FuteBlaug (PSU)

[krustykrakk]

Hey, y'all!

This is the best place to post this. I am very excited to say that I have been playing for at least a year now. Marc Peralta got me into freestyle footbag during the last or second last week of March last year. This has been a great year. I am happy to say this sport has changed my life. It has found me April, friends all over the world, and an entire new consciousness. Being an athlete for as long as I can remember, a post-highschool loss of serious sport created a type of tear in me. I am happy to say that tear has been mended and I am feeling better than ever!

[krustykrakk]

Hello,
Jamps IV went extremely well this weekend. We had players from all over North America come! It's very cool to say that. I am very blessed to have met all of the players I never have before this weekend. Everyone was extremely nice and helped make Jamps IV one of the best weekends of my life. (That's a teensy dramatic but I mean it.)

There were plenty of talented pros to learn from as well as a great amount of intermediate players. To be honest, the entire thing seems like a dream (except for the fatigue in my legs.) I met up with a lot of good people that I don't meet often or have only ever met once, so it was refreshing in that aspect.

Competitions were amazing! After I had been told that Johnny Suderman was just starting to get over the flu, it was pretty obvious that Jim Penske was going to win first place for open circle. One of my main footbag mentors, Nick Polini, got into the final circle. PROPS NICK! He was upset about (in his mind) his own lack of his best game. I disgaree. He did great!
It was unfortunate that Johnny was forced to take things easy as I was eager to watch him for the first time in person. On the flipside of that, it was cool to see Johnny win requests despite the sickness.

The mirage race was an interesting comp, one of which I have never seen before. Ivan's sense of humor came out with the choice of prize for the mirage race: a really nice 92-panel.

Finally, I took part in intermediate circle. It was yielded a huge turnout; I believe we had 12 competitors. I was a little upset with my performance with the first round but got over it as I barely advanced. My ideal goal was to place or at least to take a spot in the final circle while my realistic goal was to advance at least once. After my first round, I came into a good mindset for the second round. That went well and I was pleased. The final round was very intimidating for me but I managed to win it by less than one point. I think the intermediate comps were very competitive and very very close.



Highlights:
Outside calf roll (I had hit this trick before but only once or twice. I gave it a few tries this weekend and it worked.)
Cool combos with guays, rev guays, front sole bsos, calf rolls, quad rolls, dimwalks and basic stalls.

I am just getting over this weekend. I am sunburned from playing outside today and very very tired. Me mentioning not being ready for real life tomorrow would be an understatement.

EDIT: I would have posted more pictures but my phone is more outdated than the 1996 Telecommunications Act cha cha cha.

[krustykrakk]

I haven't kicked since Tuesday and Sunday before then. I felt compelled to post about what I consider a milestone. On Tuesday, I hit a trick with an uptime set into a second trip with another. This was also my first 4>4, I think.
Dimwalk>Ripwalk.
I also hit my first sidewalk, but only on one side. I feel like it shouldn't be too hard to hit my other side sidewalk, however it's odd because I am not sure what my weak side is. My stepping set is better with my left foot, but my butterfly is better on my right foot. Would I be correct in assuming that this means I should drill left butters (same side especially) as well as stepping from my right; or should I just go for it?

My question is:
Should I practice infinity > ss buttter?
Or should I just go for ripwalk > sidewalk?

[Muffinman]

Congrats on the achievement
Definitely practice butterflies, near and far, before going for ripwalks and sidewalks. Can you do at least 20 alternating?

[krustykrakk]

We'll see next time I kick

[krustykrakk]

Erik: To answer your question: No.

I had my usual Tuesday morning drill session with Ivan today. Aidan had to sit out due to a fracture in his knee (unrelated to foot bag.) I started off with infinities and broke my record, almost doubling it. My new infinity record is 9. I am happy that it advanced, although unhappy that it is still very low for where I wanted to be by now. It was formerly 5, so increasing by 4 is a vast improvement. I got very frustrated at how such a small motion tired me out so quickly.

After giving up trying to hit 10 infinities (due to lack of energy,) I went for ducking clippers. My current record is 1, but I got closer to ducking clipper b2b than I ever had before. My sets are usually a bit high for cleanliness, but I am just happy that they pass behind my neck. I can worry about tightness of it after I hit a few b2b. A fluky almost-highlight I have is that after catching a duck on my weak clipper, I set it, ducked it, and just missed an accidental flapper by only two or three inches (seemingly.)

Butterfly is my main focus. I need to get better at it if I ever plan on reaching my goal of infinity x100.

[krustykrakk]

PSU had a session outside today! I have highlights:
-Ripwalk BSOS
-A run with clipper same butterfly BSOS and infinity BSOS
-Cloud stall BSOS (I might be on to something here)
-Calf roll from the outside of my knee to an outside set (Outside Roll?) BSOS
-One decent run with lots of rolls. Roll > Roll combos are fun. I want to get good enough at them to the point where it can be used as a stylee bail.
-During the end of the session, April, Khoa, Kat and I stuck around for a bit. Khoa and I were still trying random combos as a cooldown. Khoa and I tried stepover > swirl but both failed. I then hit hopover > swirl. Hitting this was completely random and I couldn't get weak side. I wasn't discouraged by this because I am not good at swirl at all but hitting it from another trick I don't do a lot gave me hope for swirls.

-

[Muffinman]

Nice.
Next try hopover swirl! It feels sooo cool. I have really bad swirls too

[krustykrakk]

Haha, that seems a little dangerous for my difficulty, Erik. I was, however, amazed by Chris Chinsen's old video "Numbers" where he executes hopover ripstein.

I kicked yesterday and today.
Yesterday's session was fun but I didn't hit anything new. I did, however, BSOS flapper. I used to do this all the time but now just used strong flapper OR weak flapper as a bail. It was cool to get some sauce on it again; something I will have to do more often from now on. After yesterday's session, April and I baked her belated birthday cake for everyone at shredhaus! I baked the cake from scratch, which was dark chocolate (and very rich,) and April made the butter cream icing (which was the icing on the cake [literally and figuratively.]) Ivan also got us all ice cream! Moose tracks and cherry! We watched Anchorman 2 which featured a lot of purposefully forced humor that tickled my funny bone.

Today's session was fun. I finally hit clipper same butter > infinity rpt. I have been wanting to hit this drill for so long. My weak butter is just not good at all, so this was a rewarding milestone. I've been working on my butters from everywhere lately and don't plan on stopping any time soon. I want to increase my infinity numbers more as well as clipper same butter.
April and I just bought some size 9 lead shot for her bags, so there should be more April Bags® in the near future.

Lastly, I finally finally finally found the exact laver I have wanted since I saw it when I started playing: Clear sand!!! By the time my paycheck dropped, the only pair left was size 8, which is my size! I seem to be one of a very small amount of footbaggers that has size 8 shoes or at least that needs size 8 shoes. I will add this new pair to my and April's combined collection of kick shoes.

New Lavers:

[krustykrakk]

Hallo!

I would to take this opportunity to write up some things that have been on my mind lately, followed by details about my drill session today. I am 22 years old and my time in college is coming to an end. I live about three and half hours away from home and don't have a car so I usually keep in touch with my dad via monthly phone call. I don't call my mother at all or that side of my family, including my sister.

I called my dad on Sunday to see how he was doing. I told him about how school was going, my summer plans, and about my Jamps victory. Usually, my dad doesn't take too much of interest in what I do unless it's school-related or has something to do with our sports teams (PSU Football, Phillies baseball, Eagles football.) I expected to hear the usual, apathetic "Uh huh, that's great, Ben." from him but to my surprise, he sounded excited for me. I was ecstatic. A few more minutes into the conversation, he mentions that he and my stepmom moved out of our home and into a 55+ community and placed my belongings in storage. I hadn't really planned on moving back home, at least not for more than six months, but now I don't really even have that option. I wasn't upset but the news, just taken off-guard. He also mentioned that I am on my own after this year as well. This was the most meaningful conversation I had with my dad in a while and it was important to me because it was the first conversation in a long while between the two of us where he sounded relaxed.

With things falling into place in my new adult life, I too feel a weight off my shoulders. A lot of stress has been getting me down lately. This includes school, work, graduation, future housing, etc. The pressure for me to succeed has been mounting and I have selfishly been taking it out on my good friends. Many of these good friends are footbaggers. I sincerely apologize to anyone and everyone that I have mistreated in recent times. I cannot blame my misconduct solely on the aforementioned stressers and completely accept the burden of my lapse of character. With that said, I want to thank my love April Marie Tou for her continuing support in making me a better person. She always challenges me and is a huge inspiration in and out of lavers.

All of this coming-of-age and sappy stuff is making me feel weird. Time to talk about footbag!
This morning, I had a solo session while a tired Ivan helped me with advice.

First, I tried osis. Ivan pointed out that when I plant after the stall, I put my support foot too far back, making it harder to hit tricks out of. I tried to fix this for a bit then reverted to easier things.

After osis, I tried alternating muted clippers. Today was not a good for me. I tried and tried while thinking about plant foot placement, set/arch, stall, and pivot. This was overwhelming and it just frustrated me further. After seeing me struggle with what I consider easy stuff (but evidently not,) Ivan suggested I take the difficulty another step down.

After alternating clippers, I switched to consecutive same side clippers. I am not sure what my records for each side are but I am assuming I set the records for myself today with 30 on strong side and 22 on weak side. I have a lot of work to do to get to a more comfortable level but mainly, I think I just need to play more.

After Ivan left, I drilled flip butterfly, something that has always gotten me down (yes, pun intended.) Instead of tackling it head-on with the infinity rpt drill, I chose to only focus on weak side by reverting to my old style of drilling new tricks: achieve a certain number of reps for one trick from different sets and count only the clean ones. I drilled the following for weak butter:
Weak infinity x10
weak toe > butterfly
strong toe >butterfly (without tap)
same side butterfly

TLDR: Learning how to become an adult stressed me out. Sorry to everyone I took it out on. April's da shizzit. I drilled osis, clipper, and butter.

[krustykrakk]

Woo!

Today was a great day! I had time to think about my two upcoming final presentations as well as two upcoming final exams... but that's not what the "Woo!" was for.

The "Woo!" was for the great session I had today with April and Khoa. It started out with April and I drilling legovers, then pickups. After that, Khoa showed up so we freestyled. I had a long, comfortable tiltless string in the beginning which felt amazing. I BSOS'd pdx mirage, a bunch of different butteflies, legovers, mirages, etc etc. This one string in particular made me feel a lot better about my footbagging self. After the freestyle footbag, Khoa went to practicing his freestyle football and I went back to drilling. During out pre and post shred drill times, April surprised the nose off of my face. She is getting very consistent and stringing very very well.

Highlights:
Legover x 17 (record, I think)
Pickup x 8 (record is 10ish, I think) This is sort of an anti-highlight because I now have a definite interest in improving on it.
Mirage x 16 on strong side (shattered my old record)
Mirage x 11 on weakside (record)
PLO BSOS (not new)
That one string in the beginning of the session I mentioned above.

After a day of rest, this was a great session for me in terms of footbag and in terms of fun.

Today I learned how to drain and crack open a coconut. I am currently eating shavings out of it and will gallop while hitting the two halves of the empty husk together as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

[MetZelRio]

You and me both got 17 consecutive legovers today. Fun! However, you're kicking the heck out of me on the rest of your records you posted.

[Cass]

Yeah! Nice highlights! You guys are getting so good. I'm stoked for your whole club!!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I like the repeating tricks... A lot. If you wanna get good, that's how you do it. I'd say once you hit around 20 of each of those tricks, you should consider putting them into some 4 and 6 contact drills, just do your muscles get used tolinking in and out if the various tricks, instead of the same tricks over and over again. Good work though man. Can't wait to shred with you again

Sent from my SGH-T769 using Tapatalk

[krustykrakk]

Thanks all, for the responses!

Paul: Woo! Let's both get those numbers higher! Stinks you couldn't make it to Jamps. I was looking forward to meeting you and Sebastian.

Cass: Thanks! I'm stoked as well!!! Come back and shred with us. Now. No, seriously NOW.

Nick: Yais. You also come back.

Hallo.

I had a session on Friday with April, Kat, and Ivan. I BSOS'd ducking clipper, I also BSOS'd ripwalk. I can't, for the life of me, remember if I hit it back to back but let's assume that I did not (which is far likelier than the alternative.) Likelier is a funky-looking word. My runs have been decent in terms of bailing to one adds (which I am doing less) and length (which is increasing, slowly.) I'm starting to use infinity as filler in my runs in preparation for other tricks. It serves as a nice 3add that resets my clipper. It's nice, also, that I can bail to clipper now. Mid-string, I will often forget that clipper is a tiltless trick, then bail to it, then either hit an infinity or reset to toe with a pickup, legover, or mirage. Toe near mirage (with the tap) is becoming my mid-string friend as well as the occasional illusion. This makes me feel nice.

I did not go to the session at "Movin' On," a PSU free outdoor concert that had a bunch of bands. The selling points for going to the concert were seeing a band that a friend of mine is in and some indie bands that I am not too familiar with. The headliner was rapper A$AP Rocky. Rap music is one of my guilty pleasures and A$AP is one of my current favorites. A good reason that I did not go was because he was replaced by Wiz Khalifa. I haven't liked Wiz since his ep "Rolling Papers." In my opinion, he sold out. Who can blame him for seeing success in money? I don't, however, I choose not to listen to his new music because it completely strays from why I liked him in the first place.

Anywhoooo, I didn't go to a formal session yesterday but I was in shorts and lavers all day. I had just made a bag that still needs some breaking in. I remembered something I read in the Lon Smith "Oldterview" on BSOS.IT about kicking even when you only have a few minutes and it inspired me. April and I kicked at the bus stop to and from campus, randomly downtown, and I kicked while grilling some steaks for dinner. I ended up have a great run in un-modded lavers while grilling. I BSOS'd atw, orbit, pdx mirage, ducking clipper, infinity, osis, and a few other tiltless tricks. This impromptu shredding was a huge confidence boost that I needed. I am sure the practice helped my game as well.

[boyle]

I always have a bag with me, to do some kicking when the time is available, bus stops, just waiting for an elevator, there is plenty of time to do a couple of clippers or anything like that.

[krustykrakk]

Thanks for the reply, Daniel! I hope to shred with you one day.

After a final presentation I had to give today in my wireless communications industry class, I went an hour late to the PSFC session. Darn professors, don't they realize how important kick is? I didn't get to kick much due to the session being wrapped up by the time I had arrived. I had a few fun strings but nothing major.

Highlights:
First time flip dimwalk!
A few runs with lots of BSOS bop.
orbit > atw rpt x(more than I have ever done, I think [wasn't counting])

*Sidenote:
Going back to Boyle and me mentioning of playing randomly even if only for a few minutes; I think this will help newer players, especially. I thought about this today after confidently hitting a ton of atw > orbit rpt. but then struggling to get past 3 or 4 on flip. This is BAD. It is also something that is low-impact and easy to train. I feel like practicing that drill on weak side during down time is a great idea for me, especially since the tricks are so basic that I can do them in any attire. Practicing something crazy like pdx torque at a bus stop in jeans and non-kick walking shoes might be awkward and hard, but practicing atws and orbits isn't bad at all. I look forward to tomorrow after 3:45 since my last group presentation will be done and over with and I can change out of my suit. I'd rather not do the spare downtime kicking in my only suit for fear of ripping.

[krustykrakk]

Yesterday Vince visited us as he was passing through town. He has improved a ton since Jamps. It's really cool that his job gives him the opportunity to travel. I don't think he stayed in State College for too long since he left right after the session.

Highlights:
-Tiresome infinity drilling with April at the end of the session
-clipper > same side refraction > far refraction (I like refractions a lot and eventually want to hit motion and blender so this was huge for me)
-Super fun! I had a great time this session. Resting for a day payed off big time!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hey now, props on your flip Dimwalk Big milestone.

I like the ss Refraction> Far Refraction link. Very styles. I think that would be a pretty sweet drill.

Keep drilling those Infinities and Atw/Orbits. When you're really good, you will thank yourself that you drilled those instead of ADD hunting or something less productive.

I was thinking about this today… I did it with Whirls a while ago and it helped exquisitely. I called them "Whirl Weeks" and I'd carry a bag around with me everywhere and before/after I did anything, I made sure I dropped the bag onto my foot and hit 1 whirl on each side. Maybe trying this with Infinity b2b would be really helpful. By the end of one week, you will have gotten in so many reps of Infinity b2b. Just a thought/suggestion.

Either way, keep it up. Can't wait to shred with you again.

[krustykrakk]

Thanks, Nick. I really need an atw/orbit week starting soon. And osis and pdx mirage and butter and this and that etc. etc. Wow, I need to improve on a lot.

Hallo.

Today is the last day of finals until this summer. I am excited to say that I think did very well on my first final yesterday. I went there right after a session at the HUB, so I was very sweaty and smelly. I changed shirts, which was nice, but every time I opened my backpack, I smelled my shoes and shirt.

I had a session on Sunday with Ryan and April. We kicked a teensy bit as a group then split off into separate drilling sects. It sort of bugged me a bit when Ryan said he was going to break off and start drilling. That left only April and I. We would not have called the session if we knew it was going to be the two of us. The surprise drilling turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I managed to get my osis record from 4 to at least 6. I had another good osis string where I might have hit 7 but I wasn't counted and therefore will not count it. April has been hitting some really sweet, long strings. She gets down about bailing to toe a lot but given that just a few months ago, she was just learning the tricks and practicing mostly toe stalls and basic dexes, I think she's completely fine.
Side note: April's fourth(?) bag ever was lost...by me during the session. Squash court 10 has a weird crack between the west wall and the floor. I Itried ducking rake as a sick 1 for the upcoming online comp but launched the bag off of my foot. That bag was seriously a great one. We named her Ivy (14 panel, all maroonish hexes, all dark green squares.) RIP

Highlights:
Osis x6
Some ehh footage for the online comp (I'd like to refilm soon)

Yesterday was a good session. I had a few nice, long, tiltless runs that made my day. My longest one ended with me bailing to three 1adds in a row. While I could have set the bag and gone for more tiltless, I was happy with the run length and decided to pass the bag... end the run on my terms. That felt great! I also, however, felt that I probably should have kept going for stamina's sake. Magellan is becoming easier on strong side, weak side pixies are also improving. I had some other highlights as well.

Highlights:
-A few nice, long, tiltless runs
-Easier strong side Magellan
-First CLEAN weak side PLO (The set was cleanly separated from the legover on this one, not just a midtime same side DLO like my others)
-Ducking clipper in two strings (stoked as heck)