Frank Sinatra Lives

[Frank_Sinatra]

I've kicked a few times since my last post - Friday, Sunday (sorta ), Monday & Wednesday.

Friday - last session with Fred for a couple weeks, at Independence Park. There was an orchestra at the park, they played the Hawaii 5-0 theme song IIRC. First session after dropping the BOPs drilling, so it was a lot more fun. String length was alright, I was getting past ten contacts consistently. Also tried an 18 contact string that just like reassembles some of my drills. Only got through the first 14 contacts & the last 14, couldn't put it all together. Did hit pdx. mirage> symp mirage on both sides, which I had been attempting back in early June but forgot about.

Sunday - hacked with my friends in Wisconsin, did a little freestyle here & there. Like drilling something to 8 contacts> pass> watch friend drop bag. Because they were watching my tricks. Will hack and footbag never live in peace?? My friends play enough to own sand bags & do toe stalls, so I left them a short list of things they can practice, and sold another dude a sand bag.

Monday - Tom, Reile, & Zeke at Northeastern. Bitch hit me with a smoove - barrage - on both sides. Salvaged an otherwise lackluster session. Just too damn hot & humid. Tom & Reile were both going big, Reile shat on some Merlins of various textures and flavors. Wait, what?

Wednesday - with some guy named Ryan at Independence Park. Started as a solo session, got through most of my drills in about 40 minutes & then this guy I didn't know name Ryan joined me. He could toe stall & inside stall a little bit but his running shoes were obviously not ideal. I gave him some pointers on ATW. He did a few ATW-kicks. I gave him some web addresses too. He lives in the 60618 so chances are we'll run into him again. Highlights of sorts:

DLO first try
ATW> Pixie drill to 22 contacts
((pixie> same butterfly> pickup> repeat)> (mirage> legover> repeat))> repeat
Smear> PLO
DATW> butterfly> butterfly> osis

Spent ten minutes on Infinity & ten minutes on Osis to close out the session. Strings were closer to where I want them to be, drills felt easier. Oh, and my footfighter ripped. Wetness + newb = footbag danger. So it goes. So I started breaking in a new one. Still gonna repair the old one though, if for no other reason than to keep the fill from falling out all over the place.

I hope the weather doesn't get any worse.

Modified's gonna be dull during Worlds.

[CIC flurry]

[Frank_Sinatra]

Kicked Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.

Thursday - solo at Independence Park. Maybe 1 & 1/2 to 2 hours. Good thing I wrote down some highlights cause I don't remember shit from that session:

Dimwalk> Pdx. mirage> butter> butter> osis
osis> pdx. mirage

Friday - mostly solo at Independence Park, approximately 2 hours, with special guest appearances by Zeke & Osama. Not joking. This kid named Osama wanted us to teach him to footbag, so Zeke kinda occupied him & his friends in a circle while I drilled. I gave Osama a 4-panel to practice with - watch out for the blowback. He could do four consecutive toe stalls, so by this time next year he'll be twice as good as me. Zeke & I hacked for a little bit at the beginning of the session, too. Really laid back session.

PLO X3
Smear X4

Sunday - Welles Park, like 3 pm to 8 pm, with: Zeke, Tom, Jake, Meinard, Reile, Ronnie, Vince, Cuba, Marty & a whole bunch of non-kickers that I don't know.

Started with some foursquare, had a couple decent runs in king square but couldn't quite find my game. I need to be more consistent at foursquare if I'm gonna do well at NYJ. But do I want to put time into it? Anyway I played a few games of foursquare throughout the day, mostly not very well, and didn't win any games.

Tom & Jake were both freestyling well. I was happy with how I played, too. Thank you, magnetic fields of Welles Park.

ATW> Pixie> Rpt. to 33 contacts
a couple 20 contact strings
Dyno (new move)
Flip Ducking Mirage (first time flipside)
5 contact no plant: Pixie muted clipper> far legover> symposium mirage> atw inside> hopover
smear> ducking mirage> dada (boo-urns. May have also hit this with dimwalk instead of dada but don't remember)
DATW midstring

I want to work all my flip ducking & my flip pixie with the remaining time this season. I'm taking a much more relaxed approach with BOPs and actually feel fine about it. Weakside pdx. mirage will be fine when my weakside clipper starts to get more controlled & consistent, weakside osis is just gonna take a lot of work. Work which I will put off.

I also think I should be kicking a little less in August than I did in June or July. Like instead of 23 or 24 days out of the month, 18 to 20 might be good.

Will probably kick tonight, its only gonna be in the 80s. Humidity has gone way down, too. Yay.

[The Actual Sized E]

smear> ducking mirage> dada (boo-urns. May have also hit this with dimwalk instead of dada but don't remember)

You were playing really well yesterday. You did hit smear>ducking mirage>dimwalk, I seent it with my peepers. Also you were all over smog. As Craig's dad would say: "Wown'cha do it?"

[Frank_Sinatra]

So I was walking to Independence Park to kick yesterday, and as I approached, I saw a pony tail and what appeared to be short shorts in the circle. My heart leapt; my pace quickened. I repeated to myself "be cool Shatsy, be cool." But when I got closer, the awful truth revealed itself: juveniles. A small mob of children interfering with Tom & Jake's shred, one of which was tall, and fat, and had a pony tail, and was wearing a mini skirt. My pace slowed, my heart threw up a little.

Also you were all over smog. As Craig's dad would say: "Wown'cha do it?"

I can do it. I can do it 9 times.

Kicked twice since my last post, Monday & Thursday, both at Independence Park.

Monday was solo, don't think I played more than 1 & 1/2 hours. My right hip and thigh were tight. Right as I was finishing my warm-ups this old dude asked me if this was "what all the young guys are doing now?" Let me just sum up my thoughts on that with an image:



Highlights:

Pixie> ss butter> pickup> repeat to 19 contacts (record)
Diving ss mirage from toe (not sure if this would be Zulu mirage?)
Osis> ss butter
alternating clippers to 8 contacts
got to 20 legovers with just one drop
DATW ending on inside

Yesterday (Thursday) with Tom, Jake, and Zeke. And chillens. Tom & Jake freestyled, and both played really well IMO. I remember Tom had one ridiculous string that ended with Torque> dropped Mobius, titties and asspipe man. Zeke is going to slowly erode the field house with his net practice. Medium-to-Highlights:

31 contacts combined drills (atw> pixie> repeat for first 12 contacts, atw> pickup> repeat for next 19)
23 contact string: atw> pixie> atw> pixie> pixie> ss butter> pickup> mirage> legover> mirage> legover> pixie> ss butter> pickup> mirage> legover> mirage> legover> pixie> clipper> pickup> clipper> pickup> drop
20 contact string: (clipper> pickup> repeat)> (clipper> pickup> mirage> repeat)> (pixie> ss butter> pickup> repeat)> (mirage> legover> repeat)

And generally getting to at least 10 contacts almost every string.

There's a bunch of stuff I've almost hit in the last couple sessions. Had flip DLO on my damn foot, but couldn't see it (my knee was in the way). I just assumed it wasn't on my foot, and moved my foot, and the bag popped off. So I don't think it should count as sealing it, but I'll get there soon I think.

Also footed DOD a couple times - probably my best attempts at DOD yet. Close-ish to Smog, real close to Terrage back-to-back, sorta getting there with DATW ending on heel & Paradon. Tried Pixie same PLO but that is way harder than I expected. Kinda close to flip pixie pickup, but not very controlled.

My strategy with all of these is to just try them a few times, doesn't matter if I try them all every session or not, and then move on, rather than drill them over and over again until my legs are dun. I want to hit all of them by the end of September, and I want to hit some flip pixie stuff by then.

So I'm happy with the last three sessions, actually I'm glad I didn't go to Worlds, because I wouldn't have had these sessions. And I've been thinking about what might factor in to my improved performance of late. Here's what I think those factors might be, in no particular order:

performance fabric underwear (C9 by Champion - available at target - uhhhhhhh git some)
nutrition - loading up on carbs at lunch and/or the night before I shred, eating clif bars before & after sessions, eating/drinking potassium-rich foods after sessions
shorter sessions, mostly due to the next point
fewer drills (actually I think dropping the BOPs drills is the best thing I've done)

Kicking tonight at Independence. I wore my last clean pair of C9 underwear last night so I guess I'll have to go buy another pair. I seriously can not keep up on shred-laundry.

Tomorrow I need to get a hair cut and possibly buy a suit, Sunday I'm going to a barbeque in the evening. And I looked around my apartment this morning, and for the first time in almost three months of living there was like "this place is a fucking mess." So I'll have some chores to do over the weekend as well. Still hoping to kick after I'm done with all that on Saturday, and before the bbq on Sunday.

[CIC flurry]

You're all over DOD. Thursday was good. those kids were funny.

Ponytail: Do you get a lot of ladies from this?
Me: ...

[Frank_Sinatra]

Yeah, I'm getting closer to DOD... my Smog bravado hasn't gotten me any closer to hitting that, so I'll lay off the DOD bravado.

Kicked Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday.

Friday - Jake, Zeke, Tom, & a special guest appearance by Kamil at Independence Park. Everybody was tired/sore/injured/not into it so it was almost a solo session. Everybody stopped kicking but me at one point - they had been there a while before me & we all kicked for about 30-45 minutes I think. I kept going for about a half an hour, then everybody left but me, and I kept going for about 45 minutes more.

legover x20
pickup x19

Kamil challenged me to hit 20 pickups after I hit 20 legovers... so close. But I swear to god if Kamil yells when I'm just going into a move to try to fuck me up again then we're gonna have a problem.

I'm not kidding around.

Sunday - first session with Freddie since he came back from vacation. We kicked on his front porch. It was about 65 degrees and raining - really nasty weather. Probably kicked for just a little more than an hour. I hit my new moves for Freddie - Dyno & Barrage (both sides again).

Then we watched the open semi routines from Worlds. I was gonna write up a couple paragraphs about my thoughts on routines, but let's just leave it at this - as a spectator, I'm not a fan.

Tuesday - Freddie & Tom at Independence Park. I felt kinda sluggish at times, especially the beginning of the session. Tom busted out sometime around 8, but Freddie & I kept kicking until about 9. I wish the lights at IP were light-sensitive rather than on a timer.

clipper> pickup> op repeat to 39 contacts
flip ducking legover (first time)
ducking pickup (both sides)
Parkwalk again

Parkwalk is a bitch for me for some reason. Footed flip ducking butterfly, footed DOD, worked on flip DLO a little, attempted Smog a number of times, attempted pixie barrage & pixie paradon one time each just for shits.

And then Freddie & I grabbed the mosquito repellant and attacked Lake Independence. It was pretty awesome. There's an action figure of some sort at the bottom of Lake Indy, by the way. Hopefully we killed a lot of mosquitoes.

I've still got to think about this job I interviewed for. Apparently they (the company I interviewed with) were impressed. I really want to leave my current job. I'm currently writing this post fueled with rage at the latest bullshit half-assed job that IT did with one of their projects & refuses to fix (it'd be complicated! Heaven forbid!), thereby passing a shit-mountain of work on to my team. But that doesn't necessarily mean I should take this new job.

I've got to think this through a bit more. But hey, deciding whether I want to take a high-paying new job or not is a pretty classy problem to have. If I did take the job, here's what it would mean with regard to footbag:

less time each week for footbag
would sometimes have to go a week or more without footbag
much less time to spend on modified

So the first two, especially the second, kind of suck, but the third is probably a good thing. I don't know if I'd be able to progress very much if I was only playing on the weekends & missing lots of jams. I don't mind shredding solo so I'd probably still find an hour here or there to kick, but would it be enough to progress? And if I didn't progress, would I lose interest? Who knows.

Don't know if I'm kicking tonight or not. A friend of mine just moved to Chicago & supposedly we'll be chillaxing, but he's kind of a flake so we'll see. Sorry to make footbag my backup plan. But let's say there's a 30 to 40% chance that I'll kick.

[Zeke]

But I swear to god if Kamil yells when I'm just going into a move to try to fuck me up again then we're gonna have a problem.

I'm not kidding around.

I knew I wasn't the only one that found that bastard annoying
Feint a couple jabs then shoot in for the takedown. Left knee FTW

[Frank_Sinatra]

DISCLAIMER: THIS POST HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FOOTBAG.

Good call Zeke on the knee. I don't want to bring conflict into the Circle, I just want certain behavior to cease and hopefully it will.

I really wish everyone could get along, but its naive to think that will actually happen. So have some drama! Anyway...

I decided that I want the job I interviewed for. One reason is I want to live a lifestyle where I don't stress out about every $20 bucks that I spend when I'm out with friends. I want to lavish myself with mahogany toilet seats and leather-bound volumes of classic literature.

And with this job I'd actually be doing something that I think I'd be good at, and interested in, and could advance within the company, and no longer have most of the work-issues that piss me off right now. And its a small company, full of highly-competent people. All of this is music to my ears.

All these positives were just competing with doubts about taking on more pressure. And those doubts are gonna be there anyway, with any new job. But especially with a job that I'd actually want to have. So yeah... I'm following my instincts and going for it.

Also, I wanted a job that's even harder to explain to people.

My ruthlessness and ambition will soon crush you all! Soon! Crush!! YOU!!!!!!!!!

[xXLoss_of_ControlXx]

I want to lavish myself with mahogany toilet seats and leather-bound volumes of classic literature.

...Also, I wanted a job that's even harder to explain to people.

Is that a reference to Anchorman?

[Frank_Sinatra]

Yep. Inspired by (or "ripped off from" (if we're being "honest")) Anchorman.

Who wants to play footbag tomorrow? I've got some nerdalicious plans for this evening. But I want to shred it up for the rest of the month - I feel like I'm barely playing lately, even though I play about every other day.

I wanna hit some shit! Those moves I've been trying (flip DLO, DOD, Smog, etc.) have gotten under my skin & my goal is to hit them this season. DLO took like ten weeks to go from close to hitting it to doing it for the first time, and probably another ten weeks to go from hitting it once to hitting it first or second try, so I need all the practice that I can get. I also want to hit my first 3-dex so bad. So bad that I'm clenching my jaw right now.

EDITED for clarity.

[CIC flurry]

If you have this:


You could do this with your money:


K, too much toilet. Let's change the subject.

[Zeke]

Ahhh, the memories!

I've got some nerdalicious plans for this evening.

[Frank_Sinatra]

K, too much toilet. Let's change the subject.

I wish you would have warned me that its NSFW. Nyaeaahh.

[Zeke]

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CIC flurry]

You know I thought of that... but i figured you prolly always knew that whilst on modified, and if I were to warn you it would lose all it's essence. But I won't do it again - swear.

[Frank_Sinatra]

I think I could argue with every single one of those points, but whateva. Okay.

What a great weekend. But now I'm so tired. I'm gonna get addicted to coffee. I'll try to keep this write-up to the point.

Friday, started at Independence Park w/ Josh. Met up with Josh a little late, we only kicked together for about 20 minutes before it got too dark & buggy to keep playing. I had a lot of energy, and 20 minutes just leaves me feeling unsatisfied, so I kicked in front of my apt. for another 2 hours after that. Playing in front of the building just north of mine would probably give me a little more light. Highlights:

Barrage 1st try (on strong side - actually its strong clipper side, weak dexing side so I don't know what to call it)
Flip DATW (only 3rd time, super clean & controlled, no tricycle lunches)
Terrage> Terrage
Flip Ducking Butterfly (1st time)
Flip Pixie Pickup> hand catch> flying spinning fist pump (1st time doing this move flipside)
Parkwalk

Also attempted Phoenix like 70 - 80 times, and started attempting Assassin. Came close to each a handful of times, really just did a lot of pixie set neck stalls. Whatever I did Friday to have so much energy, I need to do it again. Could have used some of that the next day... this is called foreshadowing, kids!

Saturday, Welles Park w/ Zeke, Josh, & Freddie. I freestyled for about 2 & 1/2 hours, then played one game of 4 square, had very little energy. Drills took forever & I wasn't hopping or staying on my toes effectively.

Flip DATW again (will work on these every session, but won't hold myself to hitting it every session just yet)
Parkwalk again (so now I'm gonna have to hit it every session)
Barrages again (also gonna have to hit these every session)
Terrage> Terrage again
Mirage> Legover> rpt to 29 contacts

I sucked at 4-square again. I remember when I used to be good at that game. Maybe as NYJ approaches I'll get back into it, but right now its no fun because I'm getting my ass whooped every game. And I know I can do better. All in all it was a really sluggish, sub-par session.

Sunday, Welles Park w/ Zeke, Jake, Freddie, Josh, Marty, Twitch, Tom, Ronnie, Vince, Reile & Meinard. I think that was everyone. 4-square, net, and freestyle were all going on, but I only freestyled, for about 3 hours. This is the part where I make a really arrogant, condescending post about lesser forms of footbag, right? Actually freestyle is the only thing I'm doing well at right now, I only wish I could play well in every discipline.

Freddie filmed a little, I played better than I usually do on camera.

couple 20 contact strings
Flip Ducking Butterfly from clipper
Double Over Down!!!> hand catch> Howard Dean scream> natural high

Fuck yeah. DOD, ooh girl you nasty. I've got a big shit-eating grin on my face just thinking about hitting that. Innuendo intended.

Then we just sat in the park enjoying the beautiful weather, which has been rare lately, and playing ghetto games. Zeke took some pictures that I look forward to seeing. Then I chillaxed at La Raza & played Magic: the Gathering until like 1:30 am.

Yeah, really good weekend. Probably just gonna crash the fuck out tonight after I do some laundry.

[CIC flurry]

I screamed and rolled on dirty dround myself.

[Frank_Sinatra]

I've had two sessions since last post - Tuesday night was solo, yesterday was with Tom, both at Independence Park. Wanted to play on Wednesday... no dice.

Tuesday - hit flip pixie pickup & flip DATW again, that's about it for highlights. Basically did all my usual stuff and then got out of there. Barrage was kinda shaky - they're getting a little less clean, and I don't like that at all.

Thursday - Tom joined me for like 30-40 minutes, I played solo for half an hour before he arrived & for another hour after he left. I hit five 20 or 20+ contact strings, including one string where I put five of my tiltless drills together for the first time. Now I just need to put all six drills together in one string.

I wasn't playing horribly but I was dropping toe stuff that I shouldn't drop - need to concentrate more. And I identified the problem in my pixie> same butter> pickup> repeat drill, which is a bad (low) set on the flip same butterfly which throws me off balance. Even when I recover and seal the butterfly I'm usually off balance & sooner or later I'll drop because of that. But I should be able to fix this.

Partially-sealed DOD again. Tried a few drifters but stopped before getting too discouraged. Tried pixie same PLO, guess I'm not too far off but if I hit it now I think it would be a fluke. Tried pixie paradon, got the dexes, but need to do them faster or maybe improve body positioning/footwork to be able to get the seal. Noticed that if I could get the dexes, I could probably do Smudge.

Hit flip DATW again, so I guess now it'll be part of my 'usual stuff' list. That list is intended to keep my skills with more advanced tricks from deteriorating while I drill the basics. Worked on flip DLO but wasn't quick enough.

Barrages were sketchy again, so I spent extra time making sure I hit them clean both sides. Oh, I rolled my left ankle on one. Not sure why this happened, but I like stepped on it as it was planting. It hurt a lot at first & I was really worried, but the pain went away in like 30 seconds. No pops, no swelling, no bruising, no redness. After I made sure everything was OK I kept playing.

Worked flip pixie a little more but didn't hit anything out of it. Tried Paradon, could reasonably hit this strong side. Ducking Mirage> Dimwalk was easy for once.

Kicking downtown tonight, at Jazz Fest or Millennium Park. Its time to start kicking immediately after work so I don't waste daylight on the commute.

[CIC flurry]

I prolly can't go to Jazzfest today. Nice DOD yesterday