Word

[DTank126]

Back form Jersey!

Pretty good time with a few of my friends and my cousin and lots of his friends. We went down to my shore house which is about 7 hrs from Rochester and about 2 from where my cousin lives. Anyway, it was great to be back there, despite the incredibly short period of time we were there. We got down Saturday night, played lots of pong, and were drunk and merry. One of my friends and I went on a bike ride to a gas station cuz we were hungry. Best bike ride ever. Yeah.

The next day my friends and I drove down to Seaside Heights, an amusement park-esque place. Ian and I played footbag there and tried to busk but people were either too interested in the lame carnival games or didnt notice the shoebox we were using had money in it. Whatever. We both played pretty well but couldnt go for too long since it was like 90 degrees and we only had one water bottle between the two of us. By the time we were finished we had made about 51 cents. Score!

I pm'ed that Russian dude, Rivers, Friday night or somethin to let him know we were gonna be there and he sounded really excited about it in his response I pm'ed again Sunday morning to see if he wanted to play that day or the next but he never responded. I was really looking forward to playing with him too. Aw well, maybe he'll be at NYFA Jam, which is going to be amazing and I cant wait!

Anyway, we left the shore today around 4 and on the drive home Ian and I decided we'd wait the 7 hr drive until we got back to eat so we could get garbage plates. It seemed like a good idea at the time and while I was eating it, but now I'm really regretting finishing the whole thing cuz I feel like shit. Bleh.

I really wish I couldve stayed down at the shore longer but it was nice to see my cousin and party like its my job for the time we were there. I've had this vision of the shore house in my mind for a while now and it made me really happy every time I thought about it so I guess thats why Im so disappointed we didnt stay longer but at the same time it's okay because the vision I had didnt really involve partying and whatnot, it's more of just me by myself lying out on the deck relaxing and wasting the day watching boats go by. I guess I still have something to get me through work, haha.

I dont really know why I posted all this, I try not to post shit thats not footbag related but for some reason I felt like talking about this weekend. Sorry for anyone who read all that expecting cool footbag stuff. Here's sometihn I can hit on command if you ask me to: mirage>legover>rpt.

Peace

[bdams19]

huzzah! 3 more days till the jam; today i had a light shred to test out my knee and on my first blender i felt a pain that kinda sucked. Gonna be sick tho!

[DTank126]

I wish I was good at footbag.

NYC was a lot of fun. It was great seeing some old friends and acquaintances, and meeting new people and whatnot. I ended up riding down with Pat, Matt Cross, Jorden M, and Taylor C. It was cool being stuck in a car with the destroyer for 5 hours even if it was a little cramped, I just kept thinking, "Ha, Im sitting behind one of the greatest athletes of all time.... cool." Haha. The car ride there and back was pretty uneventful. Pat did a spectacular job driving, and I only realized after I was on the highway after leaving his house that I never actually said thank you or goodbye to Pat! Ahhhh! Im really sorry man, I truly did appreciate you driving so much, once again, you did a STELLAR job! And dont think I forgot that I owe you 20 bucks, I've got your back.

Special thanks to Brian D for letting me and a bunch of other sweaty footbaggers crash at your pad. Hope we didnt annoy your roommates too badly!

I met a few new people, some I've heard of, some I havent. There was this dude named Cody (cant remember his last name) and he was a myachi player (yeah, i judged him at first too, but that passed very quickly) who was learning footbag. At the beginning of the tournament he could hit butterfly, atw and eclipse. By the end he was hitting ducking clipper b2b, ss butter over and over, datw, and reaper . Oh and his eclipses were really really awesome, he could do a bunch in a row and they were just perfect. He even hit eclipse>reverse hopover first try when I asked if he could do it, he's gonna be good. Oh and he lives off doing myachi (and now footbag) demos for schools and shit, too cool.

I also met Chris Balch for the first time. I'd heard his name before and imagined him as some 30 year old old-school type footbagger but I couldnt have been more wrong. He was a little older than me and at about my level of shred. He was just a really chill guy, and real easy to talk to so that was cool.

Mike Toolan. This kid is way cool. When I saw him sitting at a booth in some diner when we arrived Saturday night I thought, "Hmm, that kinda looks like Mike Toolan, but Idk if it is" so of course me being my shy self I kinda avoided him until he said Hi first. Yeah, I do that a lot so dont be offended if you meet me and I dont say anything, Im prolly just nervous. Anyway I hung out with Mike for most of the tournament and he's just a really chill dude. There was a point when we were told that everyone under 21 was getting kicked out of the place where Saturday dinner was happening but since we arrived late we only had enuff time to order an outrageous $7.50 pitcher of coke, or in my case coke flavored ice, so Mike, Brian, Pete, Pat, and I left to get pizza at the place next door. When we got there we started talking about the night-shred spot and how we would get lost trying to find it and Mike said something kinda under his breath and I forget what it was but I think it was somethin like, "If we're not there, then we're somewhere." I just thought that was really funny. So yeah, Mike Toolan, really awesome kid. Oh and he's way good at footbag.

It was great seeing Pete again. His knee seems to have gotten a lot better and his shred seems to be back to where it was, if not better. Tried to watch his new video but Brians crappy computer was acting all crappy. Oh, I also met Ken Somolinos for the first time. Everything everyone says about him is true, he is a complete jerk when it comes to four square! Seriously though, Ken's a really great guy, very down to earth and easy to talk to. Right before his routine I thought about saying good luck to him but instead said "godspeed" so as not to jinx him, therefore I take partial credit for his performance.

It's funny, on the car ride up Taylor asked me what I was going to compete in and I said "maybe intermediate circle" and Matt Cross said "Open, its time" and I argued with him using my consistency as my defense and then Jorden said "Do you think you'll learn more from dominating in intermediate or getting crushed in open?" and I knew open was the right answer. The thing is though, Matt Cross is under the impression that Im a lot better than I really am. Hell, Im under the impression that Im better than I really am, but the truth is that I already choke under pressure and my muscle memory seems to be very forgetful. Anyway, I got there and they put me in intermediate and I was like "meh, whatever" then I talked to Ken and the subject came up and he said the same type thing as Jorden so now I just felt plain guilty going intermediate. I had 3 people who all would have considered me a sandbagger had I gone intermediate so I asked to be put in open.

Now let me put a little light on the situation. I had played everyday before the competition since last Saturday. I meant to take a break in between there but I never got a chance until the day before where I was cramped in the backseat of a saab for 5 hours and my legs just felt like "bleh". It also didnt help that I got about 1/2 or maybe 1 full hour of sleep the night before competition. When circle comp finally did come, the order was me> Jon S>Jake M>Jorden M. That's right, I went after Jorden "The Destroyer" Moir, and I now understand how he got his nickname.

So yeah, to recap: footbag the whole week, no sleep, choke under pressure, Jorden>me. I think you can figure out for youself how circle comp went for me. Needless to say im pretty sure I got dead last and wouldnt be surprsied if the winner of intermediate did better than I did. Honestly, I felt really really shitty afterward and wanted to give up footbag forever. However this feeling was fleeting as I figured, "Fuck it, it's just footbag." Im not about to give up b/c of some stupid circle competition where I was already in bad condition to begin with. I love the feeling of catching that first clipper in every session and I don't plan to stop cranking my ankle any time soon. Anywho, I didnt really learn anything from going open or anything but I guess it was a good experience to get decimated to the extreme. Things can only get better from here.... right? Right.

I'm sure Im forgetting a ton of stuff, but whatev, this post is already violently long. All in all it was a really fun tournament and now I want to go down to PA, not to play footbag, but to find this all you can eat sushi buffet Mike was telling me about, mmmm sushi. OH, and that reminds me that this Japanese girl who lived with my family for a year when I was in 5th grade came to our house this weekend. Unfortantly everyone was asleep by the time I got home so I havnt seen her yet, so tomorrow morning should be interesting.

Peace

[Zac Miley]

In regards to the circle competition thing:

Going after Jorden shouldn't bother you, because you know there's no way you're going to win against him. I would say just do your best, but that's really lame and cliche. But do your best and forget about it. I used to get nervous in competition but now I just shrug it off. Don't go in there expecting to do great, go in there being confident in the tricks you know you can hit. It's really easy, right? You've done it before.

That was more pep-talky than intended. Sorry.

Thanks for the write-up type thing.

[BenRea]

Hey, can you give me a few song suggestions for the SFA video?

[mtoolan]

hey man it was great hanging out with you last weekend, if you're ever nearby just let me know and well hit up that sushi buffet!

[DTank126]

Hell yea! Sushi rules.

So yeah, just got back from a 2 man session with Mike. It... was.... GREAT! I finally got out of my 2 week slump. My strings were nice and long, spinning was on, ducking was ESPECIALLY on. I hit this awesome ducking/diving/spinning/gyro string in front of a pretty big crowd of people so that felt really awesome. Haha, I jsut realized I didnt land a single torque, it was always a string ender today, ha, aw well. Drifter's were finally back on and so was symp whirl. Aw man, just so much good stuff. Stepping and pixie were very reliable, had prolly my best pixie shuffle with smear, smudge, magellan, pixie ss mirage, and loooots of plos all bsos. Hmmm, rip>rip>blur bsos. Just so much good stuff.

Unfortantly, with the good, comes the bad. After about an hour or so my right knee started bothering me so I jsut figured "meh" and shrugged it off. Of course it got worse. I finally had to stop and felt guilty leaving Mike to tame the restless masses with their absurd questions like, "how do you do that?!" and "Whats it made out of?" and inevitably "Do you play soccer?" It's a good thing Mike was there though b'c he's really good at dealing with questions and is very informative about the sport. I'm not.

It's too bad we didnt have a hat b/c we coulda made so much moolah. Some drunk dude tried to give us all his money. Ha, so yea I guess thats about it. Oh yea, people really enjoy watching doubles, like, two people doing the same moves at the same time kinda thing.

Peace

[Darkshredder]

ice your knee fool! I need more footbag.

[DTank126]

My other knee hurts now too. bleh.

So I had a session with Ian today. Twas good. Ian hit TONS of new shit that you should definitly check out when he writes about it. As for me, I hit a link I didnt expect to hit for another year. Goes a little something like this: pdx drifter>drfiter>rpt . Idk why but for some reason pdx drifter felt really on today. I almost hit pdx drifter>whirl>duck>rpt. Missed like the last contact or something. Hmmm I guess my highlights are:

-dirfter daze
-dyno>spinning clip midstring bsos
-dyno>barrage midstring bsos
-pdx whirl>drifter>drifter>pdx whirl>string
-pdx drifter x2 (only one side )

Not too much other stuff. I wasted a lot of the session trying atomic stuff but thats something I really need to drill by myself. Ugh, and blur, fuck that move. All in all it was a really fun session though. The only bad thing was I did something to my other knee near the end of the session. Idk, it feels okay now, so hopefully it was just bc it was the end of the session and whatnot or something. Aw well.

Peace

[Darkshredder]

drifter daze wasn't too much to ask with your level of play. Props. And dyno > barrage bsos is massive. I'd really like to see that in realtime.

[slapdash21]

beeetch! dont hurt yourself.

when are you coming to boston?


beetch!

[DTank126]

Haha, thanx Pete.... I think? Anywho I'll prolly be back on Sept 5th, unless I end up moving in a lil early, which would only be a few days earlier.

Thanx Pat. We gotta play a a few more times before I leave. You're not going anywhere anytime soon are you?

So yeah, solo session for the first time in a looong time. Haha, a "looong" time for me is only, like 3 weeks or something, haha. It started off pretty strong. Hit my tiltless drill 2nd try and then was able to shred hard for a good 45 minutes or so. Hmm, lets see...

-whirl war>string (yeah this is still a highlight for me )
-toe blur x2
-spin butter>duck>rpt
-rip>schmoe bsos

I know there was a lot more but I cant remember much of it, mainly just some really solid strings. On another note, I just get more and more confused everyday, but its okay because Here Comes the Sun, do da do do.

Peace

[Darkshredder]

check yon journies to tournies. . . pee el zee.

[DTank126]

Hahahaha!

So I played with Ian and Pat the other day at the New York State Fair. Twas awesome. We only made a little over 10 dollars, but I felt like I played pretty well. Ian played pretty well too, managed some atomsmasher sauce, dlo sauce and blur sauce, mhmm. Pat played like his usual self, freakin awesome but not good enough for him. His shuffle is getting really good, and he's getting way more consistent with double downs and whatnot. So yeah, fair shred was more than fair, haha.

Anywho the reason Im posting is because after the fair session I realized that my right knee didnt hurt at all! Maybe it's because I avoided pixie for the most part, Idk, but either way it was great.

Now, I didnt play yesterday cuz I wanted to give my legs a chance to recuperate, so I figured I'd play today. It was awesome, I watched a bunch of old footage with Ryan Thomas, Brad Nelson, John Mahood, Pete Irish, and a bunch of others so I was REALLY psyched to play....

Now I wasnt really in the mood to bike down to the canal, but at the same time I really didnt feel like playing in my basement so I decided to suck it up and ride my bike. So I'm bikin, ridin more slowly than normal in order to conserve energy for my session, doin a lil no hands, standing up no hands, poppin wheelies... the usual. I'm about 300 feet from where I plan to play and suddenly I accidentally ride off the sidewalk a little. I go to reposition myself back onto the sidewalk but something wierd happens. My front tire made the transition no problem, but my back tire.... not so much. I lost control for a second and swerved to the left, so I tried to balance out by swerving back to the right, which caused me to lose even more balance making me swerve to the left again in which I lost all control and ended up having my bike moving forward while the frame was turned slightly causing my upper body to fly over the handlebars and my knees jammed into the handelbars.

Oof. I lied there for a second in pain and then thought, "Hmmm, maybe its best if I stand up." Uhh, yeah, horrible idea, as soon I stood up I felt incredibly sick to my stomach and lost hearing in my left ear. Haha, yea I know I was confused too. Some lady came out and started talking to me but for some reason it sounded like she was underwater.

So there I am standing up all hunched over about to vomit and cant hear, so I decide to sit down and all of a sudden the stomach pains goes away and my hearing returns to normal. Phew. I drink some water, tell the lady thanx for her concern and get back on my bike and ride to the library to clean up a little. I get there and realize I'm all covered in dirt and my elbow is beyond fucked up. It looked so nasty, probably still does. It was all covered in black and shizz. I went to wash it off and luckily some of the black stuff came off, unfortantly I think that black stuff was my skin so I could see a little bone. Yeah, not fun.

So I go outside to my bike and try to wrap up my elbow in my shirt, but that was not happening so I just biked home with one arm.

Ok, here comes the fun part. Before I got on my bike I noticed a little cut on my left knee, I figured "meh" and got on my bike. I pedal a few feet and BAM! Yeah, my knee did not feel good. I thought "Fuck it, I live less than 3 miles away I'll be alright." I finally get home and as I ascend the stairs I stop midstep and scream "FUCK!" (No one was home at this point, so this word was uttered a few times...) I just washed my elbow off some more and put some ice on my knee until my dad finally got home and found some anti-bacterial spray.

So yea, I just found it kinda funny that my right knee finally healed after, like 4 weeks and now, I went ahead and fucked up my left knee. Aw well. Looking back on it Im kinda glad it happened cuz despite how scary that moment was when I couldnt hear shit, it was kinda cool. I needed some excitement in my life, haha.

Hmm, I guess I should put some kinda footbag thing in here. How bout a highlight from the fair:

-spinning osis>b2b

Peace

[DTank126]

Hmmm, I wanna upload a picture of my elbow but I'm not really sure how....
Oh wait here it is!!!!


So I couldnt help myself. I decided to solo for a little bit. Little over an hour I guess. I hate not being able to play cuz all I can think about is how good it feels to land, like, pdx whirl, spinning osis, any ducking stuff, etc. My elbow didnt really hinder my play, just made spins a little awkward was all. My left knee was okay, definitly not 100% and I prolly shuldnt have played cuz now it feels a little raw, but aw well. I'm glad I played though cuz I ended up hitting: Tomahawk! Huzzah! Wasn't too difficult, Im sure once my left knee heals I'll hit it on that side pretty easily, hopefully. After hitting tomahwak I decided to steal a link from Pat who stole it from Greg Raymond, phoenix>tomhawk, and footed it first try. I was satisfied and ended the session on that note.

Peace

EDIT: special thanks to Ian Pfeiffer for the rockin' pic

[Darkshredder]

curse you The Tank!!!! from now on I'm going to patent my combos I steal from people.

gyro double pickup > fairy muted clipper > barFRY rpt.

All Rights Reserved
Copyright August 27th, 2008 (at 11:52pm)
Patrick Thomsen ltd. : in association with Symple Paradox Works

[mc]

ooof... GROSS! super gnarl action.

hope your knee is good for baggin' soon. hope we can play. will you go to funtastik?

matt

[semiconscious]

That is a seriously dirty elbow injury, son. I am mad jealous of pdx drifter>drifter [rpt]. Sounds like our blur progress is relatively comparable. Hit blur>dimwalk [rpt] yet? If not, wanna race?

[DTank126]

Didn't feel like cluttering the Boston blog with my crap so I figured Id revive the blog.

First off, Im glad to say that the elbow is doing much better, down to a minor scab now. My knee is also feeling much better, which is awesome because the day I realized it was all better I managed tomahawk for the first time on that side first try.... and second and third try as well. ...Havn't hit it since.

Sam, I have hit that combo. But only like 6 or 7 times. I have yet to hit smear>dimwalk>blur>rpt however, so i will race you to that.

Haha, it was rather gnarly Matt, especially the wipeout. Man, I wish I could see what that looked like from a bystanders perspective....

Pat, I knew you didnt hit that combo.....

So yeah, todays session was aite. I managed:

spinning ducking clipper bsos sealed with torque
-spin clip>spin butter>spin osis>ss butter bs (stolen from Kimbe's challenges, now I need to rpt it)
-pdx whirl b2b
-ducking clipper b2b in elevator
-ss dlo b2b (stolen from Ian's highlights)
-footed last contact on dlo>ss dlo>rpt
-vortex 3 times each side to end the session (still so very inconsistant, bleh)

Meh, overall twas a mediocre session, I was really only satisfied with the spin duck clip bsos. Now to do something cool out of it bsos, like rev swirl or drifter or something cool and feasible.

Peace

[century264]

That spinning drill would kill me. For sure. I still can't spin flip at all. haven't even footed it. great props on the DLO>ss dlo. I've wanted to try that for so long but I know I can't hit it yet.