First off, the Shred yesterday:
Ben Ray and I went to Rochester yesterday and met up with Tankard and Deen. We had a smashing good time. Ben and I got to Doug's a bit on the early side so we just hacked in his driveway for a second, got our legs unstiff, and then went to the Erie Canal to shred for a while. Ben was saving energy so he was just doing some flowy easy strings. Doug and I, on the other hand, are stupid, and were playing as per usual (way too hard for our own good). Some highlights of THAT little pre-shred session were a few drifter runs by me, some incredible pixie drillin' runs by Doug, and Ben was trying all sorts of three dex tricks all based around merlin and voodoo again. We also did a few rippin' runs against each other and Doug and I had a huge epic head-to-head rippin' run that lasted longer than I had hoped. Not sure what he was doing but he gave me a run for my money and I had to bail a lot to osis (which Ben made perfectly clear to me after it was over) in order to stay alive. Then the Rea wanted his shot at me and I put him back in his place. So that was a little competition and shred there before Chris even got into the Pittsford/RIT area.
Around 4:30 we got to RIT and Chris was there. Then we really started to play footbag. My first couple strings were really good and bothsided and very up to where I need to be in terms of trick variety and difficulty. But then I hit a slump for about a half hour where I sucked something awful. My three cohorts were playing real well, though, which is fine by me. Chris was looking kind of all over the place, but was hitting some real nice strings and huge tricks. Some highlights for ME about their runs:
Dean - run with vertigo bsos at least once. He was showing us some of his wacky sets like spinning nuclear and swirling gyro (I think that's what it was..) and whirling sets. He also hit firefly>blender which just looked really cool. The blender was really far behind him. And, as always, he hits pdx torques and mobius in the hardest and most impressive places in his strings.
Ben - he hit merlin in front of me for the first time. The length of his strings are also improving a lot since I've gotten to play with him in the past month n' change. Toward the end of the loong session he was doing stepping op. symp dyno and farside symp dyno. And ducking. As always stepping was with him. Lots of it was out of osis (stepping ss osis, to be precise) and they always look too easy. Gyro rev whirl was footed as well. Not sure if it was hit. I may not have been looking.
Doug - he's still kind of struggling with stepping things but he's definitely getting there. There were sidewalk bsos and ripwalks all over the place. Otherwise, it was the same ol' impressive incredibly controlled tiltless-guiltless strings I've come to be impressed by. He has a really strong foundation and it's all looking too easy for him now. Osis is the only thing standing in his way and I'm sure it won't be for long. His spinning is also making an appearance every now and then and it's always cool to see since he sets it perfectly - he's still new at it so he may turn too slowly or just can't figure out something to do once he DOES spin all the way around so he usually bails to a toe stall or a clipper but the fact remains that it's a perfect set with loads of time and he can put it in runs any time he wants, which is something I know I had to work at for a while when I learned spinning. Barrage bsos and terrages were also struck. Crazy.
Myself - All it took was a cup of coffee and a bagel and I was back from my slump. Chris gave me some real help with my blenders and I think I can get that pulled together both sides real soon with what he said in my mind. I almost ducked atomic. whirl > rev whirl > infinity > whirl > revw whirl after an attempt or two just because I could. It's not that difficult but it's something I rarely do and it looks pretty cool I guess. After we ate my spinning was on, which was cool. So after I tried blender for a little I just went back to trying stylized runs with spinning, ducking, whirls, and drifters strewn about the place.
I was next to Chris and he had a go with the bag and hit vortex bsos but that was more or less it (surprisingly) and I got the bag and went right for vortex (the cocky son of a bitch that I am) and almost hit it without really wanting to. I can do them. But they usually take more effort than what I had done, which was kinda cool and it made chris laugh. In hindsight I didn't use nearly enough atomic in my strings as I should've and it sucks. I was mostly doing pixie and stepping and I know I can do more. That's what happens when I'm just trying to do long strings and have fun and not push myself when I probably need to. . . I just bail to sets and combos I know I can do and when I fail at them I get down on myself easily. I'd be much more comfortable dropping on a mobius than on a pixie ss clipper. Obviously. STITCHING - Yep. Ben brought some supplies with him and he taught me the basics on how to start a bag and do the first flower (?) of a 12 panel. I didn't screw up too bad and I'll probably bring the baggy camping this weekend so I can finish the second flower. It's dark red and green. If it comes out alright that'll be awesome because I really like the color scheme and I'm not going to use a lot of gather so it'll be a little floppier. I can use it as a practice bag that I can use to try new things. It's like a sandman only more reliable and BETTER.
* anyway I really enjoyed myself yesterday and played pretty well for the better part of the day. AND MY LEGS AREN'T DESTROYED! That's the best part, I think. We played for around 5 hours or more. Those upper leg exercises are really helping I think. Well I'm going camping in the Adirondacks (sp) this weekend with a whole bunch of my pals from hikeschool so that should be disastrously fun. I think it's supposed to rain a little and be cold and miserable today but it's supposed to be nice saturday and sunday.
now I'm off to kill a few hours cleaning the house, washing my cross bag, and then it's off to help some people packing up for the trip.
So I'll probably hit anti blur and anti blizzard and anti lots - o - things tomorrow. Oh and I hurt myself on blender. Again. C'est la vie. My flip atomic is coming along. . . swimmingly. Again. And ducking and diving were feeling pretty good. 
we'll see. I'll talk to Ben at the session tomorrow and see what he's feeling like. He's still on workers comp till monday so he's FREE. I'll PM later to see what's really going on. 
Toesis>xbd toe ripwalk
yeah so i guess the trick to symp double dexing is just setting the thing (mid) torso height and just getting some air into it. It reminds me of the dolomite gray chadwick hit in the sick three comp for this/last month. I think it was dolomite. Could've been superfly. Either way it was set as high as his. His was better though because it was actually clean. 
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