Yes indeed! It was a strange weekend for me... I had spent the five days leading up to to it doing massive amounts of HW and studying to have a free weekend. In the end, I was just exhausted and a bit subdued. Regardless, kicking with Jon is always a treat because he is so fun to kick with (and to hang out in general). Friday I had a solid session of tiltless runs. Saturday I had to work, but I kicked for 2 hours before that and had a really enjoyable outdoor session, possibly one of the last for the year. Saturday was the homecoming football game and it was a crazy game that went to 4 overtimes (I watched the entire thing at work). We were completely swamped and I had barely enough energy to ride my bike home, plop into a chair and sit. I ended up making a footbag for Jon. By the time Sunday's session rolled around, I was really feeling it. A combination of not enough sleep, tired legs, and a generally pessimistic outlook kinda made that day a bit bland for me. I ended up drilling osis the entire time while everyone else kicked - sometimes I just need time alone, and it really sucked that it happened while such a cool player was visiting.
... but back to drilling osis. I don't know what changed in my mind, but something just said "screw it, lets get serious and own this trick". I stood at a T intersection between two lines on the squash court and practiced my footwork and turning on osis, remembering to reset my feet to the T after every attempt. I also went straight to freezing my osis - I had been practicing just hitting it normally the past year or so and it wasn't getting me anywhere. The combination of the improved footwork and the freezes seriously improved my osis that session.
October 16th, 2013. A day that I will forever remember as the osis breakthrough.
Wednesday's session.
Today we only had 5 people at the session - as much as I love our large sessions, there is just something about small sessions that drives me to get better and push my limits. I started out really slowly and remember commenting how the session was very zen like and everyone was hitting slow and controlled tricks. Soon that changed to people trying big tricks, but I didn't hit anything too spectacular. Eventually people had to leave and the session was down to me and Ryan. I made it my goal to hit as many osis in my runs as possible. Within two runs, it suddenly clicked. Instead of being scared to go to osis, I would get excited to hit the next one, they were so consistent. They worked so well with butterflies and infinities and pdx stuff. Every string became fun and connected. Osis was the missing link that was keeping me from enjoying my runs and finding a good rhythm. Now it was here and I was hitting runs that a few weeks back I had told myself were impossible. Even osis > osis felt so good. Everything just flowed into the next trick. Some highlights:
pixie ss pickup, pixie muted ss pickup
dimwalk > blurriest
osis > osis x 12 (every osis was frozen for at least a second)
BOP x 6
infinity > osis > osis rpt
ripwalk > osis rpt bs
osis > ducking clipper bs
ss butterfly > osis > ss pickup rpt
osis > blizzard rpt bsos
atomic osis > blizzard bs
kneebump > ss inside stall > far osis > ss pickup rpt
Halfway through the session I realized that this was a monumental session and really pushed hard. I was rewarded with so much progress. So much happiness. So much fulfillment. Osis is still not as reliable as I need it, but this breakthrough might have removed it from my blacklist of run ending tricks. Nick Polini, thanks a lot for all of the tips and help with osis over the past two years. I know I struggled hard with that trick and ignored your advice sometimes, but I just had to figure out this trick by hitting it 1-2 thousand times myself. In the two weeks before I see you at Halloween, I intend to get good at osis. Then it's on to pixies. So long for now.
. W/e, you guys aren't really interested in that here anyway as this is a footbag forum. I guess I will just finish my paper and continue building my bike.
