Jon: Kicky Sack Memoirs

[Skippy!]

'That's what she said'...



....



Anyway, thanks again for the ride down there, dude. It was a fun experience, and a great first event for me, and I think that I wouldn't have had half as much fun if I had taken the bus down.

We shall shred one day!

[Camilleon]

Wow Jon. Thanks for that! I actually read the whole thing!

You and Laura are THE CUTEST THING EVER!!! It's nice to see that my initial idea of her was right-- that she is a really sweet girl! It's very heart warming to see how much love you guys share. Keep it up.

I'm happy you had fun even though you didn't party. But I cannot believe the lack of jokes! I wrote Johnny an email right before KICKASS (although I'm pretty sure he didn't get it in time) telling him to give Vida a hug for me... and I said "I'd ask you to give Jon a hug for me too, but I'd be much happier if you spooned him instead. C'mon! Give Laura a run for her cuddling!" I hope the lack of Johnny spoonage didn't decrease the amount of fun you had.

Anyway, thanks for that report, it must be the longest post I have ever read.

I miss you Jon! Come to Toronto when Vida is here!!! Nov. 10th (I think).

[jon]

I shall be there! And I did mention how Johnny was better to spoon with then Laura on the drive back, laura did not seem impressed

[FootbagGuru]

damn, nice post! i agree, best circle i had was with ianek 2 man, it was just so intense.


nice meeting/shredding with you man, peace

[mosher]

Hey Jon,

Thanks for the lengthy in-depth report of the event from your perspective.

I feel really really bad for stressing you out, I was insensitive and under alot of stress myself, it wasn't fair of me to pass that on to you when you were trying so hard to be so helpfull.

It sounds like you had a good time overall and that you and Laura are really great and happy together. I would take a happy Jon and Laura over a lonely Jon and a Jorden any day!

You motivate me so much, I really like that we are so similar in our play levels, I think our 'rivalry' will be really beneficial for both of our games.

You are a hein hein shredder that I am really glad to know, I look forward to busting with you again soon.

Thanks for coming to KICKASS.

Cheers,
Tom

[slapdash21]

swank write-up!

[Jorden]

Hey dude!

Thanks for posting the scoop on kickass. Glad to hear you and Laura had a good time. I got to hang out with the coolest footbag mom on the weekend, so no worries. Owen T and Leland came to Hamilton for a shred on the Saturday. Good times all round.

First come first serve. Everyone knows that.

[Pascal]

Nice summary Jon, subway was a good time and it is too bad you missed Matt's footbag song, but I'm sure you'll hear it eventually. It blew me away when I heared it, it was so good.

[Laroche]

Hey Jon whats up! Awesome write up, I read the whole thing. Just wanted to drop a note to say that I really enjoyed kicking with you and I think you got great style and you are definetly going somewhere footbag-wise. Catch you in the future!

[Jdigges]

IT was cool meeting you at kickass man! i love meeting people from modified. Great shred, and glad you were there

[jon]

Thanks for all the comments guys! I think in one day I have had more comments then the entire time I have been writing this blog.

Dan: I am glad you had a great time, knowing that makes the trip even more worthwhile. We will have to shred again soon.

Camille: Thanks for the kind words, Laura and I both appreciated them. After reading your comment she did wonder how much spooning has gone on at past events but that will remain our little secret.

Pat: It was good to meet you too, we will have to try and shred again soon, I can't wait to see how you will progress.

Tom: I understand you were under a lot of stress and I feel like my initial post picked on you. What was left out of that post and should not have been left out is a very sincere THANK YOU. The event was a lot of fun, well organized, and promoted and that is all thanks to you. You are great for footbag and footbag is great for you. I am glad I motivate you to play harder and I know you do the same for me. We will play again soon I am sure.

Jorden: Sorry again about the ride. I think you actually handled not going better than most of the people did when they learned you were not coming. I have to say that I am jealous of you though, shredding with Owen kicksass!

Peter/Pascal/Josiah: Thanks to all of you for posting in my blog.

Nick: Thank you very much for your very kind comments. I think you are only the second or third person to ever have mentioned something positive with respect to my style and that means a lot to me, especially coming from a player of your caliber. Most of the time I tend to think I don’t even have a style to be perfectly honest I hope I can prove you right about going somewhere footbag wise.

Johnny: Thanks for what you wrote in your blog about me, although I don’t know if I deserve such nice comments. If you took what you wrote about me and switched our names it would describe exactly how I feel as well as well.

To anyone else who took the time to read that massively long post, thanks!

-----------------------------------------

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

I haven’t played since getting back from Kingston and I don’t see myself playing today. Tonight is legs day at the gym, which I am really excited about. I didn’t do any legs last week cause I didn’t want it to effect my game at KickAss but now that the tourney is over I can get back to trying to make my skinny chicken legs more proportional to the rest of my skinny but non chickenesq physique. Leg day means squats and squats make me feel like a manly man !
I think I will probably practice tomorrow after I go climbing.
I have been enjoying reading some of the other comments about kickass on the forums, but I would like to see even more reports about the weekend. Especially reports the fill in some of the events that I missed.
After reading the Rochester blog I have also decided I too want to have a list of drills I try to hit everyday/every session. I think it is a fantastic idea that will really help my game.
Where I want to take my game in the future is still vague. I know for the next little while I want to start trying to use more sets like pixies, fairies, QUANTUMS!, and nukes. I want to increase the number of 5’s I can do midstring but not at the sacrifice of string length, which I want to improve the most. I think I may have my work cut out for me!
Till the next entry … peace.

[Paul Agostinelli]

I am sorry to everyone that I couldn’t bring Jorden with me, but honestly FUCK anyone who thinks less of me because of it. What ever happened to everyone being equal in footbag, it is such a lie. There is still a giant list of players waiting to get down on their knees and pay lip service to pro players. It’s honestly sad and to me indicates the direction this sport is heading towards. Eventually it will be like every other major sport where new members don’t get the chance to interact with the pros, something that is really nice about the sport at the moment.



dude, not only was i joking when i was poking you, i said "i dont really care, dont worry about it" immediately after.

not only did i not even think about it for the rest of the weekend, but i also played in a whole bunch of circles with you and gave you mad props when i thought they were due. so dont make me out to be some starstruck newbie who only goes to tourneys to see bap.

that being said, i agree with you about the smallness of the sport right now. i like it and honestly, i dont think its going to change any time really soon.

that being said, dont turn that little incident into some sort of prophecy about where the sport is headed, no one knows.


i want you to know i dont have beef and i appreciate the write-up, but if my poking you in the chest bothered you that much, you should have just asked me to stop, i would have.

~NEL~

[jon]

Friday, October 21, 2005

Had my first session since kickass last night. It began around 11ish and ended around midnight. At the moment my thighs and legs still hurt. Working out and then shredding, apparently even when it is buffered by an entire day still leads to leg pain, but I guess its not like an injured sort of pain, just a stiff ache so maybe its good.

I had intended to work on some new stuff which I havn't done in a while but I never managed to get to it. Instead I worked on drills that I might start trying more often. I would appreciated some feedback on which drills to keep and which to focus less on:

Drills actually hit:
whirl > drifter [repeat] - difficulty = easy
ducking clipper > spinning clipper [repeat] - difficulty = easy
ducking butter > spinning butter [repeat] - difficulty = medium
sidewalk > ripwalk [repeat] - difficulty = medium (hard if starting on my flip)
torque > butter [repeat] - difficulty = medium
symple superbap drill (symple butter > pdx mirage [repeat]) - difficulty = easy

Drills I tried but didnt hit:
Stepping ss clipper > sidewalk > ripwalk [repeat] - difficulty = hard
Tap > Atomsmasher [repeat] (I hit this a long time ago but now my flip tap sucks) - difficulty = hard
SS butter > sidewalk > ss butter > sidewalk > whirl > ss butter > sidewalk > ripwalk [repeat] - got 50%+ of the way through starting on both sides - difficulty = hard
datw > dbl switchover [repeat] - difficulty = hard

Drills I think I should consider:
drifter > paradox drifter [repeat] - difficulty = medium
rubberman - diffculty = VERY HARD
bap - difficulty = hard
pardox whirl > whirl [repeat] - difficulty = easy

When trying to decide on which to keep and which to forget I want to keep in mind that it would be a waste of time if I just spent every session only trying drills. Perhaps it would be better to have a few hard drills that I work at over time using a few attempts per session. Or I could be wrong and should be doing easier drills each session I know for sure I can hit.

I think I am also missing a lot of components from the drills I have listed so far. If I want to be serious about using new sets this will have to change.

With that in mind I think I should also consider:
pixie ss toe > mirage [repeat]
fairy ss toe > mirage [repeat]
quantum ss toe > mirage [repeat]
matador > butter [repeat]

I look forward to reading what other modifiers thinks about these drills and what else they might recommend.
Thanks

[BalinorNZ]

Hey bro!

That write up on Kickass was awesome :O, really good read

Johnny sounds really cool too, man I wish I lived in Canada sometimes!

[mosher]

Hey Jon,

It looks like a big amount of those are clipper drills, perhaps you would also benefit from some toe stuff.

If you are wanting to get your sets up to par you can try what I was doing for a while that i found really helped me, try these:
pixie set op toe x a billion
fairy set op toe x a billion
atomic ss toe>fairy op toe rpt
quantum ss toe>pixie op toe rpt

Doing that eliminates the confusion added by a towntime part of the trick and lets you focus on your setting technique. Sometimes I would try out those drills with legovers added on just to get the feel of how they would work in a string.

Also, try out some drills that work on some of the tougher links like...

osis>rip>inf rpt
whirl>rip rpt
pdx whirl>side rpt
torque>rip rpt
symp mirage>eggplant>plo rpt

I am happy to be part of your footbag motivation, you motivate my big time.

Ontario's 3rd and 4th represent!

[jon]

Thanks tom, although I dont feel I can claim to be either 3rd or 4th at the moment. Big props go to you on your 108 infinities.

I wasnt gonna try and break my record for a long time but over the next little while I will give it a go again. My new goal is 125 + infinities. I will definitely try those toe drills instead of the ones I listed above. Thanks.

[hacksterbator]

jon,
awesome write up. i'm really happy for you in respect to your footbag progression and your relationship with laura, it sounds like you're in top spirits when she's around, so congrats on finding someone who makes you happy, because it's alot harder than it sounds! trust me.

[jon]

Sunday, Octber23, 2005

Meet up with Chad at 10 am for a game of legball. I gave Chad his new footfighter and we spent the session trying to shred the ball with our legs. Unfortunately I sucked at kickysack today and it was probably the worst session I have had in months. I was so sluggish by the end I was only trying things with few dexs. Near the end of the session I hit butter > spinning clipper > spinning osis > osis [repeat] starting on both sides, and spinning clip > butter [repeat] x 6. After that combo I got a drink and decided to end my session with infinities, objective 25+. First try I got 4, next attempt I smashed my old record.
I think I played badly this morning because I hadn't eaten enough before playing. I want to start playing more!

[jon]

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

16 days since I last touched a footbag ...

I have been thinking about posting a new entry for a while now. Been trying decide what to say. There is soo much I could write but I will just start and see what comes out.

-----------------------------

So my last session was overall fairly poor. I did beat my infinities record by a quiet a bit but besides that nothing else was special. I thought I would be playing so much at this point in the season. I had the best intentions to get better over the winter and yet here I am slacking. Here are some of the reasons why ...

My law school applications were due November 1st. They took a fair bit of time that was ultimately and most probably wasted. The knowledge of the process will probably be helpful if and when I reapply but I feel my chanced of getting in this year are fairly low. The applications however have really made me examine where my life is going and where I want to take it, but I will get into that more below.

On the 29th of October at around 11 oclock at night I got a phone call from my mother. My grandfather (my dad's father) who lives in Toronto was very ill. I knew he was sick, he had been diagnosed with crones diease months earlier but his condition became far worse in a short period of time. I know I should have gone to visit him that weekend but my applications were due on the Tuesday. I decided to go down the following Friday (would have been the 4th of November) and see him. My dad was also planning to fly out from Victoria the same weekend to see him and I thought it would be the perfect time to go. Getting back to the phone call ... my grandfather had been moved to the ICU and I was told he would not live through the night.

I was flooded with emotions. I should have gone to see him, now it was too late. I wanted to jump in the car and go to Toronto right away but my parents told me to finish my applications and come down in the morning. He was heavily sedated and I was told he wouldn’t even know I was there. At the same time my internet stopped working and doing the applications at my place became out of the question. I rushed over to Laura's at midnight so that I could use her computer to finish my applications. I intended to stay up that night and finish them as soon as possible and rush to Toronto.

I got another call around 2:30 AM from my dad who was in Toronto at that point. My grandfather was still sedated and he told me even if I made it there quickly he wouldn’t know I had come. He told me to come down in the morning instead of in the middle of the night. At around 3 am I stopped working on my applications, crawled into bed with Laura and fell asleep. Some time around 3:30 am my grandfather passed away.

I got a phone call at 8 am from my mom to let me know the news. I discussed what I should do with my parents and they told me I should go into work and come down the next day for the funeral. I was extremely upset but talking to them made me feel a bit better. My grandfather had a full and happy life. He had a loving wife, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The past 6 months of his life in the hospital were no real life at all. He was in pan and immobile. He passed away not in pain and knowing he was loved. Maybe at that point in his life his passing was for the best. It was hard to come to grips with this but my parents helped me through it, as did Laura who was so supportive through the entire ordeal.

I went into work that day, stayed till around 4 pm and then headed back to Guelph. I had not yet finished my application which were due at midnight the following day so I headed to the library. I was there till 2 am when the closing bells were going off and I finally submitted them.

The next morning I woke up early and head to Toronto for the funeral. It was probably one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. I have never been to a funeral before and had not ever really lost someone that close to me. Before the funeral started I saw my grandfather one last time before his casket was closed. It was so hard to not crying but I tried to stay strong. I had to be strong for my father, who was strong for me. I have no idea how he handled the whole thing so well. In his line of work death is part of the job, and although you can get used to death, seeing your own father’s body would not get any easier. He was so strong and stayed so positive … I can’t really type much more because I feel like I am about to cry.

My father’s side of the family is Jewish and as such the funeral and services were in the Jewish tradition as well. I do not really know that much about the religion as I was raised Roman Catholic and now no longer believe in any religion but at the time I felt so glad their faith was there. The traditions and customers made the whole thing so much easier to bear. I can see now why religion can give such solace in the difficult times in one’s life. The funeral was very fitting and my uncles make very lovely speeches. I was given the honor to be a pall bearer and be involved in all the aspects of a Jewish funeral even though I am not Jewish. It meant a lot to me.

On the way back from the cemetery as we stepped out of the limos at my uncle’s house I noticed a lot of debris on the street. It turns out that about 30 minutes prior to arriving there some guy had been speeding down the street, claims to have seen a squirrel, swerved to avoid it, hit the gas instead of the breaks and totaled my uncle’s parked car. The car was destroyed and pushed 90 feet down the road from where it was parked. That event on most days would have been a big deal, but on that particular day it did not seem very important in the big scheme of things. After participating in some more of the Jewish prayers and customers which I am still very unfamiliar with I said good bye to everyone and headed home. It was very nice to see a lot of my extended family again, and it was especially nice to see my dad, I just wish it had been under better circumstances.

So far the week had been very difficult but it was about to get worse.

On Friday after the gym I went back to my buddies place and I smoked with him. A little while after we smoked his gf called up and wanted to come over. He said he was chilling with me and had just smoked so he would come by her place later.
When I got home at 11 pm I called Laura. It turns out my friends gf had called her after getting off the phone with my friend. Let me state now for the record, I HATE THAT BITCH. She basically did everything but come straight out and tell her I had just smoked. She said my buddy was smoking, Laura knew I was there, so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was up. When Laura told me she had spoken to this girl I immediately admitted to what I had done. She hung on me.

I called her back and after three or four attempts she finally picked up. I was so scared she was going to break up with me. Thing between us had been going so perfectly lately. But I had been living a lie throughout our entire relationship. She thought I had stopped smoking back in November of last year. I never directly said I had but led her to believe as much. I lied, I was an asshole, and honestly I don’t deserve to be with someone as great as her when I can’t even be honest. After an hour on the phone, at around 1 am, we hung up. I told I had deceived her, that I was sorry, and that I was an idiot! She was very hurt and at that point when we hung up the phone I didn’t know if she was going to break up with me or not.

It may seem crazy to someone people that I would be worried about her breaking up with me over smoking but it was not just that. I broke her trust, which was one of the most terrible things I could have ever done to her. She has very strong feeling when it comes to drugs and doesn’t want the father of her children at all involved in such things. At this point in our relationship we are thinking long term, it’s not just for fun, and I believed that night as I tried to fall asleep I had ruined everything.

The next day was so hard. I felt sick all day; I couldn’t eat, couldn’t do any work, and couldn’t stop thinking about her. I was just numb all over. That day was one of the worst days of my life. What a terrible week!

The night she agreed to see me. I thought it might be a week before she would even look at me again. We talked for hours. She wanted to know why, and I honestly didn’t have a good answer for her. I have no idea why, but she forgave me! I know she could do so much better then me but for some reason she loves me and I love her more then I ever knew it was possible to love someone. To be honest I didn’t even know what love was till I met her. I got to hug her before we went to bed but she still wasn’t ready to kiss me again and that hurt so badly I cannot even explain it. Needless to say I have give up weed for good. I had decided the night before on the phone with her to do so. It is just so not worth it. Laura is so much more important to me then smoking ever could be. She is the girl I want to spend my life with and I still can’t believe I almost messed everything up.

Over the next few days things have somewhat returned to normal for me. Laura is treating me like nothing happened, like before when everything was perfect, like I never did that terrible thing to her, I can’t even explain it. I am so lucky. My dad has since flown back to Victoria, and I have gotten back into the swing of 9-5 grind at work (although I still don’t work very hard, in fact I am writing this at work right now). With my applications out of the way I finally have no obligations outside of work and it’s the first time since August. I feel free. I feel happy again. I feel a very deep sense of relief.

-------------
I have more to write but I am going to break it up into two posts. The next one will deal with other things far less emotional. Perhaps modified is not the best place for such a post as the one I have just written, but my friends here might want to know what is up in my life and for that I thank them.

[jon]

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

Continued...

In the last post I said applying for applications has really made me think about what I want to do with my life and I didn’t really write about it at all, so here is a little of what has been going through my head.

I know I want to do more school and I know I want to be with Laura. I don’t believe I will get into law school in Ontario and I am not even sure I want to do law. I have a friend going to school in Australia who tells me I could get in there, and although it sounds like an assume place and opportunity I am left with the problem that I don’t want to leave Laura. At this point I think I have resigned myself to waiting to hear if Laura gets into med school. If she does I think I will go where she goes and just get a job doing whatever. Maybe I can then apply for school in an area close to where she is or wait till she is done to go back to school. It so hard to decide between going to do more school far away and betting on potential future happenings or staying near Laura knowing that being with her will mean I will be happy. But I know a lot of things can happen between now and next year so I think I will hold off on deciding. Time is running down but its just too hard to decide when there are so many variables still up in air. All I know is long distance relationships tend to suck and fall apart and I don’t really know what I want to do with my life.

--------------------------------------------------

So what have I been doing if not playing footbag and stressing??? I have been reading about body building non-stop.

I just can’t stop myself. There are some guys at work that I talk to about it and when I am not working I am reading bodybuilding forums. There are so many of them and there is so much to read and to know. So much info on muscle development, exercises, supplements, how the body works … the sheer quantity of info is just outstanding. I wish footbag had even 10 % as much info available online to read. It so interesting to read all these articles written by PhDs, grad students, juice monkeys and so on. They all say slightly different things and it’s up to everyone who is interested to make up their own mind about who is right and who is wrong.

The interest in bodybuilding is seriously distracting me from footbag. Also knowing that cardio and putting on muscle don’t go together at all kind of sucks. Playing footbag will diminish any gains I make in the gym and is very counterproductive to working out. I think eventually I will heavily start playing again but I don’t like how the two sports I am most interested are so counter productive for each other.

It not like I want to be huge or anything, I just want to get stronger, a bit bigger, and more defined. I have always been of the opinion it makes much more sense to invest time in improving one’s look through exercise and working out then it does to go out and spend money on clothes and things that don’t actually improve yourself as a person.

Hmmm … I intended to write more about bodybuilding and working out but I can’t really think of what to say. I know if I will start posting more bb related stuff in this blog space though.

I think I will try and force myself to go play hack for at least an hour this evening after work.

Peace modified.

BTW I got my hackrifice shirt a while ago, its AWESOME, probably my fav footbag shirt now! Thanks andrew! Also I am still patiently awaiting my Art of the Game video