Montreal Footblog

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
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Colin
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Post by Colin »

Yesterday I was crossing the road between some cars that were stopped at a red light, and I saw the driver of the car I was passing was wearing a grey 'evolution continues' kolosport shirt. I couldn't see the face because of the reflection of the sun or something, but I got the idea that it was one of the smaller guys around, maybe Mathieu or Nick. As I walked around and leaned my head down to look in the the driver side window I saw a girl who I've never met awkwardly trying to avoid eye-contact with what must have seemed like a crazy dude coming up to her window for change or something. I was caught off guard by the unfamiliar face, and the whole thing happened while the light was changing, so she drove off before I managed to even say "footbag" with a big smiling thumbs up or any other thing to relieve the tension.

Pretty awesome huh?

Gonna be at the August 1st tam tam at around 2. Hope some of you make it :)
Colin Kennedy
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MathieuGM
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Post by MathieuGM »

The only girl i know who played footbag in montrael in the last years is Claudia? Caro also, but i'm sure she's not in town. Alos, Kolo sold some jerseys to a lot of people at his wall climing center. Might be one of the girls there...

You might be pretty much alone at tamtams on august 1;). Me, Seb Ianek and the whole net crew are at worlds. Try to contacnt Jean-Martin or Samuel. These guys are your best chance to shred with someone!

See you soon Colin.

Mat
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Laroche
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Post by Laroche »

Might as well update this thing. So, I broke down and ordered some lavers, a nice pair of black mesh for 60$ including shipping. Not bad! I've spent upwards of 90 on ugly pairs before so I'm real happy with this purchase.

Man.... I have such a sordid history with footbag; we used to be lovers, you know, top of the world, getting into clubs together, and then something happened at around the 5-6 year mark. I dunno, I just started losing interest, the scene was dying and I didn't know that she was a scenster. We eventually started seeing others, and while beat making is my other lover-for-life, I only just recently realized that she's not the jealous type at all!

So, after much tepid pacing, I pick up the footbag and hit a barefoot double-blender. Sold. Gimme those lavers now.

I refuse to re-read my earlier entries in this blog, it's too painful. We decided that we didn't need counciling, and to put our past behind us, and head for the horizons.

We're going all the way soon enough, aw yeah baby give it to me raw.. UNH!
Nicholas Laroche
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abstract
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Post by abstract »

i can resonate with the ups & downs of your relations with the seductress known as footbag. ( footbag is definitely a woman--its why so many men's hearts & minds fall victim to her seductive prowess. )

and on that note, i will come to montreal & fucking shred your face off.

sincerely,
friend!

ps. i want black mesh lavers, too! where did you buy them from?
greg raymond, kingston

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"What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a solid gold baby? Maybe we'll never know." - Jack Handey
MathieuGM
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Post by MathieuGM »

Worlds were awsome. I learned just so mnay things. It allow me to see the strong point and the weak point of my game. My consistancy is definitli my strong point. My lack of variety is definitly my weak one.

It was really cool to meet all those people. Props to Lon and Dylan for playing a LOT at these worlds. Prop to David, for taking time to play in a lot of intermediate circle. Highly appreciated. Thx to Norek, for helping me without knowing it haha. But my biggest thx goes to Dave, for his clinics. The part about his general way to train has definitly helped me to reorganize my training program. After 2 week, results are allready greats.

Big thanks to Dante and Greg, who basicaly had to hear me and my knee the whole week. Oh and Dante, stop giving random hugs during the night :P. Greg, keep taking your steroids, they seems to work great on you! Dante will be something crazy soon, but i will catch him up :P. Greg is the Canada Cranck. And definitly one of those who played the most at worlds, despite he is close to 30! The week was awsome with you guys. Oh and Ben ''the Shadow'' too. The guy who show up sometime in the night, then disapear sometime in the morning. Cool guy.

The 3 highlight of th worlds for me were the dropless from Lon, the dropless from Nick and the net final. No need to talk about those 2 routines, everyone saw them. The double men net final was epic. Franky and Gilles againt Flo and Patti (sorry if i wrote come name incorrectly). A really harccore game... Yves Archambeault who has been playing net for more then 25 years told me it was probably the best game that ever happen at net. Props to all those competitor.<

Then, there is the post worlds. I have been playing almost everyday. I'm playing really well. Much better then before worlds. I'm super foccus on what oi have to do, what i have to work on. It pay off. I stopped wall climbing now. I might stop hockey too. This year, i plan to play lot of footbag, because i want to see how far i can go. For a week i basically worked on open set. My flip open set is finally pretty good, but i want more. I still can't hit 10 flip smear on request. So i will spend one more week on that.

Oh, and Nick has some lavers. Does it mean i'll finally have a session with him ;)? It will be cool.

Mat
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Post by Asmus »

Great post to read. Hope you can keep the momentum!
MathieuGM
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Post by MathieuGM »

Thanks Asmus! I'm glad you enjoy that post :).

So, i have been playing basically everyday in the last 5 days.

As i said, i keep working on open set, especially on flip side. Strong side is dialled now. I can hit basically wahtever i want whenever i want on that side. Flip side is weird. Someday, it feel really good and i can hit those 10 open mirage easily. Then the day after, it feels bad and i can't really hit them. Still, they are definitly MUCH better then before i worked on them, so it pays off and i'm happy about that. Now i will take a break with open set, because i think my body need some days to incorporate the motion and all that stuff. So maybe one or 2 week without training them hardcorly will be good, i will see.

On an other note, flip spinning clipper is much better then it used to be. I think i'll be able to incoporte them in my regular shred within the next 2 weeks. It's cool, because at one point is started to believe i would never be able to do that flip move haha.

I don't know why, but this week i figured out how to hit rev swirl both side. I think that in a week or two it will be included in my regular shred too. That's weird... That move really ''Clicked'' in my head. I'm allready pretty consistent with them! That's cool when taht happen!

Finally, within a month i hope to be able to fix flip DLO and flip torque. With those move fixed, i will be basically perfectly both sided... Except for few move, but for now they are not a priority (e.g. : Neo set...).

Then, on both side, i will spend lots of hour about whirls, blenders and double dexes. Now they are basically the 3 main elements that miss to my game. With that, i'll have solid foundation to keep practicing and progressing well!

See you soon guys at Funtastik or Kickass!

Mat

P.S. : Nick, i still hope to shred with you this week :P.
MathieuGM
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Post by MathieuGM »

Hey everybody!

I played everyday since my last post, except monday (took it off).

As i said before, those session are really about flip spinning clipper. And this move his coming along really well. I haven't try so much repeat, because i'm more workin on form right now, but within 3 tryes i hit flip spinning clipper x5. That was cool. I can do spinning far mirage, spinning osis, spinning far illusion, spinning buterfly all BSOS. My flip gyro is also muuuch better. Can hit Gyro Mirage, Gyro osis (zooming?), gyro clipper, gyro butterfly all BSOS.

Here is a funny thing that happen last session : i have never hit a single blender, except on that day. I tryed to hit gyro dyno, and then my leg did gyro blender. Super deep and clean. But the fact is that i tryed that again, and i have never been able to hit it puhahaha. Still can't do blender, but i'm sure it will be soon, i start to feel the motion.

I spend few minutes on osis too, because i want to fix my flip torque, and i think my problem is a bit the osis.
Yesterday i did 63 osis b2b first try.
Today i did 58 osis b2b first try.
My calf really hurt after 50 osis. There is no way Clavens was able to hit 444 osis. Human legs? No... ;). My goal for now is 100, i'm sure i can do that.

Here are some cool link i hit in my previous sessions :
Stepping far whirl-Stepping far mirage-open down-stepping far down-stepping far whirl.
Ducking osis-diving osis BSOS. Cool link.
5 smear - 5 PLO - RPT. It's still a bit hard. I'm kinda sad because i worked a lot on my flip open set. Still, it's a 20 contact a toe shuffle... That probably mean my flip open isn't that bad. But i will definitly have to spend more time on that move next month. Taking a break of open right now, to avoid injury on my left hip.
There are probably plenty of cool link i forgot, but i don't really mind. I will show you them at funtastik or kickass or whatever jam we meet :).

Mat
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Post by CIC flurry »

MathieuGM wrote: Dave, for his clinics. The part about his general way to train has definitly helped me to reorganize my training program. After 2 week, results are allready greats.
Je n'etais pas là. As-tu une summary?
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Laroche
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Post by Laroche »

Tom! You nutsack, I forgot you spoke French. How's life? Please be vague, i don't want to hear your whole tedious life story....

Speaking of, I picked up an engagement ring for Bailey. It's beautiful, elegant, and classic, white gold with what appears to be a solitaire diamond but is actually a cluster of smaller diamonds. I was excited to give it to her, since I had proposed and she accepted months ago, I hadn't had the cash to actually buy a ring until just recently. Furthermore, she was getting testy about it, and she knew I was going to pick it up Friday. Now, I had to propose properly, but was kind of in a bind because she was meeting me at work an hour before I finished so we could both go to a friends birthday party. I initially wanted to propose there in the restaurant, but the birthday girl kibosh-ed that idea basically saying I would steal her thunder and make her upset. But I couldn't propose at work, it's lame.

Luckily, I work in the beautiful old port, and it was a warm, sky-filled twlight-ish evening, and so on the way to the metro, in front of city hall and this amazing old fountain I whipped out the ring, did the knee thing, and proposed right there on the spot. It was a great moment, tourists were taking pictures, a star fell, you know, the works. She said yes, which was expected but still nice to hear!

Anyway the ring doesn't fit, so we need to get it sized, but she just kept playing with it, and I kept telling her to put it away lest she drop it.... which, of course she does in the restaurant, after which 15 of us are moving the tables out of the way to look for the ring causing a huge commotion. We finally get it, but there's a diamond missing and some other damage too. So we bring it to the jeweler, luckily it's not so expensive to re-size and fix. She's literally twitching without it. For the guys reading this post, understand women and rings are a scary combination, and the result is similar to smashing two atoms together, like a fusion of explosions and other weird side effects.

Anyway, we schedule a movie date for when the ring is ready, and when I go to pick it up, I forgot the damn receipt, so they wont fucking give it to me! I put a fight, try to use my PR skills to talk my way into getting it, but it's a no go.. when I run into Bailey for the movie, I explain what happened and if looks could kill, you'd be dead just by reading a description of it. An uncomfortable moment or two later, we're seated watching the worst movie I've seen in a looooooooooong time.

Salt. We both figured, Angelina Jolie is hot, so worst case scenario we'll just watch her run around in leather pants or something, but god it was horrible, Russians and cold war and unlikeable characters with blurred plot lines and awful acting left right center. What a bad night that was, god damn!!!

In the thrilling anti-climax to this story, we picked up the ring yesterday and it fits beautifully and is shinier then ever!

And what does this have to do with footbag, you ask? I leave that as an exercise to the reader, because I certainly can't be bothered to come up with an answer to that stupid question.

P.S: This is what that part of the alphabet would look like without Q and R.
Nicholas Laroche
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Post by C-Fan »

Nick: Just wanted to say I'm really excited you're getting back into footbag. I'm a big fan of your style. I still occasionally watch Mathieu's RJD2 video remake of "the horror" where you hit all sorts of super-stylish links.

Mathieu: Glad to hear you're schooling so much after worlds, and using a gameplan. Props on the 20 contact open drill.
Mitch Hedburg wrote: P.S: This is what that part of the alphabet would look like without Q and R.
Nice.
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Laroche
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Post by Laroche »

Hey Ken, thanks for the kind words! Man I had completely forgotten about that video, I gotta get my hands on a copy.. I haven't forgotten about Mitch Hedburg though haha, good catch!

I'll be putting up those shitty black lavers on Ebay for some other sucker to buy. I'm so disappointed with those shoes, not only are they unplayable, but their ugly. Who the fuck wants shoes that only has leather on the toe? What kind of message does that send out to people, other then you have no taste and are into some weird form of BDSM? It also sucks to go back to duct-tape central, there's more tape then sole in those manky old shoes.

Ah well, the life of a bagger ain't the life of a baller. Still, I remember I used to sniff at the arrogance of some of the (relatively) older players at tournaments who demanded beds, and slept for more then 4 hours. Pfft, I thought, I'll never be a sorry old loser like that. Famous last thoughts, I guess, thinking about how plush I expect my bedspread to be these days and the thought of sleeping on a floor makes me as uncomfortable as actually doing it is.

Gonna pick up a pass to Le Centre Gadbois, a little community center not far from home so that I can kick in Winter. James, since you live in the area and are reading this right now, first, you're a jerk, second, I hate squirrels, third, and most importantly you should get a membership too so we can renew the dynamic duo!
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MathieuGM
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Post by MathieuGM »

Sooooo! Today was tamtam jam! Tamtam forever.

Let's start with a funny thing. Yesterday i called Nick to have a session at tamtam with him. Here is the conversation :
Me :Hey Nick! It's Mathieu. You want to come at tamtam tomorow to have a session?
Nick : Could be cool man. What time will be be there.
ME : 2PM is it fine for you?
Nick : Yes man, the work great for me. Then nick said to Bailey (his girlfriend) : Hey Bailey, do you want to go at tamtams tomorow a 2PM. She said : Yes!
Me : Perfect!
Nick : I see James tonight, i will ask him to come!
Me : See you tomorow.

After that conversation, i sent an e-mail to all the montreal players saying : Hey guys, come at tamtams tomorow! It's will be really sunny and Nick is confirmed! So it was suposed to be : Me, Marc, Francois, Nick and Sebastien at least!

So today i went at tamtam and met Francois around 2:10. At 2:15 i said : i will call Nick to see if he is coming. Dring dring dring. Nick asnwer : Hello? Hey Nick, where are you? Oh shit man, i forgot we had a session today. I will not be there.
I can'T believe he forgot that lol! I talked to him yesterday. Anyway, i guess i will have a session with him.... one day ;).

Finally it was only me, sebastien and Francois at the session. Marc came later.

I played really well... One of the best session on my life.
-A string of like 40+ contact, guiltess with few 5's. including move like torque, drifter, twist, lots of open/stepping, few spinning moves and ducking moves. Maybe the best string of my life. I don't know.
-A string with tons of 5 : spinning whirl, blurry whirl, fog, open torque, far torque, ducking whirl. Was a cool string.
-3 new moves : Matador, twirl and flux. I have never really done Nuclear set before. I tried a few time today. I'm not consistent at them, but according to Marc, those i manage to do had a good form. I guess that if i spend few session on them, it will be pretty easy... But it's not in my plan in the next month. Maybe in 2 or 3 month.

After that, i went down to look at some net. It was cool. There was a camera that was filming for a pretty popualr Tv show. Then the asked us to do some freestyle for the TV show. So i warmed up again, after 3 hours of shred and 1 hour of break. I made a few string with sebastien, marc, sebastien perron and francois. It was cool. The shred wasn't really nice, because we were tired. But anyway, it was enough for the Tv show.

Also, my back pain is coming back a bit. So i installed my shred mates in my basement. I ducked 4 carpet together. I use these carptet because they don'T slide on woden floor. After that i taped the mates to the carpet. So i have a really nice spot to play in my basement, and it don'T move at all. I guess it will be good for my back.

I got an HD camera for my birhday, you guys will probably see some videos of me in a near future :).

See you at funtastik or kickass guys!

Mat

EDIT : I forgot to mention that Colin came for a quick session! It was nice to see him. I haven't played with him for almost a year! He is such a cool guy.... Realy nice to play with him. It's sad that he must leave montreal next week :(.
Last edited by MathieuGM on 30 Aug 2010 10:32, edited 1 time in total.
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james
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Post by james »

Nick, first of all, I am not a jerk, secondly, squirrels don't care if you don't like them and personally I think you're just jealous of how much more of a ninja they are than you, thirdly, Gadbois has been confirmed since we have reconnoitered since your last post, fourthly, I am so happy for you and Bailey cuz I love you both dearly and finally/fifthly, don't fall back on the return of the dynamic duo!
OH yeah and thanks for getting me addicted to a stupid tv show, I may yet be able to purge the desire to watch it!

Mathieu I'm sorry I haven't come out to shred lately, I always mean to but then life stuff get's in the way. My schedule allows me to be free during the week during the day so if I can get my act together this week we will have a session.

And to everyone else who may or may not care, I still play footbag at least twice a week and my consistency is increasing and it still looks damn good when my blades slice the air, gently caressing the footysack with the turbulence they produce.

edit: kickass will be AWESOME
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Laroche
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Post by Laroche »

:(

Mathieu, I'm sorry, I had kind of a wild night Saturday and it just completely slipped my mind! This is a public apology, I very much appreciate your calls/e-mails to go kick and vow to do better! I've been on a roll with forgetting things lately, I gotta do like Ford and focus some more.

Anyway I'm at work, better make like Top Gun and jet! *zzzziiiingggggg*
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Laroche
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Post by Laroche »

Another week of straight 40+ (reaad: ~110f) weather, how the fuck am I supposed to play in this kind of heat?
Nicholas Laroche
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abstract
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Post by abstract »

this blog is straight awesome.

congratulations, nick & bailey. :) it will be awesome to hang out with you two again.

james, you had me at pixie doof.

mat, you are a tornado of footbag enthusiasm. i advise everyone in the montreal vicinity to grab a hold of his hat brim & take a joyride into the eye of the storm.
greg raymond, kingston

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"What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a solid gold baby? Maybe we'll never know." - Jack Handey
skankin
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Post by skankin »

anyone gonna be at tam-tams this weekend? i might drop by
i even have brand spanking new lavers math
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Dio
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Post by Dio »

MathieuGM wrote: -3 new moves : Matador, twirl and flux.
:o awesome man! Totally badass moves. Go for matador->twirl->flux! :D We gotta' work on nuclear sets together at Kickass, mine are so inconsistent.
MathieuGM wrote: I got an HD camera for my birhday, you guys will probably see some videos of me in a near future :).
BRING TO KICKASS?! 8)
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Colin
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Post by Colin »

skankin wrote:anyone gonna be at tam-tams this weekend? i might drop by
i even have brand spanking new lavers math
jean-philippe
I'll be there around 2. I think Seb was planning to be there too. Maybe not much more than that because some people are going to funtastics.
Colin Kennedy
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