Happy 5 Year Anniversary, GRRG!

April 12, 2010 by lewda · Comments Off
Filed under: GRRG 

“How did you get involved with something like that?”

That was always the most common question, after “What is roller derby?” and “You mean like that Raquel Welch movie?”

How does a person become involved in something so unusual, unexpected, and (let’s face it) potentially self-destructive as roller derby?

For my version of the story, we travel back to early spring 2005….

“I’m starting a roller derby league with (Shutter Speed),” I said to my parents during a weekend visit to my childhood home.

This out-of-the-blue-to put it mildly-pronouncement was met with a bewildered, but not entirely unamused stare.

“Do you know how to roller skate?”

“No. Not yet. We’ll figure it out.”

Silence, followed by slow nods, as if to say “That sounds about right for our daughter.”

As we were in the early stages of founding the league, we were met with a lot of enthusiasm coupled with more than our fair share of public skepticism, derision and occasional outright hostility. Looking back on my years spent playing roller derby, from an outsider’s perspective, in a lot of ways – it was/is nuts!

But it was our diverse, driven group’s desire to determine our own value system for measuring the importance of roller derby and how we wanted to spend our free time (and where to funnel our passions) that kept us from giving up in a situation where those with lesser convictions would have crumbled.

This isn’t to overinflate the importance of roller derby. I understand that we weren’t exactly civil rights pioneers, but what the Grand Raggidy Roller Girls (and roller derby as a whole) did, and continues to do, in the grander scheme of things, is offer more choices to the women of West Michigan and beyond.

The friendship, competition, athleticism, fun and confidence are in some ways, simply icing on that derbilicious 5-year-anniversary cake. (Fun fact: Did you know that the traditional 5-year-anniversary-gift is wood? I will be sending the league a commemorative wooden mustache in honor of this milestone.)

Even in my comfortable bruise-free retirement in Florida, I still get stomach flips when I think of the feeling of standing in the pack for the first time in each bout.

So how DO you get into something like roller derby? (Not to mention start a league?)

You have to want it. It’s not really a world that is conducive to wishy-washiness. You have to want to do something kind of insane, be willing to suffer injuries, sacrifice your time with friends and family and be immune to those who can’t comprehend why you would choose to do such a thing.

Everyone’s choices for joining the GRRG – or any league – are unique to that individual, and they count for something. I hope that the women of West Michigan have that choice for the next 5, 10, 15, 50 years down the line.

I’m unbelievably proud to have been a part of something so special and thankful to Shutter Speed for asking Ricochet and me to join her in launching this crazy thing called GRRG.

Most of all, I’m happy I had the good sense to say “Why the hell not?”

—The Vindicator

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