The Lord of the Strings: A Footblog of Nathan

[Nathan8]

Three Strings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of crowns,
Nine for the Lavers destined to fly,
One for the Dark Lord doing a double down
In the Land of Ripwalks where the Footbags lie.
One String to rule them all, One String to whirr them,
One String to bring them all and in the darkness blur them
In the Land of Ripwalks where the Footbags lie.

-Nathan Bonslaver/J.R.R. Tolkien

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Wow. Just incredible. I couldn't stop laughing. Excited to follow your progression when we aren't having a session (you've inspired me to rhyme

This blog is going to be a start to something amazing. I'm confident in that.

[anhkhoashevakt]

Seems like somebody's a fan of Tolkien! Sick!
Never got the chance to finish reading LOTR, let lone T2T & ROTK, so may be you can give me a quick run through at Jamps, or may be we should watch the Trilogy movies at the shred haus!
Btw you made some impressive improvements lately! I can't wait to see your progress!

[Outsider]

Nice poem, Master Foot Baggins.

[boyle]

The Tom Bombadil of footblogs....

[Nathan8]

In an effort to catch my footblog up to date, I'll add some videos and copy some Facebook status's from the past few months to give you an idea of how I've progressed.

[Nathan8]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... FEyMm3T7V8 This was my first "Session Highlights" video that I had put together. It was about 4 months ago (Dec 2013) and I had been a student of Nick's for a month. When I met Nick I could do toe stalls, atw, and clipper. I was almost fully one-sided. I spent all of December doing flipside catch up and trying to chain clippers and toe stalls together. I had been dabbling in this vast realm of footbag since the summer months, but only met the community and released that it was a real thing in November when I met Nick.

[Nathan8]

Next up is my second "Session Highlights" video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... AGv6jxbHZY This was only two weeks after my previous video, but it was the first video with my Lavers. I had gotten them for Christmas and at this point they weren't at all broken in.

[Nathan8]

And here is my third video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... gcVo2uGEBM The goal of it was to hit tiltless strings, just as Nick had instructed me to do to fulfill my homework assignment.

[Nathan8]

And for my fourth and most recent video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... BJfrIwEfu8 It's almost two months old.. Which means I should probably make a new one this weekend.. But anyway, in this video I hit my first ripwalk, which felt great! Since then I've been working on improving my stepping from both sides without freezes beforehand. Especially stepping out of butterfly. And now my Footblog is finally updated. I'll try and post updates to here more often from now on.

[Cass]

Hey! I was impressed by your skill level at Jamps, lookin good!

Keep working on those long, bothsided tiltless runs. Try and focus on setting the bag where you want it to be so you don't have to chase it around. I would recommend choosing a spot on the ground and trying to not to move too far away from it.

You have a real advantage by starting out so young. Keep playing while you have the time and you will be great

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nice blog ketchup

I'm looking forward to your next highlights video. Also, session soon hopefully.

One quick thing.. to post your videos to be viewed more efficiently, try this:

[youtube](youtubelinktothevideowithoutparentheses)[/youtube]

[C-Fan]

Also, when you put the YT link in the format Nick mentioned, remove the "s" in "https" otherwise it won't display properly.

[Nathan8]

Thanks for the tips all, and as for the youtube links, I just copy and paste. But I'll look into fixing it. On a cooler note -

I just hit my first Ripwalk B2B!

It felt great, I haven't been so excited in footbag for about 2 months! I hit it mid string from a butterfly with no freezing, just as Nick had requested. I wish i had caught it on video! My reaction I'm sure was priceless, but I also think they were half decent. I had taken a break from stepping shortly I hit my first ripwalk so that I could totally focus on things I would be hitting in the circle competition at Jamps. Ironically, I hit a ripwalk there anyway. But anyway, after Jamps I had the freedom to start practicing whatever I wanted again. After seeing Ben do so many pixies there, I decided to revisit them. They had never worked for me, but then again I had never been too persistent while trying them. They clicked. It clicked both sides and I've hit smear and pixie legover both sides. So afterward I was in the sets mood, so I revisited stepping and... bam! That brings this post full circle.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Stop it, you're going to be better than me soon.

I show you stepping set for you to just know what it looks like and do it when you feel ready.. then you go home and hit Ripwalks, then a few weeks later, you go off and hit it b2b. Not fair. I call shenanigans on this guy. He's gotta be cheating somehow.



Hope to shred soon.

[Muffinman]

I didn't get a chance to meet you at JAMPS, but I saw you play a little. Super awesome and your family seems incredibly supportive. I hope you stick with it. You're progressing so fast with a good foundation and good form. Also, I love your first post. Can't wait for more updates

[Nathan8]

Last night had no homework (shocking). So I got a taste of what this summer will allow and I practiced for a solid 3 hours. nothing major was hit, I was doing different tiltess drills and just some playing. I did hit sidewalk bs first time and a new consecutive kick record. Only 132, but it ended in a bowl of popcorn. I did a lot of ripwalks bs, so it could be could considered as a stepping practice day as well. A lot can happen in 3 hours. I've also gotten into the routine of viciously drilling legover>mirage rpt at the end of every session for about 5-10 minutes to build up my battery, just as Vasek suggests. I think my new hair cut helps too. It has helped me polevault, and I think it will help me footbag too

PS
This is my video from Easter, but it's not viewable on mobile due to third party copyright problems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoIZSBd_C_U
youtubehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoIZSBd_C_U/youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoIZSBd_C_U
youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoIZSBd_C_U/youtube

I'm not sure how to post a link to modified. Are any of these ways correct? They're all the same link.

[Derek]

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

You are too good.

Hit the youtube button, and take out the "s" from the https://. Should look something along the lines of [youtube]http://www.youtube blah, blah, blah [/youtube]

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yeah, of course he's good, Derek. He's The Hammer.

Yo man, Stoked for our session this weekend. Should be a really fun one with a nice crew of players. Cant wait to see what you throw down. It's been a while since we've had a simple jam session.

Cya soon!

[Vraidave]

Nice man, didn't know you had a blog. but I'll be keepin up. I never realized quite HOW fast you progressed. I mean, I know it was fast, but I didn't think like, you surpassed me in five months fast, loco i tell you. Making me jealous lol. I'm still struggling with flip Pixie, because i have very little flip ATW, because I never had a cool teacher like Nick Polini to tell me these things about both-sidedness D: You make me feel challenged Nathan. it is a challenge now, and being challenged is a good way to improve, so watch out ;D