Notes Spring Target anyone sticking out closest to you Put shoulder slightly in front of theirs Body weight push - lean on them and move your feet Go to opposite side of brace You can juke unpredictable and switch sides Move to other side of wall when the butt blockers sit on you and keep switching when brace moves to make forward progress little by little disengage to switch sides
What do you do in the moments before encountering the wall, especially at jam start? How do you decide how to approach a wall? What weak points do you look for?
Hi! Just like any sport, there's a lot of strategy and tactics involved. You can watch a lot of great derby on the WFTDA channel to pick up the basics. Jammers also have different styles that will impact the approach to a wall. We adjust strategies for the people we have on the track, the jammer, and also very much the team we're playing. At higher levels of derby, there will almost always be strategic plays at the start of the jam, with defense, offense, and counter-offense happening simultaneously (stopping the opposing jammer, while helping your own jammer get out). It's complex, with so many variations in every jam, but at root, the jammer is looking to get past the opposing wall as quickly as possible with the least amount of impact/interference, so you're trying to take openings ("holes") and/or creating them to get through. I find jamming similar to rugby, with ice hockey mixed in.
