Well this has been a neat long weekend!
Johnny Breakdown didn’t end up getting a flight to YYZ unfortunately (but maybe this was actually fortunate, because I can’t say no).
I got up unnecessarily early saturday and left for Joliette. I was driving alone and I wasn’t sure if I would get lost or run into traffic. The drive turned out to be a nice, easy highway drive and I made it on schedule with two stops and two small detours.
I arrived at Mathieu’s place around 10 am. He was surprised I was so early. Yeah I was totally up at 3am…
I met Mats girlfriend and two of his super chill cats. Then Dante got out of the shower and I got to give him a big hug! Turns out he was totally at PSU jamps so it hadn’t been
that long. I don’t think we hung out much last time though.
Mathieu lives super close (like literally in) the Joliette town centre so we went there with Dante to play a little 2 and 3 square. Mat dominated. We shredded a tiny bit after that but not too much cause we were planning to play with others later.
I like the feel of Joliette. It’s really nice, quaint. Unlike Montreal, almost nobody here speaks English so that’s a little tricky.
Back at Mat’s we jumped in the pool which was super refreshing! We had some pasta for lunch then Dante and I took a quick power nap.
When we got up Ianek was there! It was good to see him! Unfortunately he had an accident recently and got stitches in his mouth and near his eye. I had really been looking forward to shredding with him but it didn’t look like that would happen this time. We hardly ever seem to shred together even though we see each other fairly regularly.
Two other Montreal freestylers arrived - Guillaume and Francois.
We all headed back to the downtown area again for the real shred. It was pretty hot so it was easy to stay warmed up even when we played in a five man. I didn’t play amazingly but it was a lot of fun! Francois has some crazy tricks up his sleeve. Rev Swirling far toe is one I’ll have to try. Guillaume is a newer player with some solid illusion game going on. It’s rare to see a tiltless player do more illusions than mirages.
We had a couple little competitions - Horse and request. I had never played footbag horse and it was a lot of fun! It was really tough for me to think of combos that I could hit first try that would stump the guys though. I ended up getting fourth and Francois won which was cool! He doesn’t even know what most tricks are but if you show him he just goes ahead and hits it. He has talent. Too bad he doesn’t really hit runs.
Request is always fun. In between the two competitions I tired myself out working on Vortex. Ianek helped me a lot with that so I think I will be able to get it with a little more practice. I got out early in request because I had no energy left. I think I was out on Blur>Fairy Legover which should have been easy. Dante ended up taking request. I think Mathieu posted all the combos in the event page.
One fun request combo that I hit (but not during the comp):
Paradon>Torque
I had some really good conversation with Ianek about how much ADDs have bastardized the sport and other things. He is really interesting to talk to and has great insight. He also helped me out a bit with pdx. Blenders.
Back at Mat’s we jumped in the pool and ate hotdogs. There was lots more interesting discussion about competition and things. Ianek totally sold me on the idea of a battle competition. If done right it can be awesome. Here is a great example of how it can be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbqbpLeYCUk
It’s really cool because it’s more of a show. You get to keep going if you drop (it’s a timed thing) so it’s okay to take risks and go for bigs stuff.
We watched some cool footbag videos. One was the first circle comp ever at worlds (06?) with Milan, Jorden, Felix, and Ales. It was really cool because it was also done more as a show. It was timed as well so the guys didn’t play as safe which made it more intense/exciting. Circle tends to be so boring because people play it safe since you only get three tries per round. I think this is a big problem.
Saturday evening we had a fire which was really chill. More good conversation. A lot of French that just went over my head this weekend also.
Sunday we went to Montreal for Tam tam!!!! I was super stoked for this because tam tam is legendary.
The walk from mats car through Montreal to tam tam was awesome. So many interesting shops that I would love to go in. I could spent so much time there. The people watching in Montreal is great! So many interesting styles. LOVE.
It was just Mat, Dante and I at the beginning. These two are both great at footbag. Mat has amazing Fairy sets.
Dante just kicks ass. Every run had something notable. Here is just an average one I took video of but this it definitely not representative of his level:
[youtube]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kDTHkQVlOY[/youtube]
My shoulders have been sore lately and I think the couch thing that I slept on irritated that more. At some point shortly after we arrived at tam tam my back seized up between the shoulders and it was super painful. I really struggled to even play because of this unfortunately.
I was walking around near the back of the statue and randomly found a $10 bill! Tons of people were around but noone that clearly dropped it so I snagged that. That never happens! Crazy!
I joined another hack circle there that was really fun! One of the three guys was a long time foursquare player (I actually called it because he was doing blind kicks and fake out type stuff) and another played net - he knew about worlds. All of them had good bs kicks and some other tricks so they were a lot of fun to kick with.
Francois came out and played for a while also. He seemed to play better Sunday and had some really interesting runs.
If you’ve never been to tam tam you simply
must go some day. The feeling there is so unique and positive. All types of people gather for this massive drum circle. There are always lots of other obscure hobbies too. It’s just the best vibe. We play at the base of this statue:
The drum circle is visible where the crowd of people is on the left of the photo. This was early in the afternoon but it gets much bigger later on.
EDIT: I totally forgot to mention that James randomly ran into us at tam tam!! He wasn't able to shred because he had his son this weekend but it was a totally awesome surprise! It was really good to see him briefly and give him some good hugs. We will get to hang out more at the Paris ON event at the end of the month so I'm looking forward to that
After tam tam I went out for sushi with Mat and Dante. This was such a great idea! So satisfying. It was great to get to know Mathieu a little better. He has lots of interesting stories about working in Africa, making money on the internet, and other things.
We watched more footbag videos including the new one from Evan twice. So good.
I played pass the pigs for the first time and we also played a game of Clue. I was pretty much a zombie by this point so we called it an early night.
Dante ended up grabbing a ride with me back to Kingston. I was nice to have a driving companion. There were some accidents and we got caught in some traffic so it ended up taking over 8 hours to get home. We had some interesting conversations about philosophy of happiness and other things. We also had some comfortable silences which I appreciate.
It’s always nice to go to a small event like this and get to know footbag friends better. Dante, Mat, and Ianek were already my friends but I feel like I got to know them so much better this weekend
The bright side of small events is that you don’t feel like you missed out on hanging out with people.
Ianek really gave me an interesting perspective on freestyle and made me think about it a little differently. I love how much I learn at every single event, big or small!!!
I heard Greg Raymond is playing these days and I will definitely be visiting Kingston soon for a shred with him and Dante. It’s only about twice as far as a Toronto session so a day trip is totally doable.
My shoulders are still pretty messed and all that driving didn’t help. Dante did some great work on my back though which did help the situation so I was very grateful for that. Hopefully it will improve now that I can sleep in my own bed. I’m a little disappointed in the quality and quantity of my shred this weekend but I still had a great time and learned a bunch so of course the trip was totally worth it!
<3
