We are ready to roll with the first of our new monthly boot camps, and the first one will be:

JULY 3, 2010 - SMART JAMMING

We will begin with a discussion off-skates about smart jamming:
*What makes a smart jammer?
*Working with your bench
*Using your teammates
*Psychological aspect to jamming

The rest of the session will concentrate on intermediate level jamming skills:
*Pack footwork
*Dodging techniques
*Avoiding cutting track
*Using your teammates
*Jammer defence

In order to keep the session fast paced and at an advanced level, we request that skaters have passed their minimum skills, and be comfortable participating in intermediate or advanced levels of gameplay.

All skaters will be required to sign a standard roller derby waiver before they can take part in any skating activity. These will be made available on the day.

Time: 10am to 2pm

Location: City of London Academy, 240 Lynton Road, London, Southwark, United Kingdom, SE1 5LA

Travel/Parking:
Bermondsey is the nearest tube.
Turn left when leaving the tube, turn left on to St James Road. Walk down this road for 10 minutes, turn right onto Lynton Road. The entrance is 20 metres down the road on the left through the green
gates. You can park your car on Lynton Road, Motorcycles can be left inside
the gated area. Bikes can be taken inside the venue.

Please use the email address bootcamps AT londonrollergirls DOT com for future correspondence.

If you haven’t yet expressed interest, or you have a question about signing up, just drop us a line at the above!

The first boot camps is now SOLD OUT. MAke sure you dont miss the next one - email the address above to get on the mailing list

Smack To The Future – Saturday May 22nd

The pre-bout promo ran “The so far undefeated Suffra Jets will take on the always the bridesmaid Steam Rollers. Is this the bout where the Steam Rollers finally roll over their fierce opposition? Or will the mighty Suffra Jets add another notch in their win belt?” and fans clearly were desperate to find out the answer with the bout completely selling out in record time.

Both the Steam Rollers and the Suffra Jets feature a number of key London Brawling players, fresh from a storming (if unexpectedly long) trip to the US as well as some rookies playing in their first ever bout. The last time these teams met, the Jets battered the Rollers 163 – 67. With the Jets favourites to win, and the Rollers with a lot to prove to themselves as well as the crowd, this was always going to be one hell of a game.

The Suffra Jets stared out strong, getting a good lead early on with the majority of the lead jammer calls, and their pack successfully stringing out the Steam Roller’s defence and prevented them from forming their “wall of death”. The Jets had the edge tactically through much of the first half – exploiting powerjam situations in their favour and using to perfection a strategy seen at the Texas game to prevent being scored upon when the situation went against them by high-tailing it to the front and forcing the Rollers to fruitlessly chase them, ending the first half with a sizable lead of 73-31.

The Steam Rollers disappeared outside during the half time break for a much needed team talk and re-group, which clearly was effective as for the first 7 jams in the second half they held the Suffra Jets scoreless at 99 points while they slowly closed the score gap. Sadly for the Steam Rollers, this was not the day for LRG to finally have a team triumph from behind, and the final score rubber stamped the Suffra Jets thus far undefeated run for league games with the scoreboard reading 129-61.

The Steam Rollers played well, but quite simply, the Suffra Jets played better. Defeat is rarely bitter when the game is played well however; and there was much rejoicing from both teams at a game played well, and the Steam Rollers made up for the bout defeat by winning the afterparty.

Penalty Queens were Ena Flash for the Rollers and the Bexorcist for the Jets, while MVP went to the Jets’ Stefanie Mainey and the Rollers’ Axis of Evon, who also took the ‘fan favourite’ award “Rollergirl of the match”. She may well have won the hearts of the crowd during one particular jam where she appeared to defy all the laws of physics to twist her way past 4 blockers in quick succession Matrix-style, causing the crowd to leap to their feet and both team benches cheering in amazement.

With two closed bouts to go before the final, the Ultraviolent Femmes and the Steam Rollers have everything to play for, with the Suffra Jets’ place in the final appearing to be signed and sealed – who will get the chance to try to wrestle the championship from their grasp? Who will play the 3rd place game with some very special opponents to be announced soon? Watch this space…

Make sure you buy your tickets for Block Party as soon as they are on sale, we expect to sell out once again in record time!

Come to the London Rollergirls’ Boot Camp!

London Rollergirls are set to host monthly boot camps starting on Saturday 3rd July 12pm to 2pm at The City of London Academy (COLA) in Bermondsey.

We feel it’s about time to start sharing the derby love on a wider scale and give everyone equal opportunity to come and learn from the best team (for now!) in the UK on a regular basis.

You’ll have the opportunity to learn derby skills from the London Brawling Squad, including some of the our best skaters like Kamikaze Kitten, Nuke Leah and Stefanie Mainey.

We’ll share all the skills we learnt from teams on the East coast tour - including the mega-powerhouse teams of Gotham and Philly!

We would like to invite skaters from all leagues, whether local or national, to come and work and improve on specific skills and drills which you can then take back to share with your leagues.

To ensure skaters get the most out of each boot camp, numbers will be limited to 25 skaters per session, with no more than 18 skaters for specific jamming sessions. Please not that boot camps are designed for experienced skaters, and are not appropriate for derby newbies

Over the coming months, the boot camps will focus on the following:

Intermediate Jamming
Advanced Jamming
Offense
Pivoting
Packwork
Blocking in pairs
Pack Speed Control
Agility
Blocker 2
Blocker 3
Blocker 4

All for the bargain price of £25 per skater per session. This will go towards helping us covering the costs of running the boot camps and to raise funds for our next tour.

Don’t miss out, email Raw Heidi @ LRG to express interest or for more information.

We’ll be delighted to see you there!

That’s right, our All-star Reserves are heading to Germany just in time for World Cup season to take on the gals from Bear City.

We hope the boys in white do us proud down in South Africa, but meanwhile the Brawl Saints will take up the flag (but in pink and black) and get ready to knock some gals down in honour of roller derby. No red cards in this game, but perhaps a few trips to the sin bin will be in order?

So if you fancy a trip to support, it’s only a short hop over to Berlin for a great game against the Berlin Bombshells squad. We hear the Bear City gals throw a mean after party too…

Look out ladies, THE SAINTS ARE COMING!

It’s been an exceedingly busy couple of months here at LRG HQ. London Brawling are back from their pretty damn triumphant (if slightly extended) USA tour, and we are getting back into the swing of our regular season. Here’s a quick round-up of the happenings of the last few weeks…

SATURDAY APRIL 10th
PRG Philthy Britches 103 - 102 LRG London Brawling

here are some photos!

SATURDAY APRIL 17th
CTRG Stepford Sabotage 50 - 179 LRG London Brawling

SUNDAY APRIL 18th
PRD Rhode Island Riveters 60 - 157 LRG London Brawling

more photos, and a lovely writeup in the local media.

So, two good wins and one heartbreakingly narrow loss. We’re proud of our girls, and we hope you are too. And just to top it all off, the Derby News Network Power Rankings for May were released yesterday, and the lovely chaps there have placed our London Brawling at number 15! We can currently lay a reasonable claim to be the 15th best roller derby team in the world, and that makes us very, very proud and happy.

Back to London, and we have our Suffra Jets taking on our Steam Rollers in just three weeks’ time! Tickets are on sale now - we will sell out, so don’t leave it til the last minute! See you there…

**UPDATE** We are all back safe. Thank you all so much for your amazing generosity! <3

That’s right, London Brawling and the tour crew are stranded in the US. We had our flight cancelled due to the volcanic ash, and now we aren’t scheduled to return until over a week and a half later than planned!!

THANKS!!

Also, just to be above board, as we dont know what the final math will be: If we receive additional donations above and beyond what is needed to support the stranded crew and skaters, the remaining money will be used for future travel funds for the A and B teams.

Tickets for Smack to the Future are all sold out!

If you missed out on getting yours, make sure you get tickets for our next bout, which is the season championship on 17th July. To be sure you are informed as soon as tickets go on sale, join our Facebook group or send an e-mail to info(at)londonrollergirls.com with the subject ’bout mailing list’ to get on our e-mail list.

The so far undefeated Suffra Jets will take on the always the bridesmaid Steam Rollers. Is this the bout where the Steam Rollers finally roll over their fierce opposition? Or will the mighty Suffra Jets add another notch in their win belt?

Be there to find out in what is sure to be a hard hitting action packed evening.

Date: Saturday May 22, 2010
Time: Doors at 5pm, bout at 6pm
Venue: Tottenham Green Leisure Centre, Philip Lane, London N15 4JA

There are no refunds.
All tickets are held at the door.

*Children under 5 are free.

Only 2 more days to go till London Brawling head to the USA for a roller derby extravaganza! But if you’re worried about getting rollergirl withdrawal symptoms, don’t panic. Whip It!, the new film by Drew Barrymore based around roller derby, and starring Ellen Page and Juliette Lewis, hits UK screens this week. We *heart* the real Babe Ruthless lots, but Ellen Page comes a pretty close second.

The London Rollergirls have all seen the movie, and we even participated in the Birds Eye View film festival where we did a special roller derby demo in honour of their last night screening of Whip It!

So go check it out! UK wide release on April 7th!

http://www.whipitmovie.co.uk/

Now that we know we can hang with Texas, it’s time to take on some more US teams. We will indeed be calling to the more faraway towns this April, as London Brawling heads to the East coast of the US-of-A to take on 3 tough opponents!

And here is the squad that is going to make it happen:

THE TOUR DETAILS:

APRIL 10, 2010 @ Philly Roller Girls: Philthy Britches (league) vs London Brawling

APRIL 17, 2010 @ Connecticut Rollergirls: Stepford Sabotage (TT) vs London Brawling

APRIL 18, 2010 @ Providence Roller Derby: Rhode Island Riveters (TT) vs London Brawling

(Reprinted with permission from Derby News Network)

http://www.derbynewsnetwork.com/2010/03/tx_hustlers_escape_london_84_63_win

TX Hustlers Escape London With 84-63 Win

By Mollie Cosh, Last updated Mon Mar 22 2010 2:13pm

LONDON — It’s been a big 12 months in the life of UK derby: our first European tournament, a swath of new leagues and new recruits, growing recognition for the sport, and blood, sweat and tears for the hundreds of women and men working to make it happen. So when London Rollergirls announced that the Texas Rollergirls, originators of roller derby itself, were coming over to put on a bootcamp and play their travel team, London Brawling, it felt like UK derby was reaching a new level.

Formed in 2006, LRG have spent the last four years inspiring, generously assisting, and ably dominating leagues across the UK. They’ve set the bar for the sport in Europe, easily defeating their closest European rivals by margins of two and three hundred points, so whilst the rest of us have been playing catch up with the LRG, we wanted to know whether they would still be playing catch up with the rest of the world. Recently accepted as the first European WTFDA apprentice league and currently preparing for a three game tour of the US East coast in April, London Brawling were ready to go calling to some more faraway towns, but were they finally going to get their asses kicked? This was the game with the answers.

The Texas Rollergirls, formed in 2003 and currently sitting in third spot in the DNN power rankings, looked ready to put their mark on the game. If there were spandex rankings in derby, and there should be, they would surely win prizes. The Hustlers went straight to business with a power lineup in the first jam, but Acute Angel was swiftly sent off for a track cut, giving London’s Sky Rockit a surprise 10 point power jam and putting the Texans on the back foot. But it wasn’t long before Molotov M Pale took 10 points and equalized. As the Hustlers took a single point to lead, only to have Brawling take one back to re-equalise, a pattern began to emerge: both teams working their defense, delivering split-second call offs, and waiting. This was a game of very few, but very crucial, opportunities – and plenty of surprises.

Neither side could hang onto the lead for long: when Stefanie Mainey, jamming for Brawling, was sent to the box, Molotov seized her moment to snag a 10 point lead for the Hustlers, only to have Mainey storm out in the next jam to juke her way to another 10, evening the score again at 21-21. Both sides inched forward, tussling for a few points, right up until the final jam of the period when Molotov took a trip to the box and opened up another power jam for London. Sky Rockit hopped straight through the pack on the inside line to take lead, and the Brawling defense trapped Curvette to haul the pack back and force the Hustlers’ remaining blockers to overstretch. Sky sucked up an audacious minor track cut and cruised out of the jam 10 points up, bringing the half time score to 39-30 for London.

Both teams brought a strong defense to the second period. Texas dominated the front of the pack, with Babe Ruthless frequently forming a relentless one woman wall of doom for London’s jammers. Another power jam saw them regain the lead by one point, only to have London grab it back again, and two nail biting jams later the box was getting busy and points were tied at 55-55. Then at 57-57. Then at 61-61. Ten minutes on the clock, The Final Countdown on the PA, and dancing on the jam line: this was the greatest game of roller derby we’d seen in our lives.

The power ballads seemed to refuel the Texans, and they launched into the home straight determined to break the stalemate. Bloody Mary motored off the jam line, leaving Belle Starr to sweep in and take out Kamikaze Kitten. Mary breezed through the London defense to put the Hustlers into the lead by 4. Forced to play catch up, Brawling found themselves digging deep as their jammers’ minors caught up with them. When the Hustlers got another power jam, the London pack managed to outsprint Bloody Mary, but when Axis of Evon was sent off, Texas lost no time corralling a gazelle, allowing Acute Angel to add a further 3 points to their lead and leaving London with their jammer in the box at the start of the final play. Not content with a mere 6 point lead, the Hustlers pulled out a truly monstrous 15 point final jam and sealed the score at a decisive 84-63.

Verdict? Outstanding spandex. And a totally riveting game with standard setting play from both sides. UK audiences simply haven’t seen a game as fast, close, and tactically demanding - and we’ve never had the pleasure of seeing LRG as thoroughly challenged.

I caught up some Texans to get their thoughts on the game. Molotov said “It would’ve been really foolish for us to come here expecting to dominate.. as a team, we went into it like we’d go into one of our home games, not knowing how it would go. It was a rough game.. they had obviously studied our Nationals footage! But at the end of a week of traveling and training … going into the game with all those crazy emotions, it was awesome.”

“I was really surprised,” said Babe Ruthless, “not that they were good, but that they were really good … every trick we had they had it too.”

And how did London Brawling respond to their first defeat? “It was so, so awesome!” said Grievous Bodily Charm*. And how are they feeling about playing more US teams? “I was worried the tour would be intimidating” said Sky, “but now I feel like it will be really fun.” Team captain Kamikaze Kitten was typically focused: “I’ve never been so exhausted after fighting my way out of the pack,” she said “I’m determined to work harder.”

“I was so proud of everyone,” said Molotov. “All I could think was: congratulations.. I think they [LRG] are going to get a lot more teams wanting to play them.” So not just an outstanding game to watch, but a validating experience for London. “It feels like we’ve always been chasing America,” said May BTwisted, “and now we’re not just the little sisters anymore.”

Roll on the US tour! We’ll be watching it on the boutcasts.

* okay, possibly not in response to that exact question.

London Rollergirls US tour

vs Philly – April 10th
vs Connecticut – April 17th
vs Providence – April 18th