Muffinman

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
Post Reply
User avatar
C-Fan
Rekordy Polski
Posts: 11366
Joined: 23 Jan 2003 23:51
Location: Denver
Contact:

BLM TPP

Post by C-Fan » 26 Jun 2020 18:57

Image

"The Two Sisters"
-Kehinde Wiley, 2012

Muffinman
the gimp
Posts: 10373
Joined: 21 Apr 2002 15:34
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by Muffinman » 03 Aug 2020 17:50

Appropriate, thanks Ken!

Haven't played since my last post. Started getting nerve pain down my leg, like sciatica (though my physiotherapist nor back specialist referred to is as such). Hoping to try playing soon. Got a box of tapes from Mathieu GM the other day, originally from Yacine, so converting those at the moment. Have a box from Lon and Daryl arriving probably tomorrow. Both collections have some never before released footage I believe.

Was trying to get clarification on when I actually started freestyling, so I asked my parents and I asked my mentor, the one who got me into footbag, and taught me what ATW was. My parents said 1997, and my mentor said 1999. But I was already doing semi-long runs with 2 adds in 1999, including mirage x2 midstring in a run. Back then my progress was a lot slower, I think maybe because the difficulty cap was so much lower? Or that I had to learn tricks from Job's Notation because videos didn't really exist, and I didn't really have players around me who were a high level? Probably a combination of those factors and others. If that's the case, then I guess I've been playing for 23 years now. I wish I had a better memory so I could confirm one way or the other. I keep flip-flopping every few years when I remember this discrepancy... I remember getting Lavers shortly after seeing She's All That, but I remember playing in skate shoes for a long time before then, so that also lines up... Maybe I was just doing super basics like stalls and fliers for a couple years before I learned tricks?

Anyway, hoping to try a test session maybe tomorrow to see how I feel.

Watching Worlds was a blast. Congrats to all of you who were involved/participated! It was such a great show. So professional. Such a high level of play! Huge props, Ken, for 3rd place!

User avatar
C-Fan
Rekordy Polski
Posts: 11366
Joined: 23 Jan 2003 23:51
Location: Denver
Contact:

bad injury luck!

Post by C-Fan » 04 Aug 2020 11:18

Muffinman wrote:
03 Aug 2020 17:50

Haven't played since my last post. Started getting nerve pain down my leg, like sciatica (though my physiotherapist nor back specialist referred to is as such).
Geez, it feels like you can't catch a break. :(
Muffinman wrote:
03 Aug 2020 17:50
I remember getting Lavers shortly after seeing She's All That, but I remember playing in skate shoes for a long time before then, so that also lines up... Maybe I was just doing super basics like stalls and fliers for a couple years before I learned tricks?
Definitely possible. I remember playing in skate shoes for a year before I found freestyle footbag, and I recall having the most basic stalls (toe and outside?) and fliers before then.

Anyway, hoping to try a test session maybe tomorrow to see how I feel.
Muffinman wrote:
03 Aug 2020 17:50
Watching Worlds was a blast. Congrats to all of you who were involved/participated!
Didn't you judge one of the events? Would love to hear your perspective on that experience!

boyle
Post Master General
Posts: 3146
Joined: 19 Sep 2007 23:42
Location: Canberra, Australia
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by boyle » 05 Aug 2020 02:36

I played for a long time in "Omni" skate shoes. Actually I found out about Lavers and that kind of thing and thought, oh these guys are way too serious.

Eventually I got some Lavers... (however I'm actually regularly now trying to play in any shoes at all to show that you don't really need any particular shoe at all).

Muffinman
the gimp
Posts: 10373
Joined: 21 Apr 2002 15:34
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: bad injury luck!

Post by Muffinman » 12 Aug 2020 07:06

C-Fan wrote:
04 Aug 2020 11:18
Didn't you judge one of the events? Would love to hear your perspective on that experience!
Yeah, I judged Sick 3 for Open, Intermediate, and Women's.
I went in with the understanding that people would expect execution to be judged very precisely, so I put in 110% effort to slow-mo frame-by-frame every single trick of every single entry multiple times to watch for cleanliness. This was mostly based on some comments Derek made on Facebook, calling out thes pretty blatantly. I documented notes on which elements of which tricks were the, and most players had at least one the component. Probably half had multiple thes. But I found that the effort wasn't really appreciated and it seemed like other judges didn't look nearly as closely as I did, since, say, someone I ranked 15th or so, actually placed top 5. I tried to really stick to the judging criteria, which I found out wasn't really provided to the participants, which I mentioned to the organizers, but again I felt that based on results, other judges didn't follow this as closely. Overall my results were close to the actual results, but with a handful of wild discrepancies.

I think my biggest takeaway from Worlds, aside from how amazingly well the live stream was produced(!), was that I was incredibly disappointed and floored that Jakub Worek didn't make BAP. I'm happy for Rafal, and I think he deserves it (and great BAP name!!), but I feel that Jakub is one of the best players in the world easily right now. I wonder what the deciding factors were for the induction. Not enough clipper like Olaf?

RE: my footbag health, I started a medication for my nerve pain. It's actually an anti-depressant that is also used for nerve pain. The side effects are super wonky, but I thought I felt better after the first day on it, so I tried 20 legovers out of the blue and it was pretty harsh on my leg pain. I'm not supposed to feel effects of the drug until 2 weeks, and then again after another 2 weeks. It's been about 1 week now and not much effect on the pain. On the plus side, I've been trying to fast and control my diet since I can't really exercise, and the drug's biggest side effect is loss of appetite, which is making weight loss a lot easier!

User avatar
C-Fan
Rekordy Polski
Posts: 11366
Joined: 23 Jan 2003 23:51
Location: Denver
Contact:

Worek BAP theory

Post by C-Fan » 12 Aug 2020 13:16

Muffinman wrote:
12 Aug 2020 07:06
I was incredibly disappointed and floored that Jakub Worek didn't make BAP. but I feel that Jakub is one of the best players in the world easily right now. I wonder what the deciding factors were for the induction. Not enough clipper like Olaf?
I wasn't in the BAP meeting so I have no insight on their discussion. If I had to guess/critique, I'd point to various concepts that Worek hasn't mastered yet: spinning, double downs, whirls, torques. He's awesome at the concepts he does use (pixies, ducking, atomic, dlos and eggs, etc.) but it is a bit limited in scope. I also wouldn't be surprised if they expect he can develop a more varied trick vocabulary, and hope that the promise of BAP will motivate him to work on it in the coming years.

boyle
Post Master General
Posts: 3146
Joined: 19 Sep 2007 23:42
Location: Canberra, Australia
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by boyle » 13 Aug 2020 01:27

This is the link for the NHK program. https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/onde ... o/2073067/

User avatar
C-Fan
Rekordy Polski
Posts: 11366
Joined: 23 Jan 2003 23:51
Location: Denver
Contact:

proper link

Post by C-Fan » 13 Aug 2020 04:30


User avatar
Tjuggles
Flower Child
Posts: 1746
Joined: 27 Mar 2005 20:03
Location: Wellington, NZ
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by Tjuggles » 23 Aug 2020 13:22

This was so good.
TJ Boutorwick

"You can do anything" -Greg Nelson

Muffinman
the gimp
Posts: 10373
Joined: 21 Apr 2002 15:34
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by Muffinman » 27 Mar 2021 16:23

Heeey, it's been a while.
Looking back, it looks like the last time I "played" was June 28, 2020 -- Recovery Session #9:
And the gap between that and the previous session was 2 months??



DYLAN FRY AND HEALING BACK PAIN WITH TMS
Last winter Dylan Fry was living in Toronto for a few months. It was just after I started my latest long-term injury, which sucked. I think I only actually saw him once, and it was just to hang out, watching him, Alex, and Maciej play, and then go for dinner. But that hang out was pretty significant. Dylan had been injured from footbag for about a decade and had just come back injury-free. We were talking about injuries at some point and I mentioned how I'd tried every kind of treatment imaginable with so many different doctors. He told me about how he healed himself through TMS, which is essentially emotions as the cause of physical pain, rather than actual physical contributors. Since I had tried everything (strengthening, stretching, physio, massage, MRIs, x-rays, injections, etc) over the course of about 15 years now, and the latest back specialist had ruled out every potential physical cause, I was probably a bit more receptive to this than I would've been previously. Particularly since that last specialist essentially confirmed that she also thought the cause is emotional/mental.

I just started writing a whole bunch about TMS, but I think I'll just keep it brief and say that I've been pain free since I started working on this. It's only been a few weeks, but I feel awesome. I've been the most active I've been since I was last playing footbag, walking every day, playing sports every day for the past week. Zero back pain. I'm excited to see where this takes me and if I can achieve what Dylan was able to.


FIRST SESSION SINCE JUNE 28, 2020 (9 months)
I just had my first footbag session in 9 months.
It was just 20 minutes, and it was absolute basics indoors, but it felt good, and I have no pain. Stiffness, yeah, but no pain. Dylan has basically been coaching me and wants me to slowly increase the intensity every day, so we'll see how that goes. I started a spreadsheet to track my progress and drill records: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0 . Highlights were paltry, but satisfying:
-legover > hand catch x10
-pickup > hand catch x10
-near mirage > hand catch x10
-20 alternating clippers
-20 near clippers BS

I started super rusty and had to remember how to kick, lol. I had to remember to twist hips to do inside kicks, because I couldn't do more than like 3 haphazardly. Muscle memory kicked in pretty quickly though. Alex also checked in recently to see how I'm doing, so hopefully we can start jamming in the near future as the weather's getting warm here.


VR!
Anyway, that's it.
Feels good to be back on my feet.
I've been staying active with my upper body doing VR workouts -- table tennis and beat saber, which are pretty intense, especially for someone who's never really done any upper body work. Oh, actually, I stream my gameplay for these sometimes too:

Eleven Table Tennis:


Beat Saber:




MARRIED HOMEOWNER
EDIT: Oh yeah, it’s been so long since my last post that I’ve gotten married and also bought my first home, lol. Those things are both going very well. We live right smack in the core of downtown where it’s easier to walk to everything we need than take public transit, hence we’ve been walking a lot. It’s awesome, and our condo is our dream home. We have two balconies! The grocery store is literally like 20 steps from our front door, bubble tea is the next building over in either direction. Community centre and massive park across the street, and the lake is a block away. We're both also about a 20 min walk from work, whenever we end up going back to the office. Crazy! So adult.

User avatar
mtoolan
Atomsmashasaurus Dex
Posts: 871
Joined: 16 Feb 2006 17:35
Location: Bethlehem, PA
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by mtoolan » 28 Mar 2021 08:56

So much great news! First, congrats on the wedding and the new place. Leveling up in new aspects of life can feel really great. Your new place sounds amazing!

And it's great to hear you're finding reasons to be optimistic regarding your pain issues. I don't really know anything about TMS, and like you I'd probably have been much more skeptical about it in the recent past, but for a few reasons my mind has been opened to how profoundly (and negatively at times) the mind can affect the body. Good luck with it and I hope you keep us updated on your progress!
Mike Toolan
Penn State Footbag Club

boyle
Post Master General
Posts: 3146
Joined: 19 Sep 2007 23:42
Location: Canberra, Australia
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by boyle » 29 Mar 2021 01:32

Exciting stuff all round. I saw some posts from Dylan a while back about recovering from long term back pain and thought of you. Cool that he's training you up to make a comeback, he has super cool style as well. New place sounds great, right in the middle of the action.

User avatar
cammel
Fearless
Posts: 547
Joined: 02 Mar 2006 21:16
Location: SB, California
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by cammel » 30 Mar 2021 13:48

Wow, what an awesome update! Congratulations on the marriage and the home! Thats great news about the pain too, I really hope it keeps working out! Looking forward to seeing more updates on the recovery.

User avatar
Asmus
Ass Moose
Posts: 3773
Joined: 13 Jun 2004 08:18
Location: Copenhagen
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by Asmus » 31 Mar 2021 00:09

Awesome update buddy! So happy for you!

Muffinman
the gimp
Posts: 10373
Joined: 21 Apr 2002 15:34
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by Muffinman » 12 Apr 2021 14:44

Thanks guys!
Yeah, RE: back pain, almost every day leading up to when I started my TMS recovery I would have bouts of pain that would prevent me from doing most things. I couldn't go for walks, I couldn't even stand and play VR for longer than like 15 minutes, etc. Day one of TMS I was pain free and have been ever since! Not zero pain, but any time I feel slight pain coming on I just breathe deeply and it goes away. We're walking almost daily for a few kilometres! I'm playing VR table tennis standing for 1-2 hours almost daily. And now I'm playing footbag!

2021 RECOVERY SESSION #5
I just had my 5th session (40 min), though I'm going to count it as my first real session since I finally introduced some 3 adds and some light guiltless, and I filmed because there was something worth filming at least somewhat, lol. I had slight pain about halfway through but pushed through and it disappeared altogether.

My highlights:
-20 legovers
-20 near mirages
-20 pickups
-20 osis
-16 butterflies (I couldn't get 20 for the life of me)
-(pdx mirage > near butterfly > osis) x4 (12 contacts)
-(ducking clipper > spinning clipper > ducking clipper > gyro clipper) x2 (8 contacts) to a run (camera died :( )
-(pdx mirage > dimwalk) x4 (8 contacts)

A couple more things, but they're all in the video anyway, and I'm bored of listing them now lol.
Oh, on our walk the other day I found a potentially perfect outdoor shred spot. I wanted something out of the way since we moved to an incredibly high density area (the absolute core of downtown) and I'm out of shape and don't like eyes on me for solo sessions anyway. It's a 5 minute bike ride away and it's this kind of out of the way area with a big space covered in that spongy track material, but it's not a track, and I don't see it really being used by other people. I can't wait to try it out on my old brittle bones lol. But it looks like we have rain for at least a week, so light indoor sessions until then, including today's. Nothing special, but will be nice to track my progress toward getting back in shape. I feel so good! Going to go do yoga now.




EDIT: I said I was gonna count this as session #1 because I was thinking to number a series of videos, but I don’t think I’ll film every time after all since it’d be a lot of the same. So changing this to session #5.

User avatar
Tjuggles
Flower Child
Posts: 1746
Joined: 27 Mar 2005 20:03
Location: Wellington, NZ
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by Tjuggles » 13 Apr 2021 14:13

Yes! Welcome back! So good to see you shredding. I was not expecting some of those runs to be as dense as they were. Your stepping run reminded me of tap dancing.

I find that kicking in a smaller area really helps focus on control.

Your place looks dope.
TJ Boutorwick

"You can do anything" -Greg Nelson

User avatar
cammel
Fearless
Posts: 547
Joined: 02 Mar 2006 21:16
Location: SB, California
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by cammel » 17 Apr 2021 19:35

Really glad to hear the pain management is still working so well! That looks like an awesome spot to shred in. Loved the cat cameo, haha. Hope the recovery and drilling keeps progressing!

Muffinman
the gimp
Posts: 10373
Joined: 21 Apr 2002 15:34
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by Muffinman » 20 Apr 2021 18:41

Thanks guys! Lol, I'm not sure I've even seen tap dancing before. Do you have an example?
Yeah, definitely playing in a smaller area is way tougher, but I did that a lot in my early years in a teeny tiny basement, then also around 2014 when I lived in a teeny tiny basement with a ceiling only a couple inches higher than my head (I got a concussion living there!) My latest video (below) was even tighter because I wanted to mix up the scene in the video, and I really felt it there -- super tough to get past 3 contacts! Also, thanks for the comment on the condo :)

Yeah, I'm feeling awesome. And actually one of the latest things that Dylan told me was to not even talk about pain, so I'm not going to anymore. I feel great and that's that. I even renamed the videos from "recovery session" to "return session" :)



2021 RETURN SESSION #6
It's been mostly cold lately, but Wednesday was 14 C and sunny, so I biked over to that spot I mentioned and tried it out. It was a bit too public for my comfort, and it was covered in quite a bit of debris, but otherwise it was good. I didn't really notice the benefits of the rubber spongy surface, though I wasn't really doing any high impact stuff, so maybe in time. Because of the semi-high traffic I did more lengthy runs than any kind of training, which made for a better video, but it also meant I avoided doing anything I need to relearn like pixie sets. The main thing from this session was that the hood on my hoody got in the way of spins and ducks, so that was a bit of a struggle. I'll avoid a hooded shirt at my next outdoor session.

Here's the video from that session:




2021 RETURN SESSION #7
I had planned to play again on Friday, but then checked in with Alex to see if he wanted to have a socially distanced session on Saturday. He was down and weather looked promising, but then as we were planning on Friday night, Doug Ford, our provincial premiere (brother of world-famous Canadian idiot, Rob Ford, lol) announced that as of midnight that same night any outdoor gatherings aside from with your own household are now forbidden. So I lost the motivation of soloing for a while, especially since the weather's been meh. It's supposed to snow tomorrow. So I had a barefoot indoor session today. I wanted to make another video so stuck to mostly toe guiltless. It was pretty frustrating, and barefeet, while good for some toe stuff (pixie sets), is worse for me for others (the ducking legovers I kept missing). I pushed way too hard, despite not really hitting anything too significant on video, but did yoga after and feel okay now. Probably gonna ache tomorrow. My calves were super sore after -- completely different muscles than what was sore from the previous session! Session #6 was about an hour, while today's was about 40 minutes?

Here's the video from today. Will probably do another of these on Thursday? Friday is supposed to be nice out. Also... The Toronto police actually pushed back against Ford and said they wouldn't be doing some of the things he threatened. So there have been outdoor gatherings evvverywhere. Large groups playing basketball, soccer, frisbee, all in the park across the street. Depending on how that goes and how restrictions change, maybe we can have socially distanced sessions in the near future after all.

User avatar
cammel
Fearless
Posts: 547
Joined: 02 Mar 2006 21:16
Location: SB, California
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by cammel » 21 Apr 2021 10:47

Wow!! Those videos are awesome, the return is looking super strong! Pixie eggbeater > ducking legover BS is sick. That first place is like my worst nightmare with how public it is, haha. I'm always impressed with people that go and shred in super public places, for some reason I'm just too self-conscious about footbag to do that.

boyle
Post Master General
Posts: 3146
Joined: 19 Sep 2007 23:42
Location: Canberra, Australia
Contact:

Re: Muffinman

Post by boyle » 23 Apr 2021 01:32

That spongy stuff looks good. Some of those type of surfaces sink in a bit once you step on them, but that looks quite good and firm.

Post Reply