Operation: Guiltless and Higher

[KRyan]

Had a really good 3 hour session today. Also properly stretched before the session which helped a great deal. I have modded my lavers in the past few days and worked on my clipper form. I also changed the insoles and washed the shoes for the first time since purchasing them, they were really starting to smell

New things:

-49 alternating clippers (new PB by about 15-all thanks to stretching and form work)
-dimwalk < schmoe repeat
(really happy with this one)
- 8 ducking clippers

Wanted to video some of my runs for the longest run video blog but I have leant my camera to a friend. I get it back tomorrow, so I should post another video as soon as I play as well as I did today.

[astrogeek]

Haven't played too much recently due to Uni assignments, work, other stuff.
Did have a session today at Fed square with my shred partner Leon. We shot an instructional DVD today as well, just to hand out to interested people who come see us play. We had a shred after the filming, it took a while because we kept on failing with basic concepts. Had to do butterfly like five times because i couldn't hit more than 2 at the start.

had some good links in the shred.

spinning clipper < spinning butter < ducking clipper
dimwalk < spinning clipper < ducking clipper < pdx mirage
fairy butter < pdx mirage < dimwalk < osis < ducking butter

I wish that the camera hadnt't run out of battery so that I could have put all those awesome runs in the vid. I also had a nice run with tap bsos and another with legbeater>good run which I did after the cam died . Maybe we should film the uni session today, try and get some good stuff.

[KRyan]

Decided today that I am definitely going to worlds, however don't know whether I should compete open or intermediate. I know that I will be one of the worst players in open however I would gain the advantage of competing in all the events. Flights to San Fran are now $1000 Australian which is really really cheap.

Before I summarise my training thought I should talk a little about non-footbag related stuff.Next year I intend to go to Japan via a government scholarship(this is a dream probably because I doubt I am smart enough to receive one) and if I don't get that, I intend to get over there some way or another. If the Japan Footbag Championships are not conflicting with my Uni schedule then I will go to that as well.I have been watching a show called 'the dudeson's' lately. Really funny show, they do some really stupid and crazy stunts. I can't believe that none of the group have died yet.Really getting into Japanese music at the moment, so if there any fans out there, recommend some good artists.

OK, now onto footbag.
Been playing quite a bit recently. Helped make a beginners instructional DVD and a couple shred videos in the last week. Also, now that I got my camera back, I want to post a lot more videos so that I can get advice for my nooby form.Played for 3 hours today and hit a couple new things.

- 52 alternating clippers(PB by 3)
-hit flipside diving for the first time
- did a diving<ducking clipper repeat run that I will post in the longest run footbag thread.
-did some really smooth ducking clippers, should be able to do 10-15 by the next few days

Footbag is so good that its annoying, supposed to be studying for exams but meh......

[Jeremy]

These days I play the most footbag around exam time. I try to have a 15 to 30 minute kick every hour, and doing this lets me study all day (plus kicking). If I don't take breaks I tend to study for a few hours then give up completely.

Sounds like your game is going well Good videos too. Also in my opinion you should compete open in everything, even if you come last. I respect last in open a lot more than first in intermediate, and I think the attitude attached to wanting to compete open no matter how good you are is a much stronger attitude to have, although I concede a lot of good players have competed and won intermediate before going on to greater heights.

[boyle]

Compete in open, you never know how you will go. There is not so much point in competing in intermediate at the worlds.

"How did you go at worlds?"
"hmm, I came second"
"WOW, second in the WORLD, hey guys, this guys WORLD NUMBER 2!!!"
"urrm, it was intermediate"
"oh, that doesn't count then, does it?"

Or something along those lines.

Who cares about placings etc, I think you are improving a lot as well, I think you will be fine in open as long as you prepare a routine.

Which flight has $1000 flights? I saw United for 1045. I'm pretty broke after my recent adventure, but I'm thinking within the next few weeks I should have enough space on my credit card for the flight.

What dates are you looking at...and will you be staying in the official hotel, it works out at $25 US per night if you share with 4, which sounds pretty reasonable.

[KRyan]

Just saw $930 return flight on United with taxes included in the fair Dan. Will probably fly with them now. I will be flying out on 1/8 and return flight leaves America on the 7/8. Therefore, will be in America for 7 days. Will also be staying at the Marriott as it seems the easiest option. Should put that through as well as register for Worlds.

I have to decided to compete in open as it doesn't seem like a benefit to compete in intermediate.

[KRyan]

Just booked the mentioned flight, I am now officially going to Worlds!!!!!!!

I need to organise a room at the Marriot. How about you Dan?

[boyle]

I haven't organised anything yet. The cutoff date for cheap rates is early June, so we should get onto that. I'm going to come I've decided.

That's awesome you got a ticket. I think going to Worlds is going to be incredible for your game.

Nice.

If Roy from Israel comes, that would be a trio, it would be not so hard to find one more person. Then we'd be set.

[KRyan]

Had a good session today. I wrote down a list of things I have to have on lock down and ready to fire at Worlds. The list:

-osis bs,bsos
-whirls bs,bsos
-flip spinning
-swirls(might not do this one) bs, bsos
-pdx illusion bs,bsos
-flip magellan
-flip smear
-flip fairy

Today I practiced whirls, osis, symp mirages and guiltless runs
Best highlight was:
osis<pdx mirage<ss butter rpt < whirl < whirl < infinity < whirl < whirl < op clipper(meant to do butter)

Therefore 11 contacts guiltless which is probably my highest. Want to be able to do a 30 or more contact guiltless string by worlds so that my shred 30 isn't just mirages and legovers.

Need to organise the Hotel room before June 1st for the sale price. I wonder if I should just register that I am looking for a room on footbag.org registration rather than wait and find room mates?

I think I might post a video of my osis' cause they are quite terrible, see if there's anything someone notices I am doing specifically wrong.

[boyle]

Not sure if it would be up your alley, but Birushanah are a great heavy band from Japan. Good luck with getting support to go over there!

[KRyan]

Had a 2 hour shred today at home. It went pretty well in one part, but another part was a fail.

My last week of semester 1 Uni was last week, 2 weeks til my first exam and i already think i will probably fail due to footbag. It's just so much more interesting than glycolysis and phosphorylation(damn biochem).

Everything is sorted for worlds now except maybe my room for the host hotel. Paid for flight, registered, its all looking good.
The snowboard I bought from America should arrive this week. Can't wait to try it out on the slush of Aus snow.

Anyway, session was good for whirls today, but still no progress for my osis what-so-ever. Been trying to learn osis now for the last year but I just can't seem to get the motion correct. However that may be because no-one I regularly play with can hit a proper osis. I think I should be able to get some good advice once I come to Worlds, so that I can finally solve this annoying trick.

New links:
paradon < ripwalk

PB:
10 whirl strongside
5 whirl flipside

Happy with:
whirl rpt<buttterfly rpt twice in a string.

Received an Alf bag from my friend in Sydney. It is so soft and feels like it will be amazing to play with! Can't wait to break it in and use it for some sessions.

[boyle]

I just got an alf bag recently too, loving it so far.

Things are looking sweet for the hotel.

[KRyan]

so, had a session today that I probably should have skipped for the little study I have accomplished for my biochem and biology exams in 5 and 6 days time. I may fail biochem Totally my fault though, it was just not very interesting.

I have at least read all of my lecture notes thoroughly so who knows, I might be able to conjure up something.

Really good session today!
Although, I really need to start playing somewhere else than the garage.

I hit pdx whirl for the first time on flipside, hit it at least another 5-6 times for muscle memory. Then went on to hit a new link on both sides.
-pdx whirl< whirl
once I can string them together it means I will be able to hit whirl war 1 which would be awesome for me!

-Hit proper drifters on my flipside for the first time as well. Also had a run that included 4 drifters in it, 2 on each side.
-hit whirl times 3 < infinity rpt as well. Increasing the whirls before I do a butter is helping with controlling the catch on the whirl.
-hit gyro clipper for the first time bs, bsos, b2b tonight as well. This was because I have started to drill weaker side spinning which is coming along quite well.

Can't wait til exams are over, I have a whole month to practice for Worlds then.

[KRyan]

wow, haven't posted for a while.
I had about two weeks off of footbag due to exams and a stupid incident involving me almost breaking my big toe. Now that would have been coincidental considering I had just paid for everything for worlds.

Have been playing the last week every day. I lost a bit from my little vacation but getting better quite fast. My list of things I need to do before worlds is getting shorter. I just need to hit drifter's, ducking and spinning properly on both sides so that I can do some other 3-4 add tricks. whirls are on lock down, pdx whirls need a little bit more work, pixie set is soon to be on lock down as well. Illusion has improved massively and almost on lock down as well.

today i hit:
pixie ss clipper < pdx mirage < pixie op clipper < pdx mirage rpt into some whirls and other stuff. Easily best run of the day.

[KRyan]

Ok, so its been a while since I last posted and a lot has happened since then. I travelled overseas to the Footbag World Championships in Oakland, which were my first world championships, and have had many training sessions before and after that.

At worlds I hit quite a few new tricks; here they are:
-tomahawk bs
-blurry whirl bs
-pixie whirl bsos
-open ducking osis bs
-shut ducking down
If you have no idea what this means, go check the new terms for footbag tricks.

Worlds was amazing, to say the least. I roomed with Dan Boyle, Kevin Regamy and Marco Hartig. They were really great fun, although we didn't spend much time in our room as we were always out til 4 am.
I met a lot of footbag players from around the world, which made me feel glad that even though there is only two people in my state who play, if I travel overseas I can still get quality tutoring.

It was disappointing to finally leave worlds, and I left early due to Uni commitments. I am back at Uni and really can't be bothered getting back into the swing of things, just want to kick. Did start doing h/w today so that should be a good sign.

Had my first real session today since coming back from worlds, the superman contest with Dylan Fry absolutely destroyed my body. The 14 hour plane trip home did not help at all, although I did get the privilege of sitting next to a pretty model for the flight home.

Today I decided to take Dave Clavens advice and set the amount of specific tricks I had to do in the session. I did 100 high set clippers, 100 alternating, 100 waist, 100 high-low and another 100 all mixed in. So 500 clippers in total. Then I did 50 whirls each side, ensuring I had at least one run with more than 5 on each side. far whirls were also practiced and I should be able to hit far whirl < whirl rpt tomorrow(I was too tired today to hit it)

Next session I plan to do 200 osis < clipper rpt at the start of the session as well as some stepping same clip.

May have missed some stuff in this long post but I will probably think of it.

[KRyan]

[PoisonTaffy]

Hey, nice blog! You sound like an awesome player. Wish I went to worlds, maybe I'd hit Tomahawk too!

Can you elaborate on the advice Clavens gave you?

[KRyan]

Well he said instead of just trying to string things together or try to get as many consecutive contacts as you can, focus on the quality of what you are doing. Set a random number, say 1000 clippers, that you have to hit during the session. Then hit 1000 clippers, but only count the ones you like. You can try and do them in slots of 10's etc, just make sure that they are as clean as possible. I also elaborated on this and decided that you should try to do 100 clippers without stopping, so if you drop or do a bad one, don't count it and keep going until you reach the limit. This is probably going to help with being able to hit 100 clippers as there is no lag time between. Straight away after an unclean or drop, you keep going til you hit your goal. You can teach your body the endurance required for hitting 100 consecutive clippers without actually hitting 100 consecutive clippers. This drill definitely helped for my flip whirls. I set a target of 50, the first 10 weren't so flash, but the motion became dialled and I was able to easily do ten clean whirls on flip without dropping.

Hope you can understand what I have written above.

[PoisonTaffy]

Yep totally clear, thanks for writing. Advice from top notch players like David is invaluable, and sadly very rare.

[KRyan]

had an osis session today.
My osis is just so terrible on one side and the other side isn't much better.
I decided that before I start learning any more moves, I have to be able to do a minimum of 20 b2b osis. This may frustrate me a lot, however osis comes so easy for everyone I know so I can't move on until I get it down.
Practised the clipper < osis rpt drill for most of the session today. may have repeated this 4 or 5 times which I am pretty sure I have done b4, so no improvement as of today.

On one side, I understand that I am looking at the sweet spot and trying to get the bag to land there and spin, however on the either side I can't even air attempt the movement. I was watching some videos and thought that maybe I should go back to the beginning and think of osis as inside stall done behind the support leg with a spin. This may be confusing, however I feel I am struggling with the move because I am thinking of it as a clipper done behind you with a semi-spin etc.

I don't know if this mumbo jumbo makes sense but yeah.