Begin Phase 1 again

[Reid]

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.

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.

.

When my shins are bothering me I work on cross body rake. Not quite the impact as whirl or atomic, and a good concept. You should try them. Also if you have a strong clipper, maybe start working on back spinning(normal spin.) Low impact as well, a very usefull move, but also in my opinion the most frustrating to learn.

[freestyler4life]

When my shins are bothering me I work on cross body rake.

yes, a very good idea, Ive started doing this recently when I'm bored and barefoot

[Iron Clad Ben]

Interesting advice. My spins are off and on, so yeah that might be a good idea to school them then. I've never been able to do xbd rakes and never really considered learning them. Thanks for the suggestion, I'm gonna hafta read up on them, I tried 1 or 2 last night and they seemed really foreign.

Wednesday 7/11 2.5hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 167 hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 11 hrs
Worked on: ducking, BOP runs, skooling n00bs

Highlights:
Ducking Butterfly BSOS again. Yeah son!
Ducking Clip > DLO mid run was pretty hawt
A ~15-BOP run, no guilts, I was pretty stroked
A few gooood looks atomsmasher but no dice
Flip ripwalk again, 3rd ever I think.

Cody attempted some sixes just for shits and giggles, got pretty close to spender and whirlwind. He also tried food and gig, but wasn't anywhere close. He was still hitting some pretty sweet shuffle.

About halfway through the session a group of 3 guys walked up. They said "we heard you guys play hackysack here" and so we asked "yeah that's true, how did you find that out?". Apparently one of their moms plays tennis there often and said there are people playing hack on Wednesday nights. They could so some stuff like osis, atw, pendulum, one of them could do mirage landing on an inside. Partway through one of them was like "man we thought we would show up and school you guys, but you totally schooled us!". One guy was really blown away by Cody's drifters. I also made him show them TATW and ripstein, which both went over huge. My ducking was a hit, the bsor ducking butter was in a circle with them. We just sorta kicked in a circle, they would do short runs of their hacker shiz and Cody and I would shred.

They were humbled, but at the same time stoked to learn from us which is awesome. I love serendipity like that. I've met people at sessions before showing various degrees of interest. These guys were definitely the most interested I've seen. I think it was because they thought they were pro's but now realize there's much more possible than they had thought. So I really think there's a good chance they will come back to sessions and be regulars. They definitely wanted to learn. The only thing was they seemed resistant to abandoning their giant ass crotchet hack and skate shoes. I'm sure eventually they'll get over that It will be awesome to have 3 new regulars I gave them my little fliers with flipsider.com and some other shiz. They were stroked to find out we had a myspace group.

Anyways, that really made me happy! I want to shred again tonight if possible. My clavens bag is off the fucking heezy good. It's basically already broken in, maybe it was the 9 days it took getting slopped around in the US mail. When he stitched and shipped it to me he was the standing US Champ, but by the time I got it, Penske had taken the title for 2007.

p.s. I was planning to practice whirls that session, but after those dudes showed up I had to focus on doing runs of stuff I could so I wasn't the show-off d-bag who was dropping every 5 seconds. I will work on whirls tonight if I can.

[Iron Clad Ben]

What uuuuuuuuuuup footblog. So I've been playing a lot lately. That is good.

Texas heat is getting pretty ridiculous. Playing footbag in 90 deg F weather (32 deg C) with 95% relative humidity gets pretty taxing. Plus you sweat like a bitch. I'm averaging about 75oz/hr water consumption (that's about 2.21L for you metric folks). Camelpak is one of the greatest inventions ever.

Saturday 7/14 2.5hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 169.5 hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 13.5 hrs
Worked on: flip stepping

Played around town. Met a guy named David originally from Berlin who used to play. He was in town on vacation and played with me for a little bit. He was busting some BOPs and dragons in jeans and sambas. Pretty sweet. Also met a guy who was just a hacker. I saw him doing some toe stalls with a juice so I went up and said hey. He said he wanted to get into it more cuz he needed the exercise. I gave him a flyer for the club and he seemed pretty stroked. Also I let him try out of my Mr. Sandbags and he loved it. Hopefully he makes it out to a session some day.

Shred highlights: some more 10-ish contact BOP runs, also a couple 15-ish contact BOP runs. Around 40 tiltless warming up. DLO BSOS + Eggbeater in the same run was tight. Lots of mid string ducking clippers out of butterfly both sides, but most of them bailed to some weak ass 2, like pickup or mirage.

Sunday 7/15 1.75hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 171.25 hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 15.25 hrs
Worked on: BOPs, ducking, OSIS

Decent solo session in my driveway. Got the super-BOP drill from Zeb Jackson and started working on some of its links. I think I can hit it before worlds.

Highlights:
Osis x 8
SS Butter > Osis > RPT a couple times
SS Butter > Infinity > PDX Mirage > RPT getting easier
Butter > PDX Mirage > Toe DLO > RPT hahaha yes! Toe DLOs getting easier
Butter > Spinning Clip > PDX Mirage BS. I should try to repeat that... won't be easy
Butter > Infinity > DLO > RPT not new, but I need to try to hit multiple repeats of this one
Ducking Clip > Osis > Infinity > RPT. YES! This one felt awesome. I need to hit it some more.
Smear > PLO > PLO> run WTF?>??? Flip pixie? I'll take it.

I want to shred again today. Hey, maybe I'll work on whirls.

Life news shiz: so I've been given a special project by my boss' boss to travel to a few places and train some people on some shiz. Stops include Irvine, CA, Santa Clara, CA, and Taiwan. I definitely want to shred with some people in California if I can... Santa Cruz??!? Taiwan should be cool, I hope. I put in an expedited request for a passport and the company is paying for it. I'm pretty stroked. My boss' boss says that if it all goes well, and there's good feedback from the people I worked with and trained, that there could be a promotion in it for me by the fall. Tiiiight.

[Kljopa]

Props on the ducking drill and osisx8!

Soon you'll master osis.


Mmm have you ever tryed reverse whirls?

[freestyler4life]

Texas heat is getting pretty ridiculous. Playing footbag in 90 deg F weather (32 deg C) with 95% relative humidity gets pretty taxing. Plus you sweat like a bitch. I'm averaging about 75oz/hr water consumption (that's about 2.21L for you metric folks). Camelpak is one of the greatest inventions ever.

I don't know how you do it man, I mean, oklahoma's is pretty hot and humid, but when I was in houston about three years ago, the heat index was over 110, the humidity there about killed me just walking outside for 5 minutes......Maybe this way you will be one of the few that can take the heat at worlds

[Iron Clad Ben]

Houston is generally worse than Austin. All the pollution there traps in the heat and humdity Pretty gnarly over there.

The main thing is, when you want to play really bad, not a lot can hold you back even if it's hot as hell or cold as Winninpeg outside. I'd like to think if I was in temperate weather I'd be totally killing it. I remember going to the US Open in Portland last summer and feeling like I had way more endurance than normal. My run length improved somewhat. When I got back I didn't play as well and I was pissed, I bet the heat had something to do with it. It's like those Kenyan's who run marathons at 2 miles of elevation where the air is thin and then come to the US and just pwn everyone in marathons here... but less so, I'm no Kenyan marathon runner when it comes to footbag.

Had a session yesterday. Just had to play. It was about 7pm when I started and slightly overcast so the heat wasn't nearly as much of a factor. Nothing big to report, but it wasn't a bad session either.

Monday 7/16 0.75hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 172 hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 16 hrs
Worked on: BOP till you drop!

Highlights:
11 contacts of the Super BOP drill. I'll get the rest of it soon.
Butter > Infinity > Osis > PDX mirage > RPT but no, off balance out of the last osis couldn't finish the combo
Osis x 6. Dang it. Couldn't beat yesterday's record.
One 17 contact BOP run, only 1 osis in it though.
Osis > Ducking clip mid run, I ducked out of osis!
15 infinities. Not my best, but this is getting more consistent.
Crispy DLO BSOR. Hit it first time ever on a flip as bail for flip ripwalk and then was like "what the hell!" and hit it BSOS. I was stroked.

Thoughts on osis. Last year Ben Skaggs told me the most important thing about osis: "osis is just a clipper." I just hated the move too damn much at the time to school it. Sooo true though, I'm glad I remembered that. The main thing I am work on now is really bending my support leg on the trick more and slowwwwing it down.

BTW the Super BOP drill in case you were wondering:
SS Butter > Osis > PDX Mirage >RPT > Butter > PDX Mirage >RPT > SS Butter > Infinity >RPT > Osis > SS Butter >RPT

The only hard part for me will be the last part, since ss butters and osii are my weakest BOPs.

I don't know why I am suddenly enamored with schooling BOPs. I used to hate them. I guess I was just getting sick of my 2-ADD bails. I was never in a hurry to get guiltless. But my infinities and osii needed work so I started schooling. PDX mirage was my first 3, I can do that one in my sleep. I feel like once I finally get BOPs solid and can hit all the stuff like 50 infinities, 50 osii, etc. on command I can really move to other concepts like double downs, torques etc. Also, all the butterfly/clipper work will definitely improve my stepping set. Guiltless? Ok whatever, I just want to get more consistent.

Worlds is so close. I am on the fence about whether to do routines or not. I hate choreography.

I need to get my ass in gear on finalizing the TX tournament.

Session Wednesday. Hopefully some of the new ppl show up!!!

I feel like I am forgetting something

[Iron Clad Ben]

Played 4 days in a row now. But there is no way in hell I'm playing today, shins are to' up!

Tuesday 7/17 1 hr
Total hours played in 2007: 173 hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 17 hrs
Worked on: Guiltless links, osis

Filmed but didn't play so hot. I think it was the camera. I always screw up on camera. I have a ton of footage of me dropping the last some contact on some sweet drills. I may just make a vid and call it "busted drills". Keep an eye out for it.

It was just good to get out there for a 3rd day in a row.


Wednesday 7/18 2 hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 175 hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 19 hrs
Worked on: just shredding

Session with Cody. I didn't play too well, kinda sore from 3 days previous shredding. I hit a bunch of BOPs and some DLOs. Had to tone it down to just tiltless mid way through the session cuz I was just worn out. Cody was killing it though.

Cody highlights:
Toe set whirling swirl
Dimwalk > PDX DLO > RPT
Toe Blur mid run all over the place
Some eggbeaters and a gyro DLO
Footed Pixie Paradon (dimmiest) to end a run.
Tons of paradons BS
Smoke a couple times
Flail and PDX Flail in the same run
Way less guilts than usual!!!!

And of course that was all barefoot as always. Check out his challenge thread and give him some challenges.

I need to take a couple days off. My shins hurt this morning. That ain't good. Couple of concerts coming up tonight and tomorrow night that I'm pretty stroked about.

Peace out

-Iron Clad

[Iron Clad Ben]

Took a couple days off. My legs needed it. Yesterday I edited some footage of my session from earlier in the week when I dropped on the last contact of a bunch of drills.

Check it out and leave me a comment here
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=16773

Saturday 7/21 3 hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 178 hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 22 hrs
Worked on: just shredding

Session with Cody again. It was good weather for shredding, overcast not too hot. I still sweated like a mofo though.

I was mainly just doing guiltless links again.

Main highlight was I uber-sealed that drill that was giving me trouble in the video:
Butter > PDX Mirage > DLO > RPT > Butter > PDX Mirage > RPT x 2
Butter > PDX Mirage > Eggbeater > RPT... kinda, reeeally good footing of the last eggbeater, but no dice
SS Butter > Infinity > PDX Illusion > RPT
Butter > DLO > Symp Pixie > RPT... but fumbled the last contact
Infinity > SS Butter > RPT 12 contacts. I think that was a challenge I had. Pwnd my video where I couldn't get more than 3.

Eggbeaters were feeling back on which was nice. I need to incorporate them into drills so that I stop bailing to something weak like mirage after them. Got really close to BSOS a bunch of times, but no dice. Spinning/ducking were pretty crappy today.

Mock Sick 1 practice 1st try:
-Drop (Symp mirage attempt, was supposed to be my safety trick)
-Ripwalk (sketchy, but hit)
-Drop (spinning butter attempt)
-Ducking Butter
-Drop (spinning osis attempt)

2nd try:
-Symp mirage (safety trick)
-Drop (ripwalk attempt)
-Ripwalk
-Drop (spinning butter attempt)
-Ducking Butter

Cody played really well. His runs are getting much more guiltless. Shuffle was really on. Smog > Pixie Whirl > Mobius [footed] was tight. Also footed Predator a few times, I'm sure he'll hit that soon. Hit Vortex at least twice and really close on flip. Double downs were looking solid, footed blurriest and scorpions again. A bunch of good runs, but I can't really remember details.

***

My dog just barfed all over the floor. I just spent the last 10 minutes cleaning it up. I'm really tired, bedtime now

[Pyroman924]

Fucking hit Whirl. Or I'll come down there and barf on your floor until you hit it. That's right, I went there.

[Iron Clad Ben]

Fucking hit Whirl. Or I'll come down there and barf on your floor until you hit it. That's right, I went there.

Not yet, but I did hit TORQUE the other day

2007 WK30 various sessions 7hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 185 hrs
Total hours played in July 2007: 29 hrs
Worked on: various stuff

Don't feel like writing a big long blog entry. Every day has been either rainy or really hot.

Highlights:
New Tricks: Flip Smear, Torque
44 tiltless warming up once
13 "unique" guiltless: Toe SS Butter > Infinity > SS Butter > PDX Illusion >> Butter > PDX Mirage > Osis > drop on flip osis
A bunch of 25+ tiltless/BOP runs
Spinning Clip and Ducking BSOR in the same run
Ripwalk BSOR, flip stepping getting better

Sick 1 practice today:
1-Eggbeater
2-Ripwalk
3-Ducking PDX Mirage
4-Spinning Osis
5-Parkwalk

Five for Five!~

Really close but no cigar on: Flip Torque, Flip DATW, Paradon BS. I came really close on paradons today, makes me want to give them another shot some time soon.

Work was really busy last week, will probably be busy again this coming week.

[BenRea]

44 tiltless warming up once

were there lots of repeats?

i find that when im going for tilt record i repeat sooo many things like... clip>osis>pickup and probably do that about 5 times over for a link to be 'unique' for me i need to think about it in my head first but i just cant do that for like 30+ contacts so i end up repeating.

nuff uh my ramblins.

Props.

-BR


oh yea, P.S.- even though parkwalk is a 5 i think spinning osis would win over it because it has more style. just a thought.

[Zac Miley]

Parkwalk is a 4 Ben.

He just hit parkwalk on his 5th attempt, and spinning osis on his 4th.

[Kljopa]

Props on torque

[janis]

mega props for hitting torque

[freestyler4life]

Props on torque

Yeah, seriously, now teach me lol

[Iron Clad Ben]

I hit Atomsmasher today

I can't remember ever being stroked about hitting a new trick. But it was just so deep and effortless, it felt fantastic.

Mid session I just decided to give atomic some more attempts. I focused on planting my dex leg ASAP after dexing. It helped tremendously. That and keeping the bag close to my body. I footed it about 6 times during the session. Next time I'm going to give it some shots on flip.

2007 WK31 various sessions 5hrs
Total hours played in 2007: 190 hrs
Total hours played in August 2007: 5 hrs
Worked on: various stuff

Picked out a routine song finally. It's gonna be pretty good. Got some good cues for fliers, they are harder mid shred than I thought. I'm not really that prepared. I should have some time this week to practice some more.

Got a skeleton for a shred 30 put together, but there are so many butterflies, my add ratio will suffer. The goal is just to break 100 which I think is pretty possible.

Stepping is coming along. Hit some ripwalks, blurs and blizzards both sides today. Spinning was teh suck. I hit one spinning clipper on flipside and just a merkon on strong. Ducking could be better, flipside has lost practice.

Body is feeling good. Shin splints aren't really an issue. A little sore after today's session, but that was probably because atomic was using muscles I don't really use a lot.

Really happy about worlds coming up. Not just for footbag. I really need a vacation from work. It'll also be good to get out of Austin for a while. I definitely need some time to clear my ahead and get away for a while. This will be perfect. Really looking forward to seeing and shredding with everyone.

Take care

2B

[Iron Clad Ben]

GREAT session tonight w00t! I wasn't even really planning on playing footbag tonight either.

Cody came over to learn how to drive manual transmission, so we could split the driving for worlds. He picked it up very quickly, I was impressed. A few lurches during shifts, but zero stalls. I feel a little better knowing it will be no problem for him to drive part of the way.

Of course afterwards we just had to have a session. I was jonzin' to hit Atomsmasher again and I could tell he wanted to shred too.

Monday 8/6 1.5 hours
Total hours played in 2007: 191.5 hrs
Total hours played in August 2007: 6.5hrs
Worked on: ducks, atomics

Atomsmasher, like 2nd try. Score!
Butter > Ducking PDX Mirage > RPT ...wanted that one for a long time.
One really solid run with a ripwalk, a ducking butterfly, osis BS, PDX Illusion BS, ducking PDX mirage and only 2 guilts. Dropped on flip ducking pdx mirage.
Bubbabeater and Eggbeater in the same run on different sides Technically eggbeater BSOS.
A few ducking butterflies on each side. That is getting easier. Flip ducking is catching up. Werd.
Butter > Infinity > Osis > PDX Mirage > RPT >> SS Butter > Infinity > PDX Mirage > RPT. BOPS FTW

Spinning is in the lost and found somewhere. Maybe it will show up at worlds. That's ok though. Having a lot of fun with ducks.

Tried some flip atomic but that shit is hard! I applied the same principle to quantum that I was doing for atomic, i.e. working on planting the dex leg as soon as possible. I footed toe blur! I also cleared the dexes on flipside but missed the bag. Quantum is so doable! I will try to hit some quantum stuff BS before worlds. Forcing myself to plant my dex leg immediately forces the dex to be controlled and compact. I love how this stuff just started clicking all of a sudden!

WORLDS IS SO CLOSE! I try not to think about it because I want to be able to sleep at night. See y'all real soon

[DaGoodSmoke]

Dang Ben, sounds like you have been working on your game a lot this summer. i should be back in TX when you guys get back from worlds, cant wait to shred again. -Peace-

[Iron Clad Ben]

Worlds was dope. I can't even possibly begin to recollect all the awesome times there. I uploaded all my pictures already, the ones that I took. The link is in my sig at the moment.

-Picking up Luis and Ken from the airport and getting totally lost on the way back.
-Shady shoe deal with Daryl at night on the streets of Terra Verde. Q2s R0x0r the bOx0r!!!
-YUENGLING beer available in Florida. Awesomeness.
-Rocking Cici's $4.79 all you can eat pizza buffet post shred
-Abusing "that's what she said" quite a bit
-Meeting the Bloomington, IN guys, not sure if they're on modified or not.
-Trying to talk to the Spanish guys, each of us having limited vocab in the other's language
-Seeing Rob Creel make the finals
-Kevin Crowley's routine!!!!
-Circle contest semi round with Vasek, Lee Van Sickle, K Crow and one other guy.
-Routine FINALS OMFG WHAT A SHOW!!!
-Nashville crew, fun peeps for sure!
-Meeting 2 very cool Josh's, Raye and Rose.
-Meeting and chilling with Jon Schneider. So much J-shred at worlds, it was tight!!
-Tina Lewis taking 2nd in women's net
-Watching drunk Vasek eat salsa on bread
-The whole Milan incident, can't wait to see the video
-Cody losing his wallet and paul agostonelli finding it
-Other people trying barefoot inspired by Cody
-Meeting several other Cody's, including Knoxville Cody
-18 hour drive each way. Ultimate road trip. Now I feel like I can drive anywhere in the car.
-Jay Boychuk, so young and so good. He is gonna be reeeeeally good really soon.
-Rocking the pool post shred
-Meeting Sunil and some other greats.

Probably plenty more that hopefully I didn't forget

Shred highlights/thoughts:
Got my spinning back thanks to Justin Dale. I hit spinning ducking clipper again, I was stroked. Gotta drill this set now so I can keep it and develop it.
Big improvements on stepping set. I was hunching over too much. Standing up straight has gotten me a much bigger set and now fog/bed and stepping-ducking feel within reach. I came close to all of those.
Atomic coming along nice, but no flip yet. I hit eggplant and legbeater. Atom smasher is becoming pretty easy.
Quantum starting to show up. I hit toe blur after footing it probably 15 times. Flip quantum is more promising than flip atomic.
Huge breakthrough on form thanks to Kevin Regamy. I have a drill now that will really help with flip toe sets. So hopefully I should start to develop flip pixie/quantum/atomic soon
Breakthrough on pdx illusions, a trick I thought I had down pretty well. Now Pdx eggs are much easier both sides. I need to BSOS that.
Breakthrough on ducking. Hopefully I should be able land tricks out of it more consistently and start hitting ducking clips/butters b2b instead of bailing out of them.

My shins took a beating towards the end, I might be taking some time time off. I have some things I want to work on:

The pipe concept. Setting the bag to the same spot every time. Toe triforce drill with this concept.
SETTING THE BAG LOWER.
Rythym / playing on toes
drifters using the pipe concept, I was doing them totally wrong before.
Symple Legovers / legover form.
OSIS. Just gotta dip the support leg more, just like a clipper.

Everyone wants to shred on Wednesday (possible 5 man sesh) but I may have to pass, my shins still hurt today and I haven't played since Saturday night.

2B