Skater Profile: Pippi Strongsocking of the Queens of Pain
by: Thomas Gerbasi
July 28, 2010Watch Pippi Strongsocking and her Queens teammates take on the Bronx Gridlock on August 7th at Hunter College in Manhattan. Tickets are available now at www.ggrdtix.com.
Stream the full broadcast replay of July's Queens/Brooklyn battle at www.ggrd-nyclife.com.
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Pippi Strongsocking – A Rookie’s Journey
By Thomas Gerbasi
Pro athletes in all sports will tell you the same thing – performing in practice is one thing; doing it when the bright lights are shining on game night is quite another. So with just three months of roller derby training under her belt, Queens of Pain rookie Pippi Strongsocking was understandably nervous before her debut bout against Manhattan on May 22nd.
Her solution for the first-time jitters? Find an expert.
“I was super nervous beforehand, and I was talking to my 12-year old neighbor who plays Irish football, and he’s played all over the world,” Pippi recalled. “He’s played in Ireland, England, in California, everywhere. And I’m like ‘John, have you ever played in front of a thousand people?’
“Yeah,” was the typical 12-year old response.
“Were you nervous?”
“Yeah.”
“What do I do?”
Finally, the real advice came.
“You practice a lot, so you know what to do,” said John. “Just go out there and pretend like you’re at practice.”
Did it work?
“It did work,” she smiles. “I started warming up, the place started filling up, and I thought ‘it looks a lot smaller from down here.’”
Above: Pippi guards the inside against Manhattan in her May 2010 GGRD debut. Photo: Tom Igoe
Queens would lose a heartbreaker that night to the Mayhem, 94-84, but in her three jams, Pippi earned a +7 point differential and kicked off her Gotham Girls Roller Derby career by sticking to a simple philosophy:
“I’m trying to just not die out there, first and foremost,” she laughs. “And then if I can pick off the biggest threat on the other team and really know where they are in the pack and address that issue as it comes upon me in split second increments, then I will try to do that. I think going over all the strategies and all the rules in your head multiple times makes it become second nature, and that does take time. I’ve been doing this three months, so I have to give myself a break here. I am trying my hardest to make it sink in and figure out, but at the end of the day, it’s still super fun.”
And hard work as well, as evidenced by a “fresh meat” period where Pippi and her fellow rookies were introduced to the sport with what can best be described as a dose of tough love.
Above: Pippi (at left) competes against Morristown's Jerzey Derby Brigade as part of Gotham's team of first-year players, the zombie-themed Meatpacking District. Photo: Krystyna Dunalewicz
“[During] the fresh meat process, I could barely walk up my stairs to the shower,” she said. “Then the water hitting me from the shower would hurt. But now I can fall down a million times and I don’t feel a thing. The training is insane and I’m like a ton of bricks now.”
That’s just the physical part though. What can also test a skater is learning the technical fine points of the game and a Bible-esque rule book. Derby isn’t just a bunch of skaters running laps with the occasional hip check thrown in for 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the crowd. Derby is a complex game that can take some getting used to from a viewer’s standpoint; learning it while on skates with your opponents bearing down on you can give you headaches in more ways than one.
“Of course there are times when it’s overwhelming, because the way Gotham trains is not like anyone else,” admits Pippi. “It’s super-intense, bootcamp style, and it can be overwhelming, but you have so many different people to talk to about it and everyone is there for each other, which is really great. And all the “meat”, we’re all good friends and we all talk to each other. We have a Yahoo chat group where we talk about anything that’s on our minds, so that’s a really great outlet.”
Above: Pippi (number *69) scoots to block Papierschnitt during July's Brooklyn/Queens bout. Photo: Brendan McMullen
It’s a far cry from Pippi’s first skating outlet, a group of friends that dubbed themselves the Plowstoppers.
“I love to roller skate and none of my friends like to roller skate – nobody,” said Pippi. “Then I met one girl at a party who liked to roller skate and we started skating. Then we started meeting other girls around the city who liked to skate and then we started this group called the Plowstoppers.”
Eventually, most of the 20-skater group decided that they were going to take their hobby to the next level by trying out for the GGRD. Pippi, intrigued, soon wanted in.
“My skate group was all trying out for derby,” she recalled. “I was like ‘what’s that? I just like to skate in a circle and listen to music.’ (Laughs) So when the time came closer, I said, I don’t want to be the only one not trying out. And I’m super-competitive, so I was like ‘I can’t lose.’ So I went to four different skills nights, did everything Gotham told me to do, and I made the team, which is kind of surreal.”
Of 15 Plowstoppers that tried out for GGRD, only four made the league, with eight also earning spots in Westchester’s Suburbia Roller Derby league. Pippi Strongsocking was born and she hit the track learning everything she needed to compete in one of the nation's elite derby leagues: as she puts it, “Basic life skills that you need to survive.”
And by all accounts, she’s been a quick study, earning praise from her peers, including veteran Brooklyn blocker Megahurtz, who said of Pippi and her fellow rookie teammates, “Their [Queens’] rookies have come up fast, and one in particular who I’ve seen good things out of is Pippi Strongsocking. She’s improved by leaps and bounds, and so has Bunny McBones. Both of those girls have come a long way.”
Above: Pippi blocks fellow first-year Gotham Girl skater Tip-Her Gore during her May 2010 debut. Photo: Jon Tannen
Pippi isn’t letting the praise get to her head though, and to keep progressing, she focuses on the small details that can sometimes be the difference between victory and defeat.
“Before each jam, I have a goal, and usually the main goal is to really stick with your partner, because there is no lone wolf in derby,” she said. “You really have to stick with someone and create a wall because one person is pretty easy to get around, but two with a wide stance is a lot tougher to get through. So remembering to stick with a partner is one of the toughest things. It seems pretty easy, but as soon as all of those other things start happening, you lose sight of that really quickly. So I really try to focus on sticking with my partner and building strong walls with her.”
Watching the veterans of the league, especially the GGRD All-Star team, is also a key to her continuing development as a skater, and a recent trip to the East Coast Extravaganza in Pennsylvania just reinforced the notion that steel sharpens steel, making it clear that she’s in the right place if she wants to make her mark on the derby world.
“It’s interesting seeing the different styles of play and the strategies I’m sure the average person doesn’t pick up on,” she said of watching the ECE bouts in June. “I hope that with the game being more popular that people will pick up on the nuances of the game and how it is a strategic game. It’s not all brawn, it's brains too, and it was really interesting seeing the different styles of play -- especially the Gotham All-Stars because they have a totally different level of play.”
On July 10th, Pippi and the Queens of Pain were back in action at New York City’s Hunter College, and this time, the team emerged victorious with a 129-96 win over Brooklyn, and Pippi saw action in five jams, including one as a pivot. By the time August 7th rolls around for Queens’ bout against the defending champion Bronx Gridlock, you can probably expect even more contributions from a skater on the rise who is certainly enjoying her first season ride.
“This is super-fun and we’re part of a really exclusive club of awesomeness, so you just can’t wish for anything better than this,” she said. “So if it gets better than this, okay.”
Above: Pippi celebrates her team's July victory. Photo: Chris Chin