This is roller derby.

XI Hard (rhymes with diehard) and Skatie Holmes actually are Lansing resident Xiola Mills and Fowlerville, Mich. resident Holly Schoenfield, respectively, and they are two of the members and organizers of Lansing’s new roller derby league, the Mitten Mavens.

“I didn’t even know how to play the game until a week ago,” Schoenfield said. “It’s just something I always thought was fascinating.”

Mills, Schoenfield and several other women came together in February to start a league, and after only a few meetings and a few flyers, they realized the interest was immense.

“There’s a Flint team, there’s a Mid-Michigan team, there’s many Detroit teams, there’s Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids,” said Erin Rook, a history senior and one of the league’s founders. “It’s just one of those things that needed to happen for Lansing.”

Learning derby

Starting a league has not been as simple as getting some girls and roller skates together.

Before intense research and practices, no one on the team knew much about how to play roller derby, and many didn’t even know how to skate.

“Right now, most of us have never played roller derby,” said Micalee Sullivan, a history graduate student. “We really need to concentrate on the safety aspects. So we need to learn how to fall, how to stop, how to be comfortable in our skates.”

Modern derby is a competition between two teams, each with five players on the track. Each team has a player called a pivot, who sets the pace for a pack of blockers. The two teams’ pivots race side by side, while the blockers jostle to prevent the other team’s jammer from progressing. The packs are pursued by jammers from each team who earn points by passing the other team’s blockers.

The game can get rough, but there are penalties for illegal moves such as tripping and checking using elbows and hands.

Although the Mitten Mavens have not decided on positions yet, Rook said she hopes to be a jammer.

“(The jammer is) like the superstar position,” she said. “I’m little and kind of fast, so I hope to be a jammer, but you all have to be able to play every position.”

In addition to learning the sport, the Mitten Mavens have worked many community fundraisers to get the money to rent practice spaces, help members pay for skates and safety equipment, pay for league insurance and eventually become a nonprofit organization. On top of all of their expenses, the Mavens hope to donate to the community.

“The girls are extremely enthused about (the league), and they’re looking forward to seeing their skills increase,” said Lansing resident Darrick Nevins, who will act as referee for the league. “On top of it, they’re equally enthused about helping out in the local communities.”

Alter egos
Roller derby offers more than physical exercise and a vent for pent-up aggression.

For many of the Mitten Mavens, roller derby is a chance to escape from daily life and be someone entirely different for a few hours. To help the players slide into their derby identities, every girl dons a derby name that must be registered in the national derby name registry to make sure no two girls in the country have the same name. Many girls have not decided what they want for their name yet, but the Mitten Mavens will be home to XI Hard and Skatie Holmes.

“I like having somebody that’s not Holly Schoenfield,” Schoenfield said. “I like being Skatie Holmes and being on skates. I feel completely different than I do in shoes.”

Mills took her derby name, XI Hard, and number, 11, from her first name, Xiola, and as something representing a tougher version of herself.

“It’s kind of like diehard and it doesn’t have a lot of letters, so it’s easy to remember,” Mills said. “It makes me think of being muscular and as I do this more and more, it’s like muscles are coming out of my legs.”

To complete their derby identities, uniforms for roller derby can be quite eclectic.

“There’s usually a lot of creativity about the outfit,” Sullivan said. “A lot of teams will have a shirt and the shirt will be uniform and then a lot of women will wear different colored leggings. Some wear skirts, some wear underwear over their tights. You want to be flashy (and) you want to look like you’re having fun.”

The final package is a tough roller derby girl with a sense of style, but the girls who skate in derby don’t necessarily fit into a single prescribed stereotype.

“There are a lot of moms or people that you wouldn’t assume,” Mills said. “It seems like people of all ages ranging from 20-60 can be strong and powerful. People who (are) considered really thin can be really powerful and people who are considered overweight can be fit. It blows the idea of fitness and body size out of the water. These women are really tough and cool and part of a team.”

In fact, Mills has a 3-year-old boy, Ion. She often brings him to practice and he even has his own skates and helmet.

“He’s been to a few bouts. He wants to sit as close as possible to the track,” she said. “He has a pair of roller skates and he roller skates around our hardwood floor and he puts on his helmet and he says, ‘OK Mama, you knock me off.’ He’s really into it.”

The future

The Mitten Mavens hope to begin competing in September and hope to have enough girls to form two teams. Eventually, they want to begin a youth team and a men’s team.

“We’re planning on having an A team and a B team,” Mills said.

“(A team for) people that are striving to be really hardcore and people who really want to work really, really hard. (B team for) people who might have jobs or children or a lot of other things going on in their lives and they want to learn at their own pace. … We want to make sure anyone who’s interested in participating can.”

In the meantime, the Mavens are enjoying finding their alter egos, getting in shape and trying a new sport.

“It’s different because it makes me feel different,” Schoenfield said. “It makes me feel stronger. … I’m doing something different than what anyone else is doing.”