AnzBlog

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
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Anz
Anssi Sundberg
Posts: 3007
Joined: 06 Feb 2004 12:02
Location: Finland, Turku

Ending 2016

Post by Anz » 13 Dec 2016 03:22

Long time no blog! Not that I've had much to write.

The Game
Getting back to the game hasn't been going as I've planned. My shin has been fine, and I think I've finally strenghtened the bone enough so that the crack won't renew itself again. But new knee related injury has kept me playing for some time now.


Joulukalenteri
I participated in the Christmas video calendar for the first time in a few years. Slammed together some footage from the Finnish champs.
Here's the 2016 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elyj5iXBAZE

The last time I made a video was just when my long term injury started three years ago (2013).
Here's the 2013 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0WdR_jcbCE


DFO
I was at the Danish Footbag Open at the end of October. Fun times. Mikko and Aleksi came too, and other people from Berlin as well. I even got a new tattoo on the trip, made by Nis' wife Inna. The tournament wasn't as big as it was three years ago, when there were more Finns.
The actual competition wasn't very memorable, but the trip was fun.


FFO
This years Finnish Footbag Open at the end of November was a small tournament. Four competitors in routines and that was it. It was kind of sad, but at least there was a tournament.


Footbag App
I'm still working on the footbag app, although not so actively right now. I added a voice feature to the Random Link Generator, so that the app shouts out the links, and the user doesn't have to contantly press a button when using it. Works quite well. I still need to finish up the Cross-training section, and then I'll release the latest (and probably last) version of the app.

Next year I want to start looking into HTML based apps, and hopefully do something together with Allan, so that a future footbag app can use online database. A coaching app for footbag.org would be my end goal.


Reading
I was looking into martial artists and how they train, and stumbled upon two Japanese men who lived on the 17th century: Takuan Soho, a buddhist monk, and Miyamoto Mushashi, a sword legend, and the texts they've written. I'm blogging about these here, because I found them to be interesting and relating to practicing footbag. I've never done any martial arts myself, but it didn't bother me when reading these texts. In the end martial arts is about making yourself a better person, and I think footbag is very much so as well.

The Unfettered Mind by Takuan Soho has three essays, two of which were letters to the teacher and head of a swordmanship school. A lot of what he writes I could quote just as the are in the book to footbaggers asking (or giving) advice.

The Book of Five Rings by Miamoto Mushashi is the legacy he left for his successor as the head of the sword school he founded. The book has five chapters, and even though a lot of the text is heavily based on how to use a sword and win, it has some good points from which to draw inspiration for foobag. Musashi knew what mind game was. The last and shortest chapter of the book, the Emptiness chapter, is only about how clearing your head is important in order to perform your best.

Neither of these works are very long, so if you have time and interest on how to work on your mental game and approach to the Art of Footbag, I recommend reading them. Just skimming them through isn't recommendable though. You probably won't get much out of them that way.

Reading up on Mushashi on Wikipedia was very interesting. He has more recorded duel victories than any other person in Japan, and he never lost a bout. First duel at the age of 13 against a grown up samurai. Fighting alone against scores of men trying to take revenge after their representative lost the duel. Sometimes he even dueled to the death with a wooden sword when his opponent was using steel. Even imagining a person like that really existing is hard. But a badass like that couldn't possibly give bad advice on how to train martial arts.
I even bought the novel "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa, which is a work of fiction, but based on the known facts about the life of Musashi. It's a long book (~45 h), but quite good. And actually the first Japanese novel that I've read.


Footbag Comic
At DFO I doodled some random footbag related comics for people. Now seeing Boats make comics for this years Joulukalenteri inspired me to sketch out some new comics with very zen approach, that came from reading those "zen meets martial arts" books, which I wrote about above.
Shout out to all those who can draw: Who wants to draw footbag related comic strips?
I have a good feeling regarding the ones I've already sketched. If only I could draw, I would have drawn them all already.


Next year, 2017
I've dropped all the expectations and goals regarding footbag, which I had earlier this year. Now I just hope I can kick. Better not to make any goals now, that I keep having set backs. Still hope to go to Worlds though.

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