Reilley Adamson's footblog

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
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Reilley Adamson's footblog

Post by rjadamson » 05 Mar 2012 21:50

Introduction
updated March 5, 2013

My name is Reilley Adamson. I am 23 years old. I have lived in or around Seattle my entire life. I started kicking casually in high school. I also noticed that as I learned to kick consistently it gradually became less fun to watch my friends continue to drop the bag after a kick or two (and then repeatedly fail to execute some elaborate serve).

I discovered footbag around high school graduation. I had a brief stint with the fine people of Rain City Shred during the summer months of 2007 (I even attended the U.S. Open in 2007), but stopped playing entirely for four years to pursue other things. I developed the itch to get back into footbag during the summer of 2011, and along with a couple other new players once again added some new blood to the Rain City Shred roster. Along with making some new friends here in Seattle I have already had the opportunity to both go to the 2011 and 2012 U.S. Open tournaments, visit my Oregon footbag neighbors several times (and vice versa), and even die glorious Team Fortress 2 deaths with a couple of you.

I am still an amateur player, but footbag has already profoundly changed the way I approach each day -- I am getting exercise, I am slowly learning to eat better, I have a new social outlet, and most importantly I have found an enjoyable pastime that requires great discipline and focus to improve in. As a young adult who has not yet found their educational calling (read: funding) or a real career direction, this center has been a blessing.

As I've turned small corners on my game I've found myself ever more inclined to be vocal on the modified.in forums and get more involved in the greater footbag community. As of early 2013 our Seattle club has announced plans to host this year's U.S. Open event.

Right now I'm trying to push through that awkward phase of mastering boring tiltless/BOP tricks. To aid in this endeavor I will use this thread to document every time I kick (in theory). Hopefully having a more cerebral awareness of my practice habits will help in some way. I hope that over the months and years this becomes as great of a read as some of the other footblogs here.

Thanks and links
updated February 28, 2012

I hardly ever practice footbag alone. So I owe a lot of my motivation to Justin Dale and the rest of Rain City Shred. You guys are awesome. To keep up with the Seattle crew as a whole please visit our Rain City Shred footblog.

Dan Reed of our Seattle crew has been great for pushing me, giving me combos to try, and stealing my snow cones. You can read his footblog here.
Last edited by rjadamson on 05 Mar 2013 06:00, edited 21 times in total.

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Post by Asmus » 06 Mar 2012 05:10

Nice first footblog post. Seems like you are off to a good start.

Looking forward to follow your progress.

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Post by C-Fan » 06 Mar 2012 07:06

Yeah, I have a very good feeling about this blog. Video always helps spruce up a blog too, if you have that ability. I personally like long blog posts with a short video at the end.

Sounds like you are off to a good start building the fundamentals of your game. I wouldn't worry much about knee stalls, but I do recommend learning knee kicks. They look good in routines and busking, since it's a tempo changer and also changes the height of where the bag is.

Too bad you can't make it to Vegas Jam.

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Post by rjadamson » 07 Mar 2012 01:20

March 6, 2012

Writing up the introduction post to this thread and having to go over how good or bad I am at every footbag concept got me ready for a more disciplined session. Today was a 'work on basics' day for just about everyone. I worked on my flip clipper, flip mirage, open/pixie set on both legs, osis, and my form doing all of the former. Any day that I don't waste on strong side big tricks is a good day.

It usually takes until the next time I play to know if I made any real progress on something, so I will likely find out how today went on Thursday.

In any case, my flip side consecutive mirages felt pretty good right off the bat today, and I've noticed that after just a few sessions of working on removing unnecessary hand and arm movement in this trick my upper extremities are a little less spastic. I cringe when I watch footage of myself doing consecutive toe moves -- my left hand repeatedly opens and shuts in a really weird way. Can't wait to fix it.

I spent most of the session just improvising tiltless combos with some BOP and the odd mixer/double legover thrown in each time. If I were smart I would have 12+ contacts planned out before I start each run, but I'm still not even used to even getting that many contacts in strings so I haven't yet made that adjustment.

I spent a while just doing consecutive flip clippers. I never really bothered counting, but I think I hit double digits pretty much every time. Disturbingly, every time I tried to just do a down/butterfly to continue on my strong side the set was awful and I dropped. I guess I know what to work on next time.

Despite throwing in osis regularly for two hours of play, my only good work on it was in the last five or so minutes of playing. When I osis I don't plant soon enough or turn my hips enough before I go for the catch, so I sort of end up swinging my catching foot across the back of my planting leg with lots of unwanted horizontal motion before the catch. I don't think putting osis in normal strings is helping me improve it at all... I really just have to sit there, do one clipper to osis, catch the bag, and repeat on my flip. Back and forth. Only then do I ever start planting with the correct rhythm and getting my hips to rotate along with my torso.

My pixie/open is getting noticeably better every time I play. I guess it's everyone's first set for a reason. After over two months of work on atomic I never even got to the point where I could do so much as throw in the occasional atom smasher midstring. Pathetic. After just a few weeks I am starting to get consecutive smears on my good side, throwing that stuff in midstring like it's nothing, and while my flip side is lagging behind it is improving at the same rate as my strong side. I think repeat combos are in my near future.

Anyway, I should probably pace myself in these posts, lest I end up with nothing to talk about after the first few posts. Asmus and Ken, thanks for the kind words. I can't even say how much I wish I were desperately getting my laundry done right now in preparation for a weekend in Vegas. I certainly have video capability (I seriously love my iPhone), but until I get around to acquiring some real video conversion/editing software I will probably stick to a few easily trimmed clips of new single moves or short, dense strings.

On that note, I will end this entry with a video showcasing what I suddenly found myself able to do today on my strong side:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDwSRPEH ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]

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Post by rjadamson » 09 Mar 2012 00:58

March 8, 2012

Making this thread was good for me.

I think from this point forward I won't have too much of a problem staying focused on what I should be drilling to improve as efficiently as possible. Since I started playing I've had the problem of getting some big trick (relatively, of course) in my head and wasting a whole session attempting it on one side. Now with any luck I will get called out for reporting 500 failed attempts on ripped warrior -- and nothing else -- every week.

Anyway, today I kept my momentum going with my flip open/pixie set. Sure enough, my flip side is starting to cross a threshold and become feasible. It is still at that stage where I don't expect it to come up off of my foot every time, so I naturally hesitate on the plant and usually can't get a trick out of it. This will probably change a lot over the next week.

I started throwing spinning clipper into strings about 10 contacts in. A few months ago this was a great way for me to abruptly drop, but taking a day last week to really let some of Justin's spotting/footwork advice sink in has made it so much better. My flip side still sucks.

I didn't focus on my form as much today. When I am focused on my posture so much it becomes hard to keep my attention on catch the tricks themselves.

I threw more stepping in today than I have in the past week or two. Like usual, I was hitting blur at about the same rate on both sides (at this point if I hit it at all I usually hit it bsos). I did some stepping same side clippers today too. Still, no matter how much I work on stepping it doesn't really feel like it gets better... it's just a shortcut to fatigue and aching legs. I think to really improve this one I will have to put some serious work into improving my overall level of fitness. At least it doesn't get worse when I don't practice it.

Double around the world is getting more comfortable. I'm both setting and dexing it better than I did Tuesday. I hit three in a row at one point today. Once my flip open/pixie is stronger I will work my flip double around the world.

Finally, I revisited atomic a little bit. I wasn't really smart about it though -- I just tried my "good" atom smasher repeatedly. I will shred smarter next session.

I don't have any relevant video to post. I had a great string from earlier in the session (before we started filming) where I was originally just trying to get smear bsos for the first time, and continued on to get another 15+ contacts of various tiltless-guiltless links.

I am looking forward to playing again Sunday. Until then I will mope around because I didn't go to Vegas Jam!
Last edited by rjadamson on 09 Mar 2012 14:49, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by Pistol Pete » 09 Mar 2012 13:01

SICK BLOG, Reilley! I'm student teaching in Everett this Spring so I will be in the area this whole quarter. Hopefully if I'm not too swamped with school work, we can get some practice sessions in! Your game has always been pretty good, I know you can get critical of yourself, but stuff like this pumps me up to play more. I'm actually researching into stitching my own bags since circle kicking with people on campus destroys them, even factory ones that I only let them use. (they're always scratching from the ground FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU-)
Pete Prosch-Jensen

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Post by rjadamson » 11 Mar 2012 21:20

March 11, 2012

Today was club day. Sundays are always so fun.

Open/pixie improves every time I play. I spent a couple runs doing a single set to hand catch back and forth on each side, and got my flip side to mirror my strong side very well when I took it slow. I really only did smears today, but got it bsos a few times. My strong side wasn't much stronger midstring than it was in the last couple sessions, but that's okay.

I got some minimal illusion work in today. Fooled around attempting smudge for a short while, but I'm pretty sure the one or two that I hit weren't clean.

Sometimes it seems like just letting good advice sink in for a while helps out a lot. Chris Dean visited Seattle a few weeks ago, and along with Justin gave me some advice for working on my shut/fairy set. It was near the end of the session (if I remember right), so I just dinked around with it for a few minutes. Skip ahead to the beginning of today, and I hadn't worked on it at all since Chris was in town. Right off the bat I could tell that it had made a jump without me physically practicing it in the last several weeks -- maybe just letting it churn in my brain for a while was all I needed. I hit fear on my second or third try and used it to begin a number of strings throughout the tail of today's session. I almost hit smear > fear too, but couldn't quite nail it down. If this develops as fast as open/pixie I will be in good shape pretty soon.

My Snow Cone Challenge for the day was paradox drifter > mixer/double legover. It proved extremely frustrating... I am nowhere near putting paradox drifter into my game on either side. But that has never stopped me from wasting round after round trying the same stupid thing over and over. After many wasted turns I finally got it, and before anyone else had hit their challenge for the day. I think that's three wins in a row so I probably need to up the difficulty.

I've been looking around lately for good routine songs in preparation for this summer (and beyond). I had a couple decent tunes picked out last week, but found one that will be perfect for if I decide to compete as an intermediate player at any events this year. It took all of a couple bus rides the other day to think up exactly what I want to do for the bulk of it. I didn't do a very good job conveying it to everyone today, but I'm glad I tried the rough draft -- if I can't demonstrate it to the people I kick with all the time I will have a lot of trouble being on the spot when performing for real. That said, I think this will be a great first routine. This could be a great project for the solo sessions I keep intending to do each week, and is already good motivation to work on fundamentals like toe bumps and wraps.

Pete, I am so excited to hear that you might be able to kick this quarter. Remember to keep in mind how much free time you will have if you fail all students by default!

Sorry, no footage again. Next time...

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Post by rjadamson » 15 Mar 2012 23:45

March 14, 2012

Tuesday proved a logistically challenging day so we cancelled the session.

On Wednesday night Taylor and I got to talking online about footbag and ended up doing separate solo sessions. We kept each other updated in our progress via text message.

I have a lot of respect for all of the great players (and those of you still getting there) who primarily play alone. One thing that really got me into casually kicking in the first place was the social aspect of it. Even now I enjoy the 'hanging out' part of kicking with everyone here in Seattle as much as I value the feeling of accomplishment from getting better at the sport itself. I would like to think that I am now invested enough in footbag that I would continue kicking all of the time even if I was limited to solo sessions... but I frankly do not know if that is the reality of it.

I have a hard time both pacing myself and pushing myself when playing footbag alone. I go from being unable to warm to instantly exhausted, and never feel like I play particularly well. In an hour of playing I don't think I was able to improvise a string of over 10 tiltless contacts. I'm not sure if it's the sort of claustrophobic space I have set up here in the basement or if I really do rely on others to push me so much. I imagine it's mostly a mental psyche-out holding me back, but the next time I undergo a major life change (new place, new job, whatever) I am going to try really hard to make sure it can better accommodate me a kicking space that is both convenient and comfortable.

Anyway, I kicked for about an hour and a half, but that included lots of sitting down. I was playing so poorly overall that I turned to working on paradox symposium mirage -- something I never practice -- to at least give myself an excuse for my drops.

I am absolutely going to try and get past this aversion to playing alone in the future. Perhaps if even tiltless runs are too much to ask from my cramped basement space I will go easier -- I guess the one benefit to solo sessioning is that I would be able to put time in on simple things. I am much more inclined to work on getting 100 consecutive toe stalls (first time I've ever bothered going that high without a drop or some sort of pause) or doing wraps for an hour to work on my overall balance/form if I know that I won't be boring to death someone whoever has to watch.

All in all a frustrating session, but as I said before my progress usually doesn't show itself until the next session or two. At least Taylor was hitting some cool links!



March 15, 2012

I was a little late to our session today, but I came in feeling pretty fresh. (Who would have guessed that actually coming fed makes a difference?)

After a quick warm up I found everything was feeling pretty strong. I think I've reported that my flip/open pixie is improving in every entry so far, and today is no exception. Flip double around the world is still not close.

Started a few more strings with fear. Still only really trying shut/fairy on my good side. Once my strong side is strong enough I will just try to mirror it on my flip.

Justin got me to work on paradox illusion today. I feel guilty for being so completely one-sided with my shitty toe illusions so it was probably good for me to try dexing/catching with the opposite side for once while still having the luxury of setting off of my good clipper.

My only real main goal today was to film myself hitting both paradox symposium mirages in one string so that I had something new to throw on YouTube. I was actually pretty happy to get this -- it's just another achievement that a few months ago would have involved wasting a whole session (perhaps in vain), but is now something I can decide to do within a reasonable number of rounds.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-UWeEyB ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]

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Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 18 Mar 2012 20:53

Good shit dude. Glad I found your blog. Lots of really awesome tricks and links from you already. Looking really sick. Keep up the good work. I'll certainly keep reading this.
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Post by rjadamson » 19 Mar 2012 16:51

March 16, 2012

The next two entries will probably be a little short. Jake Wren is in town.

Due to ankle pains (to be honest I'm not even sure if the sharp, recurring pains I get are indeed shin splints or if I have misdiagnosed some other common pain) rearing their head in just about every session for the past two weeks I have been unable to effectively school much of any high impact concepts. At this point I have received numerous tips on fixing shin splints and am well aware of the reality that I need to take at least a week off, but having visitors here from out of town or new local players attending makes me feel obligated to show up. Of course I want the instant gratification of playing sooner too. I pop a couple Aleve well before every single session now. Unfortunately it takes several hours to starting kicking in, so half the time it doesn't even kick in until I want to quit anyway.

That aside, I played well today for about the first half hour of our session. I got a few strings in that time where I broke 20 contacts -- well, at least I think I did. I am not very good about counting during my runs, but that may just be a symptom of not planning out repeat combos beforehand and having to allocate all of my mental energy toward figuring out what trick to do next.

I tried a few whirls at the end of the day. I actually hit two of them. I will probably drill this a little bit the next time I play.



March 18, 2012

I am sore again! Big surprise. I got visibly frustrated pretty fast today and almost called it quits and went home to rest early. Luckily, pretty much everyone but Justin Stephens was playing as if they were hung over from the night before so I wasn't alone. I lied down for a good while and eventually started drilling toe stuff in socks on my own. I need to play with much more mental awareness than I currently do, and stop relying on my current muscle memory. Every time I got through eight or so contacts of a mirage > legover, rpt combo I would mindlessly bail to a clipper... in socks. If I had been paying the slightest amount of attention to what I was doing I wouldn't be trying to clipper in fucking socks (at least not while I'm trying to efficiently train). Perhaps this will come naturally as I get better at playing -- I won't have to focus so hard on hitting each and every trick, leaving me some mental space with which I can coordinate runs a little bit better.

I had a similar problem an hour or two later. I had taken the last couple minutes of the previous session to test the waters of whirl. In that time I also messed around with whirling inside stalls. Fast forward to today, and I can't even make my legs do a whirl. I'd just instinctively go to an inside stall instead of a clipper. This went on for a while, and I was seething. Don't get me wrong, I think whirling insides look pretty cool, but I wanted to practice the real thing. Eventually I got past this mental barrier and made some progress on it. I think this trick will be janky for a while though -- one side will have the benefit of a good setting/catching leg with the drawback of my weak dexing leg (and vice versa). It's going to be a while before both sides look symmetrical. I have the same issue with drifter.

Double around the world was awful today. My Snow Cone Challenge was terrage, and I failed miserably! My stepping was also below average, but I am positive that was because of my physical condition at the time.

Everything else was about average. I like being able to report new milestones, but at least I didn't seem to have taken steps backwards on anything. I still want to take a break, but we have a new player that might show up this week... I should be there if he does.

Nick, thanks for the read/comment! I am awaiting your triumphant return to the game.

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Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic » 20 Mar 2012 06:23

rjadamson wrote: Due to ankle pains (to be honest I'm not even sure if the sharp, recurring pains I get are indeed shin splints or if I have misdiagnosed some other common pain) rearing their head in just about every session for the past two weeks I have been unable to effectively school much of any high impact concepts. At this point I have received numerous tips on fixing shin splints and am well aware of the reality that I need to take at least a week off, but having visitors here from out of town or new local players attending makes me feel obligated to show up.

Nick, thanks for the read/comment! I am awaiting your triumphant return to the game.
Dude, first sign of shin splints, take them seriously. To be honest, these "toe taps" you've probably heard about didn't do shit for me. The only things that have been helping my legs heal up from the nasty case of splints I have (used to be nasty, not I don't even notice them)..

1) Buy a resistance band and wrap it around the ball of your foot, hold the other end firmly in your hand and pump the gas pedal (so to speak)... Do it every day. My doctor told me shin splints will fully heal only after 4-6 weeks. If I were you, I'd play it smart and take some time off.. definitely more than a week. You'll thank yourself later when you're still able to play hard and you're hitting madd Fearless shit.

2) ZENSAH Leg Compression Sleeves Kevin Hogan recommended them to me, as well as my buddy, Jeremy Mellor, who unfortunately is recovering from stress fractures right now :\ Just bought a pair of the lime green ones. They rule. I'm in a population dynamics right now waiting for the stupid TA to come around and check my numbers for something, but he's an asshole and taking way too long to get to me so I decided to go on modified in the first place. Anyway, point is, I'm wearing them now and they're so comfortable... But seriously, fuck this TA.

I can totally relate to needing to play due to so many visitors. If I'm at State College, I have the PSU Crew to kick with.. When I go home, I have Jackson, Jeremy, Bob and the other guys back home. If I go to my vacation home in Harrisburgh, I have Tim Harper and his brother and a few of their crew friends to kick with. I can't escape people that play footbag lol Just bite the bullet dude. It's worth it to take a break, especially if you feel pain every session. That definitely sounds like shin splints, and if you keep playing on shin splints and dealing with the pain, it can easily transfer into fractures... that's right about where I was when I decided to take a long break. When you keep playing and playing and playing session after session after session on your leg leg legs, your legs don't have substantial time to heal up and it can be total bad news bears. This fucker is finally making his way to my row. I hate this class. Thanks for the kind woirds about my return to the game. It's nice to know some people are looking forward to it. I know I am. This shit is just too fun. Peace dude.

(PS. Come to Penn State Jampionships April 13-15!!!)
Nick Polini

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Post by rjadamson » 21 Mar 2012 22:41

March 20, 2012

I need to be more prompt about updating this so I don't forget details.

I took it easy this session. I really should take a couple weeks off, but I am not really confident my form is good enough at this point to prevent me from just getting new shin splints as soon as I start up again. So instead of risking lost time by stopping entirely only to redevelop the same injury I will simply tone down my playing for the time being.

I've been thinking more about putting a competition routine together over the next few months, and that will require some simple stuff I never really bothered to practice. I wonder how many dropless intermediate routines have gone down at major competitions.

Firstly I'd really like to improve my balance. I worked on wraps and holding my clipper sets. I want to be able to wrap > inside paradox mirage, rpt with ease. The next time I play I will throw clipper bumps in the mix -- I imagine a couple months of this will be pretty beneficial.

I'd also like to be good at toe bumps by the time summer comes 'round. I like to think I've made pretty good progress over the last month on reducing the contortions my hands go through while I play, but these no-set toe stalls really make my hands tense up and go into crazy ass positions. If I focus on fixing that suddenly the bag is on the floor.

I did cheat today and throw some torques in... I like this move, and I'm steadily getting better at them without really schooling, but they can definitely amplify my shin splint pain after just a few bad attempts. Still, today's were fine and I hit paradox torque into a string for the first time.

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Post by C-Fan » 27 Mar 2012 07:41

rjadamson wrote:I wonder how many dropless intermediate routines have gone down at major competitions..
Not many. I remember at Worlds 2000 it was a big deal, because Jere Linnanen did the first dropless intermediate routine at Worlds, and he won with it. I think Dave had at least one dropless routine at Worlds 2004 when he won the intermediate title.

I feel like dropless routines in general have only been relatively common since 2004. That was the first time I remember there being two dropless routines on the Worlds podium, and in the years since it's become almost mandatory to go dropless to get a medal at Worlds.

But yeah, dropless routine is a great goal, and I think it'd pretty much guarantee a win in any intermediate comp, especially if there's good choreo.

Props on paradox torque, and good luck with the shin splints. Heal up, then ease back with toe taps and some easy sessions.

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Post by Muffinman » 27 Mar 2012 08:43

I've had really bad shin splints many, many times over the course of my hacky "career", and I've found stair toe raises to help completely eliminate the tenderness. It sounds similar to Nick's resistance band thing, but without the band. I often do it on the edge of my bathtub too, just 'cause it's more convenient, and you don't always have access to stairs (that sounds kinda dumb?...) Ever since I started doing these exercises I've never had shin splints, and I haven't done them for almost a year now.

Kinda like this, but I lower my heel all the way down on each one, and I do it barefoot: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DwFcvFlL7A[/youtube]

Also, proper insoles have helped a lot. Ken recommended metatarsal insoles to me and they've been great.

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Post by rjadamson » 01 Apr 2012 18:55

April 1, 2012

Today was my first session in about two weeks. I actually meant to play a little bit on my own over the past couple weeks just to maintain some of my newer muscle memory, but... didn't. I simply haven't figured out how to psyche myself up into doing solo sessions.

Though my legs appreciated the break I hated every minute of it. I have been kicking regularly since late last summer and am used to expending a lot more energy on average. I did not really have the discipline to cross train while inactive so I had a lot of trouble maintaining anything resembling a regular sleep schedule. I think going from exercising fairly often to not at all made me a little angsty too.

I played about how well I expected to play -- average. I was pretty rusty in general, but feeling fresh for the first time in ages about made up for it.

My sets were probably the weakest they've been in a long time. It took me just a few minutes to rule out even bothering with stepping, atomic, nuclear, and to some extent open. Shut was about as good at it was a couple weeks ago (not very). My flip open seems to have regressed a lot. I will try and catch that up again later this week.

My main tiltless stuff felt decent though. I don't think I had any particularly dense or creative strings today, but when I avoided throwing in bigger moves my contact counts were passable. Osis probably looked as bad as it always does, but I felt pretty successful linking it in and out of stuff.

I had to take the opportunity to try some bigger moves today even though I know I need to work on my fundamentals and flip if I'm going to ever get good. I somehow got into trying open torque:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXUswUKZ ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
Getting a new five was cool, but ironically I am much more happy with how my toe stalls look leading into the move itself. I've been extremely conscious of my form for the past month or so, and my hands are looking a lot less dainty when I play. I just look and feel more balanced even when I'm not playing very strongly. Double around the world was weak today, but at least I don't think I was flailing my arms around as much as usual when I attempted it.

I came close to a couple other tricks and links that a couple weeks ago I wouldn't have even bothered trying. I almost got torque > torque today, and hit most of my attempts into strings when I wanted to. Playing out of torque has been tough up to this point, so this felt good. Unfortunately, my flip torque is utterly awful, and despite investing some time into it (with the original goal of getting it bsos) I did not even come close to hitting one on my flip.

I also started trying phoenix on a whim and footed it a few times! I still don't feel like I've figured out exactly what I'm doing right when I get a good/high open set. I bet I'll hit phoenix or darkwalk next session.

Nick, Ken, and Eric -- thanks for the comments/suggestions! I didn't have any shin pain at the end of our three hour session today. The only thing I can complain about is that the bruise I already had on my knee was a little more tender after playing. I actually already have these Superfeet insoles in my shoes already and I think they help quite a bit.
Last edited by rjadamson on 09 Apr 2012 12:49, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by rjadamson » 06 Apr 2012 02:21

April 5, 2012

Good session today. I almost played on Tuesday but my knees were actually pretty beat up after playing last Sunday (guess I posted before the Aleve wore off) so I gave myself a couple more days to heal. I feel I play at my strongest when it's just Justin and I playing. I absolutely think playing with a larger group is good in a lot of ways, but I also feel a little more pressure to do things that are harder. Ironically this attempt to not bore everyone to death usually results in me boring everyone to death by trying and failing the same link or big trick over and over. Today was the right amount of physical exertion and the right amount of difficulty/density.

Today I mostly focused on working whirl. I'm closer to that threshold where trying new things is notably easier to pick up than before. My overall balance and coordination is strong enough so that trying a weird new motion feels weird and new for a shorter amount of time. After working on osis for so long it's also nice working on a move that is a little more intuitive. It's more obvious what I'm doing wrong so I can actually improve a little more deliberately and not just purely by doing it a million times. Justin helped a lot too by reinforcing change when my form looked bad and consistency when it was good. Today I went from having not even hit a flip whirl to hitting the trick bsos a couple times. I will have to put some work toward making them look more symmetrical, but I'm happy with how far I got today.

I did not work on torque for more than a few minutes. I either hit them into a string pretty easily or dropped it on the attempt... with about equal likelihood.

My stepping sucks now. Sucks. Sucks. I'm torn between investing some of my footbag time into getting it back and just letting it go for a while so I can get better at concepts that aren't so demanding.

By the end of today I also made up for a little lost ground on my open sets. It did take me a little while to get my flip side back. It took me a few more rounds than I would have liked just to get a decent flip smear.

Finally I kept my promise from Sunday and hit my first phoenix. If editing was less of a pain in the ass I would post a video comprised only of phoenix attempts in which I set the beg into my own face.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihBH1WcR ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
Last edited by rjadamson on 06 Apr 2012 16:54, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by C-Fan » 06 Apr 2012 06:08

Really enjoying this blog so far. It sounds like you have a good approach to learning the game, and of course having a pro like Justin to guide you can only help.
rjadamson wrote:My overall balance and coordination is strong enough so that trying a weird new motion feels weird and new for a shorter amount of time.
That's one of the hardest parts about learning footbag in the beginning: learning how to learn. Sounds like you are making good progress on this important skill. That's why good players can pick up concepts so quickly, because they've learned how to learn.
rjadamson wrote: My stepping sucks now. I'm torn between investing some of my footbag time into getting it back and just letting it go for a while so I can get better at concepts that aren't so demanding.
I vote for letting it go, and exploring other concepts. Stepping is boring and overly common now anyway. I'd rather see people doing atomic sets or flip pixies than stepping. If stepping isn't natural for you at this point, I'd explore to find other concepts that maybe are more natural, and then at some point come back and revisit stepping. Maybe the new concepts will strengthen some muscles/concepts related to stepping, so it might not even end up being an either/or choice, so much as choosing a different route to getting good at stepping.

Stoked to see you at USO.

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Post by rjadamson » 12 Apr 2012 00:30

April 11, 2012

I probably shouldn't have played today, but I don't really care. It's annoying to take like two weeks off due to injury only to immediately develop a new one. I have had to skip a few sessions since playing on the beginning of the month because of my recent knee issues. Nothing too alarming, but imagine bruise-like pain where the tibia meets the knee -- the lower knee "bump" I guess. And it's been healing very slowly. I think it's just another symptom of my legs not being physically prepared for more intermediate concepts (I've noticed that a lot of miraging moves like torque and drifter can be rough).

Anyway, my tiltless is getting better and better... but anything remotely hard for me on a usual day was even weaker than normal. Double around the world? Sucked. I hit all of like two over the course of a bunch of rounds near the end of the session, and that actually kind of pissed me off. When I bumped it off of my foot correctly my magic hop timing was bad, and vice versa. I hope it hasn't really regressed as quickly as it had popped up.

I didn't do any setting concepts today except for the scarce open set. I hit smear bsos, and once that was out of the way I went back to mindless, improvised osis > mirage > down, rpt-sort of combos. I admit I "wasted" most of the session just kind of doing that and spacing out rather than thinking about what would be a good challenge.

Despite my overall frustration with my game today's session did have one redeeming factor that more than made up for it all: my osis was looking and feeling so much more natural. I should have really taken advantage of this and taken a few rounds just going for consecutives. I think I'm finally getting over that hill. Maybe I'll even update it to "slightly less shitty" on the front page!

I don't really have any particularly exciting video to post, but I was briefly messing around with inside stall stuff and came up with a couple repeat combo ideas including this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPDUNstp ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]
I'd like to add whirling insides into that combo next session. I'd also like to start posting some videos that are longer strings, and not just a single trick/tiny repeat combo into a couple more moves and a predictable drop (pretty sure the average Jay Boychuk trick is worth more adds than most of my strings). I should also start... swirl.

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Post by rjadamson » 16 Apr 2012 03:17

April 15, 2012

This summer is going to be awesome. Playing inside all winter I almost forgot what it felt like to play in a park or other public outside space where passersby will drop their jaws after witnessing the craziest hacky sack antics they've ever seen. Today was our club's first outside session of the year. We played at Cal Anderson Park -- chosen mostly because there's a pay-by-weight frozen yogurt place for a post-shred treat. Nothing beats Alki Beach for getting lots of bewildered foot traffic, but lots of people paused to watch today. One old guy started taking pictures. We also met a couple of potential new players.

Like most days, different concepts were a little hot and cold. This marks several sessions in a row of having found my sets regressed while my overall tiltless/guiltless concepts make up for it. Several people have suggested to me that I narrow my focus to hone certain things to a higher level of consistency instead of having lots of mediocre concepts. I don't know if I'm deliberately doing that, but I hardly practice certain things now. I also oftentimes let myself sort of go into autopilot when I (try to) string. The result is a lot of the same osis > down > mirage-sort of combo... and while I would normally want to be a little more deliberate with my playing here I am with a much stronger osis than I've ever had. A complete lack of atomic and stepping are the price I've had to pay, but I think this direction is going to improve my string length much more than being able to start strings with leg beater or throw in blur here and there.

I would say that overall my guiltless components are getting a lot more work than my tiltless... I haven't spent any time just working consecutive flip mirages or going through the basic mirage > legover drill. While I am working on more basic stuff I should really try and do it right.

Double around the world was thankfully much better today. Today was the closest I've ever been to being able to throw it in the middle of a string, but it wasn't quite there. Terrage will be a bit of a project. My flip still sucks... I tried a few when no one was paying attention. Not even close.

I need to figure out what to do about torque. By now the ideal motion is obvious to me, but unfortunately that motion means really hurting my shins at my current physical level. I spent a lot of time trying torque > torque because I know I am capable of it (but apparently not today). I know I need to just ease into turning a little bit more, but I don't know how to do that without enduring serious pain. I can hit one pretty consistently, but it's hard to play out of a janky torque with hardly any turn. I spaced practicing my flip side again today... I think I need a shock collar for when I just do things on my strong side.

Whirl was pretty bad. I think I maybe hit one on each side, and that's about it. Work in progress for sure.

The last thing I really want to work is my far mirage/paradox mirage. I can get through a decent amount in one string, but they don't look very good and I know that they'll take a lot less energy once I figure out the balance of setting the bag up or across, turning more or less, and doing the dex with less leg motion.

No video I'd like to post today despite the nice weather and scenery. Maybe next session.

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Post by rjadamson » 22 Apr 2012 23:52

April 22, 2012

I haven't played at all since last Sunday so I felt pretty fresh today. For months I've been waiting to play in warm weather in public spaces again... Cal Anderson Park was fun last week, but today was hot enough to feel like a real summer session. We played at Victor Steinbrueck Park near the end of the Pike Place Market. It was a good first foray into putting out a bucket while we shred to see if anyone would drop in some change. I am usually pretty self-critical, but today even I felt like I was contributing to the busking cause. The park had a ton of foot traffic, but unfortunately this was primarily in the form of vagrants. Because of this I didn't film any of a very memorable Sunday.

The combination of the perfect weather and slight pressure of a public performance atmosphere really pushed my average string length. Even my density felt a little bit better than normal. Now that I'm really letting some concepts go by the wayside to focus on things I naturally learn more quickly I am noticing a major improvement in my consistency. Dan made a really helpful comment to me after the session explaining how in his experience part of the road to getting good involves a process of intensely focusing on a concept, and then moving on -- after repeating this enough times you can come back to merely brush up on everything and suddenly find yourself with several strong facets to your game.

After lamenting last week about my torque I ended up with not only a strong one today... but one that didn't hurt my ankles. I hit that torque > torque link I had been trying all of last Sunday on my first try today and decided to roll with it. A lot of today's string started with torque, and it felt kind of awesome to have a move on lock down that would impress random people walking by even with Justin and Dan there to school me. Drilling flip torque wasn't nearly as frustrating as I had anticipated. In just a few rounds (and a few comments from everyone else) I went from completely missing the catch -- and this is assuming I got that far -- of my flip torque every time to footing it most attempts. I did not quite improve it to the point I could hit it on command and play out of it, but I am totally satisfied with my progress. I'd like to make the main goal of my next session torque > down, rpt. I've really been avoiding wasting my time and energy on 5-adds, but in retrospect I should have put a few attempts on starting strings with paradox torque.

Double around the world is still getting better (on the one side I actually practice)... today I got fixated on hitting double around the world > torque. Check! And, uh, yeah, I should do what I've said for the last several posts and work on my flip side next time. To my credit it is hard to practice weak stuff while playing in front of people that may or may not be impressed enough to donate a dollar or two. I am usually a lot better about actively work on my ambidexterity when there are just a couple of us kicking in an isolated area.

I tried a few whirls today, but just felt like I was wasting my time and looking dumb in front of a bunch of people. I didn't really try any similarly unfamiliar concepts until the last few minutes of our four hour session. Trevor was in front of me in the rotation, and I couldn't really hear what Justin was telling him about swirl. After I realized Justin was talking to me I figured he was telling me I should try swirl -- so I did. On my first attempt I could already tell this was going to be so much more natural for me than whirl. Maybe swirl just isn't that hard itself, but I felt pretty awesome suddenly hitting (and getting lots of really close attempts on) a completely new category of trick in the course of a couple rounds. I can't wait to work on swirl next session.

Even though I didn't play during the middle of last week I thought about the U.S. Open a lot. Being so new last year I did not feel particularly social. I didn't even hardly want to kick with anyone out of embarrassment. I really hope that I'm comfortable enough with my level of skill to feel like less of an ass playing with good people. On that note I am confident that if I fleshed out my current routine idea over the next couple weeks and practiced it over the next four months I could be at the point where I am going dropless while busking here in Seattle. Whether or not I can do it in Portland with the pressure on might be a different story. I am really curious to find out who exactly will show up next year to compete in intermediate competitions. I realize that physical injury (I'm thinking about last year when Cale McCoy told me about his problems with major injuries) and intermittent interest in footbag itself keep some people from the ideal situation of moving on to open-level play after a year of uninterrupted play. I'm totally okay with losing because someone else plays twice as much as me, and is therefore better, but I really hope that my one projected year of intermediate play isn't just me getting crushed by someone with a totally incomparable amount of experience!

We hit the hot tub at Executive Fitness after our session so my legs feel good. I am seriously considering playing more right now.

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