The Body Lock- my new best friend in derby

HI Maehym here, I think I am getting access to the SkateCourt Floor Blog so i can finally talk about skating again.

I joined DRD about 4 months ago and my newest and most useful skill is the "body lock", bare with me because this is a little tough to explain in this format.

What is a body lock?
SO a Body Lock is positioning yourself in a place where you are in COMPLETE control of your opponent. The physical position of the "Body Lock" is where your ass is under your opponent's ass and you use your torso and your shoulder to wrap and hold on to them until you can steer them out of bounds. Does that make sense? I feel like Im more effective doing this to the out side (locking on opponents left side and using your right side to lock and pushing/steering them to the left. As with anything in derby you want to be able to do this to the inside and the outside.

How to do the body Lock?
To define this movement, start by yourself offskates and sit in your derby(yes get low) position and now to a side oblique crunch to the left and then to the right. Do you see the dip/curve your torso makes between your armpit and the top of your hip bone. That will be what you are using to "lock" on your opponent. Now you have to position the lock a little more forward, so your torso is a little more diagonally so you can lock her body from back to front. In this position she can't go anywhere .

The approach
SO this is what puzzled me for a couple weeks but my teammates helped me out with it. There is NO SWOOPING in this movement!!! You almost want to "sneak up" behind you opponent and target the back  outside of their glut muscle with your leg. Think of it as "docking" on her.  You should be low enough to scoop your ass right under her's slights or at least get the top outside part of your leg engaged with the target zone of her outside upper glut. As you engage with your legs, lean forward and "wrap/crunch" with your torso around her, and for goodness sake- DO NOT ENGAGE OR USE YOUR FOREARM OR YOUR ELBOW. with complete physical control of your opponent you can steer/push her out to take her out of the equation.

Thats the brief summary or the Body Lock according to what I learned w DRD

Uses-steer opponent out of bounds, basic control and ultimately toss them off their skates but I am still working on that part.

Some tipe and things to keep in mind
-if she sees you and firms up, bounce lower and get under her further
-you are using your femur as a fulcrum, so depending on how long your femur is compared to hers you may have to adjust where you need to "dock"' onto her. For example, my femurs are mega long so if my opponent is smaller my knee may be closer or infront of hers.

To see "the bounce" please check out this video with my pal Isabelle Ringer
http://youtu.be/BZiziO7FgcI

Please email me RandiMaehym@SkateCourt.com and let me know your thoughts on this post or if I can make it clearer or if you have any questions