It's Strategy, Brute Force And Laser Focus. And It's All Women

It’s strategy, brute force and laser focus. And it’s all women.

- Jane Ehrhardt

On the first whistle, the pent- up, helmeted pack of eight blockers—four from each team— take off on quad -wheeled skates around the flat, oval track. Three seconds later, a second whistle blows and two jammers—the scorer for each team—dash off their line set 10 feet back. When they reach the pack, the jammers start twisting, scrambling, and leaping their way through the roiling, shoving mass of rolling blockers. For every member of the opposing team a jammer passes, they score a point.

Within two minutes, it’s over. That’s a jam.

“They’re like plays in football,” says Anna Krajcik, aka Grace Killy, with the Brewcity Bruisers from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. These bursts of frenzy continue over two 30-minute periods to make up a game—or bout—of roller derby.

“It’s a feeling of intense focus because so much is going on out there,” says Nicole Armendariz, aka VerucAssault, a blocker with the Bruisers. “I have to dial in that focus and intensity right off the whistle. It’s very much like you explode and calm down and explode again.” Those moments of calm between jams last 30 seconds. By then, the skaters have scuttled back behind their starting lines and the whistle blows again.

This fast-growing, full-contact sport with its layers of physicality and mental fortitude seems to embrace what many women unconsciously seek these days. “You just feel strong,” says Alex France, aka Franny Panties, a blocker with the Rage City Rollergirls in Anchorage, Alaska. “We work hard. We put in literal blood sometimes. And when you get that one clean hit and knock that jammer off the track, you feel like nothing can stop you.”

Halftime.