On Saturday the Dunedin Derby league invited the public to watch some amateur roller derby in action at the Edgar Centre.
Getting on the court for the first time were the latest crew from the Dunedin Derby’s learn-to-skate course, among them Bushra Varachia, who started the course in March.
Excluding some messing around on inline roller blades as a young child, Ms Varachia had not roller skated before the course.
That was until she put on a pair of non-inline roller skates for the first time and got to practise.
Ms Varachia said the old saying ‘‘it doesn’t matter how many times you fall, just how many times you get back up’’ was quite literal when it came to roller skating and roller derby.
‘‘I remember the very first session we were learning how to cross over our legs to go around corners, and I couldn’t do it, and I thought it was impossible.
‘‘Two weeks later we were all doing it without even thinking.’’
Now, she was doing jumps and skating backwards.
When she saw a flyer at the library advertising learn-to-skate lessons she decided to join up to learn some new skills, and hopefully meet some like-minded people.
‘‘It was really great having this community here that’s very wholesome and very welcoming — we’ve all become really great friends already.’’
Ms Varachia has now finished the eight-week learn-to-skate course with the Dunedin Derby and is on to the learn-to-derby course.
The next block of learn-to-skate lessons will start on August 9.
Also playing on Saturday were Invercargill’s Southern Most Skaters, who travelled to Dunedin to play as they did not quite have the numbers locally.
The team ranges in age from 10 to 15 and has inspired Dunedin Derby member and learn-to-skate coach Zoe Hobson to look into making a junior league for Dunedin.
She was hoping anyone who had children interested would get in touch.
The biggest drawcard would be there was already a team in Invercargill close by to have regular games with.
It would be the South helping the South, and it would benefit everyone, she said.
