Nick "Houdini" Polini

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So I told myself I wouldn't play, but Nick P had to text me this morning... "What's up???" That pretty much means that we're playing footbag all day lol We had a really fun session though... Like always

Nick had some boss highlights, read them in his blog. He's moving along quite well We played in Nick's kitchen today, which was actually a really nice surface.

Highlights:

Inspinning Clipper bs, Each side was hit multiple times. My strong side is almost dialed! My weakside hit more of them in just that session than I've hit.... EVER! Super pumped on that
In-Gyro Mirage bs, Madd nice, Madd sticky-to-my-footy
FS Atomsmasher (2nd one ever, strong only)
Cleared a Flip Symp. Atomic on flipside... Couldn't hit a Mirage out of it, but at least I got the hardest part.
Spinning Ducking Osis> Spinning Ducking Butterfly, 2nd or 3rd try..
Definitely figuring out my Pixies and my Flip Symp. Swirls.

Ok, now, I seriously can't let myself play tomorrow! Yeah, cool, good job on the bs Inspinning Clippers... Certainly happy about that.. But YOU NEED A BREAK TOMORROW!!! I'm like no different from a junkie. I always say that, but fuck man, I can't not play footbag! Even when I tell myself that I'm not allowed. I told myself I was only going to drill swirls and reverse swirls today.... and I end up doing all this bullshit. I might be retarded. Big confession in my blog right here... I figure, if you, the reader, care enough about me to read my blog, then I might as well include some things about myself that most people don't really don't really know about me... I was actually supposed to be born retarded... I came out with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck and I wasn't breathing. Apparently, the doctors put me in some crazy ass breathing machine and got me going just in time. But they said, any longer and I would have had serious brain problems. I'm just thankful I came out pretty alright and not a fucking drooling imbecile. But yeah, no footbag tomorrow.

[Jazzkid]

Sick highlights often from u...also thanks for the info about ur life....I'm also happy ur not retarded....


I do feel like this opens u up to instant jokes so I'll begin.....
1 wait ur not retarded?
2 ...us that why you wear tight necklaces
3 ...umbilical necklace for christmass ?
4 ....of course I'm Just kidding with all of this

[sen]

wait ur not retarded?

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Mark, I cracked the FUCK up when I read your last post. The #1 thing you listed was HiLaRiOussss. I threw a shit fit of laughter when I read that for the first time.

So... I took a little bit of a break from footbag... Had a pretty terrible session with Nick the other day, so I didn't really blog about it. My legs felt like pudding. And recently, I've been talking to Kevin Hogan a lot and he's been drilling a shitload of his tiltless, which made me think a lot... That's the key. TILTLESS. So thanks to Kevin, I've really been concentrating on tiltless for a little while.. well, I just started tonight, but you know what I mean.

I spent the last 3 days with my girlfriend, and she helped me take a break from footbag. I have never been so in love with a girl like I am with her. I really just wanna shout it from a mountain top. Our chemistry is absolutely amazing and I never thought I could get along with a girl like I do with her. Sorry that was kinda corny to put in a footblog, but I just wanted to mention that. I am so happy with her.

Anyway, I drilled Kickless and Tiltless tonight all with this very rolly and stiff bag Jeremy stitched a while ago.. This thing would not accept a bum clipper. First off, I remembered Kevin told me he hit a shitload of alt. toe stalls. I was like "WHAT THE...?! WHOA, You counted that many toe stalls?" He did. So I did too. Then I drilled clippers.

Highlights:

603 alternating toe delays! Shin bumped the bag and it dropped, otherwise I felt like I could keep going. Might try to break it soon.
Clippers. Hit around 100 consecutive strong ss clippers... Was surprised how little effort I had to use. Then I tried flipside consecutive ss clippers... First shot.. 4... FUCK! Then... 10... JESUS! I just found such a terrible hole in my game! It was such a struggle to get 10 even! I was kinda pissed that I neglected flip ss clippers for so long. I spent 3 hours'ish on them tonight. First record was 11, then 16, then 22, and I ended on 33! Not bad for sucking tremendously at it in the beginning. Something almost magical happened after I drilled that clipper stuff... Ripwalk x10 was like clockwork... My flip spinning got stronger... My flip Reverse Swirls and Swirls felt much stronger. Drifters got easier. Whirls on flip felt like I was chopping the fucking air in half! Blenders felt more controlled! I was also able to control my flip ducking and diving a little better with less effort. It absolutely amazed me what working on my flip clipper did for my entire game in just a few hours! I'm going to continue working it until I can control it 100%.

Can't wait to start training tiltless again. Pretty stoked actually.

Merry Crystalmethmas.

[g00d33]

Hey dude, a fun thing to do with toe stalls, is not necessarily count them, but see how long you can go while doing them. Like, throw on some music and see how many songs you can get through. I remember like 2 years ago Anssi posted something saying how he did various basic stalls for like a half hour straight or something like that. When I tried, my best was almost 8 minutes lol. But yeah, it's fun

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

That is obnoxiously interesting, John. I don't know if "obnoxiously" is a good descriptive word in this case, but I'm pretty much saying... I'm gonna try that haha Thanks for the tips, buddy.

Ok so, today, I needed to play footbag, like usual, so at first I had a quick session with Jackson. Nothing good was hit... actually, I just ended up drilling after a while. Before drills, I started trying to force legover tricks into my Guiltless game. that seemed to work for a little bit. After that session, Jackson's leg was bothering him so he went inside... Then Nick called me asking if I could kick. I drove up to his place and we had a pretty good session. He hit a new 5 ADD and some other good stuff. I had some decent shit.

Highlights:

Matador BSOS! Pretty stoked on that... My Nukes are feeling better.
Inspinning Clipper BSOS... 2nd BSOS of that trick, but this time both inspins felt much more controlled.
First Flipside Flapper Ripwalk
Nice run with Paradon, Barrage, some ducks, spins, stepping, and whatnot. Pretty happy with that, since I never really use barrages or double downs in my game. Will start using more double downs, barrages, and legovers in my game.
Broke my flip muted ss clipper record... Ended on 33 last night... broke it with 36 during session with Jackson... then broke that with 42 during session with Nick. They are definitely much more controlled now and I almost always hit AT LEAST 20some. Starting to see improvements in them already.
Broke my old Legover record of 31 with 40something. Want to break that soon.

Agenda For:

-Tonight: Compete in a grueling battle of "Just Dance 3" against my Mom.
-Tomorrow: Play footbag.

Ediiiiiiiiiiiiit:

My mom kinda bailed on dance battling me. Didn't really have much else to do, since most of my friends from back home are now douchebags, so I started looking for tips on Pixies, since that is sadly the only set I suck at (aside from Quantums.. which I don't really care about learning right now)... What I found kind of ticked me off...

Pixie is definitely the easiest set to master.

What I just quoted REALLY got under my skin... When I read that, I rolled it around in my head a shitload of times... The more I recited it, the more pissed off I became... I can now duck both of my Nuclear sets and I BSOS'ed Matador, Hit Ripped Warrior b2b, Fairy Ducking Butterfly BS, Skullsmasher bs... But I realized I have a lot of trouble with Pixie sets on bs, I've never hit Flip Darkwalk, AND I've never even BSOS'ed Phoenix! So if that shit is so easy, WHY AM I SO BAD AT IT WHEN I CAN HIT ALL THE OTHER SHIT!?!?! So I decided... tonight is the night where I make some HEAVY improvements on Pixies ... And that was so... After working on the proper form for Pixies I got some nice...

...Highlights!!!:

Lots of good BSOS Dimwalks & BSOS Smears... Controlled and small dexing motions
Flip Darkwalk! First time hit.
Phoenix BSOS! The flip Phoenixes were definitely like my 3rd through 10th I believe. I only hit Flip Phoenix a few times before this. Really happy with my progress on Pixies tonight.

Hey Nick, If you're reading this... Tonight, I DID finally figure out Pixies

[dolercoaster]

You should come up to the NYFA jam with Pipebomb....kitty sez hi

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Bruce! I really wish I could go, but my mom isn't budging. She's kinda right though... need to save my money for car bills I really wanna go though. Mega pissed I can't.

But in better news...

Highlight:
A run with Paradon BSOS and Barrage BSOS
RuBbErMaN!!!!!!!!!!! I was filming while I hit it too... However, when I did manage to hit it and seal it, I looked back and my camera was blown over by the wind and was shut off I did manage to catch Blur> Atom> Leg> Blur> Leg, but I don't really wanna upload it until I hit it clean again and on film.

^That Rubberman is for JEREMY MELLOR, Mark Monistere, Kevin Hogan, and John Goode.

Something very sad happened recently... Jeremy was diagnosed with stress fractures in both legs 6-8 weeks recovery. If you're reading this, you should stop by Jeremy's blog and share some words with him. Pretty sad. Be strong man. You'll get through it and get back into footbag before you know it.

[g00d33]

Props, dude! Rubberman is baller.

Tell your mom you'll be making people happy by gracing the lovely city of new york merely with your presence! (and your feet!)

edit: fixed the our/your!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Tell our mom you'll be making people happy by gracing the lovely city of new york merely with your presence! (and your feet!)

Haha you said "our" mom. That was cool. Anyway, that post from John is what got me to go to NYFA. My mom knows that John is a good kid and she finally gave in and let me go once I read that to her haha

New York was a blast! Was sick seeing Clavens play again, as well as kicking with all of my friends again and just hanging out before and after sessions. I might try to do a write-up. Lots of fun shit happened, so it'll be difficult to capture all of it, but I might attempt it later... For now, some random highlights...

BIG APPLE in the Big Apple~! So sick. Kevin said it was clean. I was madd hyped.
Flapper Nuclear ss Osis (Meh, I really wanna get better at this so I can at least hit Matador from it. Shit's hard though...)
Some great runs
Most important... FUN with good friends.
Jason Bateman watched John Goode and I play footbag while hanging out with the Myachi guys at Toys'R'Us. FAME, YO.

Celebrating New Years with my girl and taking a break from footbag for a bit. Going to concentrate on cross-training for a little while.

Ain't no pawty like a new years pawty.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Tonight, Nick and I had a "Going-Back-To-College" session. He goes back tomorrow, and I go back this Thursday. Hope he keeps kicking a lot down there in C-Bus. His stuff is really starting to come together.

Highlights:

Blender> Symp Mirage bs (always liked this link since I saw Lon hit it in Luis M's video with Chad D. )

So now, I really am going to take a break from footbag for a while. Nadiah gave me a healing massage with aromatic oils last night and it felt so fucking good. M leg pain was gone after she was finished. I even passed out and fell asleep during the massage, but she didn't care and kept doing it. She said she wants to give me massages after all of my sessions this semester. She's so awesome. I feel so lucky to have her as a girlfriend.

But yeah, taking a break now. If I do play, it will be simple tiltless. I need my flip leg to get stronger. Probably good to take a break now, so I can actually concentrate on school for a while.

Happy New Year, errbody!

[Pasquar]

If I do play, it will be simple tiltless.

I've heard that many a-time, my friend

[Nathan]

She said she wants to give me massages after all of my sessions this semester.

Hold on to that girl tight, man.

I'm excited for the next semester and getting our crew back together. I'm probably taking another month off or so, so I won't be bugging you to play. Ivan will probably be a different story..

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nick: You were right...

Nathan: That's alright dude, I'll be taking a month off with you. We should still hang out sometimes if you're able to. Hope your back is alright soon.


So this is kind of a shitty post... I feel like I might be injured. Kevin, I know you told me that you're sure I'm not, but I can feel something in my leg that I just can't explain. Something is wrong with my weakside shin bone. It scares me. I'm hoping it's not a fracture. I'm going to take 3 weeks off of footbag... I've been rolling the idea around in my mind for a while now and I think I've finally come to accept the fact that I might have to be finished playing the sport I love so much, for at least a few months... I'm going to work my legs out a lot during this break, and hopefully my legs are stronger and don't have this problem after a month of break. Another thing is, I have a small squishy bump on my shin, which I feel may be (but hoping it isn't) a calcium deposit from a fracture. Anyway, I just had my last footbag mini-session... if you could call it that.. I wanted to end my month-break/long-term hiatus on a good note with a trick I've always admired...

Flip Singularity (New on flip)

Yeah, maybe you're saying to yourself "Nick if you're injured, you shouldn't have played just now." I don't give a shit. I LOVE footbag and I wanted to go on this break with something I was proud of. The last trick I might hit for a while is something I'm really happy with. I'm really depressed about this, because I do fear for the worst.

[sen]

Dude, go to a doctor and get that stuff checked out.

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

^truth. if you actually do have a fracture/super serious injury the best thing for you to do is go to the doctor so you can start the healing process as soon as possible.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So, I took yalls advice and went to see the doctor. Shin splints! No fractures!

Back to playing lightly. Gonna go school some clippers with George. Will post later. Glad to be back knowing I can still play the sport I love!

Oh yeah, I had a post-intercourse session with a condom.

Highlights:

Freak (Fairy Rake) with condom> Pendulum into a trashcan first try! My girlfriend thought it was cool

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Just got back from a session with George, Ivan, and Ryan. George hit his first Toe ss DLO and a bunch of new 2 ADDs. Ivan and Ryan had sort of off days today :\

My first real session back to footbag went rather well.

Highlights:

Controlled, nice-feeling strings
Spinning clipper> my 40th flipside Ripstein> nice string
Whirlwind (New) about 4 times.... Gonna upload footage of 2 of them once my phone stops being a pussy.
Spinning Pdx DLO (New)
Spinning Clipper> Spinning Osis> rpt> long string
Paradon Swirl
Pdx Blender BS
Super controlled Symp Swirls (Much easier now that I put some time into my flip clipper) and Inspinning Clippers BS felt so much easier, thanks to that clipper work)
Footed a bunch of dope stuff toward the end, but I'm gonna write that stuff down just so I can keep working on it.

Gonna be doing strength training for a while until I build up some more muscle in my flip leg, then I'll be coming back to stepping ducking, atomic ducking and some other higher impact shit in the future.

Glad to be playing again

[sen]

While trying not to sound gay... I missed you. Nice session.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yo Tony, thanks a lot man. Been reading your blog. It's looking better and better. Just drill, beat your tiltless record by at least 1 each session, and do a shitload of BOPs... That stuff will benefit you the most right now.


um.. HAI!

So I'm kind of excited to post in my blog right now... because footbag has been pretty ok toward me and my recent injury. I took Mathieu's advice and warmed up super well before I did any explosive movements. That seemed to work. I found that with pre-session stretching and lap jogging, and trying to incorporate proper form, my legs feel really good. Really pleased with some things in footbag right now. For one, before my long break, Inspinning Clipper and Flip Symp Swirls were something I really wanted... No... NEEDED for my game, and I worked them before I got injured and then obviously stopped doing them while I took a break, and now. I almost always hit both Inspinning Clippers and Flip Symp Swirls. Both of them feel really good.

Anyway, had a session with the club the other day. Doug figured out how to do proper toe delays and he was doing a shitload of them consecutively with ease. He just had to slow down. Ryan hit his first clean Illusions. He was stoked. Luke hit his first Pickups. George and Ivan are getting so good. Ivan's hitting drills like Symp Mirage> Legover rpt and George REALLY reminds me of myself when I was tiltless... He's been getting close to Dragon> Reverse Swirl... Spittin image of me a year ago He's also pretty much got flappers and front sole on dial, and he hit his first DLO recently along with some other cool shit. Everyone is really improving. Nathan played for a little until his back started hurting He's gonna do weight training for a while until he solves his back issues. Propbably gonna stitch with him soon. One cool thing about the session was, I had a private session with Nadiah afterward and she learned toe delay bs... Pretty damn good too, considering she was in a pair of running shoes. She likes it though, and wants to keep learning, so SCORE!

Oh yeah.. Highlights:

Most proud of Inspinning Clipper> Reverse Swirl bs within only a few tries. Pretty sweet
Torque> Inspinning Osis almost bs... flipside had it once, but missed the catch.
Good run with Nuke ss Osis, Ripstein, Gyro Whirl, Spinning Ducking Clipper, Pdx Whirl, Blender, Torque and some other fun stuff. The Blender and Torque were only 1 contact away from each other. Pretty happy about that.

Nothing too amazing. Pretty glad I had the control off of an In-clipper to Reverse Swirl out of it with ease... and on both sides too! A week ago, that would not have happened.

Itching to play again.

Oh yeah, something kinda sick happened... I had a lucid dream the other night and when I realized I was dreaming, I decided to play footbag I'm not very good at keeping asleep when I realize that I'm having a lucid dream, so I quick thought of something to hit since I knew I didn't have much time... NEMESIS. Fuck yeah. I went for it.... Tossed the bag to myself... And in SLOW MOTION, I hit a very clean, very deep Nemesis.... And I spun out of it, but it was too much for my head to handle and I started spiralling out of my dream and then I woke up and realized that I can still barely hit Double Downs and Janiwalkers Dream big