FuteBlaug (PSU)

[krustykrakk]

Kicked tonight with PSU crowd. Nate come back! He's still tall and good at footbag.
I recorded the session for a television field production class I am currently taking with the intention of adding a voice-over to it explaining the sport and the different kinds of tricks.
I BSOS'd the BOP tricks in their entirety tonight, for the first time ever, hit some pixie refractions, calf rolls, one duck, atw from knee stall, one or two heel stalls, and I hit outside > op dragon on strong side (this link felt awesomely awesome. I hope to hit it on weak side in the near future, BSOS it, drill it, then incorporate it into many of my strings.

Pumped for the pumpkin jam, candy corn, pumpkin feet, pumpkin shoes, little Albanian children made of pumpkins, and also Susan B. Anthony. Let's go footbag, too bad there's not enough time to spend at the duck pond, ignoring ducks... dux? Farkle is a very fun dice game. Just remember that you never want to farkle.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Sounds like you and I are gonna have some unorthadox/unusual surface footbag fun this weekend

Also, I feel like ive basically blogged that entire highlights list at one point haha. Your game reminds me so much of mine. I'm excited to see you get good.

I have some good tips for heel stalls that I wanna give you this weekend. I used to be obsessed with them and I drilled them for a few weeks at one point. I think you might have just reanimated my love for those... and pumpkin flavored Albanian children...that's not weird. ..right?

Excited to get into a circle with you. I think we'll hit some creative stuff inspired by each other.

Cya tomorrow!

[krustykrakk]

Heck yes, Nickel! Our styles are moar guuder den dose uv other peepol.
ALSO, forgot to mention that Ivan and I both hit weakside dragon from clipper!

[krustykrakk]

Holy muffins!
PSU Pumpkin Jam was amazazing!
We had a great turn out for the Jam. Matt k, Mike t, Nate p, Nick p, and Nadiah s showed up to PSU, kicked, partied, and left.
Seriously, this mini jam really inspired me to get back on my solo improvement game. I've fallen off from my daily solo drilling sessions due to my inconvenient work schedule, living miles from campus, and the doggone schoolwork itself. Playing with Matt K was awesome. I've been at the same jam as him twice before but never really kicked with him. His style, in that he doesn't freeze every stall but makes sure he really completes the trick, is awesome. Nick is always a pleasure to kick with; fun company, fun-to-watch style, and advice. Nate made me realize how good he is, even after being a mountain man for 8 months, after hitting alpine 69 (never saw the trick live before,) Nadiah and April are improving a lot, and Toolan still loves bananas.
The PSU Jampionships in April should be amazing. I plan on improving a lot until then. I cannot wait.

My highlights for the weekend are as follows:
the trick that looks like butterfly but involves a tiny pivot and ends on an outside. I have been trying to execute this trick since I saw Jon Schneider do them... harder than Jon makes them look, for me. I finally hit it this weekend.
Work on heel stalls.
I hit front sole BSOS with flapper BSOS in a string. I'd like to set a goal of all the sole stalls BSOS as a goal, then turn it into a drill.
I worked on fairies and managed a few ok sets with them and hit a few stalls out of atomic and pixie.
A weird, stylee highlight I want to complete on weakside is pixie ss calf roll, which I executed for the first time this weekend.

It was pointed out to me that I rock back on my heels when doing osis. Gots to fix that.

Going back to class and work is depressing after such a perfect weekend. Kick, drink, 4square, and drunken footbag-related banter was very refreshing this weekend. Nick Polini does deserve a ton of credit for being the promoter that footbag needs. It's really cool that such an ambitious player sets aside his goals to help even the newest players with even the simplest concepts.

I think the American Meteorological Society would approve of this weekend

[krustykrakk]

Awesome Monday session with Nick p, Mike t, Jackson r, Ryan m, Ivan i, April t, and Corey g. Corey x3 showed up as we were finishing and showed us a place to eat (we met in ktown.)
Highlights:
A bunch of strings BSOS'ing osis
rakes on rakes on rakes with Ivan...he did most of the rakes, mine we half-assed attempts
DIMWALK on strong side!!!
toe TORQUE on strong side
I was given some awesome advice for blenders and think of it completely different now! Thanks to all who helped, I shall hit it soon!

[bluevampire101]

Awesomesauce.
Congrtz on new tricks. Dizzle.

[krustykrakk]

Today was a longgg-overdue drilling session occasion.
April and I went into my parents' in-house gym and had a good ol' hour and half long drilling session!

April, through some hard work, has done very good things to her legover game.

As for me, I feel as though I am ready to start setting and breaking records for myself rather than just counting how many times I do a trick in a drill session.
Before today, my clipper clipper record was 4. It is now 12.
Before today, my legover rpt. record was 3 or 4. It is 8.
Before today, I had never counted the amount of clipper rpt. on both sides I could do. Strong side is 12 and weak side is, embarrassingly, 8.
I took the time today to work on my weak clipper set; something that has been nagging at me since I started hitting clippers consistently.

Finally, I worked on my simple dexes a little bit.
Increased strong side atw record from 3 to 4, weak side from 2 to 3.
Increased strong side orbit from 3 to 5, weak side from 2 to 3.
BABY STEPS. For those of you reading my blog, I have been damn near absent from footbag for the past 3 weeks, making about only 3 sessions. Between actually trying in school, work, and trying to be a considerate boyfriend, I have neglected the art of kicking a metal-filled bag. My mission over the fall break is to kick every day and meet at least one of my 3 goals (the order is ascending in difficulty:)
1. Osis Osis
2. Blender Strong side
3. Blender Weak side
(Again, these are goals, not accomplishments.)

Wish me luck mofuggas. Also, here is a picture of April kicking in my parents' home gym (complete with shred mats.)

[bluevampire101]

Look at that.
The art of dropping the bag.

...

Yep.



But really, awesome!
It's tough. It's stressful. It's frustrating. But YOU CAN DO ETT!

Believe in the heart of the cards!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Dude those new records is how you're gonna get good. Seriously. Good job. I know the hard work you put in. Been there. You keep this sort of post going g for the next few sessions, you're gonna see some major improvements. Kelp pushing man.

[krustykrakk]

Day 2 of Ben/April drilling was extremely productive!!
We had a very sweaty drill session. It was awesome.

Drilling based on personal records feels like it's working for me. Today, April and I set our own inside inside rpt, inside same clipper (both strong and weak) rpt, and toe toe rpt.

Here are my past and current stats!

Last time recorded (this summer) stats:

Inside op inside rpt: 32, I think. For exact number, go back to earlier pages in the blaug. I am too lazy.
Toe op toe rpt: 66, " "


Today's stats:

Inside op inside rpt: 68.
Toe op toe rpt: 128
Inside same side clipper (strong side) rpt: 12
Inside same side clipper (weak side) rpt: 8

I've noticed in recent sessions that my weak side clipper stall is alright, but my weak side clipper set is GOTDAMN AWFUL, hence the inside/clipper drills. I am unsure if April and I will be able to play tomorrow due to Thanksgiving Day plans, but I will try to make sure we are up extra early for our scheduled shred. Fuck holidays, footbag doesn't take a vacation. I have been neglecting footbag like (insert reference in bad taste here.) I want to get back on the freestyle wagon and accomplish my goals. Speaking of goals, I have a little suprise....
While giving osis a little workout today, I hit Fall Break goal number 1!!!!! Osis osis is no longer something I have never hit!! Super stoked, going to celebrate my success with pizza and pie... and any other letter "P" foods!

I haven't been this stoked about practicing footbag since the summer. Feels good. C:

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I'm proud of you dude. I knew you would hit Osis> Osis soon. Try to push that record too. The secret to pushing osis record is to do them with no scoop by doing that 90-90 thing I taught you and freeze them for a split second. I can tell your game has mimicked mine to a certain degree, and I know once you start pushing osis x3, then x6, then x8, then x10, it will become your unstoppable violence blade in no time. As of your last blog post when you said you were going to start pushing your numbers on tricks, I have been completely stoked to read about you and April's improvements. The nice thing about number pushing is that you can actually see your improvements better than you can if you were just playing all the time.

I mentioned this before, but I'm gonna mention it again.. I think you should change your goals from:

1) Osis> Osis
2) Strong blender
3) Flip Blender

to:

1) Osis> Osis
2) Toe Whirl bs
3) Blender bs

Just because when you practice Whirls and Toe Whirls for a little while, the Toe Whirls strengthen up your regular Whirls a lot, which will help you onto your road of hitting Blender bs. Also Toe Whirls will benefit you in learning good Pdx Whirls and Pdx Blenders in the future. In footbag, there are "short cut tricks". These "short cut tricks" will give you an extra boost into your game.

Footbag has MANY different paths... Everything will get you at least a little further along the path. but short cut tricks are the key I think. You could practice Whirls and eventually get good at blenders, then eventually pdx blenders and pdx whirls, or you could practice toe whirls and be several leaps ahead of the path with greater muscle memory for a lot more different tricks. Sorry I'm beating this one to death, but I wanna see you get good.

[krustykrakk]

Awesome! Thanks for the tips, mango!
The only thing I want to justify is that, happy turkey day btw hope everyone on modified has an awesome one, the goals are for before break ends. I knew I'd hit osis to osis, only because I've never been serious about hitting it in a drill session before. Goals 2 and 3 were meant to be unrealistic but possible by the end of break. Don't get me wrong, Nick, I will definitely, definitely follow your advice as we play footbag similarly, I base my game off of yours, and we have similar body types; but to be honest, I need to get better at whirl to even consider even hitting blender rather than add it to my armory.

Sooooo I guess my next question would be what can I drill that's not whirl but will be a good prelude into the fantastic world of whirls?

I'm thinking far and near pickup will help, but that's just my assumption.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I'm thinking far and near pickup will help, but that's just my assumption.

You assumpted correctly. Get super good at any and every type of Pickup possible. Toe ss, Toe op, Clip near, Clip far (the main ones), anything else will just be extra practice like outside or whatever.. but you wanna get good at all those main ones. BSOS it, do hundreds of them, pet it on the face, take them out to dinner, etc... All those Pickups should be super easy for you before you start Whirls. Good luck! And happy Thanksgivings!

[krustykrakk]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCm0HTO0Gf0[/youtube]

Hello. I have been kicking, just not posting. I made the video above with the help of Marc Peralta and April Tou. Super stoked for it because I already got feedback with regard to style and form from other players. I have more footage from another session with Marc which I will edit and upload after winter break.
Some milestones:
Smear (strong side)
Stepping legover (strong side)

I plan on kicking tomorrow. My session with revolve around weak toe sets mostly, setting my inside > op inside record, and work entirely with tiltless tricks. Mikie Etlinger proposed that I should work on guay > op guay rpt. since I use a lot of insides in my game. Hopefully during the next few weeks I can develop some type of a weak pixie... that'd be dooope.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Loved the video. It's really cool to see how good you all got since Pumpkin Jam.

In regards to what I said earlier, about pushing Tiltless.. If you find that you need to save the bag with a toe or inside, don't hesitate to save it. But see how many Tiltless you can push yourself to hit. Getting good at footbag is all about the PUSH. You have to keep pushing your limit to get better. If you find that you suck at a trick, like you keep dropping it and it's messing up your tiltless string, block out everything else and hit a bunch of them. Like 50 - 100 bs. You'll get there and when you do, I'll be stoked because your style is already fun to watch and it will only get funerer when you go Guiltless. I'm excited for that. But master your basics in the mean time. Keep shredding smart, grasshoppah.

[krustykrakk]

Hello! Let us start with yesterday!
Yesterday I kicked for about 45 minutes. I wanted to shape up for the ECFU jam that I just got home from. I practiced basic dexes, infinities, proper (powerful) weak side toe sets and most of all, retooled my pickups. My pickups, prior to yesterday, were severely lacking in form and consistency. In order to fix then, I thought about Ryan Morris's pickups and about how his dexes look. He brings the dexing leg out like a whirl dex. I did not do ths. I now do it and have since hit pickup > pickup rpt., as well as pickup > mirage rpt. In short, I fixed my pickups within a session. Now they are my bitch.

Today!
ECFU shred with Mike Toolan, CoreyX3, Corey Gerges, Nick Polini, Ivan Iakimenko, Ryan Morris, Jon Schneider, Nathan Bonslaver, and David Clavens. This was the most awesomeness of awesome in every awesome respect I have had in a long while. Being limited with kick times and session time even with the awesomeness of the PSFC is taxing. The club is amazing but my schedule is not. Today was the first time in a while I had the pleasure of kicking with Toolan, the Coreys, Nick and Jon. This was also the first time ever, hopefully not the last, that I had the pleasure of kicking with Nathan and David.
Nathan is a 14 or 15 year old high school student from the Reading area. He is amazing! Pdx mirages, clippers, ss spinning clipper, ss swirl, ss ducking clipper and all the basic dexes. He is noticeably better than me at some things (swirl, definitely.)
David "The Cleaver" Clavens is undeniably the best footbagger I have ever kicked with. The legends are true! For being so good, I expected him to be cocky, at least. I have spent a good 4 and half hours kicking with him which I think is enough to say that he is a nice, amiable person. I was like a 12 year-old girl who just shook Justin Beiber's hand after he gave me props on my sole stalls, clippers, and a few runs. I was expecting someone of his difficulty to give me, at the most, one pity props for a tiltless run but was totally wrong in my cynical assumptions.
Overall, I had the best session of my footbag career. I tried my best to keep my runs as close to tiltless and smooth as possible. I didn't hit any big tricks for me other than whirl, pixie calf roll, butterfly tootsie roll, and dimwalk. My strings were right where I wanted them to be: long(ish) tiltless runs with much BSOS and density. I was hitting pickups, near clipper pickups, far clipper pickups, legovers, far clipper legovers, near clipper legovers, osis(es,) butterflies, near butterflies, infinities, a random cloud stall, mirages, an illusion, flappers, and a rake from flapper. I felt great today! This was a session in which everyone had a great time and hit great strings.
Mike Toolan smells like donkey bunz.

[krustykrakk]

Hello! I was inspired by April to make a New Year's resolution-style list of this year's footbag goals! Here it is, mofuggas:

1) 40 Tiltless/25ish unique (basically, I want to ascend to the level of being able to hit comfortable, tiltless strings whenever I want)
2) Whirl BSOS x20 -This is a goal that is meant to help me hit whirl BS whenever I want. Ten times on each side, preferably one string. The same applies to goals #3, #4, and #5.
3) PDX mirage BSOS x20
4) Osis B2B x20
5) Same side Butterfly (from Clipper) BSOS x20
7) BOP rpt. x10
Blender BSOS
9) Torque BSOS
10) a. Pixie ducking toe BS
b. Stepping ducking toe BS
c. Atomic ducking toe BS
11) Spinning clipper, spinning pickup, spinning legover, spinning mirage, spinning pdx mirage, spinning whirl, spinning butterfly - All bs
12) Ducking clipper, ducking pickup, ducking legover, ducking mirage, ducking osis, ducking whirl, ducking butterfly - All bs
13) Infinity x100 (This is my real goal for infinity. It may seem high but given that this is a year goal and that infinity is important for control I want to make it a priority.)

By creating, executing, and eventually mastering drills as a framework for hitting these goals, I will try to improve as best I can this year.

[krustykrakk]

Just had a surprisingly intense kick session with April Tou and Nathan Pipenberg! I hit some fun strings, including one in which I BSOS'd orbit and atw. Also, I hit pixie legover for the first time (open switch in the new notation, Nate said.) April and I are about to head to a computer lab to edit Bike Room Session Vol. 2 with footage from finals week (Marc and me,) yesterday, and also some footage we managed to scare up from today. Note: the footage from today is only of a few runs and is severely lacking the best strings everyone hit (especially Nathan.)
I am looking forward to the rest of the break with April, Nate, Khoa (hopefully,) and Derek (who is coming back either tomorrow or the day after.)

[krustykrakk]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7Pi-hXvsZw[/youtube]
The next one should be posted tomorrow-ish.
The next video (so far, last one in the series, is the last one.) It is with April and myself after I came back from winter break. Winter break is until this coming Monday, but I came back not this past Saturday but the one before that (12/28/13.) The video is of our 2 sessions in the study room in her dorm. Her room is adjacent so it was pretty convenient. This video will consist of us working on more newbie stuff but also includes Nate Pipenberg as part of the shred (second day.) Nate's best strings from that day were before we started filming as we began a little too far after we had warmed up. We were a little closer to tired on the warming up > fresh > tired continuum. It's really nice to be a beginner player and have at least one guiltless player pretty much wherever I go.

[krustykrakk]

New video :
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yywj8psZaak[/youtube]

Been a while since I posted. My session highlights from the day after my last post with Khoa and April consists of zooming toe BS (new BS.)

My highlights for my session on Tuesday with Derek includes of a bunch of pdx mirages BS, and spinning osis BS. Awww yeahhh. (first time BS.)

Looking forward to more kick in the near future as Nick and Nadine are coming next weekend as well as Vince Richarson coming either today or tomorrow.

WATCH MY VIDEO.