speed to capitalize on my spacewalk. My side hits the ground and my skates fly above my head as I roll, over the roaring in my ears I can hear my coaches voice from lightyears away and the spell is broken, “Call it off!”

I double tap my hips, the skating official blows the whistle four times to end the jam, and a glimmer of my own humanity returns me to consciousness. Did I call it off in time? Did they score any points while I was down? Fragments of the last two minutes fade from my mind like a dream, my teammates tap my helmet, or my shoulder, or my hand as I return to the bench. Over the next hour this process is repeated with varying degrees of success until the bout is over.

Sometimes someone will approach me to give a compliment, “Wow. That first jam of the second period, that was awesome.” And I will smile and say thank you and pretend to know what they are referring to.

Jamnesia isn’t a phenomenon that’s exclusive to me, and with patience and discipline I hope to harness that wildness in my brain without completely checking out for the duration. But for now, when people ask me How do you DO that? What’s going on inside your head? I’ll just say, ‘Don’t ask me, I wasn’t there.’