Oh yeah, I should probably make some type of introduction/background section:
My name is Corey Cushing, and I live in Tualatin, Oregon, which is about 20-30 minutes south of Portland (does anybody else measure distance with time? I've become increasingly aware of this habit. Ok my apologies for the tangent). I'm 17 years old, and I'm a senior at Tualatin High School. In addition to footbag, I also enjoy soccer, guitar (used to play in a band, but it's kind of disbanded now, which has been detrimental to my playing/dedication), loitering in parking lots, volunteer work, and all the other things that those young people are up to these days.
Ok that's enough of that, on to actual footbag stuff. I made a rough graph to illustrate my progress over the past several months, and I'll write a summary to accompany it:
I first started playing back during the spring; my school's lacrosse team got into the habit of casually kicking it before their games/practices, and some of my friends that are on the team introduced me to it. I was terrible (not that I'm not anymore) and could barely get more than 3 kicks. It was kind of perplexing/annoying because I've played soccer for the past 12 years and figured that I should be more coordinated, but I guess that's what happens when you play as a defender.
I continued to be the weak link of the circle until around June when my friends and I met a guy named Miles at a Relay for Life event. We were playing, and then he asked to join and completely blew us away. He was doing simple moves like ATW, legover, mirage, etc., but none of us had seen anybody who could do those before. Maybe he was the one who inspired me to pick up footbag on a more serious level; I could agree with that. Hopefully I run into him someday to thank him.
After that, I started to practice a little bit during my free time with a Jester 12-panel that I bought at REI; it was mostly just working on basic kicks and delays. At the time, all of my friends and I thought these bags were the greatest thing ever because we had never really seen a freestyle footbag. I think it was around this time that I began to discover the actual sport of footbag, and this led me to sites like .org and modified.
I found out that the US Open is hosted by Sole Purpose each year, so a bunch of my friends and I decided to head up to Nautilus to check it out. I could only make it on Sunday because of a soccer tournament (which sucked, but that's beside the point), but I still made it in time to see the circle final. Overall, it was a pretty neat experience; I had never seen such advanced footbag players before, so it was cool to experience it firsthand.
After the tournament, I really began to focus on footbag. I finally bought a pair of Lavers (modded them and whatnot) and ordered a 32-panel from Cale McCoy (which, by my limited knowledge/experience, has turned out to be a great bag). During the summer, I was practicing everyday and learning most of what I currently know (I'll get into that later). As you can see in the graph, this is where I really began to develop and get comfortable with the game.
However, in August, my high school soccer season started, and footbag kind of had to take a backseat for a few months. I was able to play in between practices during the final weeks of summer, but when school started, I was too busy to do both soccer and footbag. Consequently, when I did find time to play, I played like shit, which was fairly disheartening. Even after the soccer season ended, I felt as though I wasn't rebuilding my skills to where they had been during the summer, so that was pretty frustrating.
I eventually got over that bump, and I'm playing about 3-5 times a week now. Most of the time, I play by myself; out of those previous friends that were getting into footbag, I'm the only one that has taken a legitimate interest in the sport. Some of them still play (and we'll meet up every once in a while), but it's on a much more casual level. I'm alright with this though; I'm really just trying to create a foundation for myself so I can continue to improve.
Currently:
I'm still working on my 2 adds. I'm pretty comfortable with my ATWs (in-out and out-in), legovers, pickups, and mirages, but illusions are still awkward for me, and I rarely hit them. I'm still not stringing together that long of runs, but for the most part, all of the moves feel pretty good. Flipside hasn't been much of an issue so far; I'm naturally right-footed, but I consider myself semi-ambidextrous with my feet because I've been playing left back in soccer for the past few years (Philip Lahm, anyone?). Granted, it isn't perfect, but I figure it gave me a bit of a head start on the flipside.
My clipper game has been my primary concern as of late. I've really been struggling to establish a solid clipper; it seems like it has taken an abnormal amount of time to develop it. I can delay the footbag in the clipper position, but my sets are killing me; I've only hit b2b once or twice I think, which is pretty disappointing when you consider the fact that I've been playing for around 6 months. Granted, I'm sure my form can still use some work, but I feel like the sets are the fundamental problem now. Also, the basic coordination of maneuvering around the bag during b2bs isn't quite there either, so I need to work on that as well. I've seen most of the tutorials/threads pertaining to clippers, so I guess it's a matter of just biting down and practicing until it comes along.
That pretty much summarizes where I'm at right now. I haven't bothered much with 3 adds and beyond; it's kind of stupid/pointless to get ahead of myself when I can't even link out of clippers yet.
I've been playing on a serious level for around 6 months, and I feel like I should be farther along in my game by now. Granted, I know people progress at different rates, but I feel like my development has been really inconsistent if that makes sense.
Wow, that was a lot longer than I thought it would be; I guess that happens when you consolidate 6 months of information into a single post. The very last part is the only significant one, but the whole chronological history part might be nice to look back on someday. Alright that's enough for my first post, I'm just rambling now. If there are any Quentin Tarantino fans out there, I leave you all with this clip I found the other day:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XBzXnpfp2A[/youtube][/youtube]
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