west of philly - bob

[C-Fan]

I am hunting for someplace else to continue my blog.

How about hackrifice.com? It's footbag related, and there's a few blogs there I read already. PM Erik and see if he'd be down for that. Just warning you though, when blogs leave modified, I start checking on them way less frequently. I would love it if your blog stayed here, because its more convenient to read, and it's also a nice counterbalance to the idiots who post in other parts of modified. But if you have to move, I think Hackrifice could be a good destination.

oh god I wish half the freaking people on modified would shut the hell up too. no one cares, can't we just talk/hang out on here without all the bull shit arguing? who cares? jeremy, shut the fuck up. everyone else trying to respond to him, shut the fuck up. all the weirdos and trolls, shut the fuck up. let's just talk hacky sack and be cool like we are at events when we see each other. it's no different here than at a tournament, at least it shouldn't be

Actually, I've met the three or four most douche-y people on the forum in real life, and they are similarly douche-y offline too. People always say how the internet can make people look worse, but there are cases where people are just asses, both on and offline. I've definitely noticed them fucking it up for everybody recently, and it particularly made me sad when I saw Tony Sen return to the forums, only to leave shortly thereafter because of Jeremy's behavior.

And sorry to hear your neck is in such bad shape. I'm sure mine isn't nearly as bad as yours, but it's a pain nonetheless. I work with an occ health specialist, and he seems to think it was my monitor height that screwed me up. Maybe you should have an occ health person conduct an ergonomic assessment on your work station?

[Rieferman]

How about hackrifice.com

That's probably my first choice, but I'm trying to resist my temptation to be impulsive for the reason you state.. namely that with 30,000 views, some one is reading (beside Ken and Pete and Kevin and Nathan and Ian and I'm sorry if I didn't specifically mention you) and if I want to be "better" than the assholes that annoy me, it makes more sense to keep it here. Also, I've gotten a few "you have inspired me" messages over the last year or so, and I think that's a good thing.

Code: Select all

People always say how the internet can make people look worse, but there are cases where people are just asses, both on and offline

I couldn't have said it better. It happens at work too - people write an asshole email, and then they try to act like you just misunderstood them because it was in type blah blah blah. An asshole is an asshole however you dice it.

So I wonder again (read back many pages and you'll see these same thoughts a few times: Is the footbag community really a cool community?

I'd answer, still, that it's just like any community... There are cool people, and there are dickheads. Quite honestly, some people that are held in very high regard in the footbag world are dickheads in my opinion.

What's really been bothering me the most though is that the dickheads seem to be running the show right now.

It's like this: I quit promoting footbag because of the dickheads (footbag's loss... I was good at it). I quit playing (for a long time, returned later) because of the dickheads. I can't stand the forums because of the dickheads. When I consider hosting something at this point, I feel that I have to do it under the radar, invite-only style, because I can't risk the dickheads hearing about it and wanting to show up. I read and talk to people and hear that they all feel the same way about the same people.

I dunno.. I just ran out of rant energy. Wasted energy I'm sure. Ain't gonna change a thing.

[slapdash21]

but at least the non-dickhead people can relate to your rant and just read that and nod at the screen rather than posting another wasted response to one of the dickheads that just further fuels the flames.

[Rieferman]

ahhhh, nice weekend, and no interest in ranting today.

Had friday off. Beautiful weather all weekend. Multiple camp fires with Megan. Tons of fun with the kids. Trip to the pool. Keegan did lots of sparklers which he loved. We were basically outside non-stop the entire 3 day weekend.

got barn "boxed out" (meaning electrical boxes are in place) in preparation for electrician. I even went as far as putting the correct receptacle/switch/plate cover at each location too. Anything to save him time (less billable hours = more money saved for me). Did a bunch of other smaller but necessary barn tasks too. blah blah blah.

Neck loosened up enough for me to play. Played Thursday night with Brian. It was a "I want to quit this stupid fucking game" night for me. It was my first night back playing after multiple days off, my neck was still sore, I've done nothing but weakside, so my game is boring and inconsistent. Argh. But whatever, it will pay off ultimately. Played solo on Friday and again on Sunday. Both those were decent sessions. I vid taped a little, I probably won't post unless it's just to show how I can do weakside stuff now and how I can drop after 6-7 tricks every damn time.

Back to work now. I have Wednesday off for my daughter's 2nd birthday. We're going to the zoo.

[Rieferman]

Well, the good news is:
- I'm freaking strong as hell from all that barn work. Seriously, my arms look like I've worked on a farm my whole life.
- I have a place to shred, and it will soon be finished and amazing.
- I've gotten some good weakside work in even though my energy has been spent on the barn for the most part.
- I'm now at the "focus on footbag and exercising in general, that's why we built this place" stage which is GREAT
- I'm only 13 pounds over my goal weight. Believe me, that's nothing compared to what I see most guys gain during something this major.

So, this is me showing you how bad I've gotten, but at the same time showing you that the weakside is much better and that it's not hopeless. Comments would be welcomed. Thank you.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoNqc0SBco4[/youtube]

[slapdash21]

pff that wasnt THAT bad

but really the strings looked pretty controlled and decent length. nice zooming

if you move your blog it would be the first non-modified blog i'd ever read...id rather it here though, given the choice.

[Rieferman]

had an interesting practice tuesday night. I was really tired from all sorts of physical activity, so I knew the practice would be different probably. In the end, I worked on stuff that I never try. Toolan had a comment about that someplace recently (about trying new stuff). I hit barfly for first time ever on strong side. Close on weakside. Footed pdx whirl on both side for first time ever. Footed strong blurry whirl for first time ever too.

[Rieferman]

fun practice last night. Wasn't interested in practicing like I've been practicing lately, so I changed it up. I did some clipper drills that DC showed me that should help learn swirls better (currently I can only do symple swirl, and can only do them inconsistently.. i want the regular style solid). Did some freestyling focusing on weakside still. Then spent time toying around with new stuff again.

Hit pdx whirl on the strong side (first time!)
close on weakside, but no cigar
hit blurriest twice on strong side (have hit that about 10 times lifetime)
not close on weakside, but hey, I tried
hit several barfly on strong side
not so close on weakside (which is weird b/c that's my strong paradon.. shrug)
continued to foot blurry whirl but did not hit it yet.

so that's kind of cool


edit: by the fucking way.... I got an email from Brenda last night on the announce list indicating that Funtastik would indeed occur again this year. I'm sure many of you received that as well. I am planning to figure out some way, some how to make it to play at the event for a little I think.

[Asmus]

I did some clipper drills that DC showed me that should help learn swirls better (currently I can only do symple swirl, and can only do them inconsistently.. i want the regular style solid).

Please let me know what the drills where? Swirl is my favorite trick and I can still only hit it semi regularly.

Nice highlights btw.

[Drew]

I like the vid and the music selection. you're right, your weakside is getting closer to strongside, but it seems you were a little out-of-practice from the Bob I'm used to playing with

Nice highlights in the last post! New stuff is always fun toying around with.

Funtastiks?! OHHHH shizz

[Sporatical_Distractions]

I'm glad that you're keeping your blog here. Really liked the video. Who's the musician?

Props on pdx whirl and drilling flipside.

[Rieferman]

hey guys, really cool to see some responses in here

asmus wrote

Please let me know what the [regular style swirl] drills where?

Basically, he told me to practice repeating ss clippers where you do not plant between each set and catch. Goal is to basically get that nice consistent height that you'd need for swirl, keep it in and controlled, keep body balanced.. surprisingly harder than you think. Getting 3-4 in a row, no problem.. Getting 10 in a row, somewhat difficult. But it really does dial in the motion that set and swirl are two separate motions (I do not subscribe to the "roll off" style of swirl set)

Drew wrote

your weakside is getting closer to strongside, but it seems you were a little out-of-practice from the Bob I'm used to playing with

Thanks and thanks. Thanks for weakside improvement portion of the comment, and a BIG thanks for noticing that this is nothing like what I've become as a player. Well, it's something like it, but not my full "me-ness". Ha ha. The issue is that all my weakside focus has broken some other stuff, plus lots of my misses are on weakside tricks, or (soooo frustrating) as I'm one trick away from a weakside trick (the whole thinking too far ahead issue). Not to mention the weight that will be dropping off quickly now. Anyhow, I think I'm near a "click" point where things come together.

btw, I forgot to mention that my situp board and my free weights have made their way out to my shred room. And I've reinstalled my mat flooring with a no-slip pad underneath. So I've been: kicking > basketball > situps/pushups/free weights. Therefore weight will drop off nicely.


Kev wrote:

Who's the musician?

I really don't know.. I just grabbed something from "audio swap" on youtube. Actually, I listened to about 50 songs until I found one I liked. And now I really like it. I'll see if I can dig his name up


Drew wrote:

Funtastiks?! OHHHH shizz

yippers... already sent email to the wife trying to figure this one out. I think I'll camp out probably, but I am considering the hotel as well.

[shreddaily]

Hey Mr. Reif. I'm watching a Weeds dvd and wanted to type one handed on my keyboard a bit

(I do not subscribe to the "roll off" style of swirl set)

roll off style is the ONLY style of "set". downtime swirl can be symple or downtime. so in my opinion:
-downtime swirl
-symple swirl
-swirling set clipper
those are the only three styles of ss clippers; in order of coolness.

back to the important stuff (freestyle vocab is so boring in print)
how to get good 101 by nasty nate:
1. lose weight, i would love to give advice about how but i'm fat 4/5 of the time, so good luck!

2. PRACTICE with a bag that doesn't stall well... THIS IS THE REASON I POSTED... I have 7 bags in my practice room, arranged from choice to golf ball. In reality I have three classes of bags. choice, struggle, and can't stall. When I'm in my "get better mode" I'll start my practice sessions with a struggle bag (typically a majorly unbroken in shred bag, a bad footbag bag, or really broken in hacky sack) then I'll stretch, then put on my ankle weights (get some of these 20 bucks at most and well worth it) and do some leg circles. Then I would go to my second most choice bag (i save my choicest bag for when I'm filming or playing with people). When I'm feeling good I make sure to take some time with my unstallable bag, nothing makes you feel BAP more than playing with a shred bag after doing alternating clippers with a golf ball.

3. Play less- More often. My goal: play footbag even though I don't feel at my best. Ie: shred for 30 mins: go from feeling like you can't osis to feeling like stepping sucks, later in the day shred for 20 mins, feel like your rev swirls suck to hey i hit 2 in a row. And on your best days feel like hey maybe i should film- to- I've never hit that before! IE: stop when you feel shity and try later. Granted I am basically an adult kid so time is on my side; good luck with figuring this out.

4. You rule dude! IMO we are basically the same person born a few years and slightly different stars apart. Stay focused and you will succeed. Play play play.

To change your game you need to change the way you approach the game.

[shreddaily]

reserved for later edits

[Rieferman]

nate you're the man.. damn I wish we didn't live about as far apart as humanly possible. All of your advice is dead on. MANY thanks

edit:
Ok, more time to reply now.

roll off style is the ONLY style of "set".

Right. Just a swirl by itself (not as a set before other components) I like the non-roll off styles the best. And since I can do symple style, I of course like non-symple more because that will just drive me nuts until I learn it! ha ha

how to get good 101 by nasty nate:
1. lose weight, i would love to give advice about how but i'm fat 4/5 of the time, so good luck!

Agreed. The analogy I always use is this: A galon of water (or milk) weighs about 8 pounds. Right now I'm about 12 pounds over my goal weight. That's like having a 3/4 full galon of water in each hand and trying to shred. Really hard right? Now, put those down and try to shred. Much better.

The "how" is mostly pointless sugars and fats, and alcohol. So, sugar cereal, soda, fast foods, processed bullshit, beer and wine. For 90% of the population, reducing those things will make your body weight equalize quite a bit. Add in some exercise and you'll be a healthy weight for your body type. Easy to say it and type it.. Harder to do in reality. But, I'll be skinny again soon - the whole point of the stupid barn project was to have an exercise room and a wood shop.

2. PRACTICE with a bag that doesn't stall well

That's a good one. I like to play several bags as well. Because you never know when you might be in a circle with a crap bag - and you don't want to be shut down. But I like your take on it too.

3. Play less- More often.

That's interesting.. Lately, I've been saying things like "I think I'll play again today" and the wife looks at me like I'm crazy. But I think that's a good itch to scratch. And as Ken Som. would say - any time you get adds on the shoes, it's a good thing.

4. You rule dude! IMO we are basically the same person born a few years and slightly different stars apart. Stay focused and you will succeed. Play play play.

Thanks Nate As you know, I wish we were shredding and hanging out every week rather than every 5-10 years.

To change your game you need to change the way you approach the game.

Nice

-----

shredded yesterday with my best friend pat. he doesn't play anymore for the last 10 years. But we were buddies when I first started hacking and we used to play all the time. this was back when I just played and didn't care about improving or both sidedness etc. So he was down for my daughter's 2nd birthday party this weekend. He's her god father, and the kids call him uncle. And he threw on my old lavers and tried toe stalls and mirages and kicks while I freestyled and drilled etc. Hit another blurriest first try. He hit a mirage. Hit 5 b2b spinning clippers on strong side. Could only muster 2 in a row on weakside. Hit another couple barfly. All my usual stuff too. Played pretty well overall.

actually we also talked about how a lot of players now go immediately from hacker to serious about improving. And the advice is so good now that players immediately learn about being both sided and learning fundamentals etc. And that's good in a way. But I also feel sort of bad for all those players. I loved the game differently when I spent from 95 through 1999 basically just being slightly more serious about my game than a hacky slacker. All that time spent just kicking and chilling and playing in cargo shorts. Whatever, it was so fun. Practice and drilling and studying vids etc. That makes you better, but does being better make it more fun? I think eventually it does, but I wish all players could have the "kicking at a concert with a bunch of buddies all drinking a beer" lifestyle for awhile before they find out about the rest of it all.

[Rieferman]

brutally tired for my session last night, but it ended up being mellow and fun anyways.

For starters, the aforementioned best friend (Pat), also brought us a present last weekend. Well, I had to pay $100, but that's a bargain. He brought us a brand new ipod classic, 60GB, that his store was having overstock blowout on (b/c the new ones are all anyone wants). PLUS, he loaded over 3,000 songs on it for us. So, last night I was listening to "The Format" (or maybe it's just "Format"?) for the first time and really enjoying it and just practicing all sorts of fun stuff.

Swirl drill seems to be working. After doing that drill for a few minutes, I hit several on both sides that looked like Nate's. Set, pause, quick dex. Love that style. It's a great warm up trick too.

Ummm... Hit 50 or so weakside smears. Just pdx mirage > smear. Over and over and over and over. And, did a lot of blurs on both sides too. Was in a mirage mood I guess.

Hit ripwalk > DLO on the weakside which was cool b/c that's the DLO that has always sucked.

5 b2b diving clippers on both sides. Took 1 try on strong side. Took MANY stupid effing tries on the other.

Then, wiped out, went and shot baskets for about 100 shots. Played lefty mostly but also shot righty from 3-point distance. Need to keep my bball shoes out in the barn from now on, lavers are not good for practicing crossovers and spin dribbles.

Then, came in and did my circuit of pushups/situps/arm curls/planks etc.

Showered and was in bed watching home run derby early. Asleep before 10 p.m.

I think I'll basically do that all week.

[Rieferman]

Repeated last post again last night. That's a good freaking workout. Weighed in at 209 afterwards. Started at 212. Goal is 200 again. I'll get there pretty fast I think.

well, about 6-7 weeks until Funtastik. And I'm a little stalled on my practices right now. Sometimes working more on something doesn't actually make it better. again:

nate said

To change your game you need to change the way you approach the game.

So I think I'm going to do 3 weeks of some drilling, followed by about 3 weeks of freestyling for fun, and then rest a couple of days before I go play.

I think choosing 10 things to improve on within 3 weeks is reasonable. If you focus on 5 of the things each practice, and you practice 3-4 times per week, that's a lot of reps.

So, here's my 10 things for the next 3 weeks, and some drills I'm thinking of doing:

Use these as part of warmups each time:
- ducking / diving - consecutives are good, and freestyle limited to ducks/dives and bops
- paradon - pdx mirage > paradon repeat
- Dyno - clipper > dyno > ss butter > repeat back the other way
- Swirl - DC's drill, regular swirls, symple style

Rotate through 2-3 of these for bulk of practice:
- Spinning and gyro - consecutives are good, and just freestyle where you limit only to these concepts and bops.

- Stepping set - ripwalk > ripwalk, step butter > rip or blur, blur > butter > blur

- Pixie - pdx mirage > whatever pixie trick, pixie legover > whatever pixie trick, etc.

- atomic - crispy illusions, pdx mirage > whatever atomic

- drifter - clip set drifter, b2b drifters, toe set op drifter, toe set ss drifter


Use this as end of practice stuff:
- barfly/pdx whirl/blurry whirl/blurriest/whirling swirl



So tonight I have the night off. Need to do some barn stuff in preparation for electrical install, and get my truck ready for weekend guy's trip to a beer festival in Selinsgrove PA (I went to college at Susquehanna there, so I know a ton of people around there too). Tomorrow night I'll start working through my list of 10 things.

[Rieferman]

just pasted my practice idea from above into another document and printed it. I always get sort of excited when it's time to try another practice method. Anyhow, playing tonight after taking last night off, so I'm hopeful that my body will feel pretty good.

also, last night, I realized that my time off from barn building, though necessary and good, has lead me to a time where I'll be doing lots and lots of barn again for awhile. I'm really going to try to not let that derail my footbag stuff though.

The prep work for electrical includes basically weather proofing the space. In an old barn, that takes some doing.

Then, there's electrical. Need to rent a trencher, get the trencher, do the trench, lay the conduit, pull the 2 guage wire... all while electrician is wiring inside.

After he rough wires everything, I need to pickup insulation and countless sheets of plywood and drywall.. put all the insulation up, and then hang all of the drywall and plywood (exercise room gets drywall because it finishes nicer.. everywhere else gets plywood because it's tougher and can take a beating) on the walls and ceilings as designed.. this is not easy because there's lots of areas in the barn that are crooked, so each piece is a custom cut. then of course, I have to tape seams on the exercise room, trim out, and paint. After walls are up, electrician will come back for final connections.

At that point, I can stop for a good long while and enjoy the space until money is replenished etc. I'll be able to heat and cool the space, work in well lit space etc.


(btw: Did Jeremy stop posting outside of his own blog? I see Kyle is back though... For every good, there's a bad I guess)

[Rieferman]

the new practice last night was fun. warmups took longer than expected because i was having fun working on that stuff.

anyhow, highlights
6 b2b ducking butterflies, record for me

paradon > pdx mirage > repeat drill.. made it through 4 full cycles of that to a hand catch. that's a record for me on that drill too.

dyno > ss butter > repeat.. made it through a full cycle after many tries. stupid weakside.

swirls are ridiculously difficult for me. It's like I've never played. Like brushing your teeth lefty. Like holding a phone on your other shoulder. Like eating soup with a fork. Liking cats.

hit 8 b2b spinning clippers on strong side. hit 3 on weakside. both new records for me I believe.

--
then did my pushups/situps etc.

--
then chilled out and tuned up the truck for the drive this weekend. beer festival in my college town. guy's only weekend, no kids no wife. just me, my truck, my best friend, and 40 breweries. I leave tonight. Gonna be in rough shape by end of weekend. Then I really need to be a saint about beers for quite awhile if I want to drop weight like I should.

[Drew]

Whoa Bob, some nice highlights in there! dyno > ss butters are very fun, I've been working on them too. Nice records on the ducking butters and spinning clippers, what's your record for gyro clippers and spinning osii?

How was the weekend? sounds like it would have been a very relaxing and fun drunken haze.

I'll be around town this weekend. Want to kick?