Go Ahead and Jump

This is an excerpt from Talking Derby: Stories from a Life on Eight Wheels, a manuscript by Kate "Pain Eyre" Hargreaves from Windsor, Ontario.

Watching yourself skate on camera is like hearing your own voice on the radio. Do I really say um and like, like, that often, and is my voice that scratchy? That high-pitched? Do I really skate that slowly, and are my arms quite that prone to flailing in the middle of the pack? Tonight, my news feed warned that video from our last couple bouts had emerged onto the internet. I grabbed a bag of baby carrots and a tupperware of hummus to munch as I watched the clips, face pressed up close to my laptop screen, pausing, un-pausing and re-pausing to monitor my movements. Skating too tall behind that four wall. Should have thrown a hit on that jammer instead of trying to maneuver in front of her. Move your feet, come on, move your feet! Juke, jump, do something. Don’t look so tired all the time. Get up faster!

Watching yourself play derby on camera means re-playing each moment of the bout through the eyes of your biggest critic, complete with the benefit of hindsight. Watching derby videos means you can track the source of your bruises like a CSI agent, piecing together hits, misses, trips and slides into a map of your black, blue, and yellowing skin. The other jammer slides across the floor, kicks a foot up into your ankle. Picks up a low block, major, as you pick up a green tender stripe across the shin. A couple jams later, you grab the hips of your blocker in front and swing into the opposing jammer. You’re the trailer, she’s the truck, and the opposing jammer? She’s on the floor scrambling to get back up. An education in what works. And what doesn’t.

Watching yourself attempt to jump the apex on film? That’s like listening to your own voice recorded. While you were drunk. On your ex’s answering machine. The scratchy high-pitched-ness is the least of your embarrassment. Jumping the apex is like performing one of those backwards over your head bicycle kicks in soccer. If you do it correctly, with the right timing, you connect with the ball and it sails past the goalkeeper into the back of the net. If you’re a second off one way or the other, you connect with nothing. You fly backwards into the air with one leg over your head, and land firmly on your spine in the grass.

With an apex jump, you see the opportunity, take the step, leap off one foot and try to land it effortlessly on the other side, slipping past multiple blockers while airborne without cutting the track. It can be beautiful. It can inspire gasps from the audience, cheers from your bench, instant replays, and knowing nods from the opposing team who can respect the awesomeness that is your apex jump.

It’s a Suzy Hotrod move. A Bonnie Thunders move. An Iron Wench move. And in the video clip currently rolling on my laptop, it is about to become a Pain Eyre move. Except that my apex jump goes horribly wrong.

At World Cup, the crowd erupted as Canada’s Gunpowder Gertie soared over the apex in the championship game against the United States. She landed it and then: back block, major! went straight to the box, but for a moment we held our collective breath, waiting to celebrate the brilliance that is a perfect apex jump.

Watching my own jump was a lot less intense, because I already knew it failed. I’d rubbed the bruises on both knees. I’d seen the photographs, skates in the air, and then knees on the ground. But I had never seen it in action. On film. Until now. The videographer kindly slowed the moment down for maximum impact. Two minutes into the clip, I take what felt like a giant forward leap off one foot, but in the video appears to be no more than a slight hop. Still I’m up, off my skates and bam! Yellow number 35 slams into my side, with her teammate right next to her, ready to take another hit. My legs fly up and the cement floor approaches. Knees slam against the concrete as the blocker hits the floor behind me with the force of her own hit. I can’t see the zebra’s fingers in the shot, but I’d damn well have picked up my two points for that jump. My jump wasn’t all that successful. Nor was it a thing of beauty. And more than a week later, neither are my knees. But for as long as it exists on the internet, my failed jump will be immortalized on film, so I can learn from it again and and again, and again, each time in slow-motion replay.