Fanzine

[C-Fan]

Too windy and cold for footbag today, so I decided not to play. But then I caved in, put on a thermal, and went out and played during halftime of the Suns game. I didn't really feel warmed up, and didn't hit much, but it was still good to play. I reminded myself that it's always good to put adds on the shoes, and like Bob said in his blog, you're getting better when you play, even if you don't feel like it. The only run I remember had flurry sauce, and bl. whirl-flapper-infinity midstring.

The best part of footbag today was when I came indoors, and decided to mess around with barefoot clippers. I guess that Cody special really inspired me. Before today I had never done consec clippers, but it makes sense that I should learn to play barefoot the same way I learned to play in shoes.

I started off getting 8 on strong, 6 on flip. After a while I bumped that up to 14 flip, and 31 strong! Exciting. Anyway, it was a light session, which may help me out if I play in the next couple days. I still look at it like I'm sticking to my "footbag every day" regimen.

[C-Fan]

Stupid modifed ate my post.

Anyway, I had a solo session today where I tried out my new camera. The video quality isn't great, but it's not bad for a digital camera. Like, a footbagger would be able to tell what I'm doing, but there's no way to see if things are clean or not. See for yourself

Overall it was an OK session, but I never got a good rhythm going because I had to keep turning the camera on and off between runs. At Cornell I used an actual video camera, which meant I could leave it taping and then go back and edit the footage later. I don't know how to do it with this camera yet. I'm undecided whether I'll want to film future sessions or just play.

New trick of the day: whirling ss whirl, with a plant.

Whoops, dinner time.

[Zac Miley]

It's not too bad, especially when it's off youtube probably.

Whirling ss Whirl is tight.

[C-Fan]

Feet feel a little tender. My body needs to get used to playing again, but it also needs to get used to playing on a hard surface. At Cornell I always played on a wooden dancefloor, thin carpet, or astroturf. Playing outside in Arizona, I feel the shock of the floor a lot more. Should be a good excuse to lay off sets and work on spins and my downtime game more.

I've also been going for 60-90 minute walks with my father every morning. We walk through "the wash" (in the desert, this is like a riverbed that is dry for 98% of the year), which means it's uneven terrain. I think this is good crosstraining for footbag.

I'm still a bit undecided about whether I'll continue filming my shred sessions. I still have some more clips from yesterday, so I fgure I may as well put them on YouTube and sprinkle them in my blog. I kinda figure the best use for my camera would be to film a single trick or concept that I've recently mastered, rather than film every run. The problem though is that with the bad visual quality, the camera is better suited to capturing easy runs rather than single tricks where I move quickly. Oh well.

Here's another run from yesterday.

[Rieferman]

I think I partially figured out what my previous comment meant. I like your runs that have some tempo change or similar midway into the run. For example, the most recent clip that you posted had a sole stall in the middle of it followed by more shred. I liked that. Your tricks are very efficient, so I sometimes need something to snap me out of being mesmorized - various punctuation or stylistic changes mid run does that for me. Which I think you do on some runs, and are capable of doing whenever you want. I hope that's a lot clearer. Also hope you're having a great break/holiday!

[max]

Hey Ken I forgot to mention that I really liked your xmas calendar vid.

Special mention goes to the sidewalk rev. swirl which is insanely hard. Props.

[C-Fan]

Bob- Maybe I'll start doing more flyers.

Max- See your comment on the last page. You made an almost identical post.

The last 2 days I played at the YMCA because it was cold outside. It was nice to play on carpet again, and to not worry about getting sun in my eyes when I spin. I also got to watch lots of children's TV. Spongebob is a very surreal show. I kinda dig it.

Not a lot of highlights from these sessions. I mostly focused on my breathing and getting longer runs to help my stamina. I've had a lot of fun working on flipside downtime tricks like pdlos, pdx eggs, and swirls.

Highlights:

*ducking butterswirl both sides.
*reverse swirl x4. New record?
*far symple swirl x2 both sides.
*run with pdx egg and ss butterswirl bsos.
*Double spins. Not as tight as they used to be, but it was fun to do them again. I can do them on carpet, but not on the coarse surface outside of my house. It grips too much.

[janis]

ss butter swirl is like the coolest trick ever, props!

[Muffinman]

Sweet run, Ken.
You're such a superstar.
That's a nice looking bag. Real bright.

[C-Fan]

You're such a superstar.
.

Thanks, that made my day.

I've been going for morning walks with my Dad in the desert lately, which is good exercise and fun bonding. I get really annoyed when I see litter in the wash, so the last 2 days I've brought work gloves and a garbage bag, and have picked up a lot of crap. Feel good about that.

Went to the gym to play again. Shred was laidback but fun. I like going into shreds without any pressure or plans. I mostly worked on butterfly swirls and throwing in more flip downtime tricks in my strings.

Highlights:

*mobius-pdx torque-pdx blender off my foot. The first two tricks were solid.
*infinity swirl x2, both sides.
*ss butterswirl-infinity swirl, both sides.
*psw-superfly real easy.
*swam 10 laps.

[C-Fan]

Real nice day today. Went for a walk with my dad and picked up more trash, read a book outside in the sun, did some work on my thesis prospectus, ate fish tacos, played minigolf with my folks, and even got in a little footbag outside. It was late by the time I played, so I knew I'd only be able to get in a light 30 minute shred. Since I knew I was going to play only for a bit, I had the idea: why not film the session, put it on youtube unedited, and then post it in my blog in 10 minute segments? I think it could be fun. Dunno how many people would sit through it all, but it's a novel idea for a blog. I need to go shower now, and then upload everything. In the meantime, here's another run from the last session I filmed.
More me!

[zeroman13]

Watch out for that cactus Ken! Can't wait to kick with ya, whenever that will be I'm feeling alot better than I did! So I might be back up to 100% when we kick!

[Kljopa]

More me!

Loved this run, i was like arghh fucking sun .

Great job picking up the trash

[C-Fan]

I filmed yesterday's session with the plan of putting it on YouTube, and then posting it here in the blog. I ran into one small problem: YouTube doesn't let you upload files which are longer than 10 minutes, or over 100 megs. When I fimed the session, I made a point to stop and restart the cam every 5-9 minutes, but while all the files are under 10 minutes, some are over 100 megs. I'll probably just upload the ones that are under 100 megs anyway.

For now though here's yet another run from my session on the 27th.

I got in another session today at the gym. I felt springy and played well, but I don't remember too many specific highlights. Tapdown-fog repeat-dimwalk-run was good. Flip dynos were on point, which I hope will help my flip swirls. I ended up playing a game of pick-up basketball which was fun and made me forget most of the footbag session. I'll upload some more vids tonight and post em soon.

Happy new year modified.

[C-Fan]

OK, here's the first of the clips of th 12/30 session. The original plan was to shoot an entire shred in 10 minute segments, so you can see what happens between runs, how i warm up, what i do when i'm frustrated, what stuff happens first try, etc. But as discussed before, technical problems messed me up.

Here's a 4.5 minute segment from the middle of the session. I may upload more later.

[C-Fan]

Took a day off footbag yesterday and went on a long hike with my folks. There were parts where I had to climb with my hands, so it was good exercise.

Speaking of good exercise, today was a banner day in that regard. I went for a 90 minute walk with my dad in the morning, then I went to the gym and spent over 4 hours there. I swam 30 laps, then I played footbag, then I shot some hoops, and I finished by going to a yoga class with my mom.

Footbag went real well. I was breathing real well, and the game felt slow to me. I didn't force any tricks or moves, and the game just came to me. I only hit a handful of 5s, but it didn't matter to me. I just had a real good time playing, and I think it showed, as more people than usual came up to tell me they enjoyed watching me. Not many highlights stood out, but the session on a whole was like a highlight.

Highlights:
*ripwalk swirl both sides
*pdx drifter-pdlo-dimwalk repeat to ripwalk-sidewalk repeat to ducking butterfly-diving butterfly repeat-to pdx whirl-whirl repeat and then barfly-barfly off the foot.
*pdx drifter-infinity swirl-pdx drifter-infinity...damn.

[C-Fan]

Beautiful weather out in the morning, but it got cloudy and kinda cold later on, which made for a rough session for me. Still managed a few decent highlights.

Highlights:
*HPD
*Me kicking the bag into some cacti
*Drill with PDLOs
*A nice bsos combo
*tombstone x2 for my first time
*ripwalk swirl bsos

[HG]

solid stuff, solid blog title

[Zac Miley]

Awesome. Thank you for uploading videos like that!

[C-Fan]

Mike Hansen and his brother are at my house. How random and cool is that?
































Answer: very. Maybe I'll take some vid of us playing and post it.