Last Friday was the outdoor activities festival with food trucks and footbag. These were my expectations going in:
For the most part really, all went according to plan. Luis and Mina joined me, which was a big help. It was super hot for the first hour, but luckily we got some cloud cover which made the day bearable. They provided lighting at night, so we were able to go from 3:30 to 10:00 without interruption. The event really kinda felt like it was split into two. For the first few hours, there were lots of young families with kids, so I spent most of that time playing with kids and getting them to do toe stalls and kicks. I gave away 8-10 footbags, which made the kids happy, but probably won't do much to promote the sport. The second half of the event, the families left and the young hipsters were getting looser thanks to the beer. This phase of the night was pretty much just a ton of foursquare and drinking, which was a lot of fun. I sold a few footbags, but probably only like 5-6. So I lost a little money on footbags, but I also got a bunch of free beer and 2 free food truck meals, so in that sense I came out ahead.C-Fan wrote: I'm hoping it'll be a pretty chill afternoon of foursquare, showboating, and busking. The event organizer has also asked me to do 2 demos, so I plan on doing my USO/Worlds routine for both of them. It'll be my first opportunity to perform in front of a real crowd/audience. I'm not going to dumb down the performance any...I really want to treat it as a test for my routine readiness. Hoping for 0-1 drops.
Towards the end of the night I was able to relax and enjoy the foursquare and beer, but for the first few hours I kinda felt like I was at work. A big part of that was due to putting up with Mina being difficult, and part of it was the stress of trying to engage with a crowd made up of families that didn't really know what to make of footbag. It's hard to strike a balance between showboating to get crowd attention, and making the game seem accessible.
I was also trying to get/stay warm for my first demonstration. I wasn't sure what the lighting would be like later, so I treated the first demo as basically a competition routine. When they announced my routine there was a pretty solid crowd assembled...easily 50 people. Luis advised me to dumb down my routine, since the crowd wouldn't know the difference. I knew he was right, but I wanted to see if my training had paid off and if I'd be able to hit the real version in a competition-like situation. The ground was concrete and not level, but I had played on it for 90 minutes so I felt like I could adjust to that. What worried me though was that they had turned on a bubble-machine nearby not 5 minutes before I began, and depending how the wind blew it sometimes crossed my playing path.
It took the guys running the PA system a couple tries to get my music going, but once it did I knew it was a good idea to try the real routine. It wasn't til afterwards that I realized I hadn't done a routine under pressure in almost a year (East Coasts), and its really hard to simulate what that feels like. My first 10 seconds go OK, though I altered some part of the choreo. It's weird, the first 10 seconds of a routine should be the easiest, since you aren't tired yet...but somehow I find the first 10 seconds to be the hardest, since I'm fighting that initial rush of adrenaline. That adrenaline rush for me can be kind of overwhelming, so I was glad when it passed and I was still at the right place in my routine and without a drop. About 40 seconds into the routine I feel very comfortable. I'm hitting my cues, I'm looking at the crowd at the right times, and they seem into it. Then, right when I get into a hard section of the routine...bubbles! I hold a toe stall for a couple seconds to let them pass, and I actually laugh out loud at the moment. Then I refocus, and push through the rest of the routine. Final cue arrives and....BAM. Dropless. I do my bows and tell the crowd to swing by the footbag booth to learn. The crowd seems to have appreciated the show, but of course they have no idea how hard or easy it was. Still, it was a big confidence booster for me to have done it dropless.
After the first demo, I have a beer as a reward. I work with the kids for a bit, and 90 minutes later they ask me to do a second demo. At that point I wasn't as warm as before, and had had a couple beers, so I didn't approach it with the same urgency. I think I dumbed this routine down too. I ended up with a couple drops, but it still went well. Once it gets dark, I assumed I was done for the day with demos, especially since they only asked me to do 2 demos. As it turned out though, the organizer really liked my first 2 demos, so he asked me to do a third. In the dark. With glow in the dark footbags. Which I had never used. I decide "what the hell," and agree to it. I practice in a nearby parking lot while people play 4square at the spot. I decide to change my song to something slower, so the lack of difficulty won't be as conspicuous. When my time comes, I joke with the audience that if it goes badly, I can always slip off undetected, since only the bags glow in the dark. I end up doing an intermediate-level routine and drop around 4 times, but it's still received well. Considering I had never played with that kind of bag before, and I had been drinking, I was actually pretty happy with the show. Once its done, I feel officially off duty. Finally. I drink beer, mess around with showboating between 4 square games, and finally exhale and enjoy the evening.
So overall a good event. The organizer invited me to their next 3 events, 2 of which come after Worlds is over. I'll probably go to those, but not the one that's a week before Worlds. I want to really focus with my training right before USO and Worlds.
I had good sessions the rest of the weekend too. Saturday I was a bit stiff, but my legs recovered from the fair better than I would have hoped. I didn't do any routine runthroughs, but I feel like the session helped my legs recover. Sunday I got in a quick session, and only did 2 routine runthroughs. In a nice surprise, they were both dropless! Pretty sure that's my first time this year going dropless twice in a row in a session. Monday I broke the streak when I brainfarted 10 seconds into a routine. That annoyed me enough that I restarted on the spot. Happily, my second attempt was dropless. So overall this weekend felt like my routine really started clicking, and helped my confidence that I can do it. Now I just need to build on this and make sure I put myself in a good position to achieve my comp goals for the summer.
I've played footbag 39 of those days (74% of the time). Good for stamina and muscle memory.
See ya at Worlds!