It comes down to two things: the hitting and the skating.

In roller derby, it’s all a matter of moving quickly on skates. And when someone gets in your way, just roll right over them.
For the Classic City Roller Girls, the physical contact their sport allows is something unique.

“It’s different from anything else I’ve ever done,” said Rachel Blair, who’s been a part of the league since 2007. “And it’s a really, really good workout.”

Classic City Rollergirls practice on Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010 at Skate Around USA off of Atlanta Hwy in Athens. These girls are ready for a tough workout. Photo by Emily Karol

Each skater trains to become faster and stronger because when it comes to competition, they don’t play.

And when their bouts get going, they skate hard, too: there is a five-foot distance separating the audience from the rink. The closest seats even require those who sit there to be 18 or older—and for good reason.

“I have definitely gotten my wheels tangled up in the audience,” Ashley Helton, who’s been with the league since 2006, said.

Separated into two 30-minute halves, each bout is made up of a series of “jams,” none lasting longer than two minutes.

During a jam, each team of five skaters tries to outmaneuver the other. This boils down to four blockers trying to get their jammer past the other team’s blockers. For every opponent the jammer skates past, the team gets a point.

“A lot of people don’t think it’s a sport,” said Morgan Felts, a University law student and rookie roller girl. “Maybe it’s not traditional, but it’s still a physical sport. We work hard, and we train hard.”

The training involved to join a league is pretty extensive: before tryouts, every potential skater must go through a two-week “boot camp.” And after they’ve made the team, it still takes months before they’re rink-ready: Blair didn’t make her bout debut for six months after first joining.

Part of the adjustment is in learning how to skate in a pack—adjusting to bumping against another person without tripping.

To train, the girls do interval training, speed laps, foot work, group movements and scrimmages. It’s all geared toward making each skater that much quicker and more nimble on wheels.

“I’ve become quite the amateur expert on skates,” Felts said.

What’s the most useful technique one picks up as a roller girl, though? Learning how to fall correctly.

In the rink, falling is far from uncommon. But it’s that prospect that frequently draws people to roller derby: the opportunity to try something new and more exciting.

Blair was a diver and played rugby before joining the Roller Girls, and it stands out for her especially.

“Derby is definitely the coolest thing I’ve done so far,” she said.

Founded in 2006, the league has attracted a range of women from the beginning: moms, librarians and students. The chance to meet new people is another part of the sport’s appeal.

For Felts, it was also a chance to branch out into the Athens community after moving here for law school.

“It was a nice opportunity to remove myself from the academic world,” she said. “It always looked like a cool thing to do. It’s a lot more than just skating.”

The fact that the roller derby community is actually tightly-knit and friendly may surprise some people familiar only with images of the sport from the ’70s and ’80s, or in the recent film “Whip It,” that show it as a sort of WWE-on-wheels.

“It’s not the roller derby you saw on TV,” Blair said.

There are differences: you can’t, for example, punch your opponents.

But parts of what people may remember about the sport still hold true. The outrageous nicknames, for one, are still very much alive: Helton and Blair call themselves “Thrashley” and “Mosh-ya Brady” respectively, and the Roller Girls’ bench manager goes by the name “Suckin’ Dixie.”

There is an element of spectacle to the bouts. But for the diverse crowds drawn to watch the competitions, the main attraction is the sport’s uniqueness.

“It’s an inexpensive opportunity to see a local Athens sport,” Helton said.

Those audience members who show up out of curiosity may be surprised at the level of physical contact. Derby is a rare thing in women’s athletics: a full-contact sport.

Still, the thrill of skating hard, and hitting harder, is entirely unique.

“It’s a really good stress reliever,” Blair said. “It’s empowering to be a woman and be like, ‘I can knock you on your ass.’”