Double AA's Footblog - Feeling Lost!!!

[akprice]

well we had our first official oak city freestylers session last night. darren and i met up and finally david was able to make it as well!

we had a great sesh... about 2 hours! this is the 2nd sesh together for darren and i. i can't express how excited i am to have people to kick with finally. nick said that my game would transform once i started kicking with others and i am a believer!

its so cool to get instant feedback from someone. my mirages have been decent lately but i still have a little trouble with them coming from clipper. darren pointed out last night that i am extremely lazy with my dexes which is why i'm constantly chasing the bag and not hitting it. he showed me how to get the dex started quicker. i tried a few times and then all of the sudden it hit! i was hitting mirage from clipper with a set of only about a foot sometimes ( i didn't mean for the set to be that low, but holy shit balls)! a few rotations around the circle and darren said it looked like i had been doing those for years. i can't thank you enough darren! as the meme i posted at the top says, hard work does pay off. i have been drilling constantly since i started in january and i am finally starting to see some results. i'm very proud of some of the runs i had last night. it feels incredible!

i also worked on pickups quite a bit (near and far). paul gave me a challenge to hit and so i need to start working on these more so i can complete the string challenge he threw down for me.

david got there a little late (he got off work at 7). darren and i got a good rhythm going and then he hit 20 legovers in a row! wow! after that he was just tearing it up! his goal for the night was osis > bubbabeater and yeah he hit that towards the end of the sesh. he also hit barrage and ton of other shit that i can't remember the names of. everytime he hits something, i'm like what was that... like a little kid. he tells me the name of the trick and it just goes in one ear and out the other.

david hasn't kicked in a while. he used to play quite a bit and then he tore his acl and hasn't kicked since. so he was a little rusty but quickly warmed up. i hope that we inspire him to get back into the sport.

i wanted to at least get one run from all of us on tape (tape, ha.... i'm showing my age). i got darren with a pretty decent run and then i gave him my phone to shoot me. i was like, i'm prob gonna just fuck this up anyway cause i know you're recording this and then... i had my best run ever! i was also pleasantly surprised by my form. it feels awful but when i saw the vid i didn't think it looked that bad. i think i can still rotate my shoulders more into my clippers. this is also before darren schooled me on my clipper > mirage.

i got footage of david as well. i shot his soon after he arrived though and he wasn't warmed up yet. sorry about that dude. i wished i would've gotten his smear on tape! that was awesome! he was also hitting pixie quite well.

it is also very cool to shred out in public (haven't had that exposure too much yet). we constantly have people asking about it. is that hacky sack? wow, you guys are good! that's always cool to hear. at one point we had 2 kids ask if they could sit down and watch us. i said, of course. i told them that this was called footbag and they immediately told their parents. i wish that i had an abundant supply of footbags because i would give one away to every kid that shows interest in our sport. i really believe this is the only way to get kids interested.

so, without further due, here is a preview of the new oak city freestylers!!! yeaaaaaa boooooyyyy! the vid goes me, darren and then david!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hEX_fc15_8[/youtube]


edit - HA! i guessed correctly. i posted that image at the beginning banking on this being the top post. fuck yeah, winning!!!

[DubleDex]

I am a special level of sore today. Although, it's not my knees. So... that's a good thing. Right?

It was a good night and I'm not quite sure how we managed to kick as long as we did.

[akprice]

i am pleasantly surprised that my knees aren't falling off today. i did slam 3 ibuprofen this morning though!

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

sick stuff mayne. glad you got people to kick with! that 2nd dude looked like he was wearing an east coasts shirt from a few years back?

looking alot more solid then when you were in mass unsurprisingly. keep pushing homes.

[DubleDex]

Yep - shirt is from East Coasts. I wasn't actually at that event, but my friend Tony Glick was one of the judges. So he grabbed me a shirt (and the Hania bag were using as well). I haven't been to a footbag event for probably a decade or more. Last event I went to was a jam at PSU quite a long time ago. Can't recall the date or anything else about it, really.

My first event was 1992 Funtastik? Maybe '93? Whichever one had the super-awesome Keystone Cop t-shirt. I still have that shirt somewhere.

[akprice]

sesh this morning went well. worked more on refining clipper > near mirage with earlier dex. i am nailing these now. so much faster!

hit some firsts as well...

butterfly BS (flip was weak but still footed it)
osis B2B finally!

darren and i also have a friendly wager on worlds. we put our picks in on who we think wins circle and routines. here are my picks.

circle
1. Evan
2. Vasek
3. Jindra
4. Mathias

routine
1. vasek
2. jindra
3. rene
4. aleksi
5. evan
6. taishi
7. mathias
8. patrik

[DubleDex]

Guess I should post my predictions as well, to keep things honest. When I suggested making predictions, I thought I would have a lot easier time ranking where I thought people would finish. Then I started doing it and realized there's just too much dang talent ... so I might as well have picked names at random.

Open Circle Prediction
1. Vasek
2. Jindra
3. Evan
4. Mathias

Open Routine Prediction:
1. Vasek
2. Jindra
3. Aleksi
4. Evan
5. Rene
6. Mathias
7. Taishi
8. Patrick

Good luck to all of them!

Also, Taishi's final Shred 30 run was awesome!

[DubleDex]

...and I botched my predictions pretty badly. Can't wait to start seeing the videos from Worlds!

[bobgreen]

Congratulations on the butterfly! Also stoked that you have a regular crew to kick with now.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Osis b2b ftw! Nice job on that, Aaron. Great milestone for any player. Make sure you aren't scooping it much and that you're really turning your shoulders towards the bag AS it reaches clipper position. The sooner you realize that Osis does not end on an "Osis" and actually ends on a Clipper, the better your Osises will get.

[krustykrakk]

Hey,
I love your club video!
Also, props on osis and butterflies! To the windooooowwwwwwww, to the walll!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hey man, so I watched your video above a few posts ago. First off, Darren's level really impressed me, and so did your new level. Great to see Dylan back into it too. I'm sure he'll be stringing much easier in a few sessions.

Anyway, I wanted to critique one thing. Your Far Legovers..


I took a screen shot of where you've gone wrong:



This is a very awkward stance. This is also the set of the one that you dropped on. Try setting the bag just a LITTLE bit across your body (toward the leg over leg). That will help you get the dex in quicker. But the most important thing to try to do to avoid this weird stance is PIVOT YOUR HIPS! I can't tell you how often you'll need to do that in this sport. Almost every "far" and definitely every "Pdx" trick, you will pivot your hips on the set. So with this picture, you really have to pivot your right hip into the bag, maybe hop backward with support leg just a tad, and then your dex will be quick enough to get underneath the bag.

Let me know if this works.

Also, watched the video again. If you want a better example of the hip pivot, check out this screen shot of Darren doing Pdx Mirage. you can see that he turned his hips toward the bag, so he can have a better shot at beating the bag to the dex:

[akprice]

thx nick for the analysis. still working on legovers. i still have problems hitting them from toe but far legover is much easier. that set was towards the end of the run and was not good. i usually try and set towards the dexing leg. did the first legover look good?

i am also trying to rotate my hips more. i especially have been doing this with mirage ( a huge tip from paul ). just keep shredding, just keep shredding!

[DubleDex]

I believe that will be the first and last time that a screenshot of me will ever be used to show someone how to do something right!

For everyone else reading this blog:
Aaron's game is gonna take off just because he's getting to see someone kicking in real life. Nothing to do with me being awesome or anything ... having ANYONE to watch and kick with jump starts everyone's game. Add to that how focused he is on learning and getting better, I expect to see some huge jumps in his game. I'm guessing he'll surpass my limited skills in less than a year.

[akprice]

[akprice]

i kicked today... that is all.

[DubleDex]

Guess I'll take a stab at keeping this blog going as a guest poster. We've had a spotty time keeping up with meeting weekly, but we're doing our best to keep at it.

This week's Tuesday session involved a guest kicker in the form of Vince Richardson. It was awesome to have another person in the circle. I don't know about everyone else, but the social aspect of footbag is still one of my favorite parts of the sport ... meeting new people, learning about their experiences, chatting footbag... it's great.

It was also awesome because it was in the 90s with high humidity. So having a third person was critical to making sure our session lasted longer than 15 minutes before my old-ass passed out and died. We managed to go for a good hour and a half or so.

Aaron will tell you that he was frustrated because he hadn't kicked in a few weeks and felt like everything was awkward and terrible. But his form was looking pretty good and he had a couple nice runs where he put together some nice combos. He's coming along nicely.

Vince was laying down good runs with a nice style that involves inside stalls in place of toes with a lot of moves... which is a fun change when watching runs. Very cool.

All around, everybody had a good session and we're on track for staying on our schedule and kicking weekly. So I suspect you'll start hearing more from this blog!

[bobgreen]

Awesome you guys got to play host to Vince. Keep the updates coming, I enjoy reading them!

[DubleDex]

So, the disadvantage to having two kids and a third one due in roughly a week (yikes) is that it's pretty hard to keep up with regular kick sessions. The good news is that by the time we do get together, I get to see Aaron's improvements.

Last night we managed to meet up and have a pretty good session. With the sun going down earlier, we were on the hunt for a lit location to kick in the evenings, and Aaron found a pretty good spot that worked out well. The weather was perfect and we got down to business.

It was pretty cool to see Aaron's form vastly improved on mirage and overall in general. So I gave him some combos to work on and made sure he tried them on both sides. I'm pretty sure he hit every combo I gave him both sides. He had some stellar runs that resulted in high levels of excitement.

I had not touched a footbag in probably three weeks, so I wasn't expecting anything great. And yet I had some nice runs. My highlights (for anyone who may be interested):

- A couple decent 6-move guiltless runs
- Paradox whirl > paradox whirl (given my flipside pwhirl, this is a pretty good accomplishment)
- Paradon > paradox whirl (it was my flip paradon which I have a lot of trouble doing anything out of)
- Paradon > down double down > barrage (fun. clean.)

And today I'm paying for it with entire-body soreness. Well worth it, though!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Awesome post! Glad you guys are still playing! You gotta hit up George soon. Glad to hear that Aaron is playing still. I owe him 2 bags and he's probably not very happy with me, but lack of motivation to stitch + being busy with life + filling a few other orders before your's takes a bit of time.

So, Aaron, if you're reading this.. I hope you don't hate me too much and I have the 32 panel (the bardes part of your order) finished and half-way on the 14 panel. The 32 panel is worth it though. Literally my best bag I've ever made, with a cool ass design that I think you are going to really like. They should both be in the mail on Monday. Really feel awful about the delay.

Darren: Specifically, props on Pdx Whirl b2b. I always went through hell trying to get better at them. I found that learning the drill "Whirl War" (Whirl> Pdx Whirl *rpt) really helped me understand that it was just a Clipper> ss Whirl, but from the opposite side. Good luck with them!