Somebody should edit the "Journies to Tournies (sic) and Footbag Travel" subforum name.
Worlds 2009: Wednesday, Day 2 of Worlds
Woke up feeling pretty good. I wasn't able to sleep the whole way through the night due to jet lag, but I got enough rest that I figured I'd be able to compete alright. At a certain point, some things are out of your control, and all you can do is take care of the things you do control in order to give yourself your best shot. I went to the site and got some breakfast. Had half of a roll with blue cheese, and half with nutella. Eating nutella is like the official way of letting your body know you are in Europe. I found it comforting (and delicious). I even put some in my coffee/cocoa/milk concoction.
The weather was perfect, so routines started off outside. I warmed up slowly, sipped my Yerba Mate drink, and listened to my routine on my ipod while air-shredding it. Sami Hufschmid didn't show up and scratched, and Max didn't start warming up until 10 minutes before he was on, so that took some pressure off of me. If I failed to go dropless in the first round, at least I'd have a good chance to make semis, where I'd get another shot at it.
When my name was called, Matthias introduced me: "Half Japanese, half Spanish, but mostly American... Ken Somolinos!" I walked out and waved to the crowd, and when Matthias said "mostly American" I looked at the judges and said "don't hold it against me!" I stood in the middle of the competition area, took a breath, and tried to calm myself down. When you've been preparing for something for so long, it's always crazy when the moment finally arrives, and you're like: "this is it! This is the moment I've been working so hard for. Let's do it!" I bow to the crowd, then point to the DJ.
The music kicks in, and my first segment goes well. I look to the crowd for applause during my first cue, and it settles my nerves. Things go well from there up until the juggling segment. I planned on doing a clipper stall during it, but instead I dumb it down and just do toes, which actually works out better in terms of staying on beat with the song. About 3/4 through the routine I come to a part where I cover my eyes and do ATW-mirage-ATW, all strong side. Even though I'd practiced this a million times, I knew it was still risky. I cover my eyes and feel the first two tricks on my toe, but I don't feel the third. When I open my eyes though, the bag is miraculously still on my foot! This pumps me up, and the ensuing adrenaline rush gets me through the next section of my routine. After my fliers section is over, I get very tempted to just hand catch after the eclipse and end the routine right there. But I decide not to chicken out, and stick to the plan. I hold my finger up to let the crowd know there's one last trick coming, and I can feel the tension, as everybody knows I am thiiiiis close to going dropless. Set, dex, osis...hand catch! Dropless!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=320PDj982QQ[/youtube]
I feel the roar of the crowd wash over me, close my eyes, and raise my arms in joy. I can't even describe how good it felt to feel that bag in my hands and know I accomplished my goal. As I walk off the court I hear myself yell "holla back Germany!" and I chuck my bag in the air. I stagger my way through a bunch of high fives, and then sit down. At this point I feel like I'm in shock, almost like I'm drunk, and have trouble absorbing reality. I eat one of the two protein bars I brought from the US, drink my water and stretch, and try to watch the next couple pools of competitors. I'm still so emotionally worked up from competing, that I find it hard to watch other routines. It's like I'm up on stage with them, and when they drop I feel it worse than they do. After a couple pools, I move over to the net courts and watch a bunch of matches there. I find this calms me down a lot more.
Lunch rolls around, and I'm impressed by the quality of the food. I also like that everybody eats together in the same cantina. It makes it feel like camp, and its easy to talk to new people. If everybody just split off for lunch, it'd be less social. The food was a huge highlight of Worlds.
After lunch I get a massage from Landes, who has been studying
reiki. Loyal blog readers will recall that my back and neck had been bothering me the last couple months, so getting an hour-long massage from a skilled masseuse really hit the spot. Nick hypothesizes that my back/neck problems stem from stress, and it's hard to disagree with that. Two of my biggest sources of stress thankfully are taken care of now (moving apartments, and going dropless at Worlds), so hopefully that will help me heal. Huge thanks to Landes for sharing his time and skill with me out of the kindness of his heart. You're a great guy, braheem.
Eventually routines wrap up (there were 12 pools!), and I decide to do Shred30. I warm up with Landes, Jeff Mudd, and Alex Dworetzky, and Asmus. I mostly just practice shuffling, but have fun messing around with some silly stuff too, like bed to spinning eclipse. When it's my turn to compete, I go up and do a decent job. I dropped a couple times and didn't pay enough attention to uniques, but overall it went OK. I didn't embarass myself or anything, so I was just glad to be part of the show.
One of the highlights of the day was getting to watch some of my favorite shredders play. Watching Lauri Airinen and Landes, I found myself thinking: "these guys play the way I air-shred." I thought that was a flattering compliment.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow-4LE-Nu_s[/youtube]
That night was the video contest. The night kicked off with
Norek's Final Fantasy vid, which set the tone for the evening. My favorite videos were the ones with clever storylines. I didn't even need to see any shred in them. The beginning to
Reindeer games made me laugh super hard.
After the videos I socialized for a bit, but there wasn't any dancing going on, so I went home. I figured that the next day would be my only truly free day to do sightseeing, so I wanted to get rested.
Next: Thursday, Day 3 
If I didn't need to practice routines as badly as I do, I would have just played outside. Given how bad my routine was at NYFA though, and how soon Worlds are, I really didn't think I could afford to not practice routines.
Guess I needed the rest.
