Nick "Houdini" Polini

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hey JP, I dunno if I can swing Boston this time :/ No job, no money.

Had a session with George, Ryan, and Nate today OUTSIDE Finally it was nice out. Kind of a trashy session for me though.

Highlights:

I'm most proud of a drill that I hit, which Nate made up for me... Pixie op Osis> Stepping ss Osis> Pdx Mirage rpt.
Gyro Cloud Kick> ss Legover BSOS
Hit Pdx Blender out of Torque bs (sloppy) and Blender bs (also pletty sloppy)

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Can't talk long because Nadiah is waiting for me to come to bed..

Highlights:

BSOS Infinity Swirl
BSOS Toe Butterfly Swirl
Phoenix> Symp Whirling Swirl> run
Dope new concept which I'll be using a lot in the future (I got it from Badassery) It's like clipper> blind inside> walkover ending on frigidosis.. Got a butterfly out of that bs from reg clipper, got stepping ducking cool trick, spinning cool trick, ducking cool trick bs, pixie ss cool trick bs, some other stuff.. Thanks Jorden!
Hit Butterfly Swirl from every surface BS
Dimwalk swirl (new trick)
FLIP WHIRR!!! Hit it twice thanks to Will Digges' tips
BSOS Ripstein, Feels so much better now
DOUBLE BLENDER!!!! Finally. It's been on my to-do list for about 5 years. So happy about this one.

Good night everyone.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Lots of homework this week, so I think today will be my only day to drill. I drilled for about 2 hours today and hit a lot of cool stuff. Probably my most effective drill session ever.

Highlights:

First off, I think I have an invention.. I'm gonna have to film it soon.
Toe Butterfly Swirl BSOS
Pdx Mirage> Toe Butterfly Swirl rpt
Pdx Mirage> DOD BSOS
Far Swirl b2b!!!! I never thought I'd hit this one.
Toe ss Reverse Swirl> Far Swirl BS
Whirling Swirl BSOS!!!!! Stoked I finally got this one, and with ease. Hi, my name is almostbutnotreallyatall Jon Schneider
Pdx Mirage> Toe Far Muted Swirl rpt (Madd steezy this time, no jumping about/shenanigans)
Spinning Swirl BSOS!!!!!!! So then I was like, NAH AH.
Toe ss Symp Swirl BSOS
Pdx Blender> Pdx Blender BS! Oh hai, I'm Evan Gatesman minus 10 Pdx Blenders and all his other cool tricks
Pdx Mirage> Drifter BSOS
Really dense swirly run with like 15 contacts, mostly swirls though

Getting super stoked for PSU Jam! And I wanna not suck this time.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Last minute 10:00 pm session with Nate, Ivan, and Ryan. We got one new guy really interested too. Took his info. anyway, hit some cool stuff...

Highlights:

Spinning Swirl BSOS
Butterfly Swirl> Blender bs
Butterfly Swirl> Reverse Swirl bs
High Plains Drifter got really easy somehow.. was hitting it a lot tonight... not on flip yet.. soon I think.
Whirling Swirl BSOS in a really long run with almost Butterfly Swirl BSOS, footed the last BflySwirl..
Blender> Vortex bs
Whirr midstring
Far Swirl b2b
Flip Gyro Swirl! Never hit it on flip before.

Such a nice night to just ride our bikes up to the IST building and shred.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

The other day, we had a mini session that turned into a 4 square session, because everyone was so tired I drilled a bit during it and had a few ok things..

Highlights:

Gyro Swirl BSOS
Run with Gyro Swirl BSOS & Blender BSOS
Crazy long run with a bunch of DLOs... If you know my game, DLO's are not my strongest 3 add.
On top of that, I hit a bunch of really good Whale Tails bs.. DLO is finally clicking with my legs. I remember watching Bob Reifer NEVER miss a DLO and I was just astounded by it when I was first learning. I felt like Bob the other day.. He actually just texted me this morning and we played catch up for a bit. I miss that guy.
Below is a video of Whirr bs. The first one is a little awful, but the second one looked good.. I can say that because Anz told me so

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQFr5siuKAo

And also check out Nate's awesome freestyle soccer trick. Way cooler than my Whirr

One kinda cool thing that I did to spread the word recently is that I went on Dragonfly footbags facebook and found some random 7th grader kid from Ada, Minnesota who had "I Love Hacky Sack" as his profile picture. I messaged him about freestyle and told him I could teach him through the internet and showed him some convincing footage of Jay in slow motion. He was sold. I have been giving him the Shred Global move vault pages and directing him on what to hit, how many, both sides, all the teachy shit. He's doing really well so far, can hit flying inside bs, and toe stall bs. I told him his first challenge is to get 10 toe stalls b2b. This kid is really into and he actually took up 3 other students 1 of which friend requested me and now I'm teaching them both and I guess they're teaching 2 other kids. I had no idea this would be so successful. If everyone went on dragonfly footbags and spread the word about freestyle and did what I did, imagine how many new freestylers we could have... Because I don't think many of those DF fans know what Freestyle Footbag is.

[C-Fan]

Good work.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hey everyone, been a little while since my last post.. Also we had the Jampionships last weekend! I don't have enough time to do a full write up but I wanted to put in some highlights:

Highlights:

I'll start with some Anton highlights:

-Welcoming Anton 3 days early!
-Anton's car not being towed!
-Taking Anton out herping, and also seeing that weird minnow action going on
-Hunting down what we thought was a frog but turned out to be a reflecting tac in a tree
-Talking with Anton about Wildlife Biology
-Introducing Anton to almost every serious member of our PSU club (He met like 11 guys that day)
-Seeing Anton's amazing improvement since last year
-Teaching Anton how to stitch
-Skipping class to go play Disc Golf for the first time with Ivan and Anton
-Grocery shopping with Anton
-Hanging out with Anton in the apartment, eating, chatting

Now for the tournament highlights:

-Meeting Doug Tank at Nate's early, laughing at his antics
-Being shot in the neck, then face by Doug
-House rule #5: Everyone must teabag Doug
-Matt Kemmer surprise!
-Will Tuttle surprise!
-Seeing and hanging out with Zach Hoffa again!
-Picking up the PSU Crew downtown, showing Anton around with Khoa
-Intense 4 square
-Getting Doug out in 4 square and yelling "Fuck you!" and having him feel very hurt
-Selling all of my bags!
-Getting tips from Matt Kemmer (this helped me more than you know, Matt)
-Matt Cross bringing Ben (one of our noobs) Lavers
-Fire footbag & Fire juggle show with Kevin (PSU Juggling club president) and me
-Give it up for Ryan Thomas! He still shreds hard!
-Just hacky sacking with Ryan Thomas in our circle the first night.. Ryan did clippers and stuff while our PSU noobs were freaking out... Little did they know, this was Ryan Thomas.
-Shredding with Ryan Thomas
-Matt Kemmer telling me that I haven't been doing toe spinning, I have actually been hitting Toe inspinning... then hit toe spinning clipper bs easily
-Matt Kemmer's piano
-Traded a 14 panel I recently stitched for Derek's burger
-Marc Peralta being interviewed for footbag
-Mike Angeski's "Retard Button"
-Nate hitting Nuke Torque just as the bass dropped on a dubstep song during Saturday's shred. Possibly coolest moment of jam.
-Ivan hitting Dragons with Jon Schneider
-Shredding weird with Jon Schneider and Jon being so kind and understanding when it started to snow and being a good sport about it
-George Hayward showing up and hitting some stepping tricks
-Ryan Morris got a cold and sounded like the generic movie narrator
-Khoa put on an awesome FS Soccer demo for everyone
-Slow-Mo tricks for Mikey and Ivan
-Everyone at breakfast trying to throw stuff in Doug Tank’s drink
-Doug got something for breakfast that looked like man-spewmith
-Our breakfast crew at Waffle Shop
-Doug, Ben, Matt K, Anton, John Goode and my mega weird experience at "HOSS'S"...
-Housing those cakes from John and Anton
-Meeting Chrissy
-Corey hitting Flapper> Reverse Swirl
-Ben learning basics in his new Lavers
-Doug Tank still ripping at footbag
-Watching Matt Kemmer and Ryan Thomas shred
-Mike Angeski’s other antics
-Mike Toolan and everything about Mike Toolan, so stoked that guy is trying to go to Worlds
-Devising a plan that Schneider, Toolan, Corey, Zach, and Ben will all meet up this summer and train for Worlds
-Selling all of Jay’s bags for him!
-Talking with Dan Greer about Furious sets, Barflys, and life, in general
-Watching Doug steal Anton’s jello through a straw
-As I was trying to sneakily house some cake off John Goode’s plate, Ben decided that it would be best to create a diversion… by yelling “ACHOOO!!!”.. Not even attempting to sound like a real sneeze
-Matt Kemmer INSISTING that we were going to get kicked out of HOSS’s
-Finding something that looked like a peanut in my burger box… Zach grabbed it, ate it and confirmed that it was indeed a peanut
-Going out to eat with Zach, Nate, Mike T, Corey, and Doug to Baby’s
-Getting most of my fries stolen by Doug at Baby’s
-Stealing the last sip of Doug’s Milkshake.. fuck you, Doug
-Having Doug drop me off and actually talking to him with non-offensive words
-Hearing that Zach bought a dozen eggs and cracked them all for everyone at Nate’s place
-Zach pulled out a little blob of link from his pocket and told me to guess what this one little black thing in the lint blob was… I picked it up and insisted it was a rock.. Zach said it was mouse poop..
-Seeing Zach’s new hairstyle
-Matt Cross’s tips to help the PSU Noobs
-Firebag, in general
-Zach hit Legbeater with the firebag
-The snow on 4/20 didn’t hold up and it got really sunny and warm
-Being bros with Zach again!!!
-The Jam was a great success, in my opinion ☺

Lowlights:
-Sitting in Nate’s back work room by myself for 3 hours because my girlfriend broke up with me on 4/20 (Thanks to everyone who talked to me that night and helped me feel better or talked to me the next day and tried to comfort me (Nate, Matt C, Khoa, Zach, Jim H, Matt K, Doug, Mike A, specifically.. That really helped, thanks guys)
I’m pleased to report that we talked the other day and we’re trying to work things out… she’s currently laying next to me right now and I couldn’t be happier ☺

Trick Highlights:

MOBIUS with flame bag! Coolest.
Long run with Ducking Osis and Pdx Mirage with Fire bag (Anton got it on tape)
Tapping DLO (New trick)
Singularity> Pdx Blender in front of Ryan Thomas & Matt Cross
New form thanks to Matt Kemmer
Circle with Dan Greer, Dan tells me he has trouble with Furious... I say I do too.. then I hit the cleanest Janiwalker I have ever hit, right in front of him..
Then I moved to Mike Toolan and Corey's circle and told them I hit my 4th Jani... then proceed to hit my 5th Jani to a string with PS Whirl and Ripped Warrior
Double down help from John Goode, I actually get them now
Hit a Whale Tail and Matt Kemmer called my name afterward and gave me a thumbs up
Long run with Butterfly Swirl BSOS and BevClickity Whirl


Highlights from a session I just had:

DOD> Barfly bs
Barfly b2b!!!!!!!!! I did this one for John Goode.. Hit it twice
FLIP SCORPIONS TAIL!!!!!!!!
Flip Blurriest!
Gyro Whirling Swirl!!!!!!
Flip Whirling Swirl a bunch of times… I finally understand it.
Spinning Swirl BSOS like peasycakes

Drilling for Worlds, son..

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Little kicking in my livingroom before Calc class:

Highlights:

Motion Sickness in pants
Locomotion (new trick)
Torque> Butterfly rpt 6 contacts (So stoked on this)
Torque> Drifter rpt!!!!! Finally...

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Mini drill session:

Subject: Torques

Highlights:

Torque> Reverse Swirl bs
Torque> Blender bs
Flapper> Torque bs
Torque> Spinning Clipper BSOS
Toe Torque BSOS
Toe Torque> Reverse Swirl bs
Swerve> Toe Torque bs
Both sides (1 of each) of the best Mobii I have ever hit. I actually felt like Matt Kemmer on my strong side, and my weak side felt like my old strong side.. sorta

Excited because I'm about to teach Ivan Torque in like 5 minutes...

I love footbag

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So I need to stop for a few days because I've been playing too many hard sessions lately and my shins hurt a bit, no biggie though, it's not debilitating like last time, just sore. Anyway, our club has been getting crazy big. We have like AT LEAST 9 people at every session now and they can all hit clippers Some of our new guys, specifically Ben and Tom are getting good in a hurry. Tom can string Tiltless toe stuff together pretty ok, and Ben is hitting inside> clipper consistently bs. You'll hear more about them later.

Highlights:

Been whipping out Symp Rake> Torque bs in mid run like it's muh job. Stoked toe Torque got much easier for me. Also been throwing down Symp Whirls midrun BSOS, which feels great.
Witch Doctor bs last night (Only hit each one once time every, this is number 2 on both sides, which felt so much easier than my first ones, which is sick.
New trick: Sunil Walker.. also another Jani... Also had a Really HIGH set for a Fury that I missed the toe stall of :/
New trick: ss Swivel... This feels almost natural. Stoked on these. I felt like Josh Gayhart. Trying it flip once my legs feel better.

Back to studying for finals.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Well, I graduated 2 days ago. Major: Wildlife Science, Minor: Biology. Crazy feeling.

Along with graduating comes leaving my apartment.. which comes with leaving Nate and Ivan..

Ivan left a few days ago, but BSOS'ed Pdx Whirl just before he left. Wtf. He'll be ridiculous, I swear. He and Ryan Morris, and Marc Peralta are living here next year, which is cool because at least ShredHaus won't die. All 3 of them will be guiltless or mostly guiltless by the end of this summer.

Though, on a sadder note, tonight was my last session with Nate. We had a basement session for old times sake. Nate hit Guiltless runs of 40+, 5 times in a row. Those runs also had like bsos 5's and/or 4 adds in them. I feel like Nate will have a really good shot at taking some sort of place at Worlds this year if he keeps this up.

I hit some good stuff too, which I'm pretty pleased with:

Highlights:

Reaper BSOS twice (Never BSOSed it before).. I'll probably school this trick eventually because it's not super difficult.
Gyro Clipper x30ish (wasn't counting.. should have counted, record is 32)
Gyro Clipper> Diving Clipper> Spinning Clipper> Gyro Osis rpt
Gyro Clipper> Spinning Clipper> Spinning Osis rpt (hit this around 5 times)
Spinning Ducking Clipper> Spinning Xbd Rake bs (working this into a drill eventually.. was not happening tonight)
Happiest about this one: Spinning Ducking Clipper> Spinning Ducking Osis rpt (3 times from strong zoom, 2 times from weak zoom). Had to use my best (but still awful) imitation of Matt Kemmer's style to start getting fluent with this one. I feel like this link has really worked itself into my muscle memory and that I'll be able to hit it again next session pretty easily

My flip Dive got pretty decent during this session, which is nice because it was junk beforehand. I also learned today that my spinning ducking was kinda f*lked up before today, because I would always treat stuff, like spinning ducking clipper, as if it was all one trick.. I now know you have to set high and straight, spin quick, then do a ducking clipper/ducking osis/whatever. I think I may have upped my spin duck game a good bit tonight.

I plan on drilling my Diving/Ducking/Spinning/Gyro game until I can do it in my sleep.. A suggestion I should have taken from Bob a long time ago.

[Muffinman]

Sweet.
I haven't been on Modified much lately, but it seems like your game has powered up since I was last following. Video? I'm gonna try gyro clippers next time I play now. Props on the spinning ducking drill especially.

[DTank126]

Nice highlights. Oh and I guess congrats on the whole graduating college thing, or whatever...

But yeah, great jerb! Your like a real life person now.

Oh, and I hate you and hope you get crabs.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Eric, Thanks man I'm glad I inspired you to hit Gyro Clips, drilling them has been working wonders for me. Video will be taken once I drill more for sure..

Doug, Thanks for the kind words, and crabs always sounded fun.


Tonight was an interesting session... In a good way...

I drove out to Kutztown to shred with Corey and Toolan.. I was accompanied by a player who hasn't shredded in 2 years... Jeremy Mellor! It was so good to see him again and shred with him again. We are starting him off on basics right now and I guess I'm his coach right now, just really wanna get him into a proper form and all that. But man, it was good seeing this guys shred again... He tried a few things like Blur, Fairy ss Dyno, Fear, Dimwalk... all of which came back to him pretty naturally. And his legs didn't hurt after the session which is the best part

Toolan was looking sharper than the previous sessions I've had with him. I can tell he's been drilling. We both assigned each other "homework", just like Bob used to do for me :'( I miss Bob, gonna call him up this week. Anyway, Toolan's homework was hit Barfly 100x bs, and Gyro Clipper> Spinning Clipper> Gyro Osis rpt. He gave me Whirling Swirl 100x bs, and Gyro Symp Reverse Swirl> Symp Swirl rpt. Mike also hit a new 6 ADD. Corey's game looks better each time I see him, he hit flipside Pdx Whirl tonight, as well as Ducking Butterfly. I was really happy with what I came up with:

Highlights:

Pixie ss Clipper> DLO rpt
Gyro Symp Reverse Swirl bs (new on both) also really easy, can't believe I never tried this before. Gyro drills have really been helping my game..
Toe ss Twirl bs (New on flip)
Toe ss Twirl> Pdx Mirage rpt
Mike and I both wanted to end the session with a new 6 ADD... Mike hit Pixie Merlin (so sick) and I hit Gyro Swivel (whattttt?!?!?) Wasn't expecting that...
Just because I had to, I hit Toe Symp Swirl> Gyro Mirage rpt with like 10 or so contacts. This felt great.
also, new invention (Corey helped me name it) Flying Dustpan, which I'm calling "Carpet Cleaner"
Barfly BSOS in a good guiltless run

So yeah, pretty boss session. Gave Jeremy some basics to work on to get his form really solid, as well.

Then I found out that Ivan stitched me a severely one-of-a-kind footbag. Just look in the "Bags You Made" forum. You'll puke. It's absolutely beautiful. Ivan is the man. I hit something for him tonight too.

Highlight for Ivan:

Double Around The World BSOS I told him that I sucked at them today and he gave me a tip and it really worked. Ivan BSOSed it the other day. He's gonna get ridiculous if he keeps this up...

And just because I feel like it, I'm listing our club members back home...

Southeast PA Shred:

-Jeremy Mellor
-Jackson Raap
-Corey Gerges (wants to start playing again)
-Ivan Iakimenko
-Ryan Morris
-Drew Krause (wants to kick this summer)
-New guy, Ian Walsh (meeting him soon)

And we'll often be meeting up with Bethlehem club which is Mike Toolan, Corey Hahahalis, and Ben Babyak

And sometimes we plan on meeting up with Jon Schneider and John Goode

And also, Tom Heron, who lives 45 minutes from Bethlehem wants to join us when we meet in Bethlehem.

So we've got quite a bushel of shredders on our hands.

This summer is gonna be fun.

[rjadamson]

Great post. It's cool hearing about the inner workings of probably the most active U.S. club.

But wouldn't open Merlin be a 5-add? I always thought Merlin was a 4-add trick -- 1 add for the miraging dex, 2 adds for the symposium mirage dex, and 1 for the toe catch. The move is equally cool either way, but I think open symposium Merlin would be the 6-add version... right?

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

^well if you consider toe blur a 4 with x-dex merlin is the downtime version of bs symp toe blur so i'd call it a 5...plus its tough to get clean. not sure why i'm talking about adds because they are fucking stupid. i've never seen full merlin before, i woudent be suprised if it's never been done only jorden/jay/good toe2toe players have done it. adds are stupid. word.

was mainly posting here to give props to nick. good on you for playing like you wanna get good. Toolan's drill is dope aswell, i've done gyro symp rev swirl recently and find it mad awkward, would love to see you hit toolans drill and far symp rev swirl>symp swirl rpt.

hopefully cya at yo party.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks for the post, Reilley. Glad you enjoyed reading about our club.

Kev, thanks for the comment dude. And I do wanna get good lol I'm scared to try Toolan's drill, but i'll get to it soon. I'll see you at the Gradionships!

Ok, so I kicked a good bit today with Jackson and solo...

Highlights:

Toe Whirling Swirl... easier than I thought... on strong side
Toe Far Twirl bs (new on both)
Double Reverse Guay> Butterfly rpt (this feels so phat, will work Double Rev Guay into my game. Plus, I think this will inch me closer to getting better at Furious sets. I use my brian!
Sweet string with Gyro Diving Osis BSOS & Spinning Ducking Osis BSOS.. Gyro Diving Osis got a lot easier since I've been drilling Gyro Clippers YAY!
Dope string with Spinning Ducking Butterfly BSOS & Spinning Ducking Osis BSOS
Gyro Twirl bs again, fuck yeah, They might as well rename this trick "NickPolinicandothissometimeswithoutdropping"
Fucking sick drill that surprised the dogshit out of me when I footed the final contact. I'll hit this one tomorrow or the next day.


New guy, Ian Walsh contacted me today and wants to meet up and learn basics soon. Stoked for that.

Also, ECFU! has been established and I've got some sweet ideas to spread the word...

Well before I go into that, our new PSU guy, Ben Babyak (who also lives in Bethlehem) has been talking up footbag to all of his friends.. he now apparently has a handful of friends that can now do basic stalls and want to learn more, so we're meeting in Bethlehem on Saturday.

My ideas to spread the footbag fever:

Make flyers that basically say, "learn cool hacky sack tricks from pros!" or something catchy and cool like that, with Jeremy's, Toolan's, Ivan's, Corey's, and my contact info on it (each flyer would have a separate contact person on it).. we go around to our local HIGHSCHOOLS (jackpot) as soon as school lets out, find those hack circles out front, demo footbag, pass out flyers, bada bing bada boom, at least 1 or 2 new guys from every highschool. There is always that one kid in every highschool who rips at hacky sack and wants to get better. I was that kid, Toolan was that kid, Corey was that kid, Ivan and Ryan were those kids... You were probably that kid. Targets locked.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

After that last blog about playing like i'm trying to get good... I wanted to play more to get better...


Drilled under a dim light on my street for 45 minutes... Came up with some dope, yet low-impact stuff...

Highlights:

Drilled 50 flappers bs
Drilled 50 Dragon Tilts bs
Drilled Gyro Cloud> ss Clipper b2b... hit it around 5 times
Spinning Dragon Tilt> Far Osis rpt hit it twice, going to drill it more later.. i couldn't really see too well with the dim light..
Gyro Weaving Outside Stall bs (new trick that feels surprisingly mega sick, will totally drill this soon)

Alas, I retire for the night.

[C-Fan]

Props on graduating college, and all the recruiting work.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks Ken! It feels great to be finished. I have an interview set up for Audubon Bird Society on May 14th!

Solo Drill Session:

Highlights:

Ripstein BSOS
Fog BSOS twice
Gyro Ingyro Toe BS
Gyro Whirl BSOS a handful of times
Pdx Whirl> Pdx DLO> ss Butter rpt (3 separate times)
Crazy Dragony/Soley run, Schneider would have been proud
Blizzard BSOS (First time! Pathetic! )
Toe ss Swirling Monster (new trick)
Run with Gyro Weaving Osis BSOS & Spinning Ducking Osis BSOS
BSOS Spinning Ducking Butter
BSOS Whale Tail
BSOS Vortex
BSOS Muted Gyro Swirl
Muted Gyro Butter b2b (hit like 8 times, starting from each side a few times
Run with Muted Gyro Butter BSOS & Gyro Legover BSOS
1/2 of Toolan's drill: Gyro Rev Swirl> Symp Swirl
Dyno> Reverse Swirl rpt

Shredding with Toolan, Schneider, Ben Babyak, and some of his new guys today at 4:00. Stoked.