27th January 2013: Post scrimmage training.

Just a quick one, training tonight we had the ever so awesome John aka 'Xavier Bacon' visiting and supporting our crew refereeing for the afternoon. John took a Head Ref Rear IPR role giving our newer refs a chance to shadow. It's so important to have time to be out of the pressure of having to call things, and take a back seat to let the game come to you, so to speak.

I mainly stick to front IPR at training sessions as it's something that just naturally happened due to our crews preferences but tonight for the second 30 minute scrimmage I moved over to Jam ref. (eeeeep)

As with anything, its really easy to stick with what's comfy and, as much as the word sounds like bad practice, it's easy to neglect other areas. I'll be honest thought and say, I have spent little time Jam Reffing. As much as I realise I made a few mistakes I noticed the general understanding and ability was in me for the role but needs some more specific focus.

As a short term aim and plan I will practice more in the Jammer ref to develop as an all around ref, while reading specific rule areas and discussion, in depth around the position.. Hopefully will see some progression in the area over future sessions.

--- *John also plays Merby for The Expendables: Next Bout info can be found by clicking HERE  * ---

25/1/2013 - LOW BLOCK!

Lets Kick things off shall we! (Did you see what I did there with the title? *toots whistle*)

I had to post something on this new blog as frankly, it looks ghastly to have nothing on it while I'm playing around with the layout and a plan of action.

Hello everyone and welcome all to my blog. I hope it will become a useful tool to aid me in documenting my derby experiences, to house my otherwise unshared or forgotten thoughts and to see what the world and interwebz thinks about it all. I aim to share things that I've found useful in the hope they'll be the same for you.

I am in no way intending this blog to be a source of sharing of, or flinging any Derby bickering. It's not in my nature and frankly, I want to stay out of as much of the 'politics' as possible, focusing simply on the my informal mantra of 'BE A GOOD REF'.

I will get a 'real' post up over the next few weeks and I honestly hope this blog serves you well in terms of another site to spend time reading through, comment upon, and help you in Derby in whichever way it may.

In a very brief review, 2012 was an overall challenging and changing year personally, but one in which Derby and Refereeing had become a real interest and perhaps obsession in some respects.... Daily clicking down the UK Refs discussion pages, imagining scenarios, flicking between rule areas, impulsive signals while watching derby games on the internet and coming up with all sorts of weird ways to try to improve in my weaker areas of refereeing.

In 2012 I re-learnt to skate, shadowed, read, struggled, overheated, travelled, made mistakes, made improvements, made great friends. Now, I'm lucky to have a 'solid-as-can-be' local ref crew with me as we try our best to help each other, striving to be the best we can, helping those we practice with to learn as much as we do every time we adorn the foot-wheels and Fox 40's.

The WFTDA finally released the new ruleset which brought mixed reactions from many including myself, but after wrestling with it and testing, I now feel I've got a reasonably healthy grasp of where the game is and how it looks and plays. I have my first few closed and open bouts of the year - under the new rules - coming up in February and March and look forward to refereeing with new and old faces from across the country.

Here's to hoping for a great year of Derby and many happy ref breakthroughs as the sport grows.

All players reading, I will be showing my gratitude for you all being a lovely bunch by shouting at you, having a referee "you're-dead-to-me" face, blowing whistles so loud they could deafen, and waving my arms around at you accordingly.