Probably the only shredder of all fLemmings

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 25 Aug 2006 05:09

I just had two good footbag days.

Day 1 - a 1h30 solo.

Prior to this session I checked my trick list for tricks I had never hit. To put it in another way: I had a new trick hunt session.

Here are the new tricks I hit:

-spinning eclipse
-fairy ss legover
-fairy opposite pickup
-fairy muted ss butterfly
-fairy far osis
and last but not least
-VORTEX! Finally!

All both sides too.

My wish list was a lot longer, but after the fairy stuff I was fed up with trick hunting, and only made an exception for the vortex at the very end of the session. I was so stoked to hit vortex finally! It's without a doubt one of the coolest tricks I can hit.

Other highlights of the session included hitting peeking osis BS and blurry whirl.

Day 2 - Back in Brussels with the crew.

I went back to the Alternative Sports Summer Week on Thursday to find only Seb and Alex (somewhat later; he'd been goodbyetojustinpartying a little too emphatically on Wednesday night). As the weather was most dubious again Seb and I warmed up on the sand in the by now humid and stinky sports hall, where kids were playing table tennis, dito football and shuttlecock (very alternative sports indeed). A little later we moved outdoors as the sun peeped through, which even allowed for some shirtless shred.

For some reason I was into long runs, BSOS runs and body adds yesterday. I hit some pretty good semi-long (15 up) and long (20 up) runs. The longest one may have come close to or even have surpassed my 27 contacts record run, but unfortunately I didn't count.

I footed vortex again and also pdx dlo, had consistent whirls and pdx whirls, drifter and plo b2b, spinning clipper>ss butterfly BSOS in the same run that had spinning osis BSOS. Other stuff I BSOSed included diving osis, torque, ducking butterfly, pdx whirl, datw. I also did like 6 or 7 tripless, which some spectators thought was pretty impressive.

Apparently, Ronaldinho or one of the like has been showcasing 'around the world' with a soccer ball, because throughout the afternoon kids kept requesting around the worlds (how on earth did they know the name?). Then, after I had done some double atws, word spread among the kids that one of the footbaggers could do a double atw. So from then on they requested datw. My datws have been pretty bad of late so I didn't mind about the requests all that much. Good training.

In the evening after a long session I also don't cramp any more, which probably means my muscles (if any) are getting used to kickey again.

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 25 Aug 2006 06:03

Oh yeah! In my egocentrical footbag craze

I totally forgot to mention that Seb hit some really cool shit like

-dragon stall! Consistantly and on command! It's even cooler when he 'backspins' after it (so that he ends on a regular outside stall), sorta like Jon Schneider.
-smear! He's finally getting that pixie motion down.
-osis b2b
-good symposium mirages
-atom smasher loads of times!
-tap>atom smasher
-whirl!
-both side spins
-dlo

I hadn't shredded with him in months, so I was pleasantly surprised that he had been schooling so much.

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 28 Aug 2006 00:24

Just a 30 minutes solo kick yesterday. Legs sore as hell from cycling so I did some low-dex stuff.

-spinning osis BSOS
-39 BOP
-one 13 contact run with blur>dimwalk> (rpt)

max · Post by **max** » 28 Aug 2006 00:36

Good stuff Wim!

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 30 Aug 2006 02:38

Dear Reader,

I just had two mediocre footbag days with a happy as well as an unexpected ending.

I felt I had a lot of shred energy in me on Monday (after my off-day on Sunday) but I had to break up my session after about 15 minutes, which left me a little frustrated.

Then Tuesday we set up a little shred downtown Brussels. Jul had promised to be at the Mont des Arts around 18.30, so when I got there at 19h I was surprised to see a lot of bums but no Jul. A little later Max showed up only to say he had a general off-day (both on the physical and the mental level I think) and he would head straight home, which was probably the wisest thing to do. Meanwhile Jul showed up saying he had come home from his last exam and quite understandably had knocked off to awake late for the sesh!

Anyway, we started warming up when Ilan shows up, who joins us after a big spliff. None of us had a particularly good day.

Jul still hit some dlos, symple swirls, legbeater>whirl, a lot of tapdowns, ripwalk BSOS and overall good tiltless runs with a lot of 3s and 4s (ducking butterfly and ducking osis in one string).

Ilan is adjusting to his brand new quantum shoes. He prefers them over the laver now. I saw him hit among others 3.5 consecutive osi, some nice toe tiltless and a few butterflies. What I didn't notice last time I saw him play is his crazy good ankle crank. In the BFC he's probably the most gifted player on that part. I'm eager to see what he will do with those ankles a few months/years from now.

Ilan's shoes inspired me to some toe blurs. Also hit torque and paradox whirl BSOS again. Other highlights:

-some longish runs (around 15 contacts?)
-a nice little matador. Long time no hit.
-NEW TRICK: I finally hit that symple swirl, and both sides too! I was super stoked with that because swirl has long been one of the few basic gaps in my game (The only thing left to do is figure out that bloody eggbeater for once and for all).
Things that helped me on the symple swirl:

*Jul's and Ilan's advice
*small set
*plant set foot immediately (the small set allows for that) while other foot rises slightly
*jump immediately after that (again the small set allows for that; if you set higher, you'll have to wait for the jump and the dex, which almost surely will make you miss it).
*and DEX DEX DEX yeah. I love the feeling of a flashy swirl dex. I've been deprived of it for too long

.

I'm leaving on holidays to Crete tomorrow. I hope to get some sessions in. I did last year despite the heat so I'm taking my lavers with me!

Lavers uhhhh laters.

max · Post by **max** » 30 Aug 2006 02:46

sorry I couldn't make it yesterday!
Have fun in Crete you lucky bastard!

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 30 Aug 2006 03:16

max wrote:sorry I couldn't make it yesterday!
Have fun in Crete you lucky bastard!

Absolutely no problem bro! I might be wrong but to me it seems you are in a sort of transition. Those stages in life take up a lot of energy at first but if you take it easy and take your time for things you'll come out reborn. Again, I might be wrong, it's just what crossed my mind.

About Crete, yeah, I'll make sure to send you some good and sunny vibes

.

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 31 Aug 2006 01:06

Man, there are NO footbag clubs in Greece, let alone Crete. I checked .org

I'm leaving in half an hour, just enough time to get my small ass session from yesterday blogged.

Public shred in the living area around the block. Kicked for 50 minutes, I was little good. Without a doubt the highlight of the session was to hit symple swirl again a few times. Other than that, I felt a little uneasy for no reasy.
I think I do know the explanation. When I shred in public in Brussels, there's absolutely no one who thinks you're a freak. In the worst case scenario they don't care and walk on.
In the country, however, there's less of an open atmosphere. People will look at you surreptitiously, close the blinds and lock the door

. Or at least they did yesterday.
Perhaps I could take the first step in order to create an open atmosphere. Small things like saying 'hi' to kids or 'good day madam' to madams... I guess that would help.

Okay, gotta split now. See y'all in ten days!

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 10 Sep 2006 04:12

Wim wrote:I'm leaving on holidays to Crete tomorrow. I hope to get some sessions in. I did last year despite the heat so I'm taking my lavers with me!

Got back yesterday evening, had a good time but didn't feel the need to kick. So I didn't.

Some other highlights were without a doubt
-Walking the Samaria gorge, renowned in and outside of Crete and rightly so. A 15 kilometer long, 300 to 600 metres deep gorge of TREMENDOUS beauty.
-Swimming with sea turtles! I was on one of my daily swims just off the shore when suddenly, about 10 metres to my left side, I notice one of the rocks beneath me is moving. At first this freaked me out (as does everything larger than a big fish - like thornbacks, saw loads of those too), but on closer inspection the rock seemed to be a turtle. I followed it some while it seemed to wander left and right, probably looking for food (and probably not being very succesful at it given the large hump of human that was following and scaring all juicy sea creatures away). Suddenly, it seemed to have come too close to the rocks near the beach (that was at that point not more than 25 metres away), turned around, and looked me straight in the eyes, which was weird but cool nonetheless! I moved aside and let it continue its way to open sea, when I noticed the turtle joined one of the same kind just behind me! At that point things started to feel a little fishy as mankind constituted a minority, and the last thing I wanted was to irritate or scare them off so I swam away.

Here are some holiday pics

This one is a holiday classic

The town where we stayed

This one captures the former hippy character of the town IMO

Before the descent of the Samaria gorge at an altitude of 1250 metres

Ancient tree in the gorge

A picture of tourists making a picture of a kri-kri (posing like a star), an ancient typically Cretan goat-like animal.

Alex Zerbe has a fish restaurant in Crete

Another classic to conclude with

BenRea · Post by **BenRea** » 10 Sep 2006 05:16

holy crap, that is so beautiful, amazing pictures. i cant believe you stayed in that town, that must have been like a dream....do you want to go back again? (take me

)

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 11 Sep 2006 01:09

I know what you mean. Actually it's the second time my gf and me went there (the town is called Matala) and after the first time I was more enthousiastic about it than now. I guess you get used to it

.

Still Crete is a cool and beautiful holiday destination, as long as you stay away from the tourist-packed north coast of the isle (or so I've heard).

But dude, if you live in NY isn't the Caribbean 100 times closer?

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

I had a tiny 20 minutes 'no set session' yesterday evening just to get back 'into it'. It was nice to kick again and do a best run of 50 BOP somewhere in the middle.

max · Post by **max** » 11 Sep 2006 05:05

shit, nice photos Wim! Cool turtle story also

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 13 Sep 2006 01:02

Kicked for almost an hour yesterday but as it got dark surprisingly early (20h10

) I should probably have called it a day after 30 minutes. The latter half hour of the session consisted mainly of trying to spot the bag in vain

.

Not surprisingly I fail to see any highlights except that kicking da bag again feels good these days (which counts for something). Almost kicked my bag over the wall in the neighbours' garden on a symple swirl attempt, which was probably the most exciting moment of the session.

On a sidenote the Brussels scene seems to come off. We now have about 7 core members, which is almost a duplication of a year ago. 7 also seems like a big enough crew to winter with, so I'm eager to see if the BFC (or at least part of it) will stay active throughout winter. I'm thinking yes.

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 13 Sep 2006 01:41

Check out

http://www.footbag-brussels.be/forum/index.php

for the Brussels footbag forum if you want to kick in Brussels or simply to practice French (not necessarily correct French bien sûr

).[/url]

Jul · Post by **Jul** » 13 Sep 2006 02:07

hey wim

Ca fai plaisir de te voir de retour

J'esper ke t es vacance ce sont bien passée

et t'es foto ca me deprime ...

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 13 Sep 2006 02:25

Merci bokou mec! On se revoit demain putain.

C'est toujours sympa de te voir ici sur modified

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 13 Sep 2006 02:52

Speaking of the pictures, I just noticed that the horizon on the last one slants

Cool! I captured the curve of the earth. Or, more likely, I didn't hold the camera correctly.

As I've made you all drool with my pics, here are some more

.

Insane mountain sight

Insane mountain

Insane beach pic. If you have good eyes you may spot my girlfriend, the blonde in an aubergine bikini. And if you have VERY good eyes you may spot a few pixels of nudity here and there

.

Admittedly one of the most insane pictures I've ever made.

Actually this picture is shot vertically, from the bottom of a rock up. The tree grows out of the rock horizontally and twists to the light

. Sick!

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 13 Sep 2006 10:09

100th entry in my diary today but I felt like blogging today's session.

My hardcore blog readers (if any

) may remember that I moved out of my parents' late February this year. Awesomeness of course, but on the flipside the town I moved to has - even after 7 months - not yet revealed its hidden glorious potential shred spots (again, if any).

I've lived in my home town pretty much all my life until Feb, so I knew most all the suitable kick places. My absolute favourite was on a basketball pitch somewhere in a secluded corner of the park, where I had most of my session from early summer 2005 to the time I moved.

Now you have to know my girlfriend recently took a job in the library of our (former) home town. It is situated right next to the park (well exactly it is IN the park) so now I've found an extra reason to take the 20 minute trip

.

That's what I did today. My gf got off at 4pm, so I made sure to be there at 3 to kick and to 'pick her up' after my session. Brilliant!

------
And dammit, I have to admit my shred location has a tremendous influence on me. Yesterday in the back yard I hit NOTHING which I didn't get upset about because I thought I was out of shape.

TODAY however I had one of my best sessions since I got back into baggie.

My game was quite consistent, which was the most important highlight.
Other than that:

*good atomics! I was afraid I lost them but today I got halfway through rubberman. Think I could've done more.
*ducking clipper>spinning clipper BSOS and solid spins throughout (spinning osis BSOS as well).
*spinning clipper>spinning osis BS. Was a little dizy on my strongside afterwards

.
*drifter and torque BSOS in the same run
*ducking butterfly b2b
*datw midstring. I like that because it takes balls.
*Good run length for a change, finally! Got over ten loads of times, over 15 about 5 times, and the top run was 26 contacts, which is only one contact away from my longest (non-BOP) guiltfree run ever!
I have challenged myself to do 40 guiltless by the end of october so it's about time I hit some long strings.
*An other challenge I set for myself is drifter>torque (repeat). I hit the combo BS, but torque>drifter is a bit of a tougho so the (repeat) might take some more time.

I'm gonna shred it up with the Brussels crew tomorrow so I hope to continue this upward spiral.

EDIT: I've always thought that 27 was my longest guiltfree run ever, but now I can't find any records of it (not in my 'achievements file' nor in this blog) so now I'm in serious doubt if the 26 contact run from today is now my new record

.
Anyway, I'll make sure to hit a +30 run soon just to make sure my old record is beaten

.

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 15 Sep 2006 01:30

I'm writing job applications again and wrote a really good one yesterday (at least I had a good feeling about it) but I just got a reply saying they already found someone so I feel a little bummed. HOWEVER I had a really good session last night with Julien downtown Brussels. What's even better is that I got the whole thing on tape so I'll be reviewing some footage later and perhaps compile a short vid.

We actually played in the very heart of Brussels so there were a LOT of passers-by, of which a decent number of drunks and bums, but also 'regular' people and tourists, and a group of girls cheering for us, which was... how shall I put it... preferable.

I'm digging kicking with Julien more and more. As he is progressing so fast, I feel that we're getting on a par although I have about a year more of footbag experience. I feel we're pushing each other, and even more importantly giving each other ideas. Cross-pollination if you will (I had to look that up).

The presence of a camera intimidated him a little at first which I can understand. I felt the same way in front of a camera about a year ago, but taping a session now and then really helped me in overcoming those qualms. In fact the cam inspired me to do some nasty runs.

Here are some highlights off the top of my head:

-some longish runs, of which some pretty unique ones (I'm trying to limit the BOPs these days)
-7 tripless! I wasn't counting but it felt like at least 8 when I bailed to butterfly. As 8 is my record, I was eager to check that bit on tape and it turned out to be 7. Bummer!
-61 or 62 BOP. As my record on that is 61, there's another one I'm anxious to check on the video.
-33 osi for cool-down! Now that is definitely a record given that my previous best was 28.
-gyro mirage BSOS, no sweat
-hitting paradox blender. Long time, no hit.
-ducking butterfly>ripwalk, on request from Julien. First time I step out of a ducking butterfly but it feels very much doable.
-4.9 contacts of rubberman! I didn't even 'drop' the fifth contact, it was more like the bag inexplicably fell next to my foot, haha. I was SO sure I was gonna complete rubberman once I got past the second atom smasher...
-WHIRLING SWIRL! Yeaaaah. This is cool for several reasons:
*new trick!
*double dex downtime component (although I didn't hit it all downtime)
*it shows my progress on swirls is substantial. About two weeks ago I had never hit any good swirl stuff. Then, with a litlle help from Julien and Ilan I hit symple swirl which I thought was cool enough. That said hitting whirling swirl out of the blue yesterday was totally unexpected. It's like a complete new footbag realm is just now opening up for me! It's like hitting your first atomic and fantasising what cool tricks you could hit from that, a sensation I haven't felt in a long time!
I need one more inch of dex on my flipside whirling swirl.

Julien made a very good point when he saw my surprise on hitting whirling swirl. He was like: 'dude, that simply is your level'. And he's probably right. I've been playing for 2.5 years. From somewhere between 1 and 1.5 years my progress was less noticeable (to me at least). I had reached a sort of guiltless stage that I was happy with, not to say satisfied. The urge to push my game with big tricks and combos got kind of vanished. Instead I focused on style and consistancy. So yes, I can hit the tricks I hit with sufficient ease now, but seeing what big shit some players in their third year of footbag school bust is pretty confronting. I guess my game too would benefit from trying some new tricks and components. I'm thinking barraging and a load of 5ADD tricks. I was close enough (and even hit a bunch) a year ago but I never really pushed it. Then, in winter I pretty much quit footbag and the last few months I've been trying to get my consistancy back. So yeah it may well be that all in all I lost a year.

Here's a vow to myself: from now on I will try new components from time to time.

Hitting new stuff is supposed to be one of the fun things about footbag dammit!

Wim · Post by **Wim** » 17 Sep 2006 22:53

Heya,

I had a fairly good 1h session in the back garden on Sunday. As my amount of space there is limited, I didn't really go for long runs but rather focused on tricks and components (I've realised trying to go for long runs there just gets me frustrated after a while, so I didn't).

Tooled a bit with barraging and had some expectations because this time a year ago I could sometimes get a clean albeit low set. I never hit anything downtime out of it and neither did I yesterday. MAN, that is a haaarrrd set! With a little more work I should be able to hit a jani though.

Anyway, after getting fed up with and annoyed by barraging I shifted attention to sailing and hit SAILING same side MIRAGE both sides! Yay! I'm hitting new tricks. I know it's by far the cheapest sailing trick in the world but it felt darned good to do a new set. Also my first double dex set AND my first toe to toe triple dex

.

Also hit whirling swirl again but I feel I have to reschool flip whirl to hit it flipside. Unbelievable! I hit my first whirl 2.5 years ago and just now I find out it's no good

.

Speaking of flipsides, I've noticed my flipside has gotten more noticeable to me. When I was just kicking off in footbag I had to get my right leg motor skills on a par with my left leg. Later on, after a few months of freestyling, I felt no significant difference between sides any more. Lately, however, moving into the realm of hard(er) 4s and 5s, there are many tricks that take me a while to hit flip if I hit them at all.

Anyway, my session account isn't quite done yet. After the whirling stuff my knee started giving me some trouble so I called it a day with some low/none dex stuff and hit spinning mirage BSOS and merkon BS (a trick I've upgraded in my echelon of coolness). Also 6 dexless, which I'm quite sure is a record for me.

In fact, about a year ago I set myself the challenge to hit 10 unique dexless guiltless, which I think my game would still benefit from. This is almost within reach now and I probably should compile a list of tricks that qualify for dexless guiltless (and hittable/usable for me

):

-osis

-ducking clipper, diving clipper, weaving clipper, zulu clipper (I link the first two with most ease)
-spinning clipper, spinning osis
-ducking osis, diving osis

So that's 18 uniques of which I hit between 12 and 14 with sufficient ease. 10 is a doddle

!