Tori Bee (MRD/Team England) strikes again!

Photo by Shirlaine Forrest. http://www.shirlaine.co.uk

The lovely Tori Bee of Manchester Roller Derby and Team England fame came to see us again. I think it’s safe to say we all love Tori. Not only is she an awesome skater, but her enthusiasm for roller derby and unashamed derby geekery is infectious.

August is a mini off season for the birds, with the temperature in our practice venue being painful at times and holidays, kids off school and all that boring real life stuff getting in the way, we take some time out from bouting and hone some skills. So we invited Tori to come give us some tips with a session dedicated to providing offence.

Offence can be a difficult skill to master. Switching from defence to offence, knowing when to do so and most importantly, how to do so effectively, can make or break a game (and your jammers heart!). Knowing when to provide just enough help to your jammer without compromising your teams defensive strategies can be really confusing so Tori came to give us some tips on doing just that.

Obviously we’re not going to share the finer details of what she told us, with our double header against Tiger Bay B and Wakey Wheeled Cats coming up next month, we have to keep some things under wraps. However, the drills and ideas she gave us were already being put to use in scrimmage this week and were working well.

What she shared was useful and strangely obvious but not necessarily something I’d heard said aloud before. I know I took a lot of much needed, quick and easy offensive moves from the session that anyone can do. Really useful stuff explained well and with enthusiasm.

So we’re going to be perfecting these skills while we prepare for our next home bout on Saturday 20th September!

If you want to see Tori in action with Team England (in her 50th bout no less) then why not head to Birmingham on 23rd August where the whole England training squad will be playing against each other as well as opening a training session to spectators afterwards.

We’ll be there, spying on, errr, cheering on Tori and the squad and hoping to pick up a bit of awesome!

Birds *heart* Tori Bee

The Indomitable Tori B!

Liverpool Roller Birds, the team and administration as a whole, are committed to pushing harder this year to become the Top Level team we know we can be.  It will take hard work, determination, a bit of a humble stance, and the ability to say “We need to learn”.  That part is really easy, because LRB’s board has followed through on that determination! Two short weeks ago, we had the skill, expertise and knowledge of Team England’s Coach in our training hall.  Last night, we had the privilege of the coaching advice of perhaps the most dynamic skater in the North West, Tori B!

Hardcore, baby!

Tori has also been recently named as one of the few,  proud, rostered players for Team England. Tori is mainly known for her jamming skills, her ability to avoid almost every hit out there and her speedy race around the track that racks up all the points!  Naturally, we were expecting the coaching session to be focused on those skills – and believe me, they were! – but there was a surprising amount of information given about the cohesiveness of the team, strategy and blocking (including valuable zone defense coaching that the whole team plans to put to use!). After all of this fantastic information (and a little bit of a clue on how she gets by our blockers when our teams bout!), we can’t quite believe how much we’ve learned and how much it will help our game this season.  Cannot WAIT to try all this out, hone it in practice and put it into play on the track!

After these two sessions with high calibre coaches, only two weeks apart, we’re not sure who owns the team Derby Crush any longer.  After the Ballistic session, we were sure it couldn’t be supplanted, but I heard more people last night saying how amazing Tori is and calling her their derby hero… Hrm.  Sorry, Balls!

She can’t help it if she’s a derby star AND adorable!

Skate fast, hit hard!

–Cali Floor’Ya