Let's Just Call Me Quits: 5 Months and Counting...

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 15 Oct 2004 18:58

B_Man wrote:You must have real good sleeps, such a healthy diet and hardcore stretches to be able to go for that long everyday

sleep: 4-8 hours a night
diet: lots of protein, lots of sugar, lots of caffeine, LOTS of nicotiene.
stretches: lots!!!

the reason i can play so long is i used to fence 40 hours a week. fencing is like trying to play chess while running the 100 meters, repeatedly. it's much more tiring than footbag. to be able to fence that much i had to build up massive endurance and an encredibly fast heart rate recovery system. i built up savage leg muscles from fencing (most of which i have lost) and they just don't get tired easily. my core strength muscles (abs, back) and my arms get tired much faster (from balancing my body) than my legs.

i'm happiest when i'm doing some thing. i used to be the first guy into the gym, and the last guy to leave, when i was still fencing. i love hard work, i love setting goals, i love seeing my improvement. that's why i play as much as i do.

my parents think i have obsessive compulsive disorder, because i have been like this my whole life. i get absolutly obsessed with some thing, think about it all the time, and it becomes the be all and end all for me. these phases tend to last about 7 years, with a 2 year over lap period while i discover some thing else i want to do as i burn out of the last one. footbag is my passion right now, and i'll continue to play all the time (for about another 6 years if history has any thing to say about it) befor i find some thing else i have got to do, and be good at.
my love of hard work is totally from my old fencing coach, who made me learn to love it, pushed me to be my best, taught me how to build programs for improvement, and i'm so glad he did, because i can now apply them to every thing.

thanks to henri.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 15 Oct 2004 19:02

TO HENRI!

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 15 Oct 2004 19:16

Wow. That's really interesting. Thank you for sharing that Andrew, it's great to learn about people who you may shred with sometime in the future.

I hope you don't mind, but I would like to use a program similar to what you are using now. Of course, I have no way of mirroring it precisely but since it's really working well for you I am very curious to try it myself.

Anyways, I hope that history doesn't repeat itself and footbag sticks with you always. I also hope that we can shred it up someday (Brett's jam in Saskatoon perhaps????).

Take it easy man!

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 15 Oct 2004 19:19

wow that's the 6th person in 2 days that has asked to see my program...
[sarcasm]maybe i should sell it, like the atkin's diet![/sarcasm]
yeah give me some time, and i'll build one for you, but at present i have other clients... haha

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 15 Oct 2004 19:51

Haha! That's awesome!

You don't have to make me one, I mean if you did that'd be so fucking awesome but I'm in the process of making my own right now.

But an official Andrew-certified training program... wow... that just doesn't get presented to you everyday...

If it's not a hassle for you Andrew, then that would be great!

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 16 Oct 2004 15:02

okay, well i had a really good stepping day, but it ended prematurly. i tired, so my goals for the day changed accordingly. i was really focusing on control and being smooth, which was pretty hard as i got a late start at about 11pm and was pretty tired. it was good though. when you're tired, being smooth and controlled takes alot of work, so i had to really focus on doing it. my theory is: working on controll and fluidity while tired is the best time to this. the reason being i'm concentrating very hard on every movement. i have to be concious of my angles, arm placement, body movements, etc. when i'm not tired this should be much easier to do, and should be relativly effortless when i'm fully concentrated and have had a full nights sleep and am fully awake. i was really concentrated on how moves felt while i was doing them. i was throwing out every trick that didn't feel good or wasn't exactly what i wanted the move to look/ feel like, which is good because repitition is key. i was really stressing the feeling, trying to ingrain how the set and each move out of it should feel and training my muscle memory.
i also found some things that really helped with the fulidity of my stepping sets.
i did 14 elements of the day's 28, because i spent a whole lot of time on repitition, and was starting to feel a twinge in my back at that point and decided to end it there instead of going any further and possibly reinjuring my back. i had some really good links that i liked though, and impressed my self with some strings.
blurry osis> stepping osis> repeat
stepping whirl> blurry whirl> stepping whirl> but bailed to ripwalk
was stepping out of blenders and pdx blenders. managed pdx blender> blurry whirl a few times.
i also did lots of 3 trick combos using every simple stepping trick, still with concetration on form, to work on my links into and out of stepping set tricks links...
park walk> schmoe> tapping legover (which i think will become a new drill i'll work on) and
legbeater>blurry pickup> pixie same pickup
were some that i really liked. they felt good.
i found some things about my game that i'll need to tweak in order to play a little smoother, but i don't think it should be too hard to overcome, if my theories are right and i go about training it the right way.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 17 Oct 2004 21:55

footbag sucks. i quit.

mosher · Post by **mosher** » 17 Oct 2004 22:22

Cheer up buddy, maybe if the footbag sucks the ladies will too.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 18 Oct 2004 15:47

i just quit for that day. i seem to have come down with a head cold, and i guess last night's session was the begining of the symptoms. my balance was way off, control was bad, etc. etc. just had a bad shred day and was getting very frustrated with my total lack of consistancy. i didn't know what was going on last night, but i'm much less pissed off now knowing that it was likely due to this cold. gonna up my fluids, up my vitamin c, orange juice, chicken noodle soup, and get this cleared up asap. there is shredding to be done!!!

james · Post by **james** » 18 Oct 2004 16:54

I know how you feel, I have the biggest consistancy problem and I feel like quitting footbag at least once a week. There are days when I wonder if I should have gotten better at other things and what the hell I am doing playing footbag. Other people have no problem getting better, but me? I still can't hit my good pixie, or step properly or hit osis midstring. And if I suck at footbag I feel like I can't do anything else. And then I wonder if I'll ever be good. It's severely demotivating, but then you have a good day and it's all better...for the moment.

Sorry for all the blabbing but I had to get it out somewhere.

edit: I notice you've been hitting some sick stuff lately. Sucks that we didn't get to shred at worlds...would have been funny with both of us being off and all. Next time we're in the same city we'll get our shred on.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 21 Oct 2004 21:07

"a long, long time ago, i can still remember, how that music used to makle me smile. and i knew if i had my chance,that i could make those people dance, and maybe they'd be happy, for a while..."

wow, alot has happened since my last post. i had some really good schooling days. i've been really working on fog and stepping ducking. have hit fog> dimwalk> rpt quite a few times in the last couple days. had fog> pixie paradon> fog once, pretty flukey that i manage a fog out of it, because i haven't even been close to it since. i was hitting fog pretty consistantly last night. hit 8 contacts of fog> butterfly repeat. also managed fog> legbeater bs yesterday too. i want to hit rubber man with fogs instead of blurs. have ever since i was in berlin.
i got so regulated when i was in berlin. one time, i tried rubberman when i was in a circle, dropped on the second atomsmasher. i passed the bag to yves. he goes right into rubberman with fog instead of blur into rubberman 2. ever since then i have wanted to hit it with fog.
stepping ducking has been good. i have a bad ass stepping ducking combo i want to hit, spiked hammer> park walk> ripped warrior> rpt. i came close once. i hit spiked hammer> park walk> ripped warrior> spiked hammer (which i didn't really expect) and then hit a sloppy park walk which i couldn't step out of. i just need to work on b2b stepping ducking more and i'll get it. i hit spiked hammer> dimwalk> rpt twice (as in 2 separate occasions) yesterday, so i know it's coming along.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 21 Oct 2004 21:13

Holy crap, Andrew!
fog > butterfly > fog > butterfly > fog > butterfly > fog > butterfly is SWEET! So is fog > dimwalk repeat!! HIT FOG > PIXIE PARADON [REPEAT]!!!!!!! SUPER BAP! Stepping ducking is awesome! I can't wait to play with you again. Why aren't you filming?

(alpine bap????????)
(alpine rubberman????????)
I am making a video of you at this very moment but it is all really old footage. It's actually not THAT old, you just get way better way too fast! I'm going to play so much harder when I'm back when I will have Derek and you to skool my ass.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 21 Oct 2004 22:49

Erik Chan wrote:HIT FOG > PIXIE PARADON [REPEAT]!!!!!!! SUPER BAP!

yeah... so not happening for a long time. i'll see what i can do about alpine bap. been a while since i have ducked my double downs.alpine rubberman (which i think should be called alpen man , and you have to say it with a swiss-german accent) is never gonna happen. i can't duck my atomics with any consitancy.

Erik Chan wrote:I'm going to play so much harder when I'm back when I will have Derek and you to skool my ass.

brother, once you get your injury totally healed, i'm gonna be chasing to catch up again!

edited for spelling.

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 21 Oct 2004 23:31

hacksterbator wrote: the reason i can play so long is i used to fence 40 hours a week.

my love of hard work is totally from my old fencing coach, who made me learn to love it, pushed me to be my best, taught me how to build programs for improvement, and i'm so glad he did, because i can now apply them to every thing.

.

Holy crap! After reading this, I felt really relieved that at worlds I didn`t snap off an antenna from a car, and attack you with it. Cause you know, I toyed with the idea, but now I see that it would have been a bad idea. I`m just lucky like that I guess.

Oh yeah, and pdx blender to blurry whirl is cool. Try and hit stepping blender back to back.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 24 Oct 2004 00:21

"here i go, again, on my own. going down the only road i've ever known."

this post is a big "thank you" to my ex girl friend, and i guess to all the flings that followed and never worked out.

befor i started kicking in june 2003 i used to skate. it was always fun, but nothing was better than getting really pissed off about something, and going out and ripping up the park, catching 360 flips on your shins, spilling down the rail on the table top and venting your frustration.

this girl was my first real love, and we weren't getting along all too well at that time, arguing about various issues that i won't go into right now. well in this type of situation i would usually go out and rip up the park. the problem was i had just snapped my deck, and didn't have $40 to buy a blank from the local shop. i did, however, have a sipa.

i started just kicking at school to relieve some pre exam jitters as well as some issues of the heart. as i tried to resolve some of the issues of our relationship, and things got abit tougher, i started kicking more, playing behind the pavilion at assiniboine park after school with friends every day, and on afternoons on weekends. it became our kicking place.

consecutive kicking was starting to get boring, or maybe it just wasn't enough to properly vent. either way, mike started teaching me atw's and mirages, which i worked on alot.

a friend from school, told me about footbag.org (where i watched ryans 2001 world championship winning routine, and with my jaw dropped, made a half assed promis to be that good one day), hackrifice.com (where i downladed every video demo they had and started working my way through them one by one) and that mr. sandbag's were the best kind of bags for doing tricks. so when 20 bucks came my way, i went down to the forks and bought one.

well my relationship with this girl was all over the place, one day it was fine the next day it was shit. i guess the only real reason we stuck together was because we didn't want to have to go searching for prom dates that late. well on those shit days i could be found out side at lunch, at the park after school, and in my back yard in the evening schooling my mirages, atw's, legovers, clippers and butterflies and getting it all out.

grad came, was a terrible disaster, and passed. shortly there after we broke up. i was pretty devastated, as i wanted to try and work out our issues, but she decided it wasn't worth it any more. when we got off the phone that night i decided to go for a walk and a smoke and try to calm my self down a bit.

i don't remember much of the walk, most of it i was thinking of 'if only' and 'what if' and what i could have done to keep it together, all the usual serious relationship break up thoughts. all i really remember was stopping under a street lamp to grind out my smouldering cigarette butt on the pavement, and thinking "well, now what?" as i stuck my hands into my pockets.

my fingers landed on my footbag. i pulled it out, and had a look at it. broken from my moody daze, i looked up to see where i had wandered to. straight ahead of me was the pavilion, light up as it is at night. there was the shred spot, a footbag, and me with alot more time on my hands.

the next day i sent an email to erik at hackrifice, and the rest, as they say, is history...

thanks Tabs for getting me deep into footbag.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 25 Oct 2004 22:59

had a short, but oh so sweet session today.
whirly gig> whirly gig

woot! have been trying that off and on since i got my flip ps whirl back. had some pretty close attempts, in paris at serge's request, getting the second set off, but never quite getting the last dex, but that was the closest i had come. today my ps whirls were on, so i decided i might as well work some things i usually don't do alot of. whirly gig> whirly gig was by far the sweetest combo of the night, but ps whirl> whirl wind was a close second, since i might have hit whirl wind 4 times befor this? i hit butterfly> ps whirl> osis> rpt 4 times, which was pretty cool. derek can do this drill untill the fucking cows come home. again close to breaking my ps whirl record so many times, but no such luck. meh, some other time i guess.
yesterday was a short session as well, but i don't remember why... odd... nothing really great was hit. came really friggen close to flurry bsos so many times. made some more attempts at "flurriest" down time barraging reaper. so flurry with an extra dex befor the legover. i think it's possible, but not by me, or at least untill my flip side flurry is much much better... had a cool rewind combo: flurry> pixie paradon. wasn't able to seal it the other way around. though. meh, some other time i guess...

is there an echo in here???

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 25 Oct 2004 23:27

That story about the break up was great. Love in-depth `how i got into footbag` stories.

Your whirligig stuff is also cool...I`ve never hit it flip, but I`ll try next weekend.

As for your `flurriest,` I think it`s been hit symposium by Vasek. Maybe its easier that way. Maybe I`ll give that a try as well. Nice blog.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 26 Oct 2004 00:11

Wow -- great blog!! I loved the story, too!
I really want to write, now!!!...And hit whirlygig back to back @______@

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 26 Oct 2004 17:50

C-Fan wrote:As for your `flurriest,` I think it`s been hit symposium by Vasek. Maybe its easier that way.

yeah vasek hit it at worlds, but he hit it uptime, like a symp furious set. i'm trying to do it down time like flurry, but i don't have the leg speed yet.

okay, decided to just update this earlier entry as opposed to making another...

WOW, legs are sorer than a mofo. last night i went to a foil night (fencing) for the first time since may. let's just say, my legs aren't what they used to be! my right quad, hamstring and ass muscles are all screaming at me! any way tried to link 2 butterflies and fell to my knees when i planted on my right leg. so tonights session was over right then and there. as to the fencing, i hadn't lost much in the way of foot speed, timing was rusty but got most of it back by the end of the night and was working all my wonderfull counter times and counter attacks in the preperation. goldie my old training partener beat me 10-7 in our first session, but we tied with 10 in the second one. we did the first to ten, then followed it up by continuing from our scores and racing to 20. final score 20-17 for goldie. it was fun, and i think i'll go next week again, mostly to help build up some of those old leg muscles! it surely can't hurt the footbagging at all.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 28 Oct 2004 22:36

"Make em say Uhhhhh!"

i hadn't really played since monday because my legs were sore from fencing. i was supposed to play with derek yesterday but slept through my alarm and wok up at like 11:30 (which is usually when i leave the early morning jams). any hoo...

tonights highlight:
fog> phoenix> fog> pixie paradon> dropped ps whirl

was hitting fog> pheonix a bunch this session, and had hit the fog> pix prdn befor so decided to see if i could bust all of it. took a few tries, but i think i could hit it again if i wanted to, it didn't too flukey as some combos do. you know, when you hit them and it's like, "oh, there's no way i'm ever hitting that again!"
any way, fog is the most fun move in foot bag. also had some cool new quantum moves tonight. slapping whirl, slapping blender and e-walk. was really a fun session just trying shit. i didn't feel like schooling what i had written down for tonight so i just went with the flow.
had some things that were kinda unexpected tonight. blurry torque just happened and i was hitting it pretty conistantly on one side, thanks to some tips i was given. was able to throw it in mid run on a few occasions. tomorrow i think i'll work on my flip pdx torques a bit in hopes of getting the flip blurry torque working. i want to hit it bsos tomorrow. also had a really long run. no idea but it had to be up around 40 contacts. it was extra special because it had quite a number of moves i don't often do, like egg beaters and drifters and lots of unique atomic stuff.
well i'm going to strech AGAIN because erik has made me nervous. thanks man...
p.s. Desperate Housewives is way better than The Gilmore Girls.