In the Mile High City, the biggest difference for competitive athletes coming from outside Denver is the altitude.
The lower levels of oxygen can tax the lungs ability to oxygenate the blood, putting even higher demands on the body during times of stress, I.e. Athletic competitions.
Windy City posted a few short videos of a training session in which it's athletes carried weighted backpacks and breathed through straws to simulate the rigors of competing in Denver during the womens Flat Derby Association's 2011 Championship Tournament, Continental Divide and Conquer.
Rumor has it that Gotham Girls Roller Derby spent a week in Denver prior to the start of the tournament, acclimating to the altitude.
Host-league Rocky Mountain will likely have a distinct home-field advantage When they play No. 3 South Central seed Nashville, scheduled for 3:45 p.m. (Mountain) today.
Showing posts with label Gotham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gotham. Show all posts
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Slow derby, Countering Slow Derby and Countering the Counter
Slow derby has been heavily discussed since about a year and a half ago, teams like Pikes Peak and Denver
Prior to that fast packs and big hits dominated a lot of tournament play. Kansas City Gotham flew around the track during their matchup in the 2007 Texas Shootout finals. Both teams relied heavily on the fast pack to wear out their opponents and actually make it easier for their speed demons to score against slower jammers.
Since the slow play started to become more and more apparent, other teams began including various tricks into their arsenal.
After the 2010 regionals and championals, more and more teams (particularly non-WFTDA teams) realized they could start using the rule set to their advantage.
A good team can maintain pack control against either a slow or fast pack, and the best teams are able to adjust on the fly.
But it’s important to learn how to play both styles, as well as how to play against both styles.
For a team to effectively utilize a slow pack, their walls have to be impenetrable – not an ounce of daylight for an agile jammer to dive through. That impenetrable wall needs to move from side to side as a unit, without creating openings (particularly on the A-line or inside gap).
Teams often run into two problems when trying to use a slow pack: Not moving their feet and not paying attention to the distance to the pack.
Players may not engage another player or players without their feet moving. This becomes an automatic direction of game play penalty. A player must be moving his or her feet (or at least be in motion) to become eligible and legally to hit another player.
Slow packs that deviate far enough from the engagement zone become Out of Play and no longer may engage any player or passively block opposing players. If the slow pack does not have an opposing player with them, they must maintain the 9 feet or less for a legal pack to be defined and thusly a legal environment to engage opposing players.
One effective strategy for a slow pack is called a Slow Roll. If your team has a player in the box that has 20 or less seconds left on her penalty, by not crossing the pivot line, your team can delay the jammer whistles as long as the legally defined pack remains intact and isn’t crossing that line. A delay of a few seconds can mean having an extra blocker on the floor to help in the pack.
This can also be used to help spring a jammer out of the box, but be aware: Jammers may not engage the pack until after the jammer whistle. So even if your time is done in the penalty box the referees may require that you wait till after the jammer whistle to leave or that you return to the track behind the jammer line.
Jumping into the pack before the jammer whistle is considered an automatic major illegal procedure (and now you have at least two trips to the box).
The Slow Roll is also effective because the more time your pack eats off the jam clock, the opposing jammer has less time to actually score points (or at least delay her getting lead jammer status).
During my time at regionals and championals, I would often keep track of when the jam whistle was blown in relation to the jam clock and how quickly the Lead Jammer earned her status and made subsequent scoring passes.
Some of the best jammers took 25 to 30 seconds to even earn lead, which isn’t too much of a stretch. Jammers start from a dead stop and the pack actually gets quite an advantage by moving forward by the time the jammers are allowed to skate forward.
This 25 to 30 seconds also is a loose figure depending on pack situations and other variables. Subsequent passes were often completed in about 15 seconds (most derby players strive for unobstructed 10 second laps around the track).
If a pack Slow Rolls and manages to eat 10 seconds off the jam clock and it takes a jammer 30 seconds to earn lead, your team has effectively knocked 40 seconds off the jam clock in which she can score (assuming your plan is a defensive penalty kill). The opposing jammer now has 1 minute 20 to score as many points as possible (and your jammer is likely to exit the box in another 20 seconds to at least eat into any point swing.
is approximately 5 scoring passes. Without the Slow Roll, you’re essentially giving the opposing jammer an additional scoring pass. It’s not hard to see how the points could easily swing out of your favor without the Slow Roll.
The problem is that teams have developed a counter-strategy against Slow Roll – the Knee Auto-Start. By taking a knee before the pack whistle, a team creates an automatic No Pack situation, almost always resulting in an automatic jammer whistle. The reason teams take the knee before the whistle is so as not to incur Illegal Procedure calls for destroying the pack (or Out of Play calls depending on the situation). Since there is no legal pack definition before the whistle, no one may be called for destroying the pack or Out of Play calls until after the whistle has been blown (and even then, teams are generally given some time to rejoin or reform the pack).
The big lesson here is:
If the whistle has blown, DON’T take a knee.
You want to do it before the pack whistle.
This will give your jammer a quick start and 6 times out of 10 an easy Lead Jammer status. (Rules nerds should note that in a No Pack situation Lead Jammer status is not awarded until the jammer exits all on-the-track blockers. So your jammer must still get around opposing blockers, but …
In No Pack situations the opposing blockers may not engage or passively block the jammer.
The crux of this matter is in the timing. Your blockers do not want to get up so fast that you form a pack, giving the opposing blockers an open season on your jammer; but you don’t want to get up so slow that your pivot or one of your other blockers incurs an Out of Play major. Teams will sometimes test how long they can stay down without getting penalties, but solid refs will usually only allow a few seconds (after all, the impetus is on both teams to reform the pack).
So you want to Slow Roll, but the opposing team has decided to Auto-Start their jammer. Now what?
Two prominent options are:
Get your wall in front as fast as possible, stalling the jammer long enough to coax an opposing jammer blocker to jump up and help her out (and reforming the pack). She can’t earn lead until she gets around everyone and your team won’t (read: shouldn’t) get called for destroying the pack since you are traveling at normal pack speed and in the proper direction. Meanwhile, an opposing player may earn a penalty for not attempting to reform the pack fast enough.
Or …
Getting your wall in back as fast as possible, take up as much room as possible, and hope the opposing jammer Back Blocks the s#*t out of you. Once her teammates see that she’s in trouble, one of them may get up to try and help her out – which will actually help you hinder her for a little bit longer.
In both scenerios, by even passively blocking you can incur an Out of Play penalty, but by creating a wall the opposing jammer also runs the risk of fouling to get through or around.
If you force the jammer to the box due to penalty, you’ll release your jammer that much sooner.
****
There is another version (actually several) different ways to Auto-Start the jammer, but I want to see how many people are paying attention. If you know of another way leave me a comment. I’d love to hear from you.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Managing Penalties - Part 2
While Part 2 of this multi-part blog (Part 1 can be found here) will primarily discuss jammers, it should be noted that the rules applying for those that wear the star, also apply to blockers and pivots.
The happenstances which will be discussed happen to jammers a lot, and it may be easier to envision these occurrences happening to a jammer.
Where as Part 1 dealt with keeping control and managing your team's penalties both as a player and as bench support staff, Part 2 will focus entirely on the track play and requires the astute attention of your players.
Cutting the pack penalties (and to some degree the Illegal Procedure plays in regards to players exiting the penalty box) are contingent upon the offending player's relative position to and within the pack.
In order to commit a Cut a player must step out of bounds and gain illegal advantage on one or more skaters.
There is no significance on which team member she passes. An offending player will obtain the same penalty whether she cuts and opposing player or one of her own.
The key definition for a Cut penalty is relative position within the pack, which means two things:
1.) The Cutting infraction is NOT relative to your exit point on the track (unless upon re-entering at that point you've still ceded any and all advantage to the other players).
2.) The Cutting infraction is relative to the pack and only incurs upon an offending player who gains an illegal advantage on in-pack skaters. Thusly, if there is no pack or skaters are not in-play (within 20 feet of the engagement zone, upright and moving, and on the track -- there should not be a Cut penalty called.
That's not to say that in the heat of the moment the referees are not entirely sure of the pack structure, and possibly give a skater a penalty. It will happen, as pack restructuring is happening faster and faster as the strategies evolve, but also the higher levels of players are able to reform a pack on a dime.
Legal passes
Legal passes won't concern a blocker, but jammers live and die by legal passes.
I should also point out that even if you wouldn't earn a penalty for passing someone who is out of play while you're out of bounds, it is still not considered a legal pass.
Legal passes on the first lap of the pack determine lead jammer status, as a player who incurs an illegal pass (or a non-legal pass -- which there is a difference) will not earn lead jammer unless she cedes advantage and tries to repass legally.
Legal passes on the second lap and subsequent laps are relative to individual points. Illegal passes or a non-legal pass, which is defined as the No Pass, No Penalty hand signal, are not scored, however any illegal passes will be reported as penalties.
This becomes the tricky part. On the first pass, it's in a jammer and her team's best interest to earn Lead Jammer and to maintain Lead Jammer status as long as possible. You are more likely to see a jammer cede an illegal pass or a No Pass, No Penalty in order to repass legally so that she may earn Lead Jammer status. On subsequent passes, that same jammer my happily take a No Pass, No Penalty -- forfeiting the point -- to not lose position within the pack particularly if the opposing jammer is close by.
Leave the cannoli, take the gun
That little play on a famous movie quote is intentional. In this instance the cannoli is the point you forfeit so you don't lose position in the pack.
In Part 1 I talked about watching your's and the opposing player's feet when you travel out of bounds. As long as you don't gain advantage on other players in doing so, once your opponent steps out she becomes out-of-play and you can step back on the track without incurring a Cut penalty.
By waiting for your opponent to move forward or to actively re-enter legally, a skater may lose valuable pack position, dropping back two, three or more spots - which can be crucial in key games.
You see many high-level skaters (I'm looking at you, Suzy Hotrod!) make that kind of decision in a matter of milli-seconds.
Sometimes those one or two points can be the big difference in close games, but in less crucial situations, it is almost always beneficial to forfeit the one point and get back in as soon as possible.
Where's the pack?!
You can usually here me along the benches yelling "Call the pack!." I'll do this reffing, too. "Call the pack!" should be a staple in any referee's vocabulary. Defining the pack is key for so many other penalties, and sometimes in the heat of the moment you don't want to look away to see where the pack is located (Like if you're jam reffing). "Call the pack!" is a cue for someone to either say "Pack is here" or "No pack."
I'm a bigger fan of "Pack is here," "Pack is up," "Pack is back," "No pack" or "All in." (Thank you, Pork Chop!) These cues give you a much better idea of where the pack is without taking your eyes off gameplay.
As a coach I'm not usually one to scream that someone is out of play (OK, I lied). Recently, I've tried to get in the habit of yelling "Call the pack" because the pack definition determines Out Of Play and Cutting penalties. It asks a lot of the referees, but from the standpoints of being a referee, (pseduo) player and a coach, I recognize that 90 percent of roller derby game play relies on pack definition.
A good player will have an eye on the pack definition (and a really good player will use that to her advantage).
By passing a player (while you yourself are Out of Bounds) who is not considered in play because he or she is outside the engagement zone will not earn you a penalty, and will in face be a No Pass, No Penalty.
Here's an example from Uproar on the Lakeshore, the WFTDA 2010 championships: http://vimeo.com/16595182
At 0:44 during the Gotham-Texas footage. Belle Star, the Texas blocker in white, manages to force Gotham jammer Suzy Hotrod out of bounds. Suzy keeps an eye on Belle, watching for one of her feet to come out of bounds. Instead, Belle loses her balance and falls, becoming Out of Play, at which point Suzy jumps back on the the track.
Jammers passing players who are Out of Play to the rear of the pack should attempt to do so legally to earn a legal pass or a point for each said player. By earning points on the rear-most opposing blocker, the jammer also earns points for players in the box. This may be the one example where it is a bad idea for a jammer to forfeit the point for pack position. If the opposing blocker(s) is out of play, she should be able to pass them without much effort. (If I'm the opposing players who just got passed, I hustle to the pack to re-engage the jammer again.
Jammers at the top of the pack, stuck behind an Out of Play opposing blocker, can pass her out of bounds without incurring a Cut penalty, but must be sure that in doing so that that player remains out of play. Cutting the foremost blocker will result in a major. It is highly recommend that passing an Out of Play blocker by skating out of bounds should be the last option, after all other options are extinguished.
The same standard holds true when there is a No Pack situation defined. A player should not incur cutting penalties when there is a No Pack situation, since Cutting requires gaining advantage on in-play skaters.
The happenstances which will be discussed happen to jammers a lot, and it may be easier to envision these occurrences happening to a jammer.
Where as Part 1 dealt with keeping control and managing your team's penalties both as a player and as bench support staff, Part 2 will focus entirely on the track play and requires the astute attention of your players.
Cutting the pack penalties (and to some degree the Illegal Procedure plays in regards to players exiting the penalty box) are contingent upon the offending player's relative position to and within the pack.
In order to commit a Cut a player must step out of bounds and gain illegal advantage on one or more skaters.
There is no significance on which team member she passes. An offending player will obtain the same penalty whether she cuts and opposing player or one of her own.
The key definition for a Cut penalty is relative position within the pack, which means two things:
1.) The Cutting infraction is NOT relative to your exit point on the track (unless upon re-entering at that point you've still ceded any and all advantage to the other players).
2.) The Cutting infraction is relative to the pack and only incurs upon an offending player who gains an illegal advantage on in-pack skaters. Thusly, if there is no pack or skaters are not in-play (within 20 feet of the engagement zone, upright and moving, and on the track -- there should not be a Cut penalty called.
That's not to say that in the heat of the moment the referees are not entirely sure of the pack structure, and possibly give a skater a penalty. It will happen, as pack restructuring is happening faster and faster as the strategies evolve, but also the higher levels of players are able to reform a pack on a dime.
Legal passes
Legal passes won't concern a blocker, but jammers live and die by legal passes.
I should also point out that even if you wouldn't earn a penalty for passing someone who is out of play while you're out of bounds, it is still not considered a legal pass.
Legal passes on the first lap of the pack determine lead jammer status, as a player who incurs an illegal pass (or a non-legal pass -- which there is a difference) will not earn lead jammer unless she cedes advantage and tries to repass legally.
Legal passes on the second lap and subsequent laps are relative to individual points. Illegal passes or a non-legal pass, which is defined as the No Pass, No Penalty hand signal, are not scored, however any illegal passes will be reported as penalties.
This becomes the tricky part. On the first pass, it's in a jammer and her team's best interest to earn Lead Jammer and to maintain Lead Jammer status as long as possible. You are more likely to see a jammer cede an illegal pass or a No Pass, No Penalty in order to repass legally so that she may earn Lead Jammer status. On subsequent passes, that same jammer my happily take a No Pass, No Penalty -- forfeiting the point -- to not lose position within the pack particularly if the opposing jammer is close by.
Leave the cannoli, take the gun
That little play on a famous movie quote is intentional. In this instance the cannoli is the point you forfeit so you don't lose position in the pack.
In Part 1 I talked about watching your's and the opposing player's feet when you travel out of bounds. As long as you don't gain advantage on other players in doing so, once your opponent steps out she becomes out-of-play and you can step back on the track without incurring a Cut penalty.
By waiting for your opponent to move forward or to actively re-enter legally, a skater may lose valuable pack position, dropping back two, three or more spots - which can be crucial in key games.
You see many high-level skaters (I'm looking at you, Suzy Hotrod!) make that kind of decision in a matter of milli-seconds.
Sometimes those one or two points can be the big difference in close games, but in less crucial situations, it is almost always beneficial to forfeit the one point and get back in as soon as possible.
Where's the pack?!
You can usually here me along the benches yelling "Call the pack!." I'll do this reffing, too. "Call the pack!" should be a staple in any referee's vocabulary. Defining the pack is key for so many other penalties, and sometimes in the heat of the moment you don't want to look away to see where the pack is located (Like if you're jam reffing). "Call the pack!" is a cue for someone to either say "Pack is here" or "No pack."
I'm a bigger fan of "Pack is here," "Pack is up," "Pack is back," "No pack" or "All in." (Thank you, Pork Chop!) These cues give you a much better idea of where the pack is without taking your eyes off gameplay.
As a coach I'm not usually one to scream that someone is out of play (OK, I lied). Recently, I've tried to get in the habit of yelling "Call the pack" because the pack definition determines Out Of Play and Cutting penalties. It asks a lot of the referees, but from the standpoints of being a referee, (pseduo) player and a coach, I recognize that 90 percent of roller derby game play relies on pack definition.
A good player will have an eye on the pack definition (and a really good player will use that to her advantage).
By passing a player (while you yourself are Out of Bounds) who is not considered in play because he or she is outside the engagement zone will not earn you a penalty, and will in face be a No Pass, No Penalty.
Here's an example from Uproar on the Lakeshore, the WFTDA 2010 championships: http://vimeo.com/16595182
At 0:44 during the Gotham-Texas footage. Belle Star, the Texas blocker in white, manages to force Gotham jammer Suzy Hotrod out of bounds. Suzy keeps an eye on Belle, watching for one of her feet to come out of bounds. Instead, Belle loses her balance and falls, becoming Out of Play, at which point Suzy jumps back on the the track.
Jammers passing players who are Out of Play to the rear of the pack should attempt to do so legally to earn a legal pass or a point for each said player. By earning points on the rear-most opposing blocker, the jammer also earns points for players in the box. This may be the one example where it is a bad idea for a jammer to forfeit the point for pack position. If the opposing blocker(s) is out of play, she should be able to pass them without much effort. (If I'm the opposing players who just got passed, I hustle to the pack to re-engage the jammer again.
Jammers at the top of the pack, stuck behind an Out of Play opposing blocker, can pass her out of bounds without incurring a Cut penalty, but must be sure that in doing so that that player remains out of play. Cutting the foremost blocker will result in a major. It is highly recommend that passing an Out of Play blocker by skating out of bounds should be the last option, after all other options are extinguished.
The same standard holds true when there is a No Pack situation defined. A player should not incur cutting penalties when there is a No Pack situation, since Cutting requires gaining advantage on in-play skaters.
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