Officials' Review: Sneaker Derby Charades

Happy New Year and Happy New Ruleset! There may not have been a lot of changes penaltywise in the newest Rules Update, with the exception of the adjustments to the Use Of Forearms and Hands, but when you add in holiday breaks and new members this is a good time of year to review the basics!    

One of the best ways to get everyone back into the derby frame of mind is Sneaker Derby, and so we thought why not work in our rules review too.

Sneaker Derby Charades

Objective: Building rules understanding among Refs, NSOs, and rules-loving-skaters.

Length of drill: Can vary depending on the number of participants.

Participants: Works best with 10 or more, but can be run with fewer. 

Materials needed: Protective Gear as identified in the WFTDA Rulebook; tape or cones; a stopwatch; a whistle; index cards or scrap paper; copies of the Penalties from the WFTDA Rulebook, the WFTDA Official Hand Signals, and the WFTDA Official Verbal Cues.  

Skill level: This drill is designed for group participation including everyone from fresh meat to seasoned skaters and officials.

Preparations: On each of the index cards or pieces of scrap paper, write out the name of a penalty creating penalty-cards. Layout tape, or cones, to delineate a portion of the track (if possible 20ft of the track with 10ft lines). Everybody, even the NSOs, gear up. 

How it works: 

• Participants gear up, and divide into teams of 5 (more teams if there are 15 or more participants).
• The first team draws one of the penalty-cards, and then has 30 seconds to figure out how to act out the penalty on the card (as timed by the other team). 
• Someone from the second team whistles signaling the start of the first team's jam to demonstrate their penalty. 
• Team two has 2 minutes (timed by one of their members) to guess the penalty being acted out by team one. 
• Once team two has an answer, or at the end of the 2 minutes, one of their members whistles to end the jam.
• Both teams come together to discuss the penalty, and what other actions would earn it.
• Repeat with team two acting out a penalty.

Next Steps: adjustments for advanced penalty and procedure fans:

• The Guessing team must answer with the hand signal for the penalty.
• Make penalty-cards with more specific verbal cues for the different penalties.
• Run a few actual jams of Sneaker Derby, but in each jam the "Head Official" secretly assigns one skater a penalty for them to do during the jam, it is up to the other skaters to identify the penalty. (This is best with the non-contact, or minor contact, penalties.)

Let us know how your team/league is planning on reviewing the new rules in the Comments section below. 

Happy 2015 Season! 

- Ducky