Once they were done with their concert, they both touched my arm and left me to visit on my own. The ground was damp and cold, but I sat down anyway, just inches from the small headstone with both my parents’ names on it. I closed my eyes and took a few long breaths, reaching back into my mind for all the moments that had stayed with me—all of them—the hard ones, the soft, the playful, the frustrating. By the time I opened my eyes, my hand had found its way to the carvings in the stone—palm flattened against the letters, the individual lines and spaces sending a kind of pulse into my skin, the muscle, the blood. Traveling like a heartbeat through my body and finding a place deep inside my chest. I knew I’d keep it there—safe, soft, strong.

ROLLER DERBY: A VERY BRIEF OVERVIEW

Roller derby has a long history—starting in the 1930s as a race on wheels and reaching its height in the mid-1940s, when thousands of spectators sold out Madison Square Garden.

The modern era of roller derby began in the early 2000s in Austin, Texas. This new grassroots movement was led by women and focused on the athleticism and realism of this rough-and-tumble sport. The release of the roller derby movie Whip It in 2009—directed by and starring Drew Barrymore—helped spread the sport around the world. It is now played everywhere from Alaska to Dubai.

While there are many different rule sets and some leagues still play on the traditional wooden banked track, most modern roller derby is played on a flat track. Flat track roller derby essentially took the dimensions of the tilted banked track and flattened them, allowing teams to play on dry ice rinks, outdoor basketball courts, or in community centers on a taped-down oval track.

The most commonly played rule set is governed by WFTDA—the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association. There are five players from each team on the track, and one player from each team has a star on their helmet. The skater with the star is called the “jammer” and they score the points. The other skaters are called “blockers” and they prevent the jammers from passing while simultaneously assisting their own jammers to score. Points are scored every time the jammer passes an opposing skater, so they have the opportunity to collect four points for every pass of the pack. The game is played in intervals called “jams,” which last for up to two minutes, and then the players switch out for another ten skaters. The jammer who is able to get past the four opposing blockers first is awarded the status of “lead jammer,” and they may end the jam at any time. A game consists of two thirty-minute periods with a fifteen-minute halftime.