Indy? Who's Indy?

So I should probably get to posting a whole lot more often...

What is new, what is new....?
I worked and worked and worked and just couldn't break my mental block over turning around. I just couldn't put that skate behind me. I worked with friends. I begged help from refs. I watched everyone else in the league do it.
One day, we had a guest coach from Uinta Madness. He is a competitive speed skater as well as probably the strongest player on UMRD. He always works us really hard, and I always learn a lot. Unfortunately, this particular practice, he was working with us on plow stops. This is good, my stops in general suck. But for some reason, I was hurting pretty bad, my knee was really painful, so I decided not to push it and skated over to the baby pool to work on a few things myself. As I was totally alone, I decided that this would be an appropriate time to work on that mental block.
Don't know how, but somehow, I managed to make myself turn around. Yep. Me. Scardey cat Indy turned around. Was it a fluke? I should try that again. Whaddaya know? I did it again! Encouraged by my successes, I kept working on it. I can now consistently turn around and rarely fall down doing it.
YAY INDY!!! It's been a while since I had some progress in my skills, and suddenly I find myself improving again. It has been very good for me. I received several compliments at last week's scrimmage. I had been feeling very down about my abilities. I had actually considered retiring from derby skating altogether, and concentrating on officiating. I have renewed my love of the game, and resumed my incessant studying of the rules. Look out derby, Indy's back in full effect!