Fanzine

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 25 Apr 2007 14:39

In good news:

-my knee is feeling a lot better. I can do air-shredding without any strange feeling. That said, I'm going to play it safe and lay off footbag til the weekend. I'm also going to come back slowly.

-I did a good chunk of video editing today, and the project is looking good. I'm getting pretty excited about it really. All I need to do now is figure out how to make titles and credits (I'm using Adobe Premiere 1.5) and to pick a song or two for the soundtrack. Maybe I can knock this out by the weekend? In any case, I'm happy that I'm developing some new professional skills thanks to footbag.

The weather in Ithaca has reverted to cold and rainy, which makes me feel a bit better about my injury, cause I feel like I'm missing out on less.

limester816 · Post by **limester816** » 25 Apr 2007 18:16

yea but kobe's gonna give the suns some trouble

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 27 Apr 2007 09:00

Yeah, I kinda figured he'd win a game by himself at some point. It's like when AI was with the sixers and they'd make the playoffs with a low seed. You knew they'd lose the series, but you hoped AI would entertain you by going for 50 in a lone victory. I still am confident the Suns will take it in 5.

I hurt my knee on Sunday, and completely layed off footbag til last night. Yesterday was crazy busy, so I really felt like I earned some footbag. Played with Luis for a while, and really made a point to go easy. I think I hit a total of like 4 pixie sets total for the night (mostly by accident), and one step set, also by accident. But for the most part I just played using downtime components, which was a lot of fun. Really, it just felt good to play again at all. I even got some unexpected highlights.

*flipside reaper, new trick.
*reaper bsos shortly thereafter.
*zooms felt good tonight. One very good zooming dlo.
*barefoot (socks) TATW!

Got it on my second try, which was probably very good because I shouldn't have been doing that motion given my knee. Still, it felt very good and easy. When my knee fully heals up, I'm gonna try and hit TATW barefoot a few more times to help me understand it better, and then give some attempts in shoes. Of my remaining dream moves, this one looks like the most viable.

Had some fun games of air hockey with Luis, and one of my best games of pool, until I scratched on the 8.

funklovesfootbag · Post by **funklovesfootbag** » 27 Apr 2007 13:28

I hurt my knee on Sunday, and completely layed off footbag til last night.

My knees are shot... my right one is kind of popping. Go to the doctor ! I'm making an appt. for mine today.

shredzilla · Post by **shredzilla** » 27 Apr 2007 14:22

Go Lakers

richardabshire · Post by **richardabshire** » 27 Apr 2007 15:08

Stretch out your hips. One is higher than the other which puts uneven pressure on your knees.

janis · Post by **janis** » 27 Apr 2007 17:04

C-Fan wrote:*barefoot (socks) TATW!

props

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 28 Apr 2007 13:13

Whoa, lots of posts.

Played a little footbag yesterday with Nick, but my knee started bothering me. This got me pretty nervous. I'd still like to think it's nothing serious, and just take more time off. In general I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, so I don't want to exaggerate what is probably nothing, but then I read Fletch's post and it got me nervous again.

richardabshire wrote:Stretch out your hips. One is higher than the other which puts uneven pressure on your knees.

Is this a general statement about the human body, or something you noticed that is particular to me? I'll give it a try regardless.

In exciting news, I'm almost completely done with my video. I talked to Dat on gmail chat and he gave me a lot of good tips, so now the thing is almost totally done. I'm just playing with what songs to use, and when I finish that it'll be ready for export.

I hope GRASS is going well. I'm glad I decided not to go, because I know I would have pushed my knee, and I really should be careful about it.

Oh, and the NBA playoffs are pretty exciting this year. Here are some things that I'm excited about:

*Its actually possible that both teams from last year's finals could get cut in the first round!
*The defending champs are down 0-3. No team in NBA history has ever come back to win a series from that deficit. It's actually looking very possible that they'll get swept!
*Kidd is averaging a triple double in a playoff series. The last person to do that? Kidd in 2002. I definitely get inspired by watching old injured athletes continue to play at the top of their game.
*The Mavericks finished the regular season with the best record in the NBA, which was also the 6th best record in NBA history. As such they got the top seed in the west... but are down 2-1 in their series against the 8th seed!

limester816 · Post by **limester816** » 28 Apr 2007 19:31

Yea, man, the Warriors are really kicking it up. It seems like the Mav's don't even know how to deal with this new team, since they've never really seen them play like this. It seems the Warriors have been able to neutralize Nowitzki, to a point.. but Stackhouse is scoring well. I'm goin for Golden State.

Bulls are really lookin great too, really really good. Granted, Wade just came back from an injury, but the Heat are just gettin ripped a new one... imo..

btw, I love bball, so i was compelled to post.

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 29 Apr 2007 15:35

Finally.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 30 Apr 2007 16:18

Loved the Ken Special, Ken -- thanks!
This is the best footage I've seen of you in years

I really liked that 9-some minute one from Japan a couple years back where you did a demo in some shoe store? And the video opened for about 5 minutes with outdoor shred with lots of people... you were doing lots of bothsided ouble downs.
I really liked the consec barflies in your new video! And alpine legbeater > backside fog?? Whoa -- that looked WAY too easy! I wanna hit that trick. Hey, Ken, when did you start freestyling?? I read that someone said you've been playing about a decade, and that would put me right around the same time...
We definately still have to meet some day. I'm hoping to make Worlds this year... That would be rad...

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 02 May 2007 08:57

I feel silly about this, but... I hesitated before making this post, because I liked that my blog had 1111 posts.

Its weird, I like patterns in math and language, but in footbag I never really got into drills (with the slight exception of rubberman). On the nerdy pattern note, a friend of mine recently told me my name anagrams to "Like Monsoons." Pretty cool, but I like my other footbag anagram better.

Shhhh...

Thanks for your post Erik. Did you realize that the "I'm coming for you Jorden!" was an homage to your "coming for you Norek!" video? To answer your question, I first kicked a hacky sack during Easter of 96, and I first saw freestyle footbag on June 28th, 1997. So this summer will mark my 10th anniversary of playing footbag. I don't know what's more surprising to me, the fact that I've been playing so long, or the fact that I'm probably playing at my best level at this point in my career.

So the biggest footbag news lately has been my knee, and the shred video I made. Its strange to me how footbag is such a personal thing for me, and I always try not to care about other people's opinions, but I'm still not immune to props/criticism about my game. When I made my video, i was very consciously making it for myself; I wanted to have a video snapshot of my game that I could watch years from now once I've retired. That said, I posted the video to modified, and hoped people would like it. When they did, it made me very happy. I guess if people hated it I wouldn't care that much, but the fact that it went over well is like a nice bonus.

I played some footbag last night with the club, which was a lot of fun. Pascal and I got there early, so we warmed up with ping pong and I got pumped up. In a very pleasant and unexpected surprise, the people who work at the sports center gave us a couple of free tickets to bowling!

Cool. Apparently, the ping pong ball we bought from them like 4 months ago was part of a special promotion, and they didn't give us the prize back then... OK. Nice surprise.

My knee didn't really bother me at all during the shred, which was a relief. I did one ripwalk and 2 pixie sets total for the whole session, all by accident. Other than that, I stuck to downtime components. That was a fun challenge, because my game is normally pretty shuffle-based. I'm hoping that working my downtime will make me a more complete, varied player. I filmed yesterday's session too, so maybe when finals are over I'll put out another video comprised entirely of downtime tricks.

The only bad part of the session was at the end, when i tried to skool TATW. I had it off my bare foot a few times, but I couldn't hit a good one. In retrospect, it probably wasn't a good idea to try for it on a bad knee. I resolved to lay off TATW until my knee is 100% again. So the plan is to lay off all sets until school is over.

Life is looking up these days. I'm swamped with work, but its all due so soon that I have little choice but to do it; I don't even have time to really worry about it. In other momentous news, it looks like I'll be in Newark NJ for the summer doing an internship.

Dat · Post by **Dat** » 02 May 2007 22:39

Congrats on scoring an internship. I bet that's a relief.

mosher · Post by **mosher** » 03 May 2007 13:39

That pingpong ball bowling ticket combo is pretty absurd, who was their target market?

Glad to hear things are well and your knee is doing better.

I liked your video alot, I don't think I posted that in your video thread.

I feel like maybe I had a dream about you last night.. maybe my head just remembers 'seeing you' in your new video.

Props on the internship! hehe, here comes the Newark footbag scene!

Jdigges · Post by **Jdigges** » 03 May 2007 13:59

Hey Ken, im going to school in Syracuse in the Fall. We'll have to hang out and play some bagfoot sometime.

How much longer are you going to be around Ithacca?

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 03 May 2007 15:39

Thanks for the props on the video Mosher, I put a lot of effort into making it.
I'm glad I appeared in your dream, it means I'm doing more than just studying and writing papers.

Recently everyday feels like 3 packed into one, but at least things like internships and next year's housing are taking shape.

Josh: I'm only going to be at Cornell for one more semester (fall); I intend to go to Washington DC for spring semester. But hey, a little overlap is better than none at all.

Today I captured the footage from last session. I think I need a couple more sessions of exclusively doing downtime tricks in order to tighten up some concepts. Nothing's "the," just that a few things don't look as sharp as they could/should be. Capturing footage was good though, because it gave me a chance to watch my form in slow-mo on tricks I never do on video. Stuff like flip whirling swirl, flip rev swirl, symp whirls, etc. Its weird to see that your flipside is cleaner than strong sometimes...

Tomorrow is a Cornell tradition called "slope day," where the school hosts an outdoor concert and everybody celebrates the end of the school year. Looking forward to playing outside with the club.

Oh and:

C-Fan wrote: I still am confident the Suns will take it in 5.

HG · Post by HG » 03 May 2007 17:18

Have you hit atomic drifter - blur repeat yet?

I challenge you to!

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 04 May 2007 09:29

Considering that I've given up doing any sets until the school year finishes, that drill is going to have to wait for a while. And even if I do start working sets again, that combo is pretty unlikely; I've hit flipside atomic drifter once ever, and I don't know if I've ever played into or out of strong atomic drifter with blur. So don't hold your breath for me to get that combo.

I had a light solo session last night. Actually, that's not really accurate, because it makes it sound like I went out to play footbag, where a more truthful recap would be that I went to the community center to watch the Warriors-Mavs game, and I brought my footbag gear to keep me busy during commercials.

I'm really glad I went out to watch the game, because the last game I saw in the series was one of the most exciting, best NBA playoff games I'd ever seen. This night I was also real aware of the potential for history, as a Warriors victory would be one of the greatest upsets in sports history. I watched the game from start to finish, cheering with a few other students who were rooting for the Warriors, and I got really into the game. I got so tense, that having a footbag to play with during breaks really helped me out. I didn't hit any highlights, but I worked on my breathing and form, had fun, and my knee felt great. Oh, and the Warriors won! So overall, very good session.

I'm off to play some footbag with Pascal on the slope now.

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 05 May 2007 13:25

Slope day was nice and relaxing. I spent the day outside playing footbag and frisbee with friends while having some beer and listening to live bands. A nice relaxing day before finals. For the most part I was good about staying away from sets, but since we weren't playing seriously I snuck in a few shuffle tricks towards the end, and it felt good. I really feel the most enjoyable way to play footbag for me is to mix up downtime and shuffle in roughly equal parts. Doing all shuffle or all downtime is good technical practice, but a little boring. I like the mixups of tempo.

My body is doing well. My knee feels completely recovered, but I'm going to stick to the downtime plan. My right ankle is a little wonky today because I landed on it awkwardly playing frisbee, but I'm confident that it's nothing serious. I'm going to try and focus on school work today and tomorrow, and then play on Monday night.

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 07 May 2007 19:09

Body is feeling great. School is a bit of a beatdown, but I can sort of make out the end of the tunnel. Just need to focus to get there.

A couple days ago I went shopping, and the unthinkable happened: I found a pair of shredshorts that looked good, fit well, and were a fair price.

I didn't even look at a bunch of stores, I just went into a place and *BAM,* there they were. After buying them I really wanted to play, but I waited until tonight's shred. They worked great, but you'll see for yourself eventually, because Pascal filmed the session. I got a lot of really good advice on videomaking and feedback from my last video from Dat, so this time around I tried to apply as much of that as possible to shooting.

I kinda figured that I won't have many chances to film before school ends, so I dropped my ban on sets and just played normally today. It felt really good. I stayed away from furious and symposium stuff, but just doing the basic atomic/stepping/pixie stuff didn't hurt at all. I missed doing those sets. We got some funny footage, some beautiful outdoor shots, and a few good strings. Everything handheld this time, and better visual variety too. I already captured today's stuff, and we pretty much have enough already to make another vid, but I want to film one more session. My last vid was made from 2 sessions; I think 2 sessions gives you enough good shred and visual variety to make a decent video.

Highlights that won't be on the video:

*29 drifters, new record!

*uh... just playing with sets again in general felt great. Whatever, you'll see the footage on my next vid.

Lowlights:
*kicking myself in the nuts a few times while trying for paradon swirl-barfly swirl.

That's a really tough combo...