Khoa Nguyen's footblog

[boyle]

Yeah, they did it throughout a lot of the South East Asian countries. Malaysia was the only one to do a real competition though and give some support to trying to grow footbag in the country. From what I saw, a lot of the other contests were just kind of a joke.

I gave a few footbags out while I was there, some of them picked it up quite well. The guy that won the comp, his name is Ariff Karim, you might know him from the freestyle football world. He did quite a good performance and was getting quite a few footbag tricks.

Good luck in the US and with going to guiltless

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Great to hear of your trip to the West Coast! Sounds like it was very inspiring for you! I think you're going to be going Guiltless before you know it. Props on all the new stuff man.

[anhkhoashevakt]

@boyle and Nick: Thanks guys. Your feedbacks mean the world to me. Really.
@boyle: yes I think I know the guy, but only barely. I have a friend who just won the Asian Championships of Fs soccer who knew everybody in SE Asia really well. I think he'll know more. Gonna ask him sometime. But let me guess: the tricks he got with a bag are as follows: clipper, eclipse, rake and flapper stall? All one sided? Yes? xD


ahem... btw I was going to update the blog 2 days ago but thought that I would finish another training session before I do it. Turned out okay!

During the last 2 sessions I managed to hit:

Sess 1:
9 clippers back to back, dropped on the 10th... dang it
BSOSed Butterfly in a string beginning with flip Pixie Legover - strong Smear (with about 2-3 tiltless in between that and the first butterfly)
Atomic ss Clipper (at least I thought so. Looks suspiciously like a high butterfly though :S)

Sess 2:
Very very close on bsosing osis with about 3 tiltless in between: flip osis - near mirage - legover - legover - dropped the last touch on strong osis's 2nd clipper...
25 tiltless string! Couldn't believe that since my goal was only 16-17 that day.

Goals during the next 2 months:

- Drill Osis and sets (Pixies, Atomics and learn Stepping)
- Symp Mirage on flipside
- 6 guitless possibly? If combining butterflies and pdx mirages with some osii, even better!
- Get Smear on flipside xD

[boyle]

He had a bit more than the usual crossover tricks from fs football, he had a couple of butterflies and some other 3s happening, as well as a good tiltless game. The freestyle guys I play with here always try and hit those sort of tricks you mentioned with footbag, though one has quite a good footbag technique and can hit swirl and a couple of other tricks.

[anhkhoashevakt]

Sick Dan, good to hear that. I think most freestyle football players have the potentials to become at least decent at footbag, just that they never actually tried it. I'm horrible at any tricks involving dexing, but I finally crawled my way to some Guiltless trick now lol.

[boats]

try osis to osis bro

[anhkhoashevakt]

try osis to osis bro

Definitely man! That's going to be the next thing on my list! Thanks for the advice Boats

[anhkhoashevakt]

Highlights of today:

1/ Walking around campus after lab today, I noticed a whole bunch of undergrads (4-6 of 'em) playing hacky sack near HUB, so unquestionably I joined in. I showed some tricks and they liked them a lot, asked me how I did these tricks... etc. I took this opportunity to direct them to "Penn State Footbag Club" on Facebook. Now, if we're lucky, you can expect 3-6 people joining our group in the next coupla days.
2/ We were just doing mainly kicking in a circle, but I did manage to hit (to my surprise):

Toe DLO (strong). Has not hit this trick for a while and was very surprised with the way I pulled that one off (almost very controlled!). I need to keep drilling this trick too because it's going to help me do its counterpart in Freestyle Soccer (AHTATW) later.
Eggbeater (strong). Again, did not anticipate that to happen! LOL

3/ Then I went on for a 2 hr freestyle soccer meeting with my friends. Hit:

Flapper (3 times). I think I'm getting this trick much more consistently with a ball now, which is great because I know now that improving a trick in footbag can help so much with landing that trick in freestyle soccer.
Almost (very close) to Rake. I think I'm gonna drill that trick for the next 2 months and see if I can do it. YOLO, right?

[Asmus]

I wanted to give you a bunch of advice on what to work on, but since you probably got strenghts and weaknesses at odd place (for footbag) because of freestyle football I won't.

You should post a video though of your footbag endavours, I would like to see how the style of somebody going from ff to fb looks.

[anhkhoashevakt]

Wow, please do Asmus. I'd love to be guided by one as skilled as you are.
This is my most recent video. Ignore the freestyle football parts in it. I got probably my best footbag tricks I've ever done in there.
Thank you so much!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymjhD6n9c9c

I couldn't find the topic on how to post youtube video up for some reason. I'm very sorry. Admin please bash me!

[Asmus]

When you make a post there is a button that says youtube, it generates two tags inbetween those you should place your youtube link.
Or you can just write it - like this:
[youtube]link goes here[/youtube]

Your form looks pretty good, some timing stuff that needs work, but that will come with practice.

Study these videos religiously:
http://youtu.be/HeoAYnR2nHw
http://youtu.be/NSGYzNm3OV8

(I enjoyed the freestyle football aswell)

[anhkhoashevakt]

When you make a post there is a button that says youtube, it generates two tags inbetween those you should place your youtube link.
Or you can just write it - like this:
[youtube]link goes here[/youtube]

Your form looks pretty good, some timing stuff that needs work, but that will come with practice.

Study these videos religiously:
http://youtu.be/HeoAYnR2nHw
http://youtu.be/NSGYzNm3OV8

(I enjoyed the freestyle football aswell)

Wow thank you A LOT Asmus! The videos with Anssi will be the one I study hard for in the future to come!
Sorry it took me too long to respond. Been busy lately with school work, teaching, freestyle football and stuff. Still playing footbag though.

----------------------------------

Update:

Lately I've been trying some things. I got:

2 30 tiltless runs!
Swirl for the first time

Almost got:

- Stepping set into toe stall.
- True Atomic set (where it actually look like a "set" rather than a high Illusion)

But, I'm afraid those were the only good points. I suck lately, due one part to my left foot. I didn't know if I mentioned this sometime, but I got a condition in freestyle soccer practice where my left ankle refuses to be locked into place when I'm juggling the ball, leading to my 2 footed juggling becoming extremely sucky. The condition happened a year ago, during the summer I tried juggling with left foot alone, and the problem actually went away for a bit. Now it's back, stronger than ever, even though I'm still practicing my left foot (I can do 100 juggles easily with either my left and right, but when I combine them, my left will take on that sucky orientation again!). Now, the problem comes into footbag. I can't do freaking TOE STALLS properly. Same problem: left ankle refuse to lock! I think it's some sort of muscle memory discrepancy, and will take 2 months off both footed ball juggling and toe stalls for now. Instead I'll practice toe stalls on each side til I'm comfortable with them, and then after 2 months, hopefully my muscle will "forget" the wrong motion and I'll be able to learn alternating toe stalls again, from the beginning.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nice highlights man. Also, hell yeah, props on Swirl! I knew you would hit that soon.

As for your ankle problem, you should try just "ghosting" the toe stall movement without the bag. Do it a lot every day for a while. Just pretend you're doing a toe stall, but without a bag. Make your body lock the ankle. Sometimes it's hard to focus on doing too many things at once. If you do the toe stalls with a bag, you're concentrating on spotting the bag, delaying the bag, timing, and keeping your ankle locked. If you "ghost" the toe stalls for a while, your body and your mind can concentrate on just the locking motion, rather than all of the other things that emerge when the bag is added.

I hope this works. You'll overcome it. Can't wait to kick with you again!

[anhkhoashevakt]

Nice highlights man. Also, hell yeah, props on Swirl! I knew you would hit that soon.

As for your ankle problem, you should try just "ghosting" the toe stall movement without the bag. Do it a lot every day for a while. Just pretend you're doing a toe stall, but without a bag. Make your body lock the ankle. Sometimes it's hard to focus on doing too many things at once. If you do the toe stalls with a bag, you're concentrating on spotting the bag, delaying the bag, timing, and keeping your ankle locked. If you "ghost" the toe stalls for a while, your body and your mind can concentrate on just the locking motion, rather than all of the other things that emerge when the bag is added.

I hope this works. You'll overcome it. Can't wait to kick with you again!

Thanks man. I'll try a whole bunch of ghosting. See what I can do.

Today I got:

A really cool 3 trick sequence and a 5 add, which is my first. After completing this I think I will slow down a bit and try not to add hunt, but continue learning Whirls, Swirls, Infinities, and Sets right now, which are what I'm bad at. After I master these, which is about 1 year of practicing, I'll move on practicing more 4s and 5s. But nowadays, I'll settle on 3s.

[anhkhoashevakt]

Just drilled for 45 mins today and achieved some of the most crazy stuff I've ever done in my life:

- Dimwalk - Pdx Mirage - Dimwalk
- BOP (only on strong side though, which sucked)
- Dimwalk - DLO (strong) - string - DLO (flip)
- Eggbeater into a string
- Whirl BSOS.
- 2 Oses

[Cass]

Hey I just watched your video! Awesome stuff it looks like you're getting a solid foundation!

I really liked the dragon stuff and overall you seem to have good control for your level so props!



You're really good with a football! I liked the part where you rolled it from your feet all the way to the top of your head


If only lavers came in such rad colour combos as your football shoes! So jealous haha

[anhkhoashevakt]

haha thanks Cassy. Sorry for not replying sooner. Yes I wish that too. Coloration of Lavers are just too bland lol. Hopefully in the next incantation they will become more colorful, but for now, I guess it'll be best to purchase a white pair and use your artistic imaginations hahaha.
Thanks for all the probs Cassy, mean A LOT to me .

Here's the update for these past couple weeks:

My level has, sadly, been going up and down during these weeks. There was a time when I was doing 8 infinities, and now it has dropped back down to 3-4, and not even consistently. I guess I will need to do these for a bit longer, and they'll become better.
So far I've made some progress towards my problem at locking ankles during toe stalls. Sometimes I still am not happy with the way my leg stall the bag, but at least the bag did not drop from stupid reasons anymore, which is good.
Some recent improvements I made is getting 8 infinities for the first time, and I hope with this I will be able to do longer Guiltless level run in the future, but for now I'll drill them hard, and we'll see what happens.
I also got a little more consistent at DLO from clipper, and Illusion (my record is now 6 strong side and 3 flip side).

Another thing I noticed during these past couple weeks is that I haven't taken a "stalling" period long enough with my bag, simply because I have to be fast in freestyle football combos. Also, the stalls will become even shorter whenever I'm pissed off, which makes matter worse. I'm working on lengthening the duration of stalls.

[isirc10]

I have noticed that your stalls are looking much better recently - especially between tricks - you are a good example for Aidan to follow, so keep up the good work. Your strings today were quite impressive (much better than mine) Don't worry if you have drops in form, it happens to everyone, and the only way to get out of a slump is to kick more. I expect to see you stepping soon.

[anhkhoashevakt]

Thanks Ivan. Means lots to me man. But you gotta be kidding about my strings being better than yours. They're definitely not hahaha xD.

[anhkhoashevakt]

yesterday I was training footbag with all the guys in the PSU club at Old Main. Everybody did insanely well: Ben was getting pretty sick with doing all the stuff he does best: spinning (got BSOS Spinning toe!), calf rolls... Ivan was shredding hard with such good strings containing 3 and 4 adds and almost hit Fusion. I bet 20 bucks on anybody that this guy's gonna go Guiltless by the end of this year, Jan/Feb next year at the latest. Greg showed up (holy f... moment from me) and hit very cool combos consisting of a lot of outside - Sole Stall. Derek is getting insanely good at butterfly - whirl. April's getting legovers down pretty well. Kat got a whole bunch of new stuff. It's scary how fast she's improving.

As for me, I managed:

BOP - Symp Mirage
some Tiltless combos beginning with Dimwalk and with a lot of butterfly - pdx mirage (which has eventually become my favourite Guiltless combination by far) in between, like 2-3 of them.
Ducking legover - Rake - Eclipse
almost Eggbeater at the end of a combo
Stall better in between a lot of tricks (which makes me supremely happy!)

Then, I left after 1 hour to continue the next 1 and 1/2 hr doing freestyle soccer, highlights are:

RAKE with a ball! FINALLY!
almost clipper - combo - butterfly. I plan to get consistently at butterfly with a ball some time in the near future.

And then I topped off a great day on everything (teaching, researching, footbag, fs football) by drawing the best picture of Superman (Kal El) that I've ever done. It's now on my facebook (link below):

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =1&theater