On a Mission From the KGB

Alternative names: FBI vs. KGB, Mission From the FBI, Cold War

Objective: To practice hitting in a game-play situation; hitting hard whilst skating in a pack; following through on your chosen target and always knowing where they are; making sure that you are still paying attention to everything that is going on around you while you have a special mission

Typical length of drill: 20 mins

Materials needed:

1. A complete track
2. As many small pieces of paper as the number of skaters (each piece must be big enough to fit the name of a skater)
3. Two bowls or hats or other receptacles to keep the notes in
4. Preferably a couple of referees to keep track of legal and illegal hits
5. Skaters should all have a black or a white shirt with their names written on the back

Skill level required: Skaters must be cleared for contact; intermediate contact skills recommended as this game tends to get a little aggressive

Description: In this game all the skaters have been recruited by the KGB to "kill" another skater.  For each successful knockdown the skaters earn 1000 rubles and the skater with the largest bank account at the end wins the game.

First, split the skaters up into two teams based on their shirt colors, white vs. black.  Hand out a small piece of paper to each skater and have each skater write her/his name (legibly) on her/his note and then fold the piece of paper twice.  All the white team's skaters place their names in one of the two bowls, and the black team's skaters place their names in the other.  Each person on the black team is going to pull the name of a white skater out of the bowl, and each white skater is going to pull the name of a black skater out of the bowl.  It's crucial that no one lets on whose name they pulled out of the bowl, your target is supposed to be a secret to everyone else (this also means no tell-tale glances or obvious sizing-up).  Then have all the skaters get into one huge pack on the pivot line.  On the whistle they will begin skating and they will have one minute to "kill" their target.  During this game the skaters are going to skate in a pack as if we they are playing regular roller derby except there will be no jammers, only a team of white blockers vs. a team of black blockers.  Each skater's mission is to knock over the person whose name they pulled out of the bowl using all manners of legal hitting (that means IN bounds, IN play, and only using legal target zones and legal blocking zones).  Any time that you get "killed" (knocked to the ground) you skate out of bounds and do 10 push-ups to recover.  Any time that you are able to legally knock your target down to the ground you earn 1000 rubels.  If you knock someone over illegally you earn no money but the fallen skater still has to do her 10 push-ups to recover.  If you knock down someone else's target instead of your own, you earn no money but the killed skater still has to do her time in the hospital: 10 push-ups out of bounds.  At the end of each 60-second jam both the teams pull out new names for the next jam.  This way the targets are constantly rotating, the skaters learn that they can't always be watching out for the same person from the opposing team, and everyone gets a chance to try to knock over many different types of skaters.  The person who has earned the most money by the very end of the game, wins.  Skaters should keep track of their own earnings.
 

OPTIONS: Depending on the number of skaters you have at practice you may want to split the skaters into smaller groups so that you don't have 30 of them skating in a pack all hitting each other at the same time.  Also, if you want to make the game more team-oriented, you can change it to FBI vs. KGB where the black team has been recruited by the FBI to kill KGB agents and the white team has been recruited by the KGB to take out FBI agents.  All the skaters still have a specific target to knock out from the other team but the money at the end of each jam is pooled together and the team with the most money at the end of the game wins the Cold War.  In this version some of the skaters may want to help their teammates in taking out their target by using positional blocking.  In a much simpler version of the game, you don't even need to split the skaters into two different teams, you can just have everyone put their names in one big bowl and let the hit-fest begin!  This however does not train your skaters to be on the lookout for people from the opposing team as they will have to be looking out for people of all shirt colors.  IMO it can be even more chaotic than the original version.

Additional notes: Although I prefer strategic play over hit-n-run games, I still think that knowing how and when to give big hits is an important part of playing roller derby well.  I came up with the idea for this game when a league asked me to coach them specifically on contact.  Their problem was that although they knew how to hit and they were able to do it in contact -drills, they were not applying their skills well in scrimmages or during games.  They needed to get used to hitting within the pack and during jams when there is a lot going on at once.  This drill forces the skaters to use contact while they are skating in a pack for about the length of one jam and there is a lot going on at once.  The skaters also have to pay attention and keep looking around them while they are out on their missions (a WFTDA minimum skills requirement: 3.4 Focus), otherwise they risk getting knocked out of the park.   The addition of a game -winner in this drill drives some people to perform better, and the addition of a "punishment" if you get knocked down gets people to control themselves more, not just throw their weight around without thought to consequences, and they pay better attention to their surroundings.  If you like this game you might also like Sniper Frogger.

IMPORTANT: This drill can get a little aggressive so it's really good to remind your skaters over and over again that the hits should be legal and that they should not be out to hurt their teammates, just knock them off-balance.  This is also why I really do not recommend this drill for skaters who have just been cleared for contact.

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Push-n-Pull

Alternative names: Shopping Carts

Objective: To build up endurance and strengthen the derby muscles; to practice proper derby stance; to support each other

Typical length of drill: 10 mins

Materials needed: A full track or just four cones to mark the inside track line

Skill level required: None

Description: This is an endurance drill where skaters take turns pushing and pulling three other skaters for 60 seconds at a time.  Divide all of your skaters into groups of four (if your skaters don't evenly divide into groups of four you can have one or two groups of five, or involve the referees!) and then have all the groups spread themselves out around the track so that everyone isn't starting from the same exact place.  The groups should form lines where everyone but the first person is holding on to the hips of another skater, essentially building a train (see image below). On the whistle the person in the back begins pushing the three skaters in front of her/him while the three skaters stay in proper derby stance doing nothing but being dead-weight.  The skater in the back pushes her/his teammates for 60 seconds and then the coach blows the whistle again signaling for the pusher to let go and skate up to the front of the line and become dead-weight.  The person now in the back begins pushing.  This continues until all the skaters in line have gotten the chance to push for 60 seconds, then the pulling begins.  Each skater pulls the line of three dead-weight skaters behind her for 60 seconds and then drops back and grabs onto the skater in the back becoming dead-weight herself/himself.

Coaches during this drill should consistently be correcting skaters on their form because after a while this drill gets really heavy on the legs and skaters begin standing up more.  It's good to remind skaters that they can make it easier for the pusher/puller by being low -- the taller a skater stands, the more difficult it is for the pusher/puller.  If you look at the image below the skaters being pushed should be told to get lower, and particularly the skater in the pink shorts second from the front should be told to bend her knees more as her stance is not quite proper.

Additional notes: This is another one of those drills I learned while skating with New Hampshire Roller Derby :)  I think that this drill is great for freshmeat because they can practice the proper stance and form without having to worry about falling since they are all attached.  Also, this drill gives all the skaters a good chance to show each other some love -- during the drill they should be helping each other out by encouraging their teammates to push themselves and keep going hard and not give up.  Finally I'd also like to add that this is a great drill to do in the clockwise direction, in fact, we often change direction in the middle, when we switch from pushing to pulling.

Minnie Gun BangBang pushing a group of three at a Helsinki Roller Derby practice. Photo by Mick Dagger.

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Follow the Douchebag

Alternative names: Follow the DB, Douchebag -drill

Objective: Paying attention, speed control and pack skills

Typical length of drill: 10-15 mins

Materials needed: A full track or just four cones to mark the inside track line

Skill level required: None

Description: First off you need a very good skater to be the leader.  All the skaters pack up in a huge pack behind the leader on the track. Their goal is to stay in pack proximity to each other and as close as possible to the leader.  The leader's job is to be a douchebag: vary their speed, stop suddenly, race around the track, etc.

The rules are if any member of the pack:

• bumps into another girl (even no impact bump)
• touches the ground with anything but her skates
• skates out of bounds at all
• is lapped by the leader
• or is unable to stop before her hips pass the leaders hips

...they jump off the track and do 10 push-ups. Then they rejoin the pack as quickly as possible.  Keep it up until everyone is getting really annoyed at you or is getting tired and sloppy.

Additional notes: This can be an excellent warm-up drill to get a practice started and I personally really like it and think of it as a fun game to break up endurance or skills practices.  The drill has been posted multiple times on the roller derby coaches Yahoo group by many different people and with a variety of names (all usually referring to "douchebag" at some point) and after some research I have found that the name Follow the Douchebag was given by Doc Holiday of the Rose City Rollers.  Though it is not completely clear who the originator of the drill was, Cupples Skate of the Rose City Rollers used to run this drill as a warm-up before the league's weekly scrimmages four years ago so it may have started there.  Because I like to know the history and stories behind drills I'd love to know if anyone has any additional background information about this one!

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Angel 'n' Asshole

Alternative names: --

Objective: To learn how to avoid sudden obstacles; to practice good communication, closing up holes in the pack, and assisting your jammer; to practice jamming

Typical length of drill: 15 minutes
Materials needed: A full track or just four cones to mark the inside track line
Skill level required: None
Description: This is a variation on the drill called Asshole.  Get all your skaters together into one gianormous pack.  Designate an asshole and give her/him the pivot panty.  Designate a jammer (or angel) and give her/him the jammer panty.  On the whistle the pack begins skating around the track.  The pack's job is to:

• sustain a steady medium pace
• maintain a tight-knit pack where everyone can easily touch several people on command
• make holes for and assist the jammer through the pack
• close holes immediately after the jammer has gotten through so as to keep the asshole from being able to easily disrupt the pack
• loudly communicate with each other about what is happening in the pack, most specifically about the positions and movements of the angel and the asshole

Once the pack is skating around the track at a steady pace the asshole begins to do the dirty work.  Her/his mission is to make the other skaters' jobs much more complicated by:

• falling down in front of the pack
• bumping wheels with skaters
• slowing down in the middle of the pack
• forcing her/his way to the inside line and stopping there
• turning around and skating clockwise through the pack, etc. etc.

S/he creates obstacles for the pack so that they have to work hard to keep holes from forming for anyone but the jammer, and work hard to communicate.  The skaters are not to block the asshole in this drill.  At the same time that the asshole is wreaking havoc in the pack, the jammer is trying to get through as swiftly as possible.  The jammer's job in this drill is to just jam through the pack without incurring any penalties, and to communicate her/his needs to the pack (i.e. "Open up the inside line for me!" "Give me a push out of the pack!").  Every jammer goes for one pass through the pack and then hands off the panty to someone else.  This part is easiest if the jammer (once s/he's gotten through the pack) skates 20 feet in front of the pack and stays at that distance from the pack until the coach has yelled out the name of the next jammer and that skater has come to grab the panty from the former jammer.  Then it's easy for the new jammer to just take off from in front of the pack and start skating towards the back of it, and for the old jammer to just drop back to become part of the pack. 

Additional notes: This is a fun way for greenhorns to get to try jamming for the first time -- no one is blocking, everyone is helping, it really takes the pressure off.  When I've run this drill I've tried to give everyone at least one chance to jam, and we'll pass the asshole -panty around so that at least a few people get to try that as well (plus it's quite tiring to be the asshole for a really long period of time).  It's a fun drill that feels more like a game but at the same time it's really good for practicing communication and alertness.

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Jammer Relay Race

Alternative names: --

Objective: To give the derby muscles (aka quads) a good workout; to practice passing the star

Typical length of drill: 10 mins

Materials needed: A full track or just four cones to mark the inside track line

Skill level required: None

Description: This drill pins the skaters against each other in a race around the track, one skater and one lap at a time, while all of the skaters' teammates are holding a squat.

First, set up two cones next to the track -- they should be about 5 feet apart and about 5 feet from the track to avoid any skaters running into each other as they enter and exit the track.  I usually set up the cones between turns 3 and 4 because most practice spaces I've been in have allowed for more leeway on the outside of the turns than the outside of the straightaways.  Then split the skaters into two equal-sized teams (if one team has one more skater than the other team, make sure you tell the team skating one player short that the first person will have to skate twice).  Have each team line up behind one of the cones and give the first person in each line a jammer panty with which to cover their helmets.  On the whistle the first person in each line should immediately take off and race each other around the track for one lap, and all the skaters left in the lines should immediately pop down into squat positions.  Once a racing skater has completed her/his one lap and s/he comes back to the cone, s/he hands off the jammer panty to the next person in line and then skates to the back of the line and assumes the squat position.  The new "jammer" now races someone from the other team around the track and once s/he's completed her/his one lap s/he hands off the jammer panty to the next person on her/his team and gets back into line to squat.  The relay race continues like this until all skaters on the team have sprinted one lap around the track, and only then are the skaters allowed to get up out of their squat.  The winning team gets to un-squat sooner so there's the reason to push hard in the race.  Usually I repeat this game three times in a row, with about a 60-second reset time in-between each game (I allow the teams to strategically rearrange their skaters during that time if they want to), and finally the team that lost the most games does 10 or 15 push-ups as "punishment" (and sometimes the winning team wants to do 10-15 sympathy push-ups together with the losers, which I think is pretty damn cool!).

Note: I usually tell the skaters that they do not have to wait until the jammer panty is completely covering their helmet, that they are allowed to begin skating as soon as they are in the process of placing the jammer panty onto their helmets.  No one is allowed to skate with the panty in just their hand.

Additional notes: This is one of my favorite drills ever!  Doing this at practice usually lifts everyone's spirits because everyone is always cheering for each other and skaters even forget that they are in pain from squatting because they are so excited about the racing.  It's a really simple drill that doesn't require much skill or many materials, but it's an effective muscle workout and it's great at lightening the mood at practice.  I'm proud of this one!

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One Ring to Rule Them All

Alternative names: The One Ring

Objective: To get a serious quad workout; to work together as a team and to support each other through a hard workout

Typical length of drill: 10 mins

Materials needed: None

Skill level required: None

Description: In this drill all the skaters are going to work together as a team to do multiple sets of slow squats.  Get all your skaters to stand next to each other in a circle with their arms across each others' shoulders.  With their arms around each other the skaters all begin to lower themselves into a squat, getting down to a 90-degree angle at their knees, and then without letting go of each other they all slowly stand back up again.  Repeat this squatting motion 9 more times, take a 30-second breather, and then begin another set of 10 squats.  Depending on what level your skaters are at in their training (and what level of competitive play your skaters are trying to reach) you may want to stop after two sets of 10 repetitions, or keep going with three, four, or even five sets.  This is also a team building activity since the skaters must do the squats together and support each other to get through it.

Additional notes: The credit for this drill goes to my BFF who doesn't play derby but is an honorary rollergirl and a slight exercise addict.  She did this exercise in a bodycombat course and thought it might apply itself well to derby training.  I think it sounds *great* but I must add the disclaimer here stating that we have NOT tried this on skates ourselves so we're not sure how big the chance is of skaters losing their balance and falling during this exercise.  I have a feeling that the chances of losing balance and falling are pretty small since everyone is holding on to each other and thus have a great deal of physical support, but, there is also the small probability that since everyone is on skates if one heavier person begins to fall s/he may take all the other skaters down with her.  I would really like to hear comments from someone who has tried this (or something similar to it) on skates before!

Also, keep in mind that this drill can totally be done off-skates at any off-skates practice that your league might have!

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Tail Tag

Alternative names: --

Objective: Having fun; getting some light agility practice; practice paying attention to those around you whilst paying attention to your own position and body

Typical length of drill: 5-10 mins

Materials needed: As many pieces of approximately 50 cm x 3 cm ribbon as there are skaters (the lengths of ribbon don't have to be store-bought, they can be made of cut-up t-shirts, cut-up plastic bags, or really anything that you can cut or craft into the approximate right length and width).  If you wish to play this game on the track then you will obviously also need a track, it is not a requirement though.

Skill level required: None really, though basic weaving and stopping skills are a definite plus

Description: Hand out a length of ribbon to each skater.  Each skater puts her/his ribbon into the back of her/his pants so that most of it is hanging out as a tail but so that it doesn't fall out on its own while the skater is going fast.  On the whistle everyone begins skating (and the coach should decide before starting the game whether everyone is going to be allowed to skate around in every which way they please like in a regular game of tag, or if everyone should be skating on the track in a particular direction).  The object of the game is to try and collect the tails of other skaters and not lose your own.  Every time you catch the tail of another skater you get to keep it in your hand.  You are not allowed to take tails from other skaters' hands, only pull them from the backs of their pants.  When you lose your tail to another skater you replace it with one of the collected tails in your hand.  Once you are out of collected tails and you lose the last tail out of your pants, you are out of the game.  The last skater (or last two skaters) left standing with all the tails, wins.

Additional notes: Yes, it's another drill based on a children's game, in case you couldn't tell :)  This one is also really fun to do off-skates during a league retreat or as a warm-up on an off-skates training day!

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