The Darkshredder's struggle

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 07 Feb 2008 06:28

it wouldn't be a footbag event without you, Ben. But in that case, let me give a warning to any other innocent passengers: we're going to get lost. Even though I used to live in Rochester and have been to RIT and the surrounding area many many times. We're going to get lost.

oh, PS; I was sick the past few days but now I'm kind of better so I'll be playing after I get my ass handed to me by the test in my last class.

DTank126 · Post by **DTank126** » 08 Feb 2008 11:42

Pat, clutch as usual.... oh wait, I guess this is really the first time... but Im sure its the first of many.

Still not sure if Im gonna go or not but right now its a 60% yes.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 08 Feb 2008 12:29

not a problem.

So I'm sitting here at my "Gym's closed" shred spot with my laptop and realized it had wireless access.

I drip. I'm still sick. But I feel I'm getting better so I decided to risk sucking too much wind while playing (it gave me bronchitis last time

). And I brought along a roll of toilet paper so I could wipe my nose. I don't have tissues and the campus store closed just as I got to the students' center. Meh. It's soft tissue paper.

So apparently I can't play quite as long when I'm sick. That's unusual I think since I've done it a few times before and could go for the quota of 2 hrs. I only played for a bit over an hour and I just couldn't do it anymore. I was absolutely drenched and every time I torqued I'd either come |----this----| close to falling on my ankle, falling on my head, or hitting the trick completely wrong. I was just waaay too tired to try. But at least some things came out of it:

pixie op osis > pdx mirage > maverik rpt. Just kind of came to me and it felt like it'd be good practice for getting my pixies back up to snuff in the new shoes (which they still aren't)

diving symp mirage bsos midstring

I was playing to Finntroll, a Finnish folk metal band I really really like. Very good for shred. If I had been more energetic I bet this session would've been epic.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 09 Feb 2008 15:54

Finished a bag today. See? Told ya I'd start stitching again. It's soooo small but much more precise and probably much more playable and durable than my other two bags. I used floss. Waxed floss. Not sure if I can get just regular floss but if I can that'd be sweet because I really didn't like how thick with . . . wax - the floss was.

It's not a very soft bag

but maybe that'll change when I start kicking with it to break it in a little.

I call it Mr. Green because it's black (pents) and green (hex) and also as a nod to the extinct Sobe beverage of the same name. If anyone remembers this drink then I'm sure you appreciate this homage. It was amazing. Sobe was a new company at the time and they didn't know what they wanted to produce at the time so they wrongly decided to make a total switch to making weirded out hybrid juice/vitamine/? drinks. . . but now they make energy drink sodas so uh. . yeah. They should make a new line of Mr. Green. Man oh man those were good days.

So I'm back from an off campus shred session. Pretty uneventful, actually. Two hours. It was fun and everything, but I found myself just being empty-headed and just shredding without thinking at all about what I SHOULD be doing or drilling. I just played. This has it's ups and downs and its a habit which is pretty much why I'm not as good as I could be.
-
Like I said it was kind of a lax session and kind of a blur but let me lean back and think. I'll try to remember some highlights:

ducking/diving clipper and butterfly, ducking osis, diving mirage, and ducking legover ALL bsos.

heh didn't have to think too hard on that one. But that's the only one that pops out. Let me think now. . .

some good blender attempts

non-BOPing tripless run that pretty closely resembled paradon > dyno > DLO > dimwalk > ripwalk > sidewalk > blur > ducking butterfly > and ended on tomahawk.

all whirling tricks were very controlled and painless. I think I have a system for them and I'm going to try and get a few things down on my flipside like hatchet. I think the only reason I don't do hatchet more is that I can't do it bsos confidently.

some hardcore work with pdx drifters on both sides because I really want to start building up a game kind of like the one Henry's got right now with drifters. Gravediggers and vortex and void. That would be so nice. Oh jeez. Void. Yeah I bet I could get that right now if I just had the energy. It's so there. I just keep forgetting to try it.

I guess that's about it.

I can feel a cold sore forming so that means I'm getting better. Probably be good to go in a couple days.

peace.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 11 Feb 2008 10:20

my posting fingers have been itchy. I've been going to modified way too much lately but I think that's just my semester. No more english classes - no more reading 800 pg victorian novels. So that means spurts of homework with nothing to do but wii and footbag. Which can get a little tempting to just sort of cancel out the whole work aspect. I should be okay, though. I'm going to set my laptop aside and just find a corner somewhere on campus and cram some information into my head that I can't seem to retain from my math and economics classes. I haven't taken a math since high school so I'm kind of struggling right now.

streaming shred is awesome. I like how I think I mentioned that like a month or two ago and people were like, "Yeah. . but. . how?" and then Zac or someone found that site and now everyone's doing it. Good stuff. I watched a session with Ben where he hit some cool drifter links and whirl bs for the FIRST TIME! WOO!

I"m gonna have to really start pushing my game to stay ahead of that kid.
- And then I saw a shred with Eoghan. Man that guy got good really fast. Like - this I knew but he's just real-time consistent too! We were kind of mulling over some frigid osis ideas and I showed him some cool stuff I've been doing with it. Frigid osis > ss symp mirage and f o > ss drifter and that sort of stuff. Real stylie. He did like four ss drifter ones in a row and I was like

. I can't get that THAT dialed. Anyway, then I was like, "Gyro?" and so he got pandora both sides which was cool. I think he liked that trick alright. So that's good.

I'm really excited about stitching again. I'm starting a new bag and this is going to turn out REAL well. I'm not gathering so much and I'm being really careful and slow. So I think this one will be truly shreddable - as long as I don't fuck up the closing stitch. It's zebra stripes hexes and dark red pents. I'm pretty sure I've seen someone stitch a bag with these exact same colors but uh. . I didn't realize it till I stitched the first star. Oh well.

I'm going to play later today in a couple hours after I do some work. So check back here for an update with highlights or something. I'm going to really see if I can go for some larger links and new tricks.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 11 Feb 2008 19:06

unnecessary post instead of editing the one above . . .

2hr15min shred. really productive

I figure my pixies are about 80% back to normal

pixie dyno bsos (not new)

stepping dyno bsos (not new)

far swirl > torque > pdx drifter

ss butterfly swirl (new) twice

schooled -

nuclear : rehit some stuff. Matador bs and barfry bs

tapping bsos twice each

flip pixie ducking. Ducked it. Nothing hit

drifter record : : : > 7 (really controlled)

little apple bsos

new links -

pixie ss whirl > ducking far symple dyno > dlo

matador > far symposium rev whirl > gyro mirage

music:
The Adicts
Finntroll
The White Stripes . . . .

I'm tired. I'm going to go do more homework now. Good bye.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 12 Feb 2008 17:12

I'm with Colin Kennedy. Just had a complete waste of a session. Low energy going in, drank a little bit of water, and began warming up. Ugh. I got too frustrated to continue but I was working on some symposium stuff and getting the illusioning dex as deep as it normally is. The gunits are bulky enough so that it kind of freaked my mind out and I wouldn't do illusioning things as confidently as I would normally and I'd snag the bag on the heel or sole (yeah. . that thin).

But we got over that. Got some eggbeaters. 18 contacts of pdx illusion > butterfly after a little bit of warmup.

new link - clip set symposium mirage > ss symposium mirage > pixie ss mirage > ss symposium mirage > pixie ss mirage.

thought of a new link in Religious Thought class today and I thought I'd get it today but didn't give myself a chance. I'll try tomorrow:

atomic muted clipper > spinning clipper > blur > pixie muted clipper > spinning clipper > blur > rpt.

it'd be my longest repeat.

I don't do repeats often. But this one sparked in the style center in my brain.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 12 Feb 2008 21:19

I just finished half my new bag. I'm so happy with it so far! It's going to be big - bigger than Mr. Green, but that's a good thing because Mr. Green is pretty tiny and even I prefer small bags.

the hexes are connecting so squarely like an actual stitcher's bag.

I may have a morning class canceled and if that happens you'd better believe I'm finishing this bag and filling it. And I'll see if I can nic my roommate's camera so I can take pictures of Mr. Green and A Morally Ambiguous Business Proposal (yeah, that's what I'm naming this bag). And then I'll take a picture of my wii that has a planetfootbag sticker on it. And then my DS which also has a planetfootbag sticker on it. And then a subscription slip to some magazine I saw on the floor that has the word BLENDER written on it.

EDIT: I felt bad I haven't named the other two bags I made.
#1 - El Grapos (sitting in an empty Life Water bottle)
#2 - Mutt Hole (sitting with my bag collection situated with the well-stitched side facing out and the three broken stitched side down)
- - to recap - -
#3 - Mr. Green (smaller than my 3 1/2 year old unbroken in Abshire mini AND my 2 year old strange Mosher bag)
#4 - A Morally Ambiguous Business Proposal (sitting on top of the stitching materials, lookin' all boss n' shit)

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 13 Feb 2008 21:05

hey -
so I got anxious watching a few people shred streaming and so I vanished to go play myself. Not sure what to say. I guess it was fine. It's been a weird day.

gyro whirl bs

peeking clipper bs (not new. But my hair was all wet and long enough to cover my eyes so I thought peeking would do crazy things with my hair. . . )

6 gyro clips b2b. Not my record at all but whatever. It was the best I could do tonight.

tapdown > sidewalk > pandora bs

muted tap > fairy muted clipper > spinning muted clipper

in general I can't play at night for some reason. My vision's hazy. Doesn't make sense so I don't try to make sense of it. I just don't play at night. So my lack of vigor and good strings was kind of acceptable.

I made a huge mistake not picking any colleges with footbag players near. I love this game so much and I want to really enjoy as best I can and, although solo sessions are valuable and I kind of need them, I think playing with another person would help me out a lot. Tonight it seemed I was looking into a house of footbag players through a window and then leaving them behind to go back to my house and shred.

Pointless to think this way, I know. . and tomorrow I'll be back to normal and will have forgotten this feeling. But until then I need to go over some notes for class tomorrow and maybe stitch a little.

oh and g-units are significantly heavier than lavers.

BenRea · Post by **BenRea** » 14 Feb 2008 04:37

Darkshredder wrote: I think playing with another person would help me out a lot.

Am I not good enough for you?

mc · Post by mc » 14 Feb 2008 07:33

Hey dude, nice session update right there! I like that you've started posting more stuff that you have hit, and less stuff that you want to / wish to / plan to hit. looking forward to seeing you at GRASS!

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 14 Feb 2008 08:40

no Ben you're fine. . I suppose. No I was just saying since I'm not in Syracuse for months at a time. Especially during the winter. This winter hasn't really been THAT bad for me but I remember the first winter I played footbag was just terrible. Like. Depressing. I was making grounds into guiltless and really struggling with pixie and I didn't know for months at a time if I was making any improvements whatsoever.

Looking back on it that was a really pivital time in my career. I lost a bit of weight (much to my parents' shagrin and concern. . ugh) and I played waaaaaay more footbag than my knees would have liked. I was in the gym/area playing every day for like 3 hours each time. It was nuts. But those sessions really made me what I am now. Like. My solid basics and style have pretty much been defined by those boring ass sessions away from other people telling me to do things a certain way. So I was really tired all the time - i.e. my lazy style. My tendency to BOP when I don't need to - yeah that comes from learning BOPing and really having to ambition or outside motivation to hit bigger tricks.

good time? bad time? meh. It was footbag. Solo stylie. I don't think I'm a very unique story so I don't really like to talk about it anymore. Tons of people solo most of the time.

needless to say it's one reason why I'm glad I'm going to be graduating a semester early so I can be in Syracuse. So I can be central to RFA and when Ben comes home from college. And I can shred with Robert (when his knees heal. . hope that's going well). And I can have a basis for really starting a Syracuse scene. I've got some good ideas and I'm going to start being a more active member in the footbag community as soon as I'm done with school. Looking forward to it. I should PM Ken or Rory or Matt about ways I could get in touch with people to start demos and other things to get footbag out to an otherwise pretty passe public. Like I've said at least 35,000 times: Syracuse is a really apathetic community toward weirdness. We like our lacrosse and our Abercrombie and Fitch. If you do something kind of different, you have your place. In liverpool at the skatepark or in some dark basement with your punk/goth friends with video games.

it's going to be a challenge.

Hey but thanks for the comment, Matt. Good to hear from you again. Yeah most of what I put here is what I do in my sessions. And if I list some goals I usually try to make it clear they're GOALS.

just so peopel don't think I'm better than I really am.

yeah GRASS is going to be intense. I'm going to hopefully stay for the whole thing this time. I rarely am able to stay a whole weekend for a jam, but with my light workload this semester I'm probably going to be able to do it.

All things aside, I'm probably going to have just enough time to have a short session today before I'm going across campus to have a boardgame/movie marathon. We're going to play Risk and DVD Jeopardy and we'll probably watch old kung fu movies or Firefly/Serenity. Should be a good time. . . for us nerds.

peace.

BenRea · Post by **BenRea** » 14 Feb 2008 14:14

Yeah, you are a nerd.

I knew it.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 15 Feb 2008 13:36

Session #1 (2 hr) -

dimwalk > ripwalk > blurry whirl (left leg whirl)

sidewalk > blurry whirl (right leg whirl)

fairy muted clipper > nuclear dex. nothing hit but the dex was high and cleared.

footed flip ps whirl

(no attempts at strongside)

pogo walk > spinning clipper > pogo walk

and some other things. It was a tiring session and I began it sore and a little iffy on my left knee. But it actually went away after warming up whirls

Session #2 -
Didn't play. .

I ate way too much pizza and then actually had dessert and then when I got back I realized just how sore I am for some reason. I think it's that I've been doing a lot more whirling stuff and drifters and torques so it's leaving me a little more sore than usual. Damn. Really kind of wanted to have an epic footbag day. Maybe tomorrow. People are still going to be gone tomorrow too. Meh.

can you tell none of my friends are on campus this weekend? Soooooo bored. What else to do but play footbag and stitch (I finished my 4th bag. I'll post pictures early next week. It's sweet)

thanks.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 15 Feb 2008 22:33

edited douchey quote - - . .. . I like footbag

Asmus · Post by **Asmus** » 16 Feb 2008 06:35

Darkshredder wrote: fairy muted clipper > nuclear dex. nothing hit but the dex was high and cleared.
pogo walk > spinning clipper > pogo walk

Hehe Suderman inspiration

I like it..
These kind of tricks will look good with your style.

I look forward to see the bag.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 16 Feb 2008 14:59

heh yeah thanks Asmus. Well the edited post was actually not all that douchey. I was drunk when I wrote it but got scared and deleted it. What I was saying was actually related to what you just said; now that Johnny came out with that video people are doing symple stuff and pogo and muted things and trying those tricks out. Ben and I have been doing them since the summer and stuff. I did FS blizzard and FS blur and full sidewalk and that sort of thing a while ago and was trying to make it kind of one thing I do.

but now if I say I'm doing that I run the risk of posing.

but

johnny was doing runs 30x harder than I can do

no style is copyrighted

so whatever. I'll just do whatever I think feels good in shred.

yeah and my roommate is bringing his camera back to the campus tomorrow so I'll get a picture of An Ambiguous Business Proposal and Mr. Green for ye.

I hope I can hack a little tonight. Isn't looking too good for it, though. But it looks good for playing lots of smash brothers and watching a movie.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 17 Feb 2008 09:38

really really great news! So I was up in this lounge with a bunch of my friends last night and people were playing rockband. I was taking a break. But they started playing War Pigs and I got all excited so I broke out a footbag and started doing the triforce drill and duckings stuff - just messing around. And they weren't paying any mind - we're all friends and they know well my obsession with the little kicky bag. So no biggy.

I sit down and watch more and my friend Jason walks over and he asks to see the footbag. While he's kind of fiddling with it and trying to kick it a few times he goes, "Yeah I was trying to get into this but nothing really happened." "After you met me?" "Yeah. I told you that." "No, Jason. No you've never said anything like that before. I never knew you wanted to play!" he shrugs. And now here's where I get a little pissed off/excitable (yeah it can happen). ". . . so I mean would you still want to play?" I ask. And thus began our nightly hack session. Jason, another one of our friends Forrest, and Greg all start a hack circle and play in this really cramped lounge with people playing rockband.

Jason was always one of these people I met this year that I saw him and held back so hard on throwing a footbag at him and forcing him to play. He's as tall as I am, thinner, and, and more or less the essential footbagger's profile/mentality. He said he played a few times in high school but not even really as adamant as your cooky circle kicker. But let me say this. We played for about three + hours last night, taking breaks and moving furniture around and stuff. And by the time we were pretty much spent (even me) he was jumping on the couches and yelling into his girlfriend's ear "FOOOOOTBAG!".

his girlfriend was confused and probably a little mad at me for putting footbag into his head, but what can I say? It's my job.

so he said that he'd start to come kick with me from now on. He wears size 11s, which is a little bigger than my shoes, but he MIGHT be able to fit into my black lavers a long time ago. He'd fit into my units fine, but um. Yeah. He's not getting new shoes. And after a while I'll just make him get his own shoes. He wears these strange retro/skatey weird shoes that actually aren't that bad for hack. I mean before footbag, I would've definitely bought them to kick in. Toe box, flat surfaces, stylish. They do the trick. And I'm guessing they'll suffice while he learns kicks and we make sure he really wants to play.

but check this out and see why I'm all excited. Here are hacky highlights.
Jason -

clipper stall > fall backwards into an air hockey table

flapper kick bs

toe kick > knee bump > toe kick > opp inside kick (flipside)

record conseq was I think somewhere around 6 or 7. And this is from someone who never really played before and was beginning the night maybe doing two in a row. Nice improvement.

the motion for both sides flying clipper. I think he did a flying flapper kick on his strongside. He kind of loses track of his crank when he jumps up for a flyer.

Forrest -

flying clipper bs

conseq record of about the same as Jason. Maybe a little more. He can outside kick well on both sides and has amazing recovery.

didit

Me (. . . yeah I was mostly just serving to them)

barfly in long pants

revup in long pants

weaving clip > zulu clip > rpt (not new)

I'm not sure if Forrest will get into it. He's a really busy guy and I'm not sure if his heart is truly in it. But he's a valuable hacker so if he ever wants to play in our circle he's more than welcome.

Jason? Well it looks like he'll be joining me and my roommate from now on in our legballish endeavors. He has the kind of motivation to be good at little-known things that might work well for him in footbag. I mean that's not how I started. And it's going to be odd dealing with someone who wants to play freestyle and who won't really have the time or the patience to circle kick for the amount of time I had. So it'll be an adventure these next few months. We'll see what we can do for him.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 17 Feb 2008 16:02

aww only two views since my last post? Was it the johnny comment? Blah. I knew it. Oh well. Hope people read this one:

2hr15min style and control session -

new way to do pdx DLO. VERY low energy. Had it bsos'd enough times for me to nod my head and say that I think I'm moving in a right direction with it.

tweaked my torques. Torque > infinity > rpt (x3) . Which is huge. People should be very happy with me with this one since torques are my nemesis. . . not really. But it's close.

pdx torque bs. Hit strong last spring but never hit flip.

now I'm not entirely sure if this is accurate. I was just kind of messing around. BUT I think I hit symple revup.

I'll call upon ye olde footbag quote: "It was clean enough to be thin".
oh and something else occurred of interesting. *cough cough

blender bs

pdx blender strongside

footed foodprocessor

"Shit just got real" - Jason

yes. Yes it certainly has.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 18 Feb 2008 15:52

session with jason. Didn't shred too hard because I was mostly just helping him. I don't know how to handle shredding and playing with him.

pixie ss torque

blender bs again

pogo far reverse whirl

some nice long strings. Pixie is reliable now. Finally.

Jason -
three or four toe stalls and almost toe > toe
new conseq record
some serious usage of his left inside kick after I told him a little trick I used to get my flip inside kick. He caught on.
clipper kick > toe kick

didn't really want to post about this session. Nothing really happened. I think I have to start being more selective about my sessions again. Sorry for the overposting of this blog.