At the age of 34, I found the vibrant, welcoming and incredible world of Roller Derby.

From someone who was never terribly athletic, I found myself challenging myself in ways I never knew I was capable of.

Roller derby is a full contact sport played on quad skates where each team fields four blockers and one jammer. Jammers make points by passing the opposing team’s blockers. As blockers, our goal is to not only help our jammer but to stop the opposing team’s jammer by any (legal) means necessary.

We don’t have games, rather we have bouts and instead of innings we have jams that can last up to two minutes. Jams can be action-packed and roller derby is all about the “pack”. Pack is defined by the largest amount of blockers congregated on the track from a mix of the two teams. We play in extremely close proximity to each other.

For those of us derby players who menstruate, our periods do not stop for bouts and navigating our periods through playing (and playing hard) is pretty important.

For me (and many of my teammates) the DivaCup has been a life saver.

I mean seriously can you imagine playing a physically demanding and exhausting sport using abrasive cotton as your period support? Not to mention, trying to change a tampon during half time while on roller skates? On top of that, the last thing I would want to do is to leak on another blocker when I am essentially “sitting” on them to stop them from moving forward.

With up to 12-hours of leak free protection, the DivaCup means I don’t even have to think about my period while I am playing, while I am up close and personal with other players, or while I making it clear to the opposing jammer that they “shall not pass!” For me, thanks to the DivaCup, leaks are a thing of the past, as is chafing from using cotton disposables.

Honestly, I may not have been an athlete for long, but I cannot imagine how athletes can use anything else to manage their periods while performing! The DivaCup just makes sense! I am so very happy that I made the switch and even when my derby career is over, I am never looking back!