Nick "Houdini" Polini

[sen]

That's some great whirl stuff on your flip! Inspires me to work on my flip whirls. So, you know, I could hit a flip whirl...

Edit: Crap, wasted the first post of the page.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Lol Thanks Tony.

So I just had a session with Corey Gerges. It's been a while since we'd kicked together, but we had an AWESOME session. Corey hit Sailing toe! Also, Ripwalk bs (1st time bs), Spinning clipper (3rd time, footed it a few times on flip), ducking op clipper b2b (first time b2b). We were both stoked on his accomplishments.

I had an amazing session. I really surprised myself this time...

Immense list of highlights which I am super-stoked upon each one!:

Stepping Knee Bump> Far Whirl!
Pimpin' (Pixie Knee Bump) Far Whirl
Stepping Ducking Knee Bump> Far Whirl!!!!
Inward Gyro Mirage bs!!!
Gyro Blender!!!
Flipside Fairy op Whirl!
Strongside Pixie op Whirl!
Maelstrom!!!!!!!!! New 6 ADD!!!!!!
Flipside Pdx Drifter!!!!!!!!!!! I've been chasing that for SOOO long. Finally!!!!
CLEAN Ghost bs!
Swirling Pdx Mirage!!!!!!!!!
Furnace
Dragonstein
Flipside Ripstein!!!!! (7th hit)
Pdx Mirage> Toe Whirl rpt
Ended the session in the best way possible... I hit Double Pickup> Toe Whirl on my flipside!!!!!!! I was trying to hit this a few sessions ago, if you recall (

Double Pickup> Toe Whirl ALMOST bs (I still need to work on my flip toe whirls, but I dexed it on flipside tonight. SO CLOSE. I'll work on them, then try again)

) Oh man that felt good to come back to that and feel totally confident in it.

Going to my RV tomorrow where I'll be meeting up with Ryan Straub, (hopefully) Tim Harper & Josh Harper, and I'm going to contact a few others from around there. Looking forward to it. I just can't escape the footbag... not that I'd ever want to Oh man, looking at those highlights, I'm so amped up! That is what I want my posts looking like from now on. That would be ideal.

[PoisonTaffy]

I always feel so dumb when I need to google trick nick names, and I had to goolge half your highlights.. Sick stuff, and you also sound like a gifted teacher! Are you considering worlds?

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

good stuff. swirling far shit is tough.

whats ghost?

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Roy: Thanks for the compliment dude! And no, unfortunately, no worlds for me this year :\ I'm only a little college student and don't got no monies. It'd be great to meet you sometime in the future.

Kevin: Thanks man! Ghost = Whirling Rake. It's nice to finally be able to nab them bs though. I'm gonna school swirls more soon. I love swirls. Swirling and spinning are by far my favorite elements of footbag... And swirling spinning is even better.

Just had a short session with Jackson... He hit Smear> Ducking Mirage. Pretty tight.

Highlights:

Barrage> Toe Whirl bs
Schmoe> Toe Whirl bs
Spinning Pdx Mirage> Toe Whirl bs
Gyro Mirage> Toe Whirl bs
Smear> Toe Whirl bs
Spinning Dragonflyer> Whirl
Pdx Dragonflyer> Whirl
Ripwalk> Ripwalk> Pdx Whirl> run
Ripstein> Pdx Mirage> Toe Whirl (Flipside Swirl> Pdx Mirage> Toe Whirl, since I can't pull out a flip ripstein all of the time :\ But that's good enough right now I think)
Dustpan> Toe Whirl

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot, while I was at my grandma's yesterday for my birthday party dinner thing, I took my Dad's size-too-big Crocs and went to the driveway and hit a guiltless string with toe whirl bsos. I do not recommend Crocs as an alternate shred shoe...

Heading up to the RV with Jackson tonight and we're meeting up with Ryan, Tim, and Josh tomorrow to have a shred.

And a new thing, sometime in the future, my mom and my neighbor (Jackson's mom) want to close our whole road and host a footbag jam/block party thing for the weekend, in honor of Jackson's highschool graduation and my birthday. Who would be interested in coming? I live in Mont Clare, PA. Time and dates are not set up yet, but let me know if you would consider making the trip.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

The camper this weekend was sick. We organized a pretty massive mini-jam in Bumblefuck, Harrisburgh. The players were Tim Harper, Josh Harper, Derick Gooderham, Ryan Straub, Jackson Raap, my Dad, and myself. Total blast this weekend and apparently I stored up all the fun in my legs because my legs are madd FUNcked up. I hit a lot of new stuffs...

Highlights:

Whirlygig!!! My 6th 6 ADD! My first one was so much cleaner than the one in this video, but this is all I have for the time being. I'll tape it clean soon.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6X21zfKeNo[/youtube]

Blurry Whirl first try with a broken lighter I found on the ground
Flipside Blurry Whirl
Flipside Ripstein (8th hit)
Flipside Mobius
Spinning Gyro Mirage!
Blurry Whirl & Mobius in the same run
Dimwalk> Blurry Whirl
Longest DENSE guiltless runs I've ever hit. So pumped about that..
Pdx Whirl> Pdx Whirl!!!! FINALLY!!! I hit the link twice
Flipside Symposium Whirl!!!! First time hit.
Symposium Whirl BSOS!!!
Symposium Whirl> Swirl bs
Symposium Whirl> Whirl bs
Pdx Blender twice! (More than I've hit in one day lol)
Stepping ss Whirl
Flipside Tomahawk!!!!! First hit on flipside! Inspired by John Goode!
Tomahawk BSOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ...so I was all like FUCK YEAH.


In non-footbag news, I was helping my grandma out in her yard and there were 2 chipmunks chasing eachother around next to the pool. I was mesmerized by them. Then the one chased the other real close to the pool, then PLOP. He fell in. It didn't phase him at all, it seemed, because as soon as he fell in, he just started swimming along the wall, trying to get out. I examined the pool and saw that there was no exit for this little feller, so I walked down to where he was, put the pool skimmer underneath him, brought him next to the edge, and there he went, VOOP! Dashing off into the woods, soaking wet. So cute. It felt great to save a life today.

Oh and I recently decided, I'm going to be a "Choicatarian"... Which means, I'm going to be a vegetarian for the most part, but if someone offers me meat, I'm not going to turn it down. I'm basically going to avoid meat as much as I can and stick with vegetables and other healthy doo dads. Yes, I'm doing this for footbag

Legs hurt, so no footbag today. Probably going to play tomorrow though, depending on how my legs feel by then.

[teh120793]

Awesome new tricks Nick, and That's cool you're becoming a vegetarian. Did you know that I am a Vegetarian? No meat for 6 years, but I'm not a vegan, so I still eat dairy products and eggs, but no poultry or fish. Thanks for having Josh, Derek and I at the campsite. We had so much fun, and I am down to come anytime you're there.

Tim

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yo Tim! Thanks for coming up this weekend! I had a great time. We've gotta do it again sometime. I had no idea you were a vegetarian. Props dude. It's not too hard, I'm going on 2 days strong now. Hope to meet up with you soon! (NYFA?)


Today I had a great shred with Corey and Jackson. Jackson finally hit Stepping op Osis! Corey hit Swerve and Stepping ss Clipper! I had a great burst of new big tricks!

Highlights:

Hurl!!! (Nuke ss Whirl)
Figured out the secret behind stepping ducking! Hit Ripped bs one after the other with hand catch in between.
Symposium Whirling Swirl!!!!
Twirl bs (first time CLEAN on flip)
Alpine Swerve
Flipside Swerve
Blind Ripwalk (we challenged eachother to a blind trick competition)
Flipside Nuclear set (Pretty good one, gotta work on it more)
Hit Food Processor 4 or 5 times! It's getting way easier!

Tricks that I footed

Gauntlet
Flipside Pixie Muted Swirl
Locomotion (If I would have cranked just a little bit more, I would have had it!)
Motion Sickness (Same deal with this one)
Mothra (Nuke Butterfly Kick... I kicked it but I planted too fast so I didn't want to say I actually hit it.)

When I came home, my parents had company over. The one guy they introduced me to right off the bat. "Nick, this is Chris, he used to footbag when he was in college..." CONVERSATION: ENGAGE. AWESOME dude. He was telling me about the Sipa Sipa bags he and his buddies used to kick, and he told me that at his college, they used to hold competitions frat vs frat. They would have 2 circles in the courtyard, each circle was filled with representatives of that frat house. They would kick the bag to each other until someone dropped. There were ten rounds and the winner frat house was the circle that had the highest number of kicks. Oh ad Chris said that his 15 year old son played hack. Then after we talked, they asked me to demonstrate footbag for them. They really liked it. I showed them 1-6 adds and a guiltless string at the end. I actually hit the Food Processor for the 6 adds! First time I hit that for an audience. Before they left, I wrote down some websites for Chris's son to visit (Modified being one of them), so hopefully we've got ourselves a new freestyler. We'll wait and see...

Early day tomorrow, night all.

Edit: Video from my internship to Canada is up... This is the footbag part I didn't have any great strings so pay no attention to my game in this vid. I hate the strings I hit in this. Yeck. Cassy and Nathan ripped it up though. The lack of good footage in this video is probably why I've been playing so hard lately.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_4DjjNZHdc[/youtube]

[RipWalker]

Loved the footage man! Makes me want to shred so bad! ~heads off to Google search robotic ankle replacements.~

[Jazzkid]

Wow......those are some of the sickest highlights of your that I have read...Damn Nick.....your progression is incredible. My only advice is this.....

hitting a new trick is GREAT and rewarding, but linking in and out of the trick will truly tighten it up....hit butterfly>ripped warrior>butterfly, or whirl or dyno which is alot harder.......this will put these tricks in the mix of your already stylish and cool game.....instead of making it the highlight of a run it will just be part of the run.....I am also happy to see you doing food.....if you havent already ( I did it ass backwards) start hitting toe blenders and stepping out of them....try toe blender>p mirage repeat (radek gave me this and it is helping alot with food. I hit gansta party before I could hit p blender on my flip....this is fun when you hit the trick but you want to be able to show it off in your runs....which come from high successful repititions of successful hits and links...... Try to use a 3 add or a 4 add trick to seal and get into ripped warrior...not a hand grab (this is debatable but I find it helps)

also like that you like twirls.......HIT TWIRL>step and you will always have clean twirls.......I started this and was hitting twirl>bw in no time

PEACE

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

good stuff. you should hit like 50 tiltless.

swerve is pretty cool.

nyfa!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hey thanks guys, for the quick little reality check... I've kinda been in the zone of big tricks. They're like Pokemon. Gotcha catch 'em all. Anyway, I've actually been spending a lot of time on my drilling. You'll notice that most of the bigger tricks I've hit are whirl-oriented, that's because I've spent this entire week on whirls and toe whirls. That's just one small aspect for me that is now a lot harder to screw up midstring. I moved onto spinning today. Drilled 100 flipside spinning clippers... And *gulp* you guys are gonna hate this video since you called me out on the "hitting big tricks when I'm not ready for it" thing (but you guys are so right)

Highlights:

2 Dream Tricks I hit today... Gyro Double Pickup and Gyro Barrage
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKilWmJ-WQU[/youtube]
I learned Paradon finally! I hit it like 10 times today on strong side only, no problem at all.
Reaper (4th time?) (tried it flipside and almost had the dex, soon though)
Also footed flipside Motion. That will be there soon, hopefully.

Session with Bob and jackson tonight at 7...

[Jazzkid]

WOW......that double pickup looks great.....and so does gyro barrage...SICK SICK NICK!

just a thought.....I completely understand the feeling of chasing all the big tricks you want....Hitting a big trick give a feeling that only motivates me to push my game even harder......I dont want you to think that I am telling you not to go after them....just remember to hit them again and again if you want to use them.....I hit swirling spinning ducking butterfly almost a year before actually hitting it again, but it motivated me to put swirling spinning in my game. i hit swirling mobius a year before I could hit it consistantly.....its like I went after almost everything and then decided what to go back and drill...there are pros and cons to this....I ve hit gangta party but now im drilling far blenders because I actually want to hit it again and in the middle of my runs.....its taking me a while beacuse of my lack of building on the fundamentals but it gave me a goal to work towards.....When I first hit ripped warrior I tried for two hours to get it then hit it ....it took me 2 years to bsos that damn trick.....but I wanted it so bad.......

your game is exploding and you are searching through all the tricks...that fine....because when you decide which ones you want to master you will go after those again and again and again .......

Cheers to you

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yo Mark, thanks man. That was pretty gosh damn enlightening. I didn't exactly understand what I've been doing, sort of hitting big tricks left and right with no intent of using them in my game really.. Maybe to try to start a run or something. But now that you told me how you went with big tricks, I totally get it. I didn't really realize it before, but I guess I was technically experimenting with big tricks to see which ones I like the best to later use in my game. Symposium Whirling Swirl is by far one of my favorite new big tricks. That trick is so fun, plus I already really enjoyed whirling swirl before hitting that. Anyway, Yeah, I'm doing just what you said. Thanks for helping realize that.

And along with what you and Kevin were saying, that I'm going bigger than I should right now, that really snapped my head into gear and at the session with Bob tonight, I actually combined your's and Kevin's suggestions and I'm going to shred guiltless unless I have to guilt and bail to a 2 add, but the majority, I will try to keep guiltless. Bob filled me in on some valuable information tonight... Nate Linscott and Lon Smith were asked how they got so good, and they both replied... by learning how to not drop the bag. My strings were SO much longer tonight. And They were a heavy mix of guiltless with only a few tiltless bails in there, but with that said, I saw a HUGE improvement in my runs tonight. I will definitely be shredding this way from here on out, until I guess I have no need for the few tiltless bails.

I don't really have any highlights for this session actually. And that kind of makes me feel good, because like I said, I just went for string length and that was enough of a highlight for me. Big tricks in mid-run will be down the road, for sure, but for now, I'm gonna train my ass off by keeping the bag off of the ground for as long as I can manage it.

Oh yeah, Jackson ducked his first stepping set!
Bob hit Pigbeater, and had some intense long and dense strings.

To Mark, Kevin, and Bob.... You guys have helped me realize something amazing. Can't thank you enough.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hey me. A package just arrived on my porch. Contents: Quantum 03's, 3 Footfighter footbags. Who's a happy boy... I'm a happy boy. Put the Quantums on and hit a new trick...

Flipside Gyro Whirl! Been waiting for that one

Street performing tonight with Jackson, and Nick P.

Oh shit... This just in... Snack-dinner-thing before I go: Microwavable Sandwich Pocket called "Guiltless Gourmet" OH MY EFF YEAH. Peace.

[C-Fan]

One of the smoother players from the 90s was Greg Nelson. Since this was at the time when pretty much only BAP was going guiltless, and this was a new thing, his nickname was "GF Smoothie," short for "guilt-free smoothie," which was a trend in low fat drinks at the time.

Oh, and thanks for the vid from your time in Canada. Footage of Cassy and Deschamps is so rare, it was fun to see that.

Similar to Mark's comments, here's a challenge which might help you go for longer strings as opposed to single big tricks: every session, go for a string where you count your unique tricks. So each BOP counts as one, and you can repeat them, but you don't get credit for them. Try and keep increasing that number. So if you do a run that's long but is mostly filler, you don't get as many points as if you do a medium run with more challenging stuff in there. Could be fun.

[Jazzkid]

^ ken's ability to do this was and is still inspiring to me.... ....this is a great way to make your strings interesting.....instead of long but with a bunch of repeats.....some times its good to work a trick over and over in a run......when I wanted to get good at blurry whirls I would hit at least 4 or 5 in the same run over and over until it felt easy.....but that is different than having to bop all day long.... this also inspired me to take tricks I knew I could hit and make really really long drills to work on....

Ken has numerous videos of him hitting some damn cool runs that are mostly if not all genuine .....

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Huh, so that's what GF stands for... Go figure. Wouldn't have guessed that. Thanks for the comments Ken and Mark. Glad you liked the video I posted, Ken. Nathan figured out Furious set that day when I said that he should try it since he was so good at symp whirls... The kid foots Janiwalker and fury within the first 2 tries or so. Never tried that set before in his life That kid rips. All of those guys/gal are awesome. We had a really fun session together. Also, thanks for the suggestion, Ken. I'll give that a shot, but I find it hard to shred and count at the same time :\ I have a tough time multi-tasking when numbers are involved. I'll give it a shot though and let you know... I like the idea though. However, after reading Vasek's manual, this is the Summer plan I tend to follow:

Step 1: Hit all of the 1 adds and 2 adds on footbag.org 100 times each side, This should take about 2 days if I really crack down on it...
Step 2: Hit all of the 3 adds I want to use in my game 100 times bs (This might take a few days, maybe weeks, but it needs to be done)
Step 3: Now that I will have a far better basis and much more consistency for my 3 adds, I'll try Ken's suggestion.
Step 4: Hopefully by now I'll be a lot more fluent with my runs and my style, so I'll move on to all the 4 adds I want to use in my game and hit each one 100 times bs (This will take a while......)
Step 5: Try Ken's suggestion with a bigger mix and variety of 3's and 4's... (Practice this for a few weeks).
Step 6: Much stronger guiltless base at this time... Hopefully. So now, I think I'll be taking the concepts and elements I like most and spend a whole week on just that element/concept. I experimented with this while I did whirls for a whole week straight. I found that I was able to hit madd big tricks involving whirl since I had practiced that for an entire week, so at this time (during this step) I feel like I'll finally be ready for 5 adds and maybe some 6's.... maybe.
I think that's all I got for now. I'll be updating my blog saying what step I'm on. I really hope to make it to step 6 before the end of Summer.

On top of that, I've just finished my ultimate masterlist of all of the footbag tricks I have hit so far:

These are all of the 3's and 4's I've ever hit, that I actually want to hit during my runs... I excluded Atomic tricks, and Quantum tricks. I've hit a handful of tricks from each set, but they are painful for me and quite frankly, I'm not a huge fan of how they look. I can hit Nuclear better than Atomic anyway... Totally weird, but I'm not complaining lol.



This is the second part... 5's and 6's.



These are simply dry erase boards with permanent markers so that I'll never lose track of my progress... They took me FOREVER to complete


Awesome players who read my blog and who I look up to a lot (Mark, Bob, Ken, Kevin, J. Goode, Erik, etc...) What do you guys think? Please feel free to make any suggestions about my intended training.

K so now that that's that.... I street performed tonight and PENNSYLVANIA was there too apparently haha. Bob, Jackson, Nick P, Corey... Well, that's it, but it was a great turnout of players. We shredded and hacked it up quite a bit with kids and adults passing by. We had a great time. We might have a new member to our freestyle group here in PA! Really nice kid, totally interested in learning. Was a hacker before we met him, so he has good basics. He's going to join us for Sunday Session in 2 days. Oh yeah and get this, how's this for a BAP name... The kid's name is Sam McMaster hahaha Jesus, I hope he gets good at footbag I'm letting him use a pair of my Quantums on Sunday to get the feel of footbag shoes and I gave him a Mr. Sandbag to practice with.

Anyway, Everyone had a great time. Hacked with lots of people who attended first Friday.

I had a lot of long strings. We turned lot of heads and camera phones were taping us left and right. Totally sick.

Just long strings, like I said, and in the end, I hit Sumo, then to end the session, I hit Hurl and dedicated it to Nick P. He was hyped. Oh and I hit Pixie Torque a few times. That will be a trick I will use in the future. Cakey trick when I get better at Torques.

Taking a break from footbag tomorrow. Night all.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Ok, I know I said I wouldn't play today, but I took care of part of my training... I hit every single 1 add on footbag.org 100 times both sides... 3000 tricks in total.

I started at 2:30 and I finished around 7:00...

Step 1 of Summer training: Half-Way Complete

ATW Kick x100 bs
Clipper Kick x100 bs
Cloud Kick x100 bs
Flying Inside Kick x100 bs
Flying Outside Kick x100 bs
Forehead Delay x100 alternating inside kicks
Frigidosis x100 bs
Head Stall x100 alternating inside kicks
Inside Delay x100 bs
Knee Delay x100 bs
Neck Delay x100
Outside Delay x100 bs
Peak (Hat Brim) Delay (Yeah, I even did this one lol) x100 bs (I felt like Matt Cross )
Shoulder Delay x100 bs
Sole Kick x100 bs
Spinning Clipper x100 bs (Ok, I know that's not a 1 add... But it said "Spin: 1 add" So I turned that into a 3 add. I set my record for consecutive spins on both sides! New Personal Record: Strongside: 15, Weakside: 5 Pretty stoked on that.
Toe Delay x100 bs

Thanks to Bob for suggesting this drill to me. Sunday session is tomorrow. I plan on mainly focussing on those 2 adds...

I feel pretty accomplished right now. Bob said that this drill will sneak up on me but I will notice it eventually. I already feel like it's helped my flipside a lot. I can honestly say I've never hit more than 1 or 2 of a lot of those tricks. I enjoyed this drill. I am grateful for what this drill has showed me. Vděčnost...

[Corey]

Props for not commiting suicide. Monster? Dragon Kick?