Roller Derby gives women OK not to say 'I'm sorry'

As she was making her point, Mari Almeida's right hand kept beat to her voice. "You know how life just picks at you . . . and picks at you . . . and picks at you . . . and picks at you . . ." After each phrase, for emphasis, Almeida would take her closed fist and aggressively puncture the air with five open fingers.

"And then you just go BAAA!" said the Santa Rosa single mother.

Translated, BAAA! would contain at least some primal screaming and a sizeable consumption of M&Ms.

That's why Almeida loves roller derby. It helps her from going BAAA! Helps 37 other young women, too. They are members of Santa Rosa Roller Derby (SRRD), dedicated to skating, competition, teamwork, camaraderie and last but certainly not least, getting a bruise and giving one. It is one of the few environments women can release tension, anger and frustration without judgment.

"When I grew up," said Almeida, 32, "I was told to act like a lady at all times. I was told not to air my dirty laundry in public. I was supposed to carry myself well. Men always have been allowed to show their frustration, or whatever, in public. Women are not."

Conditioning is hard to break. The first time she competed in roller derby, Almeida received a cheap shot.

"I yelled, 'You can't do that to me!'," Almeida said. "Then I thought to myself, 'I just yelled at her. What's wrong with me?' "

Nothing, as Almeida found out. She was being human. Unreasonable bosses, stressful work conditions, house foreclosures, gas prices, loved ones overseas, to name a few hot spots, happen to both sexes. No one is immune. No one should be forced to be an emotional stone.

"I am a much better wife, a much better co-worker because of roller derby," said Windsor's Nikki Cipolla, a 27-year old marketing coordinator for a civil engineering firm. "It's like aggressive meditation. It's a great release for whatever's bugging you. It's not like hitting a wall head-on. It's much better than that."

Roller derby is not backgammon. There is contact. There must be contact. The best, most legal and effective contact is the hip check, where a thrown hip sends someone sideways. Sometimes that someone hits the ground and it's not a waterbed landing. SRRD has played on three types of surfaces -- concrete, asphalt and wood -- and none produce smiles. They do produce apologies. And that's forbidden.

"You're not allowed to say 'I'm sorry' in roller derby," said Ellishea Penry, a stay-at-home-mom from Sebastopol. "I mean, do they say 'I'm sorry" in football?"

Again, conditioning is hard to break.

"I'm a 'sorry' person," Penry said. "But I'm getting better at it."

Added Alene Rummel, a paralegal from Santa Rosa, "we all are getting better at not saying it."

The women, about half of whom have children, are not troubled or confused by the apparent dichotomy, care-giver and hip-checker. One doesn't cancel the other. One shouldn't prevent the other. In fact, they say, one helps the other.

As an example, in her first roller derby competition, Almeida was surprised on her reaction after she threw her hip into an opponent, knocking the woman sideways. Almeida knew roller derby wasn't an afternoon tea. Still, the satisfaction amazed her. Then she threw another hip, another skid. Same reaction. And when it happened again, and again, and again, Almeida took stock of what was settling in her.

"It was like I went into another state of mind," said Almeida, mother to nine-year old Dominic. "I was a little shark out there. And I said to myself, 'If this keeps up, I'm going to be the greatest mother in the world'."

Meaning, after such a satisfying release of tension, she was much more calm and relaxed afterward. And the demands young children can make, she felt, would roll off her back.

"Yeah, OK, honey, whatever," Almeida joked about disciplining Dominic. "OK, I am wrong. I am sorry. I suck."

And she gave a good laugh about it, not because she didn't take parenting seriously, rather she was amused at how roller derby took away a few of her speed bumps. She didn't have to rattle every time there was a bump in her life. Life had become easier for her.

"I am a much less angry person," she said. "It's like therapy but I only pay $40 a month which is a lot cheaper than therapy."

Forty bucks is the monthly dues for the skaters. Outfitting, including skates and helmet, that's around $400. Skaters have three mandatory workouts at Cal Skate in Rohnert Park. In this, their first year of operation, SRRD has had about a dozen scrimmages and one bout so far, on Sept. 22. They lost, 122-54. There's another bout Saturday in Stockton. And the third and last bout is Dec. 15 at either Cal Skate or the Santa Rosa fairgrounds.

Next year, the plan is for home-and-away bouts each month March through November. This oak is growing from this small seed -- about half the skaters never had skated before. And while the zest to learn to skate, to compete, was there from the beginning, the afterglow from the physical contact was the unifying light.

After every match, players vote for Best Jammer, Best Blocker and, after the September bout, Best Splat. Almeida was voted Miss Splat. Six or seven times, she said, Almeida went sailing without a ship. Six or seven times she got up smiling. Six or seven times a little bit of her edge was chipped off. Six or seven times since, or was it 60 or 70 times, Almeida knew something was going on here and it wasn't that roller derby was more fun than Pilates.

"It's that fund raiser," she said simply.

That's the one at the Dec. 15 bout. Donate a coat, enter a raffle. The destination for all the coats? It's the one thing about roller derby that satisfies them more than being a better mother, wife or co-worker.

The coats will go to a battered women's shelter.

You can reach Staff Columnist Bob Padecky at 521-5490 or at bob.padecky@pressdemocrat.com.