Layla Smackdown: ‘Roller derby is my temple’

By PAUL HAIST, Jewish Review

article created on: 2012-01-01T00:00:00

Any day of the week here in Portland that you happen to run into Alix Zimmermann—two final n’s, the Jewish spelling, she says—right away you hear in her voice traces of her native Lawn Guyland.

You want to be careful around Zimmermann. Running into her can be a mistake. And letting her run into you? Well, that would be an even bigger mistake.

The athletic, healthy-looking 31-year-old body waxer with Urban Waxx (yes, two final x's, the Jewish spelling) once outside the salon is none other than Layla Smackdown, a tough-as-nails blocker for the High Rollers, one team that competes under the aegis of the Rose City Rollers roller derby league in Portland.

Roller derby has given meaning to Smackdown’s life.

“Before Derby, (I) ran around in circles slamming into strangers. Derby made that acceptable,” she writes on her team website.

Roller Derby is alive and well in Portland and in many other cities across the country. Where they used to compete on late-night and weekend TV on specially constructed banked tracks, today they compete off the little screen on flat-track ovals that are less expensive to build and maintain. There would be a lot less roller derby if they had to skate on the expensive banked tracks, Smackdown explained.

In Portland, Rose City Rollers teams usually compete at Oaks Park, but not on the historic roller rink there; instead inside the building called the hangar just across from the rink. For bigger events, the teams sometimes skate at Memorial Coliseum, said Smackdown.

Smackdown didn’t grow up in Roller Derby.

“I had a meager skating upbringing back East,” she said, “a little bit of ice skating. But this was something I needed to be doing.”

She took up the sport about six years ago when she joined a New Jersey league. She came to Portland about four years ago.

She said her mother always told her to go to synagogue in a strange city to make friends and figure out where you are, so to speak.

Smackdown took her mother’s advice, sort of. She came out West, she said—conjuring scenes from “Portlandia”—“because, I needed a change, I needed to live someplace with emphasis on quality of life.”

But she didn’t check in with a synagogue. She checked in with the local roller derby community.

“Roller derby is my temple,” she said. “One can move to any larger city and be welcomed with open arms. The outpouring of support has been amazing.”

Smackdown is doing pretty well on eight wheels. She and her team went to the national finals in Denver in November.

The way it works is the local chapter of the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association—in Portland that’s the Rose City Rollers—selects the strongest performers from local teams to assemble what they call a traveling team.

Smackdown’s hometown team is the High Rollers. She was selected from its ranks to skate on Portland’s traveling team, which is called Wheels of Justice.

In Denver, the Wheels of Justice were eliminated in the first round by the Kansas City Warriors, a team that went on to take fourth place overall.

That was disappointing, but Smackdown is optimistic. “This is the first year our team has made it to the nationals,” she said. The previous two years they were knocked out—literally—at the regionals, but they did better each year, and, if Smackdown has her way, that will remain the trend.

She loves to mix it up on the track.

Her favorite part of derby? “Hearing girls scream out in frustration because they’re trapped behind me is one of the most satisfying feelings I’ve ever had.”

Learn more about roller derby in Portland online at www.wftda.com/leagues/rose-city or, more broadly, at wftda.com.