Nick "Houdini" Polini

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So, as promised, here are some pictures from Rickett's Glen... I wish I used my GoPro to take all of them, but I got tired of taking it out of the case, so I just used my phone. GoPro quality is SO much sicker. First one is GoPro, followed by my phone:















This last one needs the story behind it: I told Nadiah that the area where we were was so perfect for geocaching, so we tried but there but there was no signal to our phones or GPS, so I told Nadiah I would just try to find one without any coordinates. She kind of laughed like she thought I was crazy... Just about 10 seconds later, I see a tree hollow covered by slabs of bark. To a normal person, this is nothing special.. a wood pile at the base of a tree, big deal. To a geocacher, this is an attempt to hide something.. sure enough:




Update on the other night... (This about a ridiculous Geocache trip.. skip it if you don't like when I even say the word "Geocache") My friend, Leon, and attempted this GNARLY geocache. It was our first puzzle cache, which, for you muggles, means that the coordinates only take you to the start of your journey... then you put your gps away and try to follow a crazy path through crazy areas... this particular one was a "nocturnal puzzle cache"... Yes, at night.. follow a path through thick woods and attempting to spot these really small orange reflectors on random trees was your only way of knowing where you were... otherwise, if you got off the trail at any point... you would literally be lost in the woods... deep woods... at night... with "dangerous animals" (as the details in the cache warned). I video taped all of it with the GoPro and I want to put together a little video of some of the shit we had to deal with. In the end, we were about 35-44 feet from the cache, but it was like 1 am, our flashlight batteries were down to their final sips of juice.. and so was my GPS, as well as our phones. So we bailed... It was disheartening after making it so far. We had to bail through several miles of thicket, thorns, spiderwebs, other bullshit that we couldn't see. Our legs and arms were thrashed by thorns and briers, but we finally made it back to the car... Even though we didn't find the cache, it was FUCKING AWESOME. Best cache trip I've ever done, hands down. if anyone ever comes to visit my way for footbag reasons, I will probably take you on this trip. Especially if you are Vince Richardson, Kevin Hogan, Erik Chan, Tom Kotsakos, Mac DeBoer, Brandon Turner, and any other geocaching footbaggers we have. Just an epic adventure that really lets you escape from the norm.

Sorry for that long blurb. Footbag stuff now...

Had a session tonight and it went really well. I submitted a Rubberman drill for Mark's "Rubberman Warrior" competition. It's just a backup for now, but I'm really glad I was able to get Rubberman with another trick in it. That felt like an accomplishment, especially because I know lots of players have trouble doing an uptime set after this trick.

I also managed another Rubberman bs, at least once per side. Then I remembered that Kemmer once told me to try Rubberman from all starting points... I was always ignorant to this... But I think it's because I knew I couldn't do it. So I managed to get it starting from Atomsmasher on bs, finally. Didn't have time for starting on Legbeater. Will do that soon. Afterward, I drilled some Pdx Whirls. They're coming along well. Needs more work, but I can see the end result. Also, just messing around, I hit a Stepping drill I've been wanting to hit. Ripwalk> Ripwalk> Ripped Warrior*rpt> Ripwalk> Ripwalk> hand.

Oh yeah, also did the best Pdx Blender in my life, several of them actually... When I hit it and caught it, I blurted out.. "That's why Penske never misses it" Totally clicked.. on one side.. Will be working on the other.

I always try to drill, and I try to make it fun.. but it actually is starting to get boring for me. I guess I need to find more ways to keep it fun. Thinking about writing some concepts that need improvement on slips of paper, then one day a week, I select a slip and focus that week on whatever that concept is.

Have a swell night.

[DC Clinks]

Yo that place looks fucking nuts. Really cool pictures. Of course you manage to find a geocache all by yourself with no help from technology lol.

That night adventure actually seems kinda scary, no way I would be walking around in some woods at night. What if some axe murderer tries to gut me?

Drills sessions have become my new fun sessions for some reason. Before I started freestyle I would just kick around sometimes with no direction, but now every session I have something to focus on and practice and it's still fun for me.

My sessions with Matt are a bit more unguided but I still get practice in and Matt usually comes up with some drills for me to try and get.

Maybe after drilling for 8 years it tends to be more repetitive/ boring? Who knows. Hope ya don't get burned out bud.

[Nathan8]

HA! That's the letterbox we found! I was going to tell you about it, but I only remembered when I figured it was too late to tell you. My mom printed out clues on how to find it and my mom and sister wrote something in it. They find those letterboxes all over when we go camping.

[PrunusAberration]

Totally jealous of the awesome waterfall and the hiking experience. I want to go myself, but I can't get anyone commit to a schedule date. Regarding getting bored, what about a few chill sessions and/or just working on weird and different tricks. Or a whole another direction that you have never taken before with footbagging and then coming back to the normal drills?

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Dang: Yeah man, that's how you start to get good.. When you don't do just like random "I'm gonna try this trick" sessions and you have short term goals every session that you complete (and you don't let yourself back in the house until completed.. or if you really can't see yourself doing it, make a compromise). And I think my mindset was just bum last night, which led to the boring drills. Tonight was better in some ways.

Nathan: No way! You and I would find the same exact letterbox 2 1/2 hours away from our houses haha I should have looked at more of the signatures.We were in kind of a hurry, though. Next time, I'll look for it. Too funny though.

Andre: Yeah man, hiking is a lot of fun when you have a committed friend/group. Even fun to do solo sometimes. Your idea of messing with weird stuff is one I really liked. I did do that a bit tonight, and it actually led me to a breakthrough with a concept. So that was cool.

Tonight, I drilled Drifters, Pdx Drifters, Whirls, and Pdx Whirls. Finally was doing some Pdx Whirls correctly and they were feeling great, then I did one the wrong way and heard my knee pop. It didn't hurt, but afterward, I tried doing some more and I felt some pain, so I quit while I was ahead. Going to massage and ice it tonight. It doesn't feel like it's very severe. I've had this sort of thing before. It goes away in about a day if I take care of it. I needed a day off anyway. Made some great progress before my knee went, though. Thankful for thankfulness.

Cya

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Keeping the ball rolling.. here we go..

Took yesterday off of foot things. Today, I had about an hour and a half long session. It went rather well, aside from the fact that I had to do everything under a streetlight and my shadow got in the way of my vision many times. But as Vasek said, "train under bad conditions, do the Mobius in the dark, do the Mobius on uneven grounds, do the Mobius in the rain, do the Mobius while a little drunk..." I'm paraphrasing, but that's it in a nutshell. So maybe this stuff helps me a bit. I often drill underneath this streetlight. But yeah, here's some stuff I drilled:

-Linking Fearless on both sides
-Linking drills
-Single more complex Far Reverse Swirl tricks

That's all of the footbag stuff I have to report. Oh wait, I messed with this really crazy way to do far clippers. Really really fun, but also pretty tough. I'll pull it out at ECFC most likely. Also, I did stitch a full 32 panel footbag for Aaron Price yesterday I really have to push myself to stitch bags nowadays. I know how Pipenbirds felt. Ok, now that's all.

Wanted to add this picture.. From that same night Leon and I tried that crazy nocturnal cache, we warmed up with some easy caches around the area... We found one that was called "Silly Wabbit, Caching Is For Kids".. this one was kind of more oriented towards kids, obviously, and many kids signed it with terrible kid hand-writing... and someone wrote in the logbook, "Geocaching gives me a boner", which we thought was funny. But we wanted to add our own humor to the logbook...



Going to try to get some filming finished tomorrow.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Going to try to get some filming finished tomorrow.

I must be a psychic. How did I know I would film today? Ludicrous.

I must admit, in my head, when I read what I quoted, there was a redneck voice that said "HOW'D HE KNOW THAT?!?!??!" I might be insane. Many royals were insane, like King Charles VI of France. He thought he was actually made of glass, though, so I'm thankful to simply have a blue collar ego.

Right-O, so yes, I predicted I filmed today and I predicted correctly. I could only crapture a few things, maybe 3 clips of things I want to put in the video. However, those 3 bits are good little bits. So I'm grateful for this. I obviously didn't have the best luck filming. I kept footing things and not being able to fully seal them like I wanted. I can't perform strings for video, because FUCK THAT. Total brain jumbler. I really hate playing for the camera, unless it's drills or links. So don't expect a lot of strings in this video.. instead, expect lots of tasty links/drills.

Like I said, filming didn't go too well, so I decided to turn the camera off before I got too frustrated, and I drilled around with some things.

Drilled stuffs:

-Drilled Whirl War a good bit. Made a goal to get through 2 full rotations, but I surprised myself and made it through 3 and a few contacts. This drill is so much fun. I used to hate it (because I couldn't do it well ) but now that I can do it, man, it's a cracker of a good time.
-Whirl x10 BSOS

Also, watch this... Very special video (special to me, at least) that shows a little bit about my roots...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQEQ37cFzN8[/youtube]

Yes, around 12 years ago (I think?) Honestly can't remember when it was really. But some friends and I were hacking at this playground back in like 5th or 6th grade, during a fair, and these older kids come up to us and join us. The one kid was doing Clippers, ATWs, Mirages, and other tiltless stuff, but it all amazed me. He didn't say much, but he was good. He also had these torn up tennis shoes on, that I later realized were Lavers. I wish that kid would have told me more about how to learn tricks or even started teaching me back then. But he left soon after. I used to think this person was Drew Krause, who I later met when I actually started meeting up with the local shred crew. I've actually been thinking a lot about this kid very recently. I think he had black hair and drew didn't have black hair. I have no idea who this kid is and it's a weird feeling. I figured it was Drew, because he lived close by, but I can somehow finally remember what this kid looked like. Not Drew. Oh well.. This kind of makes me feel like a footbag test-tube baby.

But to clarify about seeing that kid freestyle about 12 or 13 years ago... I saw him freestyle, went home and looked up "hacky sack tricks" and found Flipsider. I used that for years, until it went down. I was really bad at learning off of those videos though. I tried, but could only manage a few. So then I actually met up with Bob, Drew, and Brian a few years later, in like 10th grade and I consider that the year I really started practicing. This is all boring, sorry for flashing back so hard.

In other non-boring news, Jon's Lavers came today. I modded them for him and am going to bring them to the Berks session tomorrow. Corey Corey Corey Hahalis will also be there. He said he's been practicing, which is awesome. Jon has too. Pretty excited about the Berks Footbag Club.

Good night.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hello! Didn't see you there...

I had a swell little session at Berks tonight with Jon. Corey had to bail last minute, because he was talking to corn cobs or something. This was Jon's first session with Lavers. He did surprisingly well. Got some good basics down pat. Taught him the magic hop and his body understood it first attempt ever. Pretty incredible. He set 2 goals for himself tonight and nailed both: 10 Toe stalls b2b (he got near like 15 I think, and did so with magic hops) and Toe Stall> ss Toe Stall *rpt x10 contacts (he ended up hitting like 16 contacts of this, first try, then practiced it some more). He learns quick. Just trying to keep him from jumping the gun and trying stuff thats out of his level. He likes to hit stuff both sides at least. Next Sunday, 7:00 session, same place.

I spent this whole session just teaching. Then Jon had to get packing for the night since he had class in the morning. We said good bye and I figured I'd go drill on the basketball courts nearby. Brought me back to some good old memories. That basketball court is where I used to drill 4 years ago.

Stuff I drilled:

-Barflies.
-Osis> Barfly bs
-Spinning Osis> Barfly bs
-Barflies.
-Pdx Whirl> Barfly bs
-Whirl War


Highlights:

Blurry Whirl> Gyro DLO bs
Blurry Whirl> Barfly bs

That's all for tonight.

Time to get SYSK'ed up before bed.

EDIT!:

I was thinking about something that has sorta been on my mind a lot lately. I always play for others. I got out of that habit a while ago, but reentered it sometime before NYFA. Wtf man. I Keep trying to do things others will think is sick. Not what I really want to do. I mean, I do what I want to do, but I feel like it's just not good enough and that I'm boring everyone in the circle with me, so then I try to bust huge shit and drop. I just need to play and not give a shit about what tricks I'm doing and just do them because I like them. Dont know why I'm posting this? I guess it's just a reminder for myself to play for myself and no one else.

To end this note, I think Spender> Twirl> Pdx Blender is a seriously stylish combo.

The end.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Good greetings,

Tonight, I drill some stuff that I really wanted to drill and not because others will think it's cool, but because I think it's cool. Maybe if anyone even read my last post, they'd be able to guess what I wanted to drill tonight.

I actually footed that last combo on one side that I talked about in my last post. Spender> Twirl> Pdx Blender. I managed to get the Spender> Twirl on the other side, at least. Feels just as awesome as I thought it would. However, I noticed that my flip Blenders were really lacking. My strong Osis actually feels more "grabby" or "sticky", I guess, than my flipside. Anyone have advice for fixing that? I tried to fix it on my own tonight. Not really much luck. Will keep working on it.

Drilled some Blenders, in general. Got a better grasp on those. It's a trick that I really don't miss much, but when I do miss it, there is no excuse, other than I don't do them properly. I think I started to learn them properly tonight. I feel like this will be pivotal to be able to Gatesmanize my Blenders and start doing harder stepping tricks and stuff out of them. Drilled more Whirls and some other junk too.

Highlights:

Stepping Whirl> Blurry Whirl (both sides)
Pdx Blender> Reverse Swirl (both sides)
Nathan Bonslaver texted me and said "Double Pickup> Paradon would be a cool link." I got that bs, then realized it repeated, so I done repeated it.
Run with both Gyro Muted Swirls and both Gyro Muted Reverse Swirls
Spinning Swirl x2 on strongside.. at least was able to hit it once on flip, though. That trick got a lot easier since I last messed with them.. Flipside feels funny and makes me over extend my leg to the point where my knee kind of feels weird. So I stopped doing those and I plan on analyzing my strong side soon, to see why that side feels good and flip doesn't.
Spinning Osis> Infinity Swirl (both sides)
Osis> Infinity Swirl (BSOS)
Gyro Twirl (BSOS)
Far Muted Twirl (BSOS)
Spinning Butterfly> Far Muted Twirl (both sides)
Spinning Butterfly> Far Muted Blink (both sides)

Feeling pretty good, aside from the knee troubles. It has been making popping sounds more frequently lately. Not just while playing, but while walking at my job too. If anyone has advice here, please chime in.

I found it humorous that I hit Spinning Swirl x2 tonight because in the first few pages of my blog, I was pretty novice at footbag, but I could hit Spinning Swirls on one side. I blogged and said I hit "Spinning Swirl x4" and a few people were pretty amazed.. I hit it 4 times throughout that session... not connected They thought I hit them in a row. I was just a dummy and didn't know footbag terminology yet.

Well, that's all for now.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Lightly bittersweet session. This will be a short post.

Told myself I wanted to hit Drifter War 5x on each side, 10 in total. I got it. Pretty happy about that, since this is the most controlled I've ever done them, and since this is the most I've done in a single session.

Afterward, I wanted to practice Spinning Osis> Pdx Drifter> Pdx DLO bs. I have never hit that link before but it seemed like it would be good on the hips and balance. I managed it twice on each side. I know I could have done more, but I was doing this under a streetlight and my shadow kept getting in the way. I hate that.

Toward the end of my session, I was noticing a pain behind my knee on the Osis out of the Spin. I tested out some regular Osis, that hurt too. Tested out Clippers.. hurt. It wasn't the delay that hurt, but the set hurt. Plus my left knee has been crackalacking quite a bit lately. Way more than usual. I can definitely notice the dull pain behind my knee as I sit here typing, as well. I ended the session when Clippers started hurting. I'm going to take a few days off with the aid of a knee brace, then test it out again when it seems like it feels better. I don't think it's serious, but only time can answer that.

I plan to have that Funny Tricks competition video finished very soon. All submissions are finally in. Took long enough I also picked a 1st and 2nd place winner. For obvious reasons.

The end.

Oh, my student, Nathan Bonslaver, footed Flurry today. Ugh. Kid's like Clavens or Vaske, I swear. You'll see.

Now the end.

[Add Block]

Looking forward to the contest. I've submitted my video early and in time and since then I've gotten many way more interesting ideas, which is a shame. However, I have faith in Jindra's trick.

I've seen a couple of online competition now and every one of them have been postponed because people don't submit in time. As a new player, I learn new stuff every day, so that kind of disadvantages me greatly. I could probably move two places up in that sick 3 contest if I submitted late like everyone else. I'm wondering if I should do that too since there are never any penalties.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Looking forward to the contest. I've submitted my video early and in time and since then I've gotten many way more interesting ideas, which is a shame. However, I have faith in Jindra's trick.

I've seen a couple of online competition now and every one of them have been postponed because people don't submit in time. As a new player, I learn new stuff every day, so that kind of disadvantages me greatly. I could probably move two places up in that sick 3 contest if I submitted late like everyone else. I'm wondering if I should do that too since there are never any penalties.

I never received a video submission from neither you nor Jindra.

[Add Block]

Uh, I sent you three submissions on 28th July. Maybe they went into your spam folder?

I sent them to this email: [email protected]

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Uh, I sent you three submissions on 28th July. Maybe they went into your spam folder?

I sent them to this email: [email protected]

Hey, can you resend your entries please? I never received any from you. Checked spam folder and everything too

[Add Block]

Right away. I will forward them to you, hopefully that'll work.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks Nathan, I got them. You da man.

So, yes, I'm still not playing footbag for a few days, but today... well.. tonight I had a bit of an epiphany.

On Facebook, I was bored, watching random videos (I HATE DOING THAT, but I couldn't stop tonight). I told myself "just one more, then sleep". I found one of some africans that Flying Clipper had shared. I know they usually post some cool stuff, so I clicked. Here is the video link:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10 ... =2&theater

This hit me so hard, so close to home. I can do almost all of the contortion stuff that these cats did in the video. Learned some new ones tonight just from that video, too. I've known I've been double jointed for many many years. It never served a purpose to me though, other than some stupid party tricks "hey, check this out".. but tonight I realized that maybe I can get really good at something having to do with this. I figured it would be a bit like how hacky sack's deeper realm was footbag.. if I youtubed double jointed arm contortion, maybe I would find a deeper realm to it. I did. I found several. One of these is called "Bone Breaking" and it's a type of contortion dance. I watched some of these videos and found out I could do most of the moves they were talking about without any practice. However, I don't really want to get into the dancing aspect of it. I was thinking of some other more different things. I have a few ideas, like mixing footbag and this contortion thing, or physical comedy or something like physical comedy/footbag/juggling I don't even know man. Possibilities are kind of endless right now. My mind is excited though. I will be practicing the basics of Bone Breaking and learning how to work with my body, and try brainstorming some things I could do. If any of you have any ideas for cool stuff I could do, please let me know through pm or whatever.

It's always occurred to me that foot baggers get into the craziest/coolest hobbies/professions after footbag. I am going to try to follow that route. I do have something pretty interesting on my hands that not many people have really touched before. I'm so excited.

Yes, I'm still going to try to make a start up with my friend. That first idea fell on it's face though. Bummer. But if I learned anything from footbag, it's that you must fail to get better.

We'll see. Anyone that wants to see some contortion at ECFC, just ask me. It'll give me an opportunity to practice, too.

Peace!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Today wasn't the best day in NP history. If you don't want to read a downer of a post, then please stop reading now and go kick a footbag or something. This is bound to be a downer of a post. No way around it.

I honestly will be tearing up while writing this. I don't care if anyone comments on it. I don't care if anyone reads it. But my dad told me a long time ago that the best way to cope with a loss is to write about it.

Last night, I woke up because I heard one of my cats puking in the middle of the night. I walked downstairs and found that she had puked up, what looked like, a week's worth of food. This is my favorite kitty too, Killmouski. Been with me through good and bad times for about 13 years now. Seriously, this cat was my best friend. Whenever I was down, she would comfort me. Really bright cat. Always cheerful. Man... Anyway, she had huddled herself in a corner of the kitchen while I was petting her and trying to console her. She was blatantly emaciated. She wouldn't even take one of her favorite treats that she never turns down. I knew this would be my last night with her.

I woke my mom up and told her to come to the scene. She and I both knew what was going to have to be done.

This morning, we pet her and consoled her more. She was obviously suffering. My mom took her to the vet this morning, while I went to work, constantly thinking about her. Wondering what was going to happen... if she would be ok throughout today... It was around 11:16 when I got the text from my mom "11:16 She's at peace now. We gave her a great life."

Ugh, I feel stupid writing this, because so many people, if they get this far, are going to read it and be like "so what? it's a cat", but this wasn't just a cat, this cat was a loyal member of the Polini family.

I don't want to write about it anymore. However, today was the first "funeral" I've ever been to. We buried her in the back yard underneath the Dogwood tree. As soon as we said some words, a bright golden ray of sun hit the leaves of the Dogwood and made my mom's, dad's, and my eyes swell up with tears. It was fucking beautiful. Like she was actually sending that for us to see.. maybe..

I've been a complete mess all day because of this and it also didn't help being verbally attacked by some people about a slightly controversial (more funny than controversial) video I released today. I had good intentions.. to give people something to laugh about during a day where I felt like I wasn't going to do much laughing.

Anyway, sorry for being depressing this time. It felt good to type a little about Killmouski. My heart isn't so heavy now.

In lighter news, I simultaneously took a piss, ate some cake, talked on the phone, and laughed/cried earlier. That was pretty extraordinary.

I think I'm going to lace up my Lavers and play some light footbag. Haven't played for a few days. I really need to right now for several reasons.

Peace.

Edit: Back from the session... Got a good long warm-up in, then managed to end on one highlight drill..

Highlight:

Toe Far Blink> Smear *rpt

(Funny, I just realized this drill is like wiping tears from your eyes.. Blink> Smear *rpt.. Ironic.)

K, now goodnight.

[isirc10]

Pets are always hard to say goodbye to. They make your life richer and are always there for you when you are troubled. We can only hope to return that favor and provide them with a good life.

Still, you have a badass tournament to look forward to in a week's time. Your video might have caused a bit of a stir, but I'm sure people enjoyed the other parts. People make mistakes, that's how we learn. I didn't get to see it, but I assume the other submissions were cool.

tldr; sorry about your cat, didn't see the video, see you in a week.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks Ivan, I read that while I was having a session a bit ago and it definitely helped me. Cant wait to see you next weekend.

I woke up to my phone ringing. T'was Hogan. We talked about things. Always good to hear from him. Then I went out to have a session and so did he. Got some good stuff filmed. Not a lot. But what I got was good, get it? Nadiah is coming over now and she's close and I still have to get a shower!!! Gotta make this quick.

Broke into a NO TRESSPASSING park (where I held my Gradionships jam)

Hit stuff

Monistere called

Talked about hitting stuff

Hit stuff

Guy who owns park gave me beer

Also told me that I can break in and use the pavilion whenever I want! New shred spot! Very flat very dope.

Walked out of session and found $2

And I want to call the Blink> Smear *rpt drill "Mourning Drill", because like I said, it's like you're mourning. Blink your eyes, smear them with your hands *rpt. Clevah gahhll...


Peace!

[bobgreen]

Hey Nick. Thanks for being you and for everything you do for footbag, including the good intentions behind that video. Everyone has a lapse in judgement from time to time, and as Ivan said we learn from that and become even better people as a result.

Jaiwei won a footbag, right? I was stoked to see that because I had the impression from his recent posts that he may not have a good bag to kick with. Certainly it is a positive thing that a kid with so much potential is going to get a good bag to shred with out of this deal.

Really sorry to hear about Killmouski. The only time I ever saw my Dad crying was when he came home from the vet without our dog. Our pets are very important to us and grieving for a pet is not so different than grieving for a human friend or family member.

Looking forward to seeing you in one week!