he's been playing in the streets of munich for at least 10-15 years I guess. Everybody knows him..
Muffinman
by the way, that street musician you filmed is like an instituion in munich -
he's been playing in the streets of munich for at least 10-15 years I guess. Everybody knows him..
he's been playing in the streets of munich for at least 10-15 years I guess. Everybody knows him..
bjoern
Munich Footbag
Munich Footbag
I am really happy to hear that you are now living in Europe.
And pretty close to me aswell.
Last year I was trying really hard to make a winter trip to Munich but it didn't work out. Maybe it will this year.
On the other hand, there is some talking about a big danish footbag tournament this spring.
Hope you can come. Nothing is settle yet so we will see how that work out.
Would be nice to see you there.
You and Marita was so cute in that big inflatable yellow tent, playing in the rain.
It was Marco who participated in the sand shred session not me.
Could you put Shamble in "Modified top-10" in the "Footbag Website Listing"?
The link is www.shamble.notlong.com
If you feel like writing anything for the magazine, feel free to do so (it would make me stoked!).
And pretty close to me aswell.
Last year I was trying really hard to make a winter trip to Munich but it didn't work out. Maybe it will this year.
On the other hand, there is some talking about a big danish footbag tournament this spring.
Hope you can come. Nothing is settle yet so we will see how that work out.
Would be nice to see you there.
You and Marita was so cute in that big inflatable yellow tent, playing in the rain.
It was Marco who participated in the sand shred session not me.
Could you put Shamble in "Modified top-10" in the "Footbag Website Listing"?
The link is www.shamble.notlong.com
If you feel like writing anything for the magazine, feel free to do so (it would make me stoked!).
-
chris-
- Shredaholic
- Posts: 194
- Joined: 02 Sep 2005 07:41
- Location: Venlo, Netherlands/Moers, Germany
- Contact:
hey eric
welcome to germany
nice to see that the german scene is growing.
to bad that I moved to the Netherlands.
maybe see ya at the next german championships or worlds.
chris
welcome to germany
nice to see that the german scene is growing.
to bad that I moved to the Netherlands.
maybe see ya at the next german championships or worlds.
chris
Footblog
Christoph Alexander
Christoph Alexander
-
mahhkohh
- Flower Child
- Posts: 1944
- Joined: 22 Feb 2005 08:36
- Location: near stuttgart,germany
- Contact:
hey... i heard rumors, but i didnt want to believe them, you know what living in germany means? you now have to play with me at least one time a year 
i guess that makes me come to munich sometime sooner than i initialy was planning.
c ya
i guess that makes me come to munich sometime sooner than i initialy was planning. c ya
come get your mÃcrÖ¶ bag today
buy one of my bags and help finance my guitar lessons
mäcrö hartig
buy one of my bags and help finance my guitar lessons
mäcrö hartig
Ha. Yeah, it's cool.
Europe is so awesome and efficient.
(I was gonna not bother italicizing, but I think it will be a good reminder to me that I have to finish my write-up still...)
Shred session: 20080906:
I had a solo session today. It was quite nice and really fun like my last solo. I started with just osis stuff. I wanted to get some neat osis things on video just with my still camera, but it made me push too hard and not just play for fun and just trying single things over and over. It was still fun in the end, but it quickly somehow turned into a kind of fearless solo session, which I've maybe never had before. I was inspired by a combo I have written in my sketchbook, which is something like "Alpine parkwalk > spinning ducking mirage [repeat] > pixie symp rev whirl > rev whirlygig > rev whirlygig" Realistic. For some reason I thought it was 10 at the time I wrote it though...
I came up with a neat fearless link: spinning ducking mirage > pixie symp rev whirl. I wanted to repeat it but it doesn't switch sides. So then I tried alpine little apple > pixie symp rev whirl [repeat], but too intense for my poor legs. I practiced some mobius stuff, like mobius X2 -- so close every single time! Whatever, it's mine. And once I hit it it won't that hard 'cause it's all mental. I almost had mobius > spinning clipper [reapeat] after just a couple tries but then went back to pure mobius. Then I wanted to try mobius > rev tomahawk > rev tomahawk > mobius. Mobius is getting dialed. Awesome. I also did osis > mobius BSOS and osis > gyro DLO BSOS..
It was okay fun. Really intense for a long time -- like an hour with barely any breaks. I also stretched twice really well. I'm gonna try some easier fearless next time-ish... like spinning ducking butterfly > rev whirlygig [repeat] > rev mullet > rev whirlwind [repeat] or something? Probably more realistically just two rev mullets. That shouldn't be too tough. Or a spinning ducking osis... haha. Add hunting?? Yeah, that's basically it.
Europe is so awesome and efficient.
(I was gonna not bother italicizing, but I think it will be a good reminder to me that I have to finish my write-up still...)
Shred session: 20080906:
I had a solo session today. It was quite nice and really fun like my last solo. I started with just osis stuff. I wanted to get some neat osis things on video just with my still camera, but it made me push too hard and not just play for fun and just trying single things over and over. It was still fun in the end, but it quickly somehow turned into a kind of fearless solo session, which I've maybe never had before. I was inspired by a combo I have written in my sketchbook, which is something like "Alpine parkwalk > spinning ducking mirage [repeat] > pixie symp rev whirl > rev whirlygig > rev whirlygig" Realistic. For some reason I thought it was 10 at the time I wrote it though...
I came up with a neat fearless link: spinning ducking mirage > pixie symp rev whirl. I wanted to repeat it but it doesn't switch sides. So then I tried alpine little apple > pixie symp rev whirl [repeat], but too intense for my poor legs. I practiced some mobius stuff, like mobius X2 -- so close every single time! Whatever, it's mine. And once I hit it it won't that hard 'cause it's all mental. I almost had mobius > spinning clipper [reapeat] after just a couple tries but then went back to pure mobius. Then I wanted to try mobius > rev tomahawk > rev tomahawk > mobius. Mobius is getting dialed. Awesome. I also did osis > mobius BSOS and osis > gyro DLO BSOS..
It was okay fun. Really intense for a long time -- like an hour with barely any breaks. I also stretched twice really well. I'm gonna try some easier fearless next time-ish... like spinning ducking butterfly > rev whirlygig [repeat] > rev mullet > rev whirlwind [repeat] or something? Probably more realistically just two rev mullets. That shouldn't be too tough. Or a spinning ducking osis... haha. Add hunting?? Yeah, that's basically it.
Shred Session: 20080911:
I had a kinda laid-back session with Daryl and Toby yesterday at Olympia Park (so beautiful -- one of my favourites parts of Munich to be sure!). Daryl was having stomach pain, but was playing pretty well. He always pulls unpredictable, refreshing links. Toby was playing the best I've seen him. Strong tiltless with some threes thrown in effortlessly. And he was soo close to flip whirl which less than a minute before he said was impossible for him!
My highlight was really exciting for me
I was doing more mobiuses, like last solo session, though they weren't being too consistant. I tried some pdx torques, which have always been really, really tough for me, and they seemed kinda "on". At that solo session I hit mobius > pdx torque, which felt awwweesome. Umm, so after trying a couple pdx torques I thought, what the heck, I'll try marius, which I've only really hit, like, once really pulled.
First try.
Marius > handcatch!
I caught it and was, like, "Yeah! That was my first time!"
And then Daryl tossed the bag back and was, like, "Do it again!" And so I tried the other side and hit it first try too
So happy! Two new 6s! Man. Such a cool trick!
I also had a lots of fun doing spinning osii > stepping. Fuuuuun Osis is sticking! <3
I had a kinda laid-back session with Daryl and Toby yesterday at Olympia Park (so beautiful -- one of my favourites parts of Munich to be sure!). Daryl was having stomach pain, but was playing pretty well. He always pulls unpredictable, refreshing links. Toby was playing the best I've seen him. Strong tiltless with some threes thrown in effortlessly. And he was soo close to flip whirl which less than a minute before he said was impossible for him!
My highlight was really exciting for me
I was doing more mobiuses, like last solo session, though they weren't being too consistant. I tried some pdx torques, which have always been really, really tough for me, and they seemed kinda "on". At that solo session I hit mobius > pdx torque, which felt awwweesome. Umm, so after trying a couple pdx torques I thought, what the heck, I'll try marius, which I've only really hit, like, once really pulled.
First try.
Marius > handcatch!
I caught it and was, like, "Yeah! That was my first time!"
And then Daryl tossed the bag back and was, like, "Do it again!" And so I tried the other side and hit it first try too
So happy! Two new 6s! Man. Such a cool trick!I also had a lots of fun doing spinning osii > stepping. Fuuuuun
Osis is sticking! <3DAY 6
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2008:
Woke up around 10:30 and lay in bed for a while. The cleaning lady unlocked our door and came in. It was really awkward and she kind of washed our floor and picked up our garbage... quite strange. Very awkward. We found it pretty...invasive. Yes. They seemed pretty sketchy and hawk-eye-y (as they gave a bunch of footbaggers the boot later on in the week). We did our daily grocery run, blah blah blah. Sausage rolls = delish. Then we had plans to go to Cafe Ebel again, but Marita said we'd miss routines, which I was okay with for a bit, 'cause I don't care THAT much for routines, or comp at all for that matter. But we ended up heading back to the event site. We sat with Ken for a while and watched most of the routines. Damian (Gielnik) had a wicked routine which was basically shred 120. Intense. It was choreographed very well even!! Norek was like-wise, though not quite as awe-inspiring. There is something very fresh and effortless (smooth) about Gielnik's game. Vasek and Jakob Wagner both went dropless. Olaf was busting hard. Well... that is my note. I assume that means in his routine. (I have waited to long to continue writing this. I should wrap it all up already.)
We took a break from watching boring routines and Marita and I went to shred a bit. We found a nice little spot out of the way of all of the competitors warming up on the track. K, I may have incorrectly written this already, but a few people asked if they could join in. Nathan from Australia and another guy whose name I totally forget (my bad (super my bad if this is the second time writing this...)). No, my bad. First Taylor asked if she could join, and Marita and I were really excited, because she was sketchy about playing AROUND anyone, nevermind playing WITH anyone.. but if anyone, she wanted to play with Taylor, so great and cute! It was super fun and then the others joined and I kinda looked at Marita to see what she thought of it, and I guess we just tried it out. I think Marco Hartig joined too. It was Marita's first circle ever, and it was fun. She had fun, which was a blast -- a step closer to full appreciation of the hacky.
We went back and watched a bit more of routines, and then Sick 3, for which I was quite excited, especially in contrast to the majority of comps, for which I care little to none. For Sick 3 (it always seems to kind of fluctuate in rules) you had to provide 2 combos ahead of time and you had 3 tries to hit each. Gielnik hit both of his first try. One combo was ripped warrior > swifter > spender(?). Michal hit sailing mirage > massacre > pixie merlin (or something like this!) Actually, he did this by mistake, and it was hilarious, and the judges let it slide. He meant only to do regular merlin at the end, and I think pixie merlin was his second combo... Funny. Kinda like Sergey's (did I write of that already? -- Oh, nope.. it's still coming) Szymon hit Symp blazing butterfly > symp revup > symp eggbeater. Olaf tried nemesis > food processor > gangsta party, but messed up on the gangsta party I guess and kinda went into a run with huge tricks like gyro food processor. He did another variation of this sick three, but with a marius, probably in place of the gangsta party? There was a Pole (I forget his name too, but one of the first guys I met on that first night with Michal and Wiktor) who hit: backside entre > pixie massacre > pixie paradon (or something ridiculous like that???) and I think he may have hit his other combo too. Vasek hit nemesis > montage > something. Sergey Kozlov tried his first combo of whirr > symp whirling swirl > ripstein but dropped both first attempts and then switched to flipside for the third and hit it BAM! Hahaha. Then he also hit janiwalker > ripped warrior > alpine blurry whirl (wow, pretty hot!) Oh... it says he may have dropped that one.
Then STP contest was next, and I really didn't understand how it worked and so decided I was opposed to it, so I didn't watch it at all and went to shred again with Marita. Taylor joined again and then Eric Chang and then Marco (again? Or was he not there the first time?). We all tried to give Marita tips, and it was great. She was still trying legover, and finally hit it both sides! Wow! I was so proud of her. It was super cute! Then Marita left and went and asked if she could play with Kuba's girlfriend (I'm sorry, I would go up and look at her name but I am writing this offline!) who was schooling on her own, and I guess later on Marita said that she had given her some tips. Yay. Footbag!! Kjolpa joined our circle after Marita left and then somehow Tuomas from Finland ended up in the circle? (There is a note saying "then played really well" -- I'm not sure ifthat refers to me or to him... maybe both?) And then Rafael. Rafael is madness incarnate. Whisk > symp torque [repeat]. Dang. It doesn't get too much hotter than his bothsided symp torque tricks. Ducking PS torque BSOS in Flavio's video?? Nuts. Later he also hit blurriest > blurrier [repeat]. Really bothsided. I think he was the one who hit nuclear symp torque in some video from last year's Euros? If I recall it was, like, the only video released from that tournament? Maybe not Euros... Worlds a couple years back? Nevermind I dunno. I think I mean the event where we first saw footage of Vasek doing symp whirr and such... but obviously nevermind as there were those videos... Then Rafael left and Aleksi asked if he could join. Whatever! Then Tuuka (I always forget if it's double "u" or double "k"...) Then Mikko Lepisto joined... WHATEVER! Geez. I played too hard, but pretty well, which was awesome. It says here, spinning ducking clipper > stepping reverse whirl > sidewalk BSOS... but that doesn't seem like something particularly noteworthy... maybe I was playing really bad that day? Or at Worlds? I forget. It's been so long and I've been playing really well here in Munich with no pain. Gyro DLO > symp pixie BSOS with a bunch of ducking symp mirage tricks, oh gee, it keeps going, then in the same run I guess, oh, no wait. Out of the second symp pixie it went: pixie reverse whirl > stepping reverse whirl > ducking PS mirage So pretty good run I guess. Then reverse whirlygig BSOS, in a separate run I assume? Spinning DLO and reverse tomahawk BSOS. Then it says here that I ended the circle with a run with lots of shuffle, stepping reverse whirl and blurry reverse whirl both BSOS, and reverse whirlwind > handcatch. It was really epic and such a pleasure to play with, well... all BAP and the new 30-second shred world champ. Man alive. I got so many props from Aleksi. It doesn't get much better than that.
Then it was darker and they had the spotlights on. Vasek was back in the tent playing around with a soccer ball. He came out and did some stuff. Everyone stopped and watched in silence. Then he dropped and went into some footbag stuff (that is suuuper hard, I find... when your legs are used to the weight of the soccer ball!!) Huge applause and calls for encore. He eventually came back on and did an epic run for everybody -- possible the shred highlight of Worlds, like the one time he actually played?? Well, he kinda did a few runs. EVERYBODY filmed. Kevin, Mads, Max...whomever else.. (Mathieu I think?)... Then after that I was standing with Marita and we were going to go back to the hostel or something, but weren't sure, when Kevin called and told me to come pants shred. It was me and him and Rafael, I think? I think the first time I touched the bag, in jeans, I hit reverse whirlygig and then reverse mullet on the other side to hand catch. That was neat, and Kevin got excited! Then I kinda just played meh in pants and then eventually left when Rafael was busting crazy (though he was all geared up in shorts and proper shoes and all) :p Oh, I guess I also did reverse whirlygig x2 in pants. Andrew did really well in shred 30. I guess this turned out to be the finals and he ended up getting second in the World! I gave him props, and I think later on (or the next day?) he came and told me and Marita. Exciting! Wow!! Silver medal to Andrew Grant! Ken did well with his routine today, and he was saying how great Andrew's choreography was on his routine, if only he didn't drop so much. I think he got, like, 5-7 drops, but he had ben injured and unable to practice ahead of time. Uhh,one of Vasek's "Special time" runs had locomotion and motion sickness both BSOS (oh wait... may have dropped on the last trick?) Then home to beeeeed. End another day of Worlds 2008.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 2008:
Woke up around 10:30 and lay in bed for a while. The cleaning lady unlocked our door and came in. It was really awkward and she kind of washed our floor and picked up our garbage... quite strange. Very awkward. We found it pretty...invasive. Yes. They seemed pretty sketchy and hawk-eye-y (as they gave a bunch of footbaggers the boot later on in the week). We did our daily grocery run, blah blah blah. Sausage rolls = delish. Then we had plans to go to Cafe Ebel again, but Marita said we'd miss routines, which I was okay with for a bit, 'cause I don't care THAT much for routines, or comp at all for that matter. But we ended up heading back to the event site. We sat with Ken for a while and watched most of the routines. Damian (Gielnik) had a wicked routine which was basically shred 120. Intense. It was choreographed very well even!! Norek was like-wise, though not quite as awe-inspiring. There is something very fresh and effortless (smooth) about Gielnik's game. Vasek and Jakob Wagner both went dropless. Olaf was busting hard. Well... that is my note. I assume that means in his routine. (I have waited to long to continue writing this. I should wrap it all up already.)
We took a break from watching boring routines and Marita and I went to shred a bit. We found a nice little spot out of the way of all of the competitors warming up on the track. K, I may have incorrectly written this already, but a few people asked if they could join in. Nathan from Australia and another guy whose name I totally forget (my bad (super my bad if this is the second time writing this...)). No, my bad. First Taylor asked if she could join, and Marita and I were really excited, because she was sketchy about playing AROUND anyone, nevermind playing WITH anyone.. but if anyone, she wanted to play with Taylor, so great and cute! It was super fun and then the others joined and I kinda looked at Marita to see what she thought of it, and I guess we just tried it out. I think Marco Hartig joined too. It was Marita's first circle ever, and it was fun. She had fun, which was a blast -- a step closer to full appreciation of the hacky.
We went back and watched a bit more of routines, and then Sick 3, for which I was quite excited, especially in contrast to the majority of comps, for which I care little to none. For Sick 3 (it always seems to kind of fluctuate in rules) you had to provide 2 combos ahead of time and you had 3 tries to hit each. Gielnik hit both of his first try. One combo was ripped warrior > swifter > spender(?). Michal hit sailing mirage > massacre > pixie merlin (or something like this!) Actually, he did this by mistake, and it was hilarious, and the judges let it slide. He meant only to do regular merlin at the end, and I think pixie merlin was his second combo... Funny. Kinda like Sergey's (did I write of that already? -- Oh, nope.. it's still coming) Szymon hit Symp blazing butterfly > symp revup > symp eggbeater. Olaf tried nemesis > food processor > gangsta party, but messed up on the gangsta party I guess and kinda went into a run with huge tricks like gyro food processor. He did another variation of this sick three, but with a marius, probably in place of the gangsta party? There was a Pole (I forget his name too, but one of the first guys I met on that first night with Michal and Wiktor) who hit: backside entre > pixie massacre > pixie paradon (or something ridiculous like that???) and I think he may have hit his other combo too. Vasek hit nemesis > montage > something. Sergey Kozlov tried his first combo of whirr > symp whirling swirl > ripstein but dropped both first attempts and then switched to flipside for the third and hit it BAM! Hahaha. Then he also hit janiwalker > ripped warrior > alpine blurry whirl (wow, pretty hot!) Oh... it says he may have dropped that one.
Then STP contest was next, and I really didn't understand how it worked and so decided I was opposed to it, so I didn't watch it at all and went to shred again with Marita. Taylor joined again and then Eric Chang and then Marco (again? Or was he not there the first time?). We all tried to give Marita tips, and it was great. She was still trying legover, and finally hit it both sides! Wow! I was so proud of her. It was super cute! Then Marita left and went and asked if she could play with Kuba's girlfriend (I'm sorry, I would go up and look at her name but I am writing this offline!) who was schooling on her own, and I guess later on Marita said that she had given her some tips. Yay. Footbag!! Kjolpa joined our circle after Marita left and then somehow Tuomas from Finland ended up in the circle? (There is a note saying "then played really well" -- I'm not sure ifthat refers to me or to him... maybe both?) And then Rafael. Rafael is madness incarnate. Whisk > symp torque [repeat]. Dang. It doesn't get too much hotter than his bothsided symp torque tricks. Ducking PS torque BSOS in Flavio's video?? Nuts. Later he also hit blurriest > blurrier [repeat]. Really bothsided. I think he was the one who hit nuclear symp torque in some video from last year's Euros? If I recall it was, like, the only video released from that tournament? Maybe not Euros... Worlds a couple years back? Nevermind I dunno. I think I mean the event where we first saw footage of Vasek doing symp whirr and such... but obviously nevermind as there were those videos... Then Rafael left and Aleksi asked if he could join. Whatever! Then Tuuka (I always forget if it's double "u" or double "k"...) Then Mikko Lepisto joined... WHATEVER! Geez. I played too hard, but pretty well, which was awesome. It says here, spinning ducking clipper > stepping reverse whirl > sidewalk BSOS... but that doesn't seem like something particularly noteworthy... maybe I was playing really bad that day? Or at Worlds? I forget. It's been so long and I've been playing really well here in Munich with no pain. Gyro DLO > symp pixie BSOS with a bunch of ducking symp mirage tricks, oh gee, it keeps going, then in the same run I guess, oh, no wait. Out of the second symp pixie it went: pixie reverse whirl > stepping reverse whirl > ducking PS mirage So pretty good run I guess. Then reverse whirlygig BSOS, in a separate run I assume? Spinning DLO and reverse tomahawk BSOS. Then it says here that I ended the circle with a run with lots of shuffle, stepping reverse whirl and blurry reverse whirl both BSOS, and reverse whirlwind > handcatch. It was really epic and such a pleasure to play with, well... all BAP and the new 30-second shred world champ. Man alive. I got so many props from Aleksi. It doesn't get much better than that.
Then it was darker and they had the spotlights on. Vasek was back in the tent playing around with a soccer ball. He came out and did some stuff. Everyone stopped and watched in silence. Then he dropped and went into some footbag stuff (that is suuuper hard, I find... when your legs are used to the weight of the soccer ball!!) Huge applause and calls for encore. He eventually came back on and did an epic run for everybody -- possible the shred highlight of Worlds, like the one time he actually played?? Well, he kinda did a few runs. EVERYBODY filmed. Kevin, Mads, Max...whomever else.. (Mathieu I think?)... Then after that I was standing with Marita and we were going to go back to the hostel or something, but weren't sure, when Kevin called and told me to come pants shred. It was me and him and Rafael, I think? I think the first time I touched the bag, in jeans, I hit reverse whirlygig and then reverse mullet on the other side to hand catch. That was neat, and Kevin got excited! Then I kinda just played meh in pants and then eventually left when Rafael was busting crazy (though he was all geared up in shorts and proper shoes and all) :p Oh, I guess I also did reverse whirlygig x2 in pants. Andrew did really well in shred 30. I guess this turned out to be the finals and he ended up getting second in the World! I gave him props, and I think later on (or the next day?) he came and told me and Marita. Exciting! Wow!! Silver medal to Andrew Grant! Ken did well with his routine today, and he was saying how great Andrew's choreography was on his routine, if only he didn't drop so much. I think he got, like, 5-7 drops, but he had ben injured and unable to practice ahead of time. Uhh,one of Vasek's "Special time" runs had locomotion and motion sickness both BSOS (oh wait... may have dropped on the last trick?) Then home to beeeeed. End another day of Worlds 2008.
DAY 7
THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2008:
Woke up earlier today -- 9:30. We got our stuff together and actually finally made it out to Cafe Ebel (Marita's happy place in Prague and escape from the non-stop footbag, I suppose :p), after "attempting" for the past couple days. We got our new 5-day subway passes at the Skalka stop (I think our passes expired an hour earlier or something I had concluded. We took some more pictures in the Old Town Square (this time I think we specifically took pictures of us in the square, instead of just the buildings. Marita had her jumbo latte and I tried a banana milkshake. I think it was okay? Or good? I don't remember. Not super noteable, or a significant volume of shake. While sitting outside (we started inside but then moved out when a table freed) we saw a group of older Aussie tourists. They had unfortunate shirts made that had the acronym "EUROPE" and then it was, like, "Every aUstralian Roams Over.... I dunno... just something sad. Marita tried to get photo, but it was too late.
We got on our way and headed back to the stadium. We watched routines a bit. We had heard from someone (Kevin?) that Ken had an accident, and people were asking if we knew if he was okay. It turns out that, I guess the other night just after we had left, he was helping to clean up or something and climbed up on the back of a bench to take down a white supremacy flag or something that was hanging up for some reason and he with good reason felt it was inappropriate. Well it turns out that he lost his balance and fell backwards and down three flights of the concrete steps and benches. After competition I realized why he dropped 6 times. And Marita and I were, like, "Did it hurt to compete?" And he said something, like, "Every single toe stall." Yikes. So, well, we're glad he was "okay", and he seemed to get a good...outlook on life as a result, so I just hope he doesn't go climbing up stuff. Well the next day we were shredding in some lame back gym with terrible light and no ventilation and he climbed up onto some bleachers and we were, like, "Uh... Ken, be careful..." Anyway, ahead of myself. Then later Andrew came up to us, oh, I think we were waiting in line for our daily crappy sandwich or looking at the PlanetFootbag shop. And he was, like, "Hey guys! They cancelled Shred 30 and decided to just keep the results from semis and I got second!" And it didn't really register that he got second in the world, so I was, like, "Oh wow, awesome." But kind of with no feeling. It's almost mind-boggling how awesome that is, and kinda makes me wish I did competition. It must be the COOLEST to be able to say you got second at the world championships. Major respect and props. "He's pretty good." "Second in the world good!"
Then, I forget how it came about, oh right, I was asking around the other day because I said that I would buy Marita Quantums for her birthday. I knew the 03s weren't out yet, so we were gonna pick up a pair of 02s. I guess it was when we were playing in our nook just before Marita's first ever circle. I went and saw Ianek close, so I asked him whom to talk to about buying a pair. He forwarded me to Flavio, who I guess is a big wig with the Swiss PF chapter. Flavio said that I should ask Dexter. Ianek was super duper nice about it and said that he would find Dexter for me and let him know I was looking. So nice! Later I went and talked to Steve in the tent I think, looking for Dexter. No dice. Oh, later he came by and I asked and he said that, yes they have shoes but they never got a chance to set up shop, so to come back the next day. So the next day is today. I went and asked Dexter again, who was quite brisk (understandably I guess, what with organizing Worlds), and he pointed me back up to where the concession was. We went up and there was a girl handling the shop. We tried on some pairs and Marita settled with a size 9 in the greys (though she wanted the whites). But then when they went back to the 9s, there was only one shoe left for some reason and they spent, like, 20 minutes trying to find the only other 9. The girl was frustrated. Sucky. During that whole time I went and picked us up our sandwiches and I talked to Marco a bit. He asked to see my bags and I showed him. We were standing right beside one guy selling his bags at the PF shop. I think it was the super good German guy who won German Open this year. I THINK. He looked at my bags and seemed impressed. So that was cool. Actually TONS of people asked me about bags and wanted to buy them at Worlds, and it was so terrible to have to turn them all down and explain my wrist pain. Man. So 2000 Krowns (80 Euro-ish) later, Quantums!
We watched Jay's routine. He went dropless!! Man alive! Talent! Bounce! Style! The pride of Canada! We went and congratulated him along with everyone else, and the other Canadians, and he was, like, "Oh man, I got a hug from Erik Chan! That's all I could ask for!" Or something like that. Hehe. Neat! I wish I understood competitions more so I could have properly congratulated Andrew and Jay. Anyway, then there were more routines. Gielnik's was awesome like yesterday, and he only had one drop. I think it was RIGHT at the end too, like, with seconds left. Then Marita and I went to go session a bit with her brand new Quantums! Ramil joined us, and at this point I think Marita was used to the circle and didn't have as many reservations. I think she really got caught up in the generosity and good will and friendliness inherent in the footbagger's soul. Then Taylor joined again, which always made Marita really happy. And then Mitko and Justin Dale joined after Marita left. Oh, my bad, I made a mix-up. Yesterday Marita just left the circle, today was when she went and played with Kuba's girlfriend. Then after that she played by herself a bit, which was really cute. Justin hit alpine fog. Mitko hit flurry > smoke > spinning whirl (or something). Justin tried gyro shooting. He said he's done it clean. He toe scuffed my bag a few times too, which was kind of pising me off, and I kept being ready to ask him not to. He did it infrequently though, so I was on the fence, 'cause I figured he would probably just leave the circle if I said anything. Meh. It pained me a little, though, especially since it was one of my favourite bags. I played okay again. I got lots of props. There was one circle I played in at Worlds where I got props from big players, like, every run. Did I mention that already? Maybe it was the BAP circle. Wah.
Then Marita came and said she was gonna go swimming and left her stuff with me. I sat with Ken and Andrew while watching some people shred, like, I think Sergey, Olaf, and someone else? Honza? They were talking about how hot this one girl was, whose name I won't mention, and it just went from there. Then they announced that Request Contest was going to begin, and I was excited for that, so we went and watched -- I think Marita was back by this point. It started as, like, 4 different circles. They announced a combo and everyone had to take turns in the circle trying it. I think you got 3 turns. Oh wait, no, there was always 2 different combos utilizing different components, so you had a choice, which was really cool. They were big circles and once the players were weeded out the circles merged. They started with tons of really, really easy combos, though, like drifter > spinning butterfly or something. Honza got the boot pretty early which was met with shock from the crowd. Olaf was gone pretty early too, which floored me! Vasek popped in about halfway through and was allowed to join, obviously. He did all the combos and some of them back to back just because he can. Or one-upped. The last four competitors standing were Norek, Gielnik, Vasek, and Toni P. One combo was tapping DLO > ducking symp mirage. The next combo was sumo > reactor. And then also combos: pdx whirling swirl > little apple (I think this may be the one Vasek dropped on?), and pdx torque > gyro blender.
It was dark and there was circle shred just happening where the comps were held earlier with spotlights. Marita and I were planning to go to the party finally, but weren't sure if we should go back first or wait and go with someone else. The past few nights we kind of planned to go to the party, but went back to the hostel first and always felt too tired to go back out again once bak home and washed up. We ended up standing and watching as the shred escalated. Ken came and we chatting and watched shred together. Then we went and tried to steal a beanbag chair dealy on the sidelines, but Gielnik told us that we may not want to because the chair belonged to Norek. Dun dun dun duuunn. Norek doesn't smile very much. Mads Hole was sitting right nextdoor and he gave us his seat and we officially met for the first time. I had told Marita about Mads and Lise and them so she was in the preemptive know. He was super cool and really nice and we talked a bit about video stuff and I told him about how excited I was to see the video he will make from all the footage I saw him taking. He mentioned that his computer was kaput, like was brought up in a thread here in the video section. He is super cool, though. Very nice. We agreed that Mads and Lise are possibly the most attractive footbag couple? (Are they together? I always thought so, but it would be embarassing to just assume that and be wrong...) Then we were watching shred. There was a nice circle with Rafael, Ianek, Mathieu, Tukka, and one of the girls from Madrid(I think??). Then Tukka came up to me and he was, like, "Will you play with us?" And I thought that was such an honour to be asked by Tukka, so of course I had to. I played just in pants and they had this neat circle rule that was no self-serves and no pass-backs no matter what. It was a cool concept. Something that would be fun to immitate at a club session for, like, half an hour or an hour or something some time anyway. Oh, no, my bad, not Mathieu -- it was my arch nemesis, Eric Chang.
Then we went to the party. We walked with Jay Boychuck and Ben Roscoe and Jamie... and a wave of other footbaggers going in that direction. There was a pit stop at McDonalds where EVERYONE ate. We had no idea where to continue on to get to the party, so we waited with everyone else. We ended up sitting with the Canadians and that was really fun. I forget what we talked about. Then it turned ou that the party was in the hotel right next door. Like, literally the next door in the same building. We went in and there was a big siphoning of footbaggers at the elevator (the stairs were blocked off for some re ason). When it came our turn, we crammed people in and started to go up. But then "BING BING BING!" Flashing red light and mini-siren. Then the elevator stopped. Uhhh... THEM it started to go back down... slowly and not normally.. scary. Then it told us we had to let people off. So we went down a floor and let off a few guys who rushed into battle with the stairs. Safe, we figured out our situation and went back up, stopped at the first floor again to apologize to the footbaggers who were hailing our steel, rectangular steed, and continued up to the third floor. We went in and everything was fine. We waited in line for drinks for, like, 20 minutes without moving. We ended up talking to a net player from Finland a bit. Then Marita said I should go sit down and she would bring us drinks. So I went and sat with Kevin and Jamie. Kevin was showing Jamie how to play Pass the Pigs, which I had heard of for, like, 8 years, but never seen, played, or understood, so I got eager ears and leaned in. Then Taylor came by and I got Kevin to show us how to play. Then Marita came back too and we played a couple of games. I think Marita owned in both. Then Kevin told his epic story about his game withy Anssi. Anssi appeared and they reenacted how Anssi would have got, like, 600 points in a 200-point game, or whatever. I really enjoyed Pass the Pigs and look forward to playing it with footbaggers again. Then Marita and me and Taylor were going to go outside where we heard there was a deck and you could overlook the football stadium, or something. It was packed with smokers and no room to go or sit or stand anywhere. Unpleasant. So we returned. I ended up playing footbag hangman with Jay and Jamie and Ken came by and said something like that we gave lame people a bad name. That was kind of sucky. I am not a social or party person, and was trying to make the best of it, and I think Jay felt the same way. But whatever. So after a while, Jay asked me to draw a picture. And we were just sitting there really bored. I got frustrated and uncomfortable and wanted to go, so Marita and I got ready to leave. I saw Jay and Ben and Jamie getting together to leave too.
So we went back and waited for the tram, dreading the potential encounter with the fake police that beat up Aleksi. We saw police in uniform, which we were scared were the "fake police", but Kevin told us the next day that the fake ones don't wear uniform, and that they were probably real, in reaction to the footbaggers' issues and Dexter calling the police to deal with it. What I heard was that they were hassled by a couple of guys. Then passing a tram another time, they saw the same fake cops and Anssi yelled something, like, "FUCK YOURSELVES!" Or something... this is second hand and bad memory. Apparently he thought it was only a couple of guys. So then later on a whole group of these fake police came back and what I heard was that they beat Samu's face into a window and broke someone's glasses? And kicked in Aleksi's back? Sucky. What the hell? There were rumours drifting around that Anssi can kill a man with a cell phone. A walking weapon, that Anssi. Apparently he wasn't touched by the fake cops though. Then the first time Kevin and Co. encountered them, apparently they wanted to take them to the police station, and so they all started walking, and Kevin and Co. progressively distanced themselves by walking slower, and when far enough behind turned and bolted. The way he told the story was very funny. Though I'm sure it was not funny in the least at the time. The happiest place on Earth.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 2008:
Woke up earlier today -- 9:30. We got our stuff together and actually finally made it out to Cafe Ebel (Marita's happy place in Prague and escape from the non-stop footbag, I suppose :p), after "attempting" for the past couple days. We got our new 5-day subway passes at the Skalka stop (I think our passes expired an hour earlier or something I had concluded. We took some more pictures in the Old Town Square (this time I think we specifically took pictures of us in the square, instead of just the buildings. Marita had her jumbo latte and I tried a banana milkshake. I think it was okay? Or good? I don't remember. Not super noteable, or a significant volume of shake. While sitting outside (we started inside but then moved out when a table freed) we saw a group of older Aussie tourists. They had unfortunate shirts made that had the acronym "EUROPE" and then it was, like, "Every aUstralian Roams Over.... I dunno... just something sad. Marita tried to get photo, but it was too late.
We got on our way and headed back to the stadium. We watched routines a bit. We had heard from someone (Kevin?) that Ken had an accident, and people were asking if we knew if he was okay. It turns out that, I guess the other night just after we had left, he was helping to clean up or something and climbed up on the back of a bench to take down a white supremacy flag or something that was hanging up for some reason and he with good reason felt it was inappropriate. Well it turns out that he lost his balance and fell backwards and down three flights of the concrete steps and benches. After competition I realized why he dropped 6 times. And Marita and I were, like, "Did it hurt to compete?" And he said something, like, "Every single toe stall." Yikes. So, well, we're glad he was "okay", and he seemed to get a good...outlook on life as a result, so I just hope he doesn't go climbing up stuff. Well the next day we were shredding in some lame back gym with terrible light and no ventilation and he climbed up onto some bleachers and we were, like, "Uh... Ken, be careful..." Anyway, ahead of myself. Then later Andrew came up to us, oh, I think we were waiting in line for our daily crappy sandwich or looking at the PlanetFootbag shop. And he was, like, "Hey guys! They cancelled Shred 30 and decided to just keep the results from semis and I got second!" And it didn't really register that he got second in the world, so I was, like, "Oh wow, awesome." But kind of with no feeling. It's almost mind-boggling how awesome that is, and kinda makes me wish I did competition. It must be the COOLEST to be able to say you got second at the world championships. Major respect and props. "He's pretty good." "Second in the world good!"
Then, I forget how it came about, oh right, I was asking around the other day because I said that I would buy Marita Quantums for her birthday. I knew the 03s weren't out yet, so we were gonna pick up a pair of 02s. I guess it was when we were playing in our nook just before Marita's first ever circle. I went and saw Ianek close, so I asked him whom to talk to about buying a pair. He forwarded me to Flavio, who I guess is a big wig with the Swiss PF chapter. Flavio said that I should ask Dexter. Ianek was super duper nice about it and said that he would find Dexter for me and let him know I was looking. So nice! Later I went and talked to Steve in the tent I think, looking for Dexter. No dice. Oh, later he came by and I asked and he said that, yes they have shoes but they never got a chance to set up shop, so to come back the next day. So the next day is today. I went and asked Dexter again, who was quite brisk (understandably I guess, what with organizing Worlds), and he pointed me back up to where the concession was. We went up and there was a girl handling the shop. We tried on some pairs and Marita settled with a size 9 in the greys (though she wanted the whites). But then when they went back to the 9s, there was only one shoe left for some reason and they spent, like, 20 minutes trying to find the only other 9. The girl was frustrated. Sucky. During that whole time I went and picked us up our sandwiches and I talked to Marco a bit. He asked to see my bags and I showed him. We were standing right beside one guy selling his bags at the PF shop. I think it was the super good German guy who won German Open this year. I THINK. He looked at my bags and seemed impressed. So that was cool. Actually TONS of people asked me about bags and wanted to buy them at Worlds, and it was so terrible to have to turn them all down and explain my wrist pain. Man. So 2000 Krowns (80 Euro-ish) later, Quantums!
We watched Jay's routine. He went dropless!! Man alive! Talent! Bounce! Style! The pride of Canada! We went and congratulated him along with everyone else, and the other Canadians, and he was, like, "Oh man, I got a hug from Erik Chan! That's all I could ask for!" Or something like that. Hehe. Neat! I wish I understood competitions more so I could have properly congratulated Andrew and Jay. Anyway, then there were more routines. Gielnik's was awesome like yesterday, and he only had one drop. I think it was RIGHT at the end too, like, with seconds left. Then Marita and I went to go session a bit with her brand new Quantums! Ramil joined us, and at this point I think Marita was used to the circle and didn't have as many reservations. I think she really got caught up in the generosity and good will and friendliness inherent in the footbagger's soul. Then Taylor joined again, which always made Marita really happy. And then Mitko and Justin Dale joined after Marita left. Oh, my bad, I made a mix-up. Yesterday Marita just left the circle, today was when she went and played with Kuba's girlfriend. Then after that she played by herself a bit, which was really cute. Justin hit alpine fog. Mitko hit flurry > smoke > spinning whirl (or something). Justin tried gyro shooting. He said he's done it clean. He toe scuffed my bag a few times too, which was kind of pising me off, and I kept being ready to ask him not to. He did it infrequently though, so I was on the fence, 'cause I figured he would probably just leave the circle if I said anything. Meh. It pained me a little, though, especially since it was one of my favourite bags. I played okay again. I got lots of props. There was one circle I played in at Worlds where I got props from big players, like, every run. Did I mention that already? Maybe it was the BAP circle. Wah.
Then Marita came and said she was gonna go swimming and left her stuff with me. I sat with Ken and Andrew while watching some people shred, like, I think Sergey, Olaf, and someone else? Honza? They were talking about how hot this one girl was, whose name I won't mention, and it just went from there. Then they announced that Request Contest was going to begin, and I was excited for that, so we went and watched -- I think Marita was back by this point. It started as, like, 4 different circles. They announced a combo and everyone had to take turns in the circle trying it. I think you got 3 turns. Oh wait, no, there was always 2 different combos utilizing different components, so you had a choice, which was really cool. They were big circles and once the players were weeded out the circles merged. They started with tons of really, really easy combos, though, like drifter > spinning butterfly or something. Honza got the boot pretty early which was met with shock from the crowd. Olaf was gone pretty early too, which floored me! Vasek popped in about halfway through and was allowed to join, obviously. He did all the combos and some of them back to back just because he can. Or one-upped. The last four competitors standing were Norek, Gielnik, Vasek, and Toni P. One combo was tapping DLO > ducking symp mirage. The next combo was sumo > reactor. And then also combos: pdx whirling swirl > little apple (I think this may be the one Vasek dropped on?), and pdx torque > gyro blender.
It was dark and there was circle shred just happening where the comps were held earlier with spotlights. Marita and I were planning to go to the party finally, but weren't sure if we should go back first or wait and go with someone else. The past few nights we kind of planned to go to the party, but went back to the hostel first and always felt too tired to go back out again once bak home and washed up. We ended up standing and watching as the shred escalated. Ken came and we chatting and watched shred together. Then we went and tried to steal a beanbag chair dealy on the sidelines, but Gielnik told us that we may not want to because the chair belonged to Norek. Dun dun dun duuunn. Norek doesn't smile very much. Mads Hole was sitting right nextdoor and he gave us his seat and we officially met for the first time. I had told Marita about Mads and Lise and them so she was in the preemptive know. He was super cool and really nice and we talked a bit about video stuff and I told him about how excited I was to see the video he will make from all the footage I saw him taking. He mentioned that his computer was kaput, like was brought up in a thread here in the video section. He is super cool, though. Very nice. We agreed that Mads and Lise are possibly the most attractive footbag couple? (Are they together? I always thought so, but it would be embarassing to just assume that and be wrong...) Then we were watching shred. There was a nice circle with Rafael, Ianek, Mathieu, Tukka, and one of the girls from Madrid(I think??). Then Tukka came up to me and he was, like, "Will you play with us?" And I thought that was such an honour to be asked by Tukka, so of course I had to. I played just in pants and they had this neat circle rule that was no self-serves and no pass-backs no matter what. It was a cool concept. Something that would be fun to immitate at a club session for, like, half an hour or an hour or something some time anyway. Oh, no, my bad, not Mathieu -- it was my arch nemesis, Eric Chang.
Then we went to the party. We walked with Jay Boychuck and Ben Roscoe and Jamie... and a wave of other footbaggers going in that direction. There was a pit stop at McDonalds where EVERYONE ate. We had no idea where to continue on to get to the party, so we waited with everyone else. We ended up sitting with the Canadians and that was really fun. I forget what we talked about. Then it turned ou that the party was in the hotel right next door. Like, literally the next door in the same building. We went in and there was a big siphoning of footbaggers at the elevator (the stairs were blocked off for some re ason). When it came our turn, we crammed people in and started to go up. But then "BING BING BING!" Flashing red light and mini-siren. Then the elevator stopped. Uhhh... THEM it started to go back down... slowly and not normally.. scary. Then it told us we had to let people off. So we went down a floor and let off a few guys who rushed into battle with the stairs. Safe, we figured out our situation and went back up, stopped at the first floor again to apologize to the footbaggers who were hailing our steel, rectangular steed, and continued up to the third floor. We went in and everything was fine. We waited in line for drinks for, like, 20 minutes without moving. We ended up talking to a net player from Finland a bit. Then Marita said I should go sit down and she would bring us drinks. So I went and sat with Kevin and Jamie. Kevin was showing Jamie how to play Pass the Pigs, which I had heard of for, like, 8 years, but never seen, played, or understood, so I got eager ears and leaned in. Then Taylor came by and I got Kevin to show us how to play. Then Marita came back too and we played a couple of games. I think Marita owned in both. Then Kevin told his epic story about his game withy Anssi. Anssi appeared and they reenacted how Anssi would have got, like, 600 points in a 200-point game, or whatever. I really enjoyed Pass the Pigs and look forward to playing it with footbaggers again. Then Marita and me and Taylor were going to go outside where we heard there was a deck and you could overlook the football stadium, or something. It was packed with smokers and no room to go or sit or stand anywhere. Unpleasant. So we returned. I ended up playing footbag hangman with Jay and Jamie and Ken came by and said something like that we gave lame people a bad name. That was kind of sucky. I am not a social or party person, and was trying to make the best of it, and I think Jay felt the same way. But whatever. So after a while, Jay asked me to draw a picture. And we were just sitting there really bored. I got frustrated and uncomfortable and wanted to go, so Marita and I got ready to leave. I saw Jay and Ben and Jamie getting together to leave too.
So we went back and waited for the tram, dreading the potential encounter with the fake police that beat up Aleksi. We saw police in uniform, which we were scared were the "fake police", but Kevin told us the next day that the fake ones don't wear uniform, and that they were probably real, in reaction to the footbaggers' issues and Dexter calling the police to deal with it. What I heard was that they were hassled by a couple of guys. Then passing a tram another time, they saw the same fake cops and Anssi yelled something, like, "FUCK YOURSELVES!" Or something... this is second hand and bad memory. Apparently he thought it was only a couple of guys. So then later on a whole group of these fake police came back and what I heard was that they beat Samu's face into a window and broke someone's glasses? And kicked in Aleksi's back? Sucky. What the hell? There were rumours drifting around that Anssi can kill a man with a cell phone. A walking weapon, that Anssi. Apparently he wasn't touched by the fake cops though. Then the first time Kevin and Co. encountered them, apparently they wanted to take them to the police station, and so they all started walking, and Kevin and Co. progressively distanced themselves by walking slower, and when far enough behind turned and bolted. The way he told the story was very funny. Though I'm sure it was not funny in the least at the time. The happiest place on Earth.
Wow, thanks for the write-ups. Maybe this will shame me into doing some blogging. Just wanted to say that it was great hanging with you at worlds and meeting Marita. I only shredded one day at Worlds, so I feel lucky that we got a chance to play.
Couple minor minor corrections:
*Vasek dropped on flurry-legbreaker in request contest. He missed his first two tries, and then on his third try he went for symp flurry and missed it.
*I actually fell down 5 rows of bleachers, face first. And yes, it took me a good couple weeks to feel confident walking up and down staircases.
Couple minor minor corrections:
*Vasek dropped on flurry-legbreaker in request contest. He missed his first two tries, and then on his third try he went for symp flurry and missed it.
*I actually fell down 5 rows of bleachers, face first. And yes, it took me a good couple weeks to feel confident walking up and down staircases.
-
mahhkohh
- Flower Child
- Posts: 1944
- Joined: 22 Feb 2005 08:36
- Location: near stuttgart,germany
- Contact:
erik, thanks for the big write ups.i am realy soaking them in. its pretty fun to read someone elses thoughts on stuff that happend. and get ready, i am planning on beeing in munich in september, latish september.
ken: do your big write up you promissed me!
ken: do your big write up you promissed me!
come get your mÃcrÖ¶ bag today
buy one of my bags and help finance my guitar lessons
mäcrö hartig
buy one of my bags and help finance my guitar lessons
mäcrö hartig
Today I hit far symple rev swirl both sides in pants and street shoes. I don't know if I've hit that trick before? Probably, but not many times anyway. I was thinking I want to be able to do symple swirl tricks, 'cause they look sooo awesome, and everyone does them so easily. Well, to me a regular swirl is really, really tough, so I figured, forget that, I will just pull a Byrin and stick with reverse. It did make my knees a touch raw, so I will have to be careful, but it would be sooo awesome. Man those tricks felt good.
I just saw Johnny's video blog (www.johnnysuderman.com) for the first time. I can't watch videos because my internet is being supa slow right now. But I have an idea to start a similar thing up with my Hackrifice boys. I think it would be so sweet. This crap on Modified is tiring. Plus it would bring more attention back to Hackrifice.com (hopefully :p). I have a picture in my head of how it will look. Man! Exciting! As a mod I have hope for Modified, so maybe this will be a side thing, but I really dig Johnny's site and the concept behind it.
I just saw Johnny's video blog (www.johnnysuderman.com) for the first time. I can't watch videos because my internet is being supa slow right now. But I have an idea to start a similar thing up with my Hackrifice boys. I think it would be so sweet. This crap on Modified is tiring. Plus it would bring more attention back to Hackrifice.com (hopefully :p). I have a picture in my head of how it will look. Man! Exciting! As a mod I have hope for Modified, so maybe this will be a side thing, but I really dig Johnny's site and the concept behind it.
To get the whole effect of this day's write-up, you can watch this video and then listen to it on repeat in the background, as I did while writing for, like, an hour. Somebody did a routine to this song at Worlds (Honza?) and it kinda stuck with me as one of those "Worlds song"s:
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.ph ... 356#402356
EDIT: No, it was Phil. I remember saying to Ners, who was sitting beside me, "It looks like he really is having such a good time!" He played like it just looked like a blast and like he didn't even care about more than having fun. It was great.
DAY 8
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2008:
Wherein I open by complaining about all of the negative aspects of Worlds this year:
â–ºFake police. Ben Roscoe's friend, Jamie, was hastled 4 different times. Aleksi was beat up to the point where he didn't show for competition the next day and was scratched. He was grabbed by the throat and had his back kicked in.
â–ºRude, unhelpful, assfucking hired help. The hired crew for Worlds was useless and so rude. The guys at the concession never smiled once, wouldn't give us clean tap water, fucked up our meals almost every day (either no sandwiches, late sandwiches, no fruit, no snickers, etc.) Seriously, these guys had no idea how to smile. What pissed me off the most though was the hired "sound guy" who must have been the stupidest man alive. The music was ridiculously loud in the indoor venue to the point that it hurt peoples' ears, and everyone in our vicinity was plugging their ears during routines. Imagine the frustration of the competitors! One if not a few people told him to turn the fucking music down. Asswad. At one point Marita couldn't stand it, and went to talk to the guy and explain the issue and that everyone else was plugging their ears. I watched from where we were sitting and saw him brush her off before she even started talking. Fucking twat. What an ignorant cunt. I was so fucking mad at the asshole. We were sitting with Ken at the time and voicing our frustration. Ken was annoyed too and we spent a lot of time -- when it was possible to hear a person's voice when the music was off -- whing together about how crappy Worlds is being run. So when Marita came back and confirmed the unsuccess that I had witnessed, a few minutes later Ken went and talked to the guy. He also got waved off. Dumbass. So after a few more minutes Marita and I just left on account of 200% fucktardedness. I glared at the fucker the whole time we walked across and out of the gym. Fucking moron. How they found and hired such useless dumbasses baffles me entirely.
â–ºTerrible venue/lack of venue. Well, honestly I really liked the track, and found it really inspiring it relive in my head 2003 Worlds, and shredding where Ripping shredded in The Move, etc. The surface was givey, which was so nice on my body, and I loved it. Lots of people complained about the slipperyness of the track and.. like loose pebbles or something, I dunno. What was lame, though, was the complete lack of rain venue. No exaggeration whatsoever. Obviously, on that first day there was nowhere to continue COMPETITION... What the fuck? It's the world championships. So playing under the tent was kinda neat and, like, brought people together, but the later days were stupid. The first day we got to the event site, I had not a single opportunity to play footbag. Not one moment. There were net events finishing off. Ken had a lot to say about how terrible the little gym from the 40s (the 20s??) was for net alone. Roof fouls, only room for one single court, IF that. The audience crowded up RIGHT TO the boundaries, which I guess is the equivelant of giving a freestyler a 1-metre-squared area in which to perform a routine. Like, the MINIMUM required space... So, no possible footbag was mindboggling. Then there was finally comp, which had to be pushed back 'cause of the limited space for net. Of couse this was accompanied by the dumbass sound guy. What I wouldn't do to smack him around. Another later day Marita was going to sightsee and I went off to the event site alone to see if maybe ANYTHING PERCHANCE may be possibly happening. No. The only freestylers I even SAW at the event site were Ianek and Mathieu who left, like, 5 minutes after I arrived. I spent, like, half an hour or more getting to the event site, only to turn around and go right back. What a waste of time. No footbag. At the World Footbag Championships. Good work guys. Oh sorry, my bad, there's more. There was no drinking water at the event site. There was a gimey, disgusting bathroom with a tiny sink that didn't fit a water bottle, and which had most likely the slowest water flow possible. There was no toiletpaper in the women's bathroom, and the toilets were revoltingly dirty (which led us to take our revenge by peeing in places we shouldn't've
) The terrible lighting at night at the track for competition. In circle comp, Serge had to ask someone (Max?) to move because he was casting shadows on his shred and unable to see (at the World Footbag Championships). Ken mentioned something about how they didn't have a rain venue, but they had a stretched hummer. It sure is a good thing they had that hummer. What would we have done without it? The 20s gym was also unbearably hot, though they did manage to open a window eventually (which later made it too cold...) I think I may have taken a picture of the gym, but I dont exaggerate when I say that it was possibly leftover from the 1920s. The basketball backboards were yellowed, there were WOODEN LADDERS against the walls... Some kind of pully and lever system for those gymnastics rings. A scoreboard that was literally falling off the wall... with numbers askew and missing... Good stuff.
â–ºbad weather. It must have rained, like, 5 out of 7 days?
â–ºparty locations. We didn't end up really going to any, and actually heard that they were the best part of Worlds, but we also heard that Kevin and his crew tried to find the parties the first 2 nights and got lost in Prague and hastled by the fake cops.
â–ºNo English. Czechs don't speak English. For reals. Nobody.
â–ºBubbly mineral water
â–ºsketchy hostel. The hostel also had no toilet paper. It's a good thing I carry, like, a box-worth of kleenex everywhere I go. There was also no hot water for at least 4 out of the 9 days-ish that we were there. I washed myself in water so cold that the faucet was frosted. No joke.
â–ºPrague outlets in the hostel didn't accept our UNIVERSAL converters/adapters which we use fine every day over here in Germany. So we couldn't really use anything. Luckily I didn't really plan to film at all anyway so didn't need to charge batteries or anything. But my digital camera did die, hence the lack of Worlds pictures in my write-up, and we had to use our laptop very sparingly (I played music really, really loudly on my discman...)
This could be a post of its own. Wow.
I sound really bitter, but, really, overall Worlds was fun. And I don't mean to blame the Worlds crew, because really I understand that it must be crazy stressful and thankless and a LOT of work and dedication. I don't take back a word I said about the sound guy though. Cock.
We got up "early" in order to make an appearance in Kevin's video which he was organizing for the next day. I guess it was supposed to be underground and not many people knew about it, but it fell through, so I hope it's cool that I talk a little about it :p He had planned to get together a group of some of the best players to film and act-out an epic team shred battle in the street (a parody on an epic breakdance video). He wanted Ken and me to make cameo appearances. Well, I think originally he wanted Ken to feature, but Ken was injured. He was having bad knee pain before his accident too, and was popping ibuprofen. Kevin kind of wanted, like, half North Americans, and half Europeans, kinda, I think was part of the idea. That fell through when EVERYONE bailed. Who was going to be in it? Will, Flash, Jorden, Jim, Andrew... I guess Flash and Andrew were there. I think there were more that bailed though. So he wanted to film at about 12:30 and meet at the stadium. We showed up with some of the best players and waited around. Apparently Takumi and maybe Ken had showed up and were looking for Kevin but then disappeared. Then we sat and waited, like I said, but then it started to rain. Lame. It was me and Marita and Anssi, Tina, Sergey, Aleksi...whom else? I dunno. It was gonna be so epic, though, and then Kevin was just, like, "Aww, I guess it won't happen this year."
He'd asked Vasek if he'd be in it too. Oh, I think Yves was there too. And Jakob. Actually we had somehow met Kevin and Tina and co. at the tram stop on the way to the event site, even though we were late, which was a really good thing, because our regular tram wasn't running and Jakob had to walk us the 20-minute walk to the event site from half-way there with a different tram. We would've been so lost otherwise. So, thanks Jakob! It was disappointing too 'cause the night before when we were deciding when to meet Ken was, like, "In the background, Erik and I should be walking down the street and high-five, but I should wear Erik's knee braces and tanktop, and Erik should wear a basketball jersey and g-units." or something. It sounded so fun. Kevin planned so much for this too.
So we all sat dejectedly as the rainfall increased and eventually we just left. We went home to get warm clothes (I was shivering like crazy in just shorts and a tanktop I think?? What a day to decide to not even bring pants (previous days were really hot, hence the unnatural sweating in the restaurant.)) We were gonna go to Cafe Ebel again, but ended up just napping for 2 hours, which was relaxing. Then around 4 or 5 we got up and went out to the crappy indoor venue for comps. Oh, no, we ran into Ben and Jamie coming into the hostel just as we were about to leave. Ben juts had to get some clothes or something, so we said we'd wait and go together. Also in the lobby there was Marco and Ramil and Kjolpa, I think. Apparently Marco was harbouring fugitives (nonpaying guests) and they somehow found out and all got the boot. Sucky. Jamie told us that they were also doing the same thing with someone else and we were, like, "Shhh -- the girl is right there!" (the concierge girl who kicked out the others). At least Marco had a car with which to move all their stuff, though. We went and got our free sandwiches pronto, but they didn't have Snickers. Ben Roscoe went down to the Snickers trailer and apparently they were jst giving them out and the guy gave him 2. But Ben said that they were just closing up. So I rushed down and got 2 also quickly. And the guy said, nobody more, we are closing! Sweet deal. The sandwiches were pretty lame. The first day mine had this teeny little piece of meat.. like half the size of a finger and super thin (on a baguette) and like a little bit of lettuce. Otherwise it was a bun with mayonaise. Later days they were a bit better though. Filling at least.
Then we went and found the indoor gym. There were people crammed in as I described before. Everyone just sitting on the floor, cramming the net players. We eventually got a spot against a wall by Takumi and Ben Roscoe and others. But there was a single chair blocking half of each of our views. Pretty bad setup. At one point some people tried to bring in chairs and set them up against the walls, but they were distracting the net players during their, like, Masters Finals match or something important like that. Such bad organization. Eventually net ended and they kinda setup better with some bleachers and made sure that benches and chairs were behind people sitting on the floor for the most part, which was, well, necessary. We watched sick 3 finals. Olaf hit both (or was it three this time?) of his combos first try. Nemesis > food processor > gangsta party and, I think, nemesis > food processor > marius? Gielnik's sick 3 was spinning DLO > dimwalk swirl > marius. I think Max Kerkhof's was Fury > fusion > Locomotion We liked Max. He was really nice. It was nice to meet him. Then routines started and the craptalk with Ken ensued, as well as our premature departure thanks to our friend on the sound system. We came back after a bit and sat on the bleachers with Ners and Olaf. Then Olaf went somewhere and Aleksi took his seat. It was so cool to sit almost next to Aleksi. He even acknowledged me and stuff, it was so cool. He's so nice. And of course Ners is the best. Gosia and Wiktor went dropless in their doubles! Wiktor had hurt himself a few days earlier and was so worried about Doubles Finals. I think he pulled a muscle in his leg or something. When he was doing his singles routine he had to stop a few seconds in. They let him have a couples minutes to rest and try again, but he scratched. Sad. So I'm glad they did so well in doubles finals (which is more important to him anyway)! Their routine, as my note here says, was flawless. Everyone was quite disappointed that Vasek and Honza won their open doubles, since there was another team that was much better, and since they didn't do so well anyway. I forget who the other teams were.
Then there was a freestyle football demo with Frank Remy, Vasek, and some football freestyle guy from Paris also? It was pretty cool. A lot of the indoor venue time, though, was squandered with freestyle disc competitions and demos and freestyle football demos... when there was no time or space for open routines competitors to warm up and such. This took us to quite late, and they kicked everyone out for the night. There was nowhere open to get food and the ATM by the hostel wasn't working for a few days. I started to really dislike Prague soon after our fun sightseeing the first few days, to Andrew McCarger's displeasure. Actually today was the day that I mentioned Andrew's quote "Happiest place on Earth" to him. Oh, right. When we left on account of the loud music and no bathrooms, we saw him outside with some food and exchanged some words, and I was just, like, "How are you enjoying The Happiest Place on Earth?" And that's it for this day. Stay tuned for more whining. 2 days to go.
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.ph ... 356#402356
EDIT: No, it was Phil. I remember saying to Ners, who was sitting beside me, "It looks like he really is having such a good time!" He played like it just looked like a blast and like he didn't even care about more than having fun. It was great.
DAY 8
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2008:
Wherein I open by complaining about all of the negative aspects of Worlds this year:
â–ºFake police. Ben Roscoe's friend, Jamie, was hastled 4 different times. Aleksi was beat up to the point where he didn't show for competition the next day and was scratched. He was grabbed by the throat and had his back kicked in.
â–ºRude, unhelpful, assfucking hired help. The hired crew for Worlds was useless and so rude. The guys at the concession never smiled once, wouldn't give us clean tap water, fucked up our meals almost every day (either no sandwiches, late sandwiches, no fruit, no snickers, etc.) Seriously, these guys had no idea how to smile. What pissed me off the most though was the hired "sound guy" who must have been the stupidest man alive. The music was ridiculously loud in the indoor venue to the point that it hurt peoples' ears, and everyone in our vicinity was plugging their ears during routines. Imagine the frustration of the competitors! One if not a few people told him to turn the fucking music down. Asswad. At one point Marita couldn't stand it, and went to talk to the guy and explain the issue and that everyone else was plugging their ears. I watched from where we were sitting and saw him brush her off before she even started talking. Fucking twat. What an ignorant cunt. I was so fucking mad at the asshole. We were sitting with Ken at the time and voicing our frustration. Ken was annoyed too and we spent a lot of time -- when it was possible to hear a person's voice when the music was off -- whing together about how crappy Worlds is being run. So when Marita came back and confirmed the unsuccess that I had witnessed, a few minutes later Ken went and talked to the guy. He also got waved off. Dumbass. So after a few more minutes Marita and I just left on account of 200% fucktardedness. I glared at the fucker the whole time we walked across and out of the gym. Fucking moron. How they found and hired such useless dumbasses baffles me entirely.
â–ºTerrible venue/lack of venue. Well, honestly I really liked the track, and found it really inspiring it relive in my head 2003 Worlds, and shredding where Ripping shredded in The Move, etc. The surface was givey, which was so nice on my body, and I loved it. Lots of people complained about the slipperyness of the track and.. like loose pebbles or something, I dunno. What was lame, though, was the complete lack of rain venue. No exaggeration whatsoever. Obviously, on that first day there was nowhere to continue COMPETITION... What the fuck? It's the world championships. So playing under the tent was kinda neat and, like, brought people together, but the later days were stupid. The first day we got to the event site, I had not a single opportunity to play footbag. Not one moment. There were net events finishing off. Ken had a lot to say about how terrible the little gym from the 40s (the 20s??) was for net alone. Roof fouls, only room for one single court, IF that. The audience crowded up RIGHT TO the boundaries, which I guess is the equivelant of giving a freestyler a 1-metre-squared area in which to perform a routine. Like, the MINIMUM required space... So, no possible footbag was mindboggling. Then there was finally comp, which had to be pushed back 'cause of the limited space for net. Of couse this was accompanied by the dumbass sound guy. What I wouldn't do to smack him around. Another later day Marita was going to sightsee and I went off to the event site alone to see if maybe ANYTHING PERCHANCE may be possibly happening. No. The only freestylers I even SAW at the event site were Ianek and Mathieu who left, like, 5 minutes after I arrived. I spent, like, half an hour or more getting to the event site, only to turn around and go right back. What a waste of time. No footbag. At the World Footbag Championships. Good work guys. Oh sorry, my bad, there's more. There was no drinking water at the event site. There was a gimey, disgusting bathroom with a tiny sink that didn't fit a water bottle, and which had most likely the slowest water flow possible. There was no toiletpaper in the women's bathroom, and the toilets were revoltingly dirty (which led us to take our revenge by peeing in places we shouldn't've
) The terrible lighting at night at the track for competition. In circle comp, Serge had to ask someone (Max?) to move because he was casting shadows on his shred and unable to see (at the World Footbag Championships). Ken mentioned something about how they didn't have a rain venue, but they had a stretched hummer. It sure is a good thing they had that hummer. What would we have done without it? The 20s gym was also unbearably hot, though they did manage to open a window eventually (which later made it too cold...) I think I may have taken a picture of the gym, but I dont exaggerate when I say that it was possibly leftover from the 1920s. The basketball backboards were yellowed, there were WOODEN LADDERS against the walls... Some kind of pully and lever system for those gymnastics rings. A scoreboard that was literally falling off the wall... with numbers askew and missing... Good stuff.â–ºbad weather. It must have rained, like, 5 out of 7 days?
â–ºparty locations. We didn't end up really going to any, and actually heard that they were the best part of Worlds, but we also heard that Kevin and his crew tried to find the parties the first 2 nights and got lost in Prague and hastled by the fake cops.
â–ºNo English. Czechs don't speak English. For reals. Nobody.
â–ºBubbly mineral water
â–ºsketchy hostel. The hostel also had no toilet paper. It's a good thing I carry, like, a box-worth of kleenex everywhere I go. There was also no hot water for at least 4 out of the 9 days-ish that we were there. I washed myself in water so cold that the faucet was frosted. No joke.
â–ºPrague outlets in the hostel didn't accept our UNIVERSAL converters/adapters which we use fine every day over here in Germany. So we couldn't really use anything. Luckily I didn't really plan to film at all anyway so didn't need to charge batteries or anything. But my digital camera did die, hence the lack of Worlds pictures in my write-up, and we had to use our laptop very sparingly (I played music really, really loudly on my discman...)
This could be a post of its own. Wow.
I sound really bitter, but, really, overall Worlds was fun. And I don't mean to blame the Worlds crew, because really I understand that it must be crazy stressful and thankless and a LOT of work and dedication. I don't take back a word I said about the sound guy though. Cock.
We got up "early" in order to make an appearance in Kevin's video which he was organizing for the next day. I guess it was supposed to be underground and not many people knew about it, but it fell through, so I hope it's cool that I talk a little about it :p He had planned to get together a group of some of the best players to film and act-out an epic team shred battle in the street (a parody on an epic breakdance video). He wanted Ken and me to make cameo appearances. Well, I think originally he wanted Ken to feature, but Ken was injured. He was having bad knee pain before his accident too, and was popping ibuprofen. Kevin kind of wanted, like, half North Americans, and half Europeans, kinda, I think was part of the idea. That fell through when EVERYONE bailed. Who was going to be in it? Will, Flash, Jorden, Jim, Andrew... I guess Flash and Andrew were there. I think there were more that bailed though. So he wanted to film at about 12:30 and meet at the stadium. We showed up with some of the best players and waited around. Apparently Takumi and maybe Ken had showed up and were looking for Kevin but then disappeared. Then we sat and waited, like I said, but then it started to rain. Lame. It was me and Marita and Anssi, Tina, Sergey, Aleksi...whom else? I dunno. It was gonna be so epic, though, and then Kevin was just, like, "Aww, I guess it won't happen this year."
He'd asked Vasek if he'd be in it too. Oh, I think Yves was there too. And Jakob. Actually we had somehow met Kevin and Tina and co. at the tram stop on the way to the event site, even though we were late, which was a really good thing, because our regular tram wasn't running and Jakob had to walk us the 20-minute walk to the event site from half-way there with a different tram. We would've been so lost otherwise. So, thanks Jakob! It was disappointing too 'cause the night before when we were deciding when to meet Ken was, like, "In the background, Erik and I should be walking down the street and high-five, but I should wear Erik's knee braces and tanktop, and Erik should wear a basketball jersey and g-units." or something. It sounded so fun. Kevin planned so much for this too.So we all sat dejectedly as the rainfall increased and eventually we just left. We went home to get warm clothes (I was shivering like crazy in just shorts and a tanktop I think?? What a day to decide to not even bring pants (previous days were really hot, hence the unnatural sweating in the restaurant.)) We were gonna go to Cafe Ebel again, but ended up just napping for 2 hours, which was relaxing. Then around 4 or 5 we got up and went out to the crappy indoor venue for comps. Oh, no, we ran into Ben and Jamie coming into the hostel just as we were about to leave. Ben juts had to get some clothes or something, so we said we'd wait and go together. Also in the lobby there was Marco and Ramil and Kjolpa, I think. Apparently Marco was harbouring fugitives (nonpaying guests) and they somehow found out and all got the boot. Sucky. Jamie told us that they were also doing the same thing with someone else and we were, like, "Shhh -- the girl is right there!" (the concierge girl who kicked out the others). At least Marco had a car with which to move all their stuff, though. We went and got our free sandwiches pronto, but they didn't have Snickers. Ben Roscoe went down to the Snickers trailer and apparently they were jst giving them out and the guy gave him 2. But Ben said that they were just closing up. So I rushed down and got 2 also quickly. And the guy said, nobody more, we are closing! Sweet deal. The sandwiches were pretty lame. The first day mine had this teeny little piece of meat.. like half the size of a finger and super thin (on a baguette) and like a little bit of lettuce. Otherwise it was a bun with mayonaise. Later days they were a bit better though. Filling at least.
Then we went and found the indoor gym. There were people crammed in as I described before. Everyone just sitting on the floor, cramming the net players. We eventually got a spot against a wall by Takumi and Ben Roscoe and others. But there was a single chair blocking half of each of our views. Pretty bad setup. At one point some people tried to bring in chairs and set them up against the walls, but they were distracting the net players during their, like, Masters Finals match or something important like that. Such bad organization. Eventually net ended and they kinda setup better with some bleachers and made sure that benches and chairs were behind people sitting on the floor for the most part, which was, well, necessary. We watched sick 3 finals. Olaf hit both (or was it three this time?) of his combos first try. Nemesis > food processor > gangsta party and, I think, nemesis > food processor > marius? Gielnik's sick 3 was spinning DLO > dimwalk swirl > marius. I think Max Kerkhof's was Fury > fusion > Locomotion We liked Max. He was really nice. It was nice to meet him. Then routines started and the craptalk with Ken ensued, as well as our premature departure thanks to our friend on the sound system. We came back after a bit and sat on the bleachers with Ners and Olaf. Then Olaf went somewhere and Aleksi took his seat. It was so cool to sit almost next to Aleksi. He even acknowledged me and stuff, it was so cool. He's so nice. And of course Ners is the best. Gosia and Wiktor went dropless in their doubles! Wiktor had hurt himself a few days earlier and was so worried about Doubles Finals. I think he pulled a muscle in his leg or something. When he was doing his singles routine he had to stop a few seconds in. They let him have a couples minutes to rest and try again, but he scratched. Sad. So I'm glad they did so well in doubles finals (which is more important to him anyway)! Their routine, as my note here says, was flawless. Everyone was quite disappointed that Vasek and Honza won their open doubles, since there was another team that was much better, and since they didn't do so well anyway. I forget who the other teams were.
Then there was a freestyle football demo with Frank Remy, Vasek, and some football freestyle guy from Paris also? It was pretty cool. A lot of the indoor venue time, though, was squandered with freestyle disc competitions and demos and freestyle football demos... when there was no time or space for open routines competitors to warm up and such. This took us to quite late, and they kicked everyone out for the night. There was nowhere open to get food and the ATM by the hostel wasn't working for a few days. I started to really dislike Prague soon after our fun sightseeing the first few days, to Andrew McCarger's displeasure. Actually today was the day that I mentioned Andrew's quote "Happiest place on Earth" to him. Oh, right. When we left on account of the loud music and no bathrooms, we saw him outside with some food and exchanged some words, and I was just, like, "How are you enjoying The Happiest Place on Earth?" And that's it for this day. Stay tuned for more whining. 2 days to go.
The Munich crew hasn't answered my beckons to shred the past few days, so today I decided I would play a little juts for fun. Then I thought, hey, I am hoping to film some more for my Europe video tomorrow, but that will be a while before I can put that video together, and I wanna see a video of myself. So I was going to do a sort of Anssi "neat links" short video. My digital camera died really shortly after I started, so I only got a couple things, but I'm happy, and it was fun
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTEZC2-PzBE[/youtube]
http://www.footbag.org/gallery/show/15092
[26 seconds | 8 megs]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTEZC2-PzBE[/youtube]
http://www.footbag.org/gallery/show/15092
[26 seconds | 8 megs]
-
mannampepo
- BSOS Beast
- Posts: 415
- Joined: 25 Jul 2007 06:08
Marita charitably filmed a bit more of me today for my Europe video. It was rainy and really kinda sucky. Really, really cold. The cobblestone was really slippery, which messed with my plans. But I hit some rad stuff:
-sumo > pixie rev whirl [both sides]
-blurry torque > handcatch [repeat]
-spinning rev whirl > blurry rev whirl BSOS, and dropped on rev tomahawk x2 (was trying for spinning > blurry [repeat], which didn't seem too hard, but I could tell I was starting to probably get pneumonia or something from playing in the cold and wet.)
-mobius > rev tomahawk
Some other stuff. It was super fun, and I can't wait to put this video together some day.
AMENDMENT: Oh yeah, also 8 blurry rev whirls (which may either be my record or close (I think Kevin said I hit 8 in the Hackrifice video he's making from last year)), and spinning ducking clipper > blurry rev whirl [repeat] > ducking clipper > stepping rev whirl [repeat] > ducking clipper > rev tomahawk > rev tomaha..
-sumo > pixie rev whirl [both sides]
-blurry torque > handcatch [repeat]
-spinning rev whirl > blurry rev whirl BSOS, and dropped on rev tomahawk x2 (was trying for spinning > blurry [repeat], which didn't seem too hard, but I could tell I was starting to probably get pneumonia or something from playing in the cold and wet.)
-mobius > rev tomahawk
Some other stuff. It was super fun, and I can't wait to put this video together some day.
AMENDMENT: Oh yeah, also 8 blurry rev whirls (which may either be my record or close (I think Kevin said I hit 8 in the Hackrifice video he's making from last year)), and spinning ducking clipper > blurry rev whirl [repeat] > ducking clipper > stepping rev whirl [repeat] > ducking clipper > rev tomahawk > rev tomaha..
Last edited by Muffinman on 15 Sep 2008 23:46, edited 1 time in total.
I guesstimate that I've played about 3000-ish hours of footbag.
That's averaging 6 hours a week (when I first started, and kinda lately, and at tournaments it's way more; but I am also considering injury periods where I didn't play for half-year chunks, etc.) for 10 years. I think I have also been playing for more than 10 years. And if I counted "hacky" hours... well, I could easily rack up another 1000 or more (I've been "hacking" for 15 years? 60% of my life?) Pretty neat.
I was having a super day yesterday and I was really happy and was just sitting and realized that since Worlds I have been playing quite frequently and virtually pain free (I think stretching regularly is kicking in!) and that just made me so thankful. Footbag makes me happier than anything and there's nothing like a session where you hit a bunch of rad stuff (on video no less). I feel so fortunate. I love footbag.
Some random hacky facts about me:
â–ºI first saw freestyle by Chad in "She's All That" in theatres
â–ºWhen I was called by Joel to come to my very first Hackrifice jam I didn't know what "Around the World" was
â–ºPossibly my first footbag video to watch was Ryan's Worlds '97 routine (I would love to do a routine to SEXXY!)
â–ºMy first 5 add trick was ducking PS mirage
â–ºMy first 4 add trick was ducking butterfly
â–ºMy first 6 add trick was probably mullet
â–ºMy first 7 add trick was reverse montage rake (lame)
â–ºBack when I was tiltless I didn't understand the difference between reverse whirl and butterfly and did butterflies thinking they were reverse whirls
â–ºI invented terraging mirage and named it "entre" (back in like 2002-ish)
â–ºI named Blubberman
â–ºI named wonton
â–ºI think I was the first to duck quantum (2001/2-ish?)
â–ºI've only been to about 9 tournaments outside of Hackrifice (most of which were really small: Regina (my first non-Hackrifice tournament, Mark Leeman and I were the only freestylers other than Mike Wiwchar, the host), Shred Zero, Calgary (4 years inna row), CSS4, ShrEdmonton '07, Worlds '07, and Worlds '08. I'm pretty sure that's all)
â–ºI was part of a 10-20-some community forum years before Modified back when the main form of communication was the .org mailing list (a forum that evolved into Modified)
â–ºI started as a toe shuffle player and only learned spinning both sides well and lots of ducking after I took my first half-year off due to my first initial injury in 2004 (I was told that Jan Zimmerman also gained his smooth style from injury)
â–ºMy first BAPster to meet was the Enlightener on his way back to Chicago after Worlds '01 in Vancouver
â–ºMy first out-of-town footbaggers to meet (and quite randomly!) were Zeke Ibardaloza and Dan Klokow of the CIC in, like, 1998-ish (I hit mirage twice in a row that day for the first time!) on Navy Pier in Chicago (on a high school band trip)
â–ºI've only played footbag in about 2 pairs of shoes since I started footbag 10-ish years ago (I say 2-ish 'cause I only got my red Lavers just after I was initially injured, and once I started really playing again I soon after bought Climas)
â–ºI can't regular swirl (though I had one random session where I hit stuff like, riptide both sides, far swirls both sides, blurry reverse whirling swirl, reverse whirling swirl both sides, etc)
â–ºI've only ever done 4 fearless (blurry whirl > blurry whirl > PS whirl > PS whirl (It's a lot harder with reverse whirls...))
â–ºI've only ever done 2 beastly. My first combo was whirlygig > mullet (dropped on the other mullet) many years ago. I think the only other combo was probably blurry reverse mullet > reverse montage (dropped on spinning ducking DLO...)
â–ºI only got good at DLOs 'cause, I think at Shred Zero '03 I had a run with lots of them (in the Calgary airport) and I think, actually, Brian Johnson mentioned something about it. From then on I did lots of DLOs.
â–ºOne of my favourite players, Eli Piltz, came down from Montreal to jam with me on my birthday in Toronto back in 2004-ish and gave me a Flipsider shirt as a present
â–ºI've met Ricky Moran (one of my other favourites), but only when he was tiltless, at CSS4 in 2003/4.
â–ºI've never met James Risden. The one year I was finally about to, Derek and I had planned to Greyhound down to Minneapolis where he was meeting with and jamming with the Cloud9 crew (Juan, Bijan, Cole, etc) and some CIC (Eric and Tim?). It was my dream. The only Greyhound to get there and back with enough time for us to not miss school (or whatever we were doing at the time) would have only given us 12 hours total in Minneapolis. I had also just applied to work at the local comic shop, which at the time was kind of my dream job (I like comics). The owner was interested in me (after answering a lot of comic trivia in my interview and telling him who my favourite artists are) and asked if I could start on a certain day... the day that we were supposed to meet James. I had to turn down my dream job (conflict of dreams!!) and it turned out that the Greyhound was canceled and we weren't about to go anyway!
â–ºI remember when coloured Lavers first came out. Rob Fuller came and stayed in Winnipeg for a week and we both stayed at Derek's house and played footbag all the time. He had just come up North from visiting his dad in Colorado and Freedom (at the time "Revolution Footbags"?), or rather The Boulder Blades, had the first coloured Lavers of any footbaggers (was what I heard). I think it was red, blue, and maybe black? No, grey I think. Maybe grey and black.
â–ºI've made, like, close to 300 footbag videos.
â–ºI have a lot of footbag videos (80 gigs-ish from the internet, 30-ish VHS tapes, and 10-ish DVDs)
â–ºI have "lots" of footbags (not compared to lots of people though) -- like 100-ish
â–ºI basically quit stitching because of unbearable wrist and finger pain I've only made, like, 60-something, I think.
â–ºI'm riddled with injury: torn hip flexor (or something (my first major injury which I thought was a pulled groin (and got made fun of a lot resultantly (from PS whirls and flip atomic -- I can't really do drifters, atomic, nuclear, ducking/spinning DLOs because of this))); petallo femoral syndrome (an imbalance in my quad muscles which pulls my kneecap outward and grinds away when I bend my leg (hence the knee braces)); shin splints (like you wouldn't believe! I've had them before, but this is my main injury right now which prevents me from playing/playing hard)
â–ºI have a run in Just Shred 2: Like Whoa
â–ºUntil a week ago-ish, I'd never hit a 7 add.
â–ºI've never hit a quad dex (though, actually maybe sailing same DLO? Maybe not...) I guess no regular swirls and no double dex sets make it difficult... maybe I could try sailing same DLO or double down just to say I've done one
That's averaging 6 hours a week (when I first started, and kinda lately, and at tournaments it's way more; but I am also considering injury periods where I didn't play for half-year chunks, etc.) for 10 years. I think I have also been playing for more than 10 years. And if I counted "hacky" hours... well, I could easily rack up another 1000 or more (I've been "hacking" for 15 years? 60% of my life?) Pretty neat.
I was having a super day yesterday and I was really happy and was just sitting and realized that since Worlds I have been playing quite frequently and virtually pain free (I think stretching regularly is kicking in!) and that just made me so thankful. Footbag makes me happier than anything and there's nothing like a session where you hit a bunch of rad stuff (on video no less). I feel so fortunate. I love footbag.
Some random hacky facts about me:
â–ºI first saw freestyle by Chad in "She's All That" in theatres
â–ºWhen I was called by Joel to come to my very first Hackrifice jam I didn't know what "Around the World" was
â–ºPossibly my first footbag video to watch was Ryan's Worlds '97 routine (I would love to do a routine to SEXXY!)
â–ºMy first 5 add trick was ducking PS mirage
â–ºMy first 4 add trick was ducking butterfly
â–ºMy first 6 add trick was probably mullet
â–ºMy first 7 add trick was reverse montage rake (lame)
â–ºBack when I was tiltless I didn't understand the difference between reverse whirl and butterfly and did butterflies thinking they were reverse whirls
â–ºI invented terraging mirage and named it "entre" (back in like 2002-ish)
â–ºI named Blubberman
â–ºI named wonton
â–ºI think I was the first to duck quantum (2001/2-ish?)
â–ºI've only been to about 9 tournaments outside of Hackrifice (most of which were really small: Regina (my first non-Hackrifice tournament, Mark Leeman and I were the only freestylers other than Mike Wiwchar, the host), Shred Zero, Calgary (4 years inna row), CSS4, ShrEdmonton '07, Worlds '07, and Worlds '08. I'm pretty sure that's all)
â–ºI was part of a 10-20-some community forum years before Modified back when the main form of communication was the .org mailing list (a forum that evolved into Modified)
â–ºI started as a toe shuffle player and only learned spinning both sides well and lots of ducking after I took my first half-year off due to my first initial injury in 2004 (I was told that Jan Zimmerman also gained his smooth style from injury)
â–ºMy first BAPster to meet was the Enlightener on his way back to Chicago after Worlds '01 in Vancouver
â–ºMy first out-of-town footbaggers to meet (and quite randomly!) were Zeke Ibardaloza and Dan Klokow of the CIC in, like, 1998-ish (I hit mirage twice in a row that day for the first time!) on Navy Pier in Chicago (on a high school band trip)
â–ºI've only played footbag in about 2 pairs of shoes since I started footbag 10-ish years ago (I say 2-ish 'cause I only got my red Lavers just after I was initially injured, and once I started really playing again I soon after bought Climas)
â–ºI can't regular swirl (though I had one random session where I hit stuff like, riptide both sides, far swirls both sides, blurry reverse whirling swirl, reverse whirling swirl both sides, etc)
â–ºI've only ever done 4 fearless (blurry whirl > blurry whirl > PS whirl > PS whirl (It's a lot harder with reverse whirls...))
â–ºI've only ever done 2 beastly. My first combo was whirlygig > mullet (dropped on the other mullet) many years ago. I think the only other combo was probably blurry reverse mullet > reverse montage (dropped on spinning ducking DLO...)
â–ºI only got good at DLOs 'cause, I think at Shred Zero '03 I had a run with lots of them (in the Calgary airport) and I think, actually, Brian Johnson mentioned something about it. From then on I did lots of DLOs.
â–ºOne of my favourite players, Eli Piltz, came down from Montreal to jam with me on my birthday in Toronto back in 2004-ish and gave me a Flipsider shirt as a present
â–ºI've met Ricky Moran (one of my other favourites), but only when he was tiltless, at CSS4 in 2003/4.
â–ºI've never met James Risden. The one year I was finally about to, Derek and I had planned to Greyhound down to Minneapolis where he was meeting with and jamming with the Cloud9 crew (Juan, Bijan, Cole, etc) and some CIC (Eric and Tim?). It was my dream. The only Greyhound to get there and back with enough time for us to not miss school (or whatever we were doing at the time) would have only given us 12 hours total in Minneapolis. I had also just applied to work at the local comic shop, which at the time was kind of my dream job (I like comics). The owner was interested in me (after answering a lot of comic trivia in my interview and telling him who my favourite artists are
) and asked if I could start on a certain day... the day that we were supposed to meet James. I had to turn down my dream job (conflict of dreams!!) and it turned out that the Greyhound was canceled and we weren't about to go anyway!â–ºI remember when coloured Lavers first came out. Rob Fuller came and stayed in Winnipeg for a week and we both stayed at Derek's house and played footbag all the time. He had just come up North from visiting his dad in Colorado and Freedom (at the time "Revolution Footbags"?), or rather The Boulder Blades, had the first coloured Lavers of any footbaggers (was what I heard). I think it was red, blue, and maybe black? No, grey I think. Maybe grey and black.
â–ºI've made, like, close to 300 footbag videos.
â–ºI have a lot of footbag videos (80 gigs-ish from the internet, 30-ish VHS tapes, and 10-ish DVDs)
â–ºI have "lots" of footbags (not compared to lots of people though) -- like 100-ish
â–ºI basically quit stitching because of unbearable wrist and finger pain
I've only made, like, 60-something, I think.â–ºI'm riddled with injury: torn hip flexor (or something (my first major injury which I thought was a pulled groin (and got made fun of a lot resultantly (from PS whirls and flip atomic -- I can't really do drifters, atomic, nuclear, ducking/spinning DLOs because of this))); petallo femoral syndrome (an imbalance in my quad muscles which pulls my kneecap outward and grinds away when I bend my leg (hence the knee braces)); shin splints (like you wouldn't believe! I've had them before, but this is my main injury right now which prevents me from playing/playing hard)
â–ºI have a run in Just Shred 2: Like Whoa
â–ºUntil a week ago-ish, I'd never hit a 7 add.
â–ºI've never hit a quad dex (though, actually maybe sailing same DLO? Maybe not...) I guess no regular swirls and no double dex sets make it difficult... maybe I could try sailing same DLO or double down just to say I've done one