13 minute read
BLUSH CHILDREN'S SPA
It’s never too early to learn the importance of self care.
Blush Children’s Spa, inside the Francis Scott Key Mall in Frederick, offers a playful spa experience for children up to 12 years old.
The spa opened in May 2021 and caters to young clientele.
While spas for adults tend to have serene, quiet atmospheres, Blush offers a space where kids can dance and play.
“They can be children and be themselves,” says owner Cynthia Hollingsworth. “We want them to have a fun, good experience.”
Each small guest is treated like a princess, Hollingsworth said, while they spend time with family and friends.
Mini spa services include manicures and pedicures with regular and gel polishes. Facials are available too.
Aside from treatments, kids can take part in fun spa-theme activities such as creating your own sugar scrub, lip gloss, bath salt and lotion potion. Choose the Princess for a Day package for maximum pampering. This includes a runway photo shoot, manicure, facial, picture frame and hair accessories.
The spa is a popular place for children to host a birthday party with their friends.
Hollingsworth loves seeing children’s smiling faces when they first walk in the doors to the spa. The bright colors and fun atmosphere speak volumes.
“They see that it is mainly for them,” she says.
Hollingsworth hopes the spa will play a part in helping kids to carry themselves with confidence and will help them understand the importance of taking care of their bodies into adulthood.
“When they get older, they will know how to do it,” Hollingsworth says.
-by Gina Gallucci-White
Blush Children's Spa 5500 Buckeystown Pike (inside FSK Mall) Frederick 301.228.2790 F facebook.com/ Blushchildrensspa d @blushchildrensspa
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Let the Good Times ROLL
by Ellyn Wexler
Frederick Roller Derby is in a league of its own.
The 50-plus members of Frederick Roller Derby – including 28 active skaters – share a love of derby and its community, and vary in age (18 to 61), experience and profession.
They’re a far cry from how roller derby first began.
When roller derby was born, some 50 years ago, it had a professional wrestling or even circus vibe, full of staged action and dirty fighting, and a predetermined outcome. The new millennium brought a welcome turnaround. Reborn in 2001 in Austin, Texas, roller derby emerged as a legitimate sport in which athleticism prevails.
“Whip It,” a 2009 movie featuring a 16-year-old beauty queen who joins a derby team, put the sport in the national spotlight, attracting more players and spectators. But outside the Hollywood glamour, diversity is the reality.
During a derby bout, which is divided into two 30-minute halves, five players – three blockers, a jammer and a pivot from each team – compete in up to two-minute scrimmages, or jams, on a flat track. The jammer’s goal is to break through the opposing team’s blockers, who work to impede their progress, and score points for every player passed on the second break-through. The main job of the pivot, the leader on the track, is to help the jammer; it’s the only position that can change to jammer, as necessary, within a jam.
The action is complex and fast-moving enough that seven referees work the track.
FRD team members wear blue jerseys for home bouts, orange for away matches, embellished with their derby names and numbers. Mandatory protective gear includes a helmet and mouth and wrist guards, as well as elbow and knee pads. Players may add individual flair with items like a distinctive hairstyle, face paint or even a tutu or fishnet stockings. They take on derby names to define their personas.
Frederick Snallygasters is FRD’s recreational team name, chosen because “the team wanted something that was fun, and also had some heritage,” explained 46-year-old co-founder and co-captain Renee Yockelson. The legend of the Snallygaster, a strange beast that prowls the woods of Frederick County and pounces on unsuspecting prey, dates to the 1730s.
When their previous team didn’t resume play after pandemic shutdowns, Yockelson and her best friend, co-captain Jen Bennetch, 39, founded FRD in September 2021. They credit Alex Garibay, the City of Frederick Parks and Recreation Department’s recreation supervisor, for finding them a home space at Trinity Recreation Center. The team’s first bout was in April, and they expect to play monthly.
Although FRD is currently a recreational team, Yockelson said they are working on creating a Women's Flat Track Derby Associationsanctioned team as well as a more competitive team named Frederick Roller Derby All Stars. Yockelson’s derby name, RoboChop, comes from “the first time I ever was unruly at a theater;” seeing the 1987 film “RoboCop.” Blocker or pivot are RoboChop’s usual positions. She identified
Now a Mount Airy resident, Yockelson was a “skate rat” while growing up in South Carolina. “I lived at my local skate rink from ages 4 to 15.” She first saw a roller derby bout in 2009, and joined a team two years later. While dismissing her day jobs as “the worst,” she said, “in derby, all my fears, worries, cares of the world melt away and I am that child again.”
In contrast, Bennetch, who lives in Hagerstown, was completely new to skating when she found derby in 2010, shortly after relocating to Maryland from Philadelphia. Her derby name, Killa Delphia,
AKA Killy, is a nod to her hometown. Even though she had not skated before, the movie “Whip It!” made the sport “look really cool.” During her initial training, Bennetch recalled, “I would hang on to the railings for two hours.” She saw her first live derby match after she began training.
Now, some 11 years later, Bennetch not only plays jammer and pivot, but also trains new skaters.
A “fresh meat” program teaches newbies both skating and derby skills. Killy, who always braids her hair for a game, identified her strengths as footwork, upper body strength, and good communication on the track. Of all the sports she has played, she said, derby requires much more talking amongst players. Her day job, as a regulatory compliance manager for biomedical research at Fort Detrick, provides her with “a little balance.”
Other players echo the sentiments of their captains. There’s Devon Atkinson, 28, AKA
Devastation, a Frederick resident who does preclinical cancer research for Leidos Biomedical as a contractor to the National Cancer Institute.
A weekly skater during middle school, she joined
FRD in October “because I wanted to do something outside my comfort zone.”
After seeing her first game, an FRD open house a couple of days before her first practice, “I was in love,” she recalled. Now a “very, very new” blocker,” she said, “I am good at digging in and holding a player, but need to improve on my lateral movements.”
Harriet Harris, 28, of Frederick, explained their derby name, Shred Bundy. “I have always been heavily into true crime,” they said. “I thought it would be fitting to have a play on words of a serial killer and skating.” Shred wears black lipstick for bouts, “not so much for my name, but because it gives me a boost of confidence before I hit the track.” Harris is a full-time student studying agricultural education at University of Maryland, and owns a mushroom farm called BaltiSpore.
Harris, who joined FRD at its start, took up skating to make friends while attending school in Olympia, Washington. “I had never roller skated in my life, but the new skater program teaches you everything you need to know,” they said. “Seeing powerful skaters of all shapes and sizes was so unlike every other sport I’d ever been part of, and the bond they all shared was out of this world. It was also incredibly inclusive, and provided me with a safe space to come out and truly live an authentic life. I was hooked from the go, and I’m forever grateful for finding it.”
As Shred Bundy, Harris typically blocks, but is
“hoping to grow into being a pivot and jamming.”
Their strongest skills: “I’m really stable and solid, so it’s hard to knock me down, though it does happen. I can be a powerful hitter when jamming, but I need to work on my endurance and jammer brain. You have to train yourself to think about the quickest ways to get out and move around the track, which is hard to do when you’re getting hit from all directions.”
To create her derby name, Wrecka Rinker, Becca
Kennedy, 32, of Thurmont, combined her maiden name, her heritage as a “rink rat as a kid” in her native Pennsylvania, plus the rhyme with her first name. “Also, I frequently joke that I'm a wreck lately, and it just seemed silly and fitting!”
The Frederick mother of two young children who works as a fitness instructor and substitute teacher also joined when the league formed.
Kennedy returned to skating to accompany her 5-year-old daughter. “Just skating captured a feeling of freedom I hadn’t had for a long time,” she said. Still “my skills were nowhere near the veteran skaters, and I didn't know the game at all.”
While Kennedy aspires to become a jammer, which requires “the most work and pressure,” for now, she prefers playing “inside butt … the blocker closest to the inside of the track,” to accommodate her stronger side. “But I'll block wherever I'm needed.
I'm still quite new, so I'm still learning and exploring what I'm good at, and what I should try.” “I’m working on building my skills and stamina,” she said, noting that she is very “coachable… open to feedback from the more experienced skaters and my coaches.” She recognizes needing to get her hips more open for T-pushes and side surfing, and remembering to get low. “If we bend our knees deep, we are in a better position to absorb a hit, give a hit, move quickly, or fall down safely.”
The FRD players agreed that the coaches and their fellow skaters are supportive and encouraging.
“The energy is incredible,” Kennedy observed.
“Everyone just wants to help each other be the best they can be, so we can all succeed. It’s a wonderful atmosphere!” FRD practices on skates on Mondays, 7:30 to 10 p.m., and Fridays, 8:30 to 10:30 p.m., at Trinity Recreation Center, 6040 New Design Road, Frederick, and get together at Tally Recreation Center, 121 North Benz St., Frederick, for gym time Wednesdays, 8 to 10 p.m. New skaters are invited to come to Trinity on Saturdays, 4 to 6 p.m.
Frederick Roller Derby F facebook.com/FrederickRollerDerby/ frederickrollerderby@gmail.com
54 E. Patrick Street • Frederick, MD • 240-285-9449 Email: Frederick@kikastretchstudios.com
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