The Rules Committee Theory Panel has been monitoring a potential issue over the last two years and feels the time has come to make a public statement providing direction.
The Rules of Flat Track Roller Derby detail a number of ways to legally and illegally block. The Rules cannot exhaustively catalog all possible forms of contact, and there will remain gray areas. However the absence of a specific prohibition does not implicitly make an action legal. The action must be evaluated in the spirit of the sport and in line with other similar actions.
Legal forms of blocking do not include grasping or holding an opponent even if the contact is made using legal blocking and/or target zones. This illegal hold can take several forms including intentionally trapping an opponent’s arm, or as has been observed in some recent play, encircling an opponent’s leg. The latter of which is a dangerous and unfair tactic. A skater must be able to disengage from a one-on-one block without breaking an opponent’s hold.
It is within the Referees' discretion to penalize these illegal holds as Unsporting Conduct.