Maxblog: now officially living in Sydney!

max · Post by **max** » 31 Jan 2005 01:34

Had a quick little session yesterday. I hadn't played in ten days or so so my legs were feeling pristine! I was still very hungover from the week-end's parties so it took me a while to sweat off the headache I had when I started kicking. I did have a couple of 20+ guiltless runs (with vortex, spinning blenders, lots of ducks and dives, smooth strings).

Some new combos:

pdx dlo > double atw (in to out) BSOS I think that's a pretty nice link
pixie same foot xbd rake > dragonfly > whirl

I tried peglegbeater a couple of times and that feels closer than before still it's a small window. What else?
Oh yes I was super stoked to hit

Mobius > drifter

so I'm hoping I'll be able to incorporate mobius in drifter / torque strings
I also tried some new tricks that I think are uber-cool:

reverse whirr and double dyno.

I havn't hit any of them YET, but I feel I'll hit them soon enough. They're actually a lot harder than they sound!! And when I saw reverse whirr I don't mean ddd nor motion for double dyno! It's actually pretty hard dexing the bag twice in a reverse whirl motion.

Have these tricks been hit before (maybe by Lon)? I havn't heard of many people doing / trying them.
I've been trying to stick some gyro toes after certain moves also but that's pretty hard too.

max · Post by **max** » 04 Feb 2005 01:24

Kicked in a parking lot with Fred yesterday. We both hit some cool combos and solid runs.

I don'th think I hot any new tricks but I had a couple of new links / runs:

mobius > dlo
mobius > ducking clipper
mobius > far symple swirl

and a nice duck/dive run that went something like this (more or less):

diving clipper > ducking clipper > diving clipper > ducking clipper > mobius > ducking clipper > zulu clipper > ducking clipper > diving clipper > vortex > diving clipper > ducking osis > ducking clipper

I dropped somewhere around that point

I came very close to ducking my pogo sets. I'll try frontside avalanche next time I play.

DoctorJay · Post by **DoctorJay** » 04 Feb 2005 04:00

hi max
are you still in paris or have you already moved to belgium ?

I plan a weekend trip to Belgium during my semester break if it is possible.

If it is okay I would like to visit you for a session

take care!

max · Post by **max** » 04 Feb 2005 04:02

No, I'm not in Belgium yet. Won't be for a couple of weeks/ months I think. I'll be there next week-end, but only for the weekend.

But yes as soon as I'm there, I'll gladly hook up for some sessions.

max · Post by **max** » 14 Feb 2005 02:04

I kicked at the end of last week.
I had lots of fun, tried out some new combos / tricks.

I've been attempting to put some pogo tricks into my runs. I've been pretty close to full blur and frontside spikehammer. I'm not sure pogo ducking looks too cool though...

Other than that, I'm still ducking and ducking a lot and managed to pull off a run that was started with:

diving clipper > ducking clipper > ducking pdx dragonfly > ducking clipper > diving clipper

I'm still trying to seal mobius with every trick I know and I did pull off

mobius > infinity swirl (I think that has nice flow).
what else?

pogo blur > muted atomic clipper (crispy grifter)
had pogo pdx drifter > mobius on my foot all night but that ripped my abs apart for some reason.

diving ss osis x4
spinning osis > pdx dragonfly > whirl > run
reverse swirling pickup

had spinning blender > barroque on my foot also...

and got very very very close to ducking far (non symple) swirl.

Oh here's a first: Fred and I even played some team freestyle! I don't think we'd played seriously since November or something. Anyway we tried a completly different approach to our game and that proved to be both successful and fun. I'd personnaly thought that there were WAY too many toe tricks in team freestyle and we'd attempted to incorporate more clipper tricks but it's not that easy in team. Anyway last shred, we got our osii down in team shred.. That really smooths up our game. We tried lots of smooth combos with nice flow and were both really stoked!

Ok what alse to write down? Oh yeah we played footbag golf a couple of week-ends ago on our Paris Bercy course (where the french open golf comp was held). It's a par 36, the record was 38 held by several players. I was on fire and scored a 30. 6 birdies 3 pars. I just caned it. Golf is a fun thing to do when hungover! So I'll scan the card, yes we have official cards here in Paris, and send it to Jacob Wagner, undoubtedly the best footbag golf player I know and who has repeatedly kicked my ass every time we have played.

bon I'm dead tired, at work and had a fun w.e. in Bruxelles!

max · Post by **max** » 03 Mar 2005 03:13

Had my weekly shred with Fred yesterday. We're definatly getting back into the team freestyle thing but we've got a whole a new angle to our game now. We used to be very much into the sets and dexes, now we've turned that around and we're way into our osis and spins. We're also toying with ducks and dives. We're building up a sufficiently big repertoire of tricks with these concepts and we've come up with some pretty cool combos that have some nice flow. We'd always thought that team freestyle lacked clipper tricks and was 90% toe stuff so we're trying to get that closer to a 50/50 mark.

Other than that, I'm toying with the idea of going to the footjam. I havn't missed one since they started 4 years ago and I got a mail from Ellis telling me he'd like to include a small section on the French Connexion on his upcoming footjam documentary. Anyway I'm not quite sure yet, I've been easing away from competitions of late.

In single freestyle nothing much of note other than that I can finnaly hit some flip spins sometimes! It only took me five years to learn! I guess I'm a slow learner. So I'm hoping that'll contribute to some long Lon-like flowing runs with lots of spins and ducks.

I tried the folloing tricks yesterday:
- jughandle: got nowhere
- swirling dragon: not even close
- symp. whirling swirling set: nearly hurt myself
- symp. swirling blender: can't wrap my mind around it
- downtime flailing flying inside: good way to break your ankle.
- vortex xbd heel: close-ish

I did on the other hand try out and hit some cool combos like
ducking pdx dragonfly > ducking heelstall
gyro osis > spinning osis > inspinning osis
drifter > gyro osis > drifter > gyro osis [drop]

did some freezes: diving osis freeze x2 but I really don't have the ankle crank to do those correctly.
oh yeah did lots of dadas also. That move has been dragged through the mud for so long that it's just plain cool now.

Anyway yeah good session, good team freestyling, we're breaking some new ground there and that's always good.

King Monkey · Post by **King Monkey** » 03 Mar 2005 05:22

Max you HAVE to go to Footjam! It will rock! And ill be there!

We gotta party

Glad to hear you're getting back into Team again, thats excellent. Definitely needs innovators like you and friend to push it along!

max · Post by **max** » 02 May 2005 01:32

Well I havn't posted here in AGES.
Paris is slowly getting sunny and warm again, so I've been heading out for a quick kick more often these days. I needed the work out so every now and then I head down my street with my mp3 player and just shred for 45 - 60 minutes. I'm doing some sets again, but not many, I think maybe 15% compared to when I started going a bit easier on my game.

My flip spins are starting to work out for me, and I'm very stoked about that, I can't wait to bust long spinning strings (à la Lon). Unfortunatly I can only set a flip spin correctly from osis... not quite sure why but that's how it is. Oh, I hit my first ever flip vortex (from osis..) the other day so I'm quite stoked about that also.

This week-end was so sunny and warm EVERYONE was outside in Paris. We had two shreds with Fred, the second one was in front of Notre Dame Cathedral (there are a couple of shots of yves Kreil on that same spot in Sick.03). Just Fred and I were kicking, and since there were hoardes of tourists we tried to get some long strings going. Then we'd switch and play some team. Crowds loved the team probably because we can keep the bag up for over a minute without too much difficulty.

We even made a couple of Euros that day, and had a massive crowd around us (we were team freestyling again) when the cops came along to tell us to leave for some reason.

Went to Paris' town hall for some more shred, but it was a bit windy. Practiced some sick threes (smoke > symple swirl > scorpion's) and attempted to hit consecutive whirlwinds: I failed but got close.

What else? Not much really, am heading down to Brussels this week-end for some job interviews and am going to footjam next week-end. I'm really really stoked about 2 things at footjam 05: team freestyle and GOLF!

Bon, am at work
out

max · Post by **max** » 26 May 2005 03:17

had a huge session yesterday with Fred and Jire (two kickers from Paris). Since we're in summer we can not only kick outside but the sun sets past 9:30 which means that I can kick after I get off work at around 7ish.

Hadn't kicked in a couple of days and was feeling in damn good form. I played around with stallbergers a lot hitting stuff like:

- diving stallberger
- pixie stallberger
- stepping stallberger
- bubba stallberger (looks a bit like a bubba beater)

i also played arounf with my new symp whirling set and hit

- symp whirling osis (had done this before)
- symp whirling ss butterfly
got very close to symp whirling dlo..

other fun stuff:
- diving osis > reverse walkover and ducking osis > reverse walkover both BSOS
- ducking osis > ripwalk [repeat]

got very very close to spining osis > blurriest and whirlwind > vortex

and just some long flowy guiltless runs. i was hitting Vortex all over the place

oh yeah my session highlight was:

stepping ss blender > inspinning osis first try

finally we had to leave as the sun had set... I could have easily kicked another hour..

max · Post by **max** » 18 Jul 2005 02:22

Hmm I think I'll just add a little entry in my blog after each session, I don't do that many anyway so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle.

Thursday 14th of July: France's National holiday!

I was in Brussels for a long 5 day week-end, and Seb (the local footbag organiser-extraordinaire) had a stand set up at a community 4 day event teaching kids about alternative sports. Thursday was the last day of the event, and he had obviously done quite a lot of PR, as loads of kids where asking when the French Chmaiopn would arrive! Needless to say I was very flattered by the welcome! We got to the site at about 10am-ish and kicked all day under the sun till about 4pm. We had several groups of kids coming at our stands so that we could attempt to teach them footbag

That was fun although I don't think I'm a very good teacher... I slo met Dimi there another kicker from Belgium (not from Brussels though). He is "solid" here on modified. I was nice meeting you!

Seb had organised a footbag demo for the very end of the event and I must say that the site was pretty cool: the organisers moved several skateboard modules out of the way and Wim and I did a 3-4min demo righht in the middle of a skate park surrounded by 70or so spectators. I think it was Wim's first official demo and he handled it really well! Thanks Wim by the way for doing the demo with me: 3 minutes alone is just too tiring. Anyway the demo went really smootly with some ooh and aahs from the crowd, Wim and I even did a bit of team freestyle (we have to cultivate that aspect of demos, it works well).

Other than that I remember doing a couple of pretty insightful nemesis attempts and very interesting pixie whirr attempt too. I also had plasma all over my foot all day.. Anywa great day, met loads of people, great demo and lots of fun!

Friday 15th of July:

No shred, but: I SIGNED! It is now very official: I am moving to Brussels, I should be there by September. I'm super stoked!

Saturday 16th:

Hooked up with Seb in a park to do a bit of shredding. We really need to invest in a stereo system that can actually read CDs for more than a couple of seconds. We ended up radio surfing with some surprising results. Seb took a bit of time to warm up but was definitely going off by the end of the session. He learned pixie sets and hit pixie clipper. He also had tap all over his foot, he'll hit it really soon. I toyed with barraging quite a bit and had some decent nemesis attempts. I did hit ipwalk > jani which was a first for me. Had a longish run with legbeater and tapdown bsos. Another woth osis > pdx dlo and bubba beater bsos. Also had symp bubba beater off my foot. I'll hat that sooner or later.

Sunday 17th:

My legs were tired but it was such a sunny day that I did end up in a massive park (bois de la cambre) packed with soccer players / capoerists / jugglers / frisbee throwers and the like. We met up with some local cirlce kickers and had a quick session with them. I think we'll be seeing them again! I finally did hit plasma (probably a bit thin though) and ended the session with an inspinning legover (without planting I think) that was the sketchiest trick I've ever hit: 0.01s delay, laver scraping on the ground, lost balance, absolutely nothing to play out of it etc

I had a pretty mad week-end in Brussels! Thanks Belgium kickers!

max · Post by **max** » 26 Jul 2005 01:09

So I kicked with Charles yesterday (aka Leuch on modified). Hadn't kicked with him in over 8 months I think. I was pretty hot and humid out yesterday so that was a bit tiring but we did have a good session.

I wasn't really going for long runs for some reason. I do recall hitting these little snippets:

spinning osis x2
shaft, pixie dolomite, superfly, blacula (not same run)
symp whirl > ripstein
ducking reverse refraction
bubba stallberger > spinning osis (it is harder than one would think)
a couple of 20/30 contact guiltless
a 20 contact ducking diving string
symple swirl x5

I also taught Charles how to hit symp whirl and barraging set with the same tip. he hit an uberclean janiwalker several times

and symp whirl bs.

I tried nemesis about 30 times. I'll hit it one day! Mark my words!
Oh and a couple of days ago Vasek broke the diving butterfly record on national TV. Lots of people saw the show and they always come and talk to us saying they saw the World Champion and how much our records were fo "that trick where the ball goes around your head" and could we try and break it right now??

Two guys asked, two tries: I wasn't counting the first one but it was between 15 and 20.
Second try i counted and got to 16.

That show really was seen by a LOT of people.

in ten days I'm off to Brussels for more demos!!
Cool

justin41 · Post by **justin41** » 26 Jul 2005 05:44

ten days I'm off to Brussels for more demos!!

theres a good chance that i´ll come to bruxelles that weekend too. i am plannig to make a short trip with Viktor and Nils from dortmund.
i just hope sEb finds a place to sleep for us.

cu there... justin

max · Post by **max** » 26 Jul 2005 05:47

Justin: yeah Nils told me that he was planning on coming. I hope to meet you all there. I'm afraid I don't have a flat in Brussels yet so I can't help much regarding crash space.. Keep motivating Seb though

Hope to see you down there, I'm really eager to kick with you guys.

max · Post by **max** » 29 Jul 2005 01:06

Had a quick kick yesterday. I didn't hit anything spectacular although I had a couple of 25+ contact runs. Still havn't hit nemesis although I gave it a couple of pretty close tries. I did hit Alex ZErbe is the Greatest again. that trick rocks.

what else.. I toyed around with a new concept:

paradox symple whirl.

Havn't sealed it yet but it was all over my foot. It's surprisingly hard. I think it looks like you were trying PS whirl then bail then catch it in the nick of time

In the same vein I tried symposium swirl but that proved to be too hard.

max · Post by **max** » 03 Aug 2005 01:11

kicked yesterday 02 / 08 / 2005

It was late and a bit dark, kicked with my friend Jire, taught him a bunch of new moves. Didn't hit much myself other flip inspinning mirage (nearly BSOSd it). Tried nemesis a couple of time, I was hoping the low-light would hide any the'd dexes

But that was a no-go also.

I tried swirl > reverse swirl and nailed it after 2 or 3 tries, man this combo really makes you work on your balance.

I also followed Tripp's advice and tried symp bubba set.. well I still don't get how it's possible..

Then went out and had too many beers, but it was cool catching up. This was probably one of my last sessions in Paris! Moving to Brussels sometime around the 20th!

QuantumBalance · Post by **QuantumBalance** » 03 Aug 2005 01:31

Good luck with your move. Do you have a lot of stuff? Like what?

max · Post by **max** » 03 Aug 2005 01:40

Nah the move should be ok:
- Tv
- Xbox
- some books (i'll be selling hundreds before I leave)
- loads of clothes
- roller blades

What I do have to do is empty what looks like 10 cubic metres of useless crap laying around my flat... and everytime I try and start sorting this stuff out I just get demotivated and end up on the comp / xbox...

QuantumBalance · Post by **QuantumBalance** » 03 Aug 2005 02:01

haha if u go back a few pages in my blog u can see how messed up my room was as i was sorting things out.. its actually better now.. but ill update the pic when its empty

good luck

max · Post by **max** » 03 Aug 2005 02:13

hehe yeah I saw that... mine's a bit like that too, only smaller... I know that once I get going cleaning up I can go for several hours and be productive, but I just need that spark to get going in the first place.

max · Post by **max** » 05 Aug 2005 00:54

Kicked yesterday night for 90 minutes more or less.
It was pretty cool, I kicked with Serge and I hadn't shreded with him in a long time. He nailed an uber clear nuclear torque

I wasn't really going for runs as I was dead tired due to overdoing a little fairwell drink the night before but I did pull off a couple of nice tricks. I hit Alex Zerbe is the Greatest again (it's getting easier), had symp. bubba beater all over my foot. Also hit a montage first try on demand, I hadn't attempted one in a really long time!

I tried new stuff and am getting closer:
- warped set, I hit a warped ss clipper... I'll hit pegleg beater if I stick to it.
- big apple, first time I really try this move and I was surprised as to how close I was, so yeah that's inspired me also.
- got very close to pdx symple whirl... damn that trick is hard.
- did one decent attempt of gyro grifter
- tried nemesis a bunch but no cigar

I did hit one new move after saying "man I've had this on my foot a billion times, it's driving me insane! " I then proceded to hit: ss reaper first try

So yeah a good session where I tried some new stuff and feel confident I'll hit some more new moves soon.

Going to Brussels tonight to see gf for the week-end and to do some demos. Can't wait.