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[gMoney]

New tiltless record- 24





I was playing outside today. Outside seems harder than inside for some reason. Maybe especially today since it's cold. I possibly could've gone more than 24, but my eyes teared up from the cold. The first time I got like 20 or 21 but lost track from excitement, haha. I felt like a footbagger today though. Before I just felt like someone who practiced footbag. Now that I can hit over 20 tiltless, I know I can hold my own. Especially now that I know it's not a fluke. I could probably hit 20 tiltless before, but my posture was terrible and I only could do it like once. I did it today with good posture and got over 20 twice. Plus I ended my session on a positive note. It feels great. Oooh ooh plus I hit the 24 tiltless with my abshire. I guess its broken in enough now for me to shred with.

[gMoney]

I'm dying to write in here what I did today. But for certain reasons I can't. I recorded myslef playing again because I can't usually watch my self play. I'll put the videos on here and my video thread when they upload to youtube.

Edit: here

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vPNCRb1pCg4

[gMoney]

Bored. Tired. Should be studying for my math final. Oh well, I feel like writing in here. So that girl who's my friend who I mentioned in a couple posts above, had her friend over from wisconsin for like 6 days. Sad that they see each other so often despite the distance. No, wait, that's a good thing. I want a friend like that. She can't spare even less than one day a year to hang out with me and she's hanging out with someone who lives 2 to 3 hours away on probably a regular basis, then complaining to me about how we never hang out. I don't even know what to do or think anymore. I've had it. You know what, I am lucky though, for my other friend who's a girl, Jessica. We're not really close, but at least she invites me to places like her birthday party and her church group stuff. She ended up being the only friend that came over when my family had a stupid christmas party again this year. I'm glad that at least I have someone who thinks about me every once in awhile despite not really being that close.

I'm sad that tomorrow is the day that means that half the school year is over. Getting old sucks. I hate looking back at the past, it always makes me depressed. Old music, old tv shows I watched as a kid, going through the basement and looking at the old toys I used to play with (I had my little nieces and nephews over last weekend) all are depressing to think about. Death doesn't scare me, it's just so unfulfilling sounding. I'm going to die, all my thoughts dreams and being are going to disappear along with memories that people have of me. How often do you think of dead loved ones or people that you used to know that died? And when you think about them, it's so dulled, do you really care? I'm sounding cliche right now and I don't like it, but it's kinda how I feel. I think I'll always have my mind set in the past, because everything looks so much better then. I'll always be praying for a better future and thinking about a better past. It's a little depressing. I don't feel too good right despite everything I did today. Which was awesome, I can't wait for the next online comp. I'll clue everyone in after the results from the comp. Or everyone will be clued in, one of the two. I don't know why I'm keeping it a secret, it's nothing much to hide, I guess. Oh well, such is life. I'm tired, I'm going to sleep.

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I fell asleep like as soon as I got home today, and woke up half an hour ago, which means I won't sleep now. I guess that means no footbag today. I've been shredding less due to some slight pain in my knees, that I believe to be going away. I don't practice too much and aggrivate it, I've been taking it easier, stretching, and Icy Hot. I've had that pain for awhile, but it seems to be subsiding. When it goes away completely I'm going to workout my knees with squats and lunges and stuff to make sure the muscles are strong and it doesn't happen again. I think it's illotial band syndrome, which makes sense; it's an overuse injury and I practice a lot. Haha. Actually, now that I think about it, I think it's from working out after shredding. Yeah, that makes sense now. I'd like ride the exercise bike for 10 miles (or the exercise bike equivalent of 10 miles) everyday after my shred session. I think that needs to stop. I have a jumprope, and I can use that for crosstraining, which will be easier on my knees. Stuff from my resolutions that I think I can do in the next short, um, while? I guess I can't put a timelimit on it, but here's stuff I think I can get done.

-1,000 consecutive kicks
-Get off the fucking internet so much
-Barefoot
-Work out my core and chest for better posture

The last two I especially can't just do and get better at, they're going to have to take time. But I can start working on them. I think that I've hit a point where I'm going to start progressing like crazy. I already feel like I have progressed like crazy. It's been just a little bit over half a year and it's just about time for me to go guiltless. I don't really count the time before my 6 month footbag break as anything anymore. My posture was terrible, my moves weren't consistent, and I ended up quitting out of frustration and having to relearn everything from scratch. I may have discovered freestyle back then, but now I consider to have actually started seriously freestyling around June 2007. I feel like my guitar playing and singing have improved also. I recorded me playing the song "Ugly" by the Smashing Pumpkins, and my voice sounded really good. It started off soft, then when I hit the chorus part I started scream-singing, maybe not screaming, but yelling, and it suprisingly sounded good. If anyone wants a copy, PM me your email address. I have to think up a Sick 3 for the next online comp which is going to be in February, I think. I think I have an idea, but I've never hit it before, or at least all linked together. If I do end up doing it that's going to be another secret that I'm not going to share until the actual comp. Uh that's about all I have to say for today.

[gMoney]

I smell bad. But anyways, I woke up today, made myself breffasss, ate it, then went downstairs to shred. When I got downstairs, I got real light headed and had to stop. I then realized that my basement may not be a good place to shred anymore due to all the drywall dust and the giant radon pipe which could be turning me into some kind of 3 eyed green flying monster. I waited like an hour later and put my underarmor on, some gloves, and a shirt to go over it or else I look like a really big pale stringbean with underarmor on. I started doing my usual warmup, which is consecutive kicks along with a couple single moves and some real short strings. I started hitting osis! So I stretched, did a couple B's and P's, then worked on O's. I actually started hitting them consistently, at least for the first time I've hit them for real. I don't understand my body, I'll just like decide to hit something then hit it. I'm really improving. I did a few short strings once I got the trick down, like clip>osis>ss clip and I tried clip>osis>ss butter and I hit clip>osis>op osis. I'm guessing that my first successful one was with my hollybag, since that's the bag I warm up with. It plays really nice for a bag that isn't broken in. I also screwed around doing a couple short strings and a couple big(ger) tricks as a very few people walked by. Everyone just kinda glanced at me wondering what on earth I was doing, but no one really watched much. It probably means I need to step-up my game haha. I felt like I was going in a good direction with my osii, so I cut my session short to let it sink in. I'll probably have another session today.

[gMoney]

Modified can be so boring sometimes. There really hasn't been much interesting stuff on here the past few days. Today's session lasted about 10 minutes. Some consecutive kicks, stretches, some practice osii, then I got bored and said "fuck this." Kicking outside is so much better. I've outgrown my basement. My osii aren't doing too good. Everywhere I look everyone's saying "watch the bag until it stalls" but I don't see how. My head won't go back that far, and even when it does, it messes up my crank. I have to do it blind, but then I risk the trick by pretty much guessing. I'll watch a couple videos or something and watch head/upper body position, I guess.

Everyone is talking about flipsider being dead, and I guess I don't have much of an opinion on it. I learned to play from Tricks of the Trade, footbag.org, Anz' Trickz, and then modified. I guess you could say I have kind of an appreciation for it, since it's been such a big influence on the players I look up to now, like Jorden and David. I feel kind of sad about it, but not very deeply. I saw that it was dead before the thread started in the 'general footbag' section, and I was saddened, but to nowhere near the extent everyone else was. I wasn't really sad I guess, but it's more of like a weird emotion I can't explain, just leave it at that. I have a couple videos from the gallery, and I remember reading the player profiles and stuff, but that was about it. I don't really have much else to say past that, so I'll leave it there, I guess.

[gMoney]

I haven't kicked in a week. And in the midst of doing my 3 hours of homework (I'm an hour and a half into it) I've decided that I need to shred more, even if it's for a short time period every other day. Thursday's going to be a no-go for anything other than the ACT test class I'm taking for the next 6 weeks. So here are my thoughts:

Monday-footbag
Tuesday-core workout
Wednesday-footbag
Thursday-day off
Friday-leg workout
Saturday-footbag
Sunday-chest workout/footbag

This is just a sudden idea, and I'll probably refine it later, but I like writing things down as they're fresh in my head. When my ACT class is over, Thursday can become a cardio day, since I feel I need that. And I want my leg workouts to target my knees for awhile, since they seem to hurt after awhile. I'm so not used to this, because I shred almost everyday usually. When I take the AP test in May, my history class will be sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much easier, and I can shred every day with a couple workouts afterwords, like chest, core and cardio (I think I developed a bit of illotial band syndrome after working out my legs after shredding.) So I'll make a special day for leg workouts, but I'll probably shred every other day past that. Back to work!

[gMoney]

I kicked three times this weekend, on all three days that would be considered the weekend. I worked on my osis for the most part, and I worked on adding 3 adds to my strings. I also did some spinning and some tiltless and a challenge. It was pretty fun.

Today on the other hand, was not very fun. So my dad buys me this cellphone awhile back, and just non-stop threatens to take it away. So he calls the housephone, angry (free mobile to mobile calling, and my mobile was off) and yells at me because I always leave it off and that it saves him money if he calls my cell. So I get fed up with him and (not in any kind of 'harsh' vocal tone) say that he can have it and that I really don't want the phone anymore. He fucking flips out, says he's going to kick my ass and take my 'driving privileges' away and disconnect my internet and all this shit. So all this shit happens during the day, I get tired of it, literally, and fall asleep for the 2-3 hours. When I wake up, he has a "talk" with me about how I don't love him, and he could've loves me and puts a roof over my head, and blah blah blah. He says he wants to talk to me man-to-man and that I'm immature, which really pisses me off. I told him that whenever I try to talk to him that he never lets me say anything, and that everything I say is an arguement, and he always blows up at me. So how fucking ironic is this: he blows up and tells me to stop arguing. I really couldn't fucking believe that he said that after I said he always says that. He wants to talk to me, but by that he means he wants to yell at me with no consequences, have me take his bullshit 24-7, and everything else except for me actually talking to him. I just don't understand that. He's so goddamn egotistical and immature, yet he's pinning the same title on me. Sure, I'm immature sometimes, everyone is, but I'm not a big fucking hypocrite. I'm pretty sure he's abusing me somehow, and not just by this example. My brothers and sisters all left his house after his divorce with his second wife at the age of like no older than 14. My brother has bad anxiety problems he blames on my dad, and called the cops on him a couple times. My dad forced me to go see a psychiatrist once because of my “mental problems,â€

[gMoney]

So I read this quote today from some link in another thread and it pissed me off:

The ladies-only buses - complete with pink signs - are part of a massive public transportation system in Mexico City that moves 22 million passengers a day.

I still don't understand how a gender can steal a color and call it 'their color' similar to gays stealing the rainbow. I wear a pink shirt to school and everyone's like "faaag" or "hay man niiiiiceeee shirt." When was the last time somebody besides that Mary Kay chick sold a pink automobile? I feel that if no one manufactures a pink car, that I should take on the mission of painting my car pink and spreading love to the people of the world.

What the hell am I talking about?



So too much is on my mind for footbag, as it seems. I'm getting extremely into guitar playing and homework and listening to new music to widen my taste. So far I have like 400 songs on my iPod (which would amount to about $400 if I bought them all off iTunes... what a fucking ripoff) and I'm trying to get over 1,000. Like 150 songs on there are Smashing Pumpkins songs. I seriously have like all their albums and I'm trying to get a hold of all their B-Sides and shit. God I fucking love them, from Gish to Zeitgeist. And I can really appreciate them too after seeing a shitload of interviews and biographies. They're real artists that care about music and want nothing to do with fake shit, and after ruling the world in the mid-90's they said "fuck you, music industry" and released a cd that was a complete turn around from what they were used to doing, and did what they wanted to do instead. But besides that, um, I started listening to Parliament Funkadelic, which is weird for me because I'm used to like some derivation of rock music. I'm also getting into weird electro shit, like MSI (who I've listened to for awhile now) and Hyper Crush.


So I heard 'round the modified grapevine that the next online comp is soon, and I can't wait for it. I've got some kickass shit at least for my sick one. I don't know if I'll even do sick 3. Today and yesterday I kicked for about 10 minutes then got tired and bored and quit. I want to play more, but the excitement just isn't there anymore. I think if I had more time I would definately play more, because on the weekends it's like I'm forcing myself to play, and I'm not at my best, especially after a week of not playing. Before I had all this freetime and I could kick when I wanted. Taking a day off because I didn't feel up to it was always a good and reasonable option. On the weekends it's like "well I have to kick now, if I don't I'll have to wait another week." I don't think this is going to work. I just had an epiphany: I remember reading this one thing that was something like "it's not how long you play, it's how often you play." From now on I have to play about half an hour, right after school, every day. Half an hour isn't that much, and I'd just be playing guitar or screwing around anyways. That wasn't much of an epiphany, but it just kinda swung out of nowhere and hit me in the face.


Aaaaaaaaand that's all I got to say today.

[gMoney]

From now on I have to play about half an hour, right after school, every day.

Success! (at least today)

I went downstairs to kick right after I got home from school for about half an hour. Actually, I would've went longer, but that was all my body could handle. I'm physically shaking right now, I don't know why. Shredding today was pretty fun though. I felt a little styley. When I get back into the groove I need to drill BOPs more, along with pixie. I think my osis is good now, it just needs more drilling. And as for everything else, I don't remember. I'm gunna go update my challenge blog now.

[gMoney]

I've been thinking about this a little before. I said a couple posts back that my dream was to one day make BAP. David Clavens then commented:

Let bap happen, don't kill yourself for it. Just keep things in perspective. But either way, good luck on trying to join the ranks.

I agree that I shouldn't kill myself over it, but when I put things in perspective things just don't look right to me. I watched Manna's winter video and he's soooo much better than me and sooo much younger than me. He obviously started earlier than I did, but I mean, I want to make it into BAP and they're a group of the best in the world (which is hard to live up to). I'm not picking on him or anything, I'm slapping myself in the face with reality. And reading the thread about all the young players that are all like 14 years old is just plain shocking. Even if BAP doesn't exist at one point I still want to be one of the greats of footbag. Good things happen from time to time, but great things need a lot of effort. I've never really been good at anything, and now I see something that I can really excel at if I put my heart and mind into it. I know this is starting to sound stupid, but whatever. The point is I need to change some things and I need to get better somehow. Maybe this is just exhausted yet inspired Grant speaking, and maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and read this and be like "I'm a loser," or maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and decide to change my lifestyle. Either way, I'm glad I wrote this down whether I think it's stupid or not. I'm going to bed.

[gMoney]

Well, I guess I have nothing to say... other than

42 TILTLESS

[gMoney]

Today's session(s) went well. I had like either 3 or 4, and I felt like I got a lot done. Pixie is working its way in, and I'm getting better at it. I did a lot of guiltless stuff today too. Osis is still weird. I'm kind of depressed for some reason. I guess listening to sad music right now isn't helping either, but whatever. It seems like whenever something good happens in my life it's waaay too good to be true and slowly ends up falling apart. I wish I could find a place where I belonged. I feel extreme separation between myself and others, either mentally, or physically (like my sister or my friend who lives halfway around the world). I guess I just can't get my act together. I wrote a good song today, at least good for my standards. The best I've written. I named the song 'Emo Screamo Lazerbeamo' and when I have it recorded I'll probably make a thread about it or something I guess. Haha I just noticed that nobody has written in here besides me for quite awhile, not that I care or anything. Oh yeah there was this one quote from a Legend of Zelda game that I wanted to put in my signature, but it's not online so I'll have to play the game and find it. Something about your enemies improving at the same time you improve or something. Not that I have enemies or anything, but I found it to be inspirational, and it's a good reminder if I'm slacking or something, because then I'm loosing my grip and not improving while others are and stuff. I think my BOP record is like 12 now. Haha I jumped around a lot in there. Oh well. That's all I got.

[gMoney]

50 minute session today, the only real highlight was miragex20 bs, the rest of the time, osis stuff. An attempt at phoenix, but no dice. I still need to think up a sick 3, and i kind of want a 4>4>4 or maybe even a 3 in there instead of a 4. I don't want to just 'settle' so I might not even try. Although, they are pretty cool. I'm going to set up a list of personal records on the first post soon. When my laziness dies down.

[gMoney]

FIRST POST UPDATED.

[gMoney]

SHIT!
Two new tricks hit today-
Eggbeater
Phoenix
BOTH SIDES
TWICE EACH SIDE

I didn't really practice them that much either. I toyed with them a little, but I never really got anywhere close to hitting either of them before. With eggbeater my toe was pointed too far down to catch it, and I rarely could make the second dex. For phoenix, I could barely get the pixie over my head, and if I did, I had to rush to get the butterfly and couldn't really tell where it was. But today when I was drilling my harder tricks (which I just started doing more seriously starting today at the beginning of my session) and all of a sudden I just decided to try eggbeater and NAILED it. BS? Why not? BAM! I don't know if either of those count, let me do them both again and see if they're clean. BAM!!!!!! Phoenix? Twice? AERBVOIARDGOI@NONROLJH31289734q897fzhr!!!!!!!!
I seriously don't understand how I hit them though. Of course, I ran upstairs, grabbed my camera and tried to film it, but for some reason just couldn't hit it. Then my hip started hurting whenever I started doing pixies for some reason, so I stopped.

I think this is a huge thing. I really only consider myself to have started freestyling in June of 07, because back in 06 I could only hit atw, clipper, legover and mirage, all very inconsistently, my posture and form were terrible, and I ended up quitting for about 6 months and I had to learn everything from scratch. It wasn't even relearning because when I started over I didn't have any muscle memory and had absolutely nothing to work with (and ended up making some of the same mistakes I had made before.) So for approximately 8ish months of playing, I think I'm improving at a pretty fast rate. And I'm just comparing that to myself, no one else. I have no need now to compare myself to anyone else. I'm where I want to be right now, and I'm happy about it. Actually, I'm way past where I want to be right now, I never thought I'd make it this far. Plus, my game isn't lacking anywhere right now. My tiltless is rock-solid and my guiltless is really building up. My osis sucks still, but compared to when I couldn't even turn my foot that way I think I'm doing ok. Plus I've been working out after every session and I've been stretching before and after every session, and I'm starting to notice that my flexibility is increasing.

Aaand that's about it.

[gMoney]

session highlights-
-flip blur finally
-dlo bsos
-a steady jump towards guiltlessness

I'm going to learn atomic next. So far I can do pixie and some stepping stuff. Mainly because I want to hit atomsmasher, which is a cool name, but also because the more sets the better. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention I had two sessions today, I reinacted my eggbeater (only once per side) but I couldn't hit phoenix due to this strange pain in my hip. I also twisted my ankle while attempting blur, but it's completely fine. I've done some bad stuff to my ankles before, like falling a small hole and falling over last year during track or twisting my ankle numerous times during soccer two years ago. I've never gotten any sort of ankle injury yet. Speaking of track, my old coach is really pissed that I'm not in it this year. Especially since last year I started to peak towards the end of the year and really hit it off with the 400. My best time was 55 something, and I probably could've gone lower if I had worked harder during the beginning of the year, but 55 seconds for someone who was just starting off was apparently really good. I don't feel like telling him that I'm not doing track so I can play more hacky sack. I don't think he'd be happy with that.

[gMoney]

I HATE OSIS!!!!!

It's a cool move, but I just can't get it. Fuck.


I had a mole and a skin tag removed yesterday. Doctor kept trying to talk to me when he was sticking a needle in my skin. It didn't hurt really, was more of a discomfort, especially when you're asked a question and you're supposed to answer, but the only painful part was the needle coming out. I didn't even feel him cut me up. But I'm guessing shredding would not be a good idea for awhile.


I can't wait till May 1st, which is the AP test. After that I won't have 3 hours of history every night and I'll shred 3+ hours a day. People say that's a lot, but I don't really do much. I don't have that many friends or other activities to do. I'll have to lift more and eat healthier, but that's no problem. I guess that's all I have to say.

[gMoney]

Lately my sessions have been shit. I don't know what the fuck is wrong. The bag keeps rolling off my feet and stuff. It's really been pissing me off. I keep ending my sessions early because the more I play it seems the worse I get. If anyone has any advice for not having bad sessions or anything, let me know. Because I can't keep going on like this, I'd rather quit. I drilled infinity today, and I think my max was 3 contacts.

I can't keep from comparing myself to others either, especially people younger than me that are schooling twice as hard as I am and are twice as good as I am. I guess that's just how it's always been though, I've always compared myself to others on things that matter to me. Guitar playing, soccer (which I no longer play) and other things. I guess some habits don't break. I don't see how I can ever be better than some people, and I think it's the way I practice. There's no set-in-stone way to practice footbag, since it's a relatively new sport. I have to come up with my own training regimen and everything, and I don't think mine's working as well as it could be. For sprinting last year in track, it was "do 12 laps of 200's everyday as fast as you can with a 200 walking break inbetween." But there's nothing that's like that for footbag. I don't know.

I recorded a sick 1 today, I guess I'll email that in now.

[gMoney]

I just finished a second session today, and I just wanted to write this down and bold it for later reference:

Apparently, watching a trailer for the new Speed Racer movie is more motivation than anything else I've tried. It's happened before, but I just noticed it. I draw motivation from non-footbag things. Parkour, some random anime, some weird music video, a funny online video, or generally anything that has nothing to do with footbag. I don't know why this is, but that's just what it is. I'm writing this down so if I feel like shit, I'll remember what motivates me.