ANGELA DEATH: I got married to a (now retired) Denver skater, Anklebitin’ Annie at the first Rollercon in 2005. Then I became Val Capone’s *only* Denver wife at Rollercon in 2009. In 2011, Charm City came to Denver and we had a big derby wedding where our two teams got married. My Charm City wife is the awesome O’Chit. At Rollercon 2012, I married my only male derby wife, Justice Feelgood Marshall of Derby News Network fame who’s been a good friend of mine for years. So yes, my derby family tree is a beautiful thing. Demanda Riot is my grandma!

AD: Mile High Club does a lot of visualization and goal setting. We like to gather together before bouts, stretch and share our personal goals for the bout with the team. We always skate best when we’re calm and focused, so if we feel like we’re getting crazy of frantic, we try to bring it in and calm down so that we can play our game and not let the other team dictate the strategy.

AD: The best thing to do at an afterparty is watch Crash and Disco and the rest of the Mile High Club shake their booties. It’s a thing of beauty. Denver takes winning the afterparty very seriously and we have the most fun doing it.

AD: SKATE. Go to the rink. Get your butt to any sort of skating programs offered in your area. These days, there are so many options out there for skaters who are interested in playing roller derby. We have a number of rec leagues and non-WFTDA leagues in the area that some people skate with for a while before coming to our tryouts. Mile High Club offers a program called Pick Up Derby once a week for three hours on a Sunday night. We take all levels of skaters and it’s coed so some aspiring skaters have had their supportive boyfriends come with them to learn the fundamentals of roller derby. It took me 6 months between the time I heard about roller derby and the time I actually checked it out. When I got to my first practice I realized I had nothing to be intimidated about. So don’t delay like I did!

AD: Find balance between your real job, your derby job and practice. So many of us hold huge responsibilities in running our leagues on top of our skating requirements and real lives. If your goal is to become a high level skater, and you’re spending more time at meetings rather than skating, consider a job that allows for a better balance in your life. The skaters that make the most progress are the ones that go to practice regularly and find some time to cross train. A lot of these skaters end up on the training committee. It works for them since they are already at so many practices a week.