Saigon Roller Derby
When
Angie and I moved to Saigon one of the first things we decided to do
was start setting up a roller derby team here! Currently there are no
other active teams in all of Vietnam so we figured this would be a
challenging thing to do in a country where we didn't speak the
language and didn't know the area. However, the whole process has
been a lot smoother than we thought it would be!
We found a really cool indoor practice space which is close to the centre of the city and decided to go and check it out and it was perfect! There is already a (non-derby sized) track painted on the floor and while it isn't air conditioned it is covered which is a necessity in rainy Vietnam. As soon as we found the space it was time to start rolling, literally, my puns are bad.
I made a Facebook group and started advertising everywhere I could, I posted in all of the expat groups and we grew immediately! We had 8 members on the Friday of the week that I set the group up and by the Sunday we had 40+ members! It has continued to grow since then but at a slower rate, though that is because we haven't advertised much since then as we were overwhelmed with the interest we have already had! We are now sitting at 60 members and we have had 7 practices with almost every practice increasing in numbers! We have a whopping 11 people signed up for Sunday which is so exciting!
Since starting the team we have had some amazing people step up to help us with the organization side, which is great because my brain is primarily "skate-skate-skate" and I have quickly realized there is a lot more to it than that. Roller derby is a sport that attracts all sorts of people from all kinds of backgrounds which is excellent as we have people who can help with design, marketing, translation, apps, social media, and they are all already excellent at it because they have so much experience!
We are also working with Derby Without Borders, an organization which helps leagues in places with no access to derby gear to get skates and protective gear which is needed in roller derby, they have already helped out several teams across Asia and we are so excited to be working with them! Vietnam has a big inline skate community but getting quad skates is tricky, and getting good quality ones that would be suitable for derby is impossible, so we are so grateful for their help in growing roller derby!
Our number one goal right now is to get our skaters in some good quality skates and work through the minimum skills requirements one at a time so they can start playing some derby! They are already making excellent progress and we have a few skaters who show up to every single session, and their progress is reflecting that! We will have them whizzing around the track in no time! We also have quite a few advanced skaters who used to play derby, and after some review they will be back up to superstar level! We are already working on some positional blocking as a pack and tactics and they are advancing so well!
You can check out our social media pages here and follow our progress!
If you live in Saigon and you're interested in joining head on over to the members group and come along to a session! We practice every Thursday at 7pm and every Sunday at 3pm. See you on the track!