I need some guidance.

Posi-Cole · Post by **Posi-Cole** » 03 Nov 2004 21:16

Okay, If anyone sees themselves as any sort of footbag guidance counsellor, this is the thread for them. Please read this and reply with your thoughts and opinions, especially if you are an experienced or skilled player who may have been throw the same sorts of things and have decent ideas.

Up until about a couple weeks ago my game felt stagnant, I wasn't getting any better and hadn't been getting better for a few months. Then I started drilling more instead of just shredding all the time, and since a few weeks ago my game has finally started to improve as I've finally gained consisency in my pixie sets, and developed more control over my atomic sets. For the first time in my life, I've been able to play guiltlessly for entire sessions! This was exciting to me as it's really my ultimate goal to become a genuine guiltless shredder and be able to hold my own in most any circle, but I digress. This new found guiltlessness just seemed to come all of a sudden, and it wasn't by any means completely genuine. For starters, my runs were short, in the range of 5-10 contacts, and a typical run may have locked something like this:

Smear > Butterfly > Pdx Mirage > Dimwalk > Pdx Mirage > Legbeater > Butterfly > Osis

Anyway .. For the past week or two I've been playing like this, trying to promote my guiltlessness, and have been doing a bunch of drills to improve my guitless shred and control, like:

Dimwalk > Pdx Mirage > Repeat
Butterfly > Pdx Mirage > Repeat
Butterfly > Osis > Butterfly > Far Osis > repeat
Smear > Butterfly > Pdx Mirage > repeat
Butterfly > Butterfly > Ripwalk > repeat

Etc etc ... I had a bunch of drills that I was doing fairly regularly that promoted guiltless play through pixie, atomic and stepping sets.

I was quite happy with this and was making improvements until a couple days ago, when it dawned upon me. Why aren't my runs longer? Why do I always drop the bag? Am I trying to become guiltless too soon?

The question I'm now faced with is it better to try for completely guiltless strings at this point, or to stay tiltless, but merely try to incorporate more guiltless sections of strings.

I also wondered if my basics are good enough, and if that is what's holding me back from long runs. I've always had a trouble with run length, and I thought "If I can't link 20-30 easy 2 add moves in a row consistently, how will I ever be able to do it with 3+ add moves? So the last couple sessions, I've gone completely back to basics, and done virtually nothing but school Around the World, Pickup, Mirage, Legover and the control of my sets from flipside clipper.

I wasn't exactly sure if I would be able to string 20-30 of these moves together consistently, so I tried tonight and was able to get to 24 contacts about 4 times, and a bunch of other runs in the 10+ range. One of the big things I'm wondering is, people who are genuine guiltless, are they able to easily do 20-30+ tiltless contacts regularly? Is that something that should be achieved before someone even tries to start going guiltless?

The thought has crossed my mind on more than one occassion to dedicate the next 2 weeks to a month to virtually nothing but basics. Run every session where I work on ATW's both feet both directions, then legovers, then mirages, then pickups, then all these moves from clipper, then trying to string them all together and go as long as I can. Does this seem like a good idea? It seems like having a solid base of these moves and working them more solidly into my muscle memory may be a good idea, but is it wise to devote that much time to them, or will that hinder my development overall as I may lose some of the concepts I've been making ground on lately (namely pixie and atomic sets).

So the first time in a long while, I'm quite confused and lacking direction in footbag .. Should I stick with doing guiltless drills and keep trying to play guiltlessly until I get more comfortable with it and my run length naturally goes up? Should I rework my foundation until it is absolutely rock solid and then work back towards 3+ add moves? Should I do some combination of the two? Any wise opinions would be GREATLY appreciated.

If you need anymore information about my current level of skill in order to give advice, please feel free to ask.

Sorry for writing so long, I just had a lot to say. Thank you for those who read through it all, and extra thanks to those who give opinions.

qphox · Post by **qphox** » 03 Nov 2004 21:20

I can do 20-30 tiltless pretty easy, but I usually end up trying to be clever and try to figure out weird 2's so that it stays unique...then my runs are more around the range of 15 or so.

If I stuck with basic single dex toe tricks and basic clipper what not, I expect I could go for a long time.

Posi-Cole · Post by **Posi-Cole** » 03 Nov 2004 21:37

qphox wrote:I can do 20-30 tiltless pretty easy, but I usually end up trying to be clever and try to figure out weird 2's so that it stays unique...then my runs are more around the range of 15 or so.

If I stuck with basic single dex toe tricks and basic clipper what not, I expect I could go for a long time.

Were you able to do 20-30 tiltless BEFORE you started full force into guiltless, or do you think you are just able to do it now because of improving doing guiltless stuff?

qphox · Post by **qphox** » 03 Nov 2004 22:07

I worked the hell out of my tiltless game before I moved on.

sampotter · Post by **sampotter** » 03 Nov 2004 23:26

My thought is that you need to have a very solid tiltless game. I have spent around most of my 10-11 months playing at a tiltless stage and have worked it so that 15-20 contact runs are pretty common and easy on me during a session. The problem with my guiltless game is that I don't have enough clipper>clipper concepts dialed, which I think may be the same problem with your game. For a while my bread and butter was paradox 2-adds and pixie set moves, as well as clippers (ss, op, whatever). This led to a very stagnant game. Right now I've been schooling stepping, gyro/spinning, and ducking and everything seems to be coming together very nicely. Once these concepts are as good as my pixies and bails, I imagine the progression into guiltlessness will be very smooth and natural. My advice is to try and find some concepts that you can do from clipper to clipper and toe to toe and really school those. Learn drifters, whirls, dlos, stepping, osis, ducking, spinning, whatever. Try all of these concepts for a good solid block of time during a session and see how you do with them. Take two or three of the natural feeling ones and school them! Imagine if you could drop a bunch of stepping clippers, blurs, ripwalks, drifters, whirls, spinning clippers, ducking clippers, diving clippers, etc. as easily as you can your pixie, atomic, and bails.

Or you could take another approach and get REALLY good at bails and a set or two. This is what Kevin Richie seems to have done and he can bust really solid long guiltless runs with a couple cool moves here and there. His bails are superb, though. I personally don't understand the attraction to genuine play.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 04 Nov 2004 00:07

Jeremy's footbag development - a timeline.

1997 - start playing "hackysack" for the first time.
2000 - set new consecutive record of 9 kicks.
2001 - September - Watch video of winning worlds routine. Start learning tricks.
2002 - December - Play footbag with other people for the first time - run length about 5 contacts on average - lots of big moves - not even tiltless.
2003 - Feb Start playing with people on a regular basis - slowly improve run length. Learn to go tiltless.
July - Decide to go guiltless - average run length maybe 8 contacts - longest run - about 16 contacts.
September - hit first 5>5>5
October - inspired by Lon Smith - work to beat guiltless record - set new pb of 24 - over half the moves are butterflies or pdx mirages.
2004 - Feb - inspired by Johnny Murphey and Ales Zelinka to play genuine - not just guiltless. Also focus on technique and both sided ness - rather than just being able to hit a move.
March - start hitting 10 - 15 genuine runs - guiltless record now 37
September - Starting to hit consistant long guiltless runs - can hit 15+ genuine runs almost on demand.
November - Guiltless record over 70, can go genuine for more than 25 contacts. Could hit 30 guiltless on demand if I went easy. Tripless record - mid 20s, fearless record 6 - tiltless record 100 metres (No idea how many contacs - probably about 150 - 200).

Basically I started just learning big tricks - or more accuratly - learning new tricks. Then I worked on runs. Decided to go guiltless when I couldn't hit a run of 10. Realised that going genuine was (in my opinion) way cooler than just going guiltless. Also decided that runs were much cooler than single big tricks and spent a long time just schooling a lot of my basics.

I guess the thing about the way I learnt was that I always tried to play at a level just above what I was capable of - so I was always pushing myself really hard to get better. Now that I've worked in my new shoes I could hit 50 tiltless on demand I think - although probably if I had nothing to lose - I'd go for interesting combos and some midstring big moves and drop it on less than 50 because I'd get bored doing stuff I find easy. If somebody came up to me while I was playing and said: "I bet you $500 you can't hit 50 tiltless first attempt" - provided I wasn't really tired I am pretty confident I could do it.

I really don't know if there is a good way to learn or not. I think my way was a long and harder way than the best way - but I think I've got good results from it. Just so long as you are always pushing yourself to get better and you don't give up - I think you will get your game where you want it. I should say that even these days I still drill tiltless stuff - I think I can improve every aspect of my game - and if for example I spend 30 minutes drilling legovers - I find double downs much easier - So anything you can hit - no matter how easy - drill it more. I've even changed my technique on toe stalls since the beginning of the year.

Good luck!

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 04 Nov 2004 00:16

Good that you are analyzing your game and thinking in order to try and improve.

Here`s a thought. Sunil used to always warm up by doing long tiltless strings at the start of the session. Back in the day, he wouldn`t end a session with anything less than a 20 contact string. A few years back when I played with him, he had upped it to 30. I dunno where its at now.

But yeah, drilling long tiltless can only be good. I think long tiltless mixed with random BOPs is also good. I think the true secret to long strings is learning to regulate your breathing. Find tricks which allow you to breathe as you execute them. For me, these tricks are ducking butterfly, b butterfly, smear, and pdx mirage. For Vasek, its ripwalk. Ahren used to do symposium mirage to refill his lungs. So rather than go hard for your entire run, do a few tricks, then `bail` to a breathing move, then do a few more tricks. Hope this helps.

JFootbagger · Post by **JFootbagger** » 04 Nov 2004 14:17

qphox wrote:I worked the hell out of my tiltless game before I moved on.

I agree with qphox. If you pay close attention...alot of 3's are just 2's with either a set or a double dex (or something completely different like...drifter or whirl, but you STILL need your clippers for that). SO in conclusion, you need to have a STRONG STRONG CONCRETE Foundation of tricks.!!!! This is why I'm waitin' till I'm a Tiltless master!