Khoa Nguyen's footblog

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
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anhkhoashevakt
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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 02 Aug 2014 07:43

Sorry guys for another delay of the VLOG on the FS Football championship. These last couple of weeks have been a crazy time for me, in a bad way unfortunately. All the sickness, and the intense lab work regime that I followed after that alongside with a class have rendered me incapacitated to do almost anything else. These last couple weeks have really made me rethink my goals and priorities in life and made me realize that may be some things aren't really worth pursuing for me after all (don't worry it's not either fs football or footbag).

I promise after the next 2 months I will resume writing my blog a bit more regularly. Things are really just a bit too hot for me right now.

I hope you guys will have a great couple of months training.

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by isirc10 » 11 Aug 2014 18:26

You were missed at our session on Sunday. Hope things are looking up.
Ivan Iakimenko

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 11 Aug 2014 19:36

I agree, hope you're well, buddy. Can't wait to sure it with you again.
Nick Polini

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"Yeah dude it's all mental. Then it's physical" ~Evan Gatesman

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 20 Aug 2014 19:10

Thanks guys.
I have made some major reflections on life these last couple weeks.
The most important one of them is that: I like teaching more than almost anything, but I unfortunately don't like research (as well as having no special gift at it either) so I most likely will not follow anything related to the research tract in my future. Heck, the aspect of me getting a Ph.D is truly far right now even. I don't know if I will be able to get any degree out of this. Still, making these reflections, as well as telling my parents about them straight on, has really improved my life lately.
I love my parents. Really, I do. However, they always seem to have this idea that I will grow up to be someone famous, making tons of money and (most likely) would follow their career tract and become a reknown doctor (surgeon, even better!). Therefore, a lot of my life choices from when I was a kid was made by my mom and dad, including my decision to follow this career tract that I am on right now (I'm an international student, and therefore if I got a Ph.D or a Masters, it would mean easier entry to Med school for me).
However, the last couple weeks have really made me reflect deeply about what I am doing and what I really want in life, and sadly, it's not this! At Jamps last year, when I was kicking with Goerge, he told me: "Khoa, if you are one half as dedicated to your studies as much as you dedicated yourself to freestyle footbag, you will be great!" and I believed him. The problem was though, I did not. I remembered a famous quote in "Superman: Earth One" by Jonathan Kent that said: "Only when you can't take it any more, when you see red, will you realize what you stand for!". These last couple weeks, as the work load in the lab keep increasing, I go to work everyday unmotivated, and not because my supervisors were not good to me or anything (granted the people in my lab sometimes yelled at me at the mistakes I make, and I respect that because that's one way for me to learn things, even though I absolutely hate that). It just because of this main reason: I hate (to the point of being afraid of) working out new ways to do stuff. It's pathetic, I know, but that's what I am. Literally like everyday I would go into the lab, and something must be seriously wrong somewhere. I have to spend the time trying to find ways to fix it from scratch because most of these stuffs have never been worked on before by anyone. I envy you guys who see this as a challenge and thrive from it, because I know some of you guys definitely are. I am just not that person. It shows in every aspect of my life, including freestyle footbag and football. I am known by many things: my life performances, my consistency, my all roundedness, but there is one thing I have never been known for: the most creative freestyler. Because I am simply not creative, and also not good as being creative! When I got into something, I would devour everything related to the subject and how to do it, and follow these things to the letter, sometimes almost to the point of being orthodox. That's how most of my live performances were stuctured: I would write down a list of tricks to hit to the music, then practice them until they're synched to the music, no innovation involved. That's also why I think I have never been good at Battles (freestyle football) or Circles (freestyle footbag) because these require thinking on your feet and innovate. I'm just not that person.
Worrying too much about these things this summer have really defeated my immune system. As a result, I caught 2 identical colds this summer, as if my adaptive immune system decided to take a break. That's what happens when you have too much Cortisol in your blood from worrying too much. It weakens the immune system.

I have always wanted to write something like this out, but never had the chance to do it until today, when I have a bit more free time. I have actually came to a decision in the last couple weeks, after listening to this quote by philosopher Alan Watts:

"What do you want to do if money was no object? How do you really enjoy spending your life? If you say that getting the money is the most important, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time! You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don't like doing, which is stupid!
Better to have a short life, that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way!"

Inspired by that, I have told my mom and dad what I thought and had completely dropped the "good boy" act. I have decided that I don't want to live agaisnt myself anymore. I have also read self help books like "Who moved my cheese" and it had provided me enough motivation to go through these last couple weeks. Also, an invaluable source of help was the footbag group at PSU who always provided me with helpful advices on things, specifically Ryan, who I found myself hanging out with very often now because of our similar personalities. As a result of all this, I have decided to say "YO the f!ck LO" and will continue to move onward with the Ph.D program. If I go out, even in defeat, it will not be because I surrenderred.

I must apologize to all you guys though. Due to my continuous work at the lab these days, I only have very little time doing anything else, and as a result, my freestyle footbag progress and my blog on here has been really bad as of late. I am sorry, but I promise, I will update you with everything I have not when my life does get the break it desperately needs right now.

Khoa
Last edited by anhkhoashevakt on 21 Aug 2014 13:49, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by boyle » 20 Aug 2014 22:40

Good luck mate, you have to make the decisions for yourself, not for an idea of what you are meant to be. Good luck!

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by Cass » 21 Aug 2014 03:18

Wow I can relate to a lot of things in that post Khoa! You are definitely not alone. I don't, however, think there is any shame in quitting something that is not right for you. I guess was lucky enough to realise I don't like what I'm doing before delving into a full 4-5 year doctorate program.

When I was partying in Brooklyn with Alex Venis and other footbag players, a quote in one of the lofts really stuck out for me:

"I would rather be at the bottom of a ladder I want to climb than the top of one I don't"


Try to relax and just figure out what your priorities are. I'm sure everything will work out for you. You are a really dedicated and awesome person.

On the bright side, if you do finish out your PhD that will put you in a great position to teach! I agree that it is a really rewarding job. Definitely my favourite part of grad school :)

Some of us have to work a little harder to be creative. It's not that you aren't creative, you just have to find that within you. You gotta believe ;)

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 25 Aug 2014 16:22

Boyle and Cass: thanks guys! I really appreciate the feedback. These comments mean more to me than you guys can imagine. Seriously.

These couple weeks I've been working on how to dissolve a specific type of bone located in the marrow cavity of chicken leg bones, namely medullary bone. After a whole lot of trying, I have figured out that an alkaline system using NaOH did not dissolve it, so we're trying different acidic systems to do so: Trichloro acetic acid, Hydrochloric acid (aka. stomach acid), and acetic acid (aka vinegar) of different concentrations. Problem is, the solution either does not dissolve the bone, or it dissolves the bone and turns black, which isn't good for my particular experiment. I'm trying to dissolve the bone now in a 1M and 4M HCl as well as 1M and 17.4M Acetic Acid and I swear to God, if tomorrow after an overnight incubation the bone does not dissolve or the solution turns black I will punch myself in the face! Nobody has ever done anything like this before, and that makes it even more stressful. I'm almost tempted to try Hydrofluoric acid now, but reading about the burns it can cause online does make me reconsider using it. See, HF reacts with calcium in bone specifically, but the downside is if you get only a little of it on your skin, it will penetrate your skin and dissolve your freaking bones! As a result you will not feel the burn right a way, but when you feel it, it's already inside of you and it's REALLY REALLY hurts. It sounds scary as hell, and as a result I'm kinda stuck on what to do at the moment, but hopefully my bad luck will turn soon.

Also, within last week and this week I'm working on my proposal and turning it into my advisor for his advice, as tomorrow I'm turning it into my committee so that they can evaluate and provide me with feedback on how to proceed with my research. I've been turning 4 drafts total to my advisor already, and has modified the proposal per his request. However, something keeps telling me subconciously that he doesn't really care about my proposal at all. For example, there was one time when he told me that the 2- step pathway I described in my proposal was wrong, and there were more than 2 steps to the process. I told him I have tried my best to search the literature, and only saw people saying there were 2 pathways, and asked him to tell me what other step was there. After a 5 min search, he concluded that "may be I [he] was wrong" because there seemed to only be 2 steps there. I was like "WTF" inside but outside I promised him to check again anyway. However, I am 100% positive that there are only 2 step there.

And today, he told me to include plans on what statistical analyses I was going to use for the three experiments I was proposing. I almost asked out loud: "Did you not read my proposal at all, sir?" but managed to calm down enough to tell him that I did include the analyses at the bottom of two experimental designs where they supposed to be, and did not include that for only the one in the middle, where the experimental design required only to check whether there are receptor proteins in the tissues and thus requiring no statistical analysis method. He then said: "Ah, that's adequate then".

Another thing is, he never replied to my email. I sent him the 3rd draft for my proposal on Friday, and only today's morning did he manage to get back to me in person and provided me with some advices that he could easily sent to me on like, Saturday or Sunday so that I would have more time working on it! I have already submitted another revised draft today, and asked him if he could send me his thoughts sometime tonight so that I could get the revisions done and send it to him again to check for a final time before submission. I'm still waiting for that email and something tells me that it will not arrive today, and I will have to wait until tomorrow and ask him for the feedback in person, again!

Sorry for all that emotional outburst... it's just a bit frustrating to be me right now.

However, within all that there are still good things. The slow rate of bone diffusion as well as the late reply of my advisor allowed me to attend the first session with the guys today at PSU. Ben, Ivan, Ryan, April, and Aidan also showed up. We had a blast, even though I do miss some old faces that could have come but didn't (yes I am looking at you Greg and Kat!). Everybody did cool stuff! Ben and Ryan went beast mode as usual. Aidan improved his stringing ability with both clipper and toe tricks. April goes Fairy queen again! and me... well, let's just say I'm very happy because I have finally made some improvements to my toe stalls! They have been bothering me for the longest of times, and I'm glad I'm doing something to fix them. Also, one of my highlights (probably the only one worth mentioning today) was a :arrow: long string with Pixie Legover - DATW in the middle.

I also did a bit of fs soccer afterwards, mostly just for fun, because other people did join in and created a "soccer circle". I managed to get some people interested in fs soccer as well, and gave them the facebook page of Penn State Footbag Club. It was a funtastic time even though I did not really pushing any limit.

In the last couple days I have noticed something that significantly improved both my fs soccer and footbag game: freaking standing straight! I read about it first in Nick's footblog and remember thinking to myself: "Geez, he described it like it's a freaking miracle potion!" but now, when I'm trying it myself, I realized: "Nick was so f!cking right all the time, why the f... did I not do this sooner?" because right after I stood straight, all the dexing tricks becomes half as hard! I managed to get :arrow: Eggbeater with the ball for the 3rd time ever in my life, and it did not feel forced! In fact, I'm just going to bold this so I will remember it forever: ALWAYS STAND STRAIGHT, DAMN YOU!

I don't know if I will be able to come again tomorrow or any other time this week, but I hope I can. If I can't, I will still be able to follow everyone's progress through here. I know I have postponed the post about my FS Soccer trip in ... July for some time now, but I hope I will have a little time after all this craziness in my grad life is over.

Tomorrow I'm turning in my proposal for my committee members and one week later I will do a little presentation for them about the future of my research. They may find it adequate and let me continue on for the Ph.D, or they may find it inadequate and demote me down to Masters or even fire me from the program. Either way though, I'm just going to do my best and get as much reading done before that time as possible, and no matter how it turns out, I'll be happy because I tried my best.

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by Cass » 25 Aug 2014 16:59

I'm an organic chemist and I would avoid HF if at all possible. Maybe there is a way to form it in situ..

As someone with an overbearing supervisor, I have to say I'm slightly jealous of your situation. Of course it comes with it's own frustrations.

Committee meetings aren't so bad [in my experience]. Your committee members are there to give you guidance. If you have any ideas it's a great time to run it by them. Just be confident and you will be fine :)

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 24 Sep 2014 13:17

I can't believe it had been that long since I last posted. In my previous post I was in serious turmoil, especially when it comes to my professional life.

In this last month there has been some things that happened to me:

Firstly, I am no longer a Ph.D student. I made the decision to become a Masters student. This is a bit disappointing for me because I had promised myself 3 years ago that I would become the first freestyle football player who got a Ph.D degree, but it did not work out. On the other hand though, I was glad that I stayed true to myself and made the switch, not only because of myself, but because of everyone around me as well. I figured that my advisor could do a little better not having me as his advisee, because I always seemed to screw things up big time.

Secondly, I twisted and damaged a ligament on the lateral side of my left ankle while playing freestyle football last Tuesday. It's extremely ironic because on Monday I was practicing all the hard tricks and combos of lower freestyle football and felt completely fine, and Tuesday I was trying to take it easy by practicing some "block tricks" (the ones where you got the ball between your legs and do tricks by moving it around while it's still caught in between your legs) and KABLAM... injury in your face, son! In truth, I was very dissapointed because this not only interfered with my freestyle football practice, but also my footbag practice as well. I still can't bend my left ankle enough to get into a good clipper position. Although the recovery is going very well, I fear I will not be able to compete at East Coasts, at least not to the level that I want to show anyway.

Thirdly, my dad came all the way from Vietnam and visited me last week. We had a good time here together, so at least there was that, a rare ray of light in my troubled life.

Fourthly, and this is both exciting and scary at the same time: I just found out that I will may be, just may be, attend the Red Bull Street Style World Freestyle Football Championship in Brazil this upcoming November! The details have not yet been worked out yet, so I kinda freaked out and trying everything in my power to make it work, but Red Bull had really been an a$$hole and never gave me a straight answer on if they want me to go or not. I'm still an international student and thus, if I am to go to Brazil I will have to get a Brazillian as well as an American visa (because my previous one expired) that will take me a heck of a long time. The good thing is my dad and mom are behind me 100% on this one, and will support me if I am to go to Brazil. I really want to make it work, but it won't if Red Bull, especially Red Bull USA, wouldn't stop hesitating and give me the official information!

With all the stuff going on with my life, it is no surprised that my footbag level had not gone up much at all in the last month and a half, a fact I find very disappointing and will try my best to fix when things ease up a bit. Seeing Ryan landing 12 contact Guiltless and Ben shuffling and landing spinning osis made me realized how far I had gotten behind. I will need to improve myself a bit, else I fear I'll become an embarrassment.

Even with all that, I did make some cool improvements for me in the last several weeks:

:arrow: Osis with a ball! FINALLY!
:arrow: Improvements on my "stylie" tricks.
:arrow: Some sitdowns (Yes, sitdowns! lol)

I will hope to push on doing more stylie Tiltless tricks in the immediate future, because those intrigued me, and another reason is that I don't think I'm really to go Guiltless yet. So those will be what I work on in the next couple of weeks when my ankle heals completely.

In other news, I will be attending East Coasts! Can't wait to see faces I haven't seen in a while: Chris, Ken, Nick, Matt... as well as seeing the Silencer in action for the first time. I intend to bring my camera in the worst case scenario if I decide to sit out competition because of my ankle. However, I do plan to get a freestyle soccer performance done in between the comps, because my legs seem like they are good enough for toe tricks and sitdown tricks.

Can't wait to see everyone again. Gonna be a kick ass weekend!

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by boyle » 24 Sep 2014 13:51

I am surprised there is nobody already in the freestyle football world with a PhD. I know that Dyalan here in Australia has one. I'm sure there are some other footbag docs as well.

Sounds like a good decision on the change to the Masters. Must have been disappointing to move on from the phd, but at least you are still studying and will get something out of it. You can always do more study later on.

I have been hearing a bit about the Red Bull tournament from the Chilean players, sounds completely disorganised. In Chile they won't even bother to do a tournament, they are having a video competition. Which is stupid.

It would be great if you could go to Brazil, though it seems that as these kind of "F3" events grow more, the Red Bull events are losing a bit of credibility (?). However, who doesn't want a free trip to Brazil. One of my friends went to the last two and had a great time.

Good luck with the injury, just don't try and push it too hard and get injured for longer, just because there's a tournament on.

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 06 Oct 2014 18:08

Thanks Dan! I really appreciate all your feedback.

Yes, it does seem like, as you said, Red Bull is very unreliable. I haven't heard from them since a month ago, and that's with me trying to email and call them every two days or so. To be honest, I don't think I will be able to participate in the World Freestyle Football Champs in Brazil at all, which, in a certain way, is actually better for me because I will not have to worry about missing school. I do want to compete, but I also need to finish my program, and may be it's for the best. It still sucks though! :cry: :cry: :cry:

But I am actually pretty okay now to be honest. Experiments are going (even though I don't know if the results are going to be really good, like, publishable good, yet, but oh well it is going!), I still have time to do freestyle football and footbag, my injury seems to be almost completely gone (awesome!) and the best of all, I got to go to ECFC, which was an amazing event! Couldn't ask for more than that in the last month really!

So, before I began my ECFC write up, I will put up this video, which detailed every notable thing (in my humble opinion) at East Coasts, and I hope it captured the fun and the awesomeness of the shred level there:

http://youtu.be/5P3kZuAt1Kk

(sorry guys, I don't know how to embed the video in here :? )

OK, here goes:

Saturday:

Friday was an insane day to be honest, as I ended up getting off work at around 12:30 A.M on Saturday, and my bus were supposed to leave at about 2 A.M. Therefore, I decided that I would not sleep at all, and tried to stay focus by drinking some caffeine I got left at my place and surfing the web, hoping to stay awake til 2:00 A.M.

It didn't work.

When I awoke, it was 3:00 A.M in the morning. I did not know how (I thought I was still surfing the web and was only closing my eyes for a moment) but it turned out I collapsed on the keyboard and slept the whole way through.

Words could not describe how dissapointed and angry at myself I was. I managed to locate and bought another Megabus ticket leaving State College at 9:00 A.M, but the ticket at 2:00 A.M was, of course, not refundable (that means $50 down the drainage!) and it also meant (because the bus will likely arrive at Penn Station at 2:00 P.M) that I will more than likely miss the intermediate competitions (both routines and circles). I tried to console myself that I could still be able to watch people compete in Open and see some of the actions of the last rounds of Intermediate circles to cheer on my friends. Besides, my left ankle still wouldn't allow me to get into a clipper position on that side yet, so I had decided before then that I may sit this comp out anyway. But I hated the fact that I couldn't stay up for only 2 lousy hours and be there earlier. Not only did it result in me losing money, but also me missing all the Intermediate action.

After hitting my head against the wall, then the pillow, for sometime, I decided to go back to sleep, because I did have more than a couple of hours to sleep until I have to wake up. With that happy note, I passed out.

I woke up at 8:00 A.M, and quickly get ready and walked immediately to the bus stop (as I would kill myself if I miss this one too!). This time, I arrived early at 8:20 A.M. The bus arrived at 8:30 A.M and I boarded it hurriedly. Part of me was still very angry at myself, but the other part was excited at the aspect of meeting/reuniting with so many people at this competition. Chris Dean? Ken? Brian? Oh my god, how long had it been? A year? A year and a couple months? It seemed like forever since US Open 2013! And Evan Gatesman! Freaking Evan Gatesman! The Silencer himself! I had to see his Ripsteins in action, even if that's the last thing I do on Earth! (and for the record, I did see him busting a crazy Ripstein record that weekend, but we'll get to that later) Also, Nick P, Anton, Cassy, Mikey, Drew, Hogan, Adam Greenwood, Boatz... !!! I could go on for days! It would be amazing to meet them all again. It had been like forever, even though it was only 4-5 months ago that Jamps IV happened.

The bus arrived at 1:45 P.M, and I immediately took the train to the shred place. At the station, I recognized it almost immediately: This was the same place at last year! Even with that it took me another 15 minutes to walk around finding my way. Finally, after all the walking, the familiar shred place with familiar people began to appear. It was a relief to finally arrive. I greeted everyone I could with a smile on my face. Even more heartwarming, Drew announced to everyone that I had come, making me suddenly felt important. Intermediates comp was almost over, but I didn't care. I was there, and that was what matter.

Next time: What happened on Saturday comps

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by h0ag3yb3atZ » 07 Oct 2014 05:32

great getting to finally shred with you mang. thanks for the eclipse tips! dope soccer stuff as well!
Kevin Hogan

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 07 Oct 2014 19:09

Thanks Kevin! You’re awesome man! You are crazy good and have such a nice style! Your flying toe stalls mang… greatest footbag trick I’ve ever seen in my life! xD xD xD

Seriously though, you are awesome!

Okay I guess I’ll continue where I left off yesterday.

Saturday (general shred and Open Routines):

Since I could not compete in Intermediates, I decided on the way to the shred place that I would complete 2 main goals this competition:
1. Entertain (hopefully!) everyone with my freestyle soccer skills, as all the toe tricks as well as my right clipper should be available for me to do some improvised routines.
2. Document the shred and trying to make the most epic ECFC video that I could make.

When I arrived at the shred place, I immediately came to greet everyone. Then, I walked up to Drew, greeted him, and asked if I could do some freestyle soccer routines between the comps to entertain everyone. He said yes! And thus for roughly the next 30 minutes I was putting on my freestyle soccer shoes and tried to warm up. Then, seeing how that should suffice, I changed into Lavers and watch people competing in Intermediates. The first circle I watched (and ironically the last circle of Intermediate comp for the day if I recall correctly) was a 3 way between Ryan, Johnny and April. I couldn’t help smiling, because that means April had qualified through the first round! I’m really happy for her because she had been working hard and really deserve a place in this circle. I also feel happy for Ryan, although I expected him to at least make it this far anyway. However, I had no idea how good Johnny was, so I did not know how this circle would go, and the main factor determining that would be Johnny’s level.

Johnny turned out to be amazing. After watching a couple of rounds, I narrowed my candidate list to Ryan and Johnny. If Ryan could pull off one of his long Guiltless strings (up to 12 as I counted once when we were training together), he would be able to pull this off. However, I think he was a bit intimidated by Johnny, and thus he sometimes dropped the bag way before the extent of his true ability. When the circle ended, April did a very impressive trick and everyone clapped. I felt like an idiot because I happened to turn my gaze away right at that very moment and thus did not see what trick she hit.

The result: Johnny won and will move on to the Final Circle tomorrow. It was well deserved, even though I still felt bad for Ryan because I knew that he could have done a lot better. It just wasn’t his day. Still, I knew this would only make him train harder and get better in the long run, which would be a good thing.

I’m very happy and proud about April. She showed that she deserved a spot in this circle, and she pulled off some very impressive strings! If you’re reading this, keep this up, April and next year you’ll be in the final round!

Then, before Open Routines started, I got the chance to shred in several circles, and had the chance to shred with Kevin Hogan, Vince Richardson as well as Andre, who became my great friend right away. After shredding in a circle with Ryan, Vince, and Kevin (then Boatz) for a while, Open Routines started. I decided to come and watch everyone as well as record some stuff.

The first routines by Anton, Ryan Thomas, Cassy, and Kevin went well, but no one actually achieved dropless status just yet. I’m happy for Anton because he seemed to have his routines planned out nicely, just some unlucky drops in the end. Way to step up Anton! Cassy did well, but I knew she could do even better, like the time when she almost gone dropless at Worlds 2013. Kevin impressed me because he actually planned out a routine this time and executed it rather well (even though it was still a bit shaky) even though he had never done a routine in his life! xD

The one with Ryan Thomas impressed me the most, though. He must have chosen the song on purpose because it fits his slow, smooth style so well. He had some drops, but overall his was the most impressive one so far!

After this, an unexpected error happened with the generator, and the music could not play, so Drew called me up to do an unexpected improvised routine with no music. I happily obliged. Boatz came on too, and together we put up a freestyle soccer show for the crowd. I kinda went crazy after the first couple tricks and just went on and on and on on my own, which, as I think about it now, was a bit rude and unfair to Boatz, as I should have collaborate with him much more. Fortunately, at the end we had a chance to both do a handstand together with the ball and it was awesome. Then, out of the blue Nick came up and did some of his crazy Yoga body contorting moves, which both amazed me and cracked me up at the same time, because he looked like a giant crab when he did that (sorry Nick just have to state the truth bro lol).

Then, the generator started working again, and Mathieu went next. Again, he chose a song that fit his style so well, and it sounds French-ish too, which I really appreciate because of his Canadian root. The routine was strong, and it looked like Mathieu earned a spot to the Final Routines tomorrow.

Then, Ken Somolinos stepped into the ring, and the music started… Wait what? “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga? Hmm… interesting song choice there Ken, but I decided not to bring that up, and it looked like I made the correct decision because the next thing happened blew my mind: he went completely dropless, even though I noticed that he did miss some tricks. Today, reading through his footblog, I realized that he had improvised the whole thing, and that made it even more impressive. Best routine so far for me!

Brian Sherrill stepped up next, and I was excited. I love watching his routines. The one he did at US Open 2013 is still on my phone at that very moment. He did a very strong routine which was evidently well rehearsed with each trick chose specifically at each moment. It was a shame that he had 2 unfortunate drops, so I still thought Ken’s was a bit better.

And then, this routine happened, and after that, what I could say was only: “What the F… just happened?”, see for yourself how awesome it was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kSgvd- ... HAYI-_kWuA

Again, a perfect example of someone who picks a song that fits his style so well. This routine was beautiful from the choreo to the pacing to the trick selection. Simply amazing. At that point I knew exactly who would seed 1st tomorrow at routines: Evan Gatesman, the Silencer.

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Cass
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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by Cass » 08 Oct 2014 02:48

Was great to see you at ECFC. Let's shred it up next time! :D

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Keep bein' a bawss.

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by C-Fan » 08 Oct 2014 06:13

Great seeing you again at East Coasts. Your freestyle skills are truly amazing. Digging the write up too. Was really bummed to learn about your bus fiasco...I hate when a crazy life schedule bones you.

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 14 Oct 2014 11:18

Wow, thanks a lot guys! 8O 8O
I'm very sorry we never got the chance to shred together more during the entire tournament. I was way to immerse with all the video recording and being an introvert as usual. I promise you guys though that I will go out more and shred more next time.
To get a compliment like that from Ken... Man you don't know how much that means to me. Your final routine is still very fresh in my mind and it has become a standard for me to aspire to with my freestyle football routines as well! Respect Ken and hopefully we'll see each other again very soon!

Khoa

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 26 Mar 2015 18:33

JAYSUS! October 14th! Has it really been that long?

Sorry for all the delays and stuff guys, but Khoa is finally back writing his footblog again!
The reason for that was because of my defense today. I passed! :D :D :D :D :D :D

Even though I will still be correcting things in my thesis next week, I will probably have more time than the past... oh I don't know... 5 months? so I can do things, such as going online and writing footblogs.

Unfortunately, nothing much has been going on in terms of footbag for the last couple months for me, as I got an injury on my right side tibialis anterior tendon. It affected both my freestyle football and freestyle footbag. I have been coming up with some new ideas and recently VERY FLUKILY got a Pigbeater (and probably will not be able to do that again for another 5 years xD) but those were all that I did during this time. I should train more footbag soon when I got the time for it.

Hopefully I will be able to update you guys on some new cool things the next time I write!

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 02 Apr 2015 07:05

Well, not much to say really. I have not actually do much footbag in the last couple of days. I'm going to play with the PSU club today at 3:00 though so hopefully something will go down there.

In other note, I've been trying to do footbag with my freestyle football shoes, which have no toe box and no good of an inside surface. However, I'm actually beginning to get used to it. I think I will try to keep this going, because one of my ultimate goals is to be able to do a routine combining both sports. I guess I can also do freestyle football in Lavers, but I think I will stick with this option because of several reasons:

1. Lavers (good Lavers, that is) is a dying breed. The number of available good + lightweight shoes we have are dwindling by the day. Sooner or later, we will all have to adapt. New shoes are available out there, but we have already gotten used to the big toe box and the inside surface of Lavers. I'd encourage you guys to get out and explore a little bit, however, because in my view, if you are good at what you do, then shoes will only drag you down a little, and will not abolish all of your game.

2. I recently found out that shoes with toe box (especially toe boxes are modded already) are bad for my freestyle football, simply because it did not feel the same way kicking the ball with toe walls, as (for me that is) only the toes in the middle has to curl up to intercept the ball. Due to the toe walls being present on each side of the foot, the big toe and the smallest toe did not have to work on kicking the ball at all, and the direct consequence of that is that when I got back to using normal shoes without a toe box, juggling the ball becomes so difficult that I had to fix it for a month.

So I guess I will stick with my current shoes without a toe box and sh!tty inside surface. That actually may force me to have a bit more precise control using the bag anyway, which is never a bad thing.

On a more positive note: I'm currently putting together a sequence of tricks that I could only call an "allround flow". In freestyle football, because we have uppers, sitdowns, and lowers, we can sometimes put together a sequence of tricks that involve all aspects of freestyle football into one combo, which we usually call an "allround flow". I'm doing something akin to that, except now with a bag. It seems just natural because I have been working on uppers and sits in footbag as well as the traditional "lowers" aspect of it. The flow is not long (30 seconds may be?) and the tricks I use are just crude, easy ones but I think it will be able to revolutionize how freestyle footbaggers do their routines in the future. I will show it to you either at Jamps, or when I'm good enough to make a video.

Keep shredding y'all!

Khoa

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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by Add Block » 02 Apr 2015 10:35

Learn new tricks with Lavers, shred in football shoes. Unless you're learning new stuff, the equipment doesn't matter.
Sure, it's more fun when you're able to rip it up, but a player able to be tiltless in full smart casual is always going to be better than a shirtless, fearless bailing guy with Nucleus and a Footfighter.

(I am neither :D)
I hate bad form and I'm a hypocrite.

Vojta

anhkhoashevakt
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Re: Khoa Nguyen's footblog - Drilling Osis

Post by anhkhoashevakt » 08 Apr 2015 06:35

HAHA AddBlock I was really considering that, but I guess I would like to challenge myself a bit. This would be something I would have to do eventually, so I guess I want to take no shortcuts.

My tentative allround flow is VERY nearly done. However, I still can't do it dropless yet, which annoys me. If I can't do this 30 second flow dropless, then a formal routine 4 times as long is going to kill me for sure. I need to keep practicing.

In other news, I recently am incorporating a freestyle football trick named Abbas Around the World (AATW), which is basically a miraging kick - ss legover, into my strings. I think it would add a little flavor into the traditional strings, even though it may not be ADD concious, as it is not for anything I do anyway lol :wink: :wink: .

Some highlights on my last week can be found in this video. I actually just made it yesterday:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10 ... nref=story

The song in this video is actually quite famous in Vietnam. It expressed a desire to escape the confines of society and finding your own thing, which definitely themed with me at the moment.

JAMPs in this weekend! I can't wait for it. 2 of my fellow football freestylers, Noah and Sebastian, will be going, which will be awesome because I have always wanted them to see how awesome the footbag community is. Noah already met the PSU crew, so he had a bit of an idea, but Sebba hasn't. This will be a great opportunity, a cross meeting of both sports, first in the USA!

But because of that, I'm actually being a bit anxious. I'm currently checking everything and planning out everything to make the meeting as perfect as possible. The worst thing that could happen is that there would be no interaction between the players, which would severely sucks. I was planning to have the freestyle football meeting before the actual footbag meeting, so that the players would be free to hang around when the shred starts and talk to footbaggers, but what if they want to do some more freestyle football afterwards? What if they just want to huddle in a corner? I can't manipulate them to go do things!

Hopefully things will not come to that... Positive thoughts!

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