Two short sessions in-between work, work, work.
Matt is sick, and Jake got some footage.
Things to remember:
Far rev. simple swirls X2
rev. swirl-dyno
swirl-dyno
ducking PM- Butterfly, toed the 8th contact
Twirls on good side
Massive gyro improvements, both sides
Lots of swirls on the new side. Almost into Torque.
Butterfly swirl from same toe, weak side
Improved dynos.
Weak whirl-osis-pm-butterfly repeat X2
Kicked mobius my first 3 or 4 consecutive tries, but still no control.
Steel City Freestyle
Jake, Ben, Matt and I kicked today.
ben is making improvements on his clippers. He hit a miraging inside which out of nowhere with good control.
Jake is nursing an injury and trying out new shoes. I'll let him talk about them. He got some footage from really cool camera angles.
Matt busted hard, just like last session. He ended the session with some nuclear drills and some more double pickups. I wonder where all of his talent will lead him if he keeps it up.
I played alright. Highlights:
Paradon-twirl
paradon-rev. swirl
paradon-gyro mirage
I can't remember too much else. I was up way too late last night editing foootage. There is not going to be time for much footbag for a while, so I am glad we were able to document my game at a peak.
ben is making improvements on his clippers. He hit a miraging inside which out of nowhere with good control.
Jake is nursing an injury and trying out new shoes. I'll let him talk about them. He got some footage from really cool camera angles.
Matt busted hard, just like last session. He ended the session with some nuclear drills and some more double pickups. I wonder where all of his talent will lead him if he keeps it up.
I played alright. Highlights:
Paradon-twirl
paradon-rev. swirl
paradon-gyro mirage
I can't remember too much else. I was up way too late last night editing foootage. There is not going to be time for much footbag for a while, so I am glad we were able to document my game at a peak.
EDIT: In-Spinning Butterfly left side
Gyro clipper/paradox mirage/butterfly left side
Gyro clipper/paradox mirage/butterfly left side
Last edited by Ian Brill on 20 May 2008 15:44, edited 1 time in total.
So uh......call me sometime guys. 
I haven't played for serious in about a year. I'm a bit rusty on this thing you folks call string length, but I did kick a bit today and I credit my time off to taking away any style I once had and therefore removing restrictions in trick selection.
Highlights:
-Nemesis (both)
-Janiwalker > Whirling swirl
-Double ATW > Fairy clip > Vortex
-Pixie Quantum Eclipse
I haven't played for serious in about a year. I'm a bit rusty on this thing you folks call string length, but I did kick a bit today and I credit my time off to taking away any style I once had and therefore removing restrictions in trick selection.
Highlights:
-Nemesis (both)
-Janiwalker > Whirling swirl
-Double ATW > Fairy clip > Vortex
-Pixie Quantum Eclipse
Steel City Freestyle
Caleb Abraham
Caleb Abraham
Surprise! Surprise!
Maybe we can meet up some time this week. let me know when and where if you have any preferences. I'll be in Oakland tomorrow afternoon, and I know Matt will be there on Thursday afternoon. We each have meetings earlier in these day but can kick afterward.
I also have a meeting, possibly on CMU campus or Lawrenceville. Don't know where or when yet- but this could be followed by shred.
Finally, on Wednesday Matt is going to help me run some tests in preparation for my performance at the children's museum, and you can bet we will be up for some shred after that.
Pixie quantum eclipse sounds pretty styley
Maybe we can meet up some time this week. let me know when and where if you have any preferences. I'll be in Oakland tomorrow afternoon, and I know Matt will be there on Thursday afternoon. We each have meetings earlier in these day but can kick afterward.
I also have a meeting, possibly on CMU campus or Lawrenceville. Don't know where or when yet- but this could be followed by shred.
Finally, on Wednesday Matt is going to help me run some tests in preparation for my performance at the children's museum, and you can bet we will be up for some shred after that.
Pixie quantum eclipse sounds pretty styley
Kicked with Matt
Matt hit Paradox whirl both sides, and a fantastic mess of other links, strings, drills and tricks.
Me: Weak-side whirl X2- osis- string
Paradox whirl bsos.
Paradon-Pdx Whirl both sides
Some more Paradox Whirls
Paradon- far symposium rev. whirl both sides
Paradox Blender off of the foot
EDIT: In-Spinning osis X2
Two very controlled swirls in one string
Some nice atomic sets
Left a session with a whole bunch of new concepts under my belt and plenty of leftover energy X1
Matt hit Paradox whirl both sides, and a fantastic mess of other links, strings, drills and tricks.
Me: Weak-side whirl X2- osis- string
Paradox whirl bsos.
Paradon-Pdx Whirl both sides
Some more Paradox Whirls
Paradon- far symposium rev. whirl both sides
Paradox Blender off of the foot
EDIT: In-Spinning osis X2
Two very controlled swirls in one string
Some nice atomic sets
Left a session with a whole bunch of new concepts under my belt and plenty of leftover energy X1
Kicked with Matt.
I started out feeling sore, so I decided to concentrate on schooling body-add-centric moves.
Highlights:
gyro butterfly/mirage both sides
spinning clipper/butterfly/osis/pm both sides
really close to in-spinning osis both sides.
spinning clipper-swirl
spinning clipper-simple swirl
whirl-swirl X2
swirl-pm, weak-side swirl, x3
Theory: Video Games help my game.
I started out feeling sore, so I decided to concentrate on schooling body-add-centric moves.
Highlights:
gyro butterfly/mirage both sides
spinning clipper/butterfly/osis/pm both sides
really close to in-spinning osis both sides.
spinning clipper-swirl
spinning clipper-simple swirl
whirl-swirl X2
swirl-pm, weak-side swirl, x3
Theory: Video Games help my game.
Kicked with Matt.
he hit a rubberman that was more controlled than usual.
Playing with heavy bags makes me use my toes better, and as a result it warms me up much better. I started the session out with a Dufflebag-bag that is barely worked in, and heavy. My tricks became deliberate and the tightness I usually have in my knees seemed to shoot down to the tips of my clenched toes. This gave me a kind of full range of control in my lower leg that I feel I may have used to take for granted- but forgot about. It is necessary.
Hghlights:
spinning butterflyX2 in one string
spins and gyros both side, different dt components.
whirlX3-string, strong side.
whirlX2 other side, dropped on third.
ducking clipper-swirl-stringX2
swirls. Both sides.
Reverse swirls on left side. Looking better.
Paradox whirls from the left side.
O-I DATW both sides a couple times. Looking much better.
Jake dropped by for a sec in work gear and rocked-out. Fun afternoon.
he hit a rubberman that was more controlled than usual.
Playing with heavy bags makes me use my toes better, and as a result it warms me up much better. I started the session out with a Dufflebag-bag that is barely worked in, and heavy. My tricks became deliberate and the tightness I usually have in my knees seemed to shoot down to the tips of my clenched toes. This gave me a kind of full range of control in my lower leg that I feel I may have used to take for granted- but forgot about. It is necessary.
Hghlights:
spinning butterflyX2 in one string
spins and gyros both side, different dt components.
whirlX3-string, strong side.
whirlX2 other side, dropped on third.
ducking clipper-swirl-stringX2
swirls. Both sides.
Reverse swirls on left side. Looking better.
Paradox whirls from the left side.
O-I DATW both sides a couple times. Looking much better.
Jake dropped by for a sec in work gear and rocked-out. Fun afternoon.
Kicked sat with Jake. It was a rough session because I had been kicking every day for a week. At least. I still hit a few good strings though. Mostly I was happy to hit twirl-whirl again. Another good thing that came of the session is that I learned how far out I was setting my gyro/spinning sets.
Today, after a full day off and a lot of food the day before, I was happy to kick again. Limiting myself to only drills in the humidity. I'm glad Matt called me up to kick.
Highlights:
Matt hit alpine smear mid-string for the first time in G-units today, on both sides. Etc.
Me: WhirlX3, multiple times both sides.
Whirl-ss butterfly repeat X5 on strong side, X3 on weak side.
Whirl-dyno-whirl
paradon-whirl-torque-pm-paradon- screwed up a rev.whirl. Then hit the other half of the drill by itself (the other side) next try.
Ducking PM- paradon- ducking PM
ducking clipper-drifter- simple swirl- osis- ducking clipper-drifter- screwed up the simple swirl
Whirl-twirl on my weak side Twirl. Twice.
Ducking paradox mirage- datw. Arguably it was the lowest set, pixie-ss pickup, but I think it was a really tight datw. Still, it was first try and it makes me want to get back into my toe game even more, as it came from out of nowhere but felt cool.
I probably attempted 10 strings the whole day- if that. I started out doing tiltless drills. I should do this more.
EDIT:
It's now about 12:30, and I just got back from watching Indiana Jones and having a drink with my family. I am in a really good mood, though anyone who was drank with me at a tournament knows that deep down I get happy when I drink. Sometimes even verbose about it. Lol. I have become a little left-brained for an artist in the last few years or so, and the contrast between day-to-day Ian and Ian letting-loose can be jarring at first.
So, having said that. It feels really good to be me right now. This performance that I am in next week is going to be great. I am also excited to pull together this soundtrack for a very interesting public-interest piece in the next few days. While it does seem very odd to be working for myself right now, especially since I am about to vacation in Europe, with the dollar at an all-time-comparative-low, I feel so much happier working on things that I am naturally talented at and making mine and other people's lives better in the process.
So, I believe that this positive energy is contributing to my game. I feel fantastic that I have taken a leap in playing level (or so it feels, at least) in that I am hitting a wider variety of moves. I have been seriously working on improving my form so that I can rely on moves other than bop too. While hitting paradox whirl was a big step up for me, I did not allow myself to go for it until I had made progress on flip-siding my whirls. Now I have done both. Effort has paid off.
I can't quite say how hard it was for me to understand the whirl. Sometimes I can be quite quick at picking up on things. Footbag started out that way, but it hasn't felt that way in many years. Sometimes I feel like it is because my initial expectations were much lower than those of kids getting into it today. For this, it took a new, deeper, rekindling of my passion of this sport to get back into it. And this came about because of a handful of very special people. It seems that in order to allow myself to invest my energies back into this sport I had to reestablish my dedication to the sport, and it was easier because of the caliber of a few personalities alone. Anyway, I started this paragraph talking about whirls. A move that I thought I was too old and brittle to ever flop around. And tonight I am thinking about what it is going to take to finally get my stepping and atomic sets at this level.
So, to complete this verbose post- Jake is awesome and he has some really good ideas to compliment his smooth style. Matt is ridiculous, and I feel good being alive whenever I think about how fast his game is developing. The Steel City scene is looking great. Even Caleb is somewhere on the radar now, and we are all hoping to kick with him whenever it can happen. So, fuck yeah.
Today, after a full day off and a lot of food the day before, I was happy to kick again. Limiting myself to only drills in the humidity. I'm glad Matt called me up to kick.
Highlights:
Matt hit alpine smear mid-string for the first time in G-units today, on both sides. Etc.
Me: WhirlX3, multiple times both sides.
Whirl-ss butterfly repeat X5 on strong side, X3 on weak side.
Whirl-dyno-whirl
paradon-whirl-torque-pm-paradon- screwed up a rev.whirl. Then hit the other half of the drill by itself (the other side) next try.
Ducking PM- paradon- ducking PM
ducking clipper-drifter- simple swirl- osis- ducking clipper-drifter- screwed up the simple swirl
Whirl-twirl on my weak side Twirl. Twice.
Ducking paradox mirage- datw. Arguably it was the lowest set, pixie-ss pickup, but I think it was a really tight datw. Still, it was first try and it makes me want to get back into my toe game even more, as it came from out of nowhere but felt cool.
I probably attempted 10 strings the whole day- if that. I started out doing tiltless drills. I should do this more.
EDIT:
It's now about 12:30, and I just got back from watching Indiana Jones and having a drink with my family. I am in a really good mood, though anyone who was drank with me at a tournament knows that deep down I get happy when I drink. Sometimes even verbose about it. Lol. I have become a little left-brained for an artist in the last few years or so, and the contrast between day-to-day Ian and Ian letting-loose can be jarring at first.
So, having said that. It feels really good to be me right now. This performance that I am in next week is going to be great. I am also excited to pull together this soundtrack for a very interesting public-interest piece in the next few days. While it does seem very odd to be working for myself right now, especially since I am about to vacation in Europe, with the dollar at an all-time-comparative-low, I feel so much happier working on things that I am naturally talented at and making mine and other people's lives better in the process.
So, I believe that this positive energy is contributing to my game. I feel fantastic that I have taken a leap in playing level (or so it feels, at least) in that I am hitting a wider variety of moves. I have been seriously working on improving my form so that I can rely on moves other than bop too. While hitting paradox whirl was a big step up for me, I did not allow myself to go for it until I had made progress on flip-siding my whirls. Now I have done both. Effort has paid off.
I can't quite say how hard it was for me to understand the whirl. Sometimes I can be quite quick at picking up on things. Footbag started out that way, but it hasn't felt that way in many years. Sometimes I feel like it is because my initial expectations were much lower than those of kids getting into it today. For this, it took a new, deeper, rekindling of my passion of this sport to get back into it. And this came about because of a handful of very special people. It seems that in order to allow myself to invest my energies back into this sport I had to reestablish my dedication to the sport, and it was easier because of the caliber of a few personalities alone. Anyway, I started this paragraph talking about whirls. A move that I thought I was too old and brittle to ever flop around. And tonight I am thinking about what it is going to take to finally get my stepping and atomic sets at this level.
So, to complete this verbose post- Jake is awesome and he has some really good ideas to compliment his smooth style. Matt is ridiculous, and I feel good being alive whenever I think about how fast his game is developing. The Steel City scene is looking great. Even Caleb is somewhere on the radar now, and we are all hoping to kick with him whenever it can happen. So, fuck yeah.
Last edited by Ian Brill on 27 May 2008 12:42, edited 1 time in total.
Kicked with Jake, Matt, and Adrienne from College Park. What a fun day.
Adrienne looked like she was getting pretty close to a couple new concepts. I hope that when I see her next she will have had a chance to nail them
Jake's still kicking in quantums and Matt still hits Rubberman to cool-off at the end of his sessions.
Highlights:
Whirls. Many of them. X4 on my strong side.
A couple strings that were on a much higher level than before (less BOPs)
Torques.
Closer to Toe Blur.
Better atomic sets than usual.
Better Stepping sets than usual.
That's all I can remember at the moment.
Adrienne looked like she was getting pretty close to a couple new concepts. I hope that when I see her next she will have had a chance to nail them
Jake's still kicking in quantums and Matt still hits Rubberman to cool-off at the end of his sessions.
Highlights:
Whirls. Many of them. X4 on my strong side.
A couple strings that were on a much higher level than before (less BOPs)
Torques.
Closer to Toe Blur.
Better atomic sets than usual.
Better Stepping sets than usual.
That's all I can remember at the moment.
Kicked briefly with Matt.
Started a thread in the general section that ate hours of my life already, though I am glad that I started putting some of these ideas I've had out there.
Apparently Caleb met Matt at his second session of the day. Very cool.
highlights:
whirlX4 good side, three on other
weak side whirl: X2-rev. whirling Xbdy rake,
weak side whirl-swirl-whirl-long string
whirl-twirl
ripwalk-paradox whirl-footed
improved ripwalks in general.
Started a thread in the general section that ate hours of my life already, though I am glad that I started putting some of these ideas I've had out there.
Apparently Caleb met Matt at his second session of the day. Very cool.
highlights:
whirlX4 good side, three on other
weak side whirl: X2-rev. whirling Xbdy rake,
weak side whirl-swirl-whirl-long string
whirl-twirl
ripwalk-paradox whirl-footed
improved ripwalks in general.
Totally. Jake has a lot of footage and I have even more to give him. The next video is going to be done when he is ready. We mustn't interrupt the artist! I'm personally really anxious to see this myself. Mostly because Matt is the man, and I want him to get feedback on his playing. Speaking of which...Rieferman wrote:DO IT
Matt and I kicked with Caleb today. The weather sucked and I did not hit much, but it was really cool that Matt got to kick with Caleb. Caleb gave Matt some advice on different sets. I'm glad he did that.
Yeah, having some pressure might speed things up on the video front. I've been kind of busy lately and editing takes tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime. Last time I made a video I didn't do like anything else for 2 weeks. It was crazy.
I could just slap some footage together with some music on top...that wouldn't take very long, but I'd like to keep the quality of editing up.
If you all think I should just make something quick lemme know and I'll do that. Otherwise, you're getting cool effects and sweet sync with the music. It just may take awhile.
word up
I could just slap some footage together with some music on top...that wouldn't take very long, but I'd like to keep the quality of editing up.
If you all think I should just make something quick lemme know and I'll do that. Otherwise, you're getting cool effects and sweet sync with the music. It just may take awhile.
word up
Jake Milofsky
Steel City Freestyle [ex officio]
Steel City Freestyle [ex officio]
Nah, seriously Jake- you did such a good job the last time that I am willing to wait however long as it takes. As long as you are up for it. I never realized how long it took before. Thanks for that. At least this time around I was able to supply you with some decent footage. I still don't understand how you were able to pull together the last one with the little bit you had.
How to learn Swirl, by Kenneth Ian Brill.
The most important thing to do before you try and learn swirl is by taking on a freelance job that you are sure will leaving you committed till the day you leave the country for a couple weeks.
Once you have done the bulk of the work, make plans to have a short session, such as with someone named Matt. It is best that you not check the temperature, as you have probably not left your studio for over 24 hours and uncharacteristically hot weather is always best when it catches you off guard. Especially if you make additional plans to hit up the indian buffet before kicking.
By now you should be burping up Chai when you get a letter from the IRS saying that not only did you pay them in full but that you owe them money for not paying it. When in fact the only due payment is the interest. WTF?
Anyway, now that you are in the best possible condition to not actually play footbag, I suggest you not find any sunscreen and show the world what you got!
If you have followed these steps correctly, every time you land a whirl or paradox mirage you should be fighting off nausea. Great! Now you are ready to not string!
Personally, when I have my heart set on playing footbag and I can't string I school moves.
Highlights:
Paradox illusionX3, one string right side. 4 or five on other side.
Whirl- Paradox illusion
Swirl, frozen
Swirl- Swirl- osis
Swirl- Twirl
Paradon- Swirl
Probably 50 swirls over the course of the day on my strong side. Maybe 5 on the other, but I at least no what to do now.
The most important thing to do before you try and learn swirl is by taking on a freelance job that you are sure will leaving you committed till the day you leave the country for a couple weeks.
Once you have done the bulk of the work, make plans to have a short session, such as with someone named Matt. It is best that you not check the temperature, as you have probably not left your studio for over 24 hours and uncharacteristically hot weather is always best when it catches you off guard. Especially if you make additional plans to hit up the indian buffet before kicking.
By now you should be burping up Chai when you get a letter from the IRS saying that not only did you pay them in full but that you owe them money for not paying it. When in fact the only due payment is the interest. WTF?
Anyway, now that you are in the best possible condition to not actually play footbag, I suggest you not find any sunscreen and show the world what you got!
If you have followed these steps correctly, every time you land a whirl or paradox mirage you should be fighting off nausea. Great! Now you are ready to not string!
Personally, when I have my heart set on playing footbag and I can't string I school moves.
Highlights:
Paradox illusionX3, one string right side. 4 or five on other side.
Whirl- Paradox illusion
Swirl, frozen
Swirl- Swirl- osis
Swirl- Twirl
Paradon- Swirl
Probably 50 swirls over the course of the day on my strong side. Maybe 5 on the other, but I at least no what to do now.