I should do a Vlog tutorial on hitting your first beast. It's really not too hard to hit just one beast. A lot of it comes down to energy/breath management, as well as finding links and tricks that you can execute on minimal energy/breath. Like, if you can find a 6-6 link you can do where you don't completely expend all your energy, and then you "bail" out of it with your easiest 6, then you've hit a beast. Using myself as an example, I've found that off of my right foot clipper I can mind bender even if I'm almost completely out of energy/breath, while off my left foot clipper I can usually eke out a spender even if my control or energy isn't 100%. So if I can link any 2 sixes and get to either of my clippers with even a smidge of breath left, that's usually enough to luck out a beast if I finish with one of those moves. Make sense?
Would love to watch this, but could you include tips on a PWF beast? I don't even know what I could hit. Maybe I could end on a blender trick, but I've got nothing else.
Last edited by Muffinman on 06 May 2018 15:22, edited 1 time in total.
Where's my damn Top Post Painting?!?! Come on Erik, you're killing me here! Can you edit in some drawing of yours or something?
As for PWF beasts, my advice is likely the same. Conserve energy on the first beastly link, then bail on the third trick to your least energy-intensive 6. That's the easiest formula I can think of. I actually checked my list of beasts and I don't have any PWF ones on there (If you count xdex I have hit fury-fusion-ducking pdx torque, and if you count xspin I've hit shooting butter-blurry torque-inmobius). I bet I could get some though if I swapped out some pdx blenders for motions. Something like shooting butterfly-blurry torque-ducking motion seems pretty doable.
Closest thing I have to footbag news is that I'll be in Portland in a month for a wedding. I'm hoping to get in one session with the locals while I'm there. I haven't been playing much lately, and I may not get to play much before then either, but it should still be fun even if I'm out of practice. I need to start planning for that trip a bit more...traveling with a baby is definitely still new territory for us.
Not playing much means I also don't have a new video for this post. Blergh. I actually have some backlog footage from my last session I need to edit, so this is a good reminder. One nice thing about not playing much and consequently not editing videos, is that when I do finally get around to editing some clips together its like the footage is a surprise to me. That's both funny and sad...
Here's the double spinning rake from my last video, but isolated by itself in its own clip:
Nice. I saw your blurry torque video. I guess you're saving that for your next post? I always find it really impressive that in your usual videos you tend to do easier, longer combos, but you can still pull out the huge tricks whenever you feel like it. Do you feel rusty when you play these days? You certainly don't look it.
EDIT: Added a painting of Spawn by Ashley Wood, my favourite artist
Nice top post painting! Really dig it. The painted art style kinda reminds me of the old Havok & Wolverine Meltdown miniseries: http://www.therealgentlemenofleisure.co ... n-1-4.html
An old favorite of mine for sure, at least from an art standpoint.
I'm back on the road this week, headed to central California for work. I try and set up these trips so even on travel days I can help with baby dropoff/pickup on the way to the airport, but even doing that I still feel guilty being gone at all. I try and justify it to myself by telling myself that if I took a job where I traveled less I'd probably be paid less, and that keeping my current job helps keep the family financially secure. That could be true, but it's hard to know for sure. Doesn't make me miss the family any less either.
you can still pull out the huge tricks whenever you feel like it. Do you feel rusty when you play these days?
Thanks for the kind words. I play pretty infrequently, so its hard to say whether or not I consistently feel rusty. Some sessions I definitely do, and it makes me sad since its like a part of me is fading. Then other sessions I'm surprised how easily an unfamiliar link (e.g. dyno-blur) or trick comes. It has not been a consistent and predictable decline, so that's been reassuring. And then every now and again I'll have a nice unexpected bright spot, like randomly getting a new beast or hitting a big trick cleanly like this:
Like on one hand I'm 38, I don't play much anymore, I feel retired from competition, and I feel like footbag is becoming a peripheral occasional hobby instead of a core fabric of my being. On the other hand, 5 years ago I couldn't hit nemesis... back in 2013 I would have killed to hit a clean nemesis. So I try to really appreciate the sessions with those unexpected bright spots and not take them for granted.
I have a feeling this trip is going to be lots of driving, so I probably won't get to footbag much if at all. But it doesn't hurt to pack my gear up and bring it with me just in case.
I definitely feel you on the consistent and predictable decline, even being an active player I feel it very strongly. But it sounds like you have a really nice life balance going on, so I'm sure you're finding fulfillment in new things now!
I just wanted to comment quickly and say that I started reading Wolverine/Havok Meltdown last night! What a crazy coincidence. It's by another of my favourite artists, Kent Williams, who has a similar style as Ashley Wood (that's how I first discovered him!) I ordered these books a year ago and only now finally getting to them. I really like your taste in comics. You've reminisced about some of my favourite artists multiple times to me before. I'm curious what other comics/artists you enjoyed growing up!
Here's a playlist of videos I've made of my Kent Williams books: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... KQn8p1-l4N
He's a really interesting case because he works primarily in fine art these days, but will occasionally whip out more comics work.
Ken, out of curiosity, how long have you been playing footbag?
I first kicked a hacky sack during Easter 1996, and I first discovered footbag on June 28,1997. The first page of my blog has a few posts where I reminisce on these early experiences in gory, nostalgic detail. Kinda weird to think a lot of current players weren't even born or were toddlers when I was first getting into the sport as a teenager.
I really like your taste in comics. You've reminisced about some of my favourite artists multiple times to me before. I'm curious what other comics/artists you enjoyed growing up!
That could be a fun trip down memory lane. I was a big X-Men fan so Jim Lee, Art Adams, and John Byrne were all early favorites of mine. I also really enjoyed Mike Mignola's style. Barry Windsor Smith is another guy I liked. Looking at those names (with Mignola being an outlier) it would seem I liked really detailed artists. When I started branching away from just superheroes, I was really taken by Daniel Clowes' work as well as Adrian Tomine. Though with those last two I think some of my appreciation is also tied to their writing. Like, I probably have some added attachment to their drawings born of my enjoyment of their stories.
My trip to California was a weird one on a lot of levels. I had hoped to get in 2-3 shreds, but I ended up only playing once due to circumstances beyond my control (family emergency). I stayed in Merced, a very small town with a very big homeless population. As I often do when I'm in a new town, I Googled nearby parks to find a place to shred. The first park I went to looked full of junkies and homeless people, so I drove to a second park...which looked even worse. I then drove into the heart of downtown and found a park next to a police station, courthouse, and library. There still were a lot of homeless there, but I figured the proximity to a police station would keep me safe, and I also found an area that was tucked a bit out of view from the majority of the park so I wouldn't draw attention. The ground wasn't very level at this spot, but at this stage I just wanted to play before dusk so I set up shop there. I got in a solid 45 minutes of playing, mostly trying for 20 contact strings in an attempt to replicate Erik's 20x20 challenge. Towards the end, some guy without a shirt and a crazy look on his face came running full speed at me and just started yelling at me. I wish I had my GoPro on while it happened, because he was definitely crazy or high and talking nonsensical insanity. Something about me putting mosquitoes inside his brain? I somehow talked him down a bit, in a combination of Spanish and English, and he ran off. I was pretty spooked by the whole experience, so I threw all my gear in a bag and made my way very cautiously but quickly back to my rental car and got out of there. Given how many times I've played in unfamiliar locations on my work trips, I guess I was due for a weird interaction like that. In any case, I'm glad nothing crazy happened and I wasn't mugged or assaulted or anything. Also guess I'm lucky it happened at the end of the session and not the beginning, as I was pretty much done by then anyway.
I still need to go through my footage from that session, so in the meantime here's another video of a recent shred:
Oh, and my sober streak is still going. I'm pretty much at the 2 month mark now, with no drinks since March 16th. That pretty much ties my streak from last year, which I did for 2 months leading up to Worlds. We'll see how much longer I try to push this for.
No footbag since my last post, mostly because I caught a nasty daycare cold from Griffin. Had to burn a couple sick days to recover, and I'm still not 100% yet.
In 26 hours I get on a plane to Portland to go to a wedding. We've done a couple flights with Griffin in the past, but always to visit family that had a car seat and a crib waiting for us at our destination. This trip will be our first where we are bringing our own stroller, car seat, and pack-n-play (think portable crib). Add onto that wedding clothes for 2.5 people and a metric ton of baby supplies, and it's pretty overwhelming. At least I'm not nearly as sick as I was a few days ago, as that'd make this trip even more daunting.
Suitcase space is really at a premium on this trip, so I'm having trouble justifying to myself packing G-Units which I'll likely end up using for less than 2 hours at best. But I'd also feel kinda bad going to Portland and not kicking with the locals there at all either. So the plan for now is to bring one pair of nice shoes that I can use at the wedding and for walking around normally, as well as one pair of shred shoes. I'm also thinking about leaving my GoPro at home (not that it takes up that much space) and seeing if that motivates me to use my phone to film and edit. The flaw in my GoPro lens definitely bugs me (blurring in the lower left quadrant of all my recent videos), and editing from the GoPro is still a pain, so if I can get similar video quality filming on my phone as well as the ability to edit on the fly on the phone, that seems like a win-win. Assuming I can figure it out of course. I actually did a short test of it today, and it came out marginally OK:
That's using the free Clips app on iPhone, but I bet there's better free apps I could get to play with. I don't love that it puts those black bars on the side...I'm pretty sure my source clips were landscape, so not sure why it forced it into portrait. Anyway, step in the right direction and worth exploring more. When I learned my new laptop didn't have WMM or any editing software on it, it really slowed my editing process, and now with the GoPro's lens getting blurry, it's good motivation to move towards doing everything on my phone. Apologies in advance as it'll likely take me a while to figure out the best process. I'm definitely open to any suggestions.
So back to Portland, I currently am proposing a shred for Sunday afternoon. It sounds likely Chris Dean will be there, and hopefully Wren and Bevier too. Justin Dale expressed interest in coming down from Seattle, though that appears contingent on how his back is feeling. Fingers crossed. I'll try to film any shred if it happens. Since I'm traveling with the baby though, I honestly have no idea how much control I'm going to have over my schedule.
I think you have to shred going to Portland. Too bad about the new computer not having any editing stuff at all? Can you just download Movie Maker? Or I guess it's from your work and you can't make any downloads. I haven't used the editing stuff yet on my phone, but I notice there's more capability there. Also if you're just doing short clips, you can just post the raw thing up onto Instagram. It's very easy to just chop a run out and put it straight up there.
At least on most airlines you don't have to pay for that baby stuff like strollers, cots etc. It's still a total pain to carry though.
Hope you get the shred in!
There must be a web-based editing platform. There's a sweet web-based Photoshop clone that I use at work for various things. Also, for the GoPro, could it just be that the lens is dirty in the bottom corner? Or the casing?
Good to see you blogging still, occasionally.
The Portland trip was pretty crazy and exhausting. The glass half empty take would note that we averaged pretty much one major crisis per day of the trip. The glass half full take was that we dealt with each emergency calmly and rationally. While they weren't fun situations, we also didn't panic which helped us get through them. I think that's both a testament to how good a team Haley and I make, and also maybe an indication of some personal growth on my part too. In a way, having a kid means you no longer can afford the luxury of flipping out. Like losing your cool isn't even an option in a lot of situations.
As part of that optimistic take, a few times on the trip I reminded myself that the main purpose of the trip was to attend the wedding to show support for the family and also to have Griffin spend some time with his California relatives. We did great on both fronts, so in the big scheme of things anything else is incidental. 20 years from now we probably won't remember the guy next to us on the flight getting kicked off the plane and arrested, or having a fender bender in the rental car, but I bet Haley's cousin will look back at her wedding photos (maybe with her kids) and coo over how little and cute Griffin was, and appreciate he made the trip to share part of their special day.
Since this is a footbag blog, I am happy to report I was able to get in one shred with the local crew. We timed it for Sunday afternoon, when most of Haley's family had already left town, and we got the shred to overlap almost perfectly with the baby's nap. We played at Col. Summers park, at the exact same location that USO 2012 was held. That was the year where I had a crushingly bad routine finals, but I channeled that frustration energy into winning circle comp finals against Penske, Bevier, and Justin Dale. Crazy to think that was 6 years ago...
Anyway, Justin couldn't make the drive from Seattle since he was dealing with a back injury, so our session was comprised of Chris Dean, Flash Bevier, Jake Wren and myself. That actually ended up being pretty ideal in terms of circle size, both for filming purposes as well as how long we all had to wait between turns. I'm pretty sure this was my first shred since my California trip over 3 weeks earlier, so I expected to be pretty rusty. On the flip side, not playing for almost a month made me appreciate getting to play at all. The fact that I was getting to play with 3 guiltless players was like icing on the cake.
Flash brought speakers and music, and the weather was pretty ideal for shred too. We took our time warming up and joking around, and really the session was a bright spot in an otherwise kinda stressful trip. I didn't hit anything particularly big or any new stuff, but I was pleasantly surprised with my consistency, and I was in a good mood throughout. Jake started the session super strong and then appeared to run out of gas towards the end. Chris was having an inconsistent session, but had a few standout runs that were super cool. Flash played great I thought, with all sorts of cool mixups like calf kicks and fliers to downtime tricks. Such a fun style. We probably played a good 90 minutes before we all ran low on energy. At that point I was also worried the baby would be waking, so we all said our goodbyes and I headed out. On one hand I was a bit sad we couldn't all go out and grab a meal together afterwards, but on the other hand I counted myself lucky to have even had time to meet up with them and shred.
I haven't touched the footage from that shred yet. I know a lot of good runs were out of frame, and I think some of them rendered upside down since I shot in landscape and probably set the phone on the wrong end. But hopefully some of the runs are salvageable. I still haven't edited my footage from California yet either. Maybe I can work on figuring out the video editing on the phone in the next month or so, and then develop a routine where I can turn around footage in a more timely manner.
Here's the last full video I put together:
Oh, and today marks 12 weeks without drinking. I'm not sure how much longer I intend on pushing this, but at this point I find its getting easier to do it, so why not keep pushing the streak?
What happened for the guy to get thrown off the plane? Was it something to do with you guys or just a random thing? Great that you got in a good long shred in nice weather.
It's true as well, once you have kids you can't just say "I'm totally freakiiiiiinnng out" (like Peg from Peg + Cat), you just have to deal with the next thing and keep things afloat.
Great to hear that you were able to shred and meet up with the guys!
Looking forward to that footage, but also great to see the solo session vid.
The upside-down footage shouldn't be hard to flip at all. Hard to tell if you were writing that off with the out of frame stuff or not.
I guess regular solo sessions isn't in the cards these days?
I still think a lot about footbag, even though I don't play much anymore. When I'm waiting in line or just fidgeting I'll often still airshred combos. Sometimes it's drills I know I can't hit (double blender-vortex), other times its more realistic stuff I hope I remember to try at my next session (fairy down-revup drill). I also still catch myself coming up with routine choreo when I'm listening to a new favorite song. Force of habit I guess. I also sometimes daydream about going to one more USO or East Coasts to compete, because I figure that even without practicing or playing regularly I'd still likely do a better routine than my Worlds 17 one. Even if I have a couple drops and don't win it'd still be a better taste in my mouth than ending my career with my Worlds disappointment. Then I remind myself how little I play now and I feel silly to even have these thoughts.
I guess regular solo sessions isn't in the cards these days?
That's a fair assessment. If I hadn't gone to the wedding in Portland my last session would have been during my California trip in early May. In theory, I should be able to make time to play in the evenings after baby goes down since the days are long now. In practice, by the time he's down to sleep I'm exhausted and starving. Some days I just crash right after he does.
What happened for the guy to get thrown off the plane? Was it something to do with you guys?
You know, our interaction with the guy started off well. We agreed on a lot of topics, most notably that the HOF should focus on what a person did to promote the game and not on how good of a player they were. But then that led to a discussion of BAP, and we did NOT see eye to eye on that topic.
Seriously though, it was more of a perfect storm of factors that all could have been handled better. I'm sure the police report reads something like: "passenger did not comply with flight attendant request to put luggage under the seat in front of him, became aggressive" or something like that. In reality, I think the passenger had flight anxiety, (correctly) felt the flight attendant was picking on him because he was young and black, redirected his flight anxiety at the flight attendant, who in turn did not defuse or handle the situation well, which devolved into a shouting match and the guy getting deboarded and arrested. The passenger didn't handle things well, the flight attendant didn't handle things well, and the whole thing felt emblematic of how bad America is at dealing with mental illness and race, and especially when the two overlap. But yeah, the trip was just full of unexpected and unavoidable weird hurdles like this one, so credit to us for making it through to the end.
Looking forward to that footage. Hard to tell if you were writing that off with the out of frame stuff or not.
Truth be told I still haven't really watched any of the footage, so who knows how much of it is good/usable to begin with. In lucky news, I pulled all the footage off of my phone last week since I wasn't sure how easy it'd be to address the upside down footage in the in-camera-editor. This was lucky timing, as my phone died less than 24 hours after that when I dropped it one final time and the screen went dead on me. So while the footage still hasn't been edited or even viewed, at least it's not completely lost either.
On a related note I may be without a phone for a while. If I do manage to shred before I get the new one, I'll either dust off the GoPro or just not film. It's telling though that when my phone died the two biggest impacts I felt on my daily life were not being able to listen to podcasts on my daily morning dog walks and not being able to take pictures/videos of Griffin. Says something about where I'm at with my priorities and my life these days.
I still haven't edited my footage from California, so here's a video from 2 years ago where I was re-hitting blog highlights from 10 years before that:
I kinda like the idea behind that video. Hopefully you were working on different concepts 10 years ago, so revisiting an old blog entry and re-hitting those old highlights with new twists/difficulty can freshen up trick selection. I may try that again the next time I play.
In non-footbag news, my booze-free streak is still going. In less than a week I'll hit 100 days!
Tony Whitney recently started playing and posting again on Modified, and he mentioned watching some of my FootVlogs. I legit had forgotten I used to make them; I was surprised to see I did around 14 of them leading up to Worlds last year. Unfortunately I stopped doing them after Portland, partly because I was depressed about how badly Worlds went for me but also because I stopped playing regularly. But between Tony's comment and seeing Breakdown post a 1 minute vlog on Facebook, I was inspired to do a vlog my next session:
Overall that was a fun session. It's definitely a nice surprise that I can still do some harder things like hitting a beast, especially considering how little I play now. The arch nemesis was new for me too, though I'm not 100% happy with the double down. It's such a tiring move to work on too, since one leg is doing so much work. I had trouble walking for a few days after this because of that.
The other big piece of news is that I downloaded a new video editor. Its called ShotCut, and it reminds me a lot of Adobe Premiere. That's both a compliment and an insult. Given how annoying it was to pull out my old laptop just to use movie maker, and all the problems it was giving me recently (losing files midproject) it was worth it to change. I expect the new editor will get easier for me the more I use it.
Nice work, like the blurry whirling swirls. With the World Champion, I see the overall just like the all around in gymnastics. You have your different events like the bars, floor, vault etc and some people are specialists at certain events, then you have the all around, but everyone who wins is the champion of that subset.
Cool that Kat is moving to Denver! We shredded all the time back at Penn State, but I haven't seen her in about four years. I've heard she kicks infrequently but maybe you can inspire a comeback. She's got some serious raw talent.
That's both funny and sad...
