There are some Monktoberfest talk proposals that are so seemingly out of left field that we’re compelled to accept them, and this talk by Amanda Casari fits that bill. But in learning about roller derby, what Amanda was talking to the Monktoberfest audience about was actually community. As it turns out, tech has a lot to learn from a sport featuring names like “Kate Ambush.” How to build communities from scratch, how to make them inclusive and how to work together as a team.
Transcript
Everything seems to be working, haha, fooled you, Rachel. Hello. Nice to see everybody here this morning, not intimidating at all after all of that, but I’m very excited so I’ll admit a little bit that this journey for Monktoberfest this year started on July 7th when I got this email from Stephen which I was very excited about, because I have been lucky enough to get this more than once, but unfortunately for this part, I couldn’t remember exactly what this was talking about and I was a little bit sure it might have been a mistake. So thankfully I set myself up for success by going back and asking myself to actually receive things from Google Forms when I submit them and I had a memory that sometimes instead of expressing my feelings by talking to people or journaling, or going on social media like normal folks, I like to rant to Stephen by his CSPs, right? You just submit stuff and you expect him to absorb and process those things for you. This one happened to be submitted — it was the only one last year which was a big surprise, but this one was actually submitted on October 7th last year and if you remember at all Monktoberfest was actually Wednesday through Friday the 2nd through the 3rd, so apparently whatever I wanted to get out into the world was on mon.
If you know me at all, you’ll know this is a frequently asked question in my life: What did I sign myself up for this time. So it’s not the first time this happened to me, not just through Google forms but in general. I don’t know what anybody else did in 2020? What kind of a year you had? I tried baking, I tried walking, I tried the comfort, cozy things. Those do not work for me. So I also jumped in line to buy a new pair of rollerskates, because there was something that seemed very exciting about what was going on, reclaiming space through the rollerskating community.
This was a good reminder to me about the 20-year burning desire to try a new sport. So at the ripe age of sometime in my 40s, I also decided in 2022 to respond to a different Google form. This one was to sign up for a bootcamp.
The exciting thing here was I wasn’t quite sure they were going to write back to me. Because I’m pretty sure in the bootcamp form I said I can’t really stand up on my skates. And luckily the community was like, so excited to see you, please pay here. And at the end of the bootcamp I remember — they went through everybody else, so they bring you in and they have this short conversation of how you did and what the next steps are and how you’re going to join the league and they brought me in at the end and looked me in the eye with what I can describe as the GenZ stare and said your plow stops are not effective. And I thought, OK, that’s something to work on and I did, I stuck around. I think they thought they were going to get rid of me. I don’t think so I have been skating with reason mountain roller derby since 2022 and when they had a Board of Directors call, I said sure, I actually took over as the league president for the Board of Directors, my skate name is Kate Ambush. If you hear from me, that’s what I like to talk about. So 2025, new world. This is actually the only head shot I’ve ever had taken in my life. Any shot you’ve seen of me professionally is a selfie of me with like some background in the world. They also tried to get me to smile and I said I don’t smile.
So what did I sign myself up for today, which is Monktoberfest. We’re going to talk about roller derby.
So roller derby itself is a full-contact sport. It’s on a banked oval track, it’s on two teams with five players per team. It comes in many forms and many sets and there’s a shared history and global culture. I also feel like this is a little bit of payback for all the football and baseball that I’ve had to undergo in my life.
So a brief history in of Derby in the before times. It actually started in a Depression-era sport in 1935. There was a ton of marathon things, so the last one standing would win the marathon. There were a lot of promoters, they created this is an entertainment cycle. It went through a lot of boom and bust and it kind of died off a little while. Actually tracks are really expensive. It’s this big amphitheater type thing that you have to truck along, it’s like a carnival. That actually came back up in Austin in 2001. So there was the revival started in Austin in 2001, and then a few years later, realizing how expensive these tracks are, someone came up with a rule that it basically fits in a basketball court. Because there’s more basketball courts in the country than there are spaces to set up a bank-style setting.
There have been roller derby skaters in scenes in the movies. This all had a lot of momentum, and then came the pandemic in 2019, so there was a huge momentum, there was a lot of discussion is are we going to go into the Olympics. And then a lot of organizations lost their leases, which meant that there were no longer space to be able to practice in. Competition is easier to get things for, but space is really hard. So there’s a big recovery period between 2020 and really through 2024 and 2025 and this is when I joined everything, so I don’t really even know what was happening. Some people were starting to get paid, they were getting sponsorships. The only roller derby I know is the one picking itself up out of a ditch. I’ll come back to what it means the Olympics.
I will also say we have found some community with the tennis organization, because frickin’ pickleball — I told you about loss of practice spaces. If you know what community centers and organizations have turned into. Indoor skate parks are going away, we are losing so many multipurpose courts because of pickleball and because of the industrial complex that is pickleball in the United States and the world. Pickleball, if it gets you out and getting moving, I have no hate for you, but I would like you to consider what single use of one space does to a community to be able to broaden it for bigger access, I’m going to sell this as shirts.
I know it’s no product pitches, but I’m going to sell the shirts.
So we’re back, this is very exciting. So in the 2024 in Portland, Oregon there’s the Rose City Rollers. It’s probably one of the biggest in the world. They actually hosted and won the 2024 championships. You can watch all of those on YouTube. It’s fantastic. Teams flew all over the world into Innsbruck, Austria, because one of our former skaters, Lady McDeath, skated with the Whales team. If you like complex rules and ranking systems, roller derby is your jam. There is a global ranking system scale, there are stats that we take every game. The rule book I can’t even print off because it’s so complicated. It’s a lot of fun. But like who’s in charge of all this? As I said before, this is also an amateur-hour, like, self-run organization and the reality is that roller derby, across the world, is community owned, community run, and we set our own community rules.
So community owned, what does that look like? Means that you paint the signs and then store them and then put them out. so again, in the before there was a big push for skater run and that came from the Austin culture. I feel like since then there’s been a wider expansion that you don’t have to be skating to be in the community. So it has expanded a little bit more, which I actually really like because I think that that emphasizes that everybody is welcome and can find a space. It was treated like an entertainment like a GM culture now we’ve moved into not for profit. From big venues to now having any space, please. We’ve practiced in tiny little pavilions in a community because it’s the only flat space we can find. We get really creative.
But it looks really polished sometimes and that’s because we have a really good marketing director. They are fantastic. They make us look like we are professionals at what we are, including reaching out to Vermont Public, talking to radio stations. Making big posters, if you’ve seen mine, they don’t let it go past discord. I will be like here, I made something and they kindly explain to me why that brand style is not going to make it past branding.
And quite frankly they needed the money to being able to host two home bouts per year. We’re one of the last teams in New England that we run about 300 to 400 ticket sales per event, which is pretty decent for the space we’re having it in. In terms of filling the space, you’ll see these are my roles in the league. By 2023 I was head of HR, admin, in-training community, I was a discord wizard, that’s odd. And then slowly have decreased over time, not because I have any less or more time to contribute, but because we have actually brought people in and handed things out and that’s a nice sign of success is that the community fills the space, not me filling the space.
Including that means my job president means things like washing the damn jerseys. I have a washing machine which means that’s now the community washing machine. I make buttons because sometimes the buttons need to be made. We have folks who come volunteer with us, it’s like hired guns, so I really enjoy that, as well.
And again, I talked about like we are our community, it’s our rules. So, you know, some people have asked like, what’s with the names? I like my name, Kate Ambush, it feels very affirming to have. But the other is civilian names are super-boring. Yeah, it’s a name I have if I haven’t taken ownership of it or make it feel more like me, that’s OK. Part of the reason we have Derby names is from the drag community. In early 2001 2004, they loved the.
Choose your own adventure. People on my team have names like Fox, I really like E Barbie. That’s actually a reference to Ghibli Studio. And then Pope John Maul III, who is our coach. So we have a Pope, it’s just not the other one.
Who gets to play roller derby? Again, our community, our rules. So the real reality is if you want to play roller derby, you can play roller derby, there’s a league for you.
Women’s flat track has one set of rules. Men’s roller has a different set with another set of rules. Texas roller derby is actually bank-tracked roller derby, it’s a lot of fun if you go down to Texas, they have a different set of rules.
The interesting question that comes up for me now is who gets to play in what we call women’s sports and so for roller derby, I talked about the organization that we’re a part of. Who gets to play in women’s sports in general has a history. I would recommend the Tested podcast if you want to learn more about this. WFTDA made an intentional decision to break from Olympic-style rules around policing athletes’ gender and gender conformity and expanded their idea of like, if you want to play in WFTDA. Here’s the people you allow. If you look like this, you’re welcome. If you look like this, you’re welcome. You tell us. We’re not going to ask. This is you getting to define who you are and who it’s open to. So that started in 2015 and then we started in 2025. The TL;DR is that any gender can skate in WFTDA. If you want to skate and you identify in this group, we would love to have you.
Now I honestly don’t know how much time we have left so we’re going to count on Stephen to give me some cues when I get too close.
Roller derby 101. Now you’re going to know what’s going. So the words explanation of this is there’s a bout. Each bout is two 30-minute periods, so it’s like sitting through two Monktoberfest talks but you also get an intermission. So it is kind of like going to Monktoberfest, just like one after the other. Each period consists of multiple jam. You get a 30-seconds rest in between. But you don’t really care about that. The teams can field up to four blockers and there’s one jammer per jam. The jammers are the only one who can score points. Do you like complex rule sets? This is the space for you. There are many rules, we actually have to take rules tests annually to continue to be able to play competitively. So you have to have passed a rule set on the latest rules within the last year. There are rules about league target zones, that’s like where you can get hit. Notice the spine and the neck are not on there. There are legal blocking zones which is where you are allowed people from moving in a certain direction.
There is only one Derby direction, and that is counterclockwise. so you can only safely move in one direction, you can skate that way, but if you have contact with anybody that way, you will get a penalty and go to a penalty box. There is a penalty box. I have successfully made it through one game in the last year without getting a penalty and it was my pride and joy.
If you are a person who likes pictures, here are some pictures to explain this better to you. So like I said, four blockers, one is the pivot. They have a stripe on their head. The jammer always has a star on their head. They’re the only ones who can score points. So as you see this going around, what happens is you all line up, there’s a jammer line, people line up, the jammers are mind that, the blockers are in the front. Once they get past one team once, they go around, what’s called the scoring pass. They are then eligible to score points.
So it’s kind of interesting because you’re going around and around and around but you’re really trying to break through the other as hard as you can. You get a point for every person you pass. How much time do we have, Stephen? I guess I’m cool cool cool, I need ten volunteers, please. If you feel comfortable walking around. You will not hit each other. You will just have to walk around a little bit. Thank you very much. Come on up. This will be fantastic. 1, 2, 3, 4. OK I’m going to have 5 people over here. We’re going to have 5 people over here and if there’s more than 5 I’ll make you sit on the sidelines. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, we will self-organize. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, that’s fine.
>> I’ll be a cheerleader.
>> OK, great. So if you get in the jammers line. I’m going to be — one back here, so you folks come over here, and then Heidi, you’re going to go with Julia and then we’ve already come here. So generally — this is — the jammers will be coming this way.
>> Now, you three are going to be directly the same. You’re going to come here Margaret. You’re going to turn around and be right here. And you’re going to turn around, and now you go ahead, you place your arms kind of in a triangle. You’re a triangle here. So these are the butts, these are the breaks, this person is called the dangle. Breaks, butt, dangle. This unit is trying to prevent the opposite team from coming through. Don’t move.
You’re going to come this way on either side, right? So this team is trying to prevent Julia from getting through, but Julia is wild, so she’s going to come over here and she’s going to move past with her little star. The first time she gets lead jammer, she’s special now, she can call the jammer, which means she’s in control of the game play.
And coming up, coming up, keep going forward, no one is going to stop you. Now their job is to go as many times as possible afterwards, so let’s say Julia went all the way around the room. You don’t have to — now you get to the back — it’s actually Heidi. Now as Julia is coming through, come on up here, now she gets points 1, 2, 3, 4, because she passed again on the scoring pass. Right? OK. Before the next comes through, do this really big. They have to see it all the way in the back, officials are done, she gets four points, the other team gets zero points and then we move on to the next jam.
[applause]
Thank you very much, volunteers, I appreciate that.
Cool, so I — there’s a lot more that goes into it. The basic gist is that you’re trying to get through and bet get through as best as you can, and nobody gets hurt, everybody has fun, that’s the general goal. So if you want to learn more, there are videos you can watch. I’m not going to play this now. It takes a while. It’s only a minute, but it takes a while. You can listen to podcasts. I actually learned a lot of the rules through Overreactor. there is a podcast about roller derby on the Sounds Like a Cult podcast, so it talks about the cult of roller derby, again if you like history and conspiracy theory — not really conspiracy theory, but in a fun way. In a way that doesn’t actually hurt my heart. It actually is quite funny and I would also like to give a special shoutout to coming hot into the box. Slice and carnage. Slice skated with us last weekend and carnage, they skate locally in one of the leagues down in Connecticut. There’s actually a bunch of roller derby leagues in the area. Speaking of: Teams, teams, teams, teams! Depending where you’re at, there probably is a roller derby league somewhere around you. These are all around us, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, there’s a lot in New Hampshire, you know, we all get bored, it’s wintertime, Vermont, Twin State and Green Mountain. You got Casco Bay right here in Maine. It’s a fantastic roller derby league to go check out. They host nice tournaments, they’re also a terrific group of people.
So now, actually after the demo, you can get when I say that roller derby is the weirdest game of red rover ever, because you’re just trying to get past people and not hurt them.
So as a last bit of talking about roller derby as best I can, I would encourage you all to support homegrown community sourced sports, consider where your money heart and attention goes and who benefits from that. Again, not a product plug but if you like us, you can buy our stuff. You can buy a ticket and you don’t have to show up. Just buy the ticket. That will help support us. If you want to know how to make a donation, just buy a ticket. You can volunteer, there’s support on socials, but in general, we are making the rules for the people who we love and who we want to be there and be a part of and that’s what I think we are all here for and what we want to continue to build with each other, so if that sounds like your jam, even if you don’t want to jam, come join roller derby.
[applause]
