I have been working on my 5 ball cascade, but nothing really yet. I have tons of free time at work, tomorrow being my last day I have nothing to do, so I have been bringing my balls and going off to practice.
I got about 10 flashes on the 4-ball half shower on the one side, and about half that many on the other. I also transitioned into the half shower bsos, which was nice.
See you Tuesday at noon. I will probably mail you again though, being that I dont remember how to get to 大谷... I forget what station it is...
TJ had an appointment in Kyoto in the evening, so he came by the campus of Otani for an afternoon session.
We started out outside, but it was a little chilly and drizzly. We kicked for about an hour. Yesterday was the entrance ceremony for school, so there were lots of students on campus milling around. TJ and I both had some pretty long strings, but I don't think we ever got completely warmed up.
Towards the end of the session, I hit a flip torque and pulled a muscle on the left side of my neck. It sent a muscle spasm down the whole left side of my back. I tried to keep my head still and slowly stretch my back. Fortunately it wasn't too serious and I was able to play later. I think I pulled a muscle because I was still kind of cold. You've got to be careful when you're doing tricks with names like "torque"
I ran off to attend an orientation meeting and the entrance ceremony. After coming back, TJ and I moved inside to a lounge area and had a good long session.
The lounge was warm, and being warm really makes a difference--my back felt pretty good too.
We started out with some juggling, and I managed to hit 100 catches of five ball and a flash of six. TJ showed me a couple three-ball tricks that I need to work on.
TJ has some softer bean bags, and I find them much easier to use than the silicon balls I have. Mine roll like crazy when you drop them, and they are really unforgiving when you make bad catches. I like the feel of them though. For working on seven ball I need to get some softer bean bags.
We then had a good long session of footbag. Lots of long runs and some pretty interesting links. One of the highlights was TJ hitting food first try when I asked him about it.
I'll let TJ post his updates.
My highlights:
*stepping a bit more usable, and I did unusual links like ducking osis>ripwalk
*ps whirl (I never do these)
*pixie dlo into a run
*sidewalk>rip rpt.
*paradox whirls were on
TJ gave me some hints on atomic. I need to turn my hips a bit more on the dex. Atomic is slowly getting more usable mid-run.
I might go to a massage therapist tonight to have them work on that pulled muscle...
This is going to be long, but I am going to post my translation of a footbag manual prepared by Dan for the Japanese scene. It has lots of good info that should help a lot of people! The finished version will also include photo demonstrations of the concepts here.
Wow, great work! The advice on routines is really good too. Thank you for taking the time to compile all of this. It really makes my soul happy to see Japanese footbag progressing as nicely as it has been.
Hey Ken!
there are some photos of kenzo demonstrating all that stuff as well which i will put in there ! may i thought there was some cool judging thing on footbag.org i could use, but there isnt. I was going to translate some stuff with suekichi and make it all cool. what did you do for judging last time? Im just going to have to do the same i think
man takumi got a lot better since worlds!
also i read that thing in jordens blog, i found it really funny, dw about it man
Had a session today at the student lounge on campus. I've been playing there 3-4 times weekly now. It's actually a really good place to play--it's heated, well-lit, has a good surface, and is equipped with vending machines that even sell my favorite apple tea!
I've been making it a point to introduce footbag to anyone who seems to show an interest. There are lots of soccer kids around school who seem to be pretty interested. I always leave a few extra bags near where I play and show people who are interested a few basic kicks and stalls. I think people are pretty interested, it's just that most Japanese are pretty shy.
My consistency seems to be improving, but I haven't hit anything really new.
Some new areas that have opened up for me are whirling swirls and blenders. I'm getting better and better at hitting them.
Blender was really hard for me to visualize at first. My dynos were ok, but I couldn't understand the dex for blenders. Now I think of them as a mid-time whirl to an osis. The key to dynos/blenders seems to be a quiick switch of the feet (which is what I mean by mid-time whirl--a little faster switch of the feet than a normal whirl). Aiming my dex towards the far side of the bag seems to help also.
Success with whirling swirls also seems to depend on your ability to switch your feet quickly and follow with an efficient symple swirl motion.
After the session I went out to have a nice big cheeseburger and some fries with my wife. It was great! I've still got a lot of 'meriken in me!
Once a month I attend a Pali research group at Bukkyo University, and since today was the day for our meeting, I decided to have a session there. It was a bit cold, because I was playing outside on a stage-like area.
Overall I had a great session. I have been feeling much stronger overall due to strenghtening exercises I've been doing for my abs and legs. Some degree of cross-training seems to be key to keeping in good form.
At one point in the session, I looked up and saw that around 100 students had gathered around the stage to watch me! I did a few improved routines for them--throwing in fliers, neck stalls, juggling, and some guiltless playing. It was pretty fun.
The biggest highlight for me today was finally hitting drifter>pdx drifter repeat!
I've been so close to it for so long, but finally hit it today pretty easily.
Adam wrote:
blenders. Now I think of them as a mid-time whirl to an osis. The key to dynos/blenders seems to be a quiick switch of the feet (which is what I mean by mid-time whirl--a little faster switch of the feet than a normal whirl). Aiming my dex towards the far side of the bag seems to help also.
Success with whirling swirls also seems to depend on your ability to switch your feet quickly and follow with an efficient symple swirl motion.
!
Rippin' always described blender as "fast whirl, slow osis." And yeah, switching your feet quickly is the secret to whirling swirl, drifter, torque, dlo, blender, and a whole slew of tricks. Glad to hear of the progress. And hey, you ever see this vid? http://youtube.com/watch?v=YJDvC6y_EvA
Hi there, I was just reading your blog for the first time, and found it really interesting. I really like how you analyse the different sets and tricks and the way you approach footbag.
Thanks for a good read, and I will continue reading this in the future I hope to visit Japan within the next couple of years as well.
Thanks for the message. That's definitely the key to blenders, etc.
Yeah, that video is from two or three years ago. A Japanese friend of mine who lives in Tokyo made that. He's a really cool guy. I met him in San Francisco at a youth hostel, and we spent the week together exploring the city--it's cool that the friendship has lasted till now.
He created a wacky radio program or something called Mazaa-tv, and this was one of the videos featuring Kankeri. Kenzo's youtube account is under the name Mazaatv too. Now the Kankeri-Mazaatv connection is somewhat of an inside joke.
By the way, I think the footbag association here is going to post Dan's footbag manual on their site. It has a lot of great tips that should help players get a solid foundation more quickly.
Thanks for the compliments--it's good to know someone is reading! I'll try to blog more often.
The theoretical aspect is one of the funnest parts of footbag for me. It's satisfying just thinking of the way that tricks fit together. I just wish I had started when I was younger!
How old are you now? (I'm sure it says somewhere in here, but I can't be bothered finding that!)
I really wish I had've gotten more seriously into footbag, rather than just hacking around, a lot sooner....but I'm still somewhat young-ish (23), so I guess now's as good a time as ever!
I had a good session today at campus. It was Sunday, so my only companion in the lounge was the hum of the vending machines.
For some reason it seemed like it took me longer than usual to get warmed up. But once warmed up, I felt pretty energetic.
I was refining my symple swirls, and the key to them seems to be ye olde quick switch of the feet! I always focused on trying to speed up the swirl, but it is more important to get the foot back on the ground as soon as possible after the set. Kenzo also mentioned something that really seems to help: limit your movement to the dex leg as much as possible and slightly turn away from the swirl as you dex. This brings the bag more under your butt, and the momentum of turning away from the bag automatically speeds up the dex.
My blenders felt pretty good today. I was able to hit them on both sides fairly consistently.
Towards the end of the session I decided to do some drilling. I was happy because most of these drills I hit on my first or second try.
If barflies feel cramped, make sure that you are moving the support leg to the side and back to open up a space to dex.
After the session I headed down to a large sports store to get some weights. It felt strange because that was the store we did a demonstration at way way back.
I picked up a couple of 5 kilo. weights, and I plan on doing some strengthening exercises for my upper body.
Really good stuff you're posting. I really happy that you have started to "come out of the shadows" and are playing consistantly. I, on the other hand, have 4 papers I have to write within this next 30 days or so, so unfortunately, kicking time is going to be limited... that really is not a good feeling, but there isn't anything that I can do about it. I'm sure you know that feeling though, Dr. ...
I gave you props over the phone already, but PROPS on that p drifter> drifter combo. Another variation (I guess) is p drifter > osis (or dyno, blender). I like that because its pretty technical, in that the set for the p drifters have to be good, or else you balance gets lost. It's also sort of a blind set, which makes it more fun. You complete the osis, then set, and you kind of have to know where the set is, and that makes it even more rewarding when you hit it.
Keep kickin, and keep telling me when you are free to kick. I can't say no forever...
TJ
Oh yeah, the one problem that I have with your idea of returning your set foot to the ground quickly, is that when I do that, I notice that I tend to rush a combination of the initial delay, set, switching of feet, and the dex. Maybe that's just me though.
I set out to Bukkyo Univ. today in the hopes of having a session, but the place was completely closed-up. It's a holiday, but I figured at least the campus would be usable--guess I was wrong.
So I headed to my trusty shred spot at Otani Univ. and managed to get in a good 1.5 hour session.
I first really schooled my swirls (normal, reverse, and symple), especially normal swirls. Reverse swirls are much easier for me because the set and dex are clearly separate motions, and the dex seems to have a bigger window. I can hit regular swirls fairly well by dividing the set and dex motion, but I want to have more of a mid-timey swirl so that I can hit ripstein. Kenzo challenged me to hit that move by February, so I put in a little work on it today.
I had a few close attempts at ripstein but no success. The mid-time swirl set timing feels awkward to me, but it is slowly getting better.
If anyone can give me some tips on how to do a swirl set for ripstein, please feel free to post!
Blenders are getting better--I hit lots today.
Whirling swirl on my strong side is pretty easy now. It is a pretty easy trick for me because I know what I need to do to hit it and I know what I didn't do when I don't hit it.
Highlights:
Couple blurry whirls
Spinning pdx whirl
Pdx blender (new for me, kind of a fluke)
Pdx drifter>drifter (repeat) again
Six btb ripwalks
Blender bsos two times (was happy about this)
Better form on my flip mirage
weaving clip>zulu clip (repeat)
Spinning butter X 6 perfectly (alternating sides with a hand catch between each trick)
Blurriest (this is probably the easiest 5 for me)
I spent New Year's eve at Kaori's parent's place, eating sushi and watching kickboxing. It was pretty fun, but the kickboxing actually got kind of old after a while.
The Japan Sea side of Japan is getting lots of snow right now. That's exciting because tomorrow we are taking a trip to Kaori's grandparent's place in Fukui Prefecture. There's supposed to be 70cm of snow now!
Anyway, I had a session yesterday and I wanted to write down a few notes to myself.
I did a light warm-up and then got hooked on swirl practice. I went through reverse, normal, and symple swirl practice on both sides fairly quickly and decided to work on ripsteins.
I was happy, because I actually ended up footing ripstein on both sides! It was reassuring that I don't feel a big difference between sides. I hand caught a ripstein on my right side, but it was a bit sloppy, and I did a fairly clean ripstein on my left and missed the hand catch! I'm not quite satisfied with my successes, so I'm not going to give myself the trick yet.
Points I've noticed about ripstein:
*the set for regular swirls and ripsteins is quite different
*the set is the most important part of the trick
*the dexes don't need to be rushed or forced--relaxation and timing are key
*for the set, a solid, deep stall (almost to the point of completely freezing the clipper for a split second) is necessary
*visualize the trajectory of your dex foot, especially the first dex
*don't try too hard for the swirl set
*keep the clipper low to the ground
*don't think too much about setting the bag
Cool. I've been working swirls a lot lately too, so maybe I'll try ripsteins as well. Let me know if you come up with any more breakthroughs or tips. I take it you aren't doing them jumpy style, right? Ripstein has been one of the coolest tricks in footbag for so long... good luck to both of us.
We had a session in Osaka yesterday, the first major session this year. Lots of folks showed, which made for a fun time.
It was quite cold so I felt somewhat stiff the whole session. My form felt sloppy too.
TJ, Kenzo, and I kicked for a long time (almost 5 hours). Towards the end of the session, we were trying lots of swirl tricks. Kenzo and TJ hit pdx whirling swirl bs and infinity swirl repeat.
My highlights:
*blender bsos a couple of times
*symple swirl>reverse swirl
*infinity swirl bs
*paradon swirl (a first for me)
I am excited about tomorrow because a professor from India is going to lead a class on--get this--conversational Sanskrit! I've been studying Sanskrit and Pali intensively for the past four years, mostly reading archaic and epic poetry and Buddhist texts. I had heard about conversational Sanskrit, but I didn't know that people actually seriously pursued it. Anyway, it should be lots of fun.
Sanskrit is such a fun language to study. It also gives you probably the best foundation you can get for studying other languages or linguistics. The only thing that bothers me about it though is that it is tied up with so much mystical-shmystical bs. Some say it is a language that was created before the creation of the universe or that the poetry was mystically revealed by the gods. That's like saying that because the music of Bach seems "perfect," it must have been created by God. I wonder why the proponents of this view never seem to realize that they are discrediting the inventiveness and skill of the ancient Sanskrit poets.
Anyway, I had a session today at campus. I felt a bit tired overall but managed to hit some new tricks.
Highlights:
*ripstein! (only on my right side, but very clean and controlled)
*far swirl bs
*clipper>cloud kick>clipper bsos
More thoughts on ripstein:
*the set must be nice and crisp, but not rushed
*solid stall>set by using a slight push off the support foot
*practice lots of midtime normal swirls
*watch posture--stay upright
I forget what station it is...
I hope to visit Japan within the next couple of years as well.