Jeremy Mirken's Footbag Blog

cammel · Post by **cammel** » 15 Jan 2007 23:40

its great to hear that you havent given up on freestyle yet

mantis is a sick move, and that 5>5>5 link is awesome, super props.

Looking forward to reading about more freestyle stuff from you not just all the net stuff, spiking this and digging that. pffft.

I hope i can come up to santa cruz sometime soon and kick with you all.

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 18 Jan 2007 08:09

short session last night w/ FFunk. My highights: eh, reverse whirling inside (ignus fattus), a move I have rightfully stolen from Jorden Moir apparently, which he cannot now take back. Some good strings of 15 moves or so, nothing amazing. Felt slow.

oh yeah, whirling inside>no plant swirl.

another clean triple pickup.

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 18 Jan 2007 22:05

not to hog my blog, but fuck what luck!

I found a sweet INDOOR spot to play footbag net about 5 miles from my house. Its only 39$ monthly to use the facility as often as I want, and it has pool, sauna, spa, weights (free and machines), b-ball, raquetball/squash/ badmitton courts! Everytrhing a boy could want . . . now if I could only scrounge up a few net players from the area to join with me.

HG · Post by HG » 19 Jan 2007 10:51

Nice rhyme up there champ,
keep up the freestyle rhymes
and ill send you some fuckin wind chimes.

(in the mail)

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 21 Jan 2007 21:48

First off:
http://fizzied.phasing.org/ignus%20fattus.MOV

Hmm . . . a lot to report here. Bear with me.

As you may know, Ive been driving to Oakland to play net with the Chaos crew, some of the best players in the US and the world (incl at least 4 current or former world champs). Recently, however, they decided that in their "preparation for worlds" in Florida, they were going to change up the rotation and mindset of their weekly practices, essentially making it difficult for me to achieve what I want from my sessions there (playing against and learning from the best players). Although they don't know it yet, I will likely reduce my visits up to Oakland from about 6x monthly to 2 or 3 times monthly. This will save me money, anxiety, and time. I will also be losing some valuable opportunity, to play with great players, but maybe just as importantly to spend time with Alexis, whom I admire and learn from, who has become a friend of mine, and who fills me in on history and is an outlet for my footbag-related feelings. We carpool to the OAK kicks and spend about 2 hrs talking about footbag and life.

This all coincides with four inportant footbag related occurrences in my life over the past 2 weeks: 1) telling one member of Chaos that I would soon be beating every member of Chaos, starting with the lower level pros within about 6-8 months (overall a process that will take 2-3 years), 2) finding a local gym here in Santa Cruz at which to play footbag net at night, 3) having top notch Saturday kicks in Santa Clara (40 min away) which make up for missing Oakland, and 4) getting back into freestyle footbag.

I don't quite know how getting back into freestyle will fit into the mix since I am more determined than ever to whomp ass at net . . . Not only do I want to beat every Chaos member, I want to earn respect within the net community so that people who've never met me will be a bit intimidated of me, and I'd love to take somelocal players with me to the top. Nobody in Santa Cruz, as far as I can tell, has the desire that I do to get good as quickly as I want to. That is the tough part. How to become the best when I dont have the top level players to battle against? Well, I DO have several lower-level professional kickers (AJ, Sage, Angel) to learn from and play with, but if I continue to progress in the manner I have been and hope to, I will likely become better than they currently are. I do hope one of them somehow becomes as amped about progressing as I am. It seems the mentality here though is kick to have fun rather than kick to win or kick to improve.

Random thoughts:
-I ewnoy freetsyling with Emily and Fletcher
-I hate the kick space in Fletcher's bedroom
-I am basically "done" wasting my time on players who kick every once in a while, who show little to no desire to learn, and who show up to sessions I attend. Someone else can teach them.
-I had to move my non-running (at the moment) corolla into my garage thereby abolishing my own grotto kick space (unless I push my car outside when I want to kick in there)
-Looks like I may freestyle less to concentrate on net, not sure about this though. I may have time enough for both.
-Emily needs to start linking stepping tricks because its been fucking forever that she's been hitting stepping and she hasn't made that jump. Do it.
-People in this area need to get some FUCKING JOBS because 39 dollars per month is not too fucking much to spend on a night shred spot with a pool, sauna, jacuzzi, and weight room facilities.

To anyone who actually read this far, Im proud of you. You have earned the right to post in this blog. Over and out.

Zeb Jackson · Post by **Zeb Jackson** » 21 Jan 2007 23:09

i may or may not be going to SC sometime in this summer if'n so we should kick, nice to see your getting back into freestyle more

cammel · Post by **cammel** » 21 Jan 2007 23:47

well it suck santa barbara and santa cruz arent closer because i have a ridiculous amount of time on my hands and want to learn net

But i might be doing an internship in santa cruz for a lot of the summer (i did that the summer before last but i didnt know about footbag then DAMN!) and if i did i would have every night open for footbagging

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 26 Jan 2007 13:29

I earned some respect up in Oakland for the first time yesterday. I played *really* well, and had competitive games basically every time I was on the court. I was blasting my flying sweep (inside) and my flying (sideways)sole push, and getting many compliments doing so. Also, my serves were really on: fast and with mixed up placement. Then I went out to Ben and Nick's for a late dinner and some beer with the Chaos crew. I left OAK at 11:45, drove most of the wat back to Santa CRuz, pulled off the freeway to sleep for about 75 minutes, then completed my journey at 2:54 AM. I woke up promptly at 6:40 for school this morning. Ouch.

david · Post by **david** » 26 Jan 2007 13:45

Senor Grommet wrote: It seems the mentality here though is kick to have fun rather than kick to win or kick to improve.

Reread that and think about it.

That battle is the hardest in all of footbag.

It is near impossible to fulfill both levels.

Good luck.

full nelson · Post by **full nelson** » 27 Jan 2007 20:11

I'm aiming at you, Grommet! 133 consec with a net bag

Props at playing well in Oakland. There's no one in a reasonable distance from me that plays net. I would probably try if there were.

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 28 Jan 2007 02:31

there's a net tournament in Tennessee in April, 14th-15th, and I think I'm going. I already have a partnet lined up. Brad, you may think about attending just for the hell of it. It's pretty close to your state right?

Anyway, about the fun vs. improvement thing, when you get better net gets way more fun. When you don't have the basic kicks, you can't ever get really good and you always know that you'll be held back by what you don't have. You can hide your weaknesses in freestyle but not in net. I guess its like being the only player striving for guiltless shred in a club of 8-10 players, when most COULD be guiltless.

Oh well, played pretty well again today. Took out Brent and Jody Welch a few times today, and even Alexis a handful of times (doubles of course).

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 30 Jan 2007 15:29

Sage and Chris Young ar eo the top left

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 30 Jan 2007 23:08

I am at the top of my net game. Every session I get measureably better.

I am now incorporating mid-court offense with a flying sweep. Im starting to incorporate a front-facing standing and flying sole push. My toe serve is getting fairly wicked and I'm placing it well. I am setting high and within 3 feet of the net with 80-90% accuracy (still need to work on set directionality).
I am punishing sets with spikes with higher consistency than ever before (50-60% kill rate?). I can hang with the pros, at least for the moment. There is still so much more I can and will improve. I am debating whether to skool a left flying sweep. Right now on that side its right scuff (which hurts the hip for the moment) or nothing. I'd like the option of at least one lefty spike . . .

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 05 Feb 2007 18:02

Freestyle takes a back seat while Net takes shotgun again. Some recent pics.

me, toe jam, bag on rt toe

fletch, sole push, bag on top rt. toe

AJ, sole push, with extra soul

fletch, inside sweep

me, flying shtattaft (pronounced "shitah" or "shtitaft"

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 21 Feb 2007 11:32

Some pics from recent net sessions:

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 21 Feb 2007 15:26

Got excited excited earlier to hear you are getting back into freestyle, but recent posts have all been net. Did you refocus solely on net?

Are you going to worlds? I think you could pretty easily win the "overall footbag champ" trophy if you wanted it (and if that is still a category they calculate).

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 21 Feb 2007 20:59

Interesting that you would ask. As of now, I am solely focused on Net, although when I last renamed my blog title I was hoping to rekindle the freestyle flame. There are several reasons I am pursuing net as opposed to freestyle at the moment:

1 I'm flying to my firest net tourney in April and I need to prep hard to get my first official "pro" result.
2 Freestyle hurts the body, net hurts less, unless I do something stupid (which is usually really fun while in the air)
3 Net is more fun than Freestyle (opinion)
4 I (with AJ) am hosting a net tourney here in Santa Cruz in 2 months-ish so I am focused on it more than ever
5 I have the ability to train with the best so I'm constantly pushing my game
6 I have to crush some skulls at the Green Cup in May with, my partner AJ

I truly have no idea whether I'll be AS into freestyle as I once was. It was almost my life once . . . probably not again. But I love footbag as much as ever, just a diff form.

Senor Grommet · Post by **Senor Grommet** » 01 Mar 2007 15:22

I had fun writing this about myself, so I decided to post it in my blog. Sorry to the gromified-ers who've already read this in the kicking circle thread:

Nathan is my middle name, I like footbag while others think its pretty lame.

When my hair grows I cut the front but not the back, unless I get mullitude- then I get the 2nd mirror off the rack.

Some call it rap but I frequently freestyle babble, 452 is my highest score in my favorite board game called Scrabble.

Feet scraping on a sandy sidewalk is my kryptonite, Iâ€™m gearinâ€™ up to get my butt whooped at a pool hall tonight.

I used to sleep engulfed in Rainbow Bright covers, many people have few partners but Iâ€™ve had even fewer lovers.

If I had my druthers Iâ€™d be on permanent vacation, nobody knows what I do during the day, not even school administration.

My thermostat is set to 75, I enjoy grooovinâ€™ to BeeGees 70s his Stayinâ€™ Alive.

Buck 65 is a hip hop â€œgroupâ€

Reid · Post by **Reid** » 01 Mar 2007 16:42

Senor Grommet wrote:Today's Session:

blurriest BSOS (two times)
bap drill several times
tombstone both sides
blurry whirl > bedwetter
blurry whirl > blurriest > ps whirl

Nice!

I like when people step out of their whirls, and to do blurriest

Have you stepped out of blurriest ever? Blurriest back tp back?

Reid · Post by **Reid** » 01 Mar 2007 17:43

HAha I thought i wa son the last page but I was on the first.