TMNT Have Nothing On This Shredder

[Derek]

Holy Fuckin' Vagina-Testicles Aquaman!

Pushed myself quite a bit today towards the end of my session, shizz got intense. Besides when I worked solely on Clipper BSOS crap, I was averaging at least 10 contacts before a drop. I honestly love drops. I mean it would be nice to not drop as much. But every drop is just a fresh start at something, you get to breathe and process what you actually did, then you can think of new combos and strings to hit. I don't really like hand catches, unless I'm just aiming for one move or a new back-to-back combo and even then I hardly do it. Ended up bustin' a lot more 3 Add stuff than I probably should, but everything was just falling ever so nicely. I can officially say that I have both Clippers down quite well, as soon as I can Duck on my Flipside, all will be well in the cosmos. From the get go I knew it was going to be a pretty epic sesh cause I kicked entirely through the first two songs, end then busted toe stalls for a whole song as well. Insides weren't pretty, but the Clippers were. I am beginning to feel like I am one with the sack.

Highlights:
-Butterfly back-to-back!!!!!(Starting from strong, was only able to Butterfly >Clipper starting from Flip)
-Clipper >Ducking Switch >Mirage >Pick-Up >Clipper >Ducking Switch >Illusion >Hand Catch(had a few, which is rare)
-Clipper >Ducking Paradox Mirage >op Clipper >SS Switch >Mirage >Illusion >Pick-Up >Drop
-Pixie Clipper >Switch >Illusion >Hand Catch
-Clipper >Paradox Mirage >op Clipper >Paradox Mirage >op Clipper >Paradox Mirage >op Clipper >Paradox Mirage
-Toe Ducking Switch >Toe Ducking Switch
-Super String:
Pick-Up >Mirage >Pick-Up >Mirage >Illusion >Switch >Illusion >Switch >Illusion >ATW >ATW >ss Mirage >ATW >Orbit >ss Mirage >ss Illusion >ss Illusion >Clipper >op Clipper >ss Pick-Up >Clipper >Illusion >Mirage >Mirage >Illusion >Switch >Illusion >Illusion >ss Illusion attempt(DROP)

I would like to add that I tried Ducking Switch from Clipper a total of 5 times and hit it everytime. Tried Ducking Paradox Mirage 4 times and hit it 3 times(twice really clean), and every attempt of Pixie Clipper was successful(3).

Edit:I am going to start saying what bag I used in the session. This sesh, Pipenberg's purple and green beauty.

[Derek]

My Spine Is Mad At Me A Wee Bit

Was not feeling the session at all yesterday, have no clue why either cause I was PUMPED. Kicking was fine, but I could not get past 40 consecutive alternating toe stalls, which brought me down. And my insides were pretty horrendous, wasn't even able to break 20. Clippers were pretty good actually, able to max out 7 on my strong, and 5 Flip. Clip >op Clip was definitely not my friend, usually I can hit on my first few attempts, but not this time. Wasn't able to hit it forever till I finally hit Clip >op Clip x2, then quickly moved on. Spent a bit too much time working Clipper this session, and didn't end up getting to get down a lot of my Tiltless for the toes. Not completely the Clippers' fault, Pixie's started taking over the session quick. Started off by practicing alternating Pixie op Toe's, was able to get up to 20 contacts in one string. It was so hard not to finish with at least a Leg-Over, which I am hoping is a good thing. Then after that it was Pixie's for the rest of the session. It was an impressive, un-impressive shred. I think I need to learn when to stop playing, my sessions usually last an hour, but lately they have been like an hour and a half. I just get so excited to play, and never want to stop, cause it's usually the highlight of my day, so I push it. Ended up taking today off just to be sure that my back will be fine for tomorrow.

Highlights:
-Flip Pixie Illusion
-Flip Paradox Illusion(Can't remember if I already hit it)
-Paradox Miraging Switch
-Pixie ss Illusion(Took me ages to hit it just once, ages I say)
-PLO >PLO >PLO >PLO >PLO (Could not for the life of me, hit that 6th one)
-Smear >PLO >Smear >PLO >Paste
-Paste >Paste
-Smear >Paste >Smear >Paste
-Illusioning Switch

Used the good ol' Bear Bag. It had been too long. Next session I am going to focus more on Illusions and Pick-Ups, time to get out of the comfort zone.

[crazydwarf]

Great to see your still kicking Derek. Any plans on coming down anytime soon?

Good work on the clippers. Pixie op toe is for sure a weird trick. Glad to see your pixies are coming along. PLO * 5 is a good basis for toe shuffle. Same with smear > plo * 4.

That's to bad your back is hurting. Is it from footbag or something else? Any idea what your legover > legover or pickup > pickup record is? Those are great drills for a toe player.

[Derek]

I am going to pop down as soon as I possibly can. I probably will only be able to shoot down on the weekend due to schoolin', but these past few weekends have been hectic. My fingers are crossed for the next couple of weekends(20th,27th), but my Aunt is very sick. Thanks man, been bustin' my ass off on 'em. It really is, I know it's good practice for Pixies, but I probably won't do it too much. What exactly is toe shuffle? I've seen people use it quite a bit, and never really found the urge to look it up. I'm pretty sure it's from footbag. I think it's cause of the Clippers, I'm already a bit of a huncher, and something about Clippers makes me dip down even lower. Before, it was really bad, but now it's just an annoyance(hoping because I am perfecting my form). I haven't counted my consecutive stuff in a while, but last time I did, Leg-overs were at 35, and Pick-Ups were at 20. I do know that I have hit Mirage >Leg-Over up to 52 contacts.

[rjadamson]

I believe shuffle refers to runs of tricks with uptime and downtime components. If it has a set (predominantly open, shut, atomic, and quantum for toe shuffle) followed by another downtime trick it qualifies.

It sounds like you are ready to start incorporating more sets into your toe game. I personally consider quantum the hardest of the most common toe sets, but maybe your strength in open sets would lend itself to quantum sets too. How about getting a feel for it? Once you can start clearing the sets themselves perhaps you could start beginning strings with tripwalk or toe blur. Of course any other set would spice things up. Because shut is essentially the opposite of open it would make for great contrast.

[crazydwarf]

Yeah as Reilley says, shuffle is doing tricks with a dex on the way up and a dex on the way down. So for me my standard shuffle is ripwalk>ripwalk rpt or ripwalk>sidewalk rpt or something like that. Toe shuffle is just shuffle done on the toe so your PLO rpt is shuffle.

I also used to hunch and had a sore back sometimes. Never actually injured just sore. If that's the kind of pain your feeling I would suggest stretching out your hamstrings a ton. A lot of my pain was from super tight hamstrings pulling on my back muscles. It sounds like yours might be more serious then just soreness though. I also used to play hunched over and have since corrected it quite a bit (still far from perfect). If you take a session or two to really work on it it will help a lot.

Hopefully you can come down some weekend soon. It'd be fun to kick with you again!

[Derek]

Reilley: Grazi on the low down. I want to learn other sets, but I still don't feel like I have my Pixies down enough. I have worked on Fairy a wee bit, I have the right idea about it, just can't get the damn bag to not hit my thigh. Probably the next set I plan on learning, cause Quantums are way above my skill set.

Dustin: After reading what you said, and looking up some proper hamstring stretches, I think this is my problem. Cause everytime I tried it on my left side, it would strike up some serious pain, but after stretching I feel way loosey goosey. Most of my stretching was lower back stuff, hopefully this will be a somewhat cure. Otherwise I should probably hit up a doctor. I'll definitely be making a trip down there before Thanksgiving.

Ended up getting down today, it was a pretty average session for me. But after coming home with some back pain again, it's time to take it easy. I plan on not playing till Monday, and once I get back, it's going to be strictly Tiltless. I think I made too quick of a jump from going just Tiltless, to instantly trying to go Guiltless. Now that I have a COMPLETE stretching routine, hopefully things will be better. Ugh.

[Derek]

Let's Agree, You're A Hoe.

So I had a session on Monday like I said. It was nothing special, other than the fact that I used MY very own hand-stitched bag for it. It's a 12 panel penta-bastard, definitely my best work to date. Played about as well as I could hope for. I've come to realize that I'm not the biggest fan of bags with less panels, that or the material I used was just waaay slippery(probably the later). The session all together was nothing amazing, other than my bag survived, it was a below average sesh. Did bust out Ducking op Outsides quite well, hit 5 in a row(I don't think it should be 3 Adds, but do you add the x-bod?). My back felt perfectly fine afterwards, almost wanted to sneak in a second session for the day, but I figured that wouldn't be too smart.

Yesterday, got down with my bag for a little while longer, but finally had to change back to the Pipenberg. Played pretty well, except for my flip Clipper, spent a majority of the time working on that beezy. Doing that kinda killed my energy for the remainder of the sesh, mainly cause it was almost 90 degrees out. But everything on my toes were looking super clean, especially my flip Illusion, only dropped on it about 5 times(Normally it's about triple that). And, a majority of what I hit was actually not Mirage's or Switch's for fucking once. Illusions and Pick-Ups! I actually write that on my arm as to not forget. Pixie op Toe has also become an essential part of my Tiltless-Mania. Probably won't be able to lay down the greatests posts, seeing as I'm not really trying anything new. Tiltless till November is my goal, hopefully I can push it a little longer, but we'll see. Back felt a little beat up, but nothing some good stretching and shocking couldn't help fix. POW!

[Derek]

Trojan Man, Cause Of Too Many Children

Wanted to take a break for today, but I was feeling so good and needed to workout, so I said fuck it. Ususally when I get down at my house, I get down in the backyard, as to not be disturbed. Today though, decided to have a driveway sesh. This was sparked with the arrival of some new STAR footbags that I ordered. Super cheap bags, and not too shabby in general, though I think they are FAR from being broken in. Now, there are constantly about 5 kids skating on my block whenever school isn't in session, and luckily everything seemed clear. Got down to business as usual. Soon after starting, my music began attracting people's attention, and I had an audience of at least 3 people the whole time(didn't realize that they had been there the whole time). The only reason I allowed myself to be distracted by the kids was because I heard one them say, "Look. Dude's good at footbag." The moment I heard them all calling it footbag and not hacky sack, I decided to see who was around. All of these kids were around 8-15, but every single one of them referred to it as footbag, so I had to ask how they knew about footbag. Apparently some pastor at some youth church gets down(circle kicker), and never calls footbag "hacky sack". I must meet this dude, if anything, just to thank him. They all soon started asking the typical questions: How'd you get so good? What is the difference between footbag and hacky sack? Do they have competitions? Are their people better than you? Blah, blah, blah. All of them were pretty rooted in wanting to be skaters, but maybe with time, I can convert all of these non-believers. The only highlight, other than the kids knowing their shit, is I hit flip Clipper set Pick-Up! My Tiltless toe runs are amazing, combo of clipper and toe is pretty decent, but just Clipper game is still pretty horrid. Ducking Outsides, go do them! NOW!

[Derek]

Bop Gun On Blast

Had a session today and yesterday. Yesterday's felt a little better on what I hit overall, but today's was not bad at all. Both were at Crawford Park, and I used my Pipebomb for both as well. Bomb ass sessions, just not really feeling much of a write up, so let the highlights begin.

Highlights:
-Clipper >op Clipper x3(6 total contacts)
-Pixie op Outside >Ducking op Outside >Switch repeat(my favorite drill)
-Illusion >Mirage >Pick-Up repeat x2(12)
-Clipper >Switch >Illusion repeat
-Illusion >Switch >ATW repeat, followed by Mirage >Pick-Up >Orbit repeat
-Clipper >ss Pick-Up >Illusion >ss Mirage >Pixie op Toe repeat
-Switch >Switch for 32 contacts
-Pick-Up >Pick-Up for 25 contacts
-Clipper >Pick-Up repeat
-Clipper >Illusion repeat x2(4)

I always have a bunch of random long runs, but I can never remember what I hit past like 15 touches. Too bad too, cause those happen quite a bit.

[Derek]

Skank Agents

Had to sneak in a session today before the weather goes to shit for a week. Had some pretty long runs happening left and right, except on when I worked for a specefic combo did I not go past 10 contacts. Kicked through a song and a half with no drop, but then I caught it, cause I was ready for toe stalls. Toe stalls were pretty average for me, but my bumps were on fire! Actually took the time to try and remember most of my bigger strings, though I still wish I had video. Was thinkin' of maybe making one while it's rainy, but I also plan on doing some stitching to the max. Body has been keeping up with me quite well, never overly sore or anything anymore. Played 5 out of 7 days this week too, hopefully this Tiltless shizz will work out for the best.

Highlights:
-Pixie op Outside >Ducking op Outside >Switch repeat(Love this drill)
-Clipper >op Clipper >Mirage >Switch >Pick-Up >Illusion >Clipper >op Clipper >Switch >drop
-Mirage >Mirage >ss Mirage >Mirage >Mirage >ss Mirage >Switch >Switch >Switch >Switch >Switch >Switch >Pick-Up >Pick-Up >Pick-Up >Pick-Up >Pick-Up >Pick-Up >Illusion >ATW >Pick-Up >Mirage >ATW >ATW >Illusion >Clipper >ss Pick-Up >drop
-Mirage >ATW >Illusion >Pick-Up > Mirage >ATW >Illusion >Pick-Up >ss Mirage >ss Mirage >ss Mirage >ss Mirage >ss Illusion >ss Illusion >drop
-Mirage >Switch >Mirage >Switch >Clipper >op Clipper >ss Switch >Clipper >Switch >ss Mirage >Clipper >Mirage >Pick-Up >Clipper >Illusion >drop
(Still a couple longer ones I couldn't completely remember)

New Move(kinda):
-Pixie Switch(caught on the Outside though)

[crazydwarf]

Nice! Stanford club had a conversation kinda about this the other day. We decided that getting ~10 contacts of a trick b2b consistently is when you have the trick more or less mastered. After that point it's more about endurance (which is an important skill in it's own right). For example I was recently working pdx whirl b2b and I got to a point where I can average around 10 and Alex pointed out that at that point my drops were because I was out of energy and setting poorer because of it, not because my pdx whirls were bad. So for building endurance long runs are key, for mastering tricks I would say ~10 in a row is what to shoot for.

Great job on the long tiltless runs, it seems like you've built up endurance since I saw you last and also pretty much mastered most of the tiltless tricks.

How do you do on 1/2 tiltless runs? For example...
mirage > pixie legover rpt.
same side butterfly > far legover rpt.

PS. I'm working hard to catch up to you in pixies

[Derek]

Thanks Dustin, endurance is what I am trying to work towards the most, I like being able to play for as long as I can. Still trying to master Clipper, which probably won't happen for some time. It's been a while since I last did anything like that(that's what I'm shooting for once I start to dip back into Guiltless), all the toe stuff I could do, but the Clipper stuff is a killer for me. I plan on making a trip down there on the 3rd, couldn't do the 27th, my mom wants to do something for her B-day, so as long as nothing goes down I shall be there. I'm pretty sure your strong side Pixie is better than mine(read your Blog and challenges, meant to post, but got lazy), and I'm glad to see your flip come along. By the time I get down there, your flip will probably be better than mine.

[Derek]

Building Walls And Burning Bridges

Had like 2 or 3 sessions before today's, but there was nothing really worthy of posting in my eyes. Far too average of sessions with the same ol', same ol'. But today's, definitely has some note worthy shizz. First, I want to start by saying that I almost didn't play today, cause my back is still all funky. Decided to not be a bitch and just go at it, had been feinding for this session, but I wanted be good for the weekend. Addiction comes first though. Played for an hour, so about average length of shreddage time. Still having trouble with Clipper >op Clipper, even though all my other Clipper stuff is somewhat consistent . Used the Bear bag for the other sessions, and the Hania for today.

Highlights:
-ATW >Switch repeat for 50+ contacts!
-Mirage >Pick-Up repeat for 30+ contacts(Was just about to move on, cause I wasn't feeling it, then gave it one more go )

-Switch >Switch >Switch >Switch >Switch >Switch >ATW >Switch >ATW >Switch >ATW >Switch >ATW >Mirage >Switch >ATW >Mirage >Switch >ATW >Mirage >Switch >ATW >Mirage >Switch >Pick-Up >Pick-Up >Pick-Up >Pick-Up >Illusion >Pick-Up >Illusion >Pick-Up >Illusion attempt for drop

-Pixie op Outside >Ducking op Outside >Switch repeat x2(12 contacts)
-Ducking op Outside repeat x4(8 contacts)
-Ducking op Toe repeat x2(4 contacts)
-Clipper >Illusion >Mirage >ATW >Pick-Up repeat(Goal for the day. Hit it twice staring from strong, once from Flip)
-Clipper >Mirage >Clipper >Switch >Mirage >Mirage >Pick-Up repeat

Now I need to shower.

[C-Fan]

I'm going to be in Redding in a couple weeks, and then in Folsom a few weeks after that. Are either of those near you? Not sure what the shred prospects are like at my hotel, but if there's a rec center near either, maybe we could get in a shred? Let me know if interested, or if you think its feasible.

[Derek]

Redding is pushing 3 hours away, and Folsom is pushing an hour. I'd love to get down good sir, but I couldn't really tell you if I could make it for sure until the week of. Whenever that may be, but I'm game for either for now. Holiday times are usually super hectic for me, I have one HUGE ass family. Hope to get down with ya!

[Derek]

Just Two More Days...

Didn't have a Halloween session this year, weather killed it for me. First time I haven't in like 3 years. So I had to play on this beautiful day instead. Everything was feeling pretty top notch, besides Clipper >op Clipper as always. Had a string that had 64 contacts of all Tiltless, couldn't keep track of the moves, so I figured might as well keep track of the touches. It was like the run in the middle of the post that is three above this, just building up more and more as I went on. All on the toes again, tried to Butterfly at the end. Which killed it. My Clipper stuff was a bit less than average, but it still got the job done. Could definitely tell that my endurance has gone up a significant amount, right after the 64 contact run, there was 30+ one. With a 30 second break in between. No highlights for this one, and I used my FuNBaG. Time to stretch out and rest up for Saturday, I plan on breaking the 3's out for Stanford.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL.....

This dude is still playing footbag Great to see how good you're getting dude. Wanna see footage soon! I see some good ass clipper shit in your highlights too. I knew you'd be getting that stuff soon. I started playing again today, after a 10 week break. Thanks for the picture texts of your bags while I was on break, it was comforting to see people didn't forget about me. Hope to see more boss shit in your future posts. Props on all o'dat. Oh and great to know you use my bag still

[Derek]

Totally didn't notice this. I just left you a post. Ha. Thanks man, means a lot! I will get to shootin' whenever my sister gets a charger for her camera. Were your legs feeling more fresh or rusty after a break like that? Not a problem, could never forget a homie. Your bag is all loosey goosey now, and I'm lovin' it. Probably gonna get another over the holidays.

[crazydwarf]

Damn! 64, 30+, 30! That's great! Your stamina must be really getting up there because that's loads better then last time I saw you play. I'll be sure to come up with some cool combos for you to try on Saturday.