Team Awesome invades San Diego

This weekend Team Awesome, a national all-female all-star roller derby team, is hosting a roller derby training camp in downtown San Diego at the Dollhouse, the San Diego Derby Dolls’ practice space. The training camp will benefit SDDD, San Diego’s premier roller derby league and the nation’s first hybrid league of both banked and flat track roller derby.

Team Awesome training classes will begin at 12 p.m. Friday Dec.18, and will end with open scrimmages at 5 p.m. on Sunday Dec. 20, with plenty of classes and excitement in between. Both banked and flat track classes will cover improving game play, skill and strategy. Hourly scrimmages in between the classes will allow the campers an opportunity to practice their newly learned skills right away.

Team Awesome members Ivanna S. Pankin, Trish the Dish, Goodie 2 Skates, Jackie Daniels, Medusa, Miss Fortune, and She Who Can Not Be Named are just a handful of Team Awesome members who will take advantage of year’s of playing roller derby, together and with their own leagues, to coach the classes.

Team Awesome uses peer coaching, meaning they learn from each other and encourage others to be open to learning from each other. This is the same philosophy Team Awesome coaches will use during the Team Awesome Training Camp.

Classes offered include: Anyone Can Jam, Flat to Bank/What’s the Difference, Tricky Jammer Sh*t, Up Your Teammates’ A*ses, The First Ten Seconds, A Hole is There if You Want it, and Using Your ASSets.

Check out this quote from past camper Pretti Scarrie, of Burning River All-Stars, pulled directly from the Team Awesome website:

"While it’s a great learning experience to play against some of the TA members with their home leagues or to watch TA in action at ECE, being able to work with TA in a small group setting during their boot camp was a fantastic opportunity to glean knowledge from some the best minds/skaters in roller derby!”

Aside from the intensive roller derby training weekend, campers will also be treated to a grudge match between Team Awesome and Team Sexy Saturday night at the Dollhouse. Team Sexy, a national all-male all-star roller derby team, beat Team Awesome 43-37 in a 20 minute game during a Fremont Street challenge at RollerCon 2009 in Las Vegas. This time they will face each other on the banked track. Read a full preview of the Team Awesome vs Team Sexy game here.

Tickets are still available for the Team Awesome Training Camp. The weather forecast for San Diego shows partly sunny days at 70 degrees all weekend, so get out of the cold and get to San Diego.

- by Kali Katt