Kat's Footblog (PSU)

[katcryan]

Hello everyone!!
My name is Kat, I am a freshman at PSU and I joined the footbag club here about a month ago. Everyone kept telling me to get a footblog, and after a few weeks of procrastination, I finally caved in Throughout high school, I played a lot of hacky sack with my brother and sister and I wanted to continue playing at Penn State. I went to the club fair and searched for a footbag/hacky sack club and didn't find anything, so I went online and looked it up on the club directory. From there I emailed Nate P and he told me he graduated, but suggested I join the Penn State Footbag Club page on Facebook. Now I'm here!
It has been really nice getting to know everyone in the club, everyone is really cool and they are all extremely helpful! Needless to say, I am in love with footbag now and I am in love with my new lavers (they make a huge difference compared to nikes)!! These are the tricks I've hit so far:

*mirage
*ss mirage
*legover
*pick up
*butterfly
*ss butterfly
*illusion
*infinity

Butterfly is generally the easiest for me, and infinity I just hit a few times today. Illusion is very inconsistent but is getting better. I hope to continue adding to this list!
A little more about me: I am majoring in bio, and I am also a part of the equestrian team here at PSU. I have been riding horses since I was 7 and I am a HUGE animal lover. I guess equestrian and footbag is a weird combination, but oh well.
Anyway, I'm done talking about myself (for now).
Feel free to comment with any advice or just anything!

[mtoolan]

Props on all the progress. I've heard some good things about your game from the PSU heavyweights. Keep at it!

[isirc10]

Welcome to Modified Kat!
(its weird saying that considering how much I pressured you to make this footblog)
I figured I would summarize your first post in a picture :

[katcryan]

HAHAHAHA wow Ivan thats perfect. And thanks Mike!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I highly advise you to make this picture your new avatar. Just ask Ivan how to do it if you're confused. But hell yeah, so glad you finally made one. It sucks to be pressured to make one, trust me I know, I was pressured years ago by my teacher, as well. But you end up thanking them in the long run because these things are really great for pushing you harder and harder to get better highlights the next time you play. very cool you made one now. I'll be keeping up with it, even if I dont comment all of the time. Looking forward to seeing you advance like crazy by the next time I get to kick with you.

Keep up the good work!

[Nathan]

thanks for making a blog. it's crazy and cool that there are already players at PSU I don't know yet. Looking forward to meeting you when I visit soon

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Great avatar! Heard you hit a new 3 add... I was in disbelief wilhen Ivan told me. Like wow. Its rare for someone to hit that trick this soon. But ill let you Blog about it and tell everyone else cya at Halloween!

[isirc10]

Yes, hit and then BSOSed the next session... Sometimes I wonder how good I would be now if I had hit this trick a month after I started playing...

[katcryan]

Aww shucks thanks guys Well, the past few sessions have been nice, but I feel lately that when the group is in a circle I either do really well when its my turn or I just suck. So yea, its pretty hit or miss (literally). I have been insanely busy this week but I ALWAYS have time for footbag- I kicked sunday, monday, tuesday, and wednesday and I'm not even sore which does not make sense to me. I hit:

pdx mirage bsos
clipper> ss mirage bsos
ss butterfly> ss mirage rpt
mirage > ss mirage rpt
mirage > legover bsos
mirage>pickup bs
clipper > ss pickup bs
clipper > ss legover bs

There may be others but I am still terrible at naming tricks/strings (Ivan helped me put this list together, thanks Ivan!)
Tonight I went to a free One Republic concert and it was surprisingly good- also the lead singer crowd surfed and I touched his arm. So that was cool. Also, my parents randomly decided to visit me this weekend (I am the youngest of 5... I dont think they like being empty nesters haha) and they are bringing MY DOG DILLON!!!! I am sooo excited to see him. Tomorrow I will be kicking again with the club and then hopefully doing something after. Thank you to all who read/comment on my blog! It is all still very new to me. Peace!

[Cass]

Great highlights! There is serious potential here!

I challenge you to hit Illusion>Pickup bsos and also Guay bs (pickup ending on inside stall)

[katcryan]

Ok, so I haven't posted in a while. I kept telling myself I would do it later and then when later came around I still wanted to do it later... but I'm sure you know how procrastination goes. Anyhoo, some highlights:

-guay BSOS (thanks for the challenge Cassy did not really attempt the illusion>pickup yet, I still suck at illusion)
-atw>orbit BSOS
-infinity x 4
-miraging inside BSOS
-miraging inside>walkover BSOS
-hopover bs
-far legover BSOS
-clipper>opp clipper x 3
-clipper>ss clipper x 5
-sick 3 entry: miraging inside>walkover>pdx mirage

Lately, I haven't been kicking as much as I'd like to. Two weeks ago I was swamped with exams, last week my boyfriend (who goes to Indiana University) flew in for 4 days, and then this past weekend I went home for the first time since coming to PSU. So overall, not much kicking. I brought my lavers home with me to show my siblings what I can do, since they have only seen me hack. They were very impressed. Nick wanted to kick with me and my siblings since he lives right near me, but unfortunately it didn't end up working out- my brother was only home for a day and my sister had plans already. Heartbreakingly, I LEFT MY LAVERS AT HOME because I was late for the bus and did not double check the house to see if I had left anything. My mom is going to mail them to me, hopefully they come before this weekend for the PSU shred-o-ween!!

[C-Fan]

Love the avatar. Also, it's always good to see fewer "both sides" in the highlights and more "both sides one strings."

[isirc10]

I still suck at illusion

Not gonna lie, the illusions you hit in socks today were pretty darn good. Seriously. Props on your first sock session today - when you don't have lavers to kick in, you learn a lot about your game!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I still suck at illusion

You should make a shirt that says something along the lines of "I Really Love Illusion Dexterities", and then wear that to a few sessions. I've never heard of anyone doing that before, but it might work

Oh yah, and holy shit on your highlights. My jaw kinda dropped on a few of them. Keep it up. Personal props are in order for you this weekend.

[katcryan]

So... I just realized I havent posted since October 28th. Wow.
Anyhoo, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I hate legovers. Sooooo much. I do them all the time and I still suck at them. Either they are too far out, or the set isn't right, or my legs just feel like giving up. I'm still working on them I guess.
I have been trying to break my infinity record which is 8... I get pretty close but my left side clipper has been sucking lately. I've been practicing staying on my toes though because I used to rock back on my heels, so thats good. I LOVE same side butterfly, its really fun. I've been trying to do ss butterfly to infinity rpt and thats a tough exercise but its a lot better than LEGOVER!
I have also been working on osis. At the last session they improved significantly. The hardest thing for me with osises (oses?) is the turn.. I never turn enough especially on my weak side. I find that when I don't think about it as much, I do better.
Ivan taught me atomic sets which are really cool! I haven't really been able to hit anything out of them yet, but man, they sure hurt my legs.
On another note, this semester I am going towards a business major instead of bio and my classes are significantly less ridiculous. I also have a horse up here now called Sunset! She is 7 years old and an ex-racehorse who hasn't been ridden in 2 years. I get out to ride her about 3-4 times a week (the barn is 20 minutes away, a friend who also has a horse there drives me.) She is awesome and I love her already; she learns so quickly. It's fun to ride regularly again!
Thats all I can think of to write right now so bye!!

[Ryan_Morris]

Spoiler alert: Kat broke her infinity record at today's session with 9 infinities.

Also, I definitely could learn a few things from your ss butters. Your crank helps a bit, but your form is unquestionably correct. Your osis looked better today, so take that as a sign that your work is paying off. As far as legovers, allow me to make an out of context quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: "Love your enemies." http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.ph ... &start=120 I could give you tons of advice on how to do them, but the truth is that you just have to figure it out, and that might take more work than you think is fair, especially considering how quickly you picked up butterfly. Some tricks are just like that.

[isirc10]

That man speaks the truth! For troublesome tricks, I will give myself 10 good attempts on both sides at the end of every session, and keep doing that until they get better.

[Anz]

Don't do it at the end of the session. Work on the hardest stuff right after warm up, when your energy level is still high.

[isirc10]

What he said

Also, props on getting infinity x19. That's kinda a big deal.
And I think I will just leave this here:

[katcryan]

Thank you Ivan for the awesome pictures of Sunset and I!!! Now I have another perfect avatar
As Ivan said, last session I beat my infinity record which was previously 10 but is now 19!!! Super excited about that, it happened pretty randomly. I also hit drifter recently but only on my strong side... still working on it but my dex keeps getting better and faster every session. Besides that, I'm not sure what else to report. Friday night was Nate's going away party which was fun but bittersweet because now I won't be able to watch him hit amazing tricks that I don't even comprehend anymore! I'm looking forward to spring break, but to me, spring is supposed to equal warm... and it's not really warm...