Jeremy

[BainbridgeShred]

and I almost said something that I think lots of Christians would find fairly offensive (about the growing relationship between politics and religion and the death of secularity)

"Give unto Caesar what is his, and Give Unto God what is his as well"-Acts 34:14



Jeremy, how often do you perform Footbaging for crowds? It seems like you're always doing a demo or a show or something of the kind. I don't think their is that kind of interest here in the US?

[Jeremy]

I try and do permormances as often as I can - maybe once a month - but it varies - like over New Years I did 5 I think - maybe 6 - I've lost count

I'm sure there is the interest in the US - you just need to put your name out there. A great way is to hold a small tournament and contact the local newspaper and TV - they will be really keen to show something new and different - then other people will see that and contact the tv/news asking for a demo. You should also try and play in public spots as much as you can - like in Melbourne we played twice a week in public - so people would come past, see us playing, and ask if we'd do a performance.


Anyway in other news I have pretty much finished my first ultrasuede bag!!! - I still need to do the last part of the last panel - I haven't put the filler in yet - this bag is for Ryan Thomas and I'm waiting to see if he prefers a particular weight. It's looking really good - although maybe it is just a tiny bit small. It will expand as it gets worked in anyway. I drew a little o on the last panel so you'll be able to see it when the bag is done. I should be able to post up some photos of it on Sunday or Monday too! - by then I should have made 2 or 3 more bags as well!!

I think making bags out of the ultrasuede light is much easier than out of the other material I was using - although it's a little harder to push the needle through.

Well I'm off to kick

[mosher]

Felix afforded me the opportunity to make my first ever ultrasuede light bag, I am very excited.

I am going to practice over and over on my cheap material until I am ready for the felix material.

I look forward to seeing how your bags come out!

Also, you have inspired me to get my clubs name out! I am going to call up my local paper in Kingston when I get home and have them cover a club meeting of ours to get local kingston hacky sackers to come out. I bet that kind of thing would get front page because it would make an exciting picture for a local newspaper.

Great work jeremy owheelj, you are inspiring!

[Jeremy]

Thanks Tom - best of luck with that!! - And with the bag too. I'm really getting into making bags. I haven't tried any cool designs yet - just soccer stuff - but I'm ok with that - I want to make the best playable footbags around - I don't mind if they are the best looking or not (although I'm sure the two go hand in hand).

I have a funny random story. For those of you who watched my "jezza" video a while back - if you can remember the bit where I attempt nuke dlo and roll my ankle - when I walk around a little and come up past the camera - you can see that I have what I thought were "love handles" - ie little bits of fat on the side of my body around the abs. I saw this and thought "oh shit - I'd better try and get in better shape" - so for a while now I've been doing sit ups every day. I haven't been doing lots - but working my way up - when I started I'd do 3 reps of 50 in a session - now I do 3 reps of 100 (acually I do 90, then 100, then 110) - so I'm definitly getting better.

Anyway I was down at my brothers over new years and doing my sit ups while talking to his girlfriend who is a medical student. I mentioned that I'd been doing the sit ups for a few weeks and I couldn't get rid of those damn love handles - and showed her.

It turns out they are actually muscles - not fat - which I can now tell when I lean to one side and flex them. A little embarrassing but I think I'll keep doing the sit ups anyway - strong abs are very important for a lot of footbag I feel - especially balance and keeping your body straight - which is important for every move - so good things have happened from my ignorance.

Hmm not much else to report. Yesterday I had a nice relaxed kick - not drilling anything or going to hard - just hitting some nice runs - all were pretty short apart from warm down tiltless run - which went for the full 2 minutes>handcatch.

I hit stepping eggbeater>pixie ss clipper>stepping whirl midstring - which I thought was pretty cool. It might be the first time I've hit stepping eggbeater in the middle of two genuine moves (I hit it out of dimwalk I think) - not that either are really that genuine. It's still a reasonably difficult move for me though. My stepping whirl is getting really good - I think the big improvement I still need to make with it is just hitting it more often - I tend to need to think that I'm going to hit it before I do usually - although that combo mention wasn't pre planned at all.

Anyway Love and Peace

Jeremy

[Jeremy]

a quick report. I've mainly been working on my competition stuff lately but I've been hitting a few nice runs too. There was a good one I mentioned in the new runs topic with 6 5s and haze all in it.

Also in practicing my sick 3 combos I've learnt a couple of good tips. When stepping out of blurry whirl - make sure you actually stall the bag before you start the stepping dex. And this one is even more important - with pixie torque - if you are setting at the same height as you set for smear - you are either setting too low or you set too high for smear.

Anyway I have my saftey combo pretty much down - which is good because it's not that easy - it's 5>5>5 so is more than worthy. I'm thinking of doing a toe fearless combo too - but I'm not sure if that will get me more points for doing something cool and hard - or less points for not having much variety. - obviously there are no points in sick 3 - but I'm sure you know what I mean (and if you don't - work it out for yourself without asking me please )

I've also been making lots of bags - which is fun. They are getting towards a quality I'd be happy selling to people I think - although still might be slightly bigger than what I'd prefer (although still fairly small - a tiny bit bigger than my broken in abshire mini).

My grandmother told me today to never get old - so I've decided to take her up on that and when she dies I will spend my inheritance money on drugs and alcohol.

[Jeremy]

Oh I should add - that if people are interested in buying one of my bags - because I am new at this bag making buisness - I'm not selling them for the price advertised in the stitching contact details - I'm completely negotiable. So you can definitly get a cheap bag off me if you send me an email and name what you think is a reasonable price.

[Jeremy]

Just thought I'd mention that tomorrow I am catching a ferry to Melbourne (like 12 hours - 40 foot waves - lots of alcohol - heaps fun ) - I'm spending two days in Melbourne and then I'm heading up to Northern Victoria to spend about a month fruit picking with Dylan Fry (and we might play the bit of footbag ) - It should be lots of fun - but I don't know if I'll have internet access for much of that time - so if I'm away - that's why!

Now I have to burn all my music on cds because my Mum doesn't want it on the computer anymore. That's ok - I only have like 20 cds to burn because I have most of it on cd already

[B_Man]

Wow, I hope you have a great time Jeremy! Have fun and remember this quote from the Simpson's:

Leaves of three, leave them be! Leaves of four eat some more

Take care man!

[King Monkey]

Oh and dont eat the purple berries. They taste like burning.



Make some money so you can pay me back!

[Jeremy]

So I'm at Alex's house now! The trip was pretty shit - but I drank lots so that was ok. I wasn't allowed to take my sewing scissors on the boat so I couldn't make a bag

I arrived in Melbourne and went straight to the kicking spot - so had a good kick with Dan, Lynton, Alex and Scott. I was still drunk when I arrived - so I didn't play that well but I was hitting a lot of cool stuff that they hadn't seen before so everybody was still impressed - stuff like whirlwind, whirygig, sumo>dominatrix, pixie tapping dlo (first attempt!) etc. also lots of triple dexes.

Lynton was playing pretty normally - which is still awesome - neutron smasher bsos, shooting symp mirage - some long runs etc.

Dan was playing really well - hitting some cool stuff. Long runs - and with some big moves thrown in now - his flurry is really good.

Alex has improved a lot so that was good - he's hitting some hard 3s now!

Scott was injured so didn't play much - but he a few good things like ducking clipper>swirl>ducking clipper!

Then we went and got some pizza (which is now $1:20 a slice ) and went to Alex's place. Dan Alex and I then had another session. I was playing lots better and hitting some ok combos - nothing I hadn't hit before but it was still good - stuff like blurry whirl> beta blur>into some shuffle, mullet (which is pretty easy for me these days), haze>smog into some shuffle. At one point Dan hit blurriest>ripwalk>blurry whirl>drop passed the bag to me and I hit blurry whirl>ripwalk>blurriest>nice run with beta blur and ps whirl first attempt.

Dan and Alex were playing well too. Alex hit blur. Dan hit some cool stuff - like ducking clipper>vortex repeat, double pickup>paradon repeat. I think he hit 12 unique dexlessss as well!

Tomorrow we are kicking again!

[Jeremy]

well I figure I have some spare time on my hands so I thought I'd make a big blog post. I've just got over 3000 posts too - so this can be a bit of a reflection. Actually in all honesty I think we should get rid of the post counts completely - but I know some people are into it - and since I don't care about post counts - it doesn't worry me too much if they stay. Maybe I will ask Brad to reset my post count one day so I can start again - that might be fun

So I'll give some reports of what's been happening first:

Yesterday we had a good kick with Lynton, Sam, Dan, Alex, Brendan and myself - so six players. I thought everyone were playing well.

Lynton is pretty amazing still even though he hardly practices - he would start runs off with things like beta neutron smasher>datw>eggbeater>dlo>ducking symp mirage>run - like seriously that combo is such a standard combo for him - he wouldn't get props from us for that anymore because we've seen him hit stuff like that all the time.

Dan was also playing really well - his game is getting pretty solid - stuff like flurry>smoke midstring and really long runs. He hits bigger moves in his runs now which is good!

I played well for most of the day - I was hitting some nice combos - Alex commented how he really likes seeing me to atomic sets so I hit a nice shuffle combo with atomsmasher>atomsmasher>tap>atomsmasher>tap>atomsmasher>atomsmasher>atomsmasher>legbeater midstring. I was also hitting some big combos like beta blur>dominatrix midstring, beta blur>alphabet tap to start a run, whirlygig>ps whirl and of course sumo>your mom first attempt - which was pretty fucking sweet I thought.

The last few nights I've stayed at Alex's house - which was really cool - his parents are very rich - and also his Mum is Japanese - so it is nice to talk to her about stuff. Last night I stayed at Dan's house - which is also very cool - and his parents are nice too. I stayed up till 3:30 am making a footbag for Alex - which is a good bag I think. Also we watched Fourkast - which is awesome!!! - I really enjoyed it. Some great shred, music, and choreography.

Today I had to get up at 7 am - so I've had 3 and half hours sleep. The night before I got about 6 hours, the night before that was 5 and before that was 5 - so as you can imagine I am feeling pretty damn tired right now! Infact I think once my time runs out at this email cafe - I will go find a park somewhere and go to sleep. Either that or go find a bar and drink lots of beer.

Anyway I got up really early, struggled off to the train station - had to change trains in the city. After running around for aged carrying my 40 kg bag - I managed to find the platform with about 2 minutes to spare. There were two trains on the platform - but all the people were going to the far one - so I jumped on that one. After waiting about 10 minutes I asked somebody if I was on the right train... of course I wasn't - and by that time my train had left - very annoying. I have booked more tickets for 8 hours from now - so I hope to spend that time sleeping!!



Some general ramblings:
When I wrote my autobiography post in this blog - I forgot to mention a very significant point. After I'd been playing footbag for maybe 3 or 4 months - Yacine Merzouk sent me a free copy of Overground! - this was the first serious freestyle video I got to see and it had a very big influence on my game I think - I don't even know if I'd still be playing without that. It made me realise how great the footbag community is I think.

The players I liked the most from that video were Yacine and Ken - both of which hit really cool stuff. Actually I liked everybody on that video. Watching it again later on - I found that I appreciated everything a lot more - especially the Sunil footage - because he goes so hard!!

I always find it hard to list my favourite players because I have so many and I can't really compare them. I will list some now but not really in order.

Ryan Mulroney: His style is so good! He alway looks really in control and I think it is criminal that he didn't win the 2002 routines. Vasek might have hit harder stuff - but I think drops should reduce your technical score and I don't understand how a judge can give a routine with a drop and then a bit of loss of control on the flyers a score of 5.9 out of 6. And I think all the judges gave him that score for techinical apart from one.

Ales Zelinka: He has I think the best style in the world. I think it is a bit of a shame that he is into body building so much because I don't think it helps his footbag too much but regardless of that - I love watching him play.

Ken Somolinos: Apart from the fact that I always spell his last name wrong (sorry Ken) - I think his style is awesome. I think he's sometimes down on it - but I like it. Actually a friend of mine and I were watching sick 03 just recently - my friend doesn't play footbag at all - but we agreed that Ken had one of the best styles on the video. I really like his section of sick 03 actually - it's probably my favourite section for watching just before I play - it gives me a big energy boost.

Yacine Merzouk: Apart from the fact that I probably mispell his name too - I really like his style - everything he hits looks so tight and solid. His shuffle is awesome - he's probably my shuffle inspiration.

Felix Zenger: Another player with awesome style. I think he's probably the second best player in the world behind Vasek as well. Everything he hits looks so cool - and he also busts so big! I think sometimes it's hard to hit lots of big moves and look in control at the same time - but I think Felix manages to do that easily.

Allan Haggett: For a while was my favourite player. Still probably would be if there was footage of him available - but I have seen so little Actually the stuff off fourkast was really good. I think if I saw a link to Allan footage - I would download it before any other player - awesome style - just makes big things look effortless - also goes hard - which is something I really like seeing. I think I'd rather see a 10 or 15 move run with the player busting some of their hardest tricks - than a 40 contact run full of stuff the player finds easy. Obviously it is even better to do a 40 contact run with huge tricks in it too.

I think that's it for this post. I'll probably go and sleep somewhere pretty soon.

[Jeremy]

Well it's been a long time since I've been on the internet - over 2 weeks since I've been on modified I think!!! - probably the first time that has happened in 2 years or so!

I've been out in country Australia fruit picking with Dylan Fry - which has been super fun although we haven't been making much money.

We've also been playing footbag pretty much every day - working on competition stuff lots but also having some crazy shreds. I think I can hold my own with Dylan - which is cool. We have very different styles though. Been hitting some crazy stuff - too much to remember I think. I did hit a new move - spinning pdx flail - but it's not all that hard I think.

Also some cool combos like - fog>sailing butterfly midstring - I've hit that before but not midstring I think. I can't really remember much of the other stuff but it's been crazy. Dylan is really smooth and consistant.

We are doing a doubles routine for the Australian champs too - which should be heaps of fun - and really cool. Hopefully there'll be a video of it on the net. Neither of us have done doubles before!!.

We've had crazy weather - like every day has been mid to high 30s. Then the day before yesterday we had this insane wind that blew a window out of our caravan. Then mild rain for a while - then last night it was torential downpours - and all the people camping got completely flooded.

I've also been playing lots of poker and doing quite well - as well as getting drunk/stoned every night At the moment we have 2 bottles of bundy rum 1.4 litres and $100 of weed to go through before pay day tomorrow...

I've had hardly any internet access at all and the current computers I'm on won't let me check my email - which is really shitty since yesterday I spent about 30 minutes checking my email for the first time in a 2 weeks and got through less than half of my emails.

It's been a crazy time anyway and I think Melbourne will go completely off in a few weeks.

Love and Peace

Jeremy

[Jeremy]

Yo word up!

I'm now in Melbourne and have been for a few days. All the Aus Champs people have arrived in Melbourne and yesterday we had a big kick although Dylan and I didn't go too hard so as to save ourselves for doubles today! I was still hitting some good runs, although as is always the case despite three people having cameras with them - none of the good runs were on tape. Hmm ok there may have been one or two - but I'm not sure. I was a little intoxicated and stoned at that stage

Today is semi finals for all events plus the finals of doubles. There are only three double pairs and Dylan and I are the only pair to have a fully choreorgraphed routine (every move) so we are feeling confident, although obviously not counting our chickens just yet!!

I'm feeling pretty good and prepared for all my stuff. My legs are just a tiny bit sore and I think I should be able to put in some good performances. My predictions for the top 3 seeds in each event in open is as follows:

Routine:
Dylan
Dan
Jeremy

Shred 30
Dan
Dylan
Jeremy

Sick 3
Jeremy
Dylan
Dan

However it is very hard to call. I think routine and sick 3 should be fairly straight forward - but I think all the top 3 shred 30s are planned out completely - so it's just about who can do it the best on the day. I think we've probably all come close or hit them dropless and are definitly capable. (my best is one drop on the very last move ) I'm really looking forward to the competition and am feeling pretty pumped - like how I feel when I play really well in other sports.

The shred so far has been very impressive. Dan was going pretty hard last night and hitting some awesome long runs with good variety and a few hard moves.

The person who I think has impressed everybody the most is Jesse (jethro on the forum) - who is so consistant and hitting lots of cool stuff like pixie ducking symp mirage. I've seen him hit a few guiltless runs so he's very close to being guiltless. He's also only 14 I think and been playing for about a year. He'll definitly be one of the best players in Australia if he keeps working hard in a year or two.

Alex Urano has also been very impressive - last night hitting double switch>pixie switch>symp mirage - which is a pretty cool combo in my opinion. He's also closish to being guiltless and hits some cool stuff.

Hagsey is another person making a big impact. He has been improving rapidly and is getting close to guiltlessness with huge runs and awesome consistancy every time. I think he's been playing about 8 months.

Last night Jon Lee played - which is the first time I've seen him play since the Aus Champs last year and he was actually pretty impressive for someone who has hardly been playing for over a year now! He was hitting stuff like blurry reverse whirls midstring and still has one of the best styles around!!

So we had a night shred last night. I played with some substances in my body - so not that well, but everyone else seemed to be playing really well. Scott hit easily the longest run I've ever seen him hit. I would say easily 40 contacts. It's on film anyway. Lynton and I were talking about something at the time (lynton was just filming) and then I looked up and said "wow this is a long run" - and then Scott hit another 10 or 15 contacts. His game is really good. He's been injured for some time so this was his comeback kick actually - and it was pretty good. He's competing open for the first time too!

I'm not writing this very well - I keep wanting to jump around etc. I'll start at the beginning of the day.

We woke up, had a beer and then some breakfast - headed off to Fed Square. We waited around for people to start arriving and had a few games of four square. We then had a bit of a shred. Dylan and I banned ourselves from hitting 5s so our legs wouldn't be too sore for today but we failed pretty miserably - for a while I found a loop hole and was hitting 6s until it was decided that that was banned too

When everyone finally arrived (the people who actually live in Melbourne were naturally last) some of us went to the pub before going out to a chinese place for dinner. Dinner was pretty good. We had our own private room in a chinese restuarant. I set a piece of fish from my foot to my mouth first attempt and then again later for the camera - although second attempt in that case - although I blame the shape

Needless to say some people - especially those not drinking - felt the need to have a shred in the restaurant. Kids But that was ok. Just before we were leaving I joined in and hit blurry whirl>ps whirl while definitly tipsy.

We then headed off to the night shred spot and I think that covers the day.

Right now other people are just starting to get up - it's almost 10 and we need to be at the spot by 12 although the first open event doesn't start until 2.

I've already completly prepared everything. I'm going to have a barocca and maybe a little deep heat and some breakfast and I should be ready to rip it up! I've already completely prepared all my stuff. Hopefully by tonight I will already be the Australian Doubles Champion - although really I just hope we do our routine well. Neither of us have done doubles before but we've put a lot of time and effort into it. It's definitly not amazing on a world scale - but I think it's still a really cool routine.


Oh one more thing - off topic a little.

For those who don't know I was planning on attending the 2004 world Footbag Champs in Montreal. However due to family health issues I decided it was better for me not to attend. I did pay my full registration fee as well as for a t shirt (and the deposit for 6 peoples accomodation). However at the time this didn't worry me too much. I learnt just recently that when Dan was in Montreal at worlds his mum attempt to get my player pack and t shirt for me - since I did pay for them, and was missing for a pretty good reason. However the organisers refused because I had to get them in person or something like that. Anyway that really pisses me off - I did really want to go to that tournament and it was only because I thought my step dad was going to die that I didn't go. I did think footbaggers in general had a little more compassion and honesty as to give somebody something they paid for. I guess this is obviously not the case and perhaps explains why so many people thought the worlds last year were not as good as other years.

Anyway that's my rant. I probably would hold a grudge if I knew who it was who wouldn't give the shirt to Dan's mum, I'll just assume it was the same net footbag person who didn't realise there were going to be underage footbaggers who wanted to go to the presentation night and strengthen my belief that we should break away from net because they don't have any consideration for freestyle at all (or at least that's how it seems) - I know the name and approximate age of the net champion and runner up. It is surprising that they apparantly knew nothing of the freestyle champion.

[Jeremy]

Hey so semis are over!

It was quite cool. I don't really know the intermediate results except that Jesse fucking kicked arse and will be an amazing player to look out for.

My shred 30 was not very good = like five drops. Dan was one drop but no hard moves and some repeats. Dylan went dropless which was awesome and scored over 200. A few bails but still his best effort easily!

Routines were awesome. I think it was my best routine I've done. I really got the crowd into it and easily got the biggest applause as well as hitting the most big moves and hard combos and having the least amount of drops. However all this was only good enough for the judges to rank me third... Which is possible for artistic ablity - although it would have been very close, but kind of baffling on technical - when I hit the most hard moves and combos with the least drops. However it was only semis so I guess it doesn't matter. I hope you see my routine though because it was really fucking good!! A performers routine.

It should be said that the judges are both not that experienced and haven't played much footbag in the last year.

Dylan also finished first in sick 3 with spinning whirl>vortex>mobius although I couldn't hit my combo which I should hit tomorrow and ended up hitting bs blur>pixie clip>ps whirl on my last attempt (of ten) - I was shredding well though - big stuff mid string.

Doubles was fucking awesome and as predicted, Dylan and I are the best doubles team in Australia. Horray - it went well - we hit some cool stuff and was well choreographed.

We then went out to a bbq. Drunk beer and ate. It was good! Played some fire hack. That was cool too! I hit ps whirl, although dan ended up beating me with janiwalker. However I had had 7 or 8 beers at that time and he hadn't so I think I still win

stay tuned for more results!!

Jeremy

[NotHisRealName]

Thanks for the updates, Jeremy.

Say hi to all there, and let them know that I'm really pissed that I couldn't make it.

It sounds like everyone is having a blast.

[Jeremy]

So finals are over!!

Today was a pretty cool day. We arrived pretty late but got to see everything.

Jesse won most of the intermediate stuff I think - and was really impressive. His sick 3 was awesome!! He hit phoenix>ripwalk>ps mirage - which is pretty fucking good in my opinion for someone who's been playing for less than a year and is only 14.

Opens went well. I hit my shred 30 dropless a minute before competing = 212 points but only scored 93 in the final - choke big time!! Dan one with 175 I think or something like that. Dylan scored 157 I think but we'd like to work it out for ourself!

Routines went really well - I think I did my best routine ever! I only had four drops and hit some big runs and combos including 3 5s. However the judges didn't see it that way and Dylan came 1st, Dan 2nd and myself third - Nobody I spoke to gave those results and a number of people disagreed with the results. Dan had one more drop and went a lot easier - so I don't know. In all honesty I'm pretty pissed about the results but you'll see the videos anyway.

Sick 3 went really well. I hit a few combos - blurry whirl>bs blur>sailing butter first attempt. Also fog>smog>pixie over down and sumo>dominatrix>symp toe whirl. Acutally the second combo won although the first is way harder in my opinion. I won that event which was cool. Dylan second with blurry whirl>vortex>mobius I think. Dan third with something>ripwalk>scorpions tail.

I also shreded really well. A nice run with whirlygig>shaft to begin also a long run with blurry whirl, flip blurry whirl>ps whirl, bs blur, alphabet tap all midstring.

Anyway we have to go - I'll update more later!

Peace

Jeremy

[Anz]

hit the fucking Nemesis already while you're in there

--- for camera.

[DoctorJay]

Jeremy I had to laugh a little bit about your sentence: "Nobody I spoke to gave those results!"

Hm was it so hard to find the jury?
Of course I understand that you are disappointed but if you play footbag for yourself it should not bother you that hard.

212 points is a score for worlds so do not spend your big time for the aussi champs.

Good luck to beat your record at worlds!

Thanks for your detailed report --- it was a pleasure to read.

[Jeremy]

yeah totally - I think it's good character building. A few people thought that my routine was better than Dylan's let alone Dans.

I had about 350 adds (we've counted) and Dan had about 300. I dropped 4 times and he dropped 5 times. I hit 3 fives and he hit 2 - both of which were sealed with two stalls. My longest guiltless string was 12 contacts, his was 5. My longest tripless string was 4 - his was 2 which he did once - while I hit two or more tripless at least 4 times. He hit 4 ducking or diving moves - of which 3 were clearly "the" and the fourth we couldn't tell from the angle. Yet he scored the exact same for me on the technical score and half a point more than Dylan Fry - who only dropped once.

We happened to see the judging notes and somebodies comment after seeing that was something along the lines of "I thought they probably just made a mistake but now it seems pretty clear that they were biased"

I also thought there were some serious result defining mistakes in both the shred 30 and sick 3. Of the top 3 combos:

Jeremy: Fog>smog>pixie double down
Dylan: blurry whirl>vortex>mobius
Dan: blurry whirl (or spinning)>ripwalk>scorpion's tail

both Dan and my last move was "the" - mine was dexed around the toe - so you could still claim it I guess - but I probably wouldn't count it - but Dan's was pretty noticably. I did hit blurry whirl>beta blur>sailing butter - which is a way harder combo anyway and should have won I think - but it would be interesting to know who should have come third and interesting that the judges didn't notice. Also two combos (one of Ian's and one of Dylan's) were hit but unsealed - ie the bag flew away from them and they couldn't hand catch it. I personally wouldn't count those combos...

Regarding shred 30 - butterfly was counted as unique for each set - ie: toe set ss butterfly, toe set op butterfly, clip set op butterfly, clip set same butterfly etc.

According to the results - Dan had 8 more adds than Dylan but a lot more uniques - yet he hit at least 5 (I think more) butterflies in his shred 30 - I wouldn't be suprised at all if when the vids come out and people work out the scores under world standards instead of "lets try and make Dan win" standards it will be a different result.

Anyway there is a lot more I could bitch about but it's over now and I'll try and not mention it ever again. I just wanted to get that off my chest!

We're in Tassie now and had a fun trip over on the boat. Looking forward to playing Touch tonight and having a shred with Dylan.

I beat the pixie legover world record just recently and hit 38 although somebody said they thought somebody else had beaten it too.

I also beat my smog record and hit 4 - which is still a little embarrassing since I can hit combos like haze>smog>taping dlo without too much difficulty (it's still hard - but not really hard). I also equalled the Australian record for pixie symp mirages (which is only 3) but mid string in a tripless string - that was pretty cool.

[Jeremy]

Ok so a few things to mention.

First I played touch footy which went well. We only had 4 players and they had five but we won - 24 to 5 which is the highest scoring game I've ever played in....

Today Dylan and I had a mad drilling session. I worked on drifters, whirls (including symp and blenders), egg beaters and spinning - including hitting flipside pdx eggbeater for the first time.

We then had a tripless battle which was close - Dylan won with 16, while I could only hit 15. They weren't the scores we were looking for but by this stage we'd been playing for over 2 hours.

We then had a fearless battle - which was a draw - although Dylan hit 5 fearless for the first time which was awesome.

I hit two combos which were:
sumo>phoenix>blurry whirl>beta blur>pod
beta blur>dominatrix>witchdoctor>phoenix>blurry whirl.

The second combo is where it is at for me I think in terms of hitting long fearless - I dropped blurry whirl out and think I could hit blurry whirl>ps whirl out without much trouble - the first three was pretty easy. I'm thinking of 10 like this:

phoenix>beta blur>dominatrix>witchdoctor>phoenix>blurry whirl>blurry whirl>ps whirl>ps whirl>pdx torque - although there are a few different options. Hopefully I'll get to try soon.