Fanzine

[C-Fan]

Woke up around 5 am, disoriented. First thing I process, is that I'm in Alex and Josh's room. I slept on the floor, but it wasn't too bad, considering I was almost caught sneaking in last night, and would have had to find a place to stay in the middle of the night. The sun is already up, even though it seems like it just went down a couple hours ago. I figure I'll get used to it by the end of the week, but as it turns out, I figured wrong.

Alex and Josh finally wake, and we head down to breakfast. I try and sneak in, and am amazed how rigorously they check for deadbeats like myself. I end up coughing up 6.5 Euros for breakfast, but I'm just glad they didn't kick up a fuss about me trying to sneak in. I eat with Sebastien, Caro B, Josh and Alex. Seb and Caro have lots of good stories about Poland, alternately funny and terrifying. Its pouring rain as we're eating, which makes me thankful I don't play net. I also figure it will force me to take a day off from shred, which is a good thing this early in the week. As we slide our trays into the clean-up rack, the clouds part and the sun bursts through. Off to the net site I go.

I find myself the only freestyler at the net site, so I'm a bit surprised when a tall blonde guy approaches me and asks if I'm Ken. Not Tu, not Tuan, but Ken. Reeling a bit from the shock of recognition, I ask him his name, and why he's at the site so early. "Oh, actually I'm here to compete in net. I don't freestyle. My name is Ben, and I'm a big fan of the Fanzine."

Figures. Oh well, maybe someday somebody will recognize me and give me props on my shredding ability. And she will be hot. And give me money to shred. And while I'm fantasizing, let's also say she likes playing MvC2 as well.

I spend the morning watching Alex and Josh's singles net matches. My plan is to give them an unfair competitive advantage by being the ball boy on their side. In net, its quite common for the bag to be booted way off the court, and roll quite far. From personal experience I know it can take a toll on you, running to fetch balls all the time. So I hoped to help Josh and Alex (both who are quite young) by fielding balls for them, so they would have more energy for the match.

After watching net all morning, freestylers start to lazily trickle in, and circles start popping up. As I gear up to step in a circle, Sergey Pikalov comes up to me and says he heard on the street that I needed a place to stay. Why, yes. Bam, an invite from Team Russia to stay at their apartment. This means no more sneaking about, plus my own bed! Score! I give profuse thanks, then hop in a circle.

It seems like not many "big names" are playing this early in the week, but the European intermediates are definitely throwing down well. Self-serving isn't much of a problem, which is a nice surprise. I notice that lots more people are using swirls this year, which is a nice trend. I'm happy with how I play all day. I get the most props for frantic eclipse, even though its real easy. I also hit stepping WHAT?! in a circle which leads to a lot of confusion. No, I did not just hit bedwetter.

Its only day 2 of worlds, but already I've played with a bunch of people that were on my shred hitlist. Tuukka, Felix, Jorden, Toni P... as well as a bunch of really good people I just met, like Riku Ahola and Szymon Kawaks from Poland. Felix hit surging in gyro mirage, which blew me away. Apparently he also hit spinning scorpions tail, 3 feet away from me, but I was asking somebody on the sidelines for a drink of water, and so I just heard the uproar from the crowd. I swear, its like a mutant ability I have, missing the big moments even when they are near me. I tried to reproduce the magic by hitting ewalk to blurry torque to open a run, and heard the crowd yawn in approval. I don't think its that I'm bad... I just think peoples expectations are too high when my turn follows Jorden, and precedes Felix.

Freestyle was definitely fun, but the second I started to feel real tired, I knew I should stop. Amazingly, I did! That's a first. Somehow though, I found myself on a net court, not 10 minutes later. Flashback; 2000 Worlds. Ken competes in intermediate net, pulls his quad, sucks at freestyle all week. Vows never to play net at a freestyle tourney again. Flashforward to 2005 Worlds: Ken breaks 5 year old vow.

Whatever, it happens. I still haven't played freestyle with Mosher, but somehow I drag him onto the net courts. Josh B teaches us some basics, then we get Ben Kellman to round out 4. We play a game where its me and Ben vs. Josh and Mosher, and we even have a couple rallies where we almost resemble actual net players (sans the cigarettes)! Ben and I "lose", but in an intermediate pick up game, there are no losers really. There's just one side that happens to have scored fewer points. I often find myself a member of that team. I like to call that team, "the losers."

That first game made it quite clear that Ben and Josh were the best net players, so when deciding teams for the rematch, I said: "I think its pretty obvious what teams we should make." Looking at Mosher: "shall we?" Incredibly, the team of me and Mosher works pretty well. I feed real well of Mosher's energy. There's even a point where it looks like we might upset! But Josh and Ben rally (or quit fucking around) and again I find myself on the-side-that-sco... the losers. Still, I claimed the moral victory of not injuring myself, so I felt happy about that.

I watch some freestyle circles, then hop in a game of foursquare. Why not? I've played every other variant of footbag all day (golf wasnt offered). I win a game, but there was no Sebastien, Kolo or Goldberg, so I don't beat my chest or anything.

At some point Jere Vainikka talks to me a bit more about a documentary thats being made about Worlds. He raised the topic briefly the night before, but now he gave me some more details. Apparently, some documentary company wanted to make a 20 minute documentary about Worlds for TV, and so they chose 6 players from around the World for it. When they asked if I wanted to do it, I suggested they use Takumi instead, since he's actually Japanese, and he's young. They insisted on me though, probably because of my English ability, and maybe because I've been in the sport so long. In any case, we set the date for the shoot for tomorrow, which suits me because it'll force me to take the day off from serious shredding. We say 11am, which sounds late in the day, but I didn't count on drinking vodka with Team Russia that night!

[sniikeri]

At some point Jere Vainikka talks to me a bit more about a documentary thats being made about Worlds. He raised the topic briefly the night before, but now he gave me some more details. Apparently, some documentary company wanted to make a 20 minute documentary about Worlds for TV, and so they chose 6 players from around the World for it. When they asked if I wanted to do it, I suggested they use Takumi instead, since he's actually Japanese, and he's young. They insisted on me though, probably because of my English ability, and maybe because I've been in the sport so long. In any case, we set the date for the shoot for tomorrow, which suits me because it'll force me to take the day off from serious shredding.

Wow, is this really true? Did you shoot there? Nice.

[C-Fan]

Evening of July 24th

Day 2 of Worlds definitely was a good one. I played some net, some freestyle, and some foursquare, all the time avoiding serious injury. I did pick up some sunburn though, because when I saw the morning rain, I figured I wouldn't need sunblock. When I moved my stuff into Team Russia's apartment, I felt real happy and relieved that I'd get to sleep on my own mattress finally. Team Russia is a bit of a misnomer, since there were like 20 Russians at Worlds, and I only crashed with 3 of them (Arkady, Sergey, and Vladimir), but later that night a bunch more came over which was fun.

Anyway, Team Russia were awesome hosts. I have no idea why they were so nice to me, but it was a definite high-point of the week. That night they cooked some dinner for me, and we all drank vodka together. I often wonder how different my life would have been had I never discovered footbag. Would I have had the chance to drink vodka with Russian friends otherwise? Would I have ever seen Finland? Would I have stuck around Japan this long? Who knows. But drinking vodka with my new comrades was a high point. When they poured the first shot, I thought to myself it was real small. "Ha! So much for the Russian drinking reputation. This is gonna be easy." After downing the shot, I shared some smiles with everybody, and then looked down to find my shot was re-filled. So as it turns out, each shot we took was pretty small, but we made up for it by having 10+ shots all night. <--- me after having 10 shots of Vodka.

Later, a bunch of net-playing Russians came over and we all hung out. Somebody asked me about how footbag got big in Japan, and before I could answer, Sasha said: "I heard Kenny Shults went to Japan, and got some footbag vids put into sports stores, and then Pepsi got interested in it through that. Then he judged some tournaments."

What am I, the Rodney Dangerfield of footbag or something?!? I politely let it be known that while, Kenny Shults is a champ, it was the other Ken S. that went to Japan and worked to spread footbag. Can I get some love?

July 25th, Worlds Day 3
Amazingly, I wake up with almost no pain in my legs or liver. I get breakfast with everybody, then get a shot at the internet. The apartment/hostel complex where I was staying had free internet, which was a real nice bonus. I checked up on the status of Team Japan, and once that was done, I checked out modified. It seemed like nobody else from Worlds was writing much.

Hit the net site again and borrow Josh Benham's CD player and Notorious BIG remix CD. Could I possibly listen to any more gangsta tunes while watching any less of a gangsta sport? It was fun though, watching intermediate doubles and rocking out. Ted Fritch was playing in a red baseball cap, probably in an effort to psyche out his opponents. Would you want to beat Super Mario in a net match? No, me neither. Damn 80s nostalgia.

My spectating was cut short though when I had to go meet up with Jere V. for my documentary shoot. The idea they had in mind, was they wanted me to re-enact my arrival at Worlds (sans people mistaking me for Tuan), so we went to the hostel to do the shoot. At the hostel I met the documentary crew, and the main man Jussi. I was a bit surprised how excellent their equipment was. I was a member of a film-making club in college, so I appreciated the professional-grade equipment. We go up to the apartment, where Arkady is still shaving. I explain to him the whole documentary thing, and ask if its cool for us to shoot there. He laughs, and so we get underway preparing the shoot. Despite the excellent boom-mic (mic on a stick), they decided to fit me with a wire-mic as well, to get better sound. Just like in cop-dramas, they taped the mic to my chest, and ran the wire to the receiver in my pocket.

While I was waiting for Jussi and Rasmus to set up the shot, I decided to joke around some with Jere. Adopting my most suspicious manner, I approached him, constantly looking over my shoulders.
"Hey Jere. Do you want to buy some *peeks over shoulders cautiously*... cocaine?"
Jere: "I don't do drugs."
Me: "You sure you don't want to buy some heroine man?"
Jere: "No."
Me: "Dude, just say 'yes.'"
Jere:
Me: *whipping up the front of the shirt, exposing my wire* Ha- hah!"
Jere:

Apparently, cops don't use wire-mics in Finland to bust drug dealers. I spent the next 5 minutes or so explaining to him my failed attempt at humor. I wonder if he really thought I was trying to get him smoking the rock.

The shoot in the room goes pretty well, but thats only the first half. The second part of the shoot is to take place on some field with weird art sculptures on it. Before we leave though, I inadvertently pull a Naked Gun and go pee without turning off my wire mic! I'm glad I didn't sing or anything while peeing...

On our way to the second shoot site, I have a nice conversation with Jere V as we walk through the park.

Me: "This park is really beautiful. What kind of wildlife you got here?"
Jere: Ducks, seagulls... mostly birds.
Me: What about Moomin?
Jere: Hm?
Me: Moomin.
Jere: What is that?
Me: You know, those things that look like little white hippos. Live in the forrest. Moomin.
Jere: Oh! Muuuuuumi!

(for those who don't know, Muumi is a Finnish cartoon character) From that point on, "muuumi" became my favorite Finnish word. It got to the point where I'd just randomly throw it out, in my best Finnish accent, whenever I'd be walking down the street. Team Japan picked up this habit, as did Josh and Alex. Acually, Team Japan started saying Japanese words with this accent, doing things like calling Takumi: "Tah-koooooh-mee."

The video shoot itself went pretty well. I was impressed that they assembled a small train track for a dolly shot. I'd never been shot with a dolly cam before, but I think the fin(n)ished product looked real good. The only complaint I had was that I had to play on a downward hill, which was really hard, but I did my best with it, and I think they got a pretty shot.

After the shoot, I got my free lunch, at an italian place. It was my first decent meal in Finland, and the fact that it was free was a sweet bonus. I ate til I was stuffed, said thanks to the production crew, then headed back to the site.

Next: I bring my street game to Hel-town! Day 3 continues!

[brian relly]

Which Notorious B.I.G. remix CD was it? I like the one where they mash up his lyrics with Frank Sinatra.

[QuantumBalance]

i just read your last fanzine post from bottom to top and it was GREAT!

[C-Fan]

Editorial note: Apologies for the massively inconsistent posting. I`ve been having interent problems, but hopefully regular Worlds updates will be made this week. That said, onto the remainder of Day 3.

I feel like I played a good bit of footbag the first couple days of Worlds, so I really didn`t want to play any footbag at all on Day 3. I made an exception for the documentary though, cause it seemed like such a cool chance, and I could use the free lunch.

After my shoot finished and I ate my lunch, I headed back to the site. First though, I hit the local grocery store to get some snacks so I could really kick back and relax while watching people shred. I love trying out local snacks in new countries... the excitement of not knowing what you`re buying, the first few seconds after you try it and you mentally try and figure out what its local equivalent back home is, the total package. When I first saw what would become my favorite Finnish candybar, I knew I had to buy it just based on the name: Daim. I had to restrain myself from yelling in the supermarket aisles: "daaaaaaaayummmm!" in my Martin Lawrence voice. But thats how I mentally processed it. I promptly bought one, and took it to the site.

Just as I figured, lots of young freestylers were shredding, but it also seemed like some BAP were starting to get into circles and play a bit. I sat down and watched one of the best circles of the week: Jorden Moir vs. Honza. It was a 2 man circle with self-serves, where they just kept going back and forth with crazy combos and tricks. It was a total flashback to 2003 Worlds when Ahren and Vasek had an impromptu 2-man session of sickness. I jotted down real messy notes in my journal. Here they are verbatim:

"Watching Jorden vs. Honza 2 man. Good stuff. Jorden starts a string w/fs jani to ps whirling xbd rak. Honza w/a beast. Jorden pdx whirling swirl midstring gets no props. Alpine big apple. Pdx Jani. Honza clean phobia. Had PS whirl-symp whirling swirl repeat, but second ps whirl looked thin to me. Honza: Moby dick. Jorden starts a string with barroquescrew, then Honza answers with a Windsor to food. Jorden: whirligig rake. Honza foots alpine food, drops it to the other clipper, and nearly gets it flip. Mind bender x2. Jorden: HPD-swivel. Honza midstring pdx torque to 10 pdx blenders. Jorden: furious blender. Starts a string with Furious eclipse and in the same string hits atomic blender. Whirr-bl whirl repeat. "

A ton more was hit, but those were some of my raw notes. I also recall Honza hitting 13 unique fearless, which was way cool. The last 6 or 7 were downtime 5s.

I watched lots of circles of Euro players I don`t know, and am particularly impressed by one guy who is doing double switchovers and hard downtime components beautifully on both sides. I comment to Peter or Tuan or somebody next to me: "that guy is fundamentally excellent. As in, his fundamentals are superb." I am surprised to later find out that its Anssi Sundberi. I expected Anssi to look blonder, more Finnish.

I sit down with some East coast shredders, Pete, Scott B, Tuan and some others, and we watch some of the circles. I bust out my Daim, and am pleasantly surprised to find it tastes just like Skor, so a slab of toffee covered in chocolate. Pete asks me what I`m eating, and this time I don`t hold back.
Me: "Daaaaaaayummm!"
PI: "Excuse me?"
Me: Holding up the wrapper; "DAYUMMMMMM!"
Everybody:

I passed it around, and everybody seemed to agree that it was a very appropriately named candy bar.

One highlight from Day 3, was the safe arrival of Team Japan. I had gotten a mail from Kim which said they were safe, but it was still a relief to see them in the flesh. It was also nice to no longer be the only non-white person in shred circles.

[C-Fan]

I just lost 2 pages of Worlds blog. Fuckity fuck fuck.

[riku]

Hi, Tuan! It was nice meeting you. You're a hardcore shredder!
And this blog is coool

It's Anssi Sundberg btw.

[bigdirtyfoot]

Ken, I have never needed a laugh more than today, and you provided me with a good two or three with your Worlds posts. Thanks.

[sniikeri]

Great blog! I don't think that Daim or "DAAAAYUMMMMM" is Finnish though.

[Anz]

I am surprised to later find out that its Anssi Sundberi. I expected Anssi to look blonder, more Finnish.

lol - thank you Ken. Some people say that I look like russian. And I was pretty tanned at Worlds because I had just been in Bulgaria and Slovakia.
And props on spelling my name almost right! Well it's a swedish last name so I don't actually care how people write it...

I will hit those Gyro Mind Benders and Reverse Mariuses for you!

[$2.22]

I just had some Daim and yes that flavor is DAMMMMMMMMMMMYUMMMMMMM good. I also have Geisha with the classic woodblock girl on front. Chocolate from Finland ain't bad.

[HG]

ok i hadnt read the fanzine in a while. I decided to read yesterday, and i thought the daim story was funny.


I was at my friends house, and he's like you have to try these! i was like... alright.


He whips out a bag of mini DAIMS! I immediately go "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYUM"



They were damn good. Skor is my favorite candy!

[SandWraith]

It was a ton of fun playing chess and getting to know you in footbag chat tonight. We definately have to do that again sometime!

[Rieferman]

I might start playing footbag again simply because of this quote:

It was fun though, watching intermediate doubles and rocking out. Ted Fritch was playing in a red baseball cap, probably in an effort to psyche out his opponents. Would you want to beat Super Mario in a net match? No, me neither. Damn 80s nostalgia.

[C-Fan]

8 non-Ken entries in a row!

Sorry for the massive blog neglect. Ever since I lost a couple pages to the computer, I lost some motivation to write.

That said, I`m gonna do a quick write-up of my sessions since coming back to Japan, in the hopes that it`ll motivate me to get back to the Worlds blog later. Besides, Japanese Footbag Champs 3 starts tomorrow, and I dont want hopeless backlog.

I`ve had about 4 serious sessions since getting back to Japan. My first was in Osaka on August 7th. It was blazing hot out, but we played in the shade and it was surprisingly not that bad. Big turnout, including Yuko, QP, Devi, Chahan, Morio, Matsui, Kenzo, myself, and a rare appearance by Otayan (shin).

Lots of good stuff went down. Gave Devi lots of tips on Smog, and he footed it a couple times, but no legit seal. QP hit a real nice blazing mirage. He also started a string with fog, and hit smog later on in the same run. Kenzo hit reaper bsos. He also hit pixie ss dlo back to back. Yuko hit torque pretty nicely. Otayan hit gyro double pick up, with real clean dexes, but his spins are pretty froggy. He also hit wonton legoverx2. Kenzo hit toe-scmoe x2, but his record is apparently 4. I hit fs blur to fs leg unexpectedly, which I thought was kinda cool.

We all went to dinner afterwards which was fun. We had a long wait before being seated, so we played foursquare outside the restaurant while waiting. Once inside, we had a real good joking vibe. The place was an italian joint, and they sold cheap house red wine in 3 sizes. Glass, caraffe, and "magnum." Magnum was a big-ass bottle, the kind a drunkard in a vaudeville movie would carry around in his trenchcoat. It was so cheap for that size, that we figured it must be awful, but couldn`t resist the temptation of getting it. When it came, QP insisted on pouring glasses of wine for everybody by cradling the bottle between his man-breasts. Later, QP told me he is 27% body fat, which surprised me. He thinks he should automatically win the "phat combo" contest, and was disappointed when he learned it was a different spelling than he thought.

My second session was last weekend. On Saturday we met up in Yoyogi park, with the goal of promoting JFC3, which was going on next weekend. We had a big posterboard advertising the tourney, and QP mailed us a ton of nice fliers he printed up, so we could hand them out to interested passersby. Hearts and I played a little bit at the entrance of Yoyogi, but soon USK came by and told us there were two big events happening nearby which were drawing all the crowds. We decided to go play at those events in the hopes of getting the most interest.

As it turned out, one of those events was a gay pride event, and the other was something I didn`t even understand... it was some weird event where they made an artificial sand-beach, there was a footsala tournament, a beauty contest, and a bunch of corporate stalls selling phone plans. Go figure.

There were also a couple 20 by 20 foot areas which had spongy green carpeting, and a mist shower system overhead. It was a place where people could go to cool off, but naturally to us footbaggers, it seemed like the perfect place to play. We set up shop there tentatively at first, but when it was clear that the staff were cool with us, we ended up shredding there. Kim, USK, Hearts, Takumi, and me. Takumi and I mostly focussed on doing long strings, which is the way to go with these promos. So often, people walking by will look in amazement, but only until you drop. So if you keep going, they stop and take interest. Weird how that works. I think Takumi has a good shot at winning Rippin` Run this weekend. Despite the fact that I focussed on long runs, I still managed to hit leggy rubberman for the first time, which I was real stoked about. It felt real weird, but in a good way. Takumi was getting torquescrews pretty easily, and had some good looks at gyro torquescrew.

At the end of the session, I learn that Takumi doesn`t go back to school until September, so we decide we should play as often as possible on weekdays until then. The plan is to teach him as much as possible, so I can unfairly claim credit for his success when he surpasses me. Because Takumi uses the same brand of cellphone as me, we were able to exchange information via infrared scanners on our phones. How cool is Japan?

Sunday we had another promotional shred. This time, the main streets in Shinjuku were shut down, so there were street fairs. Its festival season in Japan now, so I actually spent the morning at a different festival, and went directly to Shinjuku still wearing my jinbei. Jinbei is like traditional Japanese summer wear... kinda like kimono, but shorter, and with shorts. Its pretty well ventilated. I found the shred crew pretty easily, and they were all surprised to see me wearing jinbei (hopefully i can upload a photo or video later). It kinda reminded me of the time I went to Yoyogi in a suit, the way everybody was surprised at how I looked.

As a joke, I put on my lavers and tried to play in jinbei for a bit. To my surprise, I managed to hit a bunch of stuff, even some triple dexes like paradon swirl. Seeing somebody footbag in traditional Japanese clothes also drew lots of attention, so I continued to play in jinbei for a good 45 minutes, just to get more crowds gathered so we could distribute flyers. Sue Kitchi brought his huge ghetto blaster (I have a photo somewhere in the Zine, from JFC2) and we listened to good throwback tunes for most of the shred.

In an effort to generate and hold crowds, I told Takumi to only focus on not dropping, and I was amazed at his ability to do so. He easily went for 40 or 50 contacts at least 5 or 6 times, usually with very few guilts. When he plays seriously, he almost never guilts anymore. I also threw down a bunch of 40 or 50 long strings, and I was exhausted at the end of the session because of it. Some reporter interviewd a few of us because of the demos, and hopefully will come to the tourney as well, and we handed out a ton of flyers, so I feel we did our best at spreading publicity for our event.

[Wim]

some weird event where they made an artificial sand-beach, there was a footsala tournament, a beauty contest, and a bunch of corporate stalls selling phone plans. Go figure.

Damn dude, that sounds JUST like Brussels Beach, the event where my footclub promo-ed last week!

[C-Fan]

Day One of JFC3 went down today. Ton of fun. Lots of good stuff went down. The judges judged until 8 pm, and we were kicked out at 8:45 pm, so I hardly kicked at all today. Maybe thats a good thing, cause tomorrow I have to do demos, workshops, and rippin run. Im dedicating my rippin runs to andrew grant. Im going for revenge baby.

Some real solid routines and sick 3s today. Takumi scored the top seed for tomorrow. USK has second seed, and Henmo has third seed. lots of people really stepped up. Off the top of my head, the following people made finals.

1. Takumi
2. USK
3. Henmo
4. Taishi
5. TJ Boutorwick
6. QP!
7. Haseken
8. Taishi.

Thats out of order, but those 8 made finals for routines.

Takumi hit spinning whirl-spin osis-pdx blender. USK qualified with eggplant-dimwalk-blurry whirl. Henmo hit smoke-pdx whirl-dyno. TJ had pixie paradon-osis-ducking butter. QP had rip-blur-paradon style motion.

Sorry, im a bit drunk now. Hit fog to dod swirl for the first time today. Will try to put that in my big three tomorrow. Stoked that tomorrow I dont have nearly as much judging to do. I hope my workshop goes well... wish my Japanese were better.

Around 50 people showed today, but we expect more tomorrow.

[Skippy!]

I just started reading this. I'm gonna have to read all the pages. I'm sure enough people have said it, but I must say it again, kudos on the awesome posts.

[C-Fan]

Hopefully get a few entries in the Zine today, cause I`m marooned at home due to a typhoon.

8/17 Wednesday

Day started off real well. Ian George posted a Worlds vid, and I was real pleasantly surprised to see that I had 3 clips on it, and they were pretty good! Feels like I hadnt seen footage of myself online in over a year. I was also stoked to see Takumi had a combo on the vid as well. I spent some time online playing chess and chatting with other footbaggers, then headed out to Nakano to meet up with Tencho and Takumi for a shred. Tencho is a chef, so he has random days off during the week, and Takumi is still on summer vacation. I was surprised that Hearts and Morii also showed up. We ended up having a long, serious session, which totally made it feel like a weekend, and not a Wednesday.

We played with Hearts` new Lonn bag, which is just a joy. Small, round, heavy, but sits nicely. You know, one of those bags where you feel like you can hit anything with it. The session starts kind of slowly, with all of us working on cleaning up our stepping sets. Eventually though, we happily devolved into a regular shred. Hearts hit ripwalk -spinning butterfly repeat. Tencho had a bad session. I reassured him by telling him that everybody has bad sessions, and usually they bounce back next time with a great session. Considering his next session would be Japanese Champs, I envied him. He rolled with it, and since he brought his camera that day, he filmed me and Takumi and we got a bunch of moves and sick3s on tape. Hopefully this means I can finally enter the modified competitions. Takumi had his foot on an awesome sick one, but couldnt seal it. He did get a sick 3 on tape though, so hopefully we can get that all online.

I had some decent stuff. Ducking butterfly-pdx drifter-spinning clipper bsos. Spinning whirl bsos for my first time ever. Ducking drifter for the first time. ducking pdx mirage, spinning osis, and spike hammer all bsos. The highlight of the session for me was hitting flurry to dod swirl, real cleanly. Its my weak swirl, which makes it extra challenging, but beyond that, I just think it looks really cool.

Takumi played well, but was tired because he played the night before. Trying to hit stuff on camera also wore him down, and he even napped a bit at the site. Real clean surging both sides all day. He hit like 6 spinning osis real easily... apparently he had way more the night before. Morii also played well. Felt like I hadn`t played with him in a while. His flip pixies have gotten so good, I can`t tell them from his strong. Saw him hit a nice flurry. He also hit blazing butterfly for the first time; his first blazing trick.

Towards the end we were all exhausted. I felt happy though that we got some stuff on film. We cooled down by playing foursquare, which was super fun. It was Takumi`s first time, but he really dug it. We ended up playing 3 games. The highlight was when we were playing with the rule that you have to name a footbag trick with every kick you do. Takumi got out like this:

*kick*
"Butterfly"
*kick*
"ducking clipper"
*kick*
"ducking... uh.... NYAH NYAH!"
*drop.*

We were all like: "ducking nyah nyah?"