Fanzine

Keep a diary of what you're hitting, what's frustrating you, and your goals.
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Re: FanzBlog

Post by C-Fan »

Asmus wrote: Can I suggest you make a playlist or something like that with them?
Let me know if this or this works.

Tonight I played in the weight room. I basically have to choose between the weight room (great surface, horrid lighting) or the basketball courts (terrible surface, better light). I tried for the diving badge, and had a sick gold entry...but when I got home I saw that one of the easy middle contacts was "the." I should be able to rehit it fairly easily next time. I spent the lion's share of the session working on my furious set. I think I made a little progress. It definitely needs to pop more, but I think I'm getting a bit more consistent with the footwork and dexes. I didn't try nemesis a single time, and instead tried to just hit basic tricks with the set. Highlight for me was hitting my best attempts at fission (furious illusion) to date. They definitely can be improved, but I got a couple that were very promising. I need to remind myself that the goal isn't to hit a trick that "counts" now, so much as to continue to improve so that in the near future I can hit ones which are undeniably good. I did waste a few tries on some silly stuff, which probably won't help me but was fun.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J3o7oRRk8M[/youtube]

I'm just gonna keep plugging away at this set, and hopefully next time I can play outside I'll be able to film and see some progress.
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Re: FanzBlog

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Its been snowy and subzero temps here in Denver lately. As such, I've been a bit lazy about going to the gym. I need to remind myself that for the past few years I didn't have an indoor winter spot. When I think of it that way, it sometimes motivates me enough to get a weeknight shred in. Sometimes.

My last session I went in with the idea of working on my fairy sets. The only badge I haven't medaled in is fairy, and I think it'd be cool to have medals in every category even if some are bronzes. Man, I had forgotten how much I hate fairy set. Flipside is the worst thing in the world. I think the best I managed was FLO b2b a couple times. I eventually gave up, since I just don't see the payoff. I have no dream tricks or real goals associated with flip fairy, and its not even a set I like. I spent the rest of the session working on furious set, which was a lot more promising.

Switching my technique from "clipper quantum" to "clipper wonton below you" has helped me a ton. That said, I've found that even when I think of it as clip wonton, its easy to start it off symp, not fully commit, and still do the set. When that happens, I can still hit janis and furies, but the set height is too low to consider bigger tricks like nemesis and genesis. When I fully commit to the symposium effort, the footwork looks almost exactly the same, but the set height is maybe an inch higher. That doesn't sound like much, but I think that'll be the difference between an undeniably good nemesis and one that's close-but-not-quite. Doing these better sets is a lot more tiring and less consistent, but I'm making every effort to commit to that path, since I think true progress lies at the end of that route.

On a related note, I've tried to do furious on flipside with no success. It's weird, since all my success on strongside has come from thinking of the set as clipper wonton, and my wonton sets on both sides are pretty good. But when I try flip furious, its like the bag is in front of me, and I miss the dexes entirely. I'm hoping I can figure a way to correct this, since I think I could learn a lot by doing furious both sides. It'd also probably be less tiring, since I wouldn't be asking my right leg to do all the jumping in one session.
C-Fan wrote: Highlight for me was hitting my best attempts at fission (furious illusion) to date. They definitely can be improved, but I got a couple that were very promising. I need to remind myself that the goal isn't to hit a trick that "counts" now, so much as to continue to improve so that in the near future I can hit ones which are undeniably good. .
I'm still subscribing to this philosophy. I haven't hit a clean genesis or nemesis yet, but rather than beat myself up over that, I should just keep working at making my attempts better. In my last video my fissions weren't clean yet, but I knew they were getting better. In my last session, I managed to get my first clean fission:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5kSz4zxY7s[/youtube]

Stuff like that encourages me. I'm hoping some of the progress will come as I understand the footwork better, but also that my body will just develop better muscles/muscle memory to enable me to hit furious better. I'm optimistic I'll get nemesis and genesis some time, and I'm not in a huge rush to get there. As long as I'm making progress in that direction, I'm happy.

Here's a slow-mo of that last combo from the previous video. Whether or not you count x-dex and consider it a beast, it's still a milestone for me, as its my best combo using furious to date:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZMstebTXU4[/youtube]
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Re: FanzBlog

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Work's been kicking my ass lately. The footbag implication is that I don't play on weeknights when I work late, and when I do get sessions in, I don't have time to blog about them at work.

I've got NOLA jam in 2 months, but competition really isn't on my mind these days. Neither are badges...maybe I'll revisit those as I get closer to NOLA, as I found them to be a fun way to check/rebuild my foundation concepts. My primary interest in footbag these days is improving my furious set, with the ultimate goal being a clean nemesis. And by "clean" I mean undeniably clean...where nobody can question any part of it.

I think I'm making some progress on the set. It definitely feels like a battle of inches. By that I mean I think I'll have to figure out and incorporate a series of small adjustments to the set in order to reach my goals, as opposed to doing one big fundamental change to what I'm doing. That can be tough, but I think it's also the essence of footbag. Figuring out the timing and footwork on nemesis is hard, but its really the same process that we all used to figure out mirage, clipper, atw, etc. You make the minor adjustments, and then try to lock them in so you have them consistent.

With furious set, my session structure is to slowly ramp up. I warm up normally, then ease into furious stuff. I'll do a few janis to handcatches, and when those feel good I'll start doing janis to easy tricks. Then I'll do the same with fury. Once those feel good, I'll spend the next part of the session trying to hit harder tricks out of jani and fury. I feel like if I can hit a hard atomic set out of fury, then that means the fury was solid. Same goes for janiwalker, with nuke or a hard stepping trick.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=142TVALrOuc[/youtube]

Once I've managed to hit good tricks out of fury and jani, I'll reward myself by trying nemesis and genesis. I don't try these tricks until I've "earned" the right to, by hitting hard tricks out of fury and jani. This part of the session is probably the most frustrating, but I think I also learn the most from it. While its possible to hit fury or jani with less-than-perfect sets, its hard to even hit an unclean nemesis unless my set feels perfect. Generally this part of the session will yield around 5-7 nemesis/genesis attempts on film. In some cases I can tell just by looking on the small screen of my camera that I missed them, but a few will also look promising. Its not until I review them on my laptop later that I can see exactly how close I was.

How close have I got? The short answer is that I haven't reached my goal. I've had a few attempts where the nemesis actually looked good to me in real time, but when I put it in super slow mo the fourth dex wasn't clearly defined. Usually that means that the stall appears to be occurring concurrently with the 4th dex, instead of the 4th dex being followed by the stall. That's closer than I ever thought I would get, and I think some people would even look at these attempts and tell me they're close enough to count. But I really think I can do better, and it would mean so much to me if I could get a perfect one, even if just once. I think if I had started footbagging after 2001, nemesis might just be another trick to me. But as somebody who started playing several years before nemesis was hit, the trick still holds a mystique for me.

Gonna go get in another furious session in the next hour.
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Re: FanzBlog

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic »

Didn't read any of this, because I'm in a hurry. Watched video.

Reply: Ew. (In the best way possible)

Will read other stuff later.
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Re: FanzBlog

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Thanks Nick. My progress with furious set has been kind of weird. Since I have a clear goal (nemesis), and I feel like it's within reach, every session where I don't get it feels like a bit of a failure. Which is totally unreasonable and unfair, since I've been hitting a lot of stuff along the way which I would have been thrilled about just a month or two ago. A month ago nemesis wasn't even on the table, and a combo like fury to atomic drifter would have blown my mind. So while I still haven't hit a nemesis that meets my standards, I should also remind myself that my furious is improving, and I should be happy about all the new combos I've hit using it.

Furious sessions have definitely been an up and down road though. I have some sessions where I'm able to stick to my planned session structure, culminating in some good attempts at nemesis/genesis. Then I have other sessions where I don't even get to that point, because my sets feel too low or inconsistent on that day. And that's OK. As long as the overall trendline of my progress is going up, its OK for me to have the occasional session where the set feels worse than my last session. The other thing that I need to be good about, is tying my progress to what I see on video. I may have a session where my sets don't feel good, but if I review the tape and they look good, that's what matters. The flip holds true as well: if I have a session where I feel great about my sets, but the video doesn't support this, then I need to recalibrate my expectations as well. I guess I'm still inconsistent/new enough at this set that I don't just "know" how good/bad my sets are on a given day. I'm definitely still ironing out a lot of wrinkles.

Here's footage from my shred on Sunday. I ended up hitting some decent stuff out of fury and jani, but overall I felt like my sets weren't popping. I didn't try for any nemesis/genesis because of this.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNfoKNXlcUo[/youtube]

Yeah, rewatching this a couple days later I'm happy with the combos I hit, but my set height for 90% of the stuff wasn't where I wanted it to be. It's a process. I'll get there.
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Re: FanzBlog

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Nice, thanks Paul!

Furious is still the flavor of the month. As I noted in my last post, I don't expect progress to be linear. I'll have the occasional session where it feels like I'm taking a step back with the set, but as long as my overall trendline is going up, that's whats important. I think that's the best attitude and approach to take. When I try and look at my sessions objectively, I think the progress is happening. My furies, janis, and fissions are all more legit than in the past, and I'm playing out of them with harder stuff. The consistency is improving, and I think my body doesn't have to "think" as hard...more of the footwork and motions are becoming automatic. I still have a long way to go though.

I've had 2 sessions since my last post, and they both were very encouraging. I really focused on trying to get the set to pop more, and I saw improvements. The first session I also made a point to work a few strings and concepts that didn't use furious. My thought was that it would help keep me fresh both physically and mentally. It worked pretty well, and made for a lighter and more fun session:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsljT_wGq8M[/youtube]

The drifting rakes were surprisingly challenging, so I was happy to get that combo on both sides. Also for the record, "Sicily" was correct. None of the contestants got it right.

I'll post my second session later. I still haven't hit a nemesis, but I did have a promising moment in my 2nd session which felt like a bit of a breakthrough. When I look at most of my nemesis attempts, I think the problem is that my set is about 1 inch too low to get a clean double down. In the past, I think I had gotten one jani where the set popped enough to get nemesis, but I didn't try for the double down. In my second session, I had a few nemesis attempts that followed the norm of the sets being too low. But I also had one nemesis attempt where the set popped high enough, and I also had the presence of mind to go for the double down. When I reviewed it on film the 4th dex was still thin, but it felt like progress. I think if I can get a few more attempts with that height, I can probably get one clean one.

On the other hand, part of me is now a little worried that my problems with nemesis aren't 100% tied to set height. I asked Jay for advice on my footwork, and he pointed out some stuff I hadn't noticed. So there's a part of me thats worried that even if I get the set height better, I might still have trouble cleaning the double down. For now though, I don't think it'll hurt me to work on improving set height and consistency. If I can't get a clean nem by doing that, I'll make further adjustments. Cause that's how footbag works.

In promising news, the weather forecast for this weekend looks amazing. We might hit 60 degrees, and its supposed to be sunny out. If it is, I'll make a point to shoot an outdoors session. After all the blurry indoor footage, it'd be a treat to see my furious improvements in outdoor light.
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Re: FanzBlog

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Here's a few more new combos for me using furious. Weather is supposed to be great today and tomorrow, so I should get my first outdoor shreds in 3 weeks. My plan is to try and refilm all my new furious combos from the past few weeks. Re-hitting them will be a good test of my furious, but it'd also just be nice to see the combos in better light. Cause the weightroom spot really films like a dungeon.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtKw_5oUZOM[/youtube]
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Re: FanzBlog

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I'm getting really angry watching these...
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Re: FanzBlog

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Is it the one sidedness? The repetitiveness? The horrid lighting? Wouldn't be the first time I've angered the footbag community...;)

In good news, my next two videos will at least be in better light.
C-Fan wrote:My plan is to try and refilm all my new furious combos from the past few weeks. Re-hitting them will be a good test of my furious, but it'd also just be nice to see the combos in better light.
I only managed two sessions over the 3 day weekend, but I accomplished my goals. I don't think I re-hit every single new furious combo from the past few weeks, but I hit most of them, and they came to me fairly easily. I definitely feel like that shows progress...many of those combos had been the highlight of their respective sessions when I first hit them, so to re-hit multiple "marquee" combos in a single session felt great.

Here's a short video of some of the better ones, with a dash of slow mo thrown in:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05BU_0B3ESM[/youtube]

Man, my camera films so much better in good light. What a difference.

I also made a longer video with all my other combos and strings in it, so I'll post that next time.

I spent my first outdoor session almost exclusively working on old furious combos, and didn't spend much time on nemesis. My second session I warmed up by rehitting some combos, but spent the bulk of the session on nemesis, and also arch nemesis. I hadn't really tried arch since my furious improved, so that was a fun wrinkle in the session. Arch attempts are way tiring though, since the one leg is trying to do all 4 dexes. Regular nemesis also seems to just flow better. Anyway long story short, I had some very good looks at both nemesis and arch nemesis, but not good enough that I'd claim either. I still feel optimistic that I will hit a legit nemesis this spring. It's a learning process, and its OK if it's a slow one. I just need to keep a good mindset, and celebrate the small victories along the way.

I'm expecting about 2 more months of winter here in Denver, so outdoor sessions will depend on how many nice weather weekends we have over that time period. I'm also hoping to play outside in NOLA, and maybe in Sacramento if I go out there for work in a few weeks. If the weather sucks for the next couple months though, I'm happy to keep drilling away in the dungeon. I didn't have an indoor space last year, so I'm happy to take advantage of it...especially if it helps me attain a dream trick.
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Re: FanzBlog

Post by Asmus »

Nice video! I am sure you will get Nemesis soon.

What camera are you using?
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Re: FanzBlog

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Thanks Asmus. My current camera is a Sony bloggie, from a few years back. It sucks on a bunch of levels. Given my current goals though (not looking to make good videos, and really just using it to understand my furious sets better), I'm ok riding with it for now.
C-Fan wrote:Man, my camera films so much better in good light.

I also made a longer video with all my other combos and strings in it, so I'll post that next time.
Weather this past weekend wasn't good enough for an outdoor shred, and next weekend doesn't look promising either. So rather than post two sunshine vids in a row followed by a bunch of "dungeon" footage, I figured I'd save that other outdoor vid for later.

I'm kinda taking it easy on furious set for a bit. I still throw a few attempts a session to make sure I don't lose the footwork, but I wanted a mental and physical break from intensely drilling it. My weekend sessions I consciously tried to hit some links which don't come as naturally, as well as BSOS some tricks I don't do on flip very often. It was pretty fun:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FkcPx43WcI[/youtube]

Excited to read about the Sportslashlife initiatives Dan is promoting now. I won't be in the running for 25 fearless, but I think it could be a fun excuse for me to revisit fearless and beat my current unique record. I think its only 11, but I know I could get 14 if I trained up to it. Last time I tried to get 10 it was surprisingly hard, but with a bit of luck I bet I could get 12.
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Re: FanzBlog

Post by F[uns]tylin' Eclectic »

Oh god. The last link. WHAAAAAA…. I made a face and held it for at least 10 seconds. Damn. And Tapping Revup was tight. Saw some Blinkies in there that I was a fan of. Your game looks fun. Like it looks like you have fun with your game and what you're able to do. I think Furious is actually a really good addition to it. You will have me beat on Furious at Nawlins, but I've got some other junk up my sleevies.

Flipsides? Whenever you get back to drilling them, I mean.
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Re: FanzBlog

Post by jay7 »

Hey Ken.

I had you in mind, when we were thinking about the two rules of "Whoever gets the most fearless regardless of 25", and "Whoever does 5+". If everyone who potentially could do 25 is too lazy, I wanted someone like you who chews on competitions for fun, to get like 13 and potentially win it. While I'd love to see 25 fearless, the reality is that my realistic goal for this is to push people like you and me, to try some fearless. I've spent one session in my entire life on fearless, up until this, but you can bet I'll try and get 10+ in my next few sessions :D I was just at The Beast's house, and he said he wouldn't dare try 25, but he could try and break 15 again, and that it would be fun.

So yeah, my full encouragement to try and get that 12+.
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Re: FanzBlog

Post by DTank126 »

Why are u stuck in dec 31 1969? Do u use unix?
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Re: FanzBlog

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Nick: Thanks for the nice comment! I was kinda hoping you and Mark would appreciate the tapping revup. As for flipside furious, I have had no luck. It's weird, since my flip wonton set is pretty good, and I basically think of furious as clipper wonton. But yeah, the one-sided furious stuff is part of what motivated me to bsos some tricks that I never do flip, like the tapping dlo/pigbeater/pdx tap.

Jay: Thanks for the compliment on my participating in every contest. I think part of that stems from the fact that contests didn't exist when I first started playing footbag. I know the college version of me would have LOVED to have participated in this sort of thing, but cameras and the internet weren't really at the level needed to make it a reality. My camera now isn't great, but I think it's awesome that I can compete against people from around the world in stuff like this. As for me winning it as a darkhorse, I'd bet against it. Milan, Penske, and Aleksi have all expressed interest in doing the challenge, and even if they half-ass it there's no way all of them do less than 15. My official goal in this comp is to set a new personal record, which technically would mean getting 12 unique. In reality though, I really want to get 13-15. 15 would be a huge deal for me, but 13 and even 14 seem within reach.

Doug: When Harold Ramis died, the universe freaked out. Long story short, I was stuck in December 31, 1969 for quite a while. I made good use of my time by making a bunch of posts on modified, as I was forced to relive the day over and over. I like to think I'm a better person for it.

The Fearless challenge officially started yesterday, so I decided to participate. I was getting a bit burnt out on dedicating entire sessions to furious set, so I decided to revisit fearless. The last time I worked fearless seriously was when I was filming for the Sick 10 contest. I had a surprisingly hard time getting to 10, so I entered yesterday's session with lowered expectations. Basically, my plan was to try out a few furious links just to knock the rust off. I also made it a point to start a few of my runs with furious tricks, just so I wouldn't be totally neglecting that goal either. I ended up having a surprisingly good session:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1PvelxBoCY[/youtube]

I was particularly surprised and happy to hit two different runs of 10 unique fearless. I'm not sure I'd ever done that in a session before. One of those runs I could easily imagine extending by 3 contacts as well (the one where I bailed to pdx whirl could easily turn into PSW-pdx torque-pdx blender), so my fearless goals are well in sight. I didn't expect that on my first day trying. I will play again tonight and see if I can't get 11 or 12 on video. If I'm able to reach my goal early in the month, I may dedicate some time to working on fearless links I'm weak at, and see if that opens the door to really pushing a personal record. One step at a time though. I still haven't set a new personal record.
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Re: FanzBlog

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Weekend weather has been too cold (at times snowy) for any outdoor sessions lately. My indoor spot has worked well though. If I play during the daytime, there's even enough sunlight that comes through the windows that it doesn't film like a dungeon. Forecast for Thursday has potential for outdoor shred, and I've worked so many credit hours at work these past few weeks that I may take the afternoon off and try and film a shred outside. Crossing my fingers the weather gods cooperate.

My sessions these days are basically dedicated to fearless, furious, or both. There are still 3 weeks left in the sportslashlife fearless challenge, which I am using as an excuse to work on my fearless game. Cause why not.
C-Fan wrote: My official goal in this comp is to set a new personal record, which technically would mean getting 12 unique. In reality though, I really want to get 13-15.
I wrote that after my first day of the challenge. I surprised myself that day by hitting 2 combos of 10 unique fearless, which felt promising considering I hadn't worked fearless in a while. I even commented on one of those runs having potential to turn into 13:
C-Fan wrote: One of those runs I could easily imagine extending by 3 contacts as well (the one where I bailed to pdx whirl could easily turn into PSW-pdx torque-pdx blender), so my fearless goals are well in sight.
This past weekend I worked on Fearless both days. On Saturday my fearless was just way off, and I got incredibly frustrated. The only ray of light in that session, was a 10 minute period when my furious set felt magically on. I took advantage of that by hitting around 10 nemeses, 7 of which were clearly bad, and two which basically had the final dex and delay occurring simultaneously (so thin at best). I did have one attempt though which was better than that, but not to the point where it'd be held up as an example of a perfect nemesis. I'm optimistic about my improvements though, so that was encouraging.

Sunday my furious was back to "normal," but my fearless felt better. Let me qualify that. Fearless links which I'm normally not great at were feeling excellent. But for some reason, my flip tomahawk (normally a staple bail) was rebelling against me. It was the height of frustration to get through 5-7 hard contacts of fearless, only to drop on that tomahawk at a point in the combo that it should have been a bail. I got so frustrated by this, I went to complain about it to my fiancee on the treadmill. Sure enough, my very next try this happened:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXgUjcTu1A4[/youtube]

Obsessive readers of the blog may notice that this combo is the same as the one I theorized I could get in the quote box above. That wasn't a conscious choice either, it just happened. The paradox blender in particular surprised me. The way the bag came off my foot after the paradox torque, I was certain it'd be too low to sneak in a blender. In a happy surprise though, I squeaked it out!

So now I've accomplished my stated goal for the challenge. There are still 3 weeks left though, so I think I'll keep working on fearless. I think I could get 14 if I did some variant of what I'm already doing, but I dont know that'd do much for my game or be much fun. Instead, I'm going to work on some of my weaker fearless links, in the hopes that I can combine that with my strong existing links, and push myself to get like 16 fearless.

Here's a bonus video, with my other fearless stuff from Sunday:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmtWXOe1isw[/youtube]
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Re: FanzBlog

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C-Fan wrote:Forecast for Thursday has potential for outdoor shred,... I may take the afternoon off and try and film a shred outside. Crossing my fingers the weather gods cooperate.
Weather didn't live up to the forecast, so no outdoor shred. Gonna have to post that vid from my last outdoor furious session to break up the visual drabness of the videos on this page. Next post.
C-Fan wrote: So now I've accomplished my stated goal for the challenge. There are still 3 weeks left though, so... I'm going to work on some of my weaker fearless links, in the hopes that I can combine that with my strong existing links, and push myself to get like 16 fearless.
I like this plan. Right now, I've got a core group of staple fearless tricks and links that I know I can rely on. That said, there are only so many ways to put them together, and I think 13-14 unique is about where the potential caps out. If I want to get more than 13, I'll either have to get lucky in a run (never an option you want to rely on) or work on developing/strengthening some more fearless tricks and links to the point I can rely on them as much as I do my staples.

My last session I played around with this idea, and here were the results:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGDgpU5VSsU[/youtube]

Some of my thoughts at this stage of the process:

:arrow: motion to pdx blender isn't much harder than just pdx blender. If I solidify this link, it should be a relatively easy way to extend my fearless runs by 1 contact.
:arrow: I'm out of practice with PS egg, but it has potential for helping my fearless game. It's a downtime trick/link, and it takes me back to my strong toe. I'm going to work on tightening it up, and see if I can get it to the point where it's energy efficient to help me out. Especially if I can get good pixies out it.
:arrow: I also want to explore spinning whirl, especially if I can step out if consistently.
:arrow: blurriest b2b is a link I could see becoming consistent. Not sure how to fit it in, but some potential there.

Thinking out loud, if I get the above stuff tightened up a string like this would be feasible: phx-fog-dark-bed-pixie dod-tom-tom-blw-blw-psw-psw-spw-ps egg-pixie torque-motion-pdx blender. That'd be 16, and doesn't seem completely unrealistic.

I may be in Sacramento for work next week. I may not. If I go, hopefully I can get an outdoor shred at some point.
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Rekordy Polski
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Re: FanzBlog

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In Sacramento for the week. Thanks to daylight savings and California weather, I should be able to get in a quick 1 hour session after work most days this week. Gonna try and do that, and shoot them all if possible. Towards the end of the session I'm chasing sunlight, so the video quality degrades, but I'm really just happy to be playing outside.

Today's session I didn't focus on fearless as much. Playing in public on a college campus made me not want to try the same combo over and over again. Paul Gressett requested I do some midstring janiwalkers, so I played with that for a bit. I also had fun playing with atomics. I should do them more often; they're good variety and I don't find them that hard.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA0hyREDVlI[/youtube]

My goal for this week is to re-set my fearless record. If I can get between 14-16 fearless, I'll feel good about my efforts with fearless during the challenge month. New Orleans is in just over a month, so I'd really like to get back to just playing for fun and building stamina. I don't think fearless will help me in NOLA, so the sooner I take care of my fearless record probably the better.
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Rekordy Polski
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Re: FanzBlog

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C-Fan wrote: My goal for this week is to re-set my fearless record. If I can get between 14-16 fearless, I'll feel good about my efforts with fearless during the challenge month.
Mission accomplished:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOs69FQbILc[/youtube]

If I'm being perfectly honest with myself, I would be a lot happier if I had gotten 15 or 16. Mostly because I know its completely within reach; there's no doubt in my mind I can do that many. That said, 14 is a big improvement over my record at the start of the challenge (11). I turn 34 in a month, so I take both comfort and pride in the fact that I'm still able to achieve personal bests at this point in my career. If you told me 10 years ago that I'd hit 14 fearless at some point, I'm not sure I would have believed you. I definitely wouldn't have guessed that would happen when I was on the wrong side of 30. So make no mistake: I'm happy I got 14. I just know I can get more.

That said, I'm not going to push as hard on fearless for the remainder of the Fearless Challenge Month. NOLA jam is almost exactly a month away, and I don't think spending all my time on fearless is the best way for me to prepare for it. NOLA is going to be fun, and its going to be a vacation. But I also really look forward to competing, and I want to do well. I know the focus of the tourney isn't competition, but I enjoy competing. I'm not going to get many opportunities this year to compete, so I want to perform well whenever I have a chance. I think that spending the next month working on stamina, variety, and form will put me in better shape for NOLA than the fearless-focused approach I have taken the past few weeks.

I'm hoping I can get in at least one more outdoor session before I head back to Denver. I'll try and film.
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