First I tackled my sick 3 for division 1 competition 2
It turned out to be a 4 > 5 > 5. The only dissapointment I have is the first trick there. Its really kind of lame, but I don't think i could've hit the 5 out of any other trick. However, I'm excited that I was able to pull out a better combo than last time, and overly thrilled that I was able to pull out a sick 3 at all.
My string length is progressively working its way back up, back up to about 12 or 13, which I had a max of 15 guiltless. They aren't as advanced as they used to be, but I think my style is smoothing out a little bit more, and I'd like a smoother style at string lengths expense for a while.
Then there was a cool little section of my shred.
I was thinking about symp double downs, and decided to just see how many I could hit in a row with hand catches in between.
So, after contemplating:
Blackula > hand catch... (boom! so easy, and the trick felt and looked effortless)
...>dolomite > hand catch (Wtf!? This was just getting cool)
...>superfly >drop
Okay, the superfly was dropped, but it was footed. I just thought this was weird to hit two back to back different symp double down tricks with such ease first try in the day.
Anyways, I'm out of here. Just thought i'd update.
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
I got some new shoes, and no, they are not ROD LAVERS...they are:
Adidas Smith Milleniums. They seem to be flatter than my old rod lavers on the inside surface. They seem to be slightly lighter than my old lavers. They look cooler in my opinion than my old lavers.
Though all of these things sound great in context, I still had a difficult time adjusting. Anytime i get a new pair of shoes, everything is changed around. Footbag is such a precision sport that the slightest difference in "toe angle" or the slightest difference in "padding" or slightest difference in "weight" makes a huge difference!
It only took me about 2 hours to adjust though. The only slight complaint I have about these shoes are that they are more padded on the inside surface than my old lavers. However, it almost seems to transfer feel better to my foot when I delay there.
THE FLATTER AREA IS DEFINATLY A BONUS! I can stall there a lot easier now, and for that matter:
I hit barfly > barfly
Not too hard, but it sure looks cool. It feels cool too!
I'm introducing a new person into footbag. He goes to my college, and his name is Derek! No, not Vandall, and he doesn't even need to practice anyways. He's 16 and within 2 hours or so, he footed mirage both sides! Crazy how fast the younger people progress! He gave flying xbody toe a try and hit that as well.
I found a new way to mirage and stuff, so that should look better. Some of my trademark "bounciness" is going to partially leave hopefully. It gets on my nerves and I think it makes me look like I'm less at peace with the footbag.
I'm also concentrating a lot on making sure the bag "seals into my foot" before I set it back up. I had a bad tendency to try and kick the bag up too quicikly after a delay. Since I've started this, I am able to seal moves much better and have a lot better sets out of them.
COOL
There is more to come. I'll post some Derek accomplishments as well in the blog, as well as a bunch of stuff that'll come from me in the near future!
Ttyl
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
Good idea on sealing the stalls befor sets....my flip stepping suffered for a long time because the second the bag hit my clipper i'd launch it up quickfast.
It wasn't until i slowed it all down a little that i could properly learn the set.
And young guys do learn rediculously fast....kinda like skaters....start them young and hope they don't burn out to fast!
Holy cow, I was clear on the second page in the middle of it. I guess that just goes to show how much I don't care for my blog and how much anything I'm doing lately seems to not be working.
Well, I gave a few things a try:
Flip Drifter > Flip Torque. Very close, but nope.
Paradon both sides (uhh...wtf. Well, i do paradons differently now see...)
Strings feel useless again. My legs feel excessivly heavy, as do my shoes. I've noticed that for some reason, whenever I toe set, the bag goes somewhat more in front of me than I like. I don't know if its shoe design, or my muscle memory not working correctly. For that matter, it always feels like I'm off balance and it feels like I can't control the bag since its always a few inches farther out than I'm used to.
IT SUCKS!
Paradon ends so far out now that my balance is too far back, meaning I can't control much out of it.
My left leg clipper...don't even get me started on that.
Why is that not cooperating anymore? I don't understand it myself at all actually. It likes to fall of ALOT...and boy do I mean a lot. Are my shoes too slippery on the sidewall? Possibly, but my right leg clipper is fine. Though my clipper motion feels normal, for some reason it falls off. Confused about things you see.
I can barely land a flip whirl anymore based on my crappy clipper motion. Its so confusing. My leg is just in the wrong place I think. But I don't know! I haven't changed a thing, so its just baffling.
And this is coming from a guy that could do 26 guiltless...what went wrong??!!
I guess I just need to calm down and redrill things. But I've been trying.
Talk later. Anyone else with similar problems? Problems such as 26 guiltless reduced to crappy flip clippers and total off balanceness??
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
One of my clippers decided to be a royal pain in the ass ever since I twisted it. I just have the wrong timing/placement now. It seems to be an issue of my foot being in a different place than my head things it is. It is really frustrating.
I know Juan Rangel was having a similar aggrivation recently, where he was having informally diagnosed clipper difficulties with one side. they just started happening suddenly. Maybe you should shoot him a PM on this forum. I think his user name is Juan?
My name: Jeremy Mirken, AKA Chocolatey Shatner, AKA jerk enemy rim.
I kick it with trunk chef elf and liz luck key my.
Cool. Its nice to know that I'm no the only one who has had this problem.
I went for a clean whirr (with a really good camera angle) and was the by an inch or so...IT WAS ALMOST PERFECT! I'll get it though. Whirr actually doesn't seem that hard. Funny.
Also, symp torque off the foot.
And I'm going to work super hard on this:
Toe > Op in [smp][dex] > op in [dex] > op out [dex] > op clip [xbd][del]
Okay, thats like a peglegbeater (inspired by byrin) but the first two dexes are reversed. ICKY!! It feels so weird, but I think maybe if I get lucky, I could get it.
As for strings...same ol same ol. Less than they used to be and far easier than they used to be as well. I just gotta get back in the groove.
Thanks for feedback. Feedback good.
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
Chris have you had a layoff from footbag recently? That can really put some rust on your game. Even if you are only playing sporatically you can really develop some rust from not trying strings or practicing bops and such. If your clippers stink then drill them again. Then drill bops. Just have a few sessions where you work the basics and forget about all those big moves. Big moves are for fun days or for when you are ready for them. Do what ever you want though, footbag is also quite personal and that is just my take on things
Hey do you still want to make a trip to Eugene soon? Would be cool to finally shred with you and I might be able to help you out with those strings.
Always Shreddin
James Erickson
Eugene Footbag Association (Orton, Nasty, Me)
w/ new additions (Casey, Alex, Eddie, and Shawnell)
ana_ali wrote:Wonton Quantum? OH YEAH!!! Good luck with that!
1-28-05
I had the set, but I couldn't hit anything out of it.
I was actually closer to nova set. I had Nova Same Mirage off my foot several times.
I hit ripstein!! Thats so cool.
And hey guys, I think i'm getting back to this whole deal. Yesterday was pretty good. So thanks. And yeah james, for a couple months (maybe 3), I was barely playing ever. I figured that was my problem, but I just didn't understand why it seemed like EVERYthing left me.
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
Shred skillz are looking up again. I found a group of people to play with again, and hopefully by playing with them, it will spark my interest back up. Let me be truthful, footbag was getting boring.
Anyways, today I hit some cool stuff:
Drifter > Torque (3 different times throughout the day). What was funny was I spent forever like 5 or 6 months ago trying to hit this, which I did. Now, almost first try everytime, I hit it. Its a cool link. If I remember correctly, both my drifters, and even more, torques, suck for me. I hated torques, but they're coming along.
Flipside is another story. Torques out of flipside are almost 1 in 100 I'm sure.
On a similar note, I almost hit:
Torque > Blender. Hitting some blenders for them was fun, especially when I was able to let the bag rest there on my clipper foot for a while. Blender is so easy now, its not even funny, and those were toe blenders I was doing. Anyways, I love trying to hit blenders out of other tricks. HOWEVER, I didn't hit torque > blender, but I was close.
The day before I was going for tomahawk > tomahawk. I hit the first tomahawk great, but the second one was way over my head and about 5 feet away from me. Regardless, tomahawk really isn't that difficult.
I went for Pheonix > Ducking Pdx Mirage. I've never really hit 2 unique ducking moves consecutively (besides ducking clipper > diving clipper). This was fun, and I almost had it several times. O well, maybe tomorrow.
For a while there, my paradons (or any double downs for that matter), were always extremely thin. Not enough practice. Now, however, my paradons are feeling a lot more controlled. I busted Paradon > pdx Mirage (rpt) midrun, and it felt great.
I then proceeded to hit 3 ripwalks back to back with no trouble. Stepping is still weird for me, but its making sense. I almost had 4 the day before, but it hit my leg. I'm awaiting the time when ripwalks will almost take over butterflies. That'll be cool.
On an awesome note though, I did hit a massive string today, at least 20, who knows, maybe 25+. Alls I know is that what went down was:
Legbeater bsos, ripwalk bsos, paradon bsos (not sure if it was bsos in this string), sidewalk bsos, dimwalks, smears, magellens, ALL IN ONE RUN!. This felt great. Lately my strings have been sucking major, only amounting to, if I was lucky, 10 guiltless. Okay, but sucky for me. This string told me that I could still play hard.
I also busted a few eggbeaters for them, followed by double legovers, to show them the difference.
This isn't all about me though, I was playing with:
Jamie, Max, and Matt.
Jamie is really awesome. He's learning some tricks (hit atw in bsos), almost had butterfly, and has clipper one sided. But what makes him cool is that he can stall just about any way possible. He can pendulum almost on command into basic 1 add stalls. Its not hard (by our standards), but how he does everything is so smooth flowing.
Max is good too. He hit atw kick, and is just a good all around kicker.
Matt is also really good. He's learning toe stalls both side (had 3 alternating!) and can kick for days as well. However, I do not understand how the heck he can play in such winter clothes all the time. And it appears he's one of those guys that never runs out of energy.
Anyways, today was big. This actually covers yesterday too, but its good!
Some tricks I was trying for again, or ones that I've never hit:
Diving Down Double Down (almost footed)
Mobius (this trick is still hard)
Double Blender (tried once, almost hit it)
O, and whirr is a trick that many people aren't impressed with. I guess its just not difficult looking unless you know what it is. And its pretty cool when you can drop a butterfly off of a 4 guiltless string and people stare in amazement.
Okay, I'm done. Ttyl
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
How the heck did I end up on page 4. Its been so long since I've posted
Well, though this is going to be short, I'm NOT quitting footbag. I'm determined to get myself back to where I was and better. So, I am drilling things like crazy, I'm practicing easier stuff to get better. I found my problem was trying harder things as if I hadn't had time off from footbag. This was frustrating me because I couldn't get past about 5 contacts. I am slowing down and practicing the things I had really well back a year ago.
This means, redrilling dimwalks, smears, atomic sets, stepping sets, dlo's, paradons (which I can no longer hit clean, or if i try, snag or totally miss), BUTTERFLIES, INFINITIES, PDX MIRAGES, and trying to drill flip components as well since my strong ones aren't even very strong anymore. I figure now is the time to get the flipside working in conjuction with the strong.
To give a comparision, my strong pixie, back a year ago, could be thrown in after anything really. DLO, smog, backside smear, I could hit a pixie out of these at all times. Now, I hav ea problem hitting even a backside smear, and this is out of a pdx mirage. Now tell me I don't have to redrill things.
I'm still amazed that I can still bust big tricks and still have weak components. Let this be a lesson learned to anyone new at footbag that only goes for single tricks. You can be GREAT at single tricks, but the links are what counts more overall.
So I can hit whirlwind, pixie ducking symp whirl, Whirr, Mobius, Ripstein, Symp Blazing Infinity (footed), but my guiltless string length struggles to break 6 time and time again. ITS TIME FOR DRILLING!
So i set a very easy list for me to hit. Things such as "blender > osis" both sides, and then maybe "blender > osis (bsos)". Its harder than you think if you're rusty, and osis x10, infinity x15, etc. My record for infinity is an entire 14, whoopdeedoo, and look at the record overall, 300 something? Crazy. Butterfly > pdx mirage (rpt) is a drill i'm doing too. THough its VERY VERY boring, it is helping me get my basic BOPS back to how they were before, VERY EASY.
I'm using my prior skill to encourage me to get better again. When I remember moves such as, pixie paradon, backside smear, dlo, toe barrage, flail, all being pretty baily moves for me, I figure I want to be that good again. Now, I'm having problems with bailing to pdx mirage sometimes, now that, that is a problem.
Oh well, I'm working 40 hours a week right now, the weather has been uncontrollably hot, i go back to school in 2 week, so footbag is going to be tough to incorprorate into my schedule. But I just need to stick with it and get better again!
Dimwalk > DLO (bsos) Not bad, and it was pretty easy. Baby steps...haha
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
I am playing in leather shoes, and I'm going back to lavers I think.
And sorry for having a defeatist attitude, but I still think nothing will happen. We'll see (you know what i'm talking about)
Anyways, footbag is like...nothing anymore
I can't hit butterflies consistently, pdx mirages are constantly being dropped, ripwalks are ungodly hard anymore. Its funny how the toe symp whirl will be hit almost everytime though, but the regular downtime whirl will not.
I have minimal time. It sucks badly. I have terrible shoes and a terrible bag. I now have terrible stamina and am too tired after a 9 or 10 hour day at sears automotive to go out and do another 2 hours of hard footbagging, as much as I want to. Everything is getting the way these days, my mind is too cluttered on everything and I can't focus or concentrate. Something else is always on my brain.
I WANT TO PLAY FOOTBAG. Recent videos of Jorden Moir (I recently saw his "hardcore session" video) have inspired me, but what good is inspiration if you don't put it to use?
I copied some of his moves, such as the pixie inside stallberger, foeberger, foe butterfly bothsides, smearberger. Heck, I gave his weirdest moves a go too for the fun of it.
Not much luck. I'm trying desparately to drill butterfly > pdx mirage (rpt) which used to be cake for me a year ago. I'm almost considering going back to tiltless for a while, which is sadly bad. I also have another strategy in mind, go through my old videos, and hit everything i put in those videos, every string, evern combo, every trick, again, and do not advance to the next video until i've hit everything out of that video. Seeing as my videos are progressive, meaning I only get better (well, up till october 2004), this can only help improve my game again.
So, though far legover > mirage > pixie > butterfly > Pdx Mirage > Double legover is pretty easy for anyone, and myself included, I think it is wise to train like I am just learning, in order to regain the muscle memory and leg strength I used to have.
To think a month ago I had enough leg strength and muscle memory to nearly bust out dolomite bsos. I hardly have the muscle memory to hit a pdx mirage on my left side anymore. THAT calls for heavy duty retraining.
Its depressing in a way, I was getting really good, my double downs were getting really deep, barfly bsos was easy, smog was an easy trick, pixie paradon was a 5 bail...its all washed away. Now i struggle with butterfly > pdx mirage x8. MESSED UP. Train train, that's all I can do, but in the meantime, I must find time and energy to do this, and lately, I have found none.
Recently, a few people have asked me to attend events. Let me clarify this for everyone, I would absolutely love to attend an event. I have a few problems though, first, working on my days off of school, where am I going to have time? Seeing as I'm going to be 14 credits school, this leaves me with maybe 3 or 4 half days of work. They are not going to allow me to take a full week off of work, not with only 3 months that I"ve been there at least. I don't know, maybe they would, but as it is, they are shorthanded already and need all the help they can get (incase you didn't know, I work at sears automotive).
My second problem is no longer money. So I mainly just have one problem. Too busy. I know Tom, you said I was approaching this with a defeatist attitude, and while I agree that I was, I still think that my attitude was only revealing the truth of what is present. I have no free time and they wont give me the amount of free time that I need to go to a big footbag event.
Someday, I will attend. Patience, I will attend sometime, when I get my life figured out, when I am living on my own, when I have a steadier job (sears scheduling is never the same on a week to week basis), when i have an income I can always rely on, and when I get distractions off of my brain. Right now, school is very important, I'm coming off of a 2 year automotive program, and I need to get everything understood before I feel I'll feel confident that I can do what I was taught. This means going through several thousand pages of text again, to relearn. Much like footbag, only this isn't as much fun, but this is my career. And my career is more important than footbag.
Unfortunatly. HEHE
Anyways, I am going to get off of this dang computer. But, through school, busy schedules, work, tiredness, I will try and get better at footbag again, and I will in the future, attend events, I can almost garuntee (hate that word, spelling) that I will attend on in the future. And hopefully I'll be busting 10 fearless by then :p
Talk later.
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
Skill has been completely lost. I'm off balance on a mirage. This is lame.
I went to worldfootbag.com to try and order some lavers, but all they have are small sizes (i'm not a big fan of straight white, which is all they have anymore)
I went to Copeland sports to find the le's, but couldn't find those. I need to go buy a bag (at least i can find one of those, hehe) too!
OHHH well. It didn't help that it was pitchdark with very little light and i was trying to be quiet, so i may be better than tonight on a later date, hopefully tomorrow. I HOPE!!! I'm going to recheck copeland sports and other places to find some lavers. These smith milleniums i have right now suck, too thick, too heavy, too big.
WEEE, I hope i can get good again. Wish me luck. If you want, you could give me easy challenges. Thanks. (i think its SHREDSTER challenges) somewhere on the 20th page or something...haha, thanks
Chris May
Paradox=((5N^x^p)-54000aph^np)/adds
Its just about that confusing...
OH YEAH!!! Good luck with that!