The Fast and the Furious: Operation El Kemino, Tokyo Edition

[Matt K]

I had a good birthday session, well, at least the best I've played since Worlds.

Pushed myself a lot harder today, started to drill shuffle again.

Pdx. Whirl>Stepping Mirage>Smear 5 times
Gyro Clipper>Diving Clipper>Vortex 5 times
Ripwalk>Stepping Clipper>Ripwalk 5 times

Ended with five 20 contact runs (harder than the previous session, but still pretty blah) and got Symp. Whirling Swirl>Rev. Swirl both sides

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hahaha I love your operation

I hope you succeed in your mission. I'm glad you're making a comeback. Keep it up man, See you this weekend! Looking forward to it!

[Matt K]

At Mike Etlinger's house, writing these down so I don't forget:

4 new tricks in one day at East Coasts:
Whirling Set ss Swirl
Whirling Set ss Rev. Swirl
Revup both sides

It was a good day.

[mtoolan]

It was a great weekend. Good seeing you again, buddy, and thanks for the words of encouragement.

[Matt K]

You too man, and you're welcome, you deserved all of them.


I'm back from ECFC. Despite my dislike of NYC, I had a really fun time this weekend and played harder/better footbag than I have since Worlds, and I can see some of the improvements I've been working on creeping into my actual game.

I hit another new trick today, Blazing Muted Swirl.

And now some short highlights:

-Seeing all of my East coast friends, and meeting plenty of new ones
-Finding Kevin's breaking point when it comes to awkwardness
-Walking around with Nick and Nadya when I first got to the city, and seeing that weird street performance
-Hitting 5 new tricks in one weekend for the first time in years
-General dumbness with Nick and Kevin
-Breakfast with Mark
-Travel bonding with John
-The 3rd place circle battle with Nick
-The second-day warmup circle with Ben
-The ultimate 'guy' circle with John, Cassy, Mike, and Dave
-Bad Taste
-Samurai Cop
-Kitty

There's plenty more, but that's all for now. I played pretty embarrassingly in comp (which I really need to stop saying), but I didn't mind after it was all over because my first poor performance led to one of my favorite competition moments I've ever had. On the sidelines I played pretty well, considering I've only been preparing for a few weeks. As long as I stay away from injury over the winter I think I'll come back fairly strong to next season.

Thanks, everyone, I had a great time.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Dude, so great to see you again and shred with you. The 3rd place battle was intense and it was a huge pleasure to go head to head with you in battlebag. Can't wait to chill/shred again soon, hopefully. You killed it in circle man, great job. I was so impressed by the spender> blazing link. Stay healthy. I can't wait to see you make a huge killer comeback. Peace man. Keep practicing!

[Matt K]

Had my first post ECFC session after taking over a week off. I was incredibly sore for the first four or five days after, and then the timing worked out that I just played today. I was surprised at how good and fresh I felt, only a bit of rust that came off after warm ups.

Went right back into the drilling I was doing pre-tournament, which was probably not super smart, but oh well.

-Swirl and Rev. Swirl both 5 times on each side
-Whirling Legover and Blaze 5 times on each (some of the best blazes I've done since learning them proper)
-Ripwalk>Stepping Clipper>Ripwalk 5 times each side

I ended with three 20 contact guiltless runs and then warmed down with barely any light. Practicing blazing sets made me feel like I was back in college when I was 20 and was first learning them which was a nice feeling.

I'm still tight, but my right side healed so I know my left side will.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yeah man. Glad to see you drilling again. Just know, you've been my point of inspiration for every session I've had recently. I wanna see you killing it again soon. Keep it up buddy.

[isirc10]

If you want to feel like you are back in college, come back to college on Halloween at PSU. Do it. Please and thank you from everyone here (so like half of the footbaggers on the east coast)

[Matt K]

I played for about an hour and a half on Saturday, in way-too-warm-for-Fall weather (which I hope continues this week).

Didn't play great, but got through some OK drilling:

Drifter>Rev. Swril 10 times both sides
Whirling Legover 10 times both sides
Ripwalk>Stepping Clipper>Ripwalk 5 times both sides

Ended with a few 20 contact runs. I'm getting more endurance, but it's coming incredibly slowly. My groin feels mostly fine during a session, but I can still only play about twice a week. Until I can really get back into 8 hour footbag weeks, I think I'll be huffing and puffing through 15 contacts.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

YOU CAN DO EEETT!!!!

[Matt K]

I played today at my old college for over 2 hours. I don't know if it was the nostalgic feeling of playing at my favorite place, or the 4 days of rest, but this was unquestionably the best session I've had since I stopped practicing in 2011. I haven't felt this kind of confidence or control in a very long time, and though I still have no endurance, this is the first time that it feels like I can get back to where I was and possibly surpass that.

I didn't do any drilling and just did strings the whole time. In general they were pretty good; a lot denser than they've been recently, and had some not bad stuff midstring. Nothing really to note, except for the first Furies I've done since 2010 maybe (flipside even!) which felt pretty cool. I also had some good swirls midstring and felt pretty confident doing them, and my flip blazing is probably better than it ever was.

I ended with the usual three 20 contact runs, but they were a lot denser and shufflier this time (and all of them closer to 30 than 20 I think), so, yay.

[C-Fan]

Nice! Do you have access to a camera? Also, do you think of furious totally different than blazing?

[Matt K]

I do and I'll hopefully try to get some stuff on camera soon. While my ankle was healing I started a list of things that I wanted to hit and I'd like to film all of them.

And yeah, those two sets are very different. They have a similar start with the jump, but blazing's done mostly with your foot (toe specifically) while furious is done mostly with your knee.

[Matt K]

Just got home from a one hour racing-the-darkness session at my library. Went back to drilling but stayed away from shuffle today since I did the shit out of it two days ago.

Swirl 10 times bs
Rev. Swirl times bs
Pdx Whirl>Swirl 5 times bs
Drifter>Rev. Swirl 5 times bs
Gyro Clipper>Diving Clipper>Gyro Clipper 5 times bs
Gyro Clipper>Diving Clipper>Symp. Whirl 5 times bs

After that I did five 20 contact (downtime) runs, which came a lot easier than normal, which seems to be a good sign. I ended with Rev. Swirl>Blender bsos starting from each side going well into the darkness, which I haven't done for a long time, so that felt really nice.

[Matt K]

Another hour and a half today. Enjoying playing a lot more often.

Swirl 10 times bs
Rev. Swirl 10 times bs
Pdx. Illusion>Smear 10 times bs
Inspinning Clipper 5 times bs
Legbeater>Ripwalk>Blur 5 times bs

I had more time today, so I ended with 10 runs of 20 contacts. Ended one with Vortex>Mobius and got Vortex>Symp. Whirling Swirl bs to start two. Yay.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yeah man, keep 'em comin. We gotta throw some Inspins down at PSU for Shred-O-Ween. I've been working on mine too. So stoked to shred with you man. DGI, mothafuckaaaa

[Matt K]

Really good 2 hours tonight. If my groin wasn't an issue I'd love to be doing these four times a week again.

15 Swirls bs
15 Rev. Swirls bs
Drifter>DLO>Whirl rpt 5 times bs
Legbeater>Ripwalk>Blur 5 times bs

Ended with ten 20 contact runs, all of which were pretty good and shuffley. I got Tombstone>Rev. Swirl a few times on each side (trying to start a run with it) which was the only real link highlight.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Go!

[Matt K]

Did another 1.5 hours tonight. With the exception of being at jams, I haven't played two days in a row in a very long time. It wouldn't be smart to do it very often until I'm fully healed, but it felt really nice.

I went all downtime tonight:

Gyro Clipper>Gyro Mirage 10 times bs
Gyro Clipper>Vortex 5 times bs
Gyro Clipper>Mobius 5 times bs
15 Swirls bs
Diving Clipper>Diving Butterfly>Diving Clipper 10 times bs
15 Rev. Swirls bs

After that I did five 25 contact runs, but they were easier than last night since there was no shuffle. Started the last one with Rev. Swirl>Infinity>Rev. Swirl>Infinity>Swirl>Infinity>Swirl. Ended with Vortex>Swirl bs, Rev. Swirl>Swirl bs, and Swirl>Rev. Swirl bs.