Byrin Wylie

max · Post by **max** » 28 Jul 2008 03:30

that looks insanely hard!

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 22 Aug 2008 20:59

Been working a lot, and playing a lot of guitar in the meantime, and reading this past month. No footbag, unfortunately, but oh well. I completely forgot about Worlds this year and was shocked to read some of what went down in the Czech that we call Republic. Vasek beaten in routines?! Muggings on trams?! Olaf not BAPped yet?! Some high ranking Canadian attendees?! Crazy stuff I tells you! (except for that last one, it's to be expected

)

Anyways, I kicked twice this week (actually three times but the second sesh was 20min long and stupid

), and I'm stoked about what came out of them. New PS Whirl record (11), PS Whirl > Whirlwind x 2 and Tombstone > Blurry Drifter x 2, finally!! I remember I was gunning for that drill for a long time then had to quit due to my knees being stupid and never tried for it thereafter. So right at this moment, footbag is good and I'm kinda maybe hoping to kick again on Sunday. Crossed fingers

.

In life news, work this last month has been stupid because of this one job. I won't get into it too much, but we had to abandon a house that we were stuccoing because of the people helping us. Now, however, we're planning on banging off three parging jobs this next week (one tomorrow, one Tuesday and the last hopefully by next Saturday) and that should leave us with about 6 jobs left for the season. We might be stuccoing a strawbale garage in October, which would be really interesting, but we have to see how the weather is. I'm really enjoying working for myself (er, for my dad I guess) and I'm not sure if I want to go off working for someone else again for the winter. That said, I'm not even sure what I want to do over the winter... Crap.

Guitar wise... I've learnt a few new songs. Did You Fall in Love with Me by Prairie Oyster (couldn't find the tabs for it, so it took me about 5 hours to figure out the notes), Ode to Joy, a song from a video Kevin made from the TOFU jam a few years back... umm... Tequila... a maybe a few more. Just to clarify, when I say I learnt these songs I haven't learnt the full songs, just the little ditties or whatever that make you go "Oh that song!"

. Oh well.

EDIT - Also on the subject of life, I've read three books since the last post I do believe. China Mieville's (sp?) - Perdido Street Station, and the first two books in the Dune series. I liked the first one, the second not so much. I'm not sure if I want to keep going with it because that means I have to buy the other four and if I'm a bit worried I won't like them. I want to get back into David Gemmell though, but I have most of his books and the ones I don't have are pretty much not published anymore. Argh!

Back to footbag, I think I'm going to be going to Berlin for next year's Worlds. I'm also considering only getting a part-time job over the winter so I can put some serious hours into footbag. I'm also thinking about doing some routines, but I've never practiced or choreographed one before...

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 23 Aug 2008 02:02

I wanna start practicing a routine for the first time ever too

Sounds like you're having a blast with guitar! I hope you will have comparable fun with footbag again!

I have been meaning to read the first Dune book for some time. I have it with me here in Europe. I heard all the rest were not so good, and that Frank Herbert only wrote the first 3.

habitat · Post by **habitat** » 23 Aug 2008 09:55

Life sounds good Byrin. That's sweet you started to play guitar. I just started playing guitar a couple weeks ago myself. Keep at it man, you are the shit.

Those drills are nuts btw.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 24 Aug 2008 17:07

byrin, props on hitting those huge drills you've been working so long for!

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 25 Aug 2008 16:51

Thanks guys!

Erik, you should definitely get into guitar! Acoustic style! I think James would back me up when I say this: WORTH IT! I don't know, when you nail a song / ditty right on the money it's like hitting a run that you're happy with sort of thing, you know? Plus, it's easy on the knees! Bonus for both of us!

Kicked yesterday for a bit. Didn't have too much energy to do long runs, but I did manage 6 fearless and a new link: Symp Whirling Swirl > Spikehammer. Sweet.

My right knee feels a bit sketchy, and I want to play again this evening. I shouldn't, and I probably won't, but I want too

.

I was thinking that maybe for my next blog vid or something I'll make a collaberation of the horrible songs I know on the guitar for the audio. Why not? It'll be fun to embarass myself

.

Sporatical_Distractions · Post by **Sporatical_Distractions** » 25 Aug 2008 20:55

That would be fun to listen to Byrin. Symp whirling swirl>spikehammer is a cool link. I remember you doing mostly rev swirls. What were your six fearless? and what is your record? not just a number but the run

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 28 Aug 2008 20:13

Yeah, I usually only do Rev. Swirls, except after Symp Whirls

. They are all probably 'the' too.

My six fearless were... Blurry Whirl > Blurry Whirl > PS Whirl > Spinning Whirl > Mobius > Pdx Blender, and I also hit PS Whirl x 6 that session too.

My fearless record is 10, and I've done it three times total, each run a different one. They are:

Sumo > Phoenix > Blurry Whirl > Blurry Whirl > Spinning Whirl > PS Whirl > Spinning Whirl > PS Whirl > Mobius > Pdx Blender

Bedwetter > Phoenix > Bedwetter > Phoenix > Blurry Whirl > Spinning Whirl > Blurry Whirl > Spinning Whirl > Mobius > Pdx Blender

Tomahawk > Blurry Whirl > Spinning Whirl > Mobius > Pdx Blender > Tomahawk > Blurry Whirl > Spinning Whirl > Mobius > Pdx Blender

I'm working on a new fearless run now, with a tiny bit more diversity. I got 8 on Tuesday and I'd like to get 10 and get it on camera or something.

Kicked for just over an hour tonight. It was a productive session. Nothing monumental, just going over sets and basics. It was chilly this evening, and got dark rather quickly, but I'm going to be kicking tomorrow so it's good that I didn't push too hard. Lookin forward to kickin at the YMCA

. It will be my second session there since ShrEdmonton, which is pretty sad.

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 29 Aug 2008 23:51

Well my knees hurt tonight. Damn. BUT, I had fun kicking even if I could barely make 10 contact runs

. Damn me and my horrible endurance! Rory was on fire, I don't get it how he can bust out 30 contact strings as often as he does. Mind baffling!

It was kinda a sad evening. ShrEdmonton's last YMCA sesh together (maybe not forever, but probably for a very long time). Also, I guess we're also cutting our volunteer slot for the YMCA studio down, which we've been doing for over 4 years now? Most of my footbagging "career", basically. Blah, yeah... it's depressing seeing friends go and, and feeling like our club is coming to an end.

Anyways, I'll wipe these tears away and talk about the shred.

Like I said, my endurance sucks so I think I might have had only a few runs over 20 contacts. Kevin busted out his camera and got some things on film, which I'll post because I don't care about hiding what I've hit

.

- Gyro Weaving Symp Torque bs (new trick on my weakside

)
- PS DLO bsos
- Spinning Blender > PS DLO bs
- PS Egg > Dolomite bsos
- Symp Whirling Swirl > Spikehammer

- Gangsta
- Flurry bsos a few times (they felt reasonably good for the most part)
- Spinning Blender and Food bsos
- Symp Atomic Osis > Big Apple (it was ugly, Kevin's words

)
- Me running on the wall

And some boring runs. Man oh man, I've really got to put my nose to the grindstone and drill the crap out of my foundation tricks more. Got to focus on form, can't sacrifice technique and I've got to make tricks efficient. Starting... now!

qphox · Post by **qphox** » 30 Aug 2008 14:32

Don't worry about posting that stuff. It *is* on camera, but by the time the video comes out, people will have entirely forgotten about this post anyway.

Yeah, the symp atomic osis > big apple *was* ugly...but the thing is, everything else was glorious.

I still can't believe you threw that gyro weaving symp torque both sides.

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 08 Sep 2008 16:46

Had three sessions last week, but I might be hard pressed to find time to have any this week. Kicked with Rory yesterday and for most of the sessions we were playing 30 contacts. Rory managed to get atleast 5 runs over 30 contacts (and two in the 40s), while I only managed 2. Gotta get that consistancy up! I felt pretty off, but whatever. I had fun with it.

No guitar in the last few weeks :/. Been reading for most of my spare time.

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 10 Sep 2008 20:55

Squeezed in an hour and a half sesh this evening before the sun decided to hit the hay. I was inspired by Anssi to try some creative links, though I was no where near able to make them look as clean and controlled as he is able too. Ah well. Filmed them and slapped together something for all you readers out there.

Here she be

That said, I should've worked on long runs, drilled foundation more, paid more attention to form and whatnot... but whatever

. This was fun.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 10 Sep 2008 21:04

fun is by far the most important element of anyone's game!
counting down the days till you're back in the peg!

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 15 Sep 2008 19:29

And I'm super stoked to be seeing you guys again!

Had a hardcore session this evening. Only lasted about an hour and a half due to shorter days

, but I think it yielded positive results. I could've probably have used maybe another half hour of sun to achieve what I wanted, but tomorrow is another day I s'pose.

Pretty much only worked on foundation sets - pixie and stepping. Atomic was cut short due to (I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count) the lighting situation. It's hard to do Rubberman when you can't even see the bag

.

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 17 Sep 2008 20:08

Had my last sesh before Hackrifice this evening. I've decided to try out routines for the first time in an actual competition, and as such, came up with one this evening! But unfortunately, I was only able to go through it about 10 times before my mp3 player crapped out on me

. Regardless, the song I chose is slow, simple, and has two spots that allow me to catch my breath. It'll be my first one ever, so I'm stoked to see how it goes!

Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good about footbag in general and am in a state where I just want to kick kick kick, and get really fucking good

. With serious stretching and delicious protein shakes, my knee problems haven't held my back thus far and I can only hope that they persevere this weekend. I'm really looking forward to seeing Johnny and Erik again (haven't seen them since Worlds last year), and also busting out some serious shred with Andrew and Derek. Hackrifice is definitely one of my all-time most anticipated jams every year, and this one is no different. Tomorrow won't go by fast enough

.

EoghanMcDowell · Post by **EoghanMcDowell** » 21 Sep 2008 07:50

The combo that ended in Gyro Whirling Swirl was sick!

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 21 Sep 2008 20:10

Thank you Eoghan! That was one of my favorite links that I was able to do that evening

.

I just returned from Hackrifice, and it was fucking fantastic! Seriously, we were driven everywhere we needed to be, we had breakfast made for us Saturday and Sunday morning, we had dinner provided for us Saturday, the venues were very well chosen and the company was great! What more could you ask for?! The Hackrifice crew out-done themselves this year, and I would rank it as well as my experience as World's 07. Had Hackrifice been a week-long event, it would have been like I died and went straight to heaven.

Through-out the weekend I think I played pretty well. My knees didn't give me much problems, instead it was my shins and calves which aren't used to the punishment of shred anymore. Still, though, I played a lot on Friday, took it easy Saturday afternoon then went all out Saturday night after the finals. So great! Johnny is sooooooooo good! Whirling Grifter, Full Symp Reactor, Nemesis... oh man, just style and originality in its purest forms. I'm really happy I got to play with him Saturday evening, because as it was I didn't get to see anybody (and as such wasn't able to say any good-byes either) before I left Sunday. Oh well, just that way it is.

Anyways, to anybody who wasn't able to make it, you missed out. Oh man oh man oh man, did you ever miss out. Best jam I've been to, by far.

professor · Post by **professor** » 21 Sep 2008 22:11

NYJ. You better be there. We haven't played in forever.

Lopes18 · Post by **Lopes18** » 23 Sep 2008 13:38

B_Man wrote:Johnny is sooooooooo good! Whirling Grifter, Full Symp Reactor, Nemesis... oh man, just style and originality in its purest forms. I'm really happy I got to play with him Saturday evening

Johnny is an incredible player. That circle was epic, thanks for letting me shred with you and give you guys a break

Was very humbling to play with both of you and inspiring as well. I hope to get back to high level again soon.

B_Man · Post by **B_Man** » 23 Sep 2008 21:10

Yeah, no kidding Ben! Worlds, hey?! That's definitely too long, you're probably twice as good now as you were then, and a thousand times better than I am now

!

Had an hour and a half drill sesh tonight, and it felt good. My left shin acted up in the beginning but went away later on. Drilled double downs, hit Plasticman a few times, bsos'd it a few times, rpt'd it a few times, you know... drill drill drill. I'm fighting off a cold that I probably got from Denton at Hackrifice, so I would get winded pretty quickly but whatevs!

I think I want to jump on the Kevin train and start drilling some bigger t2t tricks (like Blade and Pred, Panda and Goliath, get into quantums more and symp atomic stuff perhaps). Basicaly I want to expand my toe repertoire since my game is becoming more "big clipper tricks with small toe filler" sort of thing... I want to be able to bust big clipper and toe tricks, so I gotta get on that! First, though, gotta drill the crap out of the foundation: DLOs, Eggs, Symp Mirages/Flails, DSOs. Hopefully I can get on that soonish.

My last thought of the evening - when I got home this evening from footbagging, I got out of my car and looked up. The sky was crystal clear, and the stars were magnificent. I can't remember the last time I've ever looked at them, but it felt good to do so tonight. I feel sorry for the people who live in the city who don't have the opportunity of such a simple pleasure.