Busted Bootflog

busted · Post by **busted** » 19 Feb 2006 09:58

I kicked on Wednesday and now on Sunday, and I felt pretty good. The weather is getting nicer in Graz and I'm full of optimism about playing in the summer and the health of my knee!

Today I kicked a rather boring session, but useful nonetheless.
Skooled:
OSIS > OSIS
OSIS > PDX MIRAGE
(dt) DRIFTER
(dt,cs) DLO
SPINNING CLIPPER
SWIRL

Regards,
-David

PS I'm still in love with the G-Units.

busted · Post by **busted** » 23 Feb 2006 10:56

I drilled the most boring drill in the world today:
OSIS > PDX MRG > (ss) BUTTERFLY [repeat]

The most aggrevating part is that I couldn't hit it!

For some reason my weak PDX MRG is just a little lopsided. After an OSIS I lift the footbag into my body instead of straight up, which forces me to jump away from the clipper in order to make the MIRAGE. The result is a late, exaggerated MIRAGE that often fails because I'm chasing after the bag sideways. I guess the fundamental aspect is that I'm off balance immediately after the OSIS and thus falling away from the CLIPPER when I start the PDX MRG. I don't know how to fix this problem though... Maybe I should try to do OSIS and then exaggerate the CLIPPER stall befor the PDX MRG.

Sometimes footbag is very frustrating. I guess I'm just getting sick of schooling by myself. Bring on the spring! Let's SHRED!!!

On a good note I hit weakside TERRAGE and the knee is still holding up!

Regards,
-David

busted · Post by **busted** » 06 Mar 2006 10:28

Good to have modified back

. One never knows what they will miss until it's gone.

I finally have OSIS>PDX MIRAGE>BUTTERFLY down. I was frustrated with that last week and now I'm not.

Today I practiced SPINS, dt DRIFTER, dt DLO & SWIRL. I'm trying to get these moves down, as painful as it is, before summertime so then I can work on integrating them into the game, as opposed to just getting them.

I keep throwing my SWIRL back, and too far up. I think I really need some coaching with this move, because mine looks like shit. I have to say that they are definitely becoming more reliable however. In other words, I can land a SWIRL 1 out of 3 times, and I miss it only slightly when I miss. But damn I'm still throwing them backwards. Also, I do this a pronounced jump with the setting foot when I SWIRL. I guess I started doing it because the idea was that if I jump with the plant foot then the dexing foot wouldn't throw the bag (sideways) because setting foot would give the bag upward momentum before I started the dex. So it's a battle between needing to loft it straight up and jumping like a damned goon. It's only one dex for crying out loud and it looks like I'm trying a failed RIPSTEIN or something else like that. But I also reject the idea that one doesn't have to throw the bag up at all and just "let it fall" from the clipper position and then go around it. At least not when your legs are heavy as mine.

Downtime DRIFTER is still alluding me altogether. I've been trying to plant the setting foot before starting the dex to make the move really downtime, but now I don't seem to have enough time to get around it. The downtime DRIFTER situation is especially frustrating because my UPTIME DRIFTERs were just fine before I decided to switch up the style.

The knee is definitely better! I can still feel a little weirdness when I overkick but basically I'm back in action and that's exciting. I'm hoping that the warmer weather will bode better things for my game. I accept that fact that injuries are a part of the game, but damn, I sure hope I'm not out like THAT ever again!

That's all for now. Glad to be back on Modified, whatever the country it resides in.

ashleyd · Post by **ashleyd** » 06 Mar 2006 12:33

Props on Osis>pdx mirage>ss butter. For the weak pdx mirage it would probably be better to just skool pdx mirage> butterfly rp. over and over.

Downtime drifters suck for me too. I have the same issue to where I dont have enough time to complete it. I hear that setting it straight up, and then jumping threw it helps, but I dunno. I feel ya.

Also I cant do regular swirls. Reverse is my natural way. It seems like regular has too much roll.

2 cents

busted · Post by **busted** » 09 Mar 2006 11:56

@ashleyd - thanks for the tips. It's always nice for someone to comment on the blog, especially since I'm in Austria right now, and not in New York, so I don't have as many people to talk footbag with.

I warmed up with OSIS->PDX MIRAGE and that worked out pretty well for me, I'm feeling pretty about good this now.

Today I practiced downtime clipperset DLOs. They were OK, I think that I'm still having a problem with limp leg on one side. I guess I should go back and read my own f*#@ing blog since I supposedly had this problem licked. I really notice limp leg on my weakside dt,cs DLO.

Funny, my weakside for PDX MIRAGE is the opposite for the weakside for my DLO. I'll have to consider what the relation there.

I practiced SWIRLS today as well and I think I had my most perfect SWIRL ever. In other words, it actually looked like a SWIRL and I sealed it very nicely with a BOP. Still most of them looked completey silly.

We're going to find out if my knee is really healed because I practiced a shitload of STEPPING today. I sort of don't want to tell what I was practiceing because I didn't hit it and I don't want to spoil the pleasure when I finally do hit.... anyways... I damn near hit RIP WARRIOR. Only a shitty BUTTERFLY at the end kept it from happening. It's one of those things where I had to spend that split second checking that the STEPPING DUCK went over, instead of just assuming it did, and of course, that was enough to screw the timing up. Soon my friends... very soon now.

Finally, I've really decided to try to throw the bag straight up on almost all moves. I know that the first thing that you ever learn in freestyle is to throw the bag straight up, but really once you play a lot of freestyle you start to realize that many moves are easier if you don't (e.g. RIPWALK). BUT... I'm starting to see that many of these moves that are purportedly easier with a slight slur in fact are not easier in the long run. I've noticed that the better I get, the more control I have over my body . So now-a-days, I'm able to really jump sideways and do, for example, a MIRAGE without much hip twist or too leggy, but simply using sideways motion. The same is true for PDX MIRAGE, STEPPING, etc.

Said in one sentence... You can always train your body further, but you can never train the bag. You can increase your probability of correctly setting a bag straight (thought this may be harder at times because of what your body may have to do) with training, but you will never increase the probability of catching a slurred bag, which is inherently dodgy no matter how good you are.

So today's progress in STEPPING DUCKING was simply a extension of practing this concept.

Kind Regards,
-D

busted · Post by **busted** » 15 Mar 2006 10:24

Shredded today and on Sunday. I've been schoolin' a lot lately. What I've realized is that it doesn't take very much time to rip through my repetoire of moves. With this kind of session I keep the moves fresh. It's only the moves that I can't do which take a lot of time.

Sadly, I have to admit to not being so skilled with a few 2 ADD moves that I never really worked on. So I've been skoolin' lately to take care of a few of these deficiencies. Also, since I have so much more control now, as compared to when I was really practicing 2 ADD moves, I can really try to break them down now and really learn them in a simple and efficient way.

At the end of the session I went back to the three moves I'm trying to learn. SWIRL, dt DRIFTER, SPINNING CLIPPER. Not so bad. I notice that my best SWIRLs are always the first ones I try. Maybe that's because I get tired? Hard to believe after only one or two SWIRLS. Maybe when I start to miss the SWIRLS, my body remembers bad form and just keeps giving me bad form. I guess I'll try only a few on each side for the next couple of sessions and see how that works out for my muscle/mind memory. Oh yes, Matt Cross's comments were quite helpful (that I found under the dt SWIRL section. I still can't decide if my SWIRL is up or down. Pun definitely intended

I watched the AnzTricksDrifter file and that's really helped me. I think that I'm going to be getting dt DRIFTER pretty soon now. I mean I can hit them but certainly not link them yet. I think I'll start trying to link them with BOPS, which should be pretty easy.

SPINNING was OK, I went for SPINNING CLIPPER > SPINNING CLIPPER. I didn't hit it but I think I had a chance.

That's all for now.
-David

busted · Post by **busted** » 08 Apr 2006 08:48

I kicked today outside by myself in the Graz Stadtpark. The weather was beautiful, not a cloud in the sky, and there were plenty of students hanging out enjoying themselves in the park. I have become amazed at just how many people that play hackeysack here in Graz. Almost no one plays freestyle footbag, but there sure are a lot of kickers in general. I don't know if this is just because Graz is such a huge student town, or if it is simply more popular here in Austria than in New York, where I previously was. It's quite clear that many of the guys were watching in awe at what I was pulling off, but of course, almost nobody comes up and asks what the hell I'm doing. So after I was done shredding, I joined a couple of circles and took it upon myself to show a few tricks. Who knows, maybe one of these guys will be interested enough to "buy a pair of lavers."

Finally, I was satisfied with todays session, because I was able to throw in DLOs at will from either toe or clipper during the middle of the run, at will!

My buddy Matt Isanuk came into town on Thursday. He attends Columbia University as well, but is spending a semester in Prague, which is just a hop, skip and a stall away from Graz, respectively. So even though the weather was "schlecht" we played Thursday in my kitchen and had a great time. Even through all my injuries this winter it was pretty clear that my game had increased quite a bit. Basically, all of the sudden my string length has increased. I think it is attributable to two things. First, over the winter I really committed to drilling my PDX MIRAGES, which I could always do with 80% success. But after this winter, I simply don't miss them anymore. This affords me a very safe link from clipper to toe. Secondly, I'm using the G-Units. In my opinion, they are superior to Lavers in every way, and I think I'm starting to reap the benefits of using them.

Matt was gracious enough to give me a lesson on SPINNING CLIPPER. While I've been practicing it a lot over the winter, it's clear now that I was practicing it incorretly. Basically, I was throwing too many steps in the spin, and Matt showed me that it was better to make the first step only after one is turned 180 degrees or so. So now I am going to practice this method and hopefully I'll get better. Matt also agreed that my STEPPING DUCKING was only a little off and that soon I should be able to hit it.

It was really great to see Matt and show him the town. We talked further about heading to worlds together later in the summer. Hopefully, we'll be able to meet up with our other kicking buddy, Xander Faber, who somehow managed to swing a summer internship in Germany, so now we'll all be reunited again.

That's all for now!
-David

busted · Post by **busted** » 16 Apr 2006 09:21

Kicked today and a few days ago as well. This last week or so I was able to kick four times in eight days. I think my knees are definitely 100% now. Sadly, my old hip injury is acting up. Haha. Always an issue isn't there? Well, I've had this one for a LONG time, so I'm pretty sure I can manage the pain and the injury without really decreasing the time that I play.

I've decided that I am GOING TO LEARN HOW TO SPIN. This session and the last, I invited Eric Chan (video from Hackrifice) into my living room. And together we drilled SPINNING CLIPPER for a couple of hours. I don't think I've ever been so intellectual about learning a move as I have about SPINNING CLIPPER. After Matt Isanuk visited and basically informed me that I had been learning them incorrectly for the last 6 months, I've decided to only practice it when I have video in front of me. I think it's that hard. Today I landed a beauty, though! I find that the hardest part of the move is to get the spin off correctly and at the same time set the bag straight up. Really frustrating. I've been DUCKING and DIVING for years now and somehow the spin really screws up my straight set. To be fair, my left side has a worse high set than the other. So I've decided to practice high sets back to back as a warm up from now on, which is something I never really did before.

My overall footbag strategy has been to learn all the basic maneuvers before going on to hard combo tricks. By and large, I've stuck to this. I'm really psyched, though because my downtime DLO is locked, my downtime DRIFTER is well on it's way, and via practicing these two tricks, I feel like I have an entirely new understanding of DOWNTIME. SWIRL, is a constant labor of love

, but some days it's better than others. Anyhow, my hope is that this summer I can declare my basic training of the fundamental movements over. This includes, of course, only those moves that I've set out to learn. I'll never hit a SYMPOSIUM trick. Probably the same with FAIRIE, though for different reasons. Then I hope to really focus on putting it altogether and simply enjoy shredding for the last couple of years of my footbag career.

What this means now is I have to be really focused on cleaning up these last couple of concepts. Be diligent and focused.

Today I was pleased, I hit a few times:
OSIS-> FAR OSIS [rpt]
I worked on setting my weak (right) STEP straight up. I tried a bunch of DIVING LEG OVER type of stuff, hit a bunch of DRIFTERS, which I'm having much more success of late on one side than the other. Drilled a few TERRAGES, weak side (left) DSO, weak WHIRL (right) that I've been dropping while shredding lately etc.

Kind Regards,
-David

busted · Post by **busted** » 24 Apr 2006 10:42

Today I kicked. Yesterday I kicked. I kicked better yesterday.

There's this competition / jam in Pottersdorf this weekend, but I'm not sure if I'm going to go, I haven't made any travel / hotel arrangements yet. It would be nice but apparently everybody is camping out and I don't have a tent because I didn't bring that kind of stuff with me to Austria. Any ideas?

Yesterday I invited Anz (video) into my apartment yesterday for an hour's worth of spinning clipper drills. I was particularly interested in learning how to throw straight up and still do a turn. I was starting to get it near the end and my spin technique is getting better. It appears that he was somehow turning his clipper foot straight 90 degrees from the ground by the time the bag was going straight up, I tried to emulate this and I don't know if that was it or not, but I started to throw straighter. I landed a solid SPINNING CLIPPER from both sides, which was quite satisfactory, but I'm still such a noob with this move that I don't really believe I am going to throw the bag straight and so I don't follow the move through appropriately.

I decided to try DUCKING LEGOVER (from clipper) today. I thought it was a good idea because it's a legit three add move from clipper to toe that is still safe enough to do something nice from toe afterwards. I liked it and I think I will keep it going in my shred.

I've noticed that spectators really dig DUCKING / DIVING concepts. They don't really get the technical merit of something like ATOMIC DLO, it's more the random / wild / spinning movements that spectators seem to dig. It seems like really hardcore shred is simply too fast for the average joe spectator.

Knees still feel great, lower back still hurts like a mofo.

-David

mr.alex · Post by **mr.alex** » 24 Apr 2006 13:02

Hi David!

Since I'm not too often at modified lately I totally forgot to contact you because of Podersdorf.

Sorry. Anyway, good to see that your knee is better now. Props for all those new moves.

Well, if you want to come you should register until tomorrow (tuesday) so we can guartantee the benefits for registered players/guests. I'm not exactly sure, but maybe someone else has a space in his tent. We have a meeting tommorow evening and I will try to find something out.

Another option is looking around here, but I don't know if there's much available or how expensive it will be.

You'll hear from me

verena · Post by **verena** » 24 Apr 2006 14:14

i don't think that it will be a problem to find a place for you.

but maybe you should just ask the upper-austrian footbaggers that are staying in graz. last year they all had huge tents. just to make sure that you've got a place in a tent...

edit: and looking forward to finally meeting you.

busted · Post by **busted** » 27 Apr 2006 22:32

@alex,verena - Thanks for the response!

To all of you who are attending the event in Podersdorf, my wife and I will be there. So see you all there tomorrow I guess!

Kind Regards,
-David

busted · Post by **busted** » 07 May 2006 01:36

I went to Podersdorf am "Schnee" last weekend for the jam and competition. The weather was terrible, my red jacket was stolen, my electronic dictionary was stolen, and to top it off I couldn't even shred because my back blew out. (I'm currently in a week long pause from shredding, which I hope to pick up again this week).

But my buddy Matt Isanuk showed up from Prague so at least I got to lose at a new drinking game.

Props to the folks who put the event together. The potential was there, but hey, you can't control the weather.

Kind Regards,
-David

Klemens · Post by **Klemens** » 25 May 2006 10:22

Hi David!
Hope your ankle feels better again and we can kick again next week.

But we should definately play that game again - because --> I WANT TO WIN

gute besserung deinem knöchel

busted · Post by **busted** » 24 Jul 2006 04:43

(Cross Post for my own later reference.)

Hey all,

My wife Robin just finished blogging our time in Frankfurt, during Worlds 2006! There are two posts that are relevant, the first one being about Frankfurt itself, which is nice because it gives some context to where the event was. The second post is about Worlds, and includes a camera-video (50MB) of Vacek's complete finals routine

. Here are the links

Frankfurt am Main
Footbag Worlds 2006

Regards,
-David

busted · Post by **busted** » 30 Jul 2006 22:58

Now that my health seems to be returning, I think I'll resurrect this blog soon. Especially since I'll be heading back to NYC and the comfortable environment of Columbia University, where the gym has soft padding!!!

-David

busted · Post by **busted** » 09 Sep 2006 05:49

Well everyone, I'm back in the United States and I'm already kicking well. It's amazing but I think it's simply not having to kick alone and one cement everyday and now I'm back in form. In fact, both Matt and Xander agree that I'm kicking the best I've kicked.

I hit SPINNING BUTTERFLY, super clean on the first try.

Yesterday we played a game of BAG, which is a game that involves both longevity and players challenging you with do-able sick 3s. I almost won but Xander and I gave up cause we were too tired. We were tied.

The BAG sick 3s that I hit yesterday were:
WHIRL > RIPWALK > WHIRL
DUCKING CLIPPER > PDM > SMEAR

I challenged Xander to
WHIRLWIND > DRIFTER > TORQUE and he got two moves through the combo twice (of four tries), which I thought was pretty amazing.

I challenged Matt to

PIXIE DUCKING CLIPPER > DUCKING LEGOVER > PIXIE DUCKING CLIPPER and he hit that no problem.

I figured out the other week that one of the reasons my shred isn't as long as possible is because I had a weak PDX MRG on one side, so I schooled the hell out of it, and also worked hard on hitting moves out of it, and now it's paying off.

Additionally, my strong SWIRL is now reliable enough to throw it into shred, I hit SWIRL > BUTT > SWIRL > BUTT > SWIRL

Additionally, all my downtime DLOS are hitting. So that's three extra components that are working!

I had a run with LEGBEATER > shred > QUANTUM BUTTERFLY > shred.

So things are going better these days.

Finally, we met this Chinese dude, who clearly had seen freestyle before and now wants to play with us. I'm not sure how much he's played before if any, but he basically took our bag and almost hit MAGELLEN and hit OSIS, with leather sandals on, so I guess he's got some inherent talent. It'll be exciting to have another play in the group.

Regards,
-David

Busted Bootflog

your ankle!???