Ruck Pad

Welcome to Julia Rosen’s personal blog. Originally from Mars, I now reside in California, by way of DC and Vassar College. I have interned for legislators, volunteered for Congressional campaigns and worked professionally for a major non-profit, union, a ballot campaign, and small non-profits. Much of my work has been in online communications. I am currently serving as the Online Political Director for Courage Campaign. The New Organizing Institute has invited me to be a trainer for their online organizing training programs. I play rugby for the Davis Double Deckers, having previously played for the DC Furies and at Vassar.

Where you can find my other writings:
Currently I write for the Courage Campaign, as part of my official duties and I will occasionally post at Crooks & Liars. At Calitics I am officially an editor, though on the Facebook group I am titled “Uniter…not a divider”. You can find my writings at Daily Kos and MyDD as juls. On Open Left, I post under my own name. If you get emails from Courage Campaign, most likely I had a role in their creation. I also write there regularly.

About the name Ruck Pad
A ruck is a phase of play in rugby. Basically, when a player is tackled by another player and goes to ground they have to release the ball immediately. Then anyone can grab it. Often there will be contact between players from opposing teams over top of the ball and the tackler and tacklee. That is a ruck. It creates a line of offsides. Players then push and shove with the goal of moving their feet over top of the ball, allowing another player to pick it up and create a new phase of play.

During training, you use a covered foam pad to practice coming into a ruck and hitting other players: a ruck pad. In this case, I intended the word pad to have a double meaning, as in both a place and physical pad.

BTW here is the full version of the picture in the header of a ruck. Don’t worry, all rucks don’t look like this one.

(Google Bombing)
Julia Rosen