Non-Funtastiks entry
Got in a solo shred yesterday at GW. It was very peaceful and relaxing; throughout the session I felt very aware of how lucky I was to be playing. Its often rare for me to be in-the-moment like that, and I savored it. I played pretty easy thoughout. Lots of spins and ducks and downtime. I'm really tempted to just completely abandon my strongside pixie set. I also wouldn't mind dumping my strongside pdx mirage. I really overuse those concepts, and it bores me. More on that later. Another thing I want to work on is getting my flip spin up to speed. My strong side is finally getting comfortable, but I don't have that much confidence in my flip, especially midstring.
Highlights:
*dimwalk-pdx drifter-blur repeat, with a double spinning osis in the seal
*drifter x31. Beat my old record by 1.
*13 unique tripless first try, no sweat. I think my record is like 21...it might be a fun goal to try and break that when I fully heal up and can do pdx tricks more easily.
*some really good looks at spinning butterfly swirl. I expect to hit it in the next couple sessions.
I'll try and wrap up my Funtastiks write-up tonight or tomorrow.
Fanzine
Another non-Funtastiks entry. I really hope to finish my Funtastiks write-up tonight; I've just been too busy and tired to do it yet.
This whole week I've felt exhausted. I'm still getting used to my work schedule, which has me waking up at 7, being at work by 8, and leaving at 5:30. While I work 9 hour days most of the time, I also get 1 Monday off every other week. I think its worth it. In addition to working hard, I've also been a bit stressed out with a bunch of random other stuff this week, like my shower breaking, helping organize East Coasts, getting ready for my first business trip this weekend, and trying to figure out how to get to Pascal's wedding. Despite all that, I've managed to sneak in a couple sessions this week, but since my body still isn't 100% yet, they probably tire me out even more.
Got in a solo shred yesterday for like 45 minutes. My legs didn't feel so good, and today I have shin splints and I feel achy. I'm surprised about the shin splints, because I hardly did any sets or symposium. I probably just need a solid month away from playing, but I don't think I can mentally afford that. I rely on footbag to help me deal with stress. No real highlights to speak of, except for infinity swirl x3, which is a new record.
Today is the 7th anniversary of 9/11. As a New Yorker who had his prom in the WTC, I am still angry that we never got Osama Bin Laden. When I think of all the soldiers who have died in Iraq, all the money we spend there, and the fact that it diverted our efforts in Afghanistan, it really makes me furious. The Bush administration knew Iraq had no connection to 9/11, but they played that card to dump us in Iraq for their own political purposes. How people can consider voting for McCain based on his record on the war is shocking to me.
I've read that over a period of 7 years, every cell in your body is replaced. By that logic, I am a different person than I was in 9/11. In many ways, this is true. One of the only things I have in common with the me from back then, is that we both play footbag. But even there, differences abound, both in style of play as well as mentally. I have often fantasized about going forward or backwards in time and playing footbag with myself from different time periods. I think it'd be fun to see how different I play now from before, or from the other side, how different I will play in the future. I wonder if other people ever think about that.
Hopefully finish another day of Funtastiks tonight, since I won't be playing footbag.
This whole week I've felt exhausted. I'm still getting used to my work schedule, which has me waking up at 7, being at work by 8, and leaving at 5:30. While I work 9 hour days most of the time, I also get 1 Monday off every other week. I think its worth it. In addition to working hard, I've also been a bit stressed out with a bunch of random other stuff this week, like my shower breaking, helping organize East Coasts, getting ready for my first business trip this weekend, and trying to figure out how to get to Pascal's wedding. Despite all that, I've managed to sneak in a couple sessions this week, but since my body still isn't 100% yet, they probably tire me out even more.
Got in a solo shred yesterday for like 45 minutes. My legs didn't feel so good, and today I have shin splints and I feel achy. I'm surprised about the shin splints, because I hardly did any sets or symposium. I probably just need a solid month away from playing, but I don't think I can mentally afford that. I rely on footbag to help me deal with stress. No real highlights to speak of, except for infinity swirl x3, which is a new record.
Today is the 7th anniversary of 9/11. As a New Yorker who had his prom in the WTC, I am still angry that we never got Osama Bin Laden. When I think of all the soldiers who have died in Iraq, all the money we spend there, and the fact that it diverted our efforts in Afghanistan, it really makes me furious. The Bush administration knew Iraq had no connection to 9/11, but they played that card to dump us in Iraq for their own political purposes. How people can consider voting for McCain based on his record on the war is shocking to me.
I've read that over a period of 7 years, every cell in your body is replaced. By that logic, I am a different person than I was in 9/11. In many ways, this is true. One of the only things I have in common with the me from back then, is that we both play footbag. But even there, differences abound, both in style of play as well as mentally. I have often fantasized about going forward or backwards in time and playing footbag with myself from different time periods. I think it'd be fun to see how different I play now from before, or from the other side, how different I will play in the future. I wonder if other people ever think about that.
Hopefully finish another day of Funtastiks tonight, since I won't be playing footbag.
It's great to hear some of these thoughts. Obviously I can relate to the whole NYC business, and it's been 7 years to the week that I officially moved to PA. That cell business is very interesting to hear. I can relate to this post, majorly.
Let me know if you still need or if anyone has particular ideas for T-Shirt Designs. I can pull something together.
Let me know if you still need or if anyone has particular ideas for T-Shirt Designs. I can pull something together.
Funtastiks: Sunday
Woke up feeling pretty good. I had a mild case of net legs, which I expected because I play net like once every 3 years, but my muscles weren't as sore as they could have been. Even better, my right ankle net-bruise was much less swollen than the night before. It was still a little tender, but as long as you didn't throw a netbag at it, it was fine. I could clipper without pain, and that's all I needed it for.
The day started off slowly. As Vince, Age, Aintno+ his girlfriend all got ready, I turned on the TV and there was a special about "the making of Ratatouille" (the movie, not the dish) which resulted in me giving a long, impassioned speech as to why that was one of the best movies I had seen in the last year. Everybody seemed skeptical. We drive to the site, and a bunch of us decide to go get breakfast. The group is big enough that I immediately sense it will take us forever to agree on anything, much less get food in us. Ian B and I splinter off and go search for food. Unfortunately, Harrisburg is one of those towns where everything except Church is closed on a Sunday morning. We finally manage to locate a diner that's open, and sit down. Our waitress is really nice, but also a little slow in the head. We order juice, and then for the next 15 minutes we don't see our waitress. Then she walks by and smiles at us. We try and get her attention for the next few minutes, and then finally I can't take it anymore and go up to the counter: "excuse me miss, I think maybe there's been a miscommunication... nobody has been by to take our order."
Waitress: "I'm sorry sugar, I thought I already did."
I think I would have lasted about 5 days in that town if I were a teenager. I'm just not used to that speed of life.
Lunch took so long, that by the time we got back to the site, I heard the Black Sabbath song "Iron Man" playing over the speakers. Uh oh. Just as I feared, when i walked up they told me I had been scratched. It was a bit of a flashback to Worlds 05 Sick3 finals, but this time the stakes were a lot lower, so I didn't care much. The Solonoskis were real cool about things though, so they slid me into a later spot. I did well with the consecs and freestyle requirements, and my serve was good, except it rolled onto a sidewalk on the other side of the net... and kept rolling. Gah. I was left with a putt beyond my skill range, so I asked the nearest judge repeatedly if I was allowed to do another serve... and he didn't know. I wasn't able to get a straight answer for over 30 seconds, which is bad news in a timed even that only lasts 3 minutes. The whole thing left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, but I got the bitchiness out of my system and cooled down after a few minutes, and didn't look back. Shit like that used to ruin my day, but I was able to get the mental game back real quick, which I was happy about.
I warmed up for freestyle very carefully and slowly. Over the course of the day I was very careful to not do many (any?) sets, and avoid pdx tricks. My runs were 90% made up of ducking tricks and barflies. At one point I realized that regular drifter didn't hurt, so that expanded my repertoire a bit. I also found that toe set symp DLO didn't hurt, and so I had some fun with that too. Two highlights I recall were flurry-symp dlo, and toe symp dlo x2.
Shred30 rolled around, and I was pretty tempted to do it. Then I realized that that would just be stupid, and thankfully restrained myself. Soon enough routines rolled around, and I was up in front of the crowd.
My song starts, and within the first 5 seconds of the intro, I notice one of the judges* grinning and nodding his head to the beat, while the other judges look stonefaced. This made me smile, and made me feel even looser than I already was. My routine wasn't very well-planned to begin with, but ten seconds into the routine, I just decided to give up (almost) completely on the choreo I had planned and just rocked out. It was a lot of fun. There was only one 5 in the whole routine, and that was the final trick: pixie diving eclipse, which I nailed. All told, I think I dropped 4 or 5 times, but I had a lot of fun out there, and the crowd noticed. I was very happy with it.
After routines I hopped in some freestyle circles and just played for fun. In many ways, the fact that I was injured at Funtastiks really liberated me. If I were at full health, I know for a fact that I wouldn't have played Net on Saturday, because I wouldn't want to risk my chances in freestyle. As it turns out, I had a blast playing net, and it didn't affect my routine much at all (I don't think...). Similarly, I doubt I would have played as long or as hard as I did on Sunday if I were concerned about final routines.
Sunday shred was a definite highlight of the weekend. Pete Irish put on his lavers and I was in a great circle with him, Flash, and Ian B. We observed that its pretty rare to be in a circle where the youngest players are 28, and where everybody can hit eclipse.
I don't remember too much in the way of specifics from this circle. I do recall Pete hitting inspinning torque midstring, effortlessly. I also recall requesting he try leaning whirl, which he managed to hit first try! He pointed out that the whirl was thin, but I was still impressed.
After shredding for a while, I went to get food with Age, Ken David, and Waylon. I treated everybody to baklava, and ate a spinach pie which was pretty good. Went back home with Age to take a shower and rest, and guess what was showing on TV? Ratatouille!
I ended up watching the whole thing, and when the other people came back to the room, they all made fun of me for it.
That night was pretty laidback. I had a nice beer that I brought from Maryland (Chambly Noire by Unibroue), watched Dave perform some card tricks, and watched the HOF ceremony. During the whole weekend of Funtastiks, there was an Indian wedding going on, and during the HOF ceremony you could hear party music coming through the walls. I found all of the HOF speeches to be moving, but there were many times when people or events would distract me and crack me up. For example: during one speech, you could hear Sweet Child O Mine coming through the wall from the wedding. I looked around to see if anybody else noticed, and sure enough, Ken David was air-guitar-hero-ing it while a row of freestylers all subtly head-banged to it. I almost lost it. Ted Fritch also did HOF trivia in between speeches, and when people got an answer correct, he'd throw candy at them. The image of Ted F throwing candy at me will haunt me forever. Another moment that cracked me up was when James Roberts began his speech by saying: "I'll keep this short, because I know you all have other things you want to do." He was obviously referring to footbag, but right when he said that, Dave Byers just yelled out super-intensely "DUEL!" and I almost cried. James Roberts also dedicated a good chunk of his speech to thank Jesus. I thought that was fine, because religion obviously means a lot to him, and if that motivates him in footbag, more power to him. After his speech, Martin Cote gave a speech, and then Vince B did too. Right when the whole night was about to end though, James Roberts ran back up to take the mic, explaining: "I forgot to thank one more person!" I was really hoping he was going to thank the Holy Spirit, but instead he just thanked some sponsor of his.
After HOF, I was really excited to go do the midnight buffet at the nearby "Eat N Park." We waited til midnight, and when we walked over there, we realized that it was a Sunday night, and that the midnight buffet was only on Friday and Saturday nights! D'oh!
It just felt like such a Saturday night, it didn't even cross my mind. I resigned myself to doing McDonalds instead, but when we got there, it said they close at midnight on Sundays.
Double d'oh! Thwarted, I got some chocolate milk at the gas station and called it a night.
Next: Monday
*Matt Cross. A-duhhh.
Woke up feeling pretty good. I had a mild case of net legs, which I expected because I play net like once every 3 years, but my muscles weren't as sore as they could have been. Even better, my right ankle net-bruise was much less swollen than the night before. It was still a little tender, but as long as you didn't throw a netbag at it, it was fine. I could clipper without pain, and that's all I needed it for.
The day started off slowly. As Vince, Age, Aintno+ his girlfriend all got ready, I turned on the TV and there was a special about "the making of Ratatouille" (the movie, not the dish) which resulted in me giving a long, impassioned speech as to why that was one of the best movies I had seen in the last year. Everybody seemed skeptical. We drive to the site, and a bunch of us decide to go get breakfast. The group is big enough that I immediately sense it will take us forever to agree on anything, much less get food in us. Ian B and I splinter off and go search for food. Unfortunately, Harrisburg is one of those towns where everything except Church is closed on a Sunday morning. We finally manage to locate a diner that's open, and sit down. Our waitress is really nice, but also a little slow in the head. We order juice, and then for the next 15 minutes we don't see our waitress. Then she walks by and smiles at us. We try and get her attention for the next few minutes, and then finally I can't take it anymore and go up to the counter: "excuse me miss, I think maybe there's been a miscommunication... nobody has been by to take our order."
Waitress: "I'm sorry sugar, I thought I already did."
I think I would have lasted about 5 days in that town if I were a teenager. I'm just not used to that speed of life.
Lunch took so long, that by the time we got back to the site, I heard the Black Sabbath song "Iron Man" playing over the speakers. Uh oh. Just as I feared, when i walked up they told me I had been scratched. It was a bit of a flashback to Worlds 05 Sick3 finals, but this time the stakes were a lot lower, so I didn't care much. The Solonoskis were real cool about things though, so they slid me into a later spot. I did well with the consecs and freestyle requirements, and my serve was good, except it rolled onto a sidewalk on the other side of the net... and kept rolling. Gah. I was left with a putt beyond my skill range, so I asked the nearest judge repeatedly if I was allowed to do another serve... and he didn't know. I wasn't able to get a straight answer for over 30 seconds, which is bad news in a timed even that only lasts 3 minutes. The whole thing left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, but I got the bitchiness out of my system and cooled down after a few minutes, and didn't look back. Shit like that used to ruin my day, but I was able to get the mental game back real quick, which I was happy about.
I warmed up for freestyle very carefully and slowly. Over the course of the day I was very careful to not do many (any?) sets, and avoid pdx tricks. My runs were 90% made up of ducking tricks and barflies. At one point I realized that regular drifter didn't hurt, so that expanded my repertoire a bit. I also found that toe set symp DLO didn't hurt, and so I had some fun with that too. Two highlights I recall were flurry-symp dlo, and toe symp dlo x2.
Shred30 rolled around, and I was pretty tempted to do it. Then I realized that that would just be stupid, and thankfully restrained myself. Soon enough routines rolled around, and I was up in front of the crowd.
My song starts, and within the first 5 seconds of the intro, I notice one of the judges* grinning and nodding his head to the beat, while the other judges look stonefaced. This made me smile, and made me feel even looser than I already was. My routine wasn't very well-planned to begin with, but ten seconds into the routine, I just decided to give up (almost) completely on the choreo I had planned and just rocked out. It was a lot of fun. There was only one 5 in the whole routine, and that was the final trick: pixie diving eclipse, which I nailed. All told, I think I dropped 4 or 5 times, but I had a lot of fun out there, and the crowd noticed. I was very happy with it.
After routines I hopped in some freestyle circles and just played for fun. In many ways, the fact that I was injured at Funtastiks really liberated me. If I were at full health, I know for a fact that I wouldn't have played Net on Saturday, because I wouldn't want to risk my chances in freestyle. As it turns out, I had a blast playing net, and it didn't affect my routine much at all (I don't think...). Similarly, I doubt I would have played as long or as hard as I did on Sunday if I were concerned about final routines.
Sunday shred was a definite highlight of the weekend. Pete Irish put on his lavers and I was in a great circle with him, Flash, and Ian B. We observed that its pretty rare to be in a circle where the youngest players are 28, and where everybody can hit eclipse.
I don't remember too much in the way of specifics from this circle. I do recall Pete hitting inspinning torque midstring, effortlessly. I also recall requesting he try leaning whirl, which he managed to hit first try! He pointed out that the whirl was thin, but I was still impressed. After shredding for a while, I went to get food with Age, Ken David, and Waylon. I treated everybody to baklava, and ate a spinach pie which was pretty good. Went back home with Age to take a shower and rest, and guess what was showing on TV? Ratatouille!
I ended up watching the whole thing, and when the other people came back to the room, they all made fun of me for it. That night was pretty laidback. I had a nice beer that I brought from Maryland (Chambly Noire by Unibroue), watched Dave perform some card tricks, and watched the HOF ceremony. During the whole weekend of Funtastiks, there was an Indian wedding going on, and during the HOF ceremony you could hear party music coming through the walls. I found all of the HOF speeches to be moving, but there were many times when people or events would distract me and crack me up. For example: during one speech, you could hear Sweet Child O Mine coming through the wall from the wedding. I looked around to see if anybody else noticed, and sure enough, Ken David was air-guitar-hero-ing it while a row of freestylers all subtly head-banged to it. I almost lost it. Ted Fritch also did HOF trivia in between speeches, and when people got an answer correct, he'd throw candy at them. The image of Ted F throwing candy at me will haunt me forever. Another moment that cracked me up was when James Roberts began his speech by saying: "I'll keep this short, because I know you all have other things you want to do." He was obviously referring to footbag, but right when he said that, Dave Byers just yelled out super-intensely "DUEL!" and I almost cried. James Roberts also dedicated a good chunk of his speech to thank Jesus. I thought that was fine, because religion obviously means a lot to him, and if that motivates him in footbag, more power to him. After his speech, Martin Cote gave a speech, and then Vince B did too. Right when the whole night was about to end though, James Roberts ran back up to take the mic, explaining: "I forgot to thank one more person!" I was really hoping he was going to thank the Holy Spirit, but instead he just thanked some sponsor of his.
After HOF, I was really excited to go do the midnight buffet at the nearby "Eat N Park." We waited til midnight, and when we walked over there, we realized that it was a Sunday night, and that the midnight buffet was only on Friday and Saturday nights! D'oh!
It just felt like such a Saturday night, it didn't even cross my mind. I resigned myself to doing McDonalds instead, but when we got there, it said they close at midnight on Sundays. Double d'oh!
Thwarted, I got some chocolate milk at the gas station and called it a night.Next: Monday
*Matt Cross. A-duhhh.
Great write up, as usual Ken. Just thought I'd mention that the 7 year cell thing is a complete myth. The original statement was a rough estimate of the majority of our cells (possibly just our bones) - but our nervous cells either don't replace them selves at all, or do so very slowly (there were reports last year or early this year that they actual do replace themselves, which was contrary to what people thought, but I don't know if that applies to all nervous cells). This means our brains contain mainly the same cells as they've always had since maturing.
Funtastiks: Monday
Woke up feeling pretty good. Net legs were pretty much completely gone, and all the freestyle from the previous day didn't take much out of me either. I was a bit sad that we had to check out already, since that meant the tourney was coming to a close. I get my stuff packed and in the car, and then Ian, Age and I go to get breakfast at the Eat N Park. We get breakfast buffets, which end up being pretty good. It was my first time doing a breakfast buffet since trying to be a vegetarian. All I really missed were breakfast sausages (in syrup). I ended up eating lots of corn nuggets (fried corn and cornmeal) and fruit doused in syrup. Breakfast of champions.
When we get to the site, we take all of Ian's bags with us, because we figure he'll want to leave direct from the site. This works out well for me, because while everybody else is sitting on hard metal bleachers, I sit on his sleeping bag. I watch the singles net final match, where Luc Legault put up a valiant fight against JF. I remember Luc when he was a freestyler, from back when I lived in Montreal back in the summer of 2000. It's always exciting to me to see freestylers who end up being strong net players. I don't know if I'll ever seriously go down the path of net, but its reassuring to know that other freestylers have been able to make the transition successfully. After singles net I watch the service poaching event, which was fun. My favorite poach is Jamie Lepley's "chunky monkey" where he jumps in the air and, with his feet together, hits the bag back over the net and then lands on his back. I watch Iron Man and Superman, and Iron Man is suuuper close. Benny missed his spike at the end, which opened the door for Gilles to juuuust beat him. It was pretty exciting.
Shred30 finals were good too. Flash had top seed, so Dave went before him. I think Dave had a couple drops, which opened the door for Flash. Flash started strong...and then he kept going strong, and went dropless! I couldn't tell who won immediately, so I figure it must have been close. Flash apparently won, but I'm not sure who counted it. I'd really like to see some vids from that weekend. Speaking of which, I'd also like to see some vids from the NYFA tourney...
Doubles net started, and I really wanted to watch it, because that's one of my favorite events. That said, I also wanted to do my routine well. I probably could have watched the first game of finals, but then I'd feel pressured to warm up quickly, and that seemed like a bad idea, given my injury. While I had a lot of fun with my routine the day before, I kinda wanted to hit my cues better today. Again, I didn't really care about how I would place; I just wanted to put on a good show and have fun. This end up helping me out a lot.
I was the 3rd seed, so I only got to watch bits and pieces of most of the routines that preceded mine. Danny Greer had a cool song so I decided I'd watch his routine until his 2nd or 3rd drop. As it turned out though, he made it through the first 90 seconds without a drop!
He ended up with only one drop, and the crowd went nuts. I think he said his best routine before that was like 4 drops, so everybody was stoked for him. Ryan Thomas went right before me, so I didn't get to see his, but apparently he also had a single drop and kicked ass. It's a good thing I didn't care about results, because if I did, I think I would have felt the pressure from Danny and Ryan's strong routines. Instead, I was just excited to get to perform a routine to a kickass song in front of all my friends. All I really wanted to do was hit more of my cues, and hopefully keep the drops down a bit.
I asked the MC to thank Vince Bradley and planetfootbag for me, and then my song kicked in. In the first 15 seconds of my routine, I already felt like I hit more of my cues than I did the previous day. Encouraged by my strong start, I just kept going, smiled at the crowd, and hit my sections as they came. Before I even realized it, I was at the end of my routine, and I hadn't dropped yet! My final trick was supposed to be pixie diving eclipse, but I decided to pussy out and hit something easier, so I hit a darkwalk instead.
Whatever, I just went dropless for my second time ever! While it wasn't as much of a high as the first time, it was cool in other ways. For one, I really didn't expect to go dropless so soon after my accident in Prague. I also didn't expect to hit a routine after only practicing it for 2 days either. Granted, it was a pretty easy routine*, but still. I hugged my way through the crowd, and then sat down and enjoyed watching Flash and Clavens' routines. When the dust settled, the top 5 routines at Funtastiks included two dropless, and three single drops. That's pretty amazing for a regional tournament. I felt good that we put on such an entertaining show for the audience.
Once routines were done I had a lot of fun just playing in circles. I played a lot with Dave on Monday, and he was looking really sharp. What struck me the most was that he obviously had been working on his creativity. He was doing lots of tricks ending on insteps instead of toes, etc, and just creative links in general. Even his hard tricks seemed more creative than usual. It was really fun to watch.
Awards came pretty soon thereafter. Funtastiks really does an amazing job with prizes I have to say. I got some cool stuff for sure. I think I was most stoked to win a long-sleeved shirt for intermediate doubles net. The fact that Ken D and I won anything for playing net is pretty awesome. I ended up taking 3rd in routines, which was a nice reward for going dropless. I also got some gas/hotel money from it, which was cool too.
And then just like that, the goodbyes started. I always hate this part of the tourney, but at East Coast events it's always a bit easier because "see you next tourney" really means something, and happens sooner than later. Speaking of which, East Coast Footbag Champs is in 2 weeks. So hopefully see a bunch of you there.
I'm gonna go play footbag now.
*A week later I got to watch my routine again on Adrienne's camera. I hit strongside pdx mirage NINETEEN freaking times in it! Nineteen! In two minutes! How embarassing. Whatever, I'll blame it on being injured... It was still a good routine. But yeah, I'm going to make an effort to do a lot fewer strong pdx mirages from now on.
Woke up feeling pretty good. Net legs were pretty much completely gone, and all the freestyle from the previous day didn't take much out of me either. I was a bit sad that we had to check out already, since that meant the tourney was coming to a close. I get my stuff packed and in the car, and then Ian, Age and I go to get breakfast at the Eat N Park. We get breakfast buffets, which end up being pretty good. It was my first time doing a breakfast buffet since trying to be a vegetarian. All I really missed were breakfast sausages (in syrup). I ended up eating lots of corn nuggets (fried corn and cornmeal) and fruit doused in syrup. Breakfast of champions.
When we get to the site, we take all of Ian's bags with us, because we figure he'll want to leave direct from the site. This works out well for me, because while everybody else is sitting on hard metal bleachers, I sit on his sleeping bag. I watch the singles net final match, where Luc Legault put up a valiant fight against JF. I remember Luc when he was a freestyler, from back when I lived in Montreal back in the summer of 2000. It's always exciting to me to see freestylers who end up being strong net players. I don't know if I'll ever seriously go down the path of net, but its reassuring to know that other freestylers have been able to make the transition successfully. After singles net I watch the service poaching event, which was fun. My favorite poach is Jamie Lepley's "chunky monkey" where he jumps in the air and, with his feet together, hits the bag back over the net and then lands on his back. I watch Iron Man and Superman, and Iron Man is suuuper close. Benny missed his spike at the end, which opened the door for Gilles to juuuust beat him. It was pretty exciting.
Shred30 finals were good too. Flash had top seed, so Dave went before him. I think Dave had a couple drops, which opened the door for Flash. Flash started strong...and then he kept going strong, and went dropless! I couldn't tell who won immediately, so I figure it must have been close. Flash apparently won, but I'm not sure who counted it. I'd really like to see some vids from that weekend. Speaking of which, I'd also like to see some vids from the NYFA tourney...
Doubles net started, and I really wanted to watch it, because that's one of my favorite events. That said, I also wanted to do my routine well. I probably could have watched the first game of finals, but then I'd feel pressured to warm up quickly, and that seemed like a bad idea, given my injury. While I had a lot of fun with my routine the day before, I kinda wanted to hit my cues better today. Again, I didn't really care about how I would place; I just wanted to put on a good show and have fun. This end up helping me out a lot.
I was the 3rd seed, so I only got to watch bits and pieces of most of the routines that preceded mine. Danny Greer had a cool song so I decided I'd watch his routine until his 2nd or 3rd drop. As it turned out though, he made it through the first 90 seconds without a drop!
He ended up with only one drop, and the crowd went nuts. I think he said his best routine before that was like 4 drops, so everybody was stoked for him. Ryan Thomas went right before me, so I didn't get to see his, but apparently he also had a single drop and kicked ass. It's a good thing I didn't care about results, because if I did, I think I would have felt the pressure from Danny and Ryan's strong routines. Instead, I was just excited to get to perform a routine to a kickass song in front of all my friends. All I really wanted to do was hit more of my cues, and hopefully keep the drops down a bit. I asked the MC to thank Vince Bradley and planetfootbag for me, and then my song kicked in. In the first 15 seconds of my routine, I already felt like I hit more of my cues than I did the previous day. Encouraged by my strong start, I just kept going, smiled at the crowd, and hit my sections as they came. Before I even realized it, I was at the end of my routine, and I hadn't dropped yet! My final trick was supposed to be pixie diving eclipse, but I decided to pussy out and hit something easier, so I hit a darkwalk instead.
Whatever, I just went dropless for my second time ever! While it wasn't as much of a high as the first time, it was cool in other ways. For one, I really didn't expect to go dropless so soon after my accident in Prague. I also didn't expect to hit a routine after only practicing it for 2 days either. Granted, it was a pretty easy routine*, but still. I hugged my way through the crowd, and then sat down and enjoyed watching Flash and Clavens' routines. When the dust settled, the top 5 routines at Funtastiks included two dropless, and three single drops. That's pretty amazing for a regional tournament. I felt good that we put on such an entertaining show for the audience. Once routines were done I had a lot of fun just playing in circles. I played a lot with Dave on Monday, and he was looking really sharp. What struck me the most was that he obviously had been working on his creativity. He was doing lots of tricks ending on insteps instead of toes, etc, and just creative links in general. Even his hard tricks seemed more creative than usual. It was really fun to watch.
Awards came pretty soon thereafter. Funtastiks really does an amazing job with prizes I have to say. I got some cool stuff for sure. I think I was most stoked to win a long-sleeved shirt for intermediate doubles net. The fact that Ken D and I won anything for playing net is pretty awesome. I ended up taking 3rd in routines, which was a nice reward for going dropless. I also got some gas/hotel money from it, which was cool too.
And then just like that, the goodbyes started. I always hate this part of the tourney, but at East Coast events it's always a bit easier because "see you next tourney" really means something, and happens sooner than later. Speaking of which, East Coast Footbag Champs is in 2 weeks. So hopefully see a bunch of you there.
I'm gonna go play footbag now.
*A week later I got to watch my routine again on Adrienne's camera. I hit strongside pdx mirage NINETEEN freaking times in it! Nineteen!
In two minutes! How embarassing. Whatever, I'll blame it on being injured... It was still a good routine. But yeah, I'm going to make an effort to do a lot fewer strong pdx mirages from now on.Had a fun shred with Age today. I was mostly just happy that my legs felt OK. My shin splints already feel like they're getting better. It was forecast to rain today, but instead it was beautiful blue skies out. A bit humid, but overall very nice out for footbag.
Age played very well. I challenged her to hit 4 unique guiltless, and she came pretty close. I think the combo was butterfly-rev whirl-pdx mirage-osis. The reverse whirl was very thin, but I didn't want to discourage her, cause she's making progress. I like that she's working on making her basics really sound, and not rushing to try harder tricks with worse form.
I had fun playing. My right knee still feels off, so I continue to avoid that whirl. I decided to lay off double dexes with that leg too. I'm kinda enjoying though playing in my new style. For the most part I don't do sets, I try for a lot of drifters, ducks, and spins. The most exciting part of the session for me was finding that clipper set barrages ending on right toe are starting to come in. I think I'm getting them deep a little over half the time. I'd like to see some on vid, but even if they're thin, I enjoy doing them. Flip i-o DATW also feels like its getting better, which is pretty cool.
I hit some highlights, but they aren't really indicative of how I was playing for most of the session. So its a bit deceptive. For example, I hardly did any stepping sets all session, but one of my highlights had ripwalk x2 in it. Anyway, onto highlights:
*midstring wrecking ball. Hadn't hit that in a few months
*ripwalk-ripwalk-barrage-paradon-barfly-barfly
*midstring far swirl-ducking far swirl. This was cool, because I was just going for far swirl x2, but after the first one I felt it was too high, so I decided to go for ducking clipper, but then I swirled anyway. Took me by surprise in a good way.
*i-o DATW-DSO repeat.
That last one got me pretty pumped up.
I'm gonna try and shoot a Stephen Barnes one shot this weekend. I haven't done one of those in ages.
Age played very well. I challenged her to hit 4 unique guiltless, and she came pretty close. I think the combo was butterfly-rev whirl-pdx mirage-osis. The reverse whirl was very thin, but I didn't want to discourage her, cause she's making progress. I like that she's working on making her basics really sound, and not rushing to try harder tricks with worse form.
I had fun playing. My right knee still feels off, so I continue to avoid that whirl. I decided to lay off double dexes with that leg too. I'm kinda enjoying though playing in my new style. For the most part I don't do sets, I try for a lot of drifters, ducks, and spins. The most exciting part of the session for me was finding that clipper set barrages ending on right toe are starting to come in. I think I'm getting them deep a little over half the time. I'd like to see some on vid, but even if they're thin, I enjoy doing them. Flip i-o DATW also feels like its getting better, which is pretty cool.
I hit some highlights, but they aren't really indicative of how I was playing for most of the session. So its a bit deceptive. For example, I hardly did any stepping sets all session, but one of my highlights had ripwalk x2 in it. Anyway, onto highlights:
*midstring wrecking ball. Hadn't hit that in a few months
*ripwalk-ripwalk-barrage-paradon-barfly-barfly
*midstring far swirl-ducking far swirl. This was cool, because I was just going for far swirl x2, but after the first one I felt it was too high, so I decided to go for ducking clipper, but then I swirled anyway. Took me by surprise in a good way.
*i-o DATW-DSO repeat.
That last one got me pretty pumped up.
I'm gonna try and shoot a Stephen Barnes one shot this weekend. I haven't done one of those in ages.
-
zeroman13
- Post Master General
- Posts: 2385
- Joined: 17 Jan 2006 07:17
- Location: Somewhere in the desert!!!!!
- Contact:
Ken,
You need to make a trip out here to Az!
Props on all the stuff! Especially the dropless stuff! It's good to hear that your legs are doing good enough after what all happened.
With all regards,
The Unity Crew!
Josh
You need to make a trip out here to Az!
Props on all the stuff! Especially the dropless stuff! It's good to hear that your legs are doing good enough after what all happened.
With all regards,
The Unity Crew!
Josh
Josh M.Wasabi wrote:Footbag is not materialistic; it's about challenging yourself and having fun at the same time.
My Website
Pm me for details about Munster Bags!
-
Sporatical_Distractions
- registered sacks offender
- Posts: 4529
- Joined: 12 Oct 2004 19:14
- Location: Guy's American Kitchen & Bar
ditto.zeroman13 wrote:Ken,
Props on all the stuff! Especially the dropless stuff! It's good to hear that your legs are doing good enough after what all happened.
With all regards,
what's wrecking ball? I couldn't find it in the trick nickname thread.
Glad everything's going well
Welcome to Flavortown
Kevin Crowley
Kevin Crowley
Wrecking ball is the old name for spinning gyro mirage. Chad named it back in like, 2000. I've only hit it a few times, but every time I do I immediately think: you know, spinning mobius is do-able. Something to shoot for later.
Not much new on my end. Right knee still hurts, so I'm still limiting my game. East Coasts is coming up soon, which I'm excited about. I still haven't really picked out a routine song or worked out choreo. Maybe I'll just do something ridiculous that'd make people uncomfortable. I dunno.
Today I read a cool post in Erik's blog which, combined with Ben B's Five Greats thread inspired me to jot down some random footbag facts about myself. Indulge my alpine reactor.
My sister bought my first hacky sack, and she was better than me on our first day playing. This was in 1996.
I went to my first tournament a year later, and met Eric Wulff, Tu Vu, Ian Brill, Josh Penney, and Steve Goldberg.
I've only bought a handful of stitched 32 panel footbags in my life. Pretty sure the number is less than 5.
In the summer of 2001, I lived in Denver Colorado and played regularly with Jon S, Red, the Genzes, and Rippin.
That summer I hit alpine symple food on video. Rippin, Daryl and I agreed it was clean, including the step. Unfortunately, the Genzes were burglarized that summer, and the tape that had that trick was stolen.
Between Worlds 99 and 2000, I actively trained with the goal of making BAP. My style got a lot worse, and I stopped having fun.
I quit footbag for 6 months after Worlds 2K, and didn't plan on coming back.
I'm really glad I got back into the sport, and came back with a better attitude (play for fun, play for myself).
My first Open victory was at the Philly Open 2, run by Bob Riefer back in 1999 or 2000. I had a 1 drop routine.
I didn't do a dropless routine until this summer, when I went dropless at the NYFA tourney. So it took me pretty much 10 years before I went dropless.
I've never made a footbag.
I took 4th place at Worlds in Shred30 in 2005
I've played footbag in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, Finland, New Zealand, Australia, Czech Republic, and Spain. I hope to add Poland, France, and Germany to this list.
I've never hit a beast
I've hit 10 unique fearless
I've attended two footbagger weddings: the Genzes, and Brad Kaplan's
I've never hit nemesis, or TATW in shoes
I've competed in net 3 times. Twice in the year 2000, and this year at Funtastiks. I've always competed in intermediate
I'm really proud that Japan still has a strong scene. I feel like I had some small part in the development of the scene there.
I've hit 6 quad dexes, but I've only got 3 on film.
I was on Good Morning America with Kenny Shults promoting Worlds 2K
I've been sponsored by Pepsi Japan, Nestle Australia, and planetfootbag.
My favorite footbags these days are Waylonbags.
Not much new on my end. Right knee still hurts, so I'm still limiting my game. East Coasts is coming up soon, which I'm excited about. I still haven't really picked out a routine song or worked out choreo. Maybe I'll just do something ridiculous that'd make people uncomfortable. I dunno.
Today I read a cool post in Erik's blog which, combined with Ben B's Five Greats thread inspired me to jot down some random footbag facts about myself. Indulge my alpine reactor.
My sister bought my first hacky sack, and she was better than me on our first day playing. This was in 1996. I went to my first tournament a year later, and met Eric Wulff, Tu Vu, Ian Brill, Josh Penney, and Steve Goldberg. I've only bought a handful of stitched 32 panel footbags in my life. Pretty sure the number is less than 5. In the summer of 2001, I lived in Denver Colorado and played regularly with Jon S, Red, the Genzes, and Rippin. That summer I hit alpine symple food on video. Rippin, Daryl and I agreed it was clean, including the step. Unfortunately, the Genzes were burglarized that summer, and the tape that had that trick was stolen. Between Worlds 99 and 2000, I actively trained with the goal of making BAP. My style got a lot worse, and I stopped having fun. I quit footbag for 6 months after Worlds 2K, and didn't plan on coming back. I'm really glad I got back into the sport, and came back with a better attitude (play for fun, play for myself). My first Open victory was at the Philly Open 2, run by Bob Riefer back in 1999 or 2000. I had a 1 drop routine. I didn't do a dropless routine until this summer, when I went dropless at the NYFA tourney. So it took me pretty much 10 years before I went dropless. I've never made a footbag. I took 4th place at Worlds in Shred30 in 2005 I've played footbag in the US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, Finland, New Zealand, Australia, Czech Republic, and Spain. I hope to add Poland, France, and Germany to this list. I've never hit a beast I've hit 10 unique fearless I've attended two footbagger weddings: the Genzes, and Brad Kaplan's I've never hit nemesis, or TATW in shoes I've competed in net 3 times. Twice in the year 2000, and this year at Funtastiks. I've always competed in intermediate I'm really proud that Japan still has a strong scene. I feel like I had some small part in the development of the scene there. I've hit 6 quad dexes, but I've only got 3 on film. I was on Good Morning America with Kenny Shults promoting Worlds 2K I've been sponsored by Pepsi Japan, Nestle Australia, and planetfootbag. My favorite footbags these days are Waylonbags.I feel like I've hardly been playing lately, but I guess I'm still averaging a session every other day. That's probably good for my recovery. It's weird, I hurt my knee 2 days before my fall in Prague, and now I feel like my hip and fall-related injuries are entirely healed up, but my knee still bugs me. The knee injury is strange too: it only hurts when I do certain footbag motions (whirls and double dexes), but I can walk fine on it and play footbag without pain as long as I avoid those motions. I think I'll get it checked out next week if it continues to be weird.
In other big news, I'm an uncle! My sister gave birth on Tuesday to a healthy little girl. Her name is Soraya, and she came out with a mohawk, so I already feel we have something in common. I'm gonna meet her the weekend after East Coasts.
East Coasts. On one hand I'm excited that there's going to be a footbag tourney in my backyard, but on the other hand I feel a bit sad as it will mark the end of the Summer footbag tourney season. Competition is just over a week away, and I still don't have a routine put together. I'm half tempted to just do an old routine of mine, but I think it'd be more fun to do something new. I've also toyed with the thought of doing an old Mulroney routine from 1998, but that doesn't seem very original.
Highlights from my last 2 sessions:
*flurry-symp torque. Not new, but I hadn't hit this in a while.
*ps egg-symp dlo
*toe flurry
That last one was pretty exciting for me. The set kinda feels like a high, tight and fast toe set DLO with a bit more oomph in it. The one I hit felt pretty clean, but who knows without video verification. I've been pretty busy lately, so I haven't looked into fixing my camera since it broke. I'm going to make that a priority in the coming couple weeks. I definitely miss shooting and posting videos.
Going to Maryland today to juggle and play footbag with Vince and Age.
In other big news, I'm an uncle! My sister gave birth on Tuesday to a healthy little girl. Her name is Soraya, and she came out with a mohawk, so I already feel we have something in common. I'm gonna meet her the weekend after East Coasts.
East Coasts. On one hand I'm excited that there's going to be a footbag tourney in my backyard, but on the other hand I feel a bit sad as it will mark the end of the Summer footbag tourney season. Competition is just over a week away, and I still don't have a routine put together. I'm half tempted to just do an old routine of mine, but I think it'd be more fun to do something new. I've also toyed with the thought of doing an old Mulroney routine from 1998, but that doesn't seem very original.
Highlights from my last 2 sessions:
*flurry-symp torque. Not new, but I hadn't hit this in a while.
*ps egg-symp dlo
*toe flurry
That last one was pretty exciting for me. The set kinda feels like a high, tight and fast toe set DLO with a bit more oomph in it. The one I hit felt pretty clean, but who knows without video verification. I've been pretty busy lately, so I haven't looked into fixing my camera since it broke. I'm going to make that a priority in the coming couple weeks. I definitely miss shooting and posting videos.
Going to Maryland today to juggle and play footbag with Vince and Age.
-
Sporatical_Distractions
- registered sacks offender
- Posts: 4529
- Joined: 12 Oct 2004 19:14
- Location: Guy's American Kitchen & Bar
stretch the hammies and thoroughly stretch the hips. The knees follow from the core down.C-Fan wrote:The knee injury is strange too: it only hurts when I do certain footbag motions (whirls and double dexes), but I can walk fine on it and play footbag without pain as long as I avoid those motions. I think I'll get it checked out next week if it continues to be weird.
Welcome to Flavortown
Kevin Crowley
Kevin Crowley
-
Sporatical_Distractions
- registered sacks offender
- Posts: 4529
- Joined: 12 Oct 2004 19:14
- Location: Guy's American Kitchen & Bar
-
Eric Chang
- Fearless
- Posts: 567
- Joined: 29 May 2006 23:16
- Location: San Jose, California
Hey Ken, I know Worlds was not the best and that the whole falling down the stairs was bad (damn that Tuukka). But your semi final routine was simply amazing, and really left me speechless and almost a tear in my eye.
Long story short, Ken was playing really really hurt but regardless it was amazing to watch.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww9CDA8oAzM[/youtube]
If you want Ken I will remove the video, but I'm proud that you stuck it out.
Long story short, Ken was playing really really hurt but regardless it was amazing to watch.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww9CDA8oAzM[/youtube]
If you want Ken I will remove the video, but I'm proud that you stuck it out.
Look a BLOG! That I never update
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=16244
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=16244
Thanks for posting that Eric, it was my first time seeing that routine since I did it. Not to sound cocky, but I have to say that I'm amazed how well that went! I remember strongly considering scratching even right before I went out. I really didn't want to exacerbate my injury, and even just warming up I felt the pain spreading up my side to my ribs. But then I told myself it was Worlds, and if there was ever a moment where I should play through pain, this was it. And man, there was a lot of pain. Literally every trick in that routine hurt, it's just that some tricks hurt worse than others. Overall though, that routine is one of my proudest moments in footbag, so I'm really happy you caught it on film and I got to see it again. Thanks Eric.
Footbagwise I've been putting my energy in 2 main areas lately: helping with East Coasts, and playing for fun on the side. East Coasts is this weekend, so I've been working the phones and emailing people to sort out prizes, judging, lodging, etc. Vince has been doing the heavy lifting, but I've enjoyed helping out on the freestyle side doing what I can to get us good players and prizes at the event. I just want to thank all our sponsors again. We've got some beautiful bags from world-class stitchers, as well as some nice clothes from planetfootbag and Kolo. And the trophies are the sex. I really want to get a couple.
Shredwise I've had a few light sessions lately, but nothing really serious. I'm enjoying my new style of play. I still do the occasional stepping set, but my game is mostly downtime now. The only "new" addition is barroque, which I suspect is thin, but it may actually be "the." I used to do barroques on the other side using a semi-furious set, but that knee is off-limits now. Instead I'm relegated to doing barroques like I do flurry, but kinda bailing in the middle. They're fun even if they aren't immaculate. I'll ask people at ECs what they think, or better yet, get some on film to look at.
I've had 3 small sessions over the last few days. On Friday I went to Maryland to visit the UMD juggling club. Had fun juggling pins and played/taught some footbag. Seems like fertile recruiting ground, but its a bit out of my way time and locationwise. No real highlights shredwise. After juggling I went to the gym where Age works, and shot some hoops and worked out for free. Towards the end of the workout I remembered the 100 pushup challenge thing, so I gave it a try: 35. Not bad, considering my arms were tired from other exercises. I should try again and set an actual personal record. Sunday I played in Maryland with Vince, Age, and a new guy named Chris. We played at an outdoor mall, so we got good exposure. Unfortunately, it also meant we ended up babysitting other people's kids, which got annoying. Before things devolved to that point though, I really enjoyed playing. I did lots of longer strings with spins, and felt very in control. We eventually moved to another spot to play 4 square. We got in 3 games which were fun. Vince is pretty sneaky. I'm gonna make a point to set up 4 square at Vince's place at East Coasts on Saturday.
Yesterday I got in a 2 man shred with Vince. We didn't play long, and the point of the session was for me to try out some routines. I had 5 song candidates, and after doing run-throughs of each, I think I've settled on 2 songs. My first run-through was "Not to Touch the Earth" by the Doors. Mulroney used this as his finals routine in 1998 I believe. I hit it dropless, and it was an OK routine, but it's a bit dramatic for my taste. My second run-through was an Elvis song, and I also got that dropless. It needs some tweaking, but I'm going to use it. Just not sure which round. My Third run-through was to a Cake song, and I hit that dropless too! So 3 dropless routines in a row, even though the choreo was pretty much entirely improvised for each. Still, it was reassuring to see that I have routine stamina. My next run-through was Under Pressure, by Bowie and Queen, which was my routine at 2004 Worlds. I had trouble figuring out where the cues were, and the fact that I'd already done the routine before meant I had few qualms about dropping it off my list. My last routine was All-Star by Smashmouth, which also didn't really click with me. The one thing it had going for it (besides the fact that I am a DC Allstar, as Vince pointed out), is the fact that the song is kinda annoying. Why is that a plus? Because if I were to actually skool a proper routine, that would require I listen to my song over and over and over. Given that East Coasts is 4 days away, I could do the Smashmouth routine without going insane, because I don't have that much time to prepare it. That said, I just got a better vibe off of my Elvis and Cake routines, so I'm gonna listen to those songs a bunch this week, and hope I learn them well enough that I can BS my way through a decent enough routine.
Footbagwise I've been putting my energy in 2 main areas lately: helping with East Coasts, and playing for fun on the side. East Coasts is this weekend, so I've been working the phones and emailing people to sort out prizes, judging, lodging, etc. Vince has been doing the heavy lifting, but I've enjoyed helping out on the freestyle side doing what I can to get us good players and prizes at the event. I just want to thank all our sponsors again. We've got some beautiful bags from world-class stitchers, as well as some nice clothes from planetfootbag and Kolo. And the trophies are the sex. I really want to get a couple.
Shredwise I've had a few light sessions lately, but nothing really serious. I'm enjoying my new style of play. I still do the occasional stepping set, but my game is mostly downtime now. The only "new" addition is barroque, which I suspect is thin, but it may actually be "the." I used to do barroques on the other side using a semi-furious set, but that knee is off-limits now. Instead I'm relegated to doing barroques like I do flurry, but kinda bailing in the middle. They're fun even if they aren't immaculate. I'll ask people at ECs what they think, or better yet, get some on film to look at.
I've had 3 small sessions over the last few days. On Friday I went to Maryland to visit the UMD juggling club. Had fun juggling pins and played/taught some footbag. Seems like fertile recruiting ground, but its a bit out of my way time and locationwise. No real highlights shredwise. After juggling I went to the gym where Age works, and shot some hoops and worked out for free. Towards the end of the workout I remembered the 100 pushup challenge thing, so I gave it a try: 35. Not bad, considering my arms were tired from other exercises. I should try again and set an actual personal record. Sunday I played in Maryland with Vince, Age, and a new guy named Chris. We played at an outdoor mall, so we got good exposure. Unfortunately, it also meant we ended up babysitting other people's kids, which got annoying. Before things devolved to that point though, I really enjoyed playing. I did lots of longer strings with spins, and felt very in control. We eventually moved to another spot to play 4 square. We got in 3 games which were fun. Vince is pretty sneaky. I'm gonna make a point to set up 4 square at Vince's place at East Coasts on Saturday.
Yesterday I got in a 2 man shred with Vince. We didn't play long, and the point of the session was for me to try out some routines. I had 5 song candidates, and after doing run-throughs of each, I think I've settled on 2 songs. My first run-through was "Not to Touch the Earth" by the Doors. Mulroney used this as his finals routine in 1998 I believe. I hit it dropless, and it was an OK routine, but it's a bit dramatic for my taste. My second run-through was an Elvis song, and I also got that dropless. It needs some tweaking, but I'm going to use it. Just not sure which round. My Third run-through was to a Cake song, and I hit that dropless too! So 3 dropless routines in a row, even though the choreo was pretty much entirely improvised for each. Still, it was reassuring to see that I have routine stamina. My next run-through was Under Pressure, by Bowie and Queen, which was my routine at 2004 Worlds. I had trouble figuring out where the cues were, and the fact that I'd already done the routine before meant I had few qualms about dropping it off my list. My last routine was All-Star by Smashmouth, which also didn't really click with me. The one thing it had going for it (besides the fact that I am a DC Allstar, as Vince pointed out), is the fact that the song is kinda annoying. Why is that a plus? Because if I were to actually skool a proper routine, that would require I listen to my song over and over and over. Given that East Coasts is 4 days away, I could do the Smashmouth routine without going insane, because I don't have that much time to prepare it. That said, I just got a better vibe off of my Elvis and Cake routines, so I'm gonna listen to those songs a bunch this week, and hope I learn them well enough that I can BS my way through a decent enough routine.
Haven't played footbag since Monday, which seems forever ago. I probably won't play today either. That means that I've "practiced" both of my routines a grand total of once a piece before East Coasts, and I haven't played in the 4 days leading up to it. Not really ideal training for a tourney. I really don't care how I place this weekend, but I DO want to perform good routines. It'd be fantastic to get one more dropless routine before the end of the year, but I'm not going to be disappointed if I don't.
The other concern for me is that my right leg still doesn't feel right. The knee doesn't hurt, but only because I've been laying off any problem motions. My right hamstring feels tight these days. It may be due to muscles overcompensating, or just because everything is connected. In any case, my plan is to play somewhat lightly tomorrow in the hopes that I will be able to play hard on Sunday. If I had to bet though, I would guess that I'll end up playing pretty hard tomorrow, be sore on Sunday, and play through the discomfort on Sunday.
I was looking forward to playing net this weekend, but now I'm not sure if I will. The hamstring is part of my concern, but beyond that its supposed to rain and I dont have waterproof netshoes. I also heard a rumor that Ted may not come, and if that's the case the only person I have any interest in playing is Adrienne, but I could play her some other time when I'm not running (and competing in) freestyle at a tourney.
Pretty damn excited to see a bunch of friends this weekend. I'll be sure to blog this up when I'm done. Wish me luck!
The other concern for me is that my right leg still doesn't feel right. The knee doesn't hurt, but only because I've been laying off any problem motions. My right hamstring feels tight these days. It may be due to muscles overcompensating, or just because everything is connected. In any case, my plan is to play somewhat lightly tomorrow in the hopes that I will be able to play hard on Sunday. If I had to bet though, I would guess that I'll end up playing pretty hard tomorrow, be sore on Sunday, and play through the discomfort on Sunday.
I was looking forward to playing net this weekend, but now I'm not sure if I will. The hamstring is part of my concern, but beyond that its supposed to rain and I dont have waterproof netshoes. I also heard a rumor that Ted may not come, and if that's the case the only person I have any interest in playing is Adrienne, but I could play her some other time when I'm not running (and competing in) freestyle at a tourney.
Pretty damn excited to see a bunch of friends this weekend. I'll be sure to blog this up when I'm done. Wish me luck!
25th Annual East Coast Footbag Championships
Prelude: The week leading up to the tourney I didn't get in much footbag practice. I had a light session on Monday with Vince, and then no footbag until Saturday when it was time to compete. I wasn't able to practice during the week due to a combination of professional obligations (networking happy hours) and general pre-tourney busy-ness, like calling up sponsors, setting up logistics, etc. Thursday and Friday after work I got my place ready for guests by vacuuming, cleaning up, and stocking up on beer. Friday after work I managed to squeeze in a dinner with my girlfriend to celebrate our month anniversary, where I figured out that "Grey Goose" (a brand of vodka) anagrams to "goo geyser." After dinner I went home, tidied up, and waited for my first batch of guests to arrive. Sometime around midnight the NYFA crew calls to tell me they are in my lobby. East Coasts has officially begun! I go downstairs to let them in and help them up. Bruce, Barrett, Drew Martin, and a new player, Greg all crash at my place that night. We share some Unibroue beers, joke around a lot, commiserate about the untimely death of Bernie Mac, and wisely turn in fairly early.
Saturday:
We wake up and shower, and decide to grab breakfast near the site. We head to the car, and we realize that I left the directions at home. I run back, grab the papers on my desk, and meet up with them in the car. I look at the directions and.... realize I didn't grab the directions. D'oh! I run back up to my apartment, grab the real directions, and finally we are off. On the way to Maryland we drive down a street that literally had 15 churches/synagogues/buddhist meeting places in the span of less than a mile and a half. For breakfast we go to some place that specializes in eggs. I order eggs benedict with guacamole, which is excellent. The only other notable things that happen at breakfast is that we learn that Paul Newman died, and a waitress at another table drops a bowl of syrup that spatters all over Greg and me. Goo geyser!
We get to the site without much trouble, say some hellos, and then help set up the sound equipment. I do some registration for freestylers, collect everybody's music, set the playlists, round up and train the judges, seed the players, and sooner than you know it it was time for comp. It turned out we only had the indoor cafeteria site until 4 pm, and it was POURING rain outside, so it was my top priority to run freestyle as quickly and efficiently as possible. We start off with intermediate routines, which I don't get to watch much of. As the MC, I would get on stage, make short player introduction, hop off stage, find the next competitor and let them know they were on deck, asked them what kind of intro they wanted, and tried to sneak in some warming up for myself, since Open Routines were right after intermediate. Once I heard the competitor's song end, I would jump back on stage, ask the audience for another round of applause for the competitor (to buy the judges more time), and start the process all over again. I think the highlight of the first day of intermediate comp was Ted's routine. In the last 17 years of competition, his previous best was a 6 drop routine, and on Saturday he had 3. Awesome.
Open comp starts off with an unfortunate mistake on my part. Mike Toolan does a really strong, well-choreographed routine that only has 2 drops. I'm therefore confused as to why he looks dissatisfied when it ends, and then I realize that my time counter was calling time at 1:30 instead of 2:00, because I didn't tell her that Open routines are 2 minutes. F*ck!
I hop on stage, introduce the next competitor, then go to Toolan and offer him the option of doing his routine again after the top seed goes. I explain that nobody is getting cut in routines, and that today only affects seeding, but if he wants a re-do, he can. He decides not to, but I make a mental note to be more careful in the future when I explain duties to staff, especially when they aren't footbaggers.
Before I realize it, I'm up on stage introducing myself. Definitely a bit of a weird experience, but I try and play it for some comedic value. I decided to do my Cake routine on the first day, since it felt like the weaker of my two routines and I wanted to save my best for finals. I drop within the first 10 seconds or so, and I had one more drop somewhere in the middle, but overall it felt like a decent routine. I didn't study my song enough to really remember where all the cues went, so a good part of the routine was improvised. That said, I felt pretty happy with it, and the crowd looked entertained. The highlight of the routine for me was when I accidentally kicked the bag into my armpit (which should be counted as a drop, though I'm not sure if it was, because I...) and recovered by doing a funky walk forward, as if I did it on purpose and wanted choreo points. I also had another near miss where a rooted toe stall saved me from another drop, so while I may have only had 2 official drops, it probably was 3, and could easily have been 4. Anyway.
In open circle we only had 6 competitors, so we divided into 2 pools: Flash, Jon S and Drew Martin, and Ken, Toolan, and Danny Greer. 2 people in each pool advance for a 4 man circle final on Sunday. Not to be cocky or anything, but I was pretty confident that I could advance without pushing myself too hard. That said, I also was very aware of the fact that I had hardly got a chance to play at all during the day, so I looked at Circle as my opportunity to finally get some playing time. With that mindset, I played really hard and was very pleased with how my body held up. The 2 biggest personal highlights from Saturday's circle were hitting barroque and WHAT?!? first try. I was told that my barroque was clean too, which made me happy.
We got freestyle wrapped up early enough that people had a good 45 minutes to play inside before I started getting people to pack up. Thank you to everybody who helped clean up so we could get out of there in time. We pile into cars and go to Vince's place, then make runs to the beer store, where I proceed to interact with one of the dumbest shopkeepers I have ever had the misfortune to meet. For those who don't know me, I am 28 years old, but I look young because I am half Japanese. The drinking age in the US is 21 (which is amazing, because you can vote, buy machine guns, join the army, and be charged as an adult all by the age of 18 ). I get to the counter with my beer and give the clerk my Arizona driver's license. He slides the strip through his machine, and says that the machine is telling him it's fake. Given my looks, I also carry on me my expired New York driver's license, which is also acceptable legal ID. He slides the New York one, and says that the NY one is legit, but he's going to have to confiscate my Arizona ID. Let's stop right here for a second, and try and figure out what's going through this guy's head. "Hm, this customer has 2 IDs that have the same name, same date of birth, similar photos, etc and one of the IDs is legit. But my machine doesn't register the other ID. I know! He must have bought a fake ID that has THE SAME NAME AND DATE OF BIRTH AS HIS REAL ID." I could see that he was having trouble grasping the idiocy of this, so I asked him pointblank: "What would be the point of getting a fake ID made that has the same date of birth as my real ID? Who would do that?" The guy is such an idiot that I literally start throwing other photo IDs on the counter in front of him, including my Library of Congress card and my Cornell ID. I only wish I had my goverment ID on me too. If I did make a fake ID, it'd be pretty stupid to put my real name on there, dontcha think? Finally his superviser intervenes and I get my drivers license back. I still can't believe what an idiot that guy was. Gah. Still, amazing story of stupidity, hence I wanted to share.
I pick up some food, and by the time I get back to Vince's the party has started. I play a game of chess against Ian, and then another against Mike Toolan, which are fun. I have a couple Brooklyn Browns and play Wii bowling, which makes me nostalgic for last summer when that was a weekly ritual at Bruce's house. In Wii bowling I set two personal records: I got 5 strikes in a row, and in another game I got a turkey where each throw was as slow as possible. I head back to my place with Bruce, Greg, Jon S and Ian. Back at my place we have some scotch, eat some ice cream, and watch a lot of funny YouTube videos. Joe Rogan standup, Demetri Martin's "If I" show, and Van Halen shreds!. We laugh a lot and then go to bed.
Next: Sunday.
Prelude: The week leading up to the tourney I didn't get in much footbag practice. I had a light session on Monday with Vince, and then no footbag until Saturday when it was time to compete. I wasn't able to practice during the week due to a combination of professional obligations (networking happy hours) and general pre-tourney busy-ness, like calling up sponsors, setting up logistics, etc. Thursday and Friday after work I got my place ready for guests by vacuuming, cleaning up, and stocking up on beer. Friday after work I managed to squeeze in a dinner with my girlfriend to celebrate our month anniversary, where I figured out that "Grey Goose" (a brand of vodka) anagrams to "goo geyser." After dinner I went home, tidied up, and waited for my first batch of guests to arrive. Sometime around midnight the NYFA crew calls to tell me they are in my lobby. East Coasts has officially begun! I go downstairs to let them in and help them up. Bruce, Barrett, Drew Martin, and a new player, Greg all crash at my place that night. We share some Unibroue beers, joke around a lot, commiserate about the untimely death of Bernie Mac, and wisely turn in fairly early.
Saturday:
We wake up and shower, and decide to grab breakfast near the site. We head to the car, and we realize that I left the directions at home. I run back, grab the papers on my desk, and meet up with them in the car. I look at the directions and.... realize I didn't grab the directions. D'oh! I run back up to my apartment, grab the real directions, and finally we are off. On the way to Maryland we drive down a street that literally had 15 churches/synagogues/buddhist meeting places in the span of less than a mile and a half. For breakfast we go to some place that specializes in eggs. I order eggs benedict with guacamole, which is excellent. The only other notable things that happen at breakfast is that we learn that Paul Newman died, and a waitress at another table drops a bowl of syrup that spatters all over Greg and me. Goo geyser!
We get to the site without much trouble, say some hellos, and then help set up the sound equipment. I do some registration for freestylers, collect everybody's music, set the playlists, round up and train the judges, seed the players, and sooner than you know it it was time for comp. It turned out we only had the indoor cafeteria site until 4 pm, and it was POURING rain outside, so it was my top priority to run freestyle as quickly and efficiently as possible. We start off with intermediate routines, which I don't get to watch much of. As the MC, I would get on stage, make short player introduction, hop off stage, find the next competitor and let them know they were on deck, asked them what kind of intro they wanted, and tried to sneak in some warming up for myself, since Open Routines were right after intermediate. Once I heard the competitor's song end, I would jump back on stage, ask the audience for another round of applause for the competitor (to buy the judges more time), and start the process all over again. I think the highlight of the first day of intermediate comp was Ted's routine. In the last 17 years of competition, his previous best was a 6 drop routine, and on Saturday he had 3. Awesome.
Open comp starts off with an unfortunate mistake on my part. Mike Toolan does a really strong, well-choreographed routine that only has 2 drops. I'm therefore confused as to why he looks dissatisfied when it ends, and then I realize that my time counter was calling time at 1:30 instead of 2:00, because I didn't tell her that Open routines are 2 minutes. F*ck!
I hop on stage, introduce the next competitor, then go to Toolan and offer him the option of doing his routine again after the top seed goes. I explain that nobody is getting cut in routines, and that today only affects seeding, but if he wants a re-do, he can. He decides not to, but I make a mental note to be more careful in the future when I explain duties to staff, especially when they aren't footbaggers. Before I realize it, I'm up on stage introducing myself. Definitely a bit of a weird experience, but I try and play it for some comedic value. I decided to do my Cake routine on the first day, since it felt like the weaker of my two routines and I wanted to save my best for finals. I drop within the first 10 seconds or so, and I had one more drop somewhere in the middle, but overall it felt like a decent routine. I didn't study my song enough to really remember where all the cues went, so a good part of the routine was improvised. That said, I felt pretty happy with it, and the crowd looked entertained. The highlight of the routine for me was when I accidentally kicked the bag into my armpit (which should be counted as a drop, though I'm not sure if it was, because I...) and recovered by doing a funky walk forward, as if I did it on purpose and wanted choreo points. I also had another near miss where a rooted toe stall saved me from another drop, so while I may have only had 2 official drops, it probably was 3, and could easily have been 4. Anyway.
In open circle we only had 6 competitors, so we divided into 2 pools: Flash, Jon S and Drew Martin, and Ken, Toolan, and Danny Greer. 2 people in each pool advance for a 4 man circle final on Sunday. Not to be cocky or anything, but I was pretty confident that I could advance without pushing myself too hard. That said, I also was very aware of the fact that I had hardly got a chance to play at all during the day, so I looked at Circle as my opportunity to finally get some playing time. With that mindset, I played really hard and was very pleased with how my body held up. The 2 biggest personal highlights from Saturday's circle were hitting barroque and WHAT?!? first try. I was told that my barroque was clean too, which made me happy.
We got freestyle wrapped up early enough that people had a good 45 minutes to play inside before I started getting people to pack up. Thank you to everybody who helped clean up so we could get out of there in time. We pile into cars and go to Vince's place, then make runs to the beer store, where I proceed to interact with one of the dumbest shopkeepers I have ever had the misfortune to meet. For those who don't know me, I am 28 years old, but I look young because I am half Japanese. The drinking age in the US is 21 (which is amazing, because you can vote, buy machine guns, join the army, and be charged as an adult all by the age of 18 ). I get to the counter with my beer and give the clerk my Arizona driver's license. He slides the strip through his machine, and says that the machine is telling him it's fake. Given my looks, I also carry on me my expired New York driver's license, which is also acceptable legal ID. He slides the New York one, and says that the NY one is legit, but he's going to have to confiscate my Arizona ID. Let's stop right here for a second, and try and figure out what's going through this guy's head. "Hm, this customer has 2 IDs that have the same name, same date of birth, similar photos, etc and one of the IDs is legit. But my machine doesn't register the other ID. I know! He must have bought a fake ID that has THE SAME NAME AND DATE OF BIRTH AS HIS REAL ID." I could see that he was having trouble grasping the idiocy of this, so I asked him pointblank: "What would be the point of getting a fake ID made that has the same date of birth as my real ID? Who would do that?" The guy is such an idiot that I literally start throwing other photo IDs on the counter in front of him, including my Library of Congress card and my Cornell ID. I only wish I had my goverment ID on me too. If I did make a fake ID, it'd be pretty stupid to put my real name on there, dontcha think? Finally his superviser intervenes and I get my drivers license back. I still can't believe what an idiot that guy was. Gah.
Still, amazing story of stupidity, hence I wanted to share. I pick up some food, and by the time I get back to Vince's the party has started. I play a game of chess against Ian, and then another against Mike Toolan, which are fun. I have a couple Brooklyn Browns and play Wii bowling, which makes me nostalgic for last summer when that was a weekly ritual at Bruce's house. In Wii bowling I set two personal records: I got 5 strikes in a row, and in another game I got a turkey where each throw was as slow as possible. I head back to my place with Bruce, Greg, Jon S and Ian. Back at my place we have some scotch, eat some ice cream, and watch a lot of funny YouTube videos. Joe Rogan standup, Demetri Martin's "If I" show, and Van Halen shreds!. We laugh a lot and then go to bed.
Next: Sunday.
Last edited by C-Fan on 29 Sep 2008 14:30, edited 1 time in total.