Another footbaggin Sam

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 16 Jul 2008 05:32

What up modified? This is kind of a random beginning to a blog, as I'm not really at the beginning of my game, but I've been skulking aroung the forum for many a year now (about two), and I feel like if I'm gonna know all this random information about you guys and gals, I should at least give y'all the opportunity to know something about I. On top of that, I'm really hoping that logging my progress will push me a little harder on the old improvement front. Also, I'd really like some game-pushing advice and the like, so maybe after I post highlights or something for a little while, peeps can get an idea of what my style is like. Unfortunately, I have no access to any moving image-recording device, so text is the best I can do. I'll try to be honest.

Anyway... Me...
To begin with, this is me (the dude, not the champagne):

I live in halifax, and have been playing footsack for about 3 years, and have actually been dedicated for about two years (this is how I justify being far behind many who started around the same time). In the winter I study (until next year, at least), and in the summer I work on boats. Currently I'm chief mate (driver) on this boat, doing an endless number of rings around halifax harbour on guided tours:

Sailing has been a big part of my life for about nine years or so, and I've really stuck to large, traditionally rigged ships for the most part. I am actually from toronto, which is where I started both sailing, and footbag, but have been living in halifax, for the most part, for about three years. I am FAT's east coast representative (although there's almost enough of us out here these days that we could start our own club).

Enough non-footbag babble. As far as my game is concerned, I have been wavering around the guiltless border for some time now, and although I continue to improve, I just realize more and more what a huge step going guiltless actually is. If I had to describe my game in one word? Downtime. My sets are still pretty brutal, with pixie being the only consistant one. Ducking is pretty good, I supposedly have nice pdx whirls, and I really like drifters. Whatever. It's hard to put into words.

For some reason, I decided to start this blog during the largest footbag break I've taken in a long time (about 5 days), so I have nothing to post. But I'm gonna play today, so highlights later!

I wonder if anyone's gonna read this...

century264 · Post by **century264** » 16 Jul 2008 08:01

I always love to see new blogs. Hey I don't know if you remember me, but we played in a few circles at T.O. Jam together. I wasn't incredibly good, but I was the kid in either a bandana or a brim beanie pretty constantly. I really like how your game looks even if you're still hovering around guiltless. Hopefully we'll be able to catch up at some event or other later this year.

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 16 Jul 2008 11:15

A reply already! Golly! Yeah, I remember you, dude. We were playing together a bit the night before competition. I've also been reading your highlights. You're rippin it.

Anyway, just had my first session in a while, and now I am disgustingly sweaty. I don't know how those more southerly-located individuals manage playing in that disgusting heat. It's probably only 25 (celsius) or so here, and I'm dying. Anyway, a few good highlights, but not really much

drifter>dlo [rpt] first try

40 tiltless first try (unusual for me)

spinning and gyro clip BSOS

phoenix>pdx whirl> pdx flail

smear>pixie ss mir [rpt] midstring

Flipside blurry whirl continues to elude me, as my step on that side is weak and useless. Curse my inadequate body! I need robot legs.

jon · Post by **jon** » 16 Jul 2008 12:03

I look forward to reading more updates about your game. I was really happy to see the progression you made from the last time I saw you play and the jam in TO. I think our games have some similarities and I am glad you are representing Toronto and the east coast.

Working with ships must be awesome. Ever think of doing one of those sailing trips around the world?

DTank126 · Post by **DTank126** » 16 Jul 2008 15:12

Damn dude, I didnt know you were so into sailing and the like. Thats awesome! Oh, and Idk if you remember me, we met at TO Jam, we were pretty equal in skill, but apparently you were a tad better.

I too look forward to seeing you progress as it gives me an idea as to where I should be in my game, so dont go exploding like some of these other guys.

Peace

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 16 Jul 2008 15:32

Hey Sam.
Always enjoy reading FAT blogs!
Nice bothsided stuff

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 17 Jul 2008 11:14

Jon: Thanks man. That means a lot to me. You've got good style.

Doug: I'd say we're pretty tied. There was no way that I did better than you in that last round. You'll get me next time, I'm sure. But yeah, we should start challenging each other.

Erik: MAN! Erik Chan! In my blog! I better clean up in here, this place is a mess...

Anyway, I had another solo session today, and I messed about with fun crap after I finished warming up, and hit a couple of good things.

A couple of 40-50 contact mainly BOP, tiltless and dexless strings

25 ducking clippers

smear>merlin>pixie clipper

dimwauxspin

pixie merlin

GYBAS

infinity>sidewalk [rpt] x 8 contacts... stepping shall someday be mine...

magellan x5 one side, x6 the other. I like that they're pretty balanced. the x6 waws actuall on my weak side

Now I have to work too much for a couple of days, and won't have time to play. Oh well, I feel like I'm making progress. Also, I find these multi-day hack breaks = no shint splint problems at all. Although I feel a warning twinge on the random flails and ps whirls.

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 19 Jul 2008 13:18

I got sick, and was feeling pretty tired today, but I really wanted to shred, so I made my self a massive smoothy, and dragged my sluggish self outside for a brief session. A very small number of highlights, since I felt exhausted just by my warmup, but I'll post'em anyway:

infinity>sidewalk [rpt] x 16 contacts. happy bout this one, but I still can't hit more than ripwalkx 2 from either side.

infinity>ss butter [rpt] x 26 contacts. pathetic, but the best I've done. clip set ss butter is my BOP kryptonite.
Man, it sure is arrogant to compare myself to Superman.

some of my less dialed concepts midstring more consistently, like spins. Spinning legover is pretty fun feeling

eggbeater BSOS, but madly sketchy. I'd really like to have'em on lock. such a cool feeling trick to hit

revup midstring. feels cool.

That's all.

QuantumBalance · Post by **QuantumBalance** » 20 Jul 2008 14:46

Sam's in the house!!!!

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 22 Jul 2008 06:16

Bah. I have work off, due to weather, but that means no shred either, which is frustrating. I swear I can hear my stepping set deteriorate.
No money, and no skill development. I am doomed for a life on the street, destitute and unskilled.
Oh Well, at least I'll be able to finish off GTA 4 today.
In other, cooler news, I bought a beer kit from my local U-brew, and started my first batch of beer yesterday! It's pretty exciting. It is a pale ale, and I really hope it's going to be delicious. Time will tell.

I realized the other day that there are a couple of concepts that get thrown around that I don't know the meaning of. Anyone care to enlighten?

Triforce drill
BAP drill
And I saw someone refer to a trick called 'motor'. what's that?

I'm kind of a stickler for understanding nomenclature, even if I'm far from mastering the concepts. It was the worst for skateboarding, where I was mint at differing between all that nollie/fakie stuff, but couldn't ollie up a curb. At least its not quite as bad with footsack.

century264 · Post by **century264** » 22 Jul 2008 09:40

triforce drill I know is a clipper drill. it's clip>opp clip then clip>ss clip>clip>ss clip then clip>2 ss clips>clip>2 ss clips then clip>3 ss clips>clip>3 ss clips, and so on in a row, so that you go all the way up to ten ss clippers before switching sides. At that point you turn around and work your way all the way back down. All in all i think that comes out to 220 clippers.

Lackey82 · Post by **Lackey82** » 22 Jul 2008 18:04

Dude,

Great to see your blog.

Since Drifters are going well, try Drifter > Sidewalk rpt

We should have a shred-off sometime, I miss that odd session we'd have just you and me, they were always good and inspiring.

Back in T.O. soon?

Camilleon · Post by **Camilleon** » 23 Jul 2008 07:18

Saaaaaam! I'm so happy to be able to follow your game, thanks for starting this blog. You are awesome! You've come so far since that first session with me at the beach, way back when!

I still see Roman & A.J. from time to time...

I just wanna really point out in your blog that:

Sam won Intermediate Circle Comp at T.O. Jam 2008!!

Though Doug Tank was VERY close, it was super hard to judge. We were all kinda on the fence about it.

I miss ya so much man, hurry up and finish school already. When's your next visit?

And mega props on the shred.

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 23 Jul 2008 15:44

Thanks for the responses guys. I was pretty sure that was what the triforce drill was, but I always counted the opp clip, and counted to ten that way, which means I've been missing out on a whole set of clippers each side. I thought I had finished it, but I guess I've only done up to nine and back down. Something for next session.
J-Lack, I missed you a bunch on my last coupl'a sojourns back to toronto (and I regret not playing with you at TO jam for the brief time you joined us), and am looking forward to playing with you again. I have fond memories of shamelessly shredding in bathurst station, despite the frequent sketchy looks from TTC personnel.
Camille, I long for the day when I can count myself as an honest-to-goodness FAT member again, and show up for the weekly session. Hopefully it will happen soon. Also thanks for bigging up my TO jam placing, even if I also feel that Doug deserved it at least as much as I did (and Zach Forth maybe more... It was a shame he didn't get to compete).
I'll be back for a little bit in Aug, so hopefully I shall tear it up with you both.
In other news, I had a pretty mediocre session today. Work has been demanding, and my girlfriend leaves on a 5 month trip to Honduras in a week, so I've been splitting my time between those issues, and not having any left for 'baggin. This means my usual four sessions a week are not being realized, and the rust is leaving me frustrated. Josh, I am nowhere close to drifter>sidewalk [rpt], but drifter>stepping is not something I have schooled much. Now, I swear this will change. I did foot pdx whirl>sidewalk [rpt], but the bag rolled off my foot on the last butter. Other than that, nothing of note. My stepping regressed in the last week. which is frustrating. But I suspect when the lady friend leaves, I will have all too much time on my hands. I'm not sure that's a good thing, but it is what it is.
Peace modified land. Have a good evening

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 08 Aug 2008 10:23

BOO. I just had my first session in about nine days, pretty much the first since my last post. A footbag hiatus seems to result about half the time in a pretty awesome increase in my energy, enough that I work the rust off quick, and have a great session, and the other half of the time in a straight up mediocre session, which is definitely what I had today. I felt weak, and my balance was poor. I could hardly even seal a smear, and my stepping progress basically evaporated, which is frustrating considering all the work I put into it.
But I worked 60 hours in 5 days, ending on tues., so between that and having the girl leave at four o'clock in the morning on monday, by tuesday night, I was ready for a bender. The bender went wonderfully, and I suspect that was also a bit detrimental to my game.
Other than that, I had the last two days off, and had a chance to relax, drink a lot, and also go scuba diving with my buddy, which was cool. I got my licence about four years ago, but hadn't used it till this year. It's cool to have a dive buddy, and I'm hoping we'll get out to do that a couple more times before the season's up.
Yeah, not so much with the footbag highlights, so I think I'll just leave 'em out entirely. Hopefully a more noteworthy session will show up in the next couple of days.

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 11 Aug 2008 10:39

I had another session today, still without any really stellar breakthroughs, but at least I can feel myself getting back into good form after having played 3 times in four days. Not any really big highlights, but I did do osis b2b x 46 contacts, which beats my previous record by about 20 contacts. Other than that not a whole lot. I am pretty happy with the variety of my strings, but I'd really like to add about 5 contacts per string, and then I'd be relly happy. also, one of the first drill I've managed to throw spins into: gyro clip>pdx mirage>ssbutter [rpt]. Humble, but it's a start.
Also, I need to keep working better on my shuffle! I'm not that big on a bunch of shuffle links in a row, but I do like how they add a bit of a different rhythm, and I'd love to toss in some good atomic, quantum and stepping links (and one day nuclear, but thats a long way off...).
In other news, there is none. After my girlfriend left last week, I've been doing far too much sitting round and smokin weed, a habit that i don't plan on quitting, but do like to moderate. it's made me really useless, and I've neglected the plethora of small tasks that I need to get done. My house is disgusting.
I think that's all the rambling I need to do right now. I'm going back to Toronto for a visit next week, and I'm really excited to get to shred with FAT and friends!

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 19 Aug 2008 08:03

So... I am in toronto for just a couple of days (it's my sister's b-day), and I'm sad to see the diminished membership of FAT. With Adam away planting his trees, and Alex out in BC getting ready to go to school, our core membership is pretty small. Of course, being in Halifax all the time myself, I am not one to talk. Nonetheless, I managed to get out and have a great session in Kensington market with Mike Faille (who, it turns out, is moving to Hamilton soon enough as well!

). Kensington's a really cool place. It's a little area of town that students, old hippies and the counterculture in general have claimedc as their own. So on Sundays, they close the whole place down to cars, and you can just walk all through the streets. Bands play, people set up huge games (there was a giant scrabble board! So cool), and all the vendors set up little stalls outside their stores. It's a great place to be, and I think all the god vibes had a great effect on my shred. I can't think of any specific higlights, but I had a bunch of nice long strings, both tiltless and guiltless, and I managed to hit Mike's cool highlight, which was ducking mirage, legover, and pickup all BSOS. For some reason, whenever someone stopped to watch, I managed to bust out huge, which always feels good.
Mike's game always continues to improve as well. He's got nice clean style, and his tiltless runs are really interesting, even just with two adds (he tosses in a bunch of ducking toes, which look totally cool).
I dunno if I'll manage to get another session in while I'm here, but the one I did manage to have was pretty good. I really wanna find Josh Lackey, though. In days of old, he was my fave shred partner.

BuckRuckus · Post by **BuckRuckus** » 19 Aug 2008 08:12

I had a great time playing with you as well. You game is solid, and much improved from the last time we played. Looking forward to next time!

About FAT, yeah pretty thin right now. We should change it to include the whole of southern Ontario so we can claim more members. Maybe call our club SOFA, or GTAFA. Or you should all move to Hamilton with me and we'll resurrect the Steeltown Shreddies!

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 21 Aug 2008 07:30

So I did manage to have one more FATty session before I left, with Camille, which was awesome. I always thought camille had cool style, and she was in pretty good form with real interesting moves yesterday as well. My favourite came right at the end of the session with rev. guay b2b. It looks so awesome! She says she has started playing by herself a bit, and I'm looking forward to seeing how her game's progressed by the time christmas rolls around.
We played at the beach, and it was a great time. I got soo many positive comments from onlookers, it was really great. I finally feel like my game's at a place where it's asomewhat of a performance. I only had one dickhead say 'now try that with a soccerball', it was a dad with his kid. hopefully he didn't pass those asshole genes on to his son. I felt really good playing, and was starting runs with fives and styley tricks, and my stepping was actually looking pretty good. Finally getting height on the midstring ones, which is nice. Fave highlight:
DLO>ssDLO [rpt] into a 15 contact guiltless string. I saw Erik hit like 12 contacts of that, which inspired me to try it.
I go back to hali today, and work 60 hours in two days. I am going to be destroyed.

semiconscious · Post by **semiconscious** » 26 Aug 2008 04:27

Ha. Turns out it is impossible to work 60 hours in two days, as there are merely 48. What I meant was 30 hours in two days, which was still a lot. Trust me.
Anyway, I survived a relatively taxing work weekend, and managed to get a session in yesterday with Sergey Pikalov, who I havent seen since before he went to the Montreal Circle comp (!). He hurt his ankle there, and says it's still not quite fully healed, but despite that , he still looks in pretty good form. Ripping nice stepping and atomics, and, of course much spinning, although he is definitely still taking it a little easy. I hope It's fully functional soon.
I didn't have a whole lot of highlights. Because of the heat, and Sergey's ankle, we only played for about an hour, but I still managed a few new things:

Blur>Butter [rpt]. Finally. Gotta work the blurs more

Tomahawk bs, and mistring bs. Gotta BSOS it now.

some ok spinning. Think I managed merkon BSOS. Would really like to get a good pixie out of it.

It was an OK session, but I was still hurtin from work. Hopefully tomorrow's solo sesh will be more fruitful.