Fanzine

[boyle]

This go pro footage looks 10x better than the previous footage, great to see the quality. What kind of gadgets and attachments to you have for it so far? I'll definitely have to invest in a few of them.

[Asmus]

I want a GoPro more than ever now!

Looking forward to the video!

[C-Fan]

Thanks for the comments everybody.

Regarding my camera, I shoot with a GoPro Hero 3+ Black. Overall I like it, as the video quality is very sharp. My 3 biggest complaints with it though are:

No viewfinder. This makes it tricky to frame your shots. They sell an add-on viewfinder, and you can also use the wifi mode plus an app as your viewfinder, but the lack of a stock viewfinder on the camera is weird and inconvenient. For my furious video I got my wife to handhold shoot a few shots for me to break up the tripod monotony. But because there was no viewfinder, we had to throw out 80% of the shots.
In order to use a tripod, you have to keep the camera in the protective case. But when you have the protective case snapped on, the camera can't capture sound. Now that I'm practicing routines, I have to take the camera out of the case to film, which means no tripod. So basically you have to choose between tripod and no sound, or sound and no tripod.
To navigate the menus on the camera, you only have 2 buttons. If you want to delete your last clip, you literally have to do a series of 19 alternating button pushes to do so. And if you fuck up and skip past the menu you needed, you basically have to do 20 more button pushes to get back. Very tedious and frustrating. Again, I think you can bypass some of this if you use the app and wifi mode, but then you also burn battery way fast.

For the most part though it's worked out well for me. I haven't had issues with battery life or memory space, though I'm also religious about removing all clips and recharging the camera after each session. I also don't tend to shoot/play for more than 90 minutes, so I haven't taxed it too hard. It also shoots decently well in low light, though not perfectly by any means.

The only gadget I've purchased for it is a tripod mount, which cost me like $10. That's just the mount mind you; you need to get your own tripod after that. It seems pretty silly to me that they couldn't just build a tripod mount (basically a hole to screw into) on the standard casing, but whatever. I should probably download the app on my phone, since my model has wifi standard in it.

In actual footbag news, I have now played 4 days in a row, and my body is reacting well. I have officially finished filming for my furious video, which has freed me to work on stamina and routines. Those two are definitely linked. The plan is to work on my footbag stamina while also doing some routine practice, and hopefully by East Coasts I'll be consistently getting through my routines without feeling like I'm going to die. On that note, yesterday I did my first dropless runthrough of my East Coasts finals routine. The choreo definitely needs some tightening up, but it's coming together, and I think it has potential. I know I have a lot of work to do to prep it, but the thought of performing it dropless gets me really excited.

Here's a video of some strings from yesterday, where I was mostly pushing for longer runs:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNK1UJ5-Y3o[/youtube]

In a final bit of good news, I got a sneak peak at my furious video. The editor still wants to make a few final tweaks to it, but even this latest cut looked great to me. There's no doubt in my mind it was the right move to get a proper editor to work with the footage. I'm proud of the shred I shot, and I did what I could to vary up angles and get some hand-held footage in the mix, but there's no way I could have made something as nicely edited by myself.

While it's been a running joke for the past 8 years or so that I'm nearing retirement, the fact remains that at some point my game will decline. Even if I don't formally retire from freestyle any time soon, there will come a point where I will tone down the difficulty in my game. I'm not even that sad or scared of that happening, since it may make things easier on me physically and mentally. That said, when that time comes it will be really nice to have a well-edited HD video of my shredding peak that I can look back on. It'd also be nice to show people when they ask about my hobbies, since half the time the google results that pop up for my name are non-HD clips from 2007.

[PrunusAberration]

Thanks for the review on the Hero3+. The viewfinder is an issue I didn't even think about. Try out the gopro app. It would be great to know how much of a battery killer it is. Have you tried shooting in higher fps? I heard that kills the battery as well. By the way, I can relate to the edited footage of you kicking. I filmed and put into a small video of my progress of skating. I am extremely glad I did. A decade later and I am still proud of it.

[C-Fan]

Have you tried shooting in higher fps? I heard that kills the battery as well.

The standard mode it came with was 1080p at 30 fps. About a week in, I switched it to 1080p at 60 fps. The footage looks a lot better now, and I didn't really notice any change in battery life. Of course, like I mentioned in my last post, I haven't really tried filming anything longer than 90 minutes or so, because I don't tend to shred longer than that.

I once tried filming in the super slow-mo mode, but my computer didn't recognize the format, and neither did windows movie maker. So I haven't played around much with that since. I still have a lot to learn with my camera.

The focus now though is squarely on East Coasts. I'm done filming for my video, and I've instituted a policy of just working on my stamina and on my routine. Unfortunately the streak of shitty summer weather continues and continues, so I'm rained out most days after work. But with so little time until East Coasts, I can't use that as an excuse. Yesterday I played in the gym because of the rain. I don't like playing in the gym because I can't play my music there without feeling weird. Instead, I dedicated all of yesterday's session to drilling consecutives of tricks/concepts I'll be using in my routines. The hope was that this would have two benefits. The first is that it would improve my form and muscle memory on key tricks, which is never a bad thing. The second, is that it'd give me some confidence in hitting those concepts/tricks even when I was tired, especially as I got higher in the number of consecs. Like, I know I can do paradox whirl when I'm fully rested and its the first trick of a string. But when you do 20 paradox whirls in a row, by the 20th one you know you can hit them even when you are starting to get winded. Made sense to me at least.

I filmed, since I thought it'd motivate me to push a little harder. Of course, this is also the most boring video I'll make all year. Don't feel obliged to watch.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpqw3aCvj2Q[/youtube]

Today looks gloomy too, but I'm going to play again even if it means the gym again. Maybe I can bring headphones or something, since I want to make sure the routine choreo stays fresh in my head.

[PrunusAberration]

Ken, thanks for the reply. This chart shows an estimated recording time per mode. http://gopro.com/support/articles/hero3 ... ttery-life

[C-Fan]

After months of pushing my game, figuring out my camera, getting my wife to shoot some clips, and finding an editor up for the challenge...its finally done.

Ladies and gents, Ivan Iakimenko and I are proud to present our video:

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

Seriously huge, HUGE thank you to Ivan for his incredible job with the editing. This turned out even better than I'd hoped, and I'm just so excited to have this video as a snapshot of what is likely to be the apex of my game.

[PrunusAberration]

Congratulations Ken! The video is really tight and I love that park with the man & woman sculptures. Huge props!

[DC Clinks]

[C-Fan]

Thanks Dan and Andre. Also thank you to everybody who commented on Facebook and the video thread. Ivan and I put a lot of work into the video, so it meant a lot to me to see it get such a warm reception from the community.

In less fun news, I've been dealing with some neck injuries lately. They actually hit right before we released the video, but I didn't want to mar the video release with any negative news so I didn't blog about it. In good news, my neck has healed enough that I can do light footbag, though I'm still only about 80%. I'm now in a weird quandary of finding the right balance of training/healing before a tournament. If I didn't have East Coasts in 3 weeks, there's no question I'd take another week off to let my neck fully heal. And if I wasn't recovering from a neck injury, I'd be training my butt off to get in competition shape. So now I need to strike the right balance between preparing for ECFC, and not re-injuring myself. It's kinda tricky.

A few options I'm considering for ECFC are:

Don't compete this year, and help with judging for everything.
Only compete in routines, since my risk of re-injury is a lot higher in circle.
Compete in both, but don't stress out as much about them, and don't push as hard as I normally do.

Knowing how competitive I get with myself, I think option 2 is my best bet, but I'm not ruling anything out at this stage. It might be a game day decision. That said, I think it could be healthy for me to lower my expectations going into ECFC, and just try and enjoy the tournament. Normally, I enter tournaments having trained my butt off, and consequently have the expectation that I will perform well and hopefully place well. In fact, I've even approached some tournaments with the zero-sum mentality of "I either win 1st place, or I've lost the tournament." That mindset has probably helped push me harder in competition, but its also not the healthiest or most fun mindset. "If you're not first...you're last!"

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

Probably not a great mentality to bring to a tournament when you haven't been able to prepare enough for it.

The other factor complicating my prep for East Coasts, is all the work travel I have before then. This Thursday and Friday I'm in California, then I'm back home on Saturday, then I'm off to Boise for a week starting Sunday. Then, the week I leave for East Coasts I'm in Cali/NV Monday through Wednesday, before getting on a plane for NYC on Thursday night. Hardly ideal circumstances for drilling a routine. The silver lining on that cloud though is that I'll get to shred with Derek Littlefield in Cali, and with Penske/Red/Daryl/maybe Lon in Boise. That'd be pretty cool.

Wish me luck on the training/recovery. Hopefully I can solidify my routine choreo cues and not hurt my neck worse. I just need to listen to the body and not push too hard.

[C-Fan]

Wish me luck on the training/recovery..

Training and recovery are going very well. I've had 2 intense sessions since my last blog post, and my body has responded very well. I've been de-emphasizing routines, which has actually helped them. Instead of spending entire sessions on routines and beating myself up over every mistake, I've only done 1-2 run throughs per session and taken a more laid back approach to them. Basically, I'm approaching them with the goal of going dropless over anything. I'd rather hit an easier routine or miss a few cues and go dropless, than hit a hard routine with a drop.

The rest of my sessions I've just been playing for fun. My stamina isn't back to where I need it, but I'm having fun and I think that's the healthiest thing for me leading into comp. I've been playing to music too, which helps. I was bringing speakers to sessions for routine practice, but listening to the ipod on random during normal shred has been a lot of fun too.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvXm9PMrMHs[/youtube]

In other East Coast news, I'm switching to my competition shoes. My current pair of white G-Units are nicely broken in, but they're also completely falling apart and have no tread. In the video Ivan made with me, you can see the worn down soles in a lot of the shots. I actually think the worn down shoes helped me hit some of the harder tricks, since there's so much less sole weight on the shoes, but I don't trust them for competing on surfaces I'm not familiar with. I've therefore pulled my blue yankee g-units from last summer out of the closet, and will train with those through East Coasts. I expect my first few sessions with them will be an adjustment, since they have more bulk, but hopefully they won't affect my routine too much.

About to board a plane to Sacramento now. Excited to meet and shred with Derek Littlefield. Bear can't join us, but I'll see him soon enough.

[C-Fan]

Blogging at the Denver airport again as I wait to board. 3 days ago I was waiting to go to Sacramento and shred with Derek Littlefield, and today I'm on my way to Boise Idaho to shred with Red and Penske.

My last trip went well, though it was a bit of a spinning ps whirl. It was a short trip so I think I didn't take packing seriously enough. I didn't pack my toiletries bag or my GoPro. I did remember my speakers, but that was a hollow victory since Derek ended up bringing a better soundsystem anyway.

I'm glad I was able to meet up with Derek and shred. I was only in town 24 hours, so to be able to meet up, shred, and get dinner was a bit of an achievement. It was suprisingly hot out (mid 90s), but we were able to find a nice shaded flat spot. I think we both played pretty well, though I'm just basing that observation for Derek off the videos I had seen. Derek's game steered my trick selection over the session, as I played a lot more toe heavy than usual. That was kinda fun. My biggest concern going into the session was how I'd adjust to playing in my "new" G-Units which have more sole and are bulkier and more rigid. As it turns out, I had almost zero problems. I even managed to hit a pixie flurry in them, so that answered any questions I had.

At the end of the session I did one routine run-through, which went OK. I'm averaging more drops than I'd like, but I'm trying to fixate less on the drops and more on the fact that I'm learning the choreo and pacing myself better each time. I think if those trends continue, the drops will take care of themselves.

As I mentioned, I forgot my GoPro on this trip, so no footage from the session. Sorry. Here's a video of my last session before Sacramento, which was also my last session in my worn down Units:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4TTwsCgQ1Y[/youtube]

After our shred we got some good sushi and talked life and footbag. Derek's a good kid, and I'm excited for him as he starts getting into footbag more seriously. East Coasts is going to be a lot of fun.

Will try and film my session with Penske and Red today. My legs feel pretty bad, since I tried to cram in too many activities yesterday while I was home. I went for a run with my wife, as she is training for her first 5K. I didn't run hard, but I felt it in my shins afterward. I got in a quick solo session after that, and then in the evening we went roller skating. Lots of fun with all of them, but now the shins feel weird. I'd definitely take a day off if I could, but other than today I'm not sure if I'll have another chance to shred with the Boise crew on this trip, so I'm going to push through.

[Matt K]

It makes me really happy that after so long in this sport you still get the "oh shit I almost had that" jumps after barely missing a link.

[C-Fan]

Head is spinning from all my work travel this summer. My last update in this blog was about my Sacramento trip where I shredded with Derek. 2 days later, I was in Boise Idaho for 6 days of work travel, including plenty of overtime and lots of driving across the state. Luckily, I was able to squeeze in 3 footbag sessions. I was hoping to play more, but between working late and being in unfamiliar towns, 3 was the best I could do. In good news, all 3 sessions were with other people.

First session was on Sunday, not 45 minutes after I landed. It was a gorgeous day out, and I blocked it off to be social and footbag. I left my rental car with my coworker so she wouldn't be stranded, and Penske and Lon came and picked me up at the hotel. I don't think I'd seen Lon since 2010 Worlds in Oakland, and Penske since 2012 USO in Portland. We go to a nice park and shred by some picnic tables by the river, which is very scenic. Red Husted shows up while we're warming up. I really don't remember the last time I saw him either. He tells me a little about Paris Worlds, which makes me regret even more that I couldn't make it this year.

We all warm up quickly and play pretty well. I hadn't played in a proper circle since NOLA jam in April, so that took some adjustment on my part. I made it harder too by trying to film the session when it wasn't my turn, which was pretty tricky. I did a cursory review of the footage later, and about 1/3 of it isn't usable because of framing issues. GoPro's lack of a viewfinder strikes again! We play at the first spot for an hour, then cross the river to play by a fountain. My camera dies, but I got some shots there too before it did. Jim and Lon played really well. Jim and Lon were at all 3 sessions on my trip, and I'd say this was Lon's strongest shred. I played pretty well, and I'm hoping that playing in these circles was good practice for me for Circle at East Coasts. Biggest highlight for me was starting a string with clownface, but my camera was dead by then. I stopped playing a little over 2 hours in, but the rest of the crew pushed on a good hour more. I can't even play the old man card here, since Lon is a year older than me and Red is like 3 years older than me. After the shred we got dinner at an asian fusion place that was quite good.

Second session was Wednesday night. We played on some tennis courts by Jim's house. I think this was probably Jim's best session, and I think i got most of it on film. Red and Lon played OK, but I played pretty abysmally. My head just wasn't there, I don't think I warmed up enough, and I was just frustrated throughout. I think I hit 2 decent strings all session, and it just burned me that I was playing so bad. I think I was having trouble letting go of work, and that just killed me. Towards the end of the session though I was able to let go of my anger and enjoy just being in the circle with friends, and had a few good laughs making fun of my bad mental state. Afterwards we went out for dinner and drinks. I picked up the tab, probably partly out of guilt for being such a debbie downer during the shred. We say our farewells, because schedule wise I don't think I'm going to be able to see anybody the rest of my trip.

As it turned out, Thursday I got back to Boise from my day trip earlier than expected. I had to do a lot of work preparing outbriefs for the following day, but I thought it'd do my head some good to take 2 hours off to footbag. I called Jim, and in a stroke of luck he and Lon were able to come out on short notice to shred. Red couldn't make it, but in a way that worked out since I was able to get into a better rhythm in a 3 man circle. Or who knows, maybe I just had a better mental game. Either way, this ended up being the most fun session for me. We played with an oversized demo bag for most of it, which was a fun challenge that didn't really stop us from hitting what I consider big tricks for us (I got montage and gangsta, Jim got swirling torque, etc.). Overall this was the most fun session for me. Unfortunately, I didn't recharge my camera after the Wednesday shred, since I thought that was the last shred for the trip. The camera therefore died a lot earlier than I would have liked, but I still got some usable footage out of it. Lon and Jim drop me off at the hotel, and we joke that it's like the 3rd time we've said goodbye on this trip. I get a little sad though, since I know this time its for real. I'm hoping to see Red in October when he visits Boulder, and I may see Lon on my next trip to Sacto next week, but I may not see Jim until Worlds next year. I'll see if I can't work out another business trip to Boise before then...Jim's such a good guy.

In the interests of not making a video free post, here's a short vid from my past 2 shreds. The red shirt session I was working on rubberman combos for Monistere's contest. The white shirt session I was supposed to focus entirely on routines, but there was a landscaping crew that came to my shred spot 5 minutes into my session, and with 3 mowers/weedwhackers/leafblowers going on all the time, I wasn't able to use my speakers. Blergh.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSldxzj4ACU[/youtube]

I need to work on my routine more before East Coasts. With Gatesman attending, I think he's the favorite overall, but I'm hoping to put up a decent fight if I can stay in shape and put more time into the routine. We'll see what happens with my remaining travel.

[boyle]

Not a bad get together for a mid-work trip session (!)...

[C-Fan]

Blogging from Sacramento. This is the last of my work trips before my East Coasts vacation, and thankfully it hasn't been too stressful. I got in on Monday, met up with Derek Littlefield for shred/chess/grub, got done with work early today and snuck in a light shred, and tomorrow hopefully is another shred with Derek before flying home. Thursday I leave for the East Coast, spending a night at my sister's, then tourism Friday and then comp Sat and Sunday. I'm so amped to compete and do routines. My body is feeling good, and my routine practice finally feels like it's clicking. I'll probably need some luck to go dropless, but with the work I've put in I dont think it's far fetched.

Random thoughts/notes:

My GoPro has been acting up lately, where I can't export files from it. I'm hoping it's not a hard fix, and I'm going to have Ivan check it out at East Coasts. I'm doing that for 2 reasons. The first is that I think Ivan can probably figure it out much faster than I can, so it'll save me some aggravation. The second is that it'll force me to spend my remaining pre-ECFC sessions on routines and stamina, instead of chasing video highlights.
If all goes well, this trip will end with 3 sessions in 3 days, including 2 sessions with Derek. That'd be pretty good. I even managed to film most of the 1st session with Derek, which included a pixie diving ss dlo from him, and a couple fearless links I was stoked about.
Routine practice is promising. On Saturday I only did 2 run throughs, and both were dropless. Sunday I did 2 run throughs; a dropless followed by a 1 drop. Monday I did 1 runthrough which was dropless. Today I did one with 2 frustrating drops, followed by a 180 guiltless butterfly osis drill to work on my stamina. At this stage, I feel like my practice has put me in the position where I'm most likely to do a 0-1 drop routine, with an outside chance at a 2 drop routine. I'm going to need some luck, but at least my body feels ready, and my practice has helped my confidence.

Apologies for the lack of video, but hopefully I can get that sorted out by the end of the weekend.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hi. My name is Nick Polini and I'm a silent reader of your blog thanks for what you did tonight. Just caught up on the last 2 videos I missed. Some great runs in there. Stoked to catch up with you in a few days. Favorites were the clever Vortex> Mobius that masked the lyrics and that flurry> paradon Swirl bs ugh. I want both of those tricks so badly. Props for everything in both odlf those though. Cya soon

[C-Fan]

East Coasts 2014 was ken oath fun, and deserves a write-up. Let's see what we can do.

East Coasts 2014: Prelude

I proposed to my wife nearly 2 years ago, and when she said "yes" I knew that 2014 wasn't going to be a great year for me in terms of attending footbag events. In a way this was good, since it motivated me to train like crazy for USO 2013 and Worlds 2013, but it also made summer of 2014 feel different than any summer I can remember going back at least 10 years. The wedding was in June, the honeymoon in July, so I knew that if I went to any tournaments in 2014 they'd have to be early in the spring and fall. I managed to go to NOLA jam which was a lot of fun, but there were no routines there, so even when I was training it didn't feel like I was getting into tournament mode. The only other tournament that looked like it'd work for my schedule, was East Coasts. Once they announced it was in NYC, I bought tickets immediately.

My expectations for East Coasts kept changing week to week. When I first bought tickets, I was hoping it'd be a small tournament with a low level of competition, so I could split the weekend between footbag and also seeing friends and family (I'm originally from Westchester County, just north of the Bronx). Then Brian Bear said he was coming, and Gatesman also announced shortly thereafter. So now I felt like I had to train as hard as I would for a US Open...except that I had a ton of work travel right before east coasts. I had 5 trips in the 2 months leading up to it, and some of those trips were as long as 6 days. Not ideal for training, and I also got injured during that period too.

As it turned out, the travel didn't hurt my training too badly. My trip to Idaho probably actually helped me prepare for circle, since I got to play with Lon, Penske, and Red in 4 man circles. I was also diligent about working on routines and stamina, and right before the trip I was averaging 0-1 drops, which isn't bad considering my travel schedule. My GoPro also started malfunctioning the week before East Coast, which probably helped me since I spent those last sessions working routines instead of chasing video highlights. So overall I felt in good shape for the tournament

My flight to NYC was on Thursday afternoon, and I got back from my Sacramento work trip on Wednesday afternoon. I used that time to pack, and also to cut my hair into a faux hawk. I mostly did that so I'd fully feel on vacation, but I joked with my wife that most of my dropless routines had come when I had faux hawks, so I wanted to improve my odds. Thursday morning I tested it out, and had a good session. The plan was to take off Friday entirely, so I'd be competing on fresh legs Saturday and Sunday.

On the flight to NYC I listened to my finals routine song a few times, going over the choreo. I made the decision to only develop and practice my finals routine, since I didn't have the time to prepare and practice 2 different good routines. That's a bit risky, since if you improvise a bad routine on the first day, you could miss Finals, in which case it doesn't matter that you prepared a great finals routine. But having a different song for Finals can be advantageous, since you know the judges will be watching it with a fresh set of eyes. Like, if you did the same routine both days and went dropless the first, then any drop you do the second day they'll be comparing to your earlier round. Anyway, for the month leading up to East Coasts I had a song picked out for my first round routine, and I even had some loose choreo for it laid out. I had even practiced it a few times, but probably less than 5 times. As I was on the plane listening to my ipod on shuffle, the song "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga came on, and when it ended I listened to it again. Then again. I popped the headphone out of my ear and say to Haley: "wouldn't it be hilarious if I did my first round to Poker Face?" We laugh, but then I listen to it again. And then one more time. I start loosely planning out some choreo...

We land at Newark at 9:30 pm on Thursday, and my sister picks us up at the airport. Part of the reason I went to East Coasts was just to see her and my 2 nieces, though after buying tickets and comparing schedules with her, I realized we wouldn't get to see them very long. We probably got 80 minutes total of hangout time with my sister Thursday night (including the car ride), followed by maybe 90 minutes total the next morning. But that's better than nothing, and it was great to eat breakfast with the nieces and talk with them. By 10 am Friday morning though, we were already on a train into NYC with our luggage.

Next: Friday.

[brianbear]

Great seeing you this weekend Ken! Glad you upped your training in response to me Evan coming the tournament. Your finals routine was freaking dope, mad props. Thanks for the bowling too, that was super fun. Next time we must shred, I guess i messed up not making finals circles cause I would have had a circle with you! Good chatting with you at least

[C-Fan]

Thanks for the post Bear! If somebody would have told me that I'd be in Sacramento twice this summer, plus that we would both be at East Coasts, and somehow manage not to shred together, I would never have believed them. Hopefully we can get together at some point sooner than later though.

Continuing the write-up. No footbag on Friday, so feel free to skip that if you're here just for the footbag parts.

East Coasts Part 2: Friday

Friday morning I got to eat breakfast with my 2 nieces in Jersey. The older one is 6, and the younger is 2. They were at the wedding, but since I live so far away from them I want to make a point to at least show my face at their house any time I have a chance. I don't want every meeting with them to be like they're meeting me for the first time. It was fun eating with them and chatting a bit before they had to go to school.

Train ride into the City goes fine. I did a good job all trip of catching naps on trains whenever I could, which was crucial considering how exhausting all the walking, footbag, and general overstimulation of the trip. Once we got into the city we went to the village to meet up with my friend Stan at his work. We got a second breakfast and caught up some, then dropped our stuff off at his work so we could go off and do tourism without being weighed down. Going on footbag trips with Haley is fun, because her presence makes me do more tourist stuff than I otherwise would. It's also good, because the tourism distracts me from competition, so I can clear my head a bit before game days. It can be tricky though, since tourism often entails lots of walking around. I probably pushed that a little harder than I should have on this trip. We head up to the Frick museum and check out some nice dutch masters, then grab lunch off a food truck and eat in Central Park. That was one of the nicest moments of the weekend, just sitting in the park on the grass, watching the people walk by, watching the lake, and enjoying good food and good weather.

Friday night is pretty relaxed, as we just hang out at Stan's place and watch Bob's Burgers. We sleep on an air mattress, which deflates in the middle of the night. Not ideal the night before competition, but in the morning I don't feel too bad.

Saturday:

Woke up feeling OK, despite all the walking the day before, and the weird sleep. We go into Manhattan to get brunch with Stan and his GF. The place is really nice, with some fancy brunch items like thick cut bacon and rosemary infused honey. I make a point to eat protein (eggs, bacon) and caffeine to give me good reserves for competition later. After brunch Haley and I walk up through the village to Union Square. Open competition doesn't start until 3:30, so my plan is to arrive at the site around 2:30. I figure that way I won't tire myself out by playing too long, and I also won't burn out mentally by being at the site thinking about my routine for too long. The walk up through the village is nice, as I get to see some of my old stomping grounds. At Union Square I sit on a bench and whip out my ipod to study my routine, while Haley checks out the farmer's market. I pull up my original 1st round routine song...and then I flip back and listen to Poker Face. I finally decide to just do Poker Face, and like that I'm sketching out the rough choreo. One of my listen-throughs is interrupted by Bruce calling me. I assure him I know when comp starts, and that I'll be there on time. In reality though, I had no real concept of how to get there or how long it'd take, so once I hung up I started walking to the subway.

At this stage the coffee is really kicking in, and I'm getting very nervous about trying to get to a part of Brooklyn (Red Hook) that I've never been to, much less getting there on time. The original plan was for Haley to come with me to watch on the first day, but as we're standing on the platform for the subway I start having second thoughts. I know the village pretty well, so I knew for a fact that it's full of entertaining things to do/see, and that it's also very safe. Red Hook on the other hand, could turn out to be completely boring, or also completely sketchy. At the last minute I talk Haley into staying in the city and not coming out to Red Hook. This ends up being one of my best decisions of the weekend.

I don't think I'd ever ridden the F train before. I waited a good 25 minutes before the train showed, and when it did it was packed like a can of sardines. I squeezed in, and tried to play my routine in my head as we lurched slowly towards Red Hook. We finally arrived, and miraculously I made the 5 block walk to the site without getting lost. As I walked those 5 blocks, I felt good that I got Haley to stay in Manhattan, cause the whole area was decrepit warehouses. I walk up on the site and am taken aback at how many footbaggers are at the site. It's a little overwhelming. The first person to see me arrive is Cass, who makes a bee line right at me to give me a hug. A few others come up to exchange hugs, but it makes me nervous because a lot of the greetings also include comments like: "have you warmed up yet?" or "man, you sure got here late" or "you know we're competing in like 15 minutes?" I definitely didn't plan/time my trip to Red Hook well, so I put off making the rounds of hellos until later, and go change into my shred gear.

Next: Saturday comps.