Jeremy Mirken's Footbag Blog

[Asmus]

life updates

-moving from Santa Cruz to Oakland next year to train footbag net with Chaos; will be moving in with pt and taking a spare bedroom.

-moved out of my townhome in Aptos, CA last Monday, put all of my stuff in storage, and have been house-hopping for 3 days.

-been offered 3 positions at 3 different school districts in the Oakland area (San leandro, San lorenzo, emeryville)

-Starting my epic footbag summer vacation today at 6PM!

-Must decide which job to take by today or tomorrow

-epic 6 weeks of packing condensed into two carry-on sized bags and one camel-back

-Now have partners for Montreal Summer tourney and turku Open, still keeping options open for worlds.

-recently have tried to freestyle for fitness, but nagging foot and toe injuries are not allowing me this luxury.

Enjoy the journey! Sounds like it will be quite a trip!

Looking forward to meeting you at Worlds.
You are one of the first 3 persons I can remember seeing footage of.

LIFE IS CRAZY!

[Moxie]

Wow, you're in a really exciting stage of your life right now, I'm so happy for you. It's too bad (for us here) that you're moving from Santa Cruz to Oakland, but I've hoped for a while that you would do something really good for yourself like that. Staying here wasn't doing the trick for you and your net game the way living in Oakland will.

I hope you have an amazing trip, and that your foot heals up in time to let you play at your best. Buy an extra memory card or two and take lots of pictures.


Edit: Damn it Asmus, you beat me.

[mohkale]

Living in PT and Leti's house sounds awesome, they're great hosts/landlords! Is Hung still living there or are you taking his old room?

See you in a couple of weeks!

MAtti

[Senor Grommet]

Well, I've made it to the open doubles semi-finals at the first event of my footbag net tour, the US Open. Tomorrow, Tuan Vu and I will face the number one seeds, Kenny Shults and Steve Dusablon for a spot in the showcase showdown.

We staved off several match points to win in the quarterfinals: 6-15, 16-14, 15-11, against team Memphis.

[C-Fan]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k4lpMSXMJ0&fmt=18[/youtube]

[LEGOMAN]

FREESTYLE

[acxel22]

give me a call when you get in montreal
I will be leaving on july 26th, so we need a freestyle session before then!

514-656-37 two four

[C-Fan]

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=G5g9HojpSqw&fmt=18[/youtube]

[Senor Grommet]

everyone is a fucking net juggernaut in Montreal. I am learning so much. Everyone here serves harder and higher with better angle, digs better, sets straighter, plays smarter and more consistently. Crazy.

I am playing with Yves. I think we can do well in the event.

[Senor Grommet]

Today, the Pro Kicker Championat de Montreal, arguably the toughest tournament to win in North America (besides Green Cup), concluded. The weather was crap but the play was fantastic. 4 Players from Team Chaos teamed up with 4 Players from AFQ (Montreal) to make runs at the doubles championship, and I am happy to report that PT Lovern and Manu Bouchard are the `08 champs, defeating Gilles Demers and JF Lemieux in 3 well-played and exciting games. This is only the 3rd time in 20 years that an American has been on the winning doubles team. Results are as follows:

Doubles (Filet):
1) Manu w PT
2) Gilles w JF
3) Bob w John
4) Martin C w Patrick A
5) Jeremy w Yves
6) Seb Perron w Renaud
7) Sam C w Tuan Vu
Frank w Luc
(15 or so teams)

Simple:
1) Manu
2) John (scratch w respect to Manu who slightly tweaked knee)
3) Cote
4) Luc
5) Cory
6) Yves
7) Tuan
Bob
9) Jeremy
10) Sam Cloutier

Personally, this event was very rewarding for me. In doubles Yves and I were seeded 6th, which was high, considering we`d never teamed up before. We beat our seed by getting 5th, and at this calibre of event a 5th place showing is huge! Much thanks to Yves for being interested in partnering with me. In singles, I placed 9th, probably playing my most consistent and strong singles games.

I really learned a lot at this event and I feel that my skills improved exponentially, especially my defense and my setting consistency. I was spiking very well throughout the tournament, probably nailing 85% of my spikes, 60-70% for kills. As for defense, the bags were easy to see, as if in slow motion, and so I was digging bags very well, getting at least 5-10 digs per match.

Thanks to Montreal for a great event. See you at the Zaz Bar tonight for partying until 3AM!

[zeroman13]

Props Jeremy on getting 5th in doubles and 9th in singles! Hopefully next year there will be another Phoenix Open and we can play some net together Maybe also some freestyle

[Iron Clad Ben]

Dude I just read about your pwnage in Finland, congrats!

http://chaosfootbag.com/index.php/more/ ... 1_weekend/

That is awesome you're moving to Oakland best of luck with that. Sounds like you're having an epic summer. I'm jealous.

[Moxie]

[quote="Chaos Footbag"]With his impressive performance, the Finns have agreed to bestow upon him his finnish name, Jere Mirkennen. In other news, Air Jere was dubbed a “Super Americanâ€

[acxel22]

so will you be in frankfurt on august 4th?
maybe I'll see you there!

[LEGOMAN]

FREESTYLE

[Senor Grommet]

Its been a while since my last post. This will be a short recap for anyone interested.

I had an amazing 5 week vacation. I played too much footbag for my body to handle though, and it started breaking down in week 4, which was Frankfurt Germany. It carried right on through week 5, which was Worlds. I had 2 days of injury-free Worlds, before I slightly strained my right, then my left calf on successive days. Despite injury, I placed 20th in open singles (of 72ish) and 16th in doubles (of 32), a fair placement in both categories; not like I had hoped though. Currently, my right achilles feels strained, although with rest, it has slowly been improving. I have only played net 3 times since I returned from my trip, which was about 3 weeks ago or more.

The school year has started and I am overwhelmed and hesitant to start working hard, because I know I wont have time to stop for several months. I am living with PT Lovern and his wife Leti now, in their spare bedroom, and I love it here so far. It is nice to have people to hang out with when I don't feel like being alone. My bedroom is the perfect size.

I have big plans for this fall, starting as soon as I am injury free and back up to speed athletically. I plan to attend an open gym for gymnasts and acrobats 2-3 times per week to increase jumping and flipping potential. I plan to weigh in at 160 pounds, with more muscle and less fat (currently 167ish), in order to achieve this. I am toying with the idea of trying out P90X, the extreme exercise program you might have seen on the infomercials, but I haven't given in yet. For now, I am riding a bike again, somewhat regularly, for the first time in 10 years.

Trying to get rid of a nagging cold I thought I got from Emily, who denies the entire incident. No net tomorrow, just more icing and heating of my achilles, while I try to entertain myself by watching football, a sport I haven't been interested in for about 7 years.

I am losing interest with modified recently. I will probably stop posting here eventually.

[CIC flurry]

Trying to get rid of a nagging cold I thought I got from Emily, who denies the entire incident.

We love shatna

[Senor Grommet]

ankle/achilles health is on and off lately. Seems to hurt when I try to play on uneven surfaces, but hurts much less on a consistent hard surface. Resultantly, I've been playing less footbag and more takraw. Going to have my first real doubles net session in about 2.5 weeks.

"The Spot:" an enclosed housing complex of only Laotians, where from 5 to 730 each day, 10-15 men between the ages of 30 and 65 set up a net and play takraw on their gravel court, which is also used as their parking lot.

I have gone to the spot 4 days in a row now. It is a very cool place, the people are very welcoming, especially to white guys who try to play their sport. Even the 40 and 50 year olds kick harder than I do, jump higher, and are more flexible. It is incredible. And about 4 of them roll spike.

They all tell me, "You need to kick harder. You are tall, kick higher. Back in (to the net) every time!" Very funny stuff. I am just learning how to play the game. There uis a lot more than just kicking hard; it is learning angles, when to head and when to kick the ball, how to block, how to read your opponent's spikes, and how to set your partners, since each person likes different types of sets. Even tossing the ball to the server is hard!

The ball they use is very heavy and the hardest of all of the ones produced. I left Monday's session with a raised and battered forehead from too many headers (bumping/setting serves mostly). Thank God PT loaned me a double thick head band or else I'd now be in a hospital. The pain is almost gone now 3 days later. Each game I probably get 6-10 tries at sunbacks and frontbacks. In footbag net, the number is much lower, maybe 3-4 a game. That is why Takraw is a great training tool to increase kick velocity for footbag, because you get so many more opps per session and the ball, while easier to kick, is harder to kick fast!

[C-Fan]

That's awesome that you are playing takraw. I'm glad they are welcoming of outsiders. I'd love to see vid of that.

[Eric Chang]

Hey Jeremy,

I want to say thanks for cheering me on, I've always been a big fan of you . I was browsing through my US Opens footage for the video I am making (SUPRISE and you heard it first in Jeremy's blog!) I then came across you going eric CCHANG! Look at him go!

Thanks a bunch again, makes me feel all warm and good about myself.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzXaZPz2EQY[/youtube]