I like Spaghetti

alex · Post by **alex** » 09 Jan 2005 13:09

okay so I think the main purpose for my blog will be a way for me to document my progress on one thing: Stepping. I just can't dial it, no matter how hard I try. Okay, anyway here is how the session when today:

Hit 10 infinities in a row, all frozen without too much trouble.
Hit three ripwalks in a row, all starting from frozen butterfly
Two and Three ripwalks hit in a row, several times but they were not steady enough.

Oh yea, and in the past I have hit these:
Ripwalk>sidewalk>repeat (dont ask me how)
4 consecutive ripwalks (they were all crap)
Ripwalk>stepping clipper>repeat (Again, I don't know how)

^All starting from both sides

Tomorrow is a new day, and hopefully a breakthrough

wolfpac444 · Post by **wolfpac444** » 09 Jan 2005 13:18

Hey Alex,

Whenever I saw you step at Chilly Philly, I always felt like you needed to raise your knee a bit higher rather than just out. It is something to at least try.

alex · Post by **alex** » 09 Jan 2005 13:19

oh yea and I forgot to post that I figured out something really good today for stepping. The bag is not set through you're legs, and then you move over it. no no no, mon ami, you should be almost side stepping/hopping over the bag and setting at the same time. This allows for a straighter, and more steady set. I will keep this in mind tomorrow

alex · Post by **alex** » 12 Jan 2005 14:50

so for the last few days my knee (left) has been hurting. No serious stepping practice has gone down. I'm gonna wait a few days for my knee to feel better, then I will get back to schooling. Focus on: Steady clipper, simultaneous hop and set, smooth dex, correct rhythm when planting feet, smooth butterfly, cradled clipper (ripwalk). The saga continues, I refuse to give up on stepping.

alex · Post by **alex** » 15 Jan 2005 18:24

so I took a few days off to let my knee heal, and did stretching and specific knee excercises every day. Today I played with some easy tiltless/guiltless, after going to the gym and doing 160 pound leg lifts (I weigh like 130) , with zero pain. It felt great not being afraid to land on my left leg. I just hope this keeps up because it really makes it hard to skool properly. So my highlights for today were getting my friend (non footbagger) to hit clipper both sides. It was so satisfying teaching him to hit stuff, and even better when we did some basic doubles freestyle (me doing the stalls and sets, him doing the dex's)! Tomorrow I plan on practicing for like a half hour, I want to ease back into my practice regiment. I'm too lazy to go to the NYFA session tomorrow, expecially because I'm out of practice. Next time I go to a session I will post the highlights if for no other reason than just so Ken Somolinos can keep up with the recent NYFA news

Ogden 09/04 · Post by **Ogden 09/04** » 15 Jan 2005 21:18

Alex wrote:

Ripwalk>sidewalk>repeat ([b]dont ask me how[/b])
4 consecutive ripwalks ([b]they were all crap[/b])
Ripwalk>stepping clipper>repeat ([b]Again, I don't know how[/b])

Props, Its all skill!, Shred hard

alex · Post by **alex** » 16 Jan 2005 20:51

I played today without any pain in my knee. Thats the good news. Bad news is that I sucked. Stepping is so hard. I'll try again tomorrow.

alex · Post by **alex** » 19 Jan 2005 17:20

I've been sick for the past few days which has prevented me from freestyling. I miss worlds. I watched the Ryan Thomas Worlds DVD today from start to finish, and it brought back some memories. I wish all of the footbag players could hangout more. CP went by too fast, it didn't help that I was sick during that tournament too. I swear, its all a blur to me . But Worlds... Man I'm having some crazy flashbacks... That first night with the fireworks in that park thing. Just like, walking around with the Czech crew in Montreal was incredible. I watch so much footage of these guys that I forgot that they are real people. Like, Vasek and Honza introduced themselves to me. They were talking to me!!! I don't know, its just so cool. I was brought in to footbag by footage, not seeing it in person, and to talk to players that I have watched so much was just cool. I dont know why I'm talking about worlds, but I think it has something to do with senioritis. What is senioritis? Well, this widespread disease occurs when seniors in high school have been accepted to the colleges that they have applied to and are just itching to get out of High School. Without the insentive of needing to try hard in order to get in to college, seniors will not stress out so much on high school work and become much more relaxed. Now, midterms are next week and I really dont have the energy to study for them. All I want to do is get rid of this cold and shred more. *sigh. Midterms+being sick+not being able to shred= miserable Alex. Whatever! stop whining Alex cuz midterms arent a big deal, and you know most of this stuff anyway. HOLLA![/i]

david · Post by **david** » 19 Jan 2005 20:00

did someone order a large order of hot buns?

lol, nice blog. id comment, but i told you all my stepping advice.

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 19 Jan 2005 20:22

alex wrote: I'm too lazy to go to the NYFA session tomorrow, expecially because I'm out of practice. Next time I go to a session I will post the highlights if for no other reason than just so Ken Somolinos can keep up with the recent NYFA news

Ha! This cracked me up, cause right after I read the first sentence, I thought: `damn! I wish he`d go, so I could hear how everybody is doing.` Then I read the next sentence and was like:

Good stuff. Yeah, it was cool meeting you at worlds, I was glad NYFA repped as much as it did (Stan, you, Kathy, Fresh). I remember back when NYFA was Josh P, Dan Kramer (the man who came up with the idea of Phat Combo/sick trick contests), Ian Brille and Bruce Dole. I remember the first time Stan came to play in the city. I remember the only footbag tourney ever held in NYC. I miss NYFA... my abs would always hurt at the end of the session, just cause I`d laugh so much with everybody. I mailed Stan and Bruce the other day cause Johnny made a post in my blog which reminded me of NYFA.

Aaaaanyway, good luck with the stepping. Just a piece of advice: learn what you want to, what you think is fun. I think lots of people want to learn stepping, because its become such a staple in intermediate and pro shred. Only in the last couple years did I realize that shred without stepping can be even cooler than shred with stepping. Personally, shred which is real heavy on stepping is kind of boring to me. But that wasn`t the case a few years back. I personally don`t understand why stepping is still so in vogue. But I guess people still really like it. Jere Linnanen got into BAP this year with 90% of his non-BOPs being stepping tricks. That`s not a bad thing at all, it just shows that people still really like stepping. Maybe you should pm him for advice? He and Allan have the highest, most consistent stepping sets in the world... even though somebody else holds the ripwalk record.

We should have a NYFA reunion shred in NYC sometime. Good luck!

alex · Post by **alex** » 21 Jan 2005 16:02

Yea Ken, about Jere and Allan... Their stepping sets are so consistant. Both of them just blast those ripped wariors out like crazy. I just don't get it. I'm still sick, so no real practice went down today. I screwed around for 5 minutes with lavers on, and I was hitting ripwalks and stuff but I just know that I'm not setting right yet. I think that next time I practice I will video tape it and post it. That way, all of you can actually see my bad stepping set, instead of just hear about it.

alex · Post by **alex** » 25 Jan 2005 15:40

an okay session with stepping. I hit ripwalk>sidewalk repeat starting from one side, and rip>side>rip starting from the other side. The problem is def. my left stepping set, I'm barely stalling the bag and I'm just kicking it instead. Ughhh, so frustrating, but I'm going to keep at it.

alex · Post by **alex** » 29 Jan 2005 13:57

I practiced stepping clippers yesterday, and it was wonderful! I was getting some of the best sets of my life off. I think if I can dial stepping ss clipper then I will be in really good shape. 10 consecutive ripwalks has been my goal for a very long time now, and hopefully I will achieve it within the next month or two.

alex · Post by **alex** » 30 Jan 2005 19:48

4 consecutive stepping clippers strong side
2 consecutive stepping clipper flipside *cringes at the word*

I'm happy that I'm making a ton of progress, but at the same time its pissing me off that I have a flipside. This is the only concept that I dont have pretty much equal both sides. I've been shredding really well with stuff besides stepping, but I don't want to talk about things that are going well, I only want to focus on things that I need to improve on. That way, once I have stepping dialed I will feel no shame schooling whatever I want. I'm not practicing stepping because "everyone is doing it", I'm practicing it because I know where I want to go with my style and I need stepping sets to be simple in order to do it. Plus, if I want to work furious, having a dialed stepping set will make it much easier to learn. Dave might come over next weekend, and maybe I'll tape the session and make a video. Or maybe I won't make a video, and I'll just tape the session so I can watch it and see what I'm doing wrong. I don't know. Decisions, decisions. I wish I could have gone to the somerville session today, but I have my Biology midterm tomorrow (the one that, when it was delayed, got me so happy that I made Part II of CP 05') . Stupid biology, I hate chemiosmosis, I hate the Kreb Cycle, I hate photosynthesis and cell respiration, and I think that cyclic and noncyclic electron flow suck big sweaty nuts.

HooD · Post by **HooD** » 30 Jan 2005 20:58

Alex, you definitely need to make a vid and post it up. You may not know, but the last Btown2 rocked my world. As for all the work going towards stepping, good luck on that stuff, it's not easy, well, not for me. I know what you mean when you talk about jere and others that have massive stepping sets whenever they want. It'll come along, that's what I tell myself even though the progress is slow, hopefully you'll pick it up faster than me.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 30 Jan 2005 22:31

alex, a tip that was given to me by derek when i was starting to work stepping sets was to really work stepping clippers. to get a nice clean stepping clipper you need a higher, straight set so you can easily move you knee under the bag and set up for the clipper. once you have them dialed, every thing else seems to be easier since your set is high and straight and gives you plenty of time to set up for a down time component! good luck with it! and a video is a very good idea!

cheers

alex · Post by **alex** » 05 Feb 2005 21:04

wise you are in the ways of the force Mr. Grant. Stepping ss clippers are really good for learning how to properly step, and I'm gonna practice them like crazy. Today was a NYFA session, and even though I played like a load of garbage it was still fun. I don't know if I have a single highlight, except maybe ps flail to start a string, or an unsealed whirlind. What do I expect though for not playing once this week before this session? It was still a good time though, Josh was crackin jokes the whole time, even in the middle of his own strings. He was hitting some good stuff, I saw him hit pdx blender midstring, a few matadors, and some other solid stuff. Stan played pretty well too, he hit gyro flail which is a hott trick. Bruce hit some really cool pincher stuff as always, especially this trick where he rolls from pincher to osis. Drew hit some good stuff, I think bedwetter impressed me the most. We only had 5 people at this session, which was kind of a bummer. Oh man, now that I've gotten rid of this cough, which has been lingering forever, I'm going to practice so much. But I'm not gonna start the regiment for another few days because I hurt my ankle by landing on it during a paradon

Whateva, I do what I want! Midterms are over, I'm really happy about that. Oh yea, I have a local shred partner now! His name is Paul, and he is a student at a local University. We had one session before he went to G.L.A.S.S and it was loads of fun. He is progressing pretty fast, hes already hit ripwalk and hes been playing less than 3 months

Oh yea! I hit a double spinning clipper today second try, and played out of it. I am in love with double spinning, so I was really happy about that. Man, I really need to get some footage of me stepping online. I will FORCE myself to do it. I gotta make sure to put both the screwups, and the successful stepping tricks, that way people can critique me. What else...? I joined a dodgeball team! Its so much fun, and I'm actually pretty good. My next game is monday, and I'm looking forward to it. I got nothing else.

ericksonj · Post by **ericksonj** » 06 Feb 2005 13:14

Dodgeball team eh? After your ankle is better work on your dodging clippers.

If you can dodge a footbag then you can dodge a ball.

ericksonj · Post by **ericksonj** » 06 Feb 2005 13:15

double post?

alex · Post by **alex** » 07 Feb 2005 15:52

note to self, footbag is not a race. I should be enjoying myself, regardless of whether or not people are getting better than me, or are better than me. I have a competitive nature about me, and I absolutely hate losing. However, I don't have to win them all, because in the long run I'm confident that I can get as good as I want as long as I put in the work. I hate the pressure of feeling like I have to progress at a certain rate. I look at Lon Smith as a role model, because he held in there even though it took him longer than others to get good. I sent him an email because I was frustrated, and he told me that it took him 3 years to become guiltless. And now look at him. Being a prodigy is not as important as enjoying what you do.