Fanzine

[C-Fan]

Yesterday (November 30th, 2005) I debated whether or not to have a shred. 2 days ago I had my kickass session with all the new atomic and atomic ducking 5s, so I thought it might be good to take a day off. In the end though, I figured it wouldn't hurt to put in an easy session, and then have a more serious shred the next day. So with that mindset, I had another solo session in my backyard.

As planned, I started off pretty easy, mostly drilling flip pixies. I drilled consecutive PLOs seriously for the first time since I set my record in Australia. I managed to get 8, which I was satisfied with. Most importantly, the link of plo-dimwalk midstring is getting real reliable, which is all I really care about at the moment.

After a while of drilling BOP strings and flip pixies, I got a little bored, so I decided to try and hit some of my tricks from the previous session, to see whether I really understood them, or had hit them flukily. Hit alpine tap and alpine flux pretty easily, and then I realized that I never bothered trying alpine eggplant the day before. So within a few tries I hit and sealed my first alpine eggplant. Satisfied that my atomic ducks from the previous day weren't flukes, I tried out the other atomic tricks from the previous session. Hit atomic drifter a couple times without much difficulty, and I hit atomic blender within 3 or 4 tries. I was particularly happy about atomic blender, since the day before it felt so lucky, and i only hand caught it. This time, I sealed it with a 16 contact guiltless string, 12 or so which were 4 adds. That move really feels so cool, I'd like to get it midstring some time.

I felt a little guilty that all my atomic ducking was only one side, but I was too lazy to work my flip. Instead, I figured I'd work on other flip dexing ducking sets, and picked pixie. For some reason, my flip pixie ducking felt really really strong yesterday. I focussed on doing a normal height flip pixie, but really bringing the dex leg back to the ground as fast as possible. Using this method, I hit phoenix-blur repeat for my first time Not long after: phoenix-fog-phoenix....ducking butterflyx2 Still, not a bad fearless start. Hit my first flip assassin ever, which was surprisingly easy. Easier than strong assassin, cause pixie diving is more natural for me than pixie ducking on my strong pixie foot. I decided to run with it, and hit 2 more new moves! But I'll keep those under wraps, since I may want to enter them in a Sick 1, or drill them enough to put them in a sick3 sometime.

It's always such a nice surprise when you have 2 great sessions in a row. I'm constantly amazed by footbag... I've been playing over 8.5 years, and I'm still hitting new things. How many other sports can offer that? Seriously, in the last 2 days I've hit 2 new 6 adds, 3 new alpine 4 adds, and 5 new 5 add moves. 10 new moves in 2 days, after 8.5 years? Footbag rules.

[Just call me hagesy]

props ken

How about atomic torque

[C-Fan]

Third day in a row playing footbag. Very happy about that.

Today (December 1st, 05) I had the laid-back session I thought I'd have yesterday. I figured out a way to listen to my ipod mini while playing, which worked decently enough. I played that way for the first half of the session, which was a lot of fun.

Again I worked on flip pixies, and surprised myself with 13 PLOs. Just one short of tying my record. I also drilled consec osis some, but wasn't feeling them at all. I mostly played lightly all session, so as not to aggravate my hip flexors, which I've been working a lot with all my new atomic tricks. Still, I did hit atomic drifter a couple times, one time managing to seal it with a ducking butterfly, which felt nice. I also hit atomic blender again, but not as tight as the last 2 times. Sealed with handcatch. I put in a couple attempts at atomic torque, in honor of Hagesy, but didn't hit it. Had a couple looks which felt real close, but it uses my flip torque, which sometimes is 'the.' I think I'll try and hit it the next time I am in front of a camera, so I can see on video how close/far I am from hitting it clean.

The most pleasant surprise of the day was finding my flip DATWs much improved out of nowhere. Maybe its all my flip magellans which strengthened the components, but for whatever reason I found both directions of flip DATW much easier today. Hit DATW in-out bsos, and also hit out-in bsos, but I wasn't able to get all 4 variations in a single string. Twice I had the last variant roll off my toe So close... I think that'd be a nice goal though, getting all 4 DATWs in a single string. My session was cut short by an early lunch, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a shorter-than-usual session.

[C-Fan]

Bit of a frustrating shred yesterday (December 4th, 2005). I felt like I had a very very good session in me, but wasn't able to actualize its full potential due to bad shred conditions. My lunch was a bit heavy (still not used to American/Mexican food) and I kept burping throughout my shred, and there was a constant, chilly breeze which made it a chore to warm up. Still, I did very well keeping my mental game together, and I did manage a few blogworthy moments.

I started off listening to my iPod to warm up. It kept me in a good mood, and doesn't really get in the way when you're just doing BOPs to get the body warm and stretched out. Then I moved on to skooling flip pixies some, and had some nice results. PLOx2 to dimwalk-PDLO repeat. First time hitting that repeat, and it felt nice to stick in 2 PLOs before it. I also had a string start with dimwalk-ripwalk-dyno-pdx mirage-dimwalk-ripwalk dyno, and later in the string had PLOx5, then a few more tricks after that to end it.

I skooled my flip pixie ducking alot, which yielded some nice results. Phoenix to pdx torque bsos was a nice surprise. I also hit flip darkwalk for my first time! I think that's my first flip pixie diving trick ever. I sealed it with a run where I BSOSed it, and hit strong phoenix as well. I rushed the set on flip phoenix, which was a shame, cause it would've been cool to get dark and phoenix all BSOS.

Towards the end of the session I messed around with my nuclear sets a bit, and tried to think of them more like the way I think of atomic sets on moves like atomic blender/drifter/etc. So, after getting the dex, I really made a point of forcing the foot back to the ground. This method paid off. Before yesterday, I don't think I'd hit anything out of either matador other than BOPs. But using the new method, I managed to hit matador-ducking butterfly and matador-ps whirl on one side, and using the other matador, I hit matador-pdlo and matador-pdx torque! I'm gonna try and develop matador... it seems like a relatively easy 5 to stick in the middle of fearless, and it doesn't involve a pdx whirl component either, which I like.

A few more highlights were scattered throughout the session. Symp whirl to ripwalk felt very clean (deep whirl dex, clean step), and very styly. I'd like to hit something like bl drifter or fog out of symp whirl. I also hit alpine legbeater to blurry drifter, which was challenging. Oh yeah, I also hit a 2 trick combo in honor of Arizona. I call it "the Arizona combo," and I managed to hit it both sides, but couldn't get it BSOS. I'll give a cookie to the first person who figures out what the combo is

[Senor Grommet]

phoenix>tombstone! Booyah! Cookie please. Come to Santa Cruz to give it to me, thank you.

[C-Fan]

Good work Jeremy. Hopefully we can work out cookie delivery in the next couple months, as we discussed in PM.

Yesterday (December 5th, 05)I snuck in a shred, but again I picked a bad time to play. It's warm enough to play outdoors in the day, but once the sun starts setting, the temperature really plummets. Thats a desert for you. I'm gonna make a point to play around noon or 1 pm from now on, so I don't have to race against the sunset and the dropping temps. I hate doing that.


In the morning I went shoe-shopping, and kept an eye out for G-Unit G6 shoes. I couldn't find any in my size, but I was surprised at the varieties available. I found one pair which were white and red, and had a puerto rican theme. There was a big frog on the side, and Puerto Rican flags on the lip and back I also found a pair which had the Yankees insignia on the side. I liked the color and design, but the Yankees? Blech. I also saw some new G-Units, which didn't look nearly as good for footbag.

Seeing all the new G-Units, got me a little worried. Rod Laver tennis shoes have been around for ages, so it's unlikely that they will be discontinued anytime soon. They have staying power. But now that I've played in G6s, I don't see myself going back to lavers. I really like the G6s a lot better. But I got to thinking: the G6 is a new shoe. G-Unit is a hot rapper now, but could fade anytime. There's no guarantee that Reebok will be making G6 shoes even a year from now. All this got me a bit paranoid. Sunil was in a similar situation a few years ago, when he fell in love with the Adidas Rod Laver Milleniums. He knew that it was a limited model, so he bought up 5 or 6 pairs to last him the rest of his shred career. I'm thinking I may do the same with the G6s. I know my feet won't grow anymore, and if I found a shoe I like this much, it may be worth it for me to pick up a few pairs to last me til I retire.

My equipment worries didn't end there though. I had a light shred in the afternoon, and my Oxana bag is really on its last legs. The surface I'm playing on these days is... man, whats the word. Its like lots of pebbles that are glued onto cement Anyway, it grips really well, so I never worry about slipping, but if you land on a bag, you are guaranteed to hurt the fabric big time. Yesterday, I was skooling symp whirl, and *BAM* Fuck The only other 32 I have is an Abshire Mini, which is so incredibly light, I can't play with it. I'm gonna try and fill it with leadshot in a couple days, and hopefully that'll make it playable.

I worked on my matadors, and hit a few new combos. Matador to torque, and matador to pdx blender on one side. Matador to pdx torque and to pdlo on the other side. Using the new style of nuclear sometimes hurts my knee I found. I can do matador kinda midtimey, which doesn't hurt my knee, but if I want an uptimeish, legit set, it sometimes tweaks my knee. I'm leaning towards completely abandoning the set, cause it's not worth the risk in my opinion. We'll see.

At the very end of the session I was feeling pretty cold, and the sun was nearly down, but I wanted to end on a high note. I kicked off a string with atomic drifter, and pushed the seal to 25-30 contacts, which felt like a good end.

Today I will try to get in a shred earlier in the day, and really work up a sweat. You know I'll let y'all know about it

[C-Fan]

December 6th, 2005

Still tinkering with the best time to shred. I got in a decent session today around 1:45pm, and even so it was a bit chilly when there was a breeze. Warmed up with my iPod, which I find to be an excellent way to warm up. Having the iPod on you prevents you from going too hard, and the tunes ease my urge to jump too quickly into real shred.

Had a bit of a quandary today: I didn't have any real good bags to use! I'm waiting til Thursday to get my Oxana fixed, so until then I can use her, but she spits beads. I played with her for maybe half the session, and used an old revolution bag for the rest of the session. The revolution bag is serviceable, but when it comes to really hard tricks, or hard links, it just doesn't set as true as a 32. Still, better than my too-light mini-Abshire.

Skooled a bit of dexless, which went decently. I really need to go back and skool my spins again, cause they aren't as consistent as they were a few months back. I'm also curious to see how my G-Units affect my dexless play. I find it easier to do osis-ducking clipper in my Gs than in my Lavers, which should open the door to longer dexless runs. Got 9 or so a couple times today, which isn't that bad.

I tried nuclear stuff again, and it definitely feels funny on one side. Not worth the pain. I found that it doesn't hurt my knee at all on my weak side, but my set isn't as high. Still, better to have one nuclear set than none, even if it is my weaker nuclear. Hit dimwalk-matador to start a string, which was notable since it was my first time playing into matador with a non-BOP. I also hit matador to WHAT!?! which is quite easily my coolest combo to date involving a nuclear set.

At some point I decided to try pixie blender. Up until today, I had never hit this trick. I had hit pixie dyno both sides, as well as pixie ss blender one side. But the way my strong sides line up, pixie blender is either my strong pixie and my weak blender, or vice versa. I switched back to my Oxana bag, and soon enough managed to hit pixie blender on both sides, both sealed, and both for my first time ever Didn't get it bsos, but I wasn't too fussed about it.

My flip pixie felt pretty good, so I decided I'd try to break my personal unique tripless record. What makes those two thoughts related, is that I figured I could kick off a string with something like flip park-blur-flip pixie butterfly, which would buy me 3 unique 4s for free. After several attempts, I managed to get 21 unique fours! parkwalk-blur-dimwalk-ripwalk-sidewalk-ripwalk-sidewalk-blizzard-parkwalk-blur-legbeater-pdlo-pixie butterfly-diving butterfly-pdx drifter-ducking butterfly-diving butterfly-pdx drifter-ducking butterfly-torque-pdx whirl. I'm pretty sure I could tack on a few more, especially if I threw in some 5s in there, but for now, I feel real happy with my new record. Breaking 20 feels like a nice, round milestone. Maybe I should go for 10 fearless next. My current "milestone" records that I'm happy with are:

11 unique dexless
21 unique tripless
5 unique triple dexes
7 unique fearless (I think I've hit 2 variations?)

Oh yeah, I also hit phoenix-blurry drifter for the first time today, and got it both sides. I think next session I will try to break my fearless record, and to set a non-pdx whirl fearless record for myself. Hopefully on Thursday I can meet up with another Tucson shredder, Johnny Baldwin, and get my equipment fixed up (leadshot for the mini, and get the Oxana patched up).

[C-Fan]

[)I think next session I will try to break my fearless record, and to set a non-pdx whirl fearless record for myself. .

I didn't have time to shower after my shred today, so I figured I might as well get another shred in before bed. I thought I'd go pretty easy, but I ended up working on my fearless and pdx-whirl-free (from here on out referred to as "PWF") fearless. It turned out to be a productive session... my philosophy is that as long as I put adds on the shoes, it's a good session. The way that translates is: it's not productive to keep missing a trick all session, because it puts no adds on my shoes. But going for a tripless or fearless record is OK, cause I'm constantly putting adds on the shoes(provided I hit at least the first few tricks), and skooling the links and tricks improves my consistency.

The fearless combos I was working on involved lots of links that I hardly ever do, or I just picked up in the last week. It was kinda cool to see them become more consistent throughout the session. I hit a bunch of different combos, but the core links were usually the same. I hit 5 unique PWF fearless to blurry whirl to pdx torque. So that also tied my unique fearless record at 7. I also hit another, different combo of 5 unique PWF fearless to mullet. So if you don't count pdx whirl as a 5, that'd still be 6 unique PWF fearless, but I'd like to hit 7 unique PWF fearless without any pdx whirling moves at all.

I felt very encouraged by tonight's session. I have 2 standard unique PWF fearless links of 5 contacts, both which I can step out of. I've thought of a few possible 10 strings, and I think I should be able to get 10 fearless if I skool all the links involved a bit more. The first 5 contacts will be PWF, and then 4 of the next 5 would involve pdx-whirling 5s. I hit the last 5 contacts over 4 years ago, the first 5 several times tonight, and the link between the two tonight. So it's just a matter of making each link more efficient, and putting it all together. 10 is a nice round number, a worthy goal. Give me a week.

[Anz]

6 fearless counting Whirl paradoxless! Props! I was just talking about playing fearless without paradox with Nic Barthgate yesterday on msn. A PWF beastly link would be brilliant.
And Symposium Hatchet would be cooler than Mullet

[C-Fan]

Symposium hatchet is definitely cooler than mullet. Collossus is like 5 times cooler than montage, in my opinion.

Paradoxless fearless would be pretty gnarly. I remember at Worlds seeing Vasek do stuff like jani-symp whirling swirl repeat. I think PWF fearless is a worthy goal, because it really cuts out a lot of cheesy 5s, like ps whirl, pdx blender, blurry whirl, etc. Moves like fog or pdx torque have pdx, but they involve double hip pivots, which justify the adds in my book.

Paradoxless fearless... now I'm intrigued... it's hard for me to even come up with viable combos for myself that satisfy the requirement. I don't think I've ever done more than 3 unique pdx free fearless. 4 would be a good challenge. Should go skool my double downs...

[C-Fan]

I planned on taking yesterday, December 7th 2005, off from footbag. The day before that, I had 2 pretty hardcore sessions where I set or tied several personal records. I hadn't had 2 sessions in a single day since early in my stay in Australia (a month ago), so my feet were a little sore the next day, and my hip flexors felt tight. But then I came across my collection of tapes (audio) from high school, which I hadn't listened to in over 5 years!

I figured it was a good enough excuse... I found a walkman and went out to do some light kicking while listening to old NIN demos and some old Pietasters. Sure enough, kicking loosened me up, and in short order I was already playing around with some easy drills, then some harder stuff.

I started out by messing around with some easy toe drills. I hit smear-ss dlo repeat, and the ss dlos felt so good, that I decided to go for a drill which had eluded me a couple months ago in Japan: toe dlo-ss dlo repeat. I was pretty stoked to land that within a few attempts. Finally, I tried smear-dso repeat (not new, but still challenging for me) and was pleasantly surprised to land it on my first try.

I felt warmed up by now, so I put down the walkman and decided to just mess around. I thought about paradox-less fearless combos, since Anssi mentioned it in my blog earlier that day. FS legbeater to blurrier pretty easily, which I think is new for me. Even though flurry isn't technically a five, I always mentally process it as one. So even though it doesn't technically qualify, I was stoked to hit flurry to fs legbeater for my first time. Pretty sure that was my first time hitting a flailing set out of flurry. I wasn't really skooling pdx free fearless seriously, so when I got 3 unique pdx free (darkwalk-blurriest-superfly), I decided to start working on other stuff.

For some reason, I decided to work on symp blazing infinity combos. Before yesterday, I had hit lots of stuff out of symp blazing set, but only on one side. I thought of the set as "regular symposium whirl, then move after the whirl finishes." But yesterday I thought of the set differently, and had better consistency, albeit with less height. Yesterday, I was doing symp blazing by thinking of it like: "do a regular whirl, not a symp whirl, but don't put your set foot down." I kinda tricked my body. Using this method though, I hit symp blazing infinity (I believe its called firewalk) to blur! My first time ever stepping out of that trick. I also hit firewalk to pdx torque, and finally: firewalk to fog! I really like that link.

I'd never hit any weakside symp blazing tricks before, because my regular symp whirl on flip isn't very good, so I didn't think I could get a good set. Buuuut, my regular whirls are both equally good, so using the new style of symp blazing, I should theoretically be able to symp blaze on both sides. Sure enough, I hit flipside blazing butterfly to ducking butterfly within a matter of minutes. The reason I didn't get it symp, was for lack of balance. A couple more minutes of trying got me the desired results, and by the end of the session I had hit flip firewalk to pdx blender! I also hit flip symp blazing pdx mirage for my first time too. While I'm not the world's most bothsided player, I'm very happy with how much more flipsided I've become in the last 2 to 3 years. Now whenever I learn a hard set (wonton, frantic, nuclear, flailing, symp blazing, sailing) I'm usually able to hit it flipside as well. Yeah, not all of them become reliable flipside sets, but at least I can do them. A lot more seems possible to me in footbag, both personally and otherwise, than say 3 years ago. I'm really happy about that.

[C-Fan]

Decided to work on my goal of 10 unique fearless yesterday (December 8th, 05). I think a good strategy is to work on it every other session. That way I don't burn out, and the rest of my game doesn't deteriorate.

I'm liking this goal of 10 unique fearless. It feels a lot like a puzzle, a challenge that I need to think through in order to complete it. Last night I pinpointed the weak point of my combo. The link between the 5th and 6th move isn't automatic yet, and if the 6th move isn't hit perfectly, its hard to hit the 7th move (or I slur the step). I also realized that I need to be able to do the last 5 tricks when I'm tired, so they need to be automatic. My last fearless session, I worked real hard on the first 5 tricks. Yesterday, I spent most of my time practicing the link between the 5th and 6th tricks, and getting the last 3 tricks (all downtime) more consistent. I'm also focussing on keeping each trick as tight and energy-efficient as possible, so I can breathe throughout the combo.

Skooling the link between the 5th and 6th tricks went very well. I hit the combo from 5-10 on three different occasions. So 6 unique fearless, including the trickiest link. Satisfied with my progress there, I moved on to skool the combo starting from the second trick. The first link in the 10string still isn't 100% reliable, so I decided to omit it for the timebeing, and see if I could hit the whole combo without the first trick. So I was trying for contacts 2-10. By omitting the first trick, I hit contacts 2-8, which is 7 unique fearless. Then I went back and worked on the start of the combo, and hit the first 6 contacts on 2 or 3 occasions. So in theory, I should be able to hit all 10 contacts. I've hit the first 60%, the last 60%, and 70% in the middle.

This definitely made me feel more confident, so towards the end of the session I was going for the whole string. This culminated with me getting the first 8 contacts of the combo... and then running into my car Thing is, I felt in total control at contact number 8, but I couldn't even try for #9 without kicking the car and setting off the alarm. Fuck. Despite the unfortunate setback, I still was pretty happy. My practice paid off, and now I know 10 unique fearless is totally viable. Also, 8 unique fearless is a new personal record, and progress is always good.

[C-Fan]

Had one of my worst shreds in months today (December 10th, 2005) Thing is, if you were to just look at the highlights, you'd think it was a decent session. I know that everybody has a bad session every now and again, and therefore it can be good to "get it out of the way." It still sucks though while you're in the middle of it.

The trouble started yesterday. I helped my folks clean the garage, which meant I scrubbed the floor with a broom for an hour. I really put my back into it, and was exhausted when we finished. The weather was ideal for shred, but I was too tired, so I figured I'd play the next day. The weather today also looked good, and I made a point to eat lunch early, so I'd have plenty of time to shred before the sun set and it got cold. Much to my dismay however, the sky became overcast and it was chilly hours before the sunset. In Tucson this is very strange, and very rare. Why couldn't that have happened yesterday instead?

The whole session I struggled to warm up. Random muscles (left hip flexor, right knee, my back) felt... off or slightly pained throughout. I tried to break in my mini-Abshire, since I put in some more weight, but it was still very rolly. I hate breaking in new bags. I played a bit with the Oxana, but its a bit too big for my tastes now. It was a great bag, one of the best I've owned, but its nearing retirement for sure.

Today was supposed to be a day off from fearless practice, but when none of the other stuff I was skooling was working, I decided to practice some of the fearless links. Not much success, but I'll probably be happy in the future that I put in the time today.

Eventually I did manage to hit one of the combos I was going for: alpine legbeater to (flip) food processor. I hit strong side food in the sealing combo. Once I hit this, I felt like the session wasn't a total bust. Feeling better about the session, I started a string that I was feeling good about. The links were decent, it was pretty flipsided and varied, and....*BZZ-BAM!* A bee flew into my face in the middle of the combo. Mother... Gah! My one decent string in a session of crap, and the bee chose to headbutt me then. Some days...

I felt a bit better later in the session though when I hit a new trick: alpine fusion! The first time was definitely "the," but I hit it a little later and it was markedly better. I think I dexed the down double in the middle of my shoe: so it was toey, but not "the." Obviously, I still have some work to do, cause I won't count it as hit until I get the dexes around my ankles. Still, hitting it toe-y was a bright spot during a rough session. Hope for the future if you will.

At the close of the session, I really felt like I needed to hit something to redeem the session. I don't know why, but for some reason I decided to go for flip smog. This struck me as strange, because I hadn't particularly skooled flip pixies or dlos this session, and flip smog is a triple dex that had eluded me for ages. But there I was, and flip smog was the trick.

Some backstory: my flip toe isn't the strongest. I can hit lots of tricks flipside and bsos, but tricks that start and end on my flip toe are really really hard for me. Lately, it had become a bit of an embarassing point, that I hadn't hit flip smog. I mean, my flip pixie isn't even THAT bad. I've hit phoenix, darkwalk, frenzy, sailing butterfly, smoke, pixie paradon, etc. bsos. But something about smog...

Man, this 'zine entry is hella long. You'd think I had a good session or something Anyway, to my happy surprise, I finally managed to hit flipside smog! I played out of it with butterfly-pdx mirage-strong side smog-small run, and that seemed like a good place to finish the session. Finally got smog bsos. Here's a sampling of other triple dex tricks which I hit bsos before smog: fury, paradon swirl, frenzy, flurry, pixie tap, blurrier, every variant of stepping egg and dlo, etc. So its definitely a relief to finally get the easiest triple dex in the sport off my bsos list

Tomorrow I shred with Johhny Baldwin. Stoked about this for several reasons. Hopefully he can repair my bleeding Oxana, and give me leadshot to heavy up my Abshire. It'll also be nice to play with somebody else for a change. And finally, we're gonna play at the local University, so there's a chance we may get people interested in the sport. Worst case scenario, I at least get to look at pretty girls

[C-Fan]

A few days ago I scrubbed the garage, which kinda threw my body out of balance. Random muscles ached, but I played footbag the next day. Yesterday (December 11th, 05), I still felt a bit weird, but couldn't pass up the chance to play with another footbagger. So I went to University of Arizona with Johnny and ended up playing for something like 4 hours straight. My right knee bothered me, but if I avoided certain elements (fairy set, right leg symp whirls, alpine tricks) it didn't hurt too bad. Still, it has me worried. Today, the knee still feels funny when my leg is in certain positions. It doesn't hurt when I walk though. Hopefully I didn't do any real damage to the ligaments in my knee, and this will heal up in a couple days. I dunno. I figure that if I did any real damage, it'd hurt more, and I'd know it. I'm gonna try to avoid putting any stress or weight on it for at least 2 days, and won't play on it at all until its better, or I get it looked at. I really hope I'm just overreacting.

Yesterday's session was fun though. On 3 occasions, students interested in footbag came up and talked to us, and we gave them links and emails. Ideally, we'll get regular weekly meetings going when they all get back from winter break, in early January. I mostly spent the whole day going for long strings. I hit 7 contacts of my fearless string, using a light bag, and on my first try. So hopefully when I heal up I can get the whole thing. The only combo of note that I hit, was flurry-symp whirl-tomahawk, which I thought was cute.

At the end of the session Johnny gave me an awesome Christmas present: something like a pound of leadshot, and fabric glue! Sweetness, my own footbag repair kit. When i got home I patched up my Oxana bag, which looks sweet now. Today I'll add more weight to my mini-Abshire as well. In other good footbag equipment news, another Arizona footbagger has found G6s for less than $50, so hopefully I'll be able to pick up a few pairs on the cheap.

Wish me luck on the recovery!
s61.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2WI1RI6OI4VNP3NICUEPPODLBQ

[Anz]

Good luck on the recovery - and that fearless string.

[*Jethro*]

go flip pixie!

[C-Fan]

December 13th, 2005

In good news, I woke up today with my knee feeling markedly better. Yesterday, I made a point to keep weight off my leg. That meant I spent most of the day with an electric blanket wrapped around my knee, as I watched taped NBA games and emailed people. I ate a few bananas and drank lots of water (and some aspirin), then I went to bed early and slept a lot.

Today I took more proactive steps towards recovery. I went to the local pool and walked laps in the water, focussing on smooth motion with every step. I did this for a good half hour. The idea was to exercise so my muscles don't atrophy too much, and to test the range of motion in my knee without putting weight (stress) on it. It went well. I "air-shredded" in the water for a while too, which also felt productive. I know for sure which moves to avoid (strong blender, strong whirls in general), and it also gave me a chance to really think about my form on several sets and downtime components. I'd recommend that non-injured shredders try "airshredding" underwater at some point, cause you really can learn a lot.

Yesterday I was really concerned that maybe I had torn a ligament in my knee, but today it really felt like I had just severely pulled my calf muscle. The knee itself isn't 100%, but I think it's a far less serious injury than I feared. I'm going to go to the pool again tomorrow and do the regimen again, and I'm also being conscientious about hydration and what I eat today as well. I'm thinking that once I feel good enough to shred, I should play with a knee brace on. I went to look at knee braces today, but came away undecided as to which kind would be best. One style covered the entire knee, and you slipped it on like a glove. The other kind of brace was a "honza brace." You know what I mean. I couldn't decide which would give me better support, and would get in the way the least. Anybody with any experience in these matters care to weigh in?

10 unique fearless is officially off my goals list for the foreseeable future.

[Sporatical_Distractions]

I went to the local pool and walked laps in the water, focussing on smooth motion with every step. I did this for a good half hour.

this is all just an evil ploy for waterslide acces isn't it

Lifegaurd: "Hey Ken! No running at the pool"

[*Jethro*]

Hey Ken, did you find that your flip pixie's have been hurting that knee?
Cause I have been schooling my flip pixies and my knee is freakin sore..

[Anz]

I should play with a knee brace on. I went to look at knee braces today, but came away undecided as to which kind would be best. One style covered the entire knee, and you slipped it on like a glove. The other kind of brace was a "honza brace." You know what I mean.

You should think once more about it before you take either of them. Honza has said that after playing with a knee brace for a while your knee adjusts to it and you can't play without it anymore.

Toni Pääkkönen doesn't play with a knee brace anymore but he told me at FFO that if he does even one trick that does extra pressure to the knee, it's hurting for the rest of the session.