Dante's Blog

[Dio]

Yeah! Blog! Alright, here we go!

So my name is Dante Diotallevi and I live in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.

Quick history->

- been interested in footbag for 3 years, training hard for 2
- went to Finland for my Rotary exchange 2 years ago (August 2008) I debated bringing my un-modded Lavers and lone Mr. Sandbag along but I decided to
- got picked up on the street by Justin Sexton after randomly hitting clipper->osis on the streets of Helsinki
- trained with the Finns Sept '08->June '09
- continued training in Kingston, Ontario with the KFM (Kickass 3, be there) while I attend Queen's University

Onto the blogging!

Today I only had time to play for 45 minutes but the weather was awesome and I was totally feeling it so I tried a bunch of new stuff with inside delays. I hit...

ducking inside delay -> pdx whirling inside delay->blender
pdx whirling inside delay rpt
symp whirling inside delay
blur inside delay -> pdx whirling inside delay

I already love pdx whirling inside delay, it feels really sick when you hit it! I also got,

matador first try bsos
sumo first try bsos (thanks again Jeff and Matt for the nuclear tips at Worlds!)

Over the next few months my focuses are,

spinning (butterflies, whirls, blenders)
stepping ducking (ripped warrior, alpine blur) - I can do this pretty well bs but I need to start working it into my freestyle game
flipside whirr, barrage (leading to flurry) and symp whirl components
quantum sets (leading to furious sets)

What I've got down confidently on both sides,

pixie/fairy sets
stepping sets
atomic sets
whirls (pdx, blurry)
rev swirls
symple swirls (far, butterfly)
ducking (butterfly, whirl)
flails (pdx)
DLOs (pdx) (although I don't like doing them that much :/)
eggbeaters (pdx) (I'd much rather do eggbeaters
drifters (pdx, blurry)

My biggest tricks this far,

alpine blurry whirl (bs)
food processor (bs)
bedwetter (bs)
mobius (bs)
vortex (bs)
spender
whirly gig
whirlwind
janiwalker
double blender
flurry
mullet

My first 7 add? Maybe alpine whirly gig? I'm not too worried about that yet though. Certainly not montage at this rate, my spinning ducking is something I haven't worked on much.

Oh and my apologies for not using the Descriptive System here, but it's 2:38 AM and I'm too tired to remember all the terms right now!

Anyway, I'll be playing tomorrow and will post again. Time to graduate from "Shredaholic"

[Laroche]

Sarce Blue!!! Mon Dieu!!!!

Good to see/hear/write your posts. Keep kicking Dante, I hear lots of good things about your game from Mathieu GM, though he might be in love with you and in that case his view is biased

We'll shred it up at KICKASS, Kingston-Style BABY!!!!!!

[KRyan]

about time you started a blog Dante! Keep it going so that I can be entertained by your awesomeness. Don't think I will make it to Kick-ass, really tempted though. Flying from Japan and then home would have cost me about 3 thousand dollars, so I am only going to Japan. Maybe next year?
I was thinking of coming to work in Canada next year anyway.

[Dio]

Hey guys thanks a lot! Yeah Kickass 3 everyone, BE THERE, except Ryan

Had a 45 minute session again today, legs were pretty tired from playing 1 on 1 basketball at the YMCA. Mostly unremarkable practice other than hitting my first alpine atom smasher. Also set a record of 5 spinning butterflies, I'm sure I can do more but that's the most for now.

I'm going to play tomorrow but take a break on Friday. Saturday I'm driving into London to play with Zac Forth (zac4th) in Victoria Park!

[MathieuGM]

Dante for president!

You'Re the shit man! But i work super hard to catch you up haha. It will be awsome to shred with you again at kickass .

Mat

[Dio]

Haha thanks Mat yeah KICKASS will rock!

Didn't play today, got a tennis match in and some swimming at a friends place. Rolled my ankle playing tennis but it seems to have recovered quickly

I'm going to take Friday off as well so I can shred extra hard on Saturday with Zach in London!

[Iron Clad Ben]

Ha good to see your blog up man! Shred hard!

What was the tip you got about nuclear? Just curious.

[thedudeman]

dante how goes the nuclear sets? i saw you get those sumos, have yu been hitting any others out of it?

[Dio]

Hey guys! Ben you know I'm gonna' shred hard dude, I just gotta' watch that Canary in a Coalmine vid of yours to inspire me haha that was the first freestyle video I ever watched!

The tip I got from Jeff O. was just to hop backwards when you do the set. Jay Boychuk also gave me a similar tip -> he said to make yourself a little off-balance before the set so that when you hop backwards, you return to your regular stance. This way you won't be hopping backwards into a stance where you can't do any trick out of the set. Anyway, I hit my first nuclear sets at Worlds after that tip from Jeff (Connor can attest to that!).

I try to think of nuclear as atomic sets from clipper. But I'm not super consistent at them yet anyway so maybe my advice isn't the best yet!

The only nuclear tricks I've hit are:

matador (bsos)
sumo (bsos)
nuclear near mirage (bsos)
69

I have enough height on the sets to hit almost any 2 add out of them I think. I need to try nuclear whirl

I'm just about to head out to London and play with Zach then party in London with a bunch of friends I just finished my summer job and I'm leaving for Kingston next Friday! Time to start setting up KICKASS 3.

[Dio]

Ugh hungover today after a weekend in London. It was pretty fun hitting up the bars with some friends for the last weekend of summer. But the highlight of my weekend was definitely the session I had with Zach Forth on Saturday! Thanks again dude, it was really fun. And the burger was tasty

We played on his back deck, which is super big and open. We both hit some cool stuff! I'm always blown away by his consistency in unusual stalls. He can do dragon stuff and sole stuff with ease. He even hit a blind pincher that he threw behind his head (first try!) I think he'd be able to throw together a great routine easily.

My game was feeling pretty good too, although my string length still isn't where I want it to be :/ I had one string starting with whirly gig and sealed with flurry. Also hit my first whipping swirl!

Took today off to recover. I might try to play a bit tomorrow but we have a staff party (for the restaurant I worked at this summer) tomorrow all day at the beach

[Dio]

Hey it's been a few days but here's an update:

Monday: staff party at the beach for the restaurant I worked at this summer. I didn't really know anyone super well but still had a good time. The main thing I was looking forward to: showing people some footbag I took 10 days off work to go to Worlds, so naturally everyone (chefs, waiters etc.) was interested in this thing I called 'footbag'.

There was a cottage with a big deck at this beach which I used for a few demos. I got mostly good responses but some of the management staff were disrespectful. After showing a single big trick (mullet) I especially liked hearing:

"How many doobies you gotta' smoke to do that?!"

Yeah, thanks. None actually. Just lots of hard work. :/

Anyway, after that, all I wanted to do was shred and ditch the party

Tuesday: Played for 45 minutes on my back porch. It was 36 C with humidex though so I DIED. Managed to hit:

blurry flail bs (new)
symp whirl -> symp whirl -> osis rpt

That symp whirl drill was great for my flipside (which I always started with )

Didn't play today(Wednesday) and won't play tomorrow either... I'm busy shopping for stuff for school in London all day and going to a play with my family in the evening. Friday I leave for Kingston at 8:48AM on the train and CAN'T WAIT TO GET THERE! Will be shredding with abstract asap.

Also been modding my grey mesh Lavers, I'm almost done the second one! Made a couple small mistakes but they are turning out great. I'll post a picture soon.

and KICKASS 3 is taking shape! Check it out -> http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=21661

edit: I also watched Aggresive Grounds and Where The Ripwalk Ends tonight (both with commentary) with my parents! Haha I think they were pretty interested, I wanted them to get an idea of what footbag is all about and the history behind what I'm doing. I, of course, was just glued to the screen (as always).

[Dio]

I just finished modding my grey mesh Lavers. Here they are! They are the third pair I've modded. It took me about 4-5 hours total over the past week.

Mods: -removed inside layer on insides and toes
- removed first islet on each side
- relaced (I believe it's Matt Cross style? Greg showed me)
- coloured the toe band purple with a Sharpie



I'm happy with how they look. I made a couple mistakes...

First I cut too far here while removing the first islet on the inside of the left shoe. I hope it won't affect the shoe's integrity too much... any input? Should I re-stitch this?



Also, there are weird holes in the toe of the right shoe. They appeared when I used the hairdryer to melt the glue when separating the layers of mesh. Did I melt the material holding the top mesh layer together?!



Any tips for modding are greatly appreciated. I used an exacto knife for initial cuts and a pair of tiny craft scissors for deeper cuts. I used the hairdryer to melt the glue on insides and toes. I've also been breaking them in (tennis, walking) over the past month. Gonna' start shredding with them soon!

[Laroche]

Oh wow those are some sexy lavers! Great job, I definitely can appreciate your attention to detail.

Not worried that the coloring is going to mess up from all the HEAT you bring?

[Lackey82]

Hey Dante!

From the look of the pictures, the weirdness on the toe is definitely heat damage. I have no idea whether or not that will affect the longevity of the shoe though...

As for the eyelet cut, it may not hurt to throw some thread around there. If it's still the same at KICKASS3 then maybe we can have a closer look, but when fraying or broken material is concerned, can thread really hurt?

Talk to you soon!

[Dio]

Nick, it sounds like I already brought the heat to these shoes Josh, thanks for the info man, I was afraid that was heat damage :/ I'm so bad at stitching/using thread for anything so if you could help me out at Kickass that would be awesome!

Oh, also forgot to mention! I hit my flipside whirly gig for the first time this week, multiple times pretty clean

[Dio]

The first shred back in Kingston today! I moved into my new place here in town today, although there are still lots of things to be done here.

Greg and I played for about an hour and a half (without music, I forgot my phone ) It was just awesome to be playing on campus again. I'm not using my Lavers yet, still breaking them in a bit. My Quantums are about to fall apart though.

I hit...

Whirly gig bsos
Symple swirl->symple twist (first time linking those two)
Alpine atom smasher
Bedwetter bsos
Mobius bsos
Flail->quantum down
Blurry flail bsos

It was definitely a fun session. Greg is getting a lot better at drifters and stepping everything. We're both starting to really develop our games after coming home from Worlds!

But now, onto organizing KICKASS 3. I'm working on finalizing a venue (possibly for free?) here on Queen's campus. Look for more updates on that! Gonna' shred and post tomorrow.

[Dio]

Ok scratch that, no shred today. Greg and I are taking a day off so we can shred extra hard tomorrow and Monday. Since it's a long weekend, he's not working Monday and we have all day to play.

Meanwhile I'm super busy moving into my new room here in Kingston! Gonna' have a sick setup with my macbook hooked up to a 22 inch tv and stereo speakers, as well as my keyboard and possibly my drumkit in my room. I have music composition courses this year so I'll be recording a lot in my room.

[Dio]

Played for about an hour with Greg today. We were both a little tired but I managed to hit a few cool things:

- mindbender (new)
- tomahawk b2b
- the cleanest quantum set I've ever done (ducking far mirage ->quantum down)
- many spenders
- symp bubbabeater (first try, new)
- far torque ->far blender

Shred tomorrow, more intense than today probably

[Dio]

Had a 1 hour 15 minute solo session yesterday in my driveway, which is a pretty uneven surface but it works. It was my first session with my new Lavers since my Quantums are now falling apart too much :/

I kicked myself in the calf on my flipside whirling swirl... SO MUCH PAIN (just a bruise though) I remember I did the same thing when I was learning on my strong side too. I managed to keep trucking though and hit:

swirl->twist->osis rpt (sealed with same swirl that started, great flipside training)
blurry torque (new)
rubberman (first try with new shoes, I hit one rubberman every session)
whirr->flurry

Still working hard on flipside symp whirls/barrages. Spinning is getting way better. Stepping ducking improving as well as quantum sets. Gonna try ripped warrior b2b next session.

[abstract]

props, man!

let's see that whirr > flurry on the flip! mechasick link.

i will post your whirligig bsos for you from our first session back in ktown.