Dear Freshies I have the pleasure of knowing,

The next few days will dictate new directions in your derby career so seeing lots of you are freaking out, here’s some love from me to you.

First of all… have one of these.

*smack in the damn head*

Relax.

Take a look back at where you were a year ago. How many of you even owned skates? Who showed up at their first Raw Meat and thought “Crossovers will be the death of me”… no? Just me then? Alrighty. But look you at you now! You’re 8 wheeled machines of impending doom. In the short time that I’ve known you all, I’ve seen your self confidence grow with every new achievement. And so it damn should, this isn’t a damn cream puff convention, you’ve all worked really hard. And you’re all inspirations for me, the rest of the Meatlettes and anyone else who values dedication and hard work. Just make sure your heads don’t get so big you can’t fit in your helmets and you’re all good.

You ladies are ALL awesome, slightly insane, but awesome. And that’s what I love about you. Let’s take a look at what you’ve done in the past 5 or so months with a couple of observations from me as a friend, Raw Meatie and derby fan.

• To get to this point you have just survived getting the shit beaten out of you 2 (sometimes 3) times a week and not only owned it, but come to love it, embrace it and have competitions for the best looking bruises.

• Most of you have been or are right now, the most mentally and physically tired you have ever been in your lives. And yet you still repeatedly grabbed your skate gear and headed out the door with excitement, a item of pivotstar clothing and a tube of arnica cream.

• You’ve learned skills and performed drills that most people would be terrified to watch and that might even make them pee their pants a little. And you laugh maniacally while doing it, Don’t pretend like you don’t, I know.

• You’ve studied rules until your eyes fell out, practiced Tomahawks until your toe stoppers wore out and drunk beer until your livers tapped out – yes, another pitcher of raspberry please.

• You most likely have at least 40 more awesome people in your life that you can’t think how you functioned without, and the time they weren’t around seems blurry and vague, it is now referred to as B.D (before derby).

• Your sock collection has never looked better. Neither has your butt.

• Whether it be that you wanted to be fitter, needed a new life tangent or just found a community that you felt you needed to be a part of. You know better than I do what these skate filled months means to you and why you joined derby in the first place so insert your own moment into this bullet point.

In summary: Whatever happens over the next few days, don’t forget what you have all achieved. Regardless of where you end up, everyone who has laced up skates and / or watched a derby game has your back. And everyone who hasn’t done those things will still admire you, fear you a little and wish they could be as cool as you (even if they won’t admit any of those things).

If you do make a team: Congratulations on your hard work so far, I’m looking forward to cheering for you at bouts soon and whooping your butts in the future.

If you don’t make a team: Congratulations on your hard work so far, I’m looking forward to skating with you at Raw Meat soon and whooping your butts in the future.

This is only the beginning to more awesome and most likely, more butt whooping. Brace yourselves bitches!