Begin Phase 1 again

[Iron Clad Ben]

Good morning footblog,

Friday 6/15 0.5 hours
Total hours played in 2007: 139.25 hours
Total hours played in June 2007: 9.75 hours
Worked on: basics

Short session just to stay sharp. Hit a bunch of DLOs and pdx egg again. Part of my "play every day" regimen, if only for 30 minutes.


My quads are sore today (Sunday). This hasn't happened in ages. I had a GREAT SESSION yesterday.

Well as you know I posted a new video:
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=16539
Go and check it out and leave me a comment. I was fortunate enough to have the Cleaver leave me some really good advice on my form. I used it yesterday in a session and... WOW it helped way more than I thought it would.

Here are the main things I worked on as far as form yesterday
don't be flat-footed on clippers/butterflies
really delay the bag more on every contact, especially butterflies
turn hips more on infinities

This helped tremendously. I think 3rd or 4th run of the session I hit a 25+ contact epic run with DLO BSOR, a ducking clipper, a couple osii and a bunch of infinities. Cody said that the cars that drove by 3 of them had people inside that were watching me, and one honked the horn. I was so engrossed in the run, I was like in my own little world and didn't even notice.

Saturday 6/16 3.75 hours
Total hours played in 2007: 143 hours
Total hours played in June 2007: 13.5 hours
Worked on: FORM

Best session I've had in a while. I should point out that I didn't bring the mats this time. This session was on CONCRETE baby and guess what no shin splints!!

Highlights
19 infinties first try, #20 rolled off. New personal best.
Infinity x 2 > Ducking Clip [RPT] twice, once starting on each side. That combo was so awesome, I can rarely duck out of butter/infinity, especially on flipside, but with my new improved form, it was much easier.
Both PDX DLOs fairly easily. BSOS coming soon.
PDX egg again, insanely close on flip a few times
Stomping DLO? Not sure if my stomp was completely legit, but cool move, I think I'll practice this some more.
A few drifters I actually hit a couple into a run.
flip stepping finally coming back, just need to skool it

Cody had a great session too... what do I remember? PS whirl > spinning osis. Gyro DLO. Pixie ss DLO b2b first try... lots of spinning. Good stuff he played really well.

The main thing was that this session several of my "stretch" moves that I can some times hit mid run felt MUCH easier this time and I was able to throw them in mid-run with no trouble: ducking clipper, pdx illusion, toe DLO (strong side only) and infinity which has gone from stretch move to outright bail with Claven's advice.

One added huge bonus was that these tips really helped prevent shin splints. I played on stone for 4 hours and had some slight tingling but no real pain. I must have been doing something different because today my quads hurt, which almost never happens. I must have been absorbing the impact with them much more.

Well anyways for some reason I thought I'd have much to say but I don't. Lazy Sunday. If my legs feel better tonight maybe I'll have a short solo session, but right now I'm trying to avoid doing anything more than walking on them. Just happy it's not the shins that are hurting. Quad pain is good, it means the muscle is getting stronger.

[janis]

nice stuff, great to hear your form is getting better.
sounds like your DLO's are getting quite good a challenge is to hit toe DLO and clipper DLO bsos, then toe/near/pdx dlo all bsos.

make sure to stretch your quads.

[Pyroman924]

The video rocked man. But as David said, you need to cushion more. It's no wonder your shins hurt. Your knee dips slightly but far from what it should. Try dipping to where your shin and thigh make a 45 degree angle. I think that will help enormously for your form and your shins.
But other than that you looked superb man. Eggbeaters and Double Legovers were super smooth.

What I want you to do though is make a short 30 secondish video of how you are attempting Whirl. And I want to see your attempts at both sides. If I know how you look doing them I can help you so much more than just making a tutorial. ^_^ Do that soon though, I leave for Michigan on the 21st and won't be back until next Monday. Sweetness man.

Keep it up!

[Iron Clad Ben]

What up playahatas? I always want to say that to people but I never do. It sounds good in my head but actually verbalizing it probably sounds really stupid.

Well that session on Saturday was freakin' awesome, but 4 hours on concrete even with using better form beat up my shins. I've been trying to play this week but it's been tough.

2007 WK25 3.00 hours
Total hours played in 2007: 146 hours
Total hours played in June 2007: 16.5 hours
Worked on: Basix

A few short sesions through the week. Not much to report. PDX DLOs are getting easier. I should really drill stepping set and go for Fog. I was getting pretty close to bedwetter a while back. Either one of those would be a sweet sick1 for online compz. It's been frustrating, I was at such a peak last Saturday and I want to get all that back and play as well as I was playing that day but it's just not happening. I drilled pixies a little, really working on setting THEN dexing. If I just put time into flip I'm sure it would be decent and strong could get really good, but meh, don't care enough. Emailed with a guy who just signed up on footbag.org and he seems pretty interested. He's planning on coming to a session next wk.

The main thing I'm dealing with right now is complacency. Ever since I bought the house I've kinda felt like I've peaked, like there isn't much more to accomplish. I've gotten really lazy. I hit my big accomplishment and now it's like I couldn't care less about anything. Most days I come home and spend it on the computer dicking around with games or online poker. My doggie is fun to play with. I have very little motivation now. Footbag would happen more if the shins were feeling better. Also, I've fallen off the wagon with caffeine, typically drinking 1-2 20oz. bottles of Vault per day. It tastes sooo good but I'm absolutely positive it's doing terrible things to my body.

I really feel apathetic these days. Part of me wishes I didn't but a bigger part of me just doesn't care.

I asked Clavens to make me a bag. Should be pretty sweet when that comes through.

Got the whole weekend open. World is my oyster. No idea what I'll be doing. EOS is playing tonight I think, maybe I can drag the gf out to the show.

TTYL hackyland

2B

[Zac Miley]

Vault has no caffeine, I don't think. It's so good.

[dp]

Vault has 70 mg of caffeine per 12 oz.

[Zac Miley]

Oh. K.

I thought I remembered having some a while back and realizing it had no caffeine.

Oh well. Don't drink it.

[Mathochist]

I think your complacency isn't necessarily a bad thing. Think of it as a temporary plateau. I mean you're clearly still playing a good deal, Mr. Hourlogger. You're hitting cool stuff; you're ironing out kinks in basics. I think mostly you're having fun. That's important. I'd rather hear reports of complacency than reports that 9 hours of drills per day isn't putting you at the level you think you should be (which, I know, isn't your type of attitude.) I may be way off on this, as I'm just conjecturing based on what of your blog I've read and what I've observed of you in person, but I think I have a point. So rock on! Or coast on! Just keep kicking, brutha. -R.

[Mathochist]

Edit: oops, accidental double post.

[Iron Clad Ben]

What uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup bootflog

2007 WK26 thru 6/27 4.5 hours
Total hours played in 2007: 150.5 hours
Total hours played in June 2007: 21 hours
Worked on: Guiltless links, ducking, ducking out of butterfly, clipper form

So I've been shredding a little bit here and there every other day. Honestly some pretty crappy sessions. I did almost get eggbeater and DLO BSOS in the same run the other day, just dropped on flip eggbeater, which isn't surprising. Shin splints slowly winding down, which is nice.

I made another form breakthrough on butterflies and clippers a couple nights ago. In addition to delaying the bag a little longer ala Clavens' advice I've been opening my hips up to the bag, and turning into my clippers more. That's the best way of describing it. I do it unconsciously a lot of the time, but a lot of the time I also don't do it, and that is when I usually drop or bail to a 2. What I do now is I kinda of angle myself towards the bag a little bit more which opens me up to bag more and make clippers easier to spot, land and play out of. As such, I can now duck out of butterfly both sides, which is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I'm not sure if that's an accurate description of what I'm doing, but kinesthetically my body is starting to grasp this method.

I've realized in the past couple years that visual and kinesthetic are my primary channels, and auditory is actually pretty bad, because I don't read much and I don't have an ear for music (I just like what I like). I thought that just by being naturally smart I was good at all channels, but I'm really not. I didn't think I was as kinesthetic as I am, but I realize I am more and more. It's nice. Did that make any sense?

I've also realized in the past month or so that I can be very antisocial fairly often. I often blow people off or act unfriendly without realizing it. I try to be friendly when I can, but sometimes I'm just not up to it. So I'm working on that too.

Anyway, I had a session with Cody last night. I was in the ZONE. Playing out of osis was cake (I even hit osis x 2 mid run, I NEVER do that), toe and near DLOs were no problem, eggbeater mid run like it was nothing, ducking was feeling good... it felt great... too bad it had to be cut short! Yeah I had an overseas conference call with Singapore that night (they're 13 hours ahead) to take care of some work bullshiz. It was good career wise cuz I'm kinda the hero at work now, but it sucked, because I was having such an awesome session. Adult responsibilities... ugh. Ooh one more cool highlight is that I hit a really thin barrage.

So we are going to have another session tonight at my new place. I'm pumped! I plan on filming my whirl video and also shooting for online comps. Also, session at Frankenbike this Saturday. A few people who answered my craigslist ad should be showing up, PLUS the guy who runs Frankenbike said that there is a contingent of hackers who show up there pretty frequently now. GOOD! Then tubing on the river that night, a hike Sunday. Then I have 3 days off next week for vacation, going to the waterpark and going camping. WOohoO!

2B

[Pyroman924]

Awesome man. Thanks for the drills. I'll see if I can get them in my video. Props on the form tweaking too man. In addition to Whirls I want to see how your Dynos are. It's kind of my thing. Haha. Anyways keep it up man. Hope your upcoming week is as fun as it sounds.

[HG]

It's cool that you took dave's advice and are stoked about it, but i feel like myself (maybe not me.. actually) and others told you about your form from past videos. maybe people just dont listen unless its some BAP calibur player? Cause i'm sure you heard some of that stuff before.

[Iron Clad Ben]

It's cool that you took dave's advice and are stoked about it, but i feel like myself (maybe not me.. actually) and others told you about your form from past videos. maybe people just dont listen unless its some BAP calibur player? Cause i'm sure you heard some of that stuff before.

Henry I understand what you're saying. I've asked for and been given a lot of advice in my time here on modified. Some of it good, some of it bad, some of it extremely vague (and therefore useless) and some of it very helpful.

Jorden gave me similar advice on my form as well based on my previous video, but it didn't help much. I wasn't really able to understand what he was getting at. It was really that David was able to articulate it very well, I understood it well. Just because someone's an expert on something, doesn't mean that they can teach it well... and usually IME on modified, Jorden is a better teacher than David... somehow David's advice just made the most sense out of advice I've been given.

Having tutored math, physics and chemistry for a few years in college, I realize that people have different learning styles. You have to target your teaching to be in line with your student's learning style in order to really help them understand the information. This is a subtle concept and I don't expect anyone on here to be doing that. But when they do it, usually pretty much by accident, that is when they are going to be the most helpful to the particular person they are giving advice to.

What can I say, the way David explained it made the most sense to me. I pretty much TRY everyone's advice that I get, it just happens that David's worked for me... and I'm thinking it was the way he articulated it, it made sense to me. Someone could give me advice, and I could interpret it WRONG, and then go try to apply it and have it not work. That's really no one's fault, just a misunderstanding of abstract concepts that are often difficult to articulate over an internet forum, rather than showing somebody something in person (which is why tournaments are so great, and people like Toolan and Zeb progress so much under the direct tutelage of Clavens and Penske repsectively).

Well I hope I didn't sound like a total dooshbag back there... I see what you're saying Henry, and I can understand where you're coming from but I just wanted to point out that it wasn't quite the case.

I could use some help on another concept. WHIRL. I posted a video in the whirl topic of the Trick Tips section. Please check it out and if you think you have some good ideas for helping me, let me have them.
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=5568

Thursday 6/28 2.0 hours
Total hours played in 2007: 152.5 hours
Total hours played in June 2007: 23 hours
Worked on: ducking, mostly just shredding

Cody came by my place and we had a pretty decent session. I never got back to that zone I was in on Wednesday but I still played pretty decent. Just for fun I took a stab at Fog and got SUPER close, like it cleared the 3 dexes but it just kinda grazed my legover foot. Cody, to his own astonishment ended up hitting it after a few tries. It was definitely a high five moment.

Highlights
Ducking Butterfly BSOR, fairly easily actually
A few mid run eggbeaters on strong side. YaY
A whole shit-ton of DLOs and ducking clippers BSOS
Footed spinning-ducking clipper and spinning-ducking osis a couple times.

I kind of figured out what I was doing wrong on spinning-ducking. I was continuing to spin after I ducked, so I ended up over-rotating and the bag kept hitting my far shoulder. Now, it's actually easier since I don't have to spin as much, and I bet if I drill it I will be hitting stuff out of it both sides pretty soon. Pumped!! Such a cool concept

I'm getting flip stepping back, hooray! I managed a flip blur. I get the set pretty high actually, I just feel kinda goofy coming out of it. Gotta school this next solo session.

[BenRea]

Ducking Butterfly BSOR, fairly easily actually

funny, when i hit that for the first time too it felt odly easy, i was very surprised. i like to do it now...it looks impressive.


nice session

[Iron Clad Ben]

Dear footblog,
Pretty rough session on Saturday. It had to be 100 degrees out, with 100% relative humidity. I don't think I've ever sweat that much in my life. After 20 minutes my shirt was completely soaked. I could actually wring the sweat out at the end of the session. It was pretty gnarly.

Saturday 6/30 3.5 hours
Total hours played in 2007: 156 hours
Total hours played in June 2007: 26.5 hours
Worked on: throwing ducking into strings more

Played alright. Had some pretty good long strings, but the heat was absolutely killer. We were like on this wooden stage underneath a canopy which was low impact, but trapping in the heat. I didn't hit anything of real note, but it was an OK session. Spinning set and osis were not cooperating, but I did get a good foot of spinning ducking clipper.

I made a challenge page for Cody. If you read my blog, go visit it and challenge him. He needs some new ideas of links to try.

Anyways, gotta run but I know I need to make a list of what to work on for solo sessions this week:

Things I need to school during solo sessions this week:
Drifter attempts. 30 each side. (expect to hit some)
Whirl attempts. 30 each side. (soo close here)
Clippers. 100, triforce style or however, just hit 100 clippers
Ducking clippers. 50. Focus on letting the bag DIE.
SYMPLE LEGOVERS 4 b2b, symple leg > ss symple leg RPT
Flip eggbeater!! 20 attempts (expect to hit some)
Flip stepping 15 flip blur attempts, 15 flip ripwalk attempts
Toe SS Butter > Bubba RPT. first 8 contacts, then 16. After this, bubbabeaters will be CREAM CHEESE.
STRETCHES. Yes, stretches must be done, before and after.

[janis]

disclaimer: my advice on whirls may not be the best.

I apologise if you don't want advice in your blog

practicing near pickup/ double pickup helped my whirls, also I always try to gain as much time as possible for the dex, by that I mean start going for the whirl dex as quickly as possible. You really want to be dexing the bag as the bag is peaking. So start your dexing leg moving upwards as you set the bag by using the supporting leg(dexing leg) to generate some of the power for the set. I notice that you often have a delay between setting from clipper and the next dex. IMO for moves like whirl (near mirage/barrage/pickup/etc) less delay is better.

[Pyroman924]

Hey man, my comments on your Whirl video are in the Trick Tips forum so yeah. Janis is right, less delay. Go read my tips and try them out.

[Iron Clad Ben]

Wow, I really don't post in here as much as I used to. I'm trying to cut down on TV and computer time. I'm also trying to be healthier. I've quit soda again for the like the jillionth time. I'm on day 3 and I've got a headache. However other than I've found a way to make the cravings go away. Hopefully this will help mitigate the shin splints, because they've sorta come back.

I got a Clavens bag the other day. It's pretty sweet. I've still been playing fairly regularly, but mostly short sessions. The dead heat of summer in Texas can get pretty rough for shredding.

First week and a half of July ~8.5hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 164.5hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 8.5 hrs
Worked on: basics. whirl attempts. atomic attempts.

Some interesting shit I've hit recently in the tiltless/BOP department:
Butter > Mirage > Legover > RPT x 10
Clipper > Pickup > Mirage > Illusion > Legover > RPT x 4
SS Butter > Infinity > PDX Mirage RPT x 2
SS Butter > Bubba > RPT x 3

Hitting more stuff out of osis consistently, still feel like I have a ways to go.

Other crap... flip toe DLO mid run out of nowhere was cool last weekend. Oohh flip stepping is kinda coming back, I hit flip ripwalk into a run and nearly BSOSed it. Flip blur isn't so hard anymore. I hit a bunch of Taps both sides, but atomsmasher and legbeater just seem impossible. Almost like tapping DLO would be easier. I need to try that!

For some reason a lot of times I'm all psyched to play solo, but then as soon as I start warming up I get upset and frustrated. Like I want to take some time off, but stronger still I want to play. Not sure what the hell is going on.

I feel like new-tricks wise I haven't progressed in ages. I guess an unconsious goal I've had is to be able to hit 20 BOPs on command, but I'm more in the ~10 range atm and very little of it is osis.

I also feel like I post in here about stuff I need to work on, and then never get to it in a session I need to be schooling more but I'm limited by my shins right now.

Worlds is just around the corner. I'd like to do a routine but who am I kidding. I'm no good at that creative dancy shit. I'll do shred 30, my goal is to break 100 and hopefully with all the BOP schooling I'm doing I'll be able to do it.

Session tonight with the Codeman. Also, possible session this weekend with Jose and Cody and maybe Mike and some other semi-footbag-retired peeps, in which case, VIDEO!

2B

EDIT: Cuz I know y'all were wonderin', I have been working on whirls. I am very close and flip is catching up to strong in terms of closeness. The advice about starting the dex earlier and keeping it more away from my body and behind me has helped. No footings yet, but I definitely feel I'm getting closer. There is finally hope... thank you guys.

[Pyroman924]

Awesome man. Didn't know you had done Atomics yet. Tapdown is a good moves after Tap. Then go for Legbeaters. And glad to hear the Whirl advice has helped. Let me know if you have any more troubles.

[Kljopa]

For some reason a lot of times I'm all psyched to play solo, but then as soon as I start warming up I get upset and frustrated. Like I want to take some time off, but stronger still I want to play. Not sure what the hell is going on.

I feel like this sometime too...

Props on the long tiltless/bop drills.


You could do a routine with the tiltless stuff.Just try it, its fun!