Wanderlust: Expat Life & Style in Thailand December 2014 / January 2015 | Page 30

Life & Travel

“I’d taken
a tentative
step towards
roller derby,
and roller
derby had
taken a
giant leap
towards me.”
(#42) and started to learn
the basics of flat track roller
derby. I got my kit, earned
my stripes. I learned that a 'bout’
is a 60-minute game and that
it’s played in two 30-minute halves,
which are themselves split into
2-minute segments called’jams'.
I learned that you needed 15 girls
for a team and that the 30-seconds
between jams to change lineups was no time at all. I learned
there were 101 ways to get sent
to the Sin Bin and that backblocking was my Achilles’ heel.
30 WANDERLUST

My coach, the fantastic Jerry
Attric, gave me an early chance
to jam, saw something in me,
and pushed me harder than I'd ever
been pushed. Eventually, I became
that girl burning an arc around
the track, a point-scoring jammer
marked by the star on my helmet.
From a run of losses we slowly began
to win, to climb the rankings. My life
was suddenly stuffed with training
sessions, photo shoots, street
promo, recruitment drives, roller girl
hang outs and delirious road trips
to bouts, music blaring and spirits
soaring. I adored