Nick "Houdini" Polini

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Dan: You did a fine job with the tour, don't worry. That would have been interesting to read though. And yeah, I agree. I think it could benefit the sport and our community a lot with just several posts from top level players every now and then.

Kev: Thanks man, glad you're enjoying it. It's no Blubberman> Rubberman, by any means, but thank you That's such a sick double drill that I won't have a shot at for a very long time. And yeah, I real loved that Gyro Symp Revup. I wish it was bs though… Maybe soon.

Tonight… nothing huge to report. Went out to drill and was almost immediately interrupted when my neighbor came out and asked me to help move a couch into their house. I'm a nice person, so I had to say yes… however, in my head, there was a little sailor crying, "but…. but… footbagggg… muhhh" Oh well, shut up little sailor. This couch move took way longer than I thought because it wouldn't fit through their front door. My neighbor also ended up ripping his handrail out of the ground, like fucking He Man, and just destroying it, which was kind of comical. After like 50 minutes to an hour, we got it through the window. Jesus. And that stupid dog barked it's special little ass off the whole time.. They have a rescue dog that I honestly wish would just turn itself into a bowl of peanut butter, because it would be more helpful to us and the rest of our neighbors that way. It has the most obnoxious, totally hideous bark. It sounds like raccoons are killing each other and a cat is raping one of those raccoons right in the eye socket. That dog is my rooster every goddamn morning. Lets just say… I understand why it's a rescue dog. Anywho, after helping, it's basically dark. I really wanted some light to drill in today. But I worked with what I had… drilled… and got a few nice highlights.

Highlights:

Twirl> Pdx Whirl> Pdx Whirl> Twirl
Pdx Whirl> Twirl> Twirl> Pdx Whirl
Gyro Whirl> Pdx Whirl> Pdx Whirl> Gyro Whirl
Pdx Whirl> Gyro Whirl> Gyro Whirl> Pdx Whirl
Ended on a really crisp Pdx Whirl> Reverse Swirl *rpt

I really like these trick A> trick B> trick B flip> trick A flip drills. Don't really know what to call them… Anti-drills? That sounds cool. If they don't already have a name, then I'm calling them this.

However, I had to cut the session short because my shins were hurting :/ Not right before PSU Artsfest MiniJam… Good thing I have a week to be responsible, not play, and heal up. Nothing terribly painful, though. So thats good. Just a little tender and landings hurt a bit.

Anyway, so I got an interesting text today from… Bob Reifer!?!? Apparently he saw me driving to work, again (it's happened several times now and I've not seen him once) and this time he stuck his entire torso out the window and waved (he usually just waves) and I still didn't even see him. I'm gonna pay close attention to everyone tomorrow. I think I'll spot him finally. But the coolest part of this text was that he wants to start playing footbag again… once a month.. But it's a start and I know Bob will want to start playing more than once a month. He wants to do yoga before the session, so he can stretch his hip, which I said I was cool with. So next week, I think we're going to have our first session in like.. wow.. 3 years. I've really missed Bob. My original shred partner and teacher. I wouldn't be anywhere without him. Might not even be playing footbag at all without him.

In other news, I'm going to try to do some cross training this week and hopefully finish stitching this footbag… I want to finish it but it's so borrriiiinnggg. I'll get through it and then maybe try to do another… that might be pushing it lol We'll see.

Cant wait til Friday night to see some of my best friends at PSU.

Safe sleepings, everyone.

Edit: Yes! Top post! Fuck you, Ken! hahahaha

[boyle]

That's the worst when you're just getting ready for a session and someone says "oh, can you just help me with this thing". You know if we were competitive swimmers, nobody would be getting us out of the pool to help move a couch through a window or any similar shenanigans...

[C-Fan]

Edit: Yes! Top post! Fuck you, Ken! hahahaha

Damn it. Now I'm going to steal your anti-drills to get even.

Very stoked to hear you might get Rieferman back in the game. Tell him I say hi. Also tell him that Bob Green is playing again in Boston. I still remember playing with Bob Riefer and Bob Green on High Street in Pottstown. I bet he does too.

[brianbear]

I also recently figured out how to fix my flip p whirl, it was all in the pivot foot for me.
props, it is a goood feeling.

i like to call those "anti drills" "sandwich drills"
then you can make funny sandwich names for the combos.

[DC Clinks]

I'm glad that you're sitting next to Matt on the couch.

[krustykrakk]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF-hq_CHNH0[/youtube]

VERSACE

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Get that sloppy mop water off my blog...

Haven't posted for a few days. Recently got back from Mini PSU MiniArtsminiJamFest, which was this weekend. I will post some pictures later. I played ok, but had a smashing time outside the actual shred. Got to see Ivan again, which was really cool. Havent seen him since his injury took place and he looks like he's doing well. Seriously can't wait to shred with that fool again. It's also been a while since I've seen Kemmer too, so that was great to catch up with him. Thankfully, Matt brought Dang Carey. He's real cool and is improving a lot. Only met hit once at pa net jam, but I can already tell he's a cool dude.

It was really good to catch up with everyone else, too, especially my psu crew! They're all progressing very nicely. Although everyone has improved a ton, I must say that April has showed the most improvement. She really surprised me. Ryan Thomas drove to my house from Virginia and then I drove the rest of the way to PSU. Awesome car ride. It was really sick to get to know Ryan better. Never really talked to him for more than 5 minutes before this car ride, but it wasn't awkward at all and we had a fun trip.

Friday was a small session if a few of us. Saturday was real shred day but I managed to get heat exhaustion early on and I kept cramping up when I tried to crank my ankle. I was really down about it at first, then I just made the best of if a bad situation, took my lavers off and did some workshops. I thought it was hilarious that Ryan Thomas and Nathan Bonslaver did a workshop trade with each other, where Ryan taught Nate how to Symple Legover and Nate taught Ryan how to Blink! So proud of what Nate is becoming. Cassy also drove down solo from Canada to attend. She's getting better too. Sucks Erik, Johnny, Adam, or Alex didn't join her this time. Also, a surprise to me, Chrissy showed up on Saturday and kicked with us. That was nice to see her again.

But yeah, I hit a few things this day before cramps set in... The big one was definitely on camera, but I'm not sure about the other. I think Ivan caught it, so I'll wait til the video.

Ryan T's style is still ridiculous. Nathan was hitting some ridiculous stuff. Ben and Marc were going hard, hitting some good strings and new stuff. Ben got more boppy, which is good. He just needs to work on delaying the bag longer and taking his time. Then he'll have a sick game on his hands. Marc hit a new 4 ADD bs, which was dope. Nathan hit it on one side, but got a different one on flip. April learned better infinities and also some promising stepping set attempts. Kemmer was on fire. Played really well. Dan hurt himself doing Legovers, but I recently pointed out why he hurt himself, so I think he'll be figuring that trick out for good soon.

Saturday night was a shred haus party. I had 2 hard apple ciders, which I shared with Kemmer, then left the rest in bathe refrigerator for Ryan Morris. April's deserts continue to not be a letdown by any means. Killer angelfood'esque cupcakes. Kemmer and I watched shred videos while everyone else partied. I wasn't feeling it that night, especially since I was bodily fucked all day and hadn't gotten good sleep in a week. So around midnight, I tried to crash in the living room aka party room. That was hard. Marc talks loud. Chrissy and I talked about punk music for sometime while I was trying to fall asleep and I also helped Dang through a bit of a bag he was making. That night was kind of a blur because I was pretty exhausted. Sorry for this boring read. Nothing too funny happened, except I told everyone if they were being too loud for me, I would make a displeased grunting sound and raise my middle finger I did so several times.. Mostly when Marc started talking. Finally passed out around 1:30 am.

Woke up next morning... First chance to actually throw down some real footbag with Kemmer and Thomas. Did get to play with a circle of Kemmer, Ryan, and me. That was awesome. I tossed some big links, a few ok, and one dope run. Legs were not feeling amazing still.

Anyway, again. sorry for this boring post. The video should be more fun when it comes out.

Ride home with Ryan was awesome fun. Had a giant purple beanbag taking up the entire back seat area. You'll see that in the video too.

Tonight.. Kicked tonight just to break in the new lavers. I did just the basic toe and inside mods.. No brocka , no toe walls removal. I need to figure out how to play without my special crank. Osis is tougher now. Same with, oh, just about everything else. I want to relearn my tricks in normal "no extra mods" lavers. I feel like this will push my game so incredible far.

Figured out (by watching footbag videos of Lon) how on does Pixies. I imitated him and sure enough... Good pixies. Well, that's all really. Looking forward to caching my firm problem in lavers.

I got Magellan x5 bs. New record bs. I gotta get some sleep. Passed out writing this once a bit ago. Pixies are on their way to consistency. Peace.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Sorry for my sleepy post last night. I wanted to post, but I fell asleep halfway through and had no energy to finish the post how I wanted.... WHATEVAH!

Tonight I went out and drilled more Pixies in my "no extra mod" Lavers. Still breaking in, but much better than the first session. Talked to Lon last night and he told me the secret to good Pixies was Pixie Far Pickup b2b and Pixie ss Mirage b2b. I knew about the Mirage, but never thought about the Pickup part.. Gave both a shot. Definitely tough with toe walls.

Highlights:

Pixie Far Pickup x8
Pixie ss Mirage x9
PLO x12
Magellan> Pixie ss Pickup> Maverick bs… Pretty happy about that, because my Pixies have never been so controlled.
Double Spinning Dragon bs! No, that doesn't fit into this mess, but a long time ago, Jackson was just being a dick, saying impossible stuff for me to hit like "High Plains Drifter> Void" and stuff that is now not totally impossible for me, surprisingly. Well, Double Spinning Dragon was one of the most feasible that he blurted out. And I told him that I would hit it for him one day. He got home from work while I was kicking and started chatting while I drilled. Without telling him, I dropped bag to foot and hit it on strong side first try> hand catch. He flipped out and remembered the history behind this trick. That was pretty awesome that something impossible at one point is now not too tough.

I talked to Vince Richardson tonight on the phone for a while and helped him out with some footbag troubles he's been having. Most importantly, I think I helped him have one of his first footbag epiphanies. That definitely felt really cool to be the one giving the epiphany, because I've always been on the opposite side of that. Nice to be the epiphanonizer for once

Aside from Pixies, nothing else has been on my footbag agenda. I want to be able to play well with toe walls by the time that Ianek and Mathieu come visit me at the end of the month. That's my goal right now.

Also, I guess I'll end on this: If you're having trouble with Pixies, watch how Lon Smith point his knee inward, then flicks his knee outward on the dex. That really helps you get over the bag quickly. Food for thought.

'Night all.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

It's late and I always like to comment on a few blogs before I make a post of my own. I was going to post some pics from PSU tonight, but… well… no, Scott.

However, today is Friday, finally. No work this weekend. I really cherish my weekends now that this full-time junk sucks my days up. I still manage to play at night almost every day or so though. Also, at work, even though I hate it, I finally get PTO (Paid Time Off) since I've hit my 6 month mark. My girlfriend is killing it, absolutely crushing it with her company. She does horticultural landscaping, which is in her field of college studies, so props to her for just that. She's been there, a little less than 6 months. On top of that, she's already manager of her own section, she got a raise, a bonus, and just like everything is falling right in her lap. It's sick and I'm stoked for her. But hearing her talk about it, I can't help but feel shitty, because I'm pulling fucking items off of shelves and putting them into carts all day. Ugh. I really was hoping I would have landed a wildlife job by this point. Guess I'll make the best of it though, until something comes up for me. But yeah, the PTO time is nice because I can make some extended footbag trips now.

Also, if they're still planning on road tripping down to PA, I will be seeing Ianek and Mathieu very soon, at the end of this month. Will be using PTO time for one of those days, to do a kayak trip with them in the morning, then shred in the evening and maybe a geocache or 2 and a hike? We'll see. I'm excited though. I rely like those dudes inside of footbag and outside of footbag. Both seem awesome. I have talked to Ianek more than Mathieu, but I look forward to getting to know each of them much better during those 3 days.

Alas, the session tonight… Of course, I drilled. Yeah, I know boring, right? Well if you don't drill, then you eat chowder. I tried a bit of a different approach tonight though. Still trying to work on Pixie game with no-extra-mods Lavers, but wanted to work on my Osis game, as well.. So I came up with a harder (but not too hard) Genuine 4 contact combo and worked towards hitting it 3x bs. I really felt like I got somewhere with it tonight, especially being able to hit it with full toe walls and no brocka mods. It felt really good. Then I drilled some other stuff, as well as more Pixies.

Highlights:

Spinning Osis> Torque> Ducking Legover> Pixie ss Mirage 3x bs (really tough in the beginning of the session, but got easier as I tried it.. felt like improvement)
Spinning Osis> Torque BSOS (I never even used t hit this combo with my old Lavers, and I don't know why… I think this link is so stylish)
Didn't break my record of 8, but Pixie Far Pickup x5 or so. Much more laid back now though. Pixies are feeling easier each day.
Had one or 2 dense runs that were impressive to me.
End combo: Smoke> Blender> Spinning Butterfly bs

I can already start to feel my form getting fine-tuned by playing with no-extra-mods Lavers (I'll refer to these as "NEMs" from now on, so I don't have to keep typing it out).

After the session, I joined my neighbor (who is moving soon) and my dad in the backyard by the pond for some wine. This neighbor was also my 6th grade music teacher. Yes, I drank with my 6th grade music teacher. That definitely beat playing and failing at Hot Cross Buns on the recorder back in the day. I'm not a drinker, and I don't like being drunk, but I partake sometimes. I had a glass, then we brought up a movie my dad watched on netflix, "Jiro Dreams of Sushi". We got into a great sushi debate. My former music teacher hated sushi. My dad and I were utterly confused how someone could hate sushi.. So at 10:30 pm, my dad insists I call the sushi restaurant and order some for us. Long and the short of it, I ended up placing a large order of sushi, driving all of us over to pick up it (since my dad and neighbor could definitely not drive at this point), and coming back to have a huge, spontaneous as hell sushi dinner. Neighbor tried the sushi and was in love. Duh. No one can actually hate sushi, unless they're allergic. Hating sushi is just a myth. F that.

Anyway, that was that. Just wanted to share that story of spontaneous sushi.

Here is an earthshakingly glorious video that Ivan isirc10 made of last weekend at PSU Artsfest MiniJam.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bewl1m0bH4[/youtube]

Have a nice weekend, everyone. Shred it up!

[Pirrotta]

Im glad your still finding time to train and balance life, Also good to hear pixies are getting easier for you. I have stopped training pixies like 5 times in my career already out of frustration and even got shin splints once from slamming my foot down after the set. Hopefully there's some solid shuffle in your games future. That video is pretty sick too..

[boyle]

I know how difficult and frustrating it can be to get s job in a specialist field, but you have just mentioned the best part of having a full time gig. Just think about it, next year, you can go to worlds and midway through the week, get paid for being there.

What happened to the thing you were doing soon after you finished uni?

[C-Fan]

coming back to have a huge, spontaneous as hell sushi dinner.

What happened to the thing you were doing soon after you finished uni?

People ask very specific questions about your meals in this blog.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Antonio: yeah man, Pixies suck! Especially for us shorter legged players. Message me sometime and I can give you tips that worked for me. Thanks for commenting. Always cool to get a new person checking out my blog

Danny Boi: That place didn't have the funds to keep me past the summer. Sucks because I loved it. Hope somethings comes up soon. But the yeah, PTO will be nice to have.

Ken Keniff from the Laundry Mat: I'ONTGEETIT

Just got to Nadine's place and I have a limited time until she gets out of the shower, so some quick highlights here... First off, 2.5 hour session with Jeremy and Corey. Tried to drill for the most part.

Highlights:

Pixie Far Pickup x11 (new personal record)
Milestone Drill: Smog> PLO *rpt
Spinning Osis> Torque> Ducking Legover> pixie ss Mirage 3x bs... At first this was really hard to get on flip again, so I filmed some Torques and upon review, realized my flipside was so hard because I turned my shoulders too late. Fixed it immediately and now the combo is very attainable. I need to film my stuff for personal review more often.
Pixie op Clipper> Drifter> Reverse Swirl> Pdx Drifter bs
Stepping ss Mirage> Smoke bs
Stepping ss Pickup> Magellan> Pixie ss Pickup> Maverick a few times bs

That's all for now. Girlfriend time!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So this might be a sort of bittersweet post for a lot of you reading this…

I'm not quitting footbag, but I might be calming my drill sessions down a good bit for a while, for one reason.

My friend Leon and I have been discussing plans of a startup company recently. I've been really excited about it. Some people think "oh, cool, startup… that's going to be fucking hard. You won't be successful with it." But Leon and I are totally passionate and dedicated to this. We created an idea together, as of today. We just met up about it a little while ago and we planned out almost our entire process. It's so easy. Once we do the research, it's gravy cakes from then on. I don't want to discuss the idea, because we promised each other we would not reveal it until we were ready to distribute.

Don't want to mention anything else about it, aside from the fact that if this works and we are as successful as we think, I am going to monetarily help footbag out in the future as much as I can. Also, I need your help to help us spread our product once it's developed. To your family, friends, family's friends, families friends and friends' families, etc… I know a lot of stuff with Evan and Jindra trying to get to Worlds this year has come up with kick starters and stuff, and I hate to say it, but we'll need to do a kickstarted too, but the difference between our's and their's is that you will be receiving our product when you donate. We wouldn't be needing nearly as much as John Stalberger needed, or even as much as Evan or Jindra need(ed). I know not a whole lot of the community reads this blog, but if the people that do read it tell other players that know me and who what I'm all about, I'd appreciate it. Again, this won't be happening for a few months or so, but it'd be nice to cough up a bit of mention about what I'm going to be asking for. I hate asking my community for donations, but like I said, I would reciprocate it in the end and donators would also get our product.

If you're interested in learning more about startups, check this video out. This is a trailer to the video that gave us the idea:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApUln7AD0_Q[/youtube]

Footbaggers often think outside the box of normality, so if you have an idea and passion for the idea.. grab your balls and squeeze, then take the leap.

To sum up this post, I want to reveal a (paraphrased) quote I've never mentioned to anyone, which was said to me a year ago, almost to this day, when a friend was helping me with a summer Physics course:

"In the end, you will be the happiest, saddest, richest, poorest, or etc.. person in the world. I believe this because you put 100% into everything you do and, in return, you will get 100% out of it." ~Jay Boychuk

Jay, if you're reading this, those words have been ringing in my ear almost constantly since you said them to me. To you, I owe you so much for helping me to better see my true potential. Thank you isn't enough.

[boyle]

Next round of start up chile opens in September. 40,000 bucks is better than a kick up the bum...

Interested to see what you come up with. You have the kind of passion to get things going, from there the product needs to be good to keep up the momentum.

Best of luck....Thiugh the reason people say things are hard is because in the early days, you guys will be putting a lot of your money and time into the project for seemingly minimal results.

[DC Clinks]

Did... Did you delete your Facebook? Shit is getting real right now...

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks for the luck wishes, Danny Boi. Hope you don't mind if I call you that from now on. It just fits so well. I appreciate the good wishes. It is going to take a lot of luck. That's what they said in the documentary.

And yes, Dang, I did delete my Facebook… more on that at the end of my post.

Anyway, I had a good session with Bonslaver and Jackson tonight. This was Jack's first session in almost 2 months I think. He busted his ankle last time and was out for a long time. He's trying to learn better form this time and better trick execution. So far so good. A little scary to watch him save the bag though sometimes haha

Nate was killing it again. Got a few new things I think. I won't reveal, because he'll likely blog, as well. I had a bangin' session though. Specifically in the Pixie area.

Highlights:

Run with Smoke BSOS & Vortex BSOS
Lots of excellent (well, excellent for me!) midstring Pixie shuffle. Bango.
Midstring Tapping DLO
Alpine PLO> Alpine PLO> decent string
Alpine Magellan> Alpine Maverick> ok string
Had some great Torques bs in a few runs.. using my newfound proper shoulder turning method, of course.
Ender: Atomsmasher> Smoke BSOS!!! That was so unbelievably dope-feeling. Like YOLOSTFU

I think that was one of the bigger Pixie breakthroughs I've ever had. Felt so good.

In Nick News, did a heap of research today. Gotta go to work tomorrow, then do a heap of research tomorrow after work. It's going to be a lot of work, but I think it'll be so worth it in the end. As long as I have people around me that believe in me. Bonslaver already told me he'd buy a bunch of product, in bulk, from me. That was awesome to hear that he supports me so much… even though he has no idea what it is. But yeah, I feed off of people that believe in me, if anyone hasn't noticed. Emotional support through this from my friends, and family is going to be useful, because man… it's fucking scary but exciting.

More news, also just as exciting for me… I quit Facebook! I deactivated my account! I feel so free! There was so much bullshit and trash and just goddammit, everyone shut the fuck up, please! The only reason I ever went on there was to check the footbag group. I will miss the footbag group… and funny cat videos. But that's it. And hopefully I encouraged people to join me more on modified than Facebook. Maybe, maybe not.. I'd really like it if people posted stuff from the Facebook on modified too. Especially important stuff, like projects and stuff. Definitely new dope videos too. I already feel so much more freedom. Awesome feeling.

Come say hi in my blog or send me a private message, now that I'm not on Facebook! I feel like a footbag hermit

[akprice]

congrats my friend on your new venture. i'm sure it will be a success because you are a drivin individual (and that's rare these days). i think that's what footbaggers have in common and last in this sport. you have to be drivin and fanatical to keep striving and progressing in footbag. i know you won't stray too far from footbag! good luck my friend and i will support you in anyway i can. you have done the same with me. thanks!

[isirc10]

And yes, Dang, I did delete my Facebook… more on that at the end of my post.

Well, I'm glad you feel better. I do think you were a greater asset to the footbag community on FB than you realize. I believe a presence in social networking sites would help with your start up, but hey, what do I know. (The main reason I'm saying all of this is that I can't text you because my phone doesn't work in the apartment, and I can't stand using the modified PM system as much as you can't stand FB) So yeah, I'm a bit bummed, but I suppose I understand your decision.

As for that start up - I have no idea what your product is, and I will withhold my opinion until I see it. We had a few conversations about this, most notably on the way to riverrock, so you know I would like to see you excel in your venture, regardless of the hardships. The way I like to think about it, if it was easy, it would have been done already. If it hasn't been done already, then all of the current methods were proven to be unfeasible. It just takes one person, one idea, coupled with a lot of research to get something that hasn't been tried before. Enjoy the ride, and don't let pessimistic assholes like me ruin the ride

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Edit: Today I pooped. BSOS