Ivan I's Footblog

[isirc10]

Hey, its past midnight and you don't want to study for a thermo-fluids exam tomorrow? Go post on Modified!

Anyway, had some decent sessions lately with our club, which has welcomed some new players (their dedication is so refreshing that it makes me want to kick as well). Got my atomic set out of the gutter and gave it a good shakedown and hit some cool stuff. Been working on my flip stepping more, its catching up nicely. Hit my first quantum sets, then promptly forgot how to do them, gonna have to fix that. Stitched a crapload of footbags. Working on whirl, osis, drifter and stringing some of my new tricks into decent runs. Pdx mirage is starting to work like clockwork and pdx illusion is becoming a joy to hit. After hating butterfly and clippers in general, I literally can't have a run without incorporating these tricks. There is hope for me yet.
Highlights:

Atomsmasher (this time much better than the first time I hit it a couple of months back)
Omelette
Atomic far osis
Stepping far osis
Stepping ss osis

I wonder how playing footbag disturbs the airflow around us? Anyone try to hit something in a wind tunnel? I think it would be cool to see Anssi's or Jay's legs shedding vortexes as they dexed. Anyway, enough of this. Back to studying.

[isirc10]

Been kicking more these past 2 weeks.
Atomsmasher (flip side)
Atomic far legover (both sides)
Atomic far pickup (both sides)
Atomic same legover
Ducking clipper (both sides)

Yeah, so atomics are picking up on both sides (my first set that is more-or-less equal on both sides from the start) and I finally stopped caring how retarded I looked in my early efforts to do ducking tricks and hit some ducks from toe and clipper on both sides. Also got close to ducking butterfly and ducking legover within 15 minutes of hitting my first ducks. Its times like these when I am really thankful for having my teachers (nick and nate) reinforce the importance of getting basics down. As I add harder sets to my game, the basics allow me to hit a wide variety of tricks within a session of getting the set down. In other news, I still can't seem to figure out whirl, and have gotten close to hitting a crappy nuke set. Also, spring break is coming up. I know I won't be able to motivate myself to kick over break, so yeah. Whatever. Between hitting new tricks and drilling (butterflies, oh my god I have hit so many of them this month) I think I have made significant progress to take a week long break. Also sent a bag out to Jaust for a trade - his should be coming this week so I am excited about that.
Over and out.

[CIC flurry]

Is the test about the thermodynamics of fluids or two classes/subjects?

[isirc10]

Its a combined intro to Thermodynamics and Fluid mechanics so I call it thermo-fluids (thermo the first half, fluids the second). I will be taking more in depth courses on both of the subjects in my next few semesters so this intro class is in my schedule as a last second reality check for those who wish to be aerospace engineers.

Just had a drill session with my new bag - man this thing is nice! Still a bit bouncy (I am used to more dense lead filler) but it sits pretty well and should be like butter within a week or two. Awesome!

Didn't hit anything of note during the session, just butterflies, osis, some ducks, and failed at whirls and swirls.

[isirc10]

Had a fun week of footbag recently with David Beyers visiting the PSU club and shredding with us for a bit. I have been learning at least one new trick every session and getting longer and longer strings for the past month or so, and I am quite optimistic about footbag now. Some highlights of the past few sessions:

WHIRL! (thanks boatz!)
PIXIES! (thanks Nate! -flip side needs a lot of work though)
Smear
Magellan
Pixie clipper & Pixie SS clipper
PLO
Dimwalk
Parkwalk
Leg beater
Sidewalk
blur > atomsmasher
dimwalk > sidewalk
atomsmasher > atomsmasher

My runs have changed significantly now, as I hit more butterflies than I do clippers or toe bails. Stepping is feeling more comfortable mid run and atomics usually end my string (aka need more practice). Hitting a lot more pdx mirage/illusions in my strings as well. Trying to incorporate more osis, but its proving to be an unreliable beast. Sidewalk is on lockdown after one session trying it - absolutely love that trick! Still love my 10-15 contact tiltless strings, but am getting better at stringing harder tricks into them as well. Overall, a good time to be footbagging. If only it would stop snowing in State College... I want to play outside so badly!

[skankin]

hey man i dont know you, but you better tell you crew to be at Boston next week of im coming for ya!!!!!!!!

[isirc10]

Been playing 3-4 times a week now. Hitting strings with 15-20 contacts now fairly consistently, mosty 2s and 3s but with a few 4s in there. Stopped caring about how many adds the tricks I hit in my strings are, just looking for length at this point. Also got some cool tricks recently:

whirl
dragon (hellz yeah!)

Almost hit stepping ss dragon and atomic far dragon as well. Fun times.

[isirc10]

Another short post - had a session Saturday, kicked at a local Relay For Life walk/thing. Every string was 10-15 contacts at least, all tiltless (alright, I may have had a 3-5 toe bails that entire session). Hit a 42 contact tiltless string to end the session with atomsmasher, flip blur, blizzard, and omelette and dropped on sidewalk. Couldn't breathe or stand for at least 5 minutes after that one. Then rode home and just laid on my bed for a good 10 minutes.

PSU jamps is coming up this week and I can't wait. In the mean time, I have been stitching up a storm:

[boats]

holy jesus, those bags look tight!

[isirc10]

Thanks dude! Hope yours is treatin you well.

[isirc10]

Can't possibly describe how awesome PSU Jam was so I won't.

Hit some stuff recently:
PS Illusion
Symp Bubba

Then Nick and Nate tried to teach me torque which I footed a few times and decided my osis sucked. Drilled that for an hour or two till I got 200 Osis on both sides. If you want to know which muscles are used for osis, ask me tomorrow when I can't get out of bed and I can point them out. Over and out!

[C-Fan]

Can't possibly describe how awesome PSU Jam was so I won't.

Boooooo.

Then Nick and Nate tried to teach me torque which I footed a few times and decided my osis sucked.

Yeah, I remember it took me a long time to realize that weak osis was preventing me from mastering a slew of moves I liked. Props on figuring this out early, instead of chasing torque without doing the osis work.

[isirc10]

Haha, Ken. Go look at the tournament thread - people there have described it perfectly!

I am done with school (for the summer) and look to play more footbag. Played a few sessions with Nick and Nate before their graduation and had some cool stuff:
All kinds of whirls from random sets
pdx whirl BSOS
DATW BSOS
Double Orbit

I should probably revisit my double down game soon as double dexes are popping up fairly regularly in my strings. Also, whirl feels awesome!

[isirc10]

Well, summer is in full swing and that means footbag, right? Well, almost.

I am interning at a small electronics company that has 8 employees. I absolutely love the work I do and the atmosphere there, everyone is very helpful and friendly and they immediately took me in and got me started on really cool projects. The pay is quite good as well, but the hours are terrible - lots of overtime (the company is small, the projects they do are awesome, but they just don't fit into a 40 hour work week). That means that I play footbag only once or twice a week in the evening when it isn't blasting heat outside. Most of those sessions are drilling basics, which I need to do if I want to become a guiltless player.

Oh yeah, did I mention I went to Nick's graduation party/jam? Yeah, it was fantastic! It was the most fun I had at a party (and I only played about 3 hours of footbag while I was there) The turnout was fantastic - it rivaled last year's East Coasts Champs - and the extracurriculars were fantastic (night time kayaking, swimming in the Perkiomen creek, foursquare, you name it, we had it) I just wish there were more events like this.

Between now and then I have hit some stuff worthy of recording:
Atomic Dragon
Dyno (both sides)
Blender
Torque (BSOS baby!)
Atomic SS Butterfly
Double over down
Symp atomic far pickup
Gyro clipper

[isirc10]

Well, with worlds coming up, all of my friends have been killing it and hitting sweet tricks getting ready - and I cannot go. No lofty goals for me, right?

Possibly. Recently, my footbag time had fallen by the wayside. It has been hot outside, and while I still run my miles, I don't kick as much after completing the runs. Today, I figured I should get back into the swing of things after about a week of not playing. I had also gotten a nice pair of shorts that I wanted to try out. The first hour of the session was utter shit - obviously. I can't expect to get good by not playing a week. Then I randomly tried a weak side atomic set in the middle of a run (all of my runs were essentially 2-3 tricks and then a drop) and I actually cleared the set and let the bag drop out of surprise. I had done nothing (in my mind) to get that set any good and yet my flip atomics were as good as my strong set all of a sudden. I spent the next thirty minutes hitting atomic tricks on my flipside.
Legbeater (filpside)
Atomic SS butterfly (flipside)
Atomsmasher (BSOS)
Omelette (BSOS)

Then I took out a list of tricks I had written down (I write down tricks when I randomly think out their motions in the middle of the day or when I am in the shower so I can try them later to see how close I can get to hitting them) and got some very unexpected results:
Butterfly reverse swirl (2nd try, no idea how the hell I did that, but it was easier than a plain reverse swirl because I had more room)
Illusioning osis (like torque but with an illusion instead of a mirage - need to hit this flipside soon)
Illusioning clipper (like drifter, but with an illusion - I STILL CAN'T HIT DRIFTER AND IT PISSES ME OFF)

UHHH...... wow. The last three tricks blew my mind because I couldn't anticipate hitting them and yet it happened pretty easily. I am very happy with my flip atomic set - I seriously thought I was dreaming at one point when I was hitting those tricks flipside. But I obviously can't be dreaming because I never type in my dreams. Oh, and butterfly reverse swirls are my favorite trick now. Seriously. It feels quick and powerful like an atomsmasher but getting the timing right on the Rswirl just feels so fantastic. So much fun to hit.

I may not be going to worlds, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't get better at hacky sack this summer. That's all folks.

[Nathan]

vids of last three, please? those are great tricks. dunno if i have ever hit butterfly rev swirl.

[isirc10]

Will kick this weekend, will try to get some decent video to post.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

That's ridiculous dude. I can't believe the Butterfly Reverse Swirl.. Absolutely blew my mind man. As for Flux (Reverse Torque) and Grifter (Reverse Drifter), well, they don't surprise me as much but they are still huge tricks and great ones to have under your belt. I can see you getting good at all 3. And props on all the atomic tricks. You're surely putting your arsenal together and it's gonna be sick once you've loaded everything up. Video soon. Well... We should actually just kick sometime soon.

Also, Nate has never hit Butterfly Rev Swirl, but I have.. and I have never hit Grifter but he has. How does it feel to have a few tricks that your teachers haven't hit yet?

If you're bored and feel experimental, you could try Legbreaker (Symp Atomic Butterfly) and Bonefucker (Symp Atomic Mirage) Just kidding, that's not the right name for symp atomic mirage, but it sounds great

Also, hit Butterfly Swirl, it's way easier than butter reverse swirl haha

A few things I'd like to see you hit that will really improve your game though:

-Legbeater> Swirl bs
-Legbeater> Reverse Swirl bs
-Legbeater> Stepping ss Clipper bs
-Legbeater> Stepping ss Mirage/Illusion *rpt (Practice this and your game will really start to explode)
-Atomsmasher> Smear bs

...Holy shit, you're gonna hit Rubberman soon.

[boyle]

Butterfly rev swirl is a fun trick. I have hit dimwalk rev swirl...maybe just once, but that was one of the best tricks I have done. Sounds like you're really stepping up a notch! Nice work.

[isirc10]

Thanks for the comments guys!

Nick, if you can tell me what rubberman is (list of tricks in order) I might make that a summer goal.
I kicked today for 20 minutes after my run, didn't have time to hit much or film anything significant, although I did get a few shots of butterfly rev swirl - I could definitely have a more upright posture and my swirl could be smaller. That would keep me from ricking back on my heel. Any other tips?
http://s215.photobucket.com/user/ISIRC1 ... a.mp4.html