In a former life I played roller derby. I was one of a few women who helped launch Boston's roller derby league - originally called the Boston Derby Dames, more recently renamed to Boston Roller Derby to be more inclusive. I skated and helped manage the league for five years and then retired. I'm really proud that the league is still active today.
The resurgence of roller derby started back in 2000 in Texas. A bunch of gals started TXRD - Texas Roller Derby, which was a banked track league like the ones you saw on TV from the 70s. There was some inhouse fighting among the leadership, which resulted in the league splitting. TXRD remained a banked track league, and Texas Rollergirls formed a flat track league. Flat track roller derby took off like wild fire, because it was so easy to set up a track - you could do it on any flat surface that was large enough to accommodate the oval track size with a little room on the outside. Whereas with banked track...you actually needed a banked track, which was generally constructed of wood panels that had to be connected together to form the upright track, you needed a place to store it, and more importantly a place you could set it up so people could come and watch.
So as I said, flat track derby exploded all over the US. Boston was one of the first leagues in the country to jump on board, and was a big part in the early rule making and development of the first association - the Women's Flat Track Derby Association, or WFTDA, or "woof-tih-duh" (a mouth full!)
Most of us who came to derby were not professional skaters by any means. Most of us hadn't roller skated since elementary school, so there was a lot to learn or relearn. The women who were designated as coaches did a lot of talking through online forums to share knowledge around how best to get new skaters up to snuff and ready to bout (a bout being the actual sporting event).
In reading about Bruner's spiral curriculum, I thought about derby immediately. You must learn the absolute basics of skating before you can move on to anything remotely like the game of derby. A skater the mechanics of skating forward and backward, using crossovers, turning on a track and turning on a dime, stopping (and there are so many ways to stop), falling safely, jumping, turning while jumping, balancing on one leg, and so much more. Once these skills are mastered, then you can begin contact...imagine if you didn't have these foundational skills and someone came hurling at you from across the track with the intention of knocking you on your ass! So, yeah, foundational skills must be mastered before contact can be taught. Once you learn basic contact skills, then you can move on to more complex blocking moves. And this is how it goes, one set of skills stacked on top of the foundation skills, slowly building you up to be able to participate in a full bout.
The skaters who are really good are taking their skills to a whole new level. They build on their foundation and constantly innovate new moves to help them manipulate the rules of the game and to get advantages over other teams. Once that new skill gets out there, it's adopted by all the other teams and becomes a common skill within the giant repertoire of derby moves. And next thing you know, someone has invented the next big thing. It's pretty exciting and fun to watch the sport evolve.
For your reference:
http://www.txrd.com/
http://www.texasrollergirls.org/
https://wftda.com/
http://www.bostonrollerderby.com/
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