Fanzine

[C-Fan]

It’s like Spring Break is here early. After a crush of subzero (with windchill we hit -20 a few days in a row) weather last week, the snow decided to melt and the sun shine. It was easily 50 degrees outside yesterday, if not well into the 60s. .

OK, that was 2 days ago. I was told it got into the 70s, and I believe it. Today? Heavy snow which is sticking. I was told many times that Ithaca weather changes extremely fast, but from 70s to snow in 2 days? Yesterday was still in the 50s... what happened?

I'm feeling pretty spry after the blood donation, I think I'll be in good game shape on Sunday. Cross your fingers.

[funklovesfootbag]

Edit: NM, have fun in Florida!

[C-Fan]

Hung with my sister in Jersey which was fun, but it sleet-stormed all of Friday, so I was super-nervous about flying out on Sat. morning. Reading Clavens blog didn't put my mind at ease either. Luckily though, my trip to Miami went off without any real hitches. I had a connection in Charlotte NC, and for a while there I wasn't sure I'd make it, given how delayed my first flight was. I actually booked a backup flight in case I missed my connection. The way it played out though, I baaaarely made my connection, which meant I only spent 15 minutes in Charlotte. On one hand I was glad I made it, cause it'd eventually take me a long time to get to Klokow's place, but on the other hand, if I missed my original connection, I would have had a chance to hang out with Dave. Felt so bad for the kid, he'd been there like 7 hours. It's always been something of a fantasy for me to play footbag with another footbagger at a random airport, and today that almost happened.

Made it safe to Miami, and only something like 70 minutes later than originally scheduled. Got dinner with DanK and Strassman, which was fun but dangerous. I laughed way too hard while eating, but didn't choke. DanK wanted a photo of me for his phone, so I initially made a weird face with a moutful of chewed food, but it felt too Sick 03 for my taste. So instead I asked the girls at the table next to us to pose with me.


Miami!

Tomorrow I have my first shred scheduled. Hope my stamina gets me through.

[Pyroman924]

So instead I asked the girls at the table next to us to pose with me.

And I can see why.

Have a great tim ein Miami man. And if you're ever in Raleigh give me a shout!

[Tjuggles]

Damn! Nice picture Ken.

Enjoy Miami!

TJ

[C-Fan]

Really really nice day in Miami. Started the day off by going to "work" with DanK. He DJs at a hotel by the pool. So the first couple hours of my day were spent swimming, lounging in the sun, and listening to Dan spin relaxing house. Pretty sweet. Got some lunch then went home and watched some video of Clavens that Dan shot last week. Good stuff. I walked the beach for a while, then got real antsy to shred.

Alex and Dan showed up around 6, and we went to play on Lincoln street. LOTS of pedestrian traffic, which was good exposure. I definitely play better in front of crowds, and I was so stoked to play outside with Dan and Alex, that I knew I'd have a good session. Alex struggled a bit with the session, but we're gonna play more before I leave. Playing with Dan was fun, cause I haven't shredded with him since Worlds 03 in Prague. GDLO bsos, mantis, good vortices... I thought Dan was playing well. I gave him some tips on blurry whirl, and he made visible, immediate progress because of it. Felt good about that.

As for myself, I was real happy with the session. I didn't feel any pain in my ankle or hip, maybe because of adrenaline. Whatever the case, I played without pain, even though my stamina wasn't great.

Highlights:

*bl. whirl-rubberman-bl. whirl first try
*matador bsos
*sailing dlo
*frantic DOD first try.
*flurry-toebius first try
*paradon swirl-WHAT!? first try

We got the whole session on tape, so maybe I'll watch it later and check if anything was "the." Regardless, I had a ton of fun.

Scheduled to shred tomorrow at Univ. of Miami. Pretty excited about that.

Definitely digging Miami. I'm really glad I decided to come down here.

[C-Fan]

Dan Klokow has to be one of the top 2 or 3 best pool players in the footbag scene. I think that Mestas is probably the best, then maybe Rippin' tied with Klokow for second, and then a few other candidates for third. But yeah, I was pretty impressed. One of the funnier exchanges was when he tried to give me advice on doing a good break.

Dan: "Put your whole body into it."
Me: "I don't really have a body."

I guess that's only funny if you know what Dan and I look like.


After yesterday's shred, Alex, Dan and I got dinner then went to Dan's place to watch footbag, because we're big nerds. We watched Sultans of Shred, which was truly a blast from the past. I got pretty nostalgic watching it. For me, footbag started out as this really cool underground sport, I got into it for a couple years, then I went through a blue phase where footbag wasn't fun anymore, I dropped out 6 months, then I came back, and now I love it more than ever. But for me, Sultans really captures that period when footbag was fresh, exciting, and underground, and made me want to get really good. I hadn't watched Sultans in over 4 years, but amazingly I still remembered a lot of the video. And I don't just mean strings either, I remember comments people make in the backgrounds, gestures, etc.

Lots of things struck me about the tape, both personally and from a footbag history perspective as well. That tape showed me so many tricks that I'd never seen, but have now become standard even in my own game. Stuff like smoke, smog and tomahawk are real easy for me now, but I can recall the exact strings on the tape where I first saw those moves, and when I was blown away by them. It was definitely cool to see footbag pre-Vasek, pre-furious set, pre-4square (that meant that Steve had to play footbag freestyle to remain a part of the scene), pre-drills, pre-emphasis-on-flipside. On the whole tape the only people who make much effort for doing flip tricks are Daryl, Rippin, Lon, and Sunil. There are also funny things like McKenzie trying to do as many 5s as he can in a string, and he counts spinning blender as a 5 because those were the days when spinning paradox wasn't counted. It'll be interesting to hear Eli's commentary when he re-releases old vids on DVD.

One of the things that made me sad watching Sultans, is realizing that nobody on the tape still plays seriously anymore. I think only Lon and Daryl are the only guys on the whole tape who still play regularly and are anywhere near the top of their games, or the upper echelon of footbag. Made me feel pretty lucky and happy that I'm still playing and playing hard after all these years. I wonder how much more I'll have?

[CIC flurry]

That picture... Ken's my hero.

Wish I was in Miami... soon. Too bad all of us couldn't go oat the same time. Miami would have a huge scene for a week. Ahh sultans.

[C-Fan]

I don't know what I enjoy more, walking around in a t-shirt all day (and night) basking in the beautiful Miami weather, or checking weather.com and seeing how bad things are in Ithaca.

Miami continues to rock; I'm really glad I decided to come down here. Spring break plans came together at the last possible minute, and I could just as easily have ended up staying home or going to Santa Cruz. I'm sure I would have had fun in Santa Cruz, but it looked like the timing wouldn't be ideal for the local crew, and I had just been there over winter break. On top of that, I just think it's always good to go places you've never been before.

Dan and Alex have been really great hosts. It's a little bit strange to me though, because I befriended each of them in totally different contexts, so to see them hanging out as friends in the same town doesn't seem totally natural. It's kind of like if you suddenly found out that your high school best friend was rooming with your college roommate, and neither realized they knew you. Hope that made some sort of sense.

I'm taking it easy today to let my body recover from all the footbag and walking around. I played really well during my first session in Miami, but that was the first real session I'd had in over a week; blood donation, impromptu basketball, injury, and general business had kept me away from the game in the weeks leading up to break. Your first session back after a while is usually strong, but then your body needs time to recover. Being on vacation though made it hard for me to resist doing back-to-back sessions, so the next day I played, had a rough session, and pushed my body waaay too hard.

We played at University of Miami (Alex's school), which was really beautiful. We couldn't have asked for more ideal session condition: the weather was perfect (warm, but not hot), there was good (and good-looking) pedestrian traffic watching us, and we had awesome music throughout. Despite all this, Dan and I really stunk it up. Alex rebounded from his bad session the day before with a very strong session. Dominatrix, predator, easy-looking atomic drifters, and just overall longer and more-controlled strings. Dan hit a few good stand-alone tricks, like amadeus and spinning ducking butterfly, but had trouble with strings.

I wrestled with my mental game throughout, but even when I was frustrated I was able to joke about it, which helped. We played for a good hour and a half, and I only had something like 2 strings that I thought were any good. Rough. We filmed the session, and when we got home I time-logged the footage, only to see that my best string from the session happened after the battery died, so it wasn't captured.

Lowlights?

*jani-mullet to kick off a good string, not taped.
*enterrage and flurry ending on different toes in the same very short string.
*GDLO both sides, not bsos. Still, I hadn't done both in a session in a while.
*leg-blur-toe blur-tripwalk-blizzard-atom-tripwalk, or something very close to that. I just liked the mixup.

The most fun part of the day was probably the motorcycle ride to and from the campus. Scared the crap out of me, but was also fun, much in the same way rollercoasters are fun.

Today my legs feel pretty bad. Just exhausted and sore. The plan is to take today off from footbag, not walk too much, and then tomorrow warm up slowly before having a kick-ass final Miami session. That's the plan. I'll let you know how it goes, cause I likes to push the keys on this typing apparatus.

[C-Fan]

The plan is to take today off from footbag, not walk too much, .

Seemed like a good, simple plan. Oh well. Walking in the ocean was nice, and playing footbag on the beach on a whim was also fun. Ate real well today, but also walked a lot. DanK is a great host.

Tomorrow is my last real day in Miami, which makes me sad, but I can't complain about the trip so far. I'm glad that I found footbag, and I'm also really thankful that I've stayed in the scene so long. Watching old vids with Dan really made me realize how many people have dropped out of the scene entirely during these last 10 years, and how lucky I am to have stuck with it.

[ashleyd]

I'm glad your having a great time there. I wish that we all could have been there at the same time, that would have been tight.

Nice pic too!

[Iain]

[Pornstar]

Dave C. was OK, but Ken S is the truth. Like whoa. Totally a different level! Nemesisx3! Respect.

[C-Fan]

Note to self: don't post as Dan when you're drunk.

[Sporatical_Distractions]

Loving the combos that you've been throwing down. Very creative.

Ken Somo"Clean"os


I'm trying to remember what What?! is.

If i recall correctly it is symple rev swirling near toe?

[C-Fan]

Got back to Ithaca yesterday, which means Spring Break 07 is officially over. 10 full days away from school and all its attendant worries; just what I needed. The hope is I de-stressed enough that I can attack school with renewed vigor and finish the semester strong. After Miami I spent a couple days with my sister, which was a nice transition. I think that coming directly back to school after Miami would have bummed me out a bit, but spending time in NYC was a fun way to get me re-adjusted to being back in the cold.

The weeks leading up to Miami weren't very full of footbag, so playing a ton of footbag in Florida was a bit of a shock to my system. All told I got in 3.5 sessions (3 sessions with Dan and Alex, and one night session by myself) in a span of 4 days, which really worked my legs. By the time I left I was vowing to take off at least a week, and lay off symp stuff for a while. The part of my foot that hurt in 04 was feeling funny again which had me very nervous. Happily though, my legs have recovered very nicely, and I was able to have a fun shred with Pascal on Sunday when I got back. I still plan on toning down my game for a couple weeks. Like, laying off furious/frantic/flailing sets and symposium tricks in general. Should be a good excuse for me to practice my spins and maybe re-learn flip pixie (where did you go baby? I was just getting to know you!).

OK, where did I leave off in here? Ah yes, I had an excellent first session, followed by a very rough session the next day, followed by a day of footbag rest which actually ended in me throwing a few strings in the evening because I was itching to play. That left me with only one full day in Miami to get in a real session. I woke that morning feeling pretty good. My legs weren't 100%, but they definitely felt better than on Monday. Breakfast was some excellent mahi mahi tacos with a shot of peppermint schnapps, followed by the movie 300. That movie was so terrible it sobered me right up. In real disappointing news Alex texted me that his knee was bugging him, and he didn't think he could play. Thankfully I convinced him to at least come out and hang with us before I left.

Dan and I staked out a nice spot on Lincoln Road, but a massive downpour forced us to relocate. Despite the torrential rain, we managed to find a completely dry spot not 3 blocks away. Talk about localized weather. Alas, the storm followed us and we had to play for a chunk under some slippery overhang, but this allowed us to stay warmed up enough that when Lincoln dried up again, we got back into the mix with little problem.

We kicked to some house mixes Dan had made, which included daft punk and basement jaxx and were really good shred tunes. Dan played the best I’ve ever seen him play, which put me in a good mood. I always like seeing friends play well, and it usually helps me play better too. Mobius-stepping, vortex-pdx torque off the foot, and super deep gyro whirls were the most impressive to me. I don't know why, but looking at our body types, I don't think I would guess that Dan would be way better at spinning than me, but he totally is. I'm definitely envious.

I didn't play my best, but it definitely felt good to play. I was just happy I played better than last session. My biggest problem this session was stamina. Normally I find 2 man circles tiring, but that session it was positively exhausting. If I did a run of any decent length, I'd normally have to sit out my next turn because I'd still be recovering.

Highlights:

*a solid HPD. Hadn't done these in a long time.
*toe fog and predator ending on diff toes (not same string)
*a nice string that started with alpine leg-swifter

Since I’m having trouble recalling highlights, and I like making lists, here's a list of things that sum up what Miami was to me on this trip:

*Lots of toy dogs
*Very nice cars, usually several per block.
*palm trees everywhere
*a lot of fake boobs.
*a lot of real boobs
*good OJ

[C-Fan]

WHAT?! is a butterfly symposium reverse swirling opp toe, all done downtime. I should play with it more.

My first day back at Cornell was really nice. I hung out the whole day with Pascal, which meant we could play wherever and didn't have to go that hard. We went to our old shred spot, the Ramin Room, which is covered in astroturf (the same place we held the Cornell Footbag Jam). We warmed up by playing HORSE on the basketball court, and had a couple surprisingly competitive games. After the shred we cooled down by playing HORSE too. I think my favorite shots were making a bouncing freethrow, and making an underhanded two handed shot with my back to the basket.

Footbag itself was really good too. I had planned to take off time from footbag, but my body was feeling good and playing on astroturf pretty much guarantees you won't get hurt. I actually think that my main footbag problem these days is stamina, so I'm gonna try and play a lot more often, but go easier. So no symposium, less shuffle, etc.

I spent most of the session trying variations on rubberman which I found to be lots of fun. I also messed around a lot with flip gyro stuff, which for some strange reason was working real well.

Highlights:

*legbeater-blizzard-toe blur repeat
*pdlo-atom smasher-legbeater repeat
* 9 contacts of blur-atom-tripwalk
*osis-vortex! Even better, I bsosed the vortex. Both vortices were very controlled (no plants, and I played out of one with ducking butterfly).

Having a good session at Cornell was a very nice way to feel welcomed back at school. The next day was footbag club, so I got in my second session in as many days. This time around my legs felt kinda heavy and slow, and with 4 people in the circle I played a little conservatively. No real highlights to speak of, but it was a good workout and hopefully will help me get back into playing shape.

[C-Fan]

Today will make my 3rd day in a row without footbag. I didn't plan it or anything, it's just how things have played out with work and classes and all. The rest is probably good for me, but I really want to start playing more regularly to get my stamina back up to where I like it.

2 nights ago I went to watch Pascal play IM ice hockey. It was the playoff semis, so I figured it might be my last chance to watch him play. I really love watching footbaggers do non-footbag things, and do them well. It's almost as if people have secret identities. "By day, Dan Klokow is a mild-mannered guiltless shredder. But when the clubs open at night, he becomes SuperDJ DanK!"

Pascal's team handily won the semis game, which meant they played in the finals game last night. I decided to go watch again because it was fun, and if Pascal won that would be cool to be there for that. I'm glad I went, even though they lost. Pascal played a lot better than the night before; he played defense, but one time he took the puck up the length of the ice past the entire other team and then scored! Very cool.

What's that you say? Right, it wouldn't be a true blog entry without a list of some sort. So here's my list of things I like about ice hockey:

1. Your beverage stays nice and fresh for the whole game. It actually gets colder the longer you are at the game.

2. You can bring chocolate to snack on, and it won't melt, so there's no pressure to eat it all quickly.

3. Whenever a player who isn't the goalie swats at the puck with their hand, I have to suppress the urge to yell "handball!"

4. Substitutions get me pumped up. In basketball, you have to wait for a stoppage in play to sub in players, and when you do, they first have to check in at the scorers table, and finally they make it on the court. Once they're on the court, it's just a guy in a tanktop. In hockey, substitutions happen on the fly. The puck is still in play, but all of a sudden a few guys on the ice will dive over the wall, and a bunch of big guys wearing masks and wielding sticks will hop over the wall and go running at the enemy. You get all pumped like: "here comes the cavalry!"

5. Dirty plays are punished better than in other sports. In Basketball, the worst that happens to you is you get ejected for a Flagrant-2 foul, but your team will always have 5 players on the court. Yeah, your replacement may not be as good, but it's not that much punishment for playing dirty (the 2 freebies plus possession don't add that much). In Hockey however, if the ref catches you playing dirty, your team has to play a man down for 2 minutes or until the other team scores. That seems fairer.

Hopefully I'll get in some shred tomorrow.

[Jdigges]

you going to make it to GRASS man?

[C-Fan]

Really nice footbag meeting yesterday. Just Pascal, Luis and myself, but we all had very good sessions, and afterwards we got Taco Bell, so I was cool with the small turnout. My stamina still needs work, and I think my breathing could improve, but I managed a lot of highlights I was proud of, which helped me stay positive about the session. My nukes appear to have reverted to their old unreliable state, but my spins have been improving. Considering how dex-heavy my style already is, I’d gladly pick spins over nuke if I had to choose. Right, onto the session highlights.

Highlights:

*legbeater-pdx egg-atom repeat
*A run with predator and smog (using diff dlos) that also had fog bsos, and ended with gdlo rolling off my foot.
*vortex-WHAT?! Very pleased with this combo.

Inspired by a Clavens run on the old 2005 funtastiks video, I decided to play around with pdx whirl to vortex, and was really stoked to hit it! I figured that if Dave could hit that so long ago, so easily, I should be able to get it if I tried. In general, hard gyro tricks tend to be the first trick in my string, and if I have a good combo with them, I’m invariably playing out of them, not into them. So it was a nice challenge to play into hard gyro tricks. Inspired by how easily pdx whirl-vortex came to me, I tried it flip, and got it pretty quickly. Sticking to the theme, I also managed:

*pdx whirl-gdlo, both sides
*bl. whirl-gdlo both sides
*bl. whirl- vortex one side.

As the session progressed, Pascal asked about symposium atom smasher, and I showed him how you could hit it front or backside. He then asked if I could hit it full symposium (I don’t think I have), and so I gave it a stab. Trying it reminded me that you could get good atomic sets sometimes if you tricked your body into thinking you were going for flailing set, but then bail at the last second. I decided to play around with this way of doing atomics, and found that it made witchdoctor ridiculously easy. Its hard to explain. With regular atomic, its like you expend your energy in the middle of the set, but with flailing, or flailing style atomic, the energy is used at the start of the set, which gives you more time and energy for the downtime component. Makes sense to me at least. Anyway, using this funky style of atomic, I hit:

*Your Mom, but with a lot less effort than normal, and likely cleaner. Clean, easy Your Mom. Almost as much fun as it sounds.
*Atomic PS whirl a few times, very clean. I'd never hit this trick before, so that was kind of exciting.

The highlight of this new set though, was that it allowed me to hit a dream trick of mine that I'd been trying for a couple years:

*Muted tapping WHAT?!? (toe-opp out (no plant)-same out-opp rev swirl (no plant)-opp toe.

Because I think of WHAT?! the way I think of ps egg, this felt more like beta bladerunner than anything else. I first envisioned this trick when I was in New Zealand in , and I was determined to name it "Southern Cross."