[Originally posted on the Pioneer Valley Roller Derby forum.]

As some of you know, I did a lot of thinking about derby this
summer. In particular, I did a lot of thinking about the things I've
learned over the past couple of years that I would never have expected
to learn when I embarked on this endeavor. It took me a long time to
work these things out -- longer than it probably should have done --
so in an effort to shortcut some of this process for others, I've put
together the following list (in no particular order) of Things I
Learned. The list is a work in progress (I do plan on updating it) but
I wanted to post it sooner rather than later, since we have so many
fresh meat at the moment. I also want to note that many of these
things may already be obvious to you. I make no claims as to novelty
or innovativeness; these are simply the things that *I* learned. I
also want to note that derby has been a new experience for me in more
ways than one. Not only had I never played a team sport prior to
playing derby, I'd never played ANY sport before, outside of a
compulsory, gym class scenario. (My initial enthusiasm for sports
ended at age 4 when I was told that under no circumstances would I be
allowed to play soccer since I was a girl.) So, it wasn't just derby
itself that was new to me, it was, well, EVERYTHING.

1.

Not everyone learns the same way. You need to work out how YOU learn.
Some people learn by watching others. Some people learn by listening
to others. I learn by doing: when I am learning a new skill, I need to
try it 3000 times until once -- just once -- I'll do it right. When
this happens, I can usually feel that something is different (e.g., if
I'm learning a new stop, I'll actually stop). Then, I try it another
3000 times, trying to replicate that feeling. I'm also someone who
doesn't have great body awareness (which is partly why I find learning
by watching and listening less than ideal). It's often the case that I
think I'm doing something correctly, but in fact I'm not. This is
where I've found that watching myself -- in a mirror or video or even
in my reflection if I'm skating outside! -- can be really helpful.

2.

Don't think too hard. I'm a professor. I think about things for a
living. I spend all day telling people that the only way to make
progress is to think really hard about things. I thought this would
apply to sports too. Turns out, I was 1000% wrong. I invariably skate
worse if I think about whatever I'm trying to do. This applies doubly
when I'm trying to learn a new skill, such as a stop. Basically, when
I'm skating, the most productive thing I can do is turn off my brain.

3.

You need to skate outside of practice. Your progress will be directly
proportional to the time you put in. Skating at practice isn't nearly
enough time to make significant progress -- you need to work on your
skills outside of practice too. According to Malcolm Gladwell, it
takes around 10,000 hours to become an expert at something [1]. Of
course, by that count, none of us are likely to become experts any
time soon, but you have to try. What you get out (proficiency, rate of
progress) is directly proportional to what you put in (time, effort).

4.

Adopt a "growth mindset" rather than a "fixed mindset." I grew up in
the UK during the 80s and 90s. The prevailing attitude within the
British academic system at that point in time was one of "either
you're initially good at something, in which case you should pursue
it, or you're not, in which case there's no point in trying." Over the
past decade or so there's been a considerable amount of research
indicating that adopting a "growth mindset" (i.e., believing that
ability is something that can be cultivated via effort) rather than a
"fixed mindset" (i.e., believing that ability is something that one is
born with and cannot control) will lead to increased perseverance and
therefore eventually success. (These findings are mostly due to Prof.
Carol Dweck [2] at Stanford University, though I first learned about
them from Hill et al.'s report on the under-representation of women in
science, technology, engineering, and math [3].) Consciously adopting
a growth mindset (which, I'm embarrassed to admit, only happened
surprisingly recently in either my professional or personal lives) was
probably the single best thing I did to improve my derby playing.

5.

Nobody expects you to be a stellar derby player when you start
out. What they DO expect is that you try really hard. I didn't try as
hard as I could have done (especially in scrimmages) when I started
starting playing derby because I was embarrassed that I wasn't very
good and found it hard. I was worried that people were watching and
judging me on the basis of my skills. I'm a perfectionist, so this
made me uncomfortable. As a result, I thought I could just hide in the
shadows until I was really good and then suddenly wow people with my
skills. Turns out, I was 2000% wrong. No one expected me to be
anything other than terrible when I started playing derby! But they
DID expect me to try as hard as I could and to throw myself into
everything. But most importantly, you will only improve if you
practicing, and to practice you need to put yourself out there ---
precisely the opposite of hiding in the shadows. Not participating (or
not participating 100%) because you're not ALREADY good at something
is only going to slow you down. The only way you'll get good is by
practicing (see above re. what you get out being proportional to what
you put in). So you have to suck it up and acknowledge that you're
going to be awful initially, but that participating -- and failing! --
AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE is the only way you'll get better. No one will
judge you negatively for trying. This viewpoint is consistent with
recent research by Prof. Angela Duckworth [4] at the University of
Pennsylvania, who claims that the single personality trait that best
predicts success is "grit," which she defines as "a passion for a
single mission with an unswerving dedication to achieve that mission,
whatever the obstacles and however long it might take." Furthermore,
Duckworth and others believe that grit is built through failure: thus,
in order to succeed, one first needs to learn how to fail [5].

6.

Derby's not about skating. If you like, well, just skating, then derby
isn't the sport for you. No seriously. It took me years to work this
out. Derby's about STOPPING and AGILITY. If you cannot stop like a
total badass, you're not going to be a good derby player. If you have
to choose ONE thing to work on, make it stops. More specifically, make
it snowplows, hockey stops, powerslides, and turn-around-toe stops.

7.

And finally, something I learned *very* recently...

If you want to be a jammer, offer to be a jam ref for a few
scrimmages. I love jamming -- sure, I find it incredibly hard from an
endurance perspective, but I love it. I love the quick thinking and
agility that it requires. However, because I haven't jammed much, I'm
not a great jammer (see above re. practicing things that you have not
yet perfected). So one of my goals for the current off-season is to
work on my jamming skills. Recently I've been unable to participate in
scrimmages for policy reasons, so rather than leaving practice early
or watching from the sidelines, I offered to jam ref. Turns out, if
you want to be a jammer, spending a couple of scrimmages as a jam ref
is an EXCELLENT way to learn more about jamming. You get to follow a
jammer, watch everything they do in incredible detail, and have all
the fun of trying to keep up with them. I've learned so much from jam
reffing and I can't wait to put what I've learned into practice.

References:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_%28book%29

2. https://www.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-bin/drupalm/cdweck

3. http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/upload/whysofew.pdf

4. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/

5. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/what-if-the-secret-to-success-is-failure.html