mc

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
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mc
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Post by mc » 29 Mar 2006 15:26

hey all you kickers out there in footbagland... I no longer live in Rochester, and my footbag escapades are becoming increasingly seperate from the goings-on there, so I thought it was about time to start my own footblog...

Shred at Fredonia had a great start this past January, I was playing 5 days a week and busting all sorts of new stuff like whirlwinds and some flip triple dexes and even a sweet Nemesis one day, but after not too long, my body couldn't really take it. In the past month or so, maybe a bit longer, I've chilled out a lot more, only playing once a week or so, with much more stretching and more casual play. I've got a player started at Fredonia, he just bought his Lavers, and he can hit clippers and ATW and a few other moves. He's super into footbag and we're having a great time.

In other updates, I've recently begun stitching footbags. I finished my 21st footbag last night, and I'm going to start another one shortly. My favorite patterns right now are the ones that involve equal amounts of both colors and cool interlocking patterns, like the Bipolar design and some of the 3-armed designs. I sent #21 off to Rochester today for a GRASS prize. I'm really enjoying stitching, and I look forward to taking some custom orders.

By the way, today is my 24th birthday, that was one of the reasons that I felt today would be a good day to start a footblog of my own. I was hoping for an even more momentous occasion to kick off this blog that I'm kind of keeping under wraps right now, but hopefully, I'll have something to say about it in the next few days.

My birthday session went well. I played solo for a short time, but I hit some cool stuff. Very early in the session, I hit blurry whirl > fog both sides for the first time, that was cool. Then, later in the session, I hit flip whirlwind after MANY tries, and then right after that, I hit superduperfly both sides for the first time, practically effortlessly!!! I was so surprised, it hardly took any time at all. I can't wait to hit my new moves next time I shred with friends.

I'm going to go crack another birthday beer (Blue Moon with lemon), stretch out, and start Footbag #22. peace hackyslackers!!!
Last edited by mc on 24 Jul 2019 19:15, edited 25 times in total.
BRICK!

rfa::never give up::
nyfa

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Skippy!
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Post by Skippy! » 29 Mar 2006 15:54

Happy Birthday, MC Crazy.

Glad to hear that you chilled on the shred before your legs fell off, dude. That'd be bad.
dan cyr
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Post by Slowsis » 29 Mar 2006 15:57

Matt is the man....he knows how to start a blog at the exact same time I do. :lol:

But seriously, Happy B-day man.
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Post by brinard » 29 Mar 2006 16:32

happy b day matt! dont party too hard... well... it IS your birthday, go ahead...

have fun!

brian

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Iron Clad Ben
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Post by Iron Clad Ben » 29 Mar 2006 21:46

Happy Birthday Matt!

Curious, what is your footbag story? When did you start? How long did it take you to get to guiltless?

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Post by Will Digges » 30 Mar 2006 09:56

Happy birthday matt!! I can't wait to shred with you again at GRASS. I have been playing solo all the time now because pat has baseball and he never plays. I am starting to get bored of it... I hope i'm not losing interest in footbag. I need to try some new links. See yah soon at grass peace!
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Post by FootbagGuru » 30 Mar 2006 09:59

yo matt happy bday dude, props on all the new stuff you are hitting...i havnt played in about a month now...i pulled a quad muscle from baseball...bah.......i want to play so bad





peace man
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Post by Jdigges » 30 Mar 2006 10:35

Happy late birthday man! im glad that you had such an intense with my footbag! we definitley need to trade again soon. Once i perfect this new template that i just made. im testing out some different filler combos with it. Im lookin' forward to GRASS man!
Josiah Digges


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Post by mc » 02 Apr 2006 13:06

thanks for the birthday props, everyone... Josiah, can't wait to see the new line. Mine are getting better, too. A few days ago, I finished and sold #23 for some expert advice from the coach. Stitching rules! I need new colors.

Ben, my footbag story so far is a long and winding one. I'll try and paraphrase.

At age 13, I got my first guatemalen hacky sack, and it got kicked into the rafters by a kid on my cross country running team. I was hooked, though, so I got another and kept at it. I could do more kicks than most of the kids in my school, and sometimes toe stall.

During the summer of age 16, I went to Saratoga to see Beck and Ben Folds Five play music, and I had my first exposure to freestyle. A guy in birkenstocks could do double around the world and osis and butterfly, and his friend could do osis. I was blown away! I went home and looked up footbag on my dialup internet, and downloaded the great Eric Wulff, and I was even more blown away! I ordered lavers right away, and put them on the day I got them. I learned to do around the world and around the world ending on inside that day (I already had solid inside stalls and clipper on one side).

By the end of the summer, I could do butterfly swirl, reverse eggbeater ending on inside (basically, miraging "swirl") and far osis. I went to my first footbag tournament, and was given a warm welcome to the sport by none other than the Brat, Steve Goldberg. He took me out to dinner with Ryan Mulroney and Sunil Jani, and generally made me feel welcome. At the end of the tournament, he gave me a Carol footbag that I lost at a festival while tripping on acid for the first time. :(

So, time passes... I wasn't serious about drilling or skooling, just about busting the tricks that I could figure out, and I played mostly alone. I went to a few more tournaments over the next few years and met a lot of great east coast personalities like Jack Lentz, Peter Irish, Josh Penney, Kaiser Ahmad, Alex Faber, Gordon Bevier, Seb Duschesne, Yacine Merzouk, and too many more to even think of.

In the summer of 2000, I went to world championships and watched Ryan Mulroney become world champion with a dropless (but not flawless, he BARELY saved a drop near the end) routine. It was also cool seeing a young Jere Linnanen become intermediate world champion, also with a dropless routine! He was scary even then. It was awesome meeting him and his brother.

Then, I went to college, and soon after, started the RFA with Tom Bulatewicz and Mike "The Wail" Strumpf. We had some great times there, and busted some awesome tricks. It was my first time having a club and others to play with! Within the next year, a LONG haired, jeans and running shoes wearing, shady looking character ;) named Mike Anello showed up on the scene. He would drive over and bust out with us during his lunch breaks from FujiFilm. In no time, he cut his hair off, bought lavers and started wearing shorts, and started developing his sharp toe and ducking game that we see today.

We put out our first videos, and started to travel to tournaments together. Mike and I have been very close ever since. We've played in a band together, shared a lot of hotels, and eaten a LOT of fish since then. That was the first of many times I've met one of my closest friends through footbag. The following summer, Chris Dean joined the RFA, and it's pretty much been the same story with him. Footbag is incredible like that.

After a few years and a LOT of videos and tournaments, I dropped out of school. Footbag suddenly became a lot more important to me. Often, it's been the strongest thing pulling me through a tough time, giving me the motivation to persevere and get through to better things, and keeping me around a supportive group of friends. I started driving to every tournament I could get to, and even made it to the New Year's Jam in Chicago, and CSS4.

I moved to Rome, NY for a brief period and taught a footbag class and met a young hotshot named Nasty Nate Linscott, who drove down to shred and join me for some public play at the Boilermaker, a huge roadrunning race in Utica. Upon moving back to Rochester after a summer, footbag kicked itself into high gear in my life. about a year and a half ago, I started going to every tournament within a 7 hour drive, and playing at RIT all the time, which ended up getting the club some other really enthusiastic players, like Aric McIntosh.

In 2004, I went to worlds and met Tom Mosher, Vasek Klouda, and Jorden Moir. I'd met Jorden once or twice before, but we didn't really get along or talk much. Meeting Tom was one of the most important footbag milestones for me. As soon as I met him, I could see the crazy in his eyes, and I knew we'd be friends. Between Worlds 04 and 05, I would drive up to Kingston to party and shred with my new best friend. We would rip huge bongloads and shred at Queens, then come home and drink beer and flip out on acid and more bong rips for the rest of the night, then wake up and eat the hugest breakfast we could fit into ourselves at The Epicure, smoke again, wait for the roast to subside, and shred more. It was heaven. I'd finally found someone who's as big a freak as me, who I could really be myself and enjoy life around. I'll always remember those visits as some of the happiest moments of my life. Here is my two favorite pictures from then.

Matt and Tom with long hair
Image

Tom surprising Matt with a razor blade
Image

The following Summer, Tom cut all my hair off and we went to Europe together for a month. We saw Poland for Euros and the Exchange, where we met ALL kinds of crazy people and partied every night, then Copenhagen and Lise Thygesen (who we have both fallen profoundly in love with because she is one of the most amazing women ever), then Finnland, for 20 hours of light a day, stumbling drunks, rooming with Jorden and Brett Campbell, all-night parties, and SHRED! with EVERYONE!! it was an incredible event, pure heaven.

After Worlds, I went to Peter Irish's house for 5 days before Funtastik with Nasty Nate Linscott and mellowed out with two of the hippest dudes ever to kick a footbag. We went to Funtastik together with a then-new-to-the-scene Chris Miller, and I most infamously projectile vomited my fungus and daiquiri cocktail all over Major Jack Keller's hotel wall and desk. I thank the east coast for their forgiveness regarding that little party foul thus far ;)

Then, I moved back to Rochester, shredded a bunch more, and held the New Year's Jam, which was my crowning acheivement on the scene thus far. We rang in the new year with a crazy footbag party and shredded like nuts. Chris Dean hit gyro jughandle 2 feet away from me. Poor Jorden got sick. Peng and Tom stitched footbags. Almost all of my east coast favorites showed up, and we had a blast. The whole thing went off almost without a hitch.

Which brings us to now. I've returned to college, I'm at SUNY Fredonia, I've founded a club here, I now stitch 32 panel footbags, and I recently hit superduperfly both sides. Footbag rules!

I can't wait to see what happens next.
BRICK!

rfa::never give up::
nyfa

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Post by mc » 02 Apr 2006 14:53

PS, ben, it took me a LONG time to get guiltless, and I didn't even really start working on most of my basics until I'd been freestyling for 3 years. I had a limited set of a few one-sided cool tricks, very little toe game, and boring strings with lots of far osises for a long time. My style is still very bail-y, and not what I'd like it to be, but I'm making some improvements and starting to link more 4s and 5s, but I'm getting too old to be a super fearless buster, and I work a lot on long strings with lots of variety, and cool weirdness more than ultra difficulty. Although, difficulty rules, and I look forward to slowly but surely working ever closer to hein-ness.

ps, will, if you're not feeling footbag right now, take this as an opportunity to slow down and let your body heal and loosen up, and start pushing again as we get closer to GRASS. you'll get that fire back in you soon, don't worry. :D
BRICK!

rfa::never give up::
nyfa

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Post by Muffinman » 02 Apr 2006 19:10

Is Fredonia close to Rochester?
It's great to hear you're back in school, Matt! What are you taking???
You're one of my favourite people (if not favourite person) that I've met through footbag; I can't wait to read more about your escapades! :)

Oh yeah, happy belated birthday!!

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Post by Seath » 02 Apr 2006 19:12

I love you Matt!
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Read my blog!

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Post by Will Digges » 03 Apr 2006 04:26

GRASS!! :lol:

read my blog , last two pages if you want to see what I hit recently.
Will Digges

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Post by Kljopa » 03 Apr 2006 12:51

A really cool footblog!It was a pleasure reading it :)
It motivates me to train harder and i can't wait to found a footbag team/club and spread the sport in Estonia because not many people know about freestyle in my country but ill fix that! :D
Oh and happy belated b-day! :)

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Post by mosher » 03 Apr 2006 14:24

Yayyy Matt!

I was so happy reading that whole story, thanks for dedicating a chunk of it to me, you've been a really really really influential person to me over the last few years.

Great to know you!

I am glad things are going so well for you and that you're back in school.

I look forward to hanging out with you at GRASS and making more happy memories. :)
Tom Mosher

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Post by mc » 04 Apr 2006 07:45

Looking forward to freestyling today. and then stitching a bag. Then I'm getting corn rows. And I just showered and shaved. woo! optimistic!

Fred Shred's first official club meeting will be this Thursday, I'm psyched. Now we can finally get this thing kicking... I hope i play well today. I think I'll use bag #23. This one will be mine. I think it's going to be a good footbag. I need to work on my fill, but I'm not sure what to do next. If there's anyone out there who owns one of my bags and also doesn't feel it's a compromise of their values to give me opinions and suggestions, I would appreciate receiving them. #24 will be cool. It's going to be a rasta colored footbag.

Erik, I'm taking music business courses. Fredonia is about 90 minutes from Rochester, so if there's a big shred going on, it's no big thing to scoot over there and kick. Will, big big BIG props on getting TATW under control! that's so phat. Tom, I'm glad you liked the post and your part in it. I also enjoyed that post, and I've really enjoyed your part in it, too ;)

footbag = <3
BRICK!

rfa::never give up::
nyfa

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Iron Clad Ben
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Post by Iron Clad Ben » 04 Apr 2006 08:18

Matt,
Great stories! I'm 24 too and I wished I'd found out about freestyle when you did. 14 years of being a hacker... sigh. As you know I shred with your bag #16. It's broken in now (that was quick!) and shreds friggin awesome. The Houston dudes loved it too. Unfortunately, I kinda stepped on it missing DLO and it got a small hole, but I was able to patch it up.

Cameron said you owe him a bag for the homebrew he sent you so expect to see a request from him soon :)

That's great that you are starting a club. It's hard work! "Fred Shred" is a great name. It's a lot of work. You gotta pound the pavement, but it's worth it. Good luck!

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Post by Tsiangkun » 04 Apr 2006 09:04

uh, I didn't know you made bags . . . and then everyone in texas had them.

I want number 76.

I'll trade you another package of homemade barely preserves in collectible glass containers.

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Post by mc » 04 Apr 2006 09:12

#76~!!? that will be a while!! considering that I'm starting 24 today ;) are you sure you wouldn't like number #24? or would you prefer to wait until I have 50 more bags under my belt?

I will GLADLY trade a footbag for another dose of those awesome beers. Wooooo!!!!!!
BRICK!

rfa::never give up::
nyfa

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Post by Tsiangkun » 04 Apr 2006 09:21

I need a while to get the brewery running again, my elevator got fixed this weekend. So Sunday will be the first batch of 2006.

Should be ready around June - July.
Last edited by Tsiangkun on 04 Apr 2006 12:52, edited 1 time in total.

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