‘Dixie’ is hell on 8 wheels

There are some women who don’t fit the tough, hard-edged stereotype of roller derby.

And then there’s Dusti Berard, a 32-year-old registered nurse from Waikele. No one questions how she rolls.

"When my friends back home found out, they were like, ‘This is what you were meant to do,’" she said, laughing. "Even my dad said that."

The 5-foot-10 Berard is a blocker, the skater at the front of the pack who regulates speed, and she has the kind of strong shoulders you’d get from years of shot-putting and grabbing defensive rebounds on a basketball court. She’s a commanding force on size-11 skates. And her roller derby name is Dirty Dixie.

"I hit people," Berard said with a smile. "I don’t know if I could play basketball fairly anymore."

Roller derby is everything you think it is — and everything you don’t.

Are there fishnet-wearing women tearing around a track with pigtails and muscular, tattooed arms? Oh, yes.

And do these skaters have naughty nicknames too risque to be printed here? Most definitely.

But roller derby is more sport than visceral entertainment. Decades ago the sport was practiced on banked tracks, but ever since skaters started using flat rinks in 2001, it’s become one of the fastest-growing sports nationwide and boasts a thriving community in Hawaii. (There are more than 400 leagues around the world.)

On Oahu there’s Pacific Roller Derby, which is part of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, and the Aloha City Rollers. Maui has the Maui Roller Girls, and the Big Island has Paradise Roller Girls, the Waimea Wranglers Rough Rollers and the Echo City Knockouts. On Kauai there’s the Garden Island Renegade Rollerz.

Roller derby is essentially a race between two teams on old-school, four-wheeled skates. It’s close-quarters competition with hip checks and pushing allowed but no punches or elbow throwing. Skaters zoom around a flat track, each team trying to rack up as many points as possible. To score points, the skater called a jammer must legally pass skaters called blockers as she makes her way around the track.

And yes, you can get hurt. Bruises, rink abrasions, broken bones, concussions — the physicality of this sport is real. Athletes are required to wear helmets, mouth guards, wrist guards and pads on their elbows and knees.

Practices aren’t anything like their matches, where athletes get dolled up, donning heavy makeup — often with glitter — and sexy outfits. During practice the players run through drills, like working on footwork or skating backward, and strategize for bouts. And a few times a year, there are skills assessment tests that team members have to pass, such as completing 27 laps — which equates to roughly a mile — in five minutes.

Skating, in general, works the muscles in your legs, hips and lower back and builds agility and coordination. Many derby athletes train outside of practice, doing squats, pushups and crunches to strengthen key muscle groups.

Even Berard, a CrossFit devotee and former high school athlete, was surprised by how hard she worked in practice.

"I have muscles I didn’t know I had," she said. "And I hurt in places I didn’t know I could hurt."

The sport is a calorie torcher. An hour of roller derby can burn between 400 and 1,000 calories.

"When I leave practice at night, I can literally squeeze sweat from my pads and hair," Berard said.

Berard first heard about roller derby years ago, when she watched the quintessential derby movie, "Whip It," and also from a friend who competed on a team in Key West, Fla. But she didn’t get involved until she moved to Oahu in 2012 and got a job at the Queen’s Medical Center in West Oahu. It was stressful, and her CrossFit practices weren’t cutting it.

Then her husband, a mechanic in the U.S. Coast Guard, gave her a flier from Pacific Roller Derby, which was holding a tryout session in Hawaii Kai called Fresh Meat. About 30 women turned up for the tryout, including Berard, who hadn’t been on quad skates since she was a kid in Albany, Ga.

"We looked like baby giraffes on skates," she said.

Berard was hooked. She got a pair of old-school, four-wheeled skates for a few hundred dollars, spent another $200 on the required safety gear (a helmet, knee and elbow pads, a mouth guard and wrist guards) and bought insurance. It wasn’t a huge upfront investment, she said.

She started going to practice three times a week — twice at the basketball court at the Papakolea Community Park and every Sunday in Mililani — and started to help out with the organization. She’s currently in charge of the league’s finances.

Even though she’s skated now for more than two years, Berard still has a difficult time going fast. What keeps her interested, even when she was out for six months with an ankle fracture, is the camaraderie. Her teammates — and even skaters from opposing teams — get together for drinks, dinners and hikes.

"It’s just a really fascinating and diverse community of people," Berard said.

In her league there are women ranging in age from 18 to 50. There are other nurses, a firefighter, a gunner’s mate in the Coast Guard, an art curator and lots of moms who bring their kids to practice and matches. Nearly everyone goes by a derby name, even off the rink.

"Oh, I’ve answered the phone at work as Dixie," Berard said.

And roller derby is a sport for anyone, Berard said. It’s fun, healthy and a great way to release stress.

"I work three 12-hour shifts, and I have to be really patient," she said. "So all that built-up frustration? I get to release it when I play roller derby."

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