Allright, I haven't updated my blog in a while, but I'll write about my experience at the Xmas Jam in Chicago!
Well, me and my friends (Dane and Adam) decided to go to this event a LONG time ago, but never thought about how to get there until late last night. So, the planning part kinda sucked for us. We knew we had to take the Metra train downtown, but had no clue what to do once we got there (we had to get to McCormick Place). So, we decided to take a bus or two the event, but we had no clue which buses to take either. Finally, after asking a couple of people for help, we had to take 2 buses when we finally were dropped off at the front doors of McCormick Place. Now, this place is HUGE!! When we first walked (it was only about 10 minutes after all the sports things were supposed to start), the first thing we noticed was the exceedingly large amount of people there. This was the Mayor's Holiday Sports Festival, so there were a lot of different sports (we just went for the footbag and the table tennis
). So, after taking a long walk all the way to the other side of the place, where the footbag would be located, we come upon a few kids trying to kick one of those really, really hard footbags that are really bad for shredding. So, we just say "Oh crap" and decided to go play table tennis for a little bit until more people showed up at the footbag place. So, after 40 minutes of table tennis, we walk all the way back to the footbag and now, there's only one little kid kicking around a footbag. But luckily, we spotted Scott Davidson (who is such a cool guy, btw) and we decided to stay. Then, we just talked with Scott for a while and decided to play footsie over a little net until more people shred. Footsie was really fun though; it was Dane, Adam, and me and we played with the kid who was there (his name was Dylan, I think). We just played that for about 10 minutes when finally, some shredders showed up!
Now the fun really started!!
Approx. 11 a.m.
The first people to walk in after us were (Reid and Will, sorry I can't remember their last names), and they just stretched for about 5 minutes and started their own circle (actually, it was more of a line since there were only two people) and eventually, after more people showed up, Reid joined the circle (a.k.a "triangle") that me, Dane, and Adam formed and I've got to say that he has one of the SMOOTHEST styles I have ever witnessed in my life! He started out with long strings with just butterflies, pdx mirages, osii, and other small moves, but he made them look oh so damn good! He was a really nice guy too! When Dane, Adam, or I recieved the bag, we were just doing some tiltless stuff, but after about ten minutes, when I started doing combos with ducking, diving and stepping, he seemed genuinely surprised that I was actually linking some hard moves. It was really nice though!
Then, he just started going at it with all his whirls, pdx mirages/illusions, and all his crazy moves; it was amazing how both sided he was! He made me want to shred even harder! Just before he left our circle to join another one, he just went crazy with some double over down, ddd, barfly moves and he linked them so perfectly, it was just awesome to see those moves performed so smoothly and flawlessly. Then, after he left, Will joined our circle and he was smooth as hell too and he was bustin' BIG! He hit symp. paradon and he hit all these whirl moves like blurry whirl and pdx whirl both sides! Then, later on, he busted out a flurry out of nowhere, and it was one of the most amazing tricks I saw in person!
Approx. 12 p.m.
Around noon, one of our friends that we met at last year's Xmas Jam showed up: Tim Werner! When we first saw Tim, two words immediately popped into our minds: dead sexy!!! At first, from a distance, it looked like he had a growth on half of his face! Then, as he got closer, we realized that he grew a 3-4 inch beard on one side of his face. It was the highlight of the day!!!
So, after having a few laughs about his beard, we started shredding, and man, did Tim get amazing since last year or what?!! I remembered him hitting some nice easy moves, but today, he had
fairy gyro mirage and
fairy mobius off of his foot!!!!! WOW!!! I've never seen anybody do those and he was getting so close to them, and what made it even better was that he was butin' them out so smoothly. Tim, in my opinion, also has one of the smoothest styles ever in the history of the world! And he is such a great guy to hang out with; last year, it was just awkward between us all, but this year, it was like we were all really good friends and we had an amazing time. Today was one of the funnest days ever!!
Between 1:30 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.
During this time, me and my friends decided to get something to eat and man, were we hungry! But we found out what a rip off the place was!! I had 2 slices of pizza and nothing else and that cost me $8.50!!! $8 fricking 50!! What in the blue hell...?!! But we had no choice (although we learned later that we did) so we had a really expensive lunch and went back to shredding.
Around 2.00 p.m.
After we got back from lunch, I finally met Kamil (a.k.a quadgun), and he is a really cool guy to hang out with. Staying with what happened so far, I gotta say that Kamil has a really smooth style too! He doesn't hit really big tricks, but he hits his combos with a lot of style and it really looks good! Also, we found out during this time that there was going to be a sick 3 competition at 3:00 p.m. for novice, intermediate, and open levels. Noone entered in the novice level, even though I tried to convice Dane and Adam, they were adamant about not entering. So, me and Kamil signed up for the intermediate one while about 5 or 6 people signed up for the open level. So, until about 3:00, I just thought about what I would try to hit, but by 3, I was so tired that I decided to go with the one I did on modified (dimwalk > sidewalk > far osis).
Sick 3 Comp.
I found out that since no one signed up for the novice level and since I was the first one to sign up for the intermediate level, I would be the first one to go. I was sooo nervous as this was the first time I had ever actually done some kind of competition, but I was surprised that I hit my combo on the first try (each person got 5 tries). I came really close to another combo, but didn't hit any after my first one. After me, Kamil went and almost hit his combo the first three tries (smear > butterfly > pdx mirage), but unfortunately he couldn't hit a combo. After this came the open level guys, and some of them did some awesome stuff!! I was surprised to see Tim attempt his fairy gyro mirage and fairy mobius as part of his combo (if only he nailed them...). Overall, the sick 3 was really fun and exciting, and everyone had a great time! The crowd just loved it!
After Sick 3 until 4:00 p.m.
After the sick 3, we all just shredded a bit more until 4:00, when they had to close the thing down. So, we said our goodbyes and headed for home. Unfortunately, we can't go tomorrow since Dane is getting his wisdom teeth removed tomorrow and I have a dentist appointment tomorrow; also, me and Adam decided to work on a Spanish project tomorrow, but we should be there again on Wednesday!
After all of this, we just went over to the Killersping table tennis area and watch one of the world's best go against the 44th ranked in the world guy and it was really entertaining. Then, me and Adam played some table tennis while Dane laid down for a while and then, we saw a match for 5th and 6th place. So, all in all, this whole day was wicked fun!!
Then, we left for home, but had no clue how to get to the train station. So, we took a bus to a CTA subway station, and took that to downtown Chicago. Then, we proceed to walk in the opposite direction of the train station for no less that 15 minutes (mainly because all these people we asked for directions gave us the wrong directions...
). Eventually, we made it to the Metra station and got on our train home (we made it just in time so that the doors closed after we got on; talk about timing huh...). Then, we proceeded to eat animal crackers and drink pop on our way home and Dane's mom gave us a ride home and here I am!! I can't wait until Wednesday!
Then, I tried diving mirage since I hit ducking mirage last night, and I hit it after footying it for almost 5 minutes. Then, me and started attempting blenders but I decided to try a dyno instead and after about 3 tries, I nailed the most perfect and smoothest dyno ever!!!! 
), I can't remember what Reid hit (I think it was shooting butterfly, stepping torque, and shooting mirage). So, overall, the Phat Trick competition was wicked awesome!!