Nick "Houdini" Polini

[boyle]

This was an interesting post, I think Mr Clavens is right on the money on his advice. The more you focus on playing, the better you're going to get, spending time on petty arguments etc is not going to be a good use of time. If you work on making other people smile, and yourself smile (not just through footbag, but in general), you'll be bound for a better time.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nathan: Thanks man That brought my spirits up and gave me a jolt of mental power when I read that. I hope you're right. I have a feeling Nick Landes will be challenged to a Mobius competition at NYJ

Danny Boiiiiiii: Yes, I agree. I have already started stopping my post madness on the group. Make others and myself smile is the new goal (along with a ton of other footbag goals )

So tonight.. I did play. It was fucking cold. This weather is sitting on major biscuits right now. On top of that, I still have a bit of my sickness from the previous week. I played through it. I put on what I'm going to refer to as "man-leggings" today and went to town. They are kind of cool to kick with. I can feel my dexes so much better in them. I cleared a really solid flip Furious set in them today. Hit some strongside Janis but that's not going to be exciting until I can get it on flipside. Anyway, cold cold cold session.

Highlights:

Warmed up for a while. Was actually pretty cold the whole time. Did some basic junk, then worked up into some Ripwalks and junk like that. I messed with a lot of stuff since I have't played for 3 days. I don't know why I put this as a highlight? Probably so you don't think I just rushed into Fearless.
Didn't just jump right into it, like I said before. Literally, 2 seconds ago. But I wanted to end the session, due to coldness. I didn't want to just hit Ripwalk> Drifter and say "yay done!" I wanted to end it on something I'd be proud of. Jacknife> Pdx Blender> Pdx Torque bs So that was nice. I felt that I pushed myself enough trying to hit that on both sides. I think that Jacknife> Pdx Blender link was good enough, in general. Not I can do something other than Infinity out of Jacknife. Wow cool.

The session was ended at a perfect time, because almost as I caught the final link, my girlfriend called and we chatted for a little while. I finally get to hang out with her again this weekend. It sucks seeing each other less now that her busy season is going on at work. We plan on doing some cute coupley fall festivity. Like shitting in a corn maze.. or shitting in pumpkins. Jokes. We'll actually probably carve pumpkins or shit in a corn maze. Then I talked to Paul G for a little. Had a good chat. His new video in his blog is fucking hilarious. I laughed so hard that I had a coughing fit. Maybe it was only funny to me because he was imitating me *shruggles* I think he did a fantastic job on the link and with the mimicry.

I really just wasn't satisfied with the session I just had, so I decided I would stop being lazy, clean up the attic, and prepare it for winter sessions. Turns out it didn't need a whole ton of cleaning. I brought my laptop up and began another session. This time, it was a really good one.

Highlights:

Did a little messing with Symposium Torques. Hit a few on both sides. Nothing special. Shouldn't even be a highlight, just kinda hard for me on flipside. Can't wait til I can do cooler stuff out of them. Also did some really basic drills. Felt good, considering last time I was playing in the attic, I was struggling with those basic drills.
After I messed with a bunch of stuff, drilled some basics, and also drilled some.. well... drills, I wanted to end this one on a good note: Ripped Warrior> Blurry Whirl> Pdx Torque bs Bang. Those links just feel really great. Really pleased myself with this one.
Decided that I wanted to try to push my Fearless record just a bit. I have a planned 10 Fearless that I aim to hit by the time the new year rolls around.. I hit the final 6 contacts of it tonight. I don't want to reveal what they were because I want these links to be a total surprise to everyone. But yeah baby, 6 NEW Fearless!

Winding my night down now. Sucks how the only eventful parts of my weekdays are footbag related... Wait.. That doesn't suck. That rules.

[Add Block]

I have a planned 10 Fearless that I aim to hit by the time the new year rolls around.. I hit the final 6 contacts of it tonight. I don't want to reveal what they were because I want these links to be a total surprise to everyone. But yeah baby, 6 NEW Fearless!

Pixie DDC > Pdx DDC > Blurry Whirl > Pdx DDC > Blurry Whirl > PS Whirl > PS Whirl > Miraging Refraction > Pdx Miraging Refraction > Miraging Refraction > Pdx Miraging Refraction > Bedwetter > Quadruple ATW

Is that is? Did I guess it right? I love exploiting the ADD system

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nathan: No lolz

Tonight was a pretty rad session. I saw that A. Gherman is playing again and that he already hit Rubberman again with a few sessions of work. That post made me realize how bad I am at Rubberman. So I decided to set 40 minutes aside tonight to work just Atomics. Did some basic links like Schmoe> Tapping Legover bs, Stepping Mirage> Atomsmasher bs, Stepping Mirage> Tapping Butter bs, etc.. Then, one thing led to another and I was trying to get better at the full Rubberman drill. I found myself consistently getting around halfway through. Sucko. I decided to sit and reflect on them a little. I realized that I really wasn't standing straight enough to hit the Atomic links. So I tried that. That worked. Way too well. All of the sudden, I was hitting the full Rubberman drill with no trouble. Just attack attack attack. I have been looking at my 2014 goals list a lot lately. Rubberman x2 is one of my goals. I realized that tonight could be the night. I ended up hitting what I thought was Rubberman x2, but I did a hand catch one contact too soon! Then I gave a speech about achieving goals, when I hadn't actually achieved the goal fully haha Whatever. This is definitely my record for Rubberman contacts. 11. Damn. So close to 12. I could have sworn that I was around contact 13 or 14. I think I can get it next time I play. I suppose I'll do an actual highlights list thing now.

Highlights:

Rubberman with 11 contacts
In the process of the above, I hit about 10 or more full Rubberman x1 drills. Woo! Progress.
Paul texte me earlier and asked me if I could hit Blurry Revup. I Figured I could do it soonish, but only on one side. I told him I would mess with it when I was ready, but that it was a goal trick of mine. I remembered the conversation during my session. I gave it one try and I hit it. Really surprised but kind of bummed since my flipside is just learning Blurry Blink. Oh well. What a cool trick, otherwise.
Early on in the session, I had a Fearless itch that I wanted to scratch. I wish I tried it flipside but I only hit this on one side: Stepping Diving Osis> Stepping Ducking Osis. Also got Ripped Warrior b2b a few times bs.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X71EB3ltMpw[/youtube]

Playing to Punk music has really been driving my sessions lately.

That is my attic by the way. It could use some cleaning. But hell, indoor spot is an indoor spot. ..and goals are goals.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hung out with Nadiah all day. We had such a great time. Did some lame corn maze, bought some cider, and fall potpourri and did a bunch of other fall festivities.

Here are some corny selfies:




We seriously had just an awesome awesome day. Wish that would have lasted longer. She bought me some really good-smelling "Sweet Orange Spice" potpourri. Damn, that shit smell GOOD.

After Nahds left, I shredded with Jeremy tonight. He's really starting to learn better form on his tiltless toe game. So stoked to see that. If he keeps practicing in his spare time and shredding with me once a week, he's going to get good.

I had a very good session tonight. Got 2 nice milestones.

Highlights:

Rubberman x2! (in video below) So stoked I finally hit it. After so many close calls last night, I was more so just relieved to hit it, which is why I didn't freak out like usual.
New Personal Fearless Record: 7! (also in video below) I wanted to end on a Sick 3 of Ripped> Pdx Torque> Mobius bs, but then that turned into 7 Fearless because I'm relentless lol
3.5 contacts through Spike> Phoenix *rpt. I've hit it before, but only once and it took me a while. These 3 contacts came rather quickly. Stoked that it's getting easier.
Just a cool combo I hit to start the session: Pixie Blender> Gyro DLO bs. Love how it feels.
Ended session on Ripped b2b bs. Need to get better at that.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXgvvY02Plc[/youtube]

We got kicked out of the first place, which was a church) by some lady who was parked in the parking lot. While we were walking to the car to leave, I look at Jeremy and say, "She's not even a cop, she's just like.. a Christian. We got kicked out by a Christian!" Some good laugher ensued after we got kicked out of the church.

Fun night of footbag. Jeremy is a cool dude to hang out with and kick with. Stoked that he's showing lot of progress right now.

PS. Jeremy helped me film some tutorials tonight. I got Osis, Butterfly/Infinity, Pdx Mirage, Swirl, and Reverse Swirl all filmed. Just have to sort through a ton of footage first, then they'll be up. But I think I'm going to try to do one every other week or something. I'm calling them "Polini's Pointers", thanks to Paul for coming up with the name.

I'm gonna try to edit some of the tutorials and watch some Mystery Science Theatre 3000 on Netflix now.

Have a good night.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Today, I had a sweet session with Bonslaver and Jeremy. Oh, and MiniBonslaver (Nate's little brother.. 6 yrs old) came out and joined us for a while and actually was doing pretty well getting his basic kicks. He messed around most of the time though. But dude, that little kid is hilarious.

This was the best quote from the session:

As soon as we pull up to Nates house and say hi to him, this conversation starts up..

Nathan: "Danny said he wants to kick with us if you don’t mind."
Jeremy and me: "Yeah sure, thats awesome."
*Like clockwork, Danny walks out the door*
Danny: Do I have tooooo???

It all happened just too perfectly...

Another fantastic one:

Danny: "When I turn 12, I'm allowed to do Ripwalks, but not before then.. and when I'm 13 I'm allowed to do Mobius."

Nathan, if you're reading this, please fill my blog in on anything else I forgot about. He was saying some top notch stuff today. I wish I just recorded all of it.

Anyway, into the actual session stuff.. Nate hit some good stuff. It certainly looks like Blur is his now. His shuffle is really working itself in. Surprising stuff. Jeremy was doing well too. Saw some longer tiltless runs with lot of control from him today. So sick. I played pretty well, considering I had a gnarly session last night.

Highlights:

Paradon Swirl bs Pretty sure I hit one side one time back when I used to kick regularly with Bob. Other than that, never tried them ever again. Really cool trick.
Spike Hammer> Assassin bs
Amazing "Nick Polini doesn't do shuffle like that" shuffle runs. Atomics like crazy and when I did the Atomics, I DIDN'T DROP! Lots of mixy uppy shuffle like, Tapping Legover> Tapping Legover> Atomsmasher> Smear> Dimwalk> Stepping ss Mirage> Atomic Legover yadda yadda. Just like Atomic-dominated runs. Felt so stupidly good, since I could never ever Atomic like I can now.Those Rubberman drills helped a ton. I remember one run started with Rubberman and then just kept shufflin' on through.
Ended session on another Ripped Warrior b2b from both sides. Really starting to feel this link out. Hoping to be able to hit 10 by NYJ.

I wanted to mention one thing on my 2014 Goals list that, back when I made it, some people brought to my attention... Alpine Rubberman. I don't know if I can hit it by New Years, but sometimes I can feel things that I'm going to hit. Like with Mobius. I could tell, even before I hit Mobius x2 that I would be able to do at least x4 eventually. I could kind of just feel that it was in my realm of possibility. Now, with Alpine Rubberman, I can actually feel that this is also in my realm of possibility. My Alpine Stepping is almost there. Once I can hit Ripped x10, that will be a huge help. And then, the Alpine Atomics... those are coming. I have always been able to duck Atomics sort of easily, but it has never been good form. I hit some Skullsmashers today with pretty good form, and I think if I start really getting better at Atomics, I can definitely check Alpine Rubberman off my list... eventually.

Footbag is fun.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I recently had a bit of a wake up call. I'm pretty much finished spending my time teaching people who don't take the sport seriously/who don't listen to me after I repeat my words hundreds of times. I've got my core crew here and we take it seriously, so that's that. Done deal.

I had a session with Corey Gerges tonight. It wasn't a very good session, in terms of strings, but I hit some ok stuff. The floor was terrible. Like a rubbery black bouncy STICKY surface was all we could find. So sticky. Couldn't spin well and couldn't do Pdx stuff well, and it took more effort to set stepping and atomics. That being said, here is a highlights video. I think some of the stuff I hit was pretty neat:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL-6D7junms[/youtube]

After the session, I felt really unfulfilled. So I went outside, when i got home, and I drilled Pdx Whirls. Ended on Mobius> Pdx Whirl bs, Spinning Butter> Pdx Whirl *rpt bs, and Pdx Whirl> Spinning Butter *rpt bs. I think I might have had a bit of a beginning to a new breakthrough in my Pdx Whirls.

Really stoked for Pumpkin Jam. I'll be riding up with Jeremy on Friday, since no one else can/wants to go.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Tonight has been awesome for footbag stuff. I'd like to make this a short post because I have things to do tonight to get ready for Pumpkin Jam this weekend! Really can't wait for that! See you PSU'ers tomorrow night!

So my work sucks, no news there. Everyone is always depressed there. It is really not fun. So I decided to sacrifice my last 15 minute break and speedily make this box creation/Halloween decoration.



It's a box man with his intestines falling out! The intestines are bubble wraps that the packers use for their packages. It made some people laugh and smile, but some others thought it was stupid apparently. I heard, "You're weird" from one older guy there. I replied, "..and I take pride in it." That seemed to shut him up.

Anyway, I talked with Red Husted tonight. He said some really nice things about my game. That was super cool coming from an oldskooler. He wanted me to inspire other new gens to focus more on style than big shred stuff. I told him I would relay the message. If you're etching out your path in footbag currently, please consider style. Ethan and I agreed that we would rather see someone taking the sport in a new/semi-untouched/untouched direction rather than see another Clavens/Penske clone. Dave and Jim are fucking sick, of course, but that was their style. Footbag is all about self-expression. Don't try to be exactly like someone else. So start pushing the sport really far in your own direction. We also both agreed that Lon is the best Freestyler ever. He didn't hit extremely hard stuff all the time, but he played like an artist. And I think that's a great way to describe him. Red really inspired me with his words tonight. Very cool chat. We had some Pusheen battles too

While I was talking to him, I hit some stuff inspired by our chat.

Highlights:

Started practicing some Alpine Stepping. Ripped> Stepping ss Mirage bs, almost got Ripped> Blur> Leg *rpt. Hit the 4 contacts on bs. Will try again at PSU. This was really inspired by Justin Dale. I saw in the newly posted Fourkast video that Justin always did a cool trick out of Alpine Shuffle. I hit like Ripped Warror> Intinity or Spikehammer> Osis or something lame and bailey. So, I started trying to do stuff out of it and it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. I'd like to do a tutorial on Stepping Ducking at some point, as well as some other bigger concepts.
Zach Jahner's sick link he challenged me: Axle (downtime gyro toe)> Far Blink bs. Then after I hit those, I was able to tack on a Spikehammer on both.. Spikehammer> Axle> Far Blink bs. Very cool combo. I think that's my highlight of the session, so I highlighted that.
Pixie ss Cloud Kick> ss Legover *rpt
Then I made myself a pretty stylish ender: Ripped Warrior> Vortex bs. Who the hell spins out of Ripped Warriors ever?!?! I don't know if I have ever seen it on video or in real life. I'm going to start doing that more. It's a little tough and feels a little unnatural, but I think they look sweet.

That's all she wrote.

Happy Halloween!

[DC Clinks]

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

wish we were shredding this weekend, I know your next post is gonna be full of insane highlights.

especially feelin' on the fearless, keep it up son!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hogan: Great to hear that you're hurting less. Cant tell you how nice it was to hear that. I was worried.

Dang: Oh Dang...

So I just got home from a very fun weekend with good friends at PSU Pumpkin Jam II. Seriously was a blast. I always love Pumpkin Jam, because my very first time visiting PSU was during Halloween, specifically to play footbag with Pipenberg and Ian for the very first time... 4 years ago? It had a pretty small turnout (PSU Club, Jeremy, Dang, Kemmer, me), but it's always such a great time. I wanted to do a write up while it was all still fresh.

Friday:

I got off work and bolted over to Jeremy's place. Parked my car, jumped into his and we were on our way. Jeremy is a cool dude and a good friend. We've been playing footbag with each other for several years now, and we've hung out a few times without playing footbag (stitch parties), but we've never hung out for like 3 hours before.. exactly how long the trip to PSU is. I figured we would be talking and it wouldn't be awkward, since we've hung out a few times before, but I didn't think we would talk nonstop for the entire 3 hour trip haha. That was an awesome drive up. I think we entertained each other with some interesting conversations. We think very similarly about lots of things. I definitely think he and I became much better friends on the way there. That drive alone was a highlight for me.

We arrive at PSU and meet up with Ryan. Sit around for a while talking to him and catching up, then sooner or later Ivan comes home and we all sit down and chat together. So nice to see those guys. After a little while Ben and April came by dressed like footbag concepts (April was a Dragon and Ben was dressed like an owl (a flyer clever ), then Khoa showed up, then Kemmer and Dang finally arrived. Had a nice night on Friday, just chatting. We talked for a little while, then Kemmer says that he hasn't kicked for a while and that he's antsy to play. So we laced up and got our gear on and went to the basement. I think only Dang, Ryan, Kemmer, and I played that night. Everyone was hitting good stuff.

Personal Highlights:

Mobius> Symposium Torque
Ripped Warrior> Ripped Warrior> shuffle bits> tricky bits> Mobius> Mobius
Spinning Ducking Butterfly> Ripped Warrior> Spinning Ducking Butterfly> Stepping Ducking drop
Ripped Warrior> Ducking Symp Swirl
Lots of strings with dope shuffles and lots of Alpine Stepping poop.

After the session, we all went back upstairs, hung out a while longer, then Jeremy and I realized that we were really hungry. Barely any places were open though. There was College Pizza, which wasn't bad. Probably one of our best choices. So, we decided that we would go there. Dang was feeling a State College adventure, so he joined us for our trek. We arrive at College Pizza... the line is out the door, over the steps, and onto the sidewalk. Fuck. Ok, we'll wait it out. There is a kid pissing on the wall next to us. It looked like the flowing canal was about to chase Dang, but it ran just short of him. Then he finished pissing and he and some of his friends who were "in line" walked away. We moved up like 3 spaces. Then we notice a kid dressed in a green man suit with a maraca taped into his ass cheeks. Yes. INTO his ass cheeks. Like, he pressed the maraca handle INTO his ass cheeks and taped it there. No idea what he was dressed as. We realized that this was going to take a very long time, so we started thinking of other places we could eat. We looked up and above College Pizza was a very non-busy quick stop shop. We go in and try to find something substantial. We stop in front of one aisle... Oh shit. "Yo Jeremy. Look at this." We start cracking up at the thought of buying it. We had both never had it before so we figured it was as good a time as any. We each chose a different flavor and purchased our items. Dang bought sour gummy worms, which he fed us all the way back to the house. When we got back to the house, we were ready to eat. But before we ate, I had to take some photo documentation. Dang hopped in the picture, as well.



Mine was Hickory Smoked and Jeremy got Jalapeño. We cracked them open and went to town. If you've never had spam before, it's a lot like meat jello, but doesn't shake nearly as much and it smells a little like cat food... ok, a lot like cat food. We watched Iron Man as we ate our spam. Pretty tough to digest at times. You can kind of like scrape the spoon over the surface and it peels up like butter. Kinda gross. But Jeremy and I ate mostly all of it, threw the rest out, because... yeah.. then we all passed out.

Saturday:

We woke up from our slumber and I had immediately realized I just had a night full of spam-mares... night-spams, if you will. Like you know when you're sick and asleep, then you start having really unsettling dreams about something happening over and over again? Yeah, giant, never-ending spam loaf being cut into thick slices over and over and over and over... it didn't end until I woke up. Terrible night-spams. I also found out that I passed out before they played Even's Swirling Whirring Swirl on the wall projector! Shit. Kinda bummed I missed that. Oh well, I'll see it eventually. We got up, went to go get some breakfast and we were off to the gym for our second session of the weekend.

It was really nice and mentally settling, in a way, to see Ivan playing footbag again. He was still getting warmed up to stuff, but it looked like stuff was coming back quicker than I had imagined. We had a chat about it tonight, and he's going to start from his basics and work his way back up to where he was. I believe in him. Ryan's shred was scaring me. He's so close to breaking into that Open barrier. Saucing DLOs and I saw him hit Legeater, which is one trick that I don't think anyone else in the PSU club can hit yet. He's got a natural thing with toe dual dexes. Ben's game is looking great. Very stylish. He's gotten much more consistent with rolls and Guays and also core basics. April was really surprising me with her Fairy sets. She's a natural at them. I think she quickly found one of her knacks in the sport. Dang's strings were looking really good. Saw some new tricks I've never seen from him before, and I also gave him some help with Orbits and he ended up beating his old record of 2 on both sides by 7 on strong and 4(?) on flip. I got to meet Andrew for the first time. He's learning at a nice slow pace, but I can tell things are sticking. Jeremy's legs were hurting, but I saw him hit some good strings. We're going to be working on getting him playing pain-free asap. I WLL help him to play without pain. I'm so determined to help him with it. Khoa was doing some great Pixie shuffle links in his Puma shoes. He shreds well in them. Aidan was also there. I haven't played with him for a while but he was hitting good stuff. I saw him try some atomics that looked good, but were missing one thing. I gave him a tip and soon afterward, he hit his first Atomsmasher. I was really stoked when I saw that. Kemmer is looking so sharp. His Furious sets are just looking so easy and quick.His general game is looking so tight. I can tell he's been working on his basics. At the end of the session (which I have marked in my highlights list with "*****" in the highlights below) we did a sort of match-up mini-session with each of our "special" components. Matt used Furious and I used Alpine Stepping. So if Matt his Furious ss Pickup bs, I hit Alpine Stepping ss Pickup bs. Like I said, highlights from this below.


Personal Highlights:

Good string with variety ending in Mobius x4
Ripped Warrior> Ripped Warrior> Alpine Blurry Legover> string
Locomotion (one side, new)
Ripped Warrior> Blur> Legobeater *rpt
Hogan challenge: Zulu Butter> Spinning Osis> Mobius bs, then that drill minus Zulu
Stepping Ducking Axle bs (new on both)
Frankenstein> Ripstein> good run with Whirr almost bsos
Ripped Warrior> Reverse Swirl *rpt
Blurry Muted Revup in front of Ben, then later in front of Matt and Ivan
Footed last contact of Reverse Swirl> Ripped Warrior *rpt
Ripped Warrior x3, almost 4
Stepping Ducking Osis> Mobius BSOS
Matt footed the final contact of Ripwalk> Fury> Legbeater *rpt, and I footed last contact of Ripwalk> Spikehammer> Legbeater *rpt *****
Matt and I wanted to end, so he hit Jani> Blurry Torque and I hit Ripped Warrior> Blurry Torque bs *****

After the session, we got some pizza. Dang and I wanted to split the last piece so I asked him to go into the kitchen and grab a knife. Dang grabs a fucking butter knife I jokingly gave him shit for not grabbing a sharp knife. I like Chef Dang, he's a good kid. Funny as hell too. He cooks up some bangin' Ritz crackers and peanut butter platters. After food, Kemmer dragged us to see a silly/awesome/ridiculous/facepalmy Keanu Reeves action movie with him. John Wick. Oh my wow. I guess I recommend it to others. It was so absurd and silly, but so many action. Matt wanted complete silence and no disturbances during the movie and of course that made all of us mess with him during the opening credits. Sticking things in his ear. kicking the back of his seat, etc... All in good fun. We all went into it completely blind. No one but Matt and Iva had ever seen the trailer. I summed the movie up by "Russians Kill Keanu's Dog, So He Shoots a Lot of People". Jeremy and I discussed the movie afterward and agreed that Keanu's character said no more than 20 unique words throughout the movie. The coolest part of this experience was simply going to a theatre with a group of footbaggers. And like I said, no one had seen trailers or even heard what the movie was about, so we were all open-minded enough to pay for a ticket and sit through some random movie that we knew noting about. Footbaggers are the coolest. After the movie, Ivan tore apart the Russian parts of the movie. "The captions were terrible, not even correct most of the time.. the song they sing about The Boogeyman wasn't even about a Boogeyman, Keanu's accent was atrocious..." etc... It was hilarious to hear this from a Russian. Oh yeah, 2 hours or so before the movie, someone decided to put a beer cap down my pants and it feel out 2 hours or so later when I got out of the car to go into the theatre. That was pretty funny. They vandals responsible got a kick out of that.

We got home and Dang and I decided to go on an adventure. a 50 minute walk to and back home from the PSU arboretum. So worth it. They just added onto it and build a man-made cave and it actually had bats in it, roosting on the ceiling of the cave. Very cool. We both have never seen roasting wild bats before. Walked back to the shred house later and sooner or later, I gave Hogan a call. He was drunk with Sarah in Boston, doing drunk Boston things, so I speakerphones that and that gave us some good entertainment. Great to hear from Hogan and Sarah again. Later, I hung out with Ivan and Ryan in their room for a bit, playing with Ivan's rats, Switch and Dyno. They're adorable. They kept trying to eat my pants and shirt. After a little while, everyone was asleep except for Ivan and me. We were checking out some never before seen Gatesman footage I got to help Ivan with the names of the tricks Evan was hitting. Just ridiculous. SO many inventions. It's going to be well-worth a few watches when it is released. That was really fun to stay up with Ivan geeing out at Evan's never-before-seen footage. When we finished that up, we passed out.

Sunday:

Quick one, because I'm getting tired. Sunday, ok, woke up, got food, tried to remind Kemmer of our first time meeting. Ok, here'ss the deal... I met Matt at NYJ 2010. He doesn't remember me. I told him so may things that might jog his memory like, "I competed against you in Open circle!" "I went right before you in that circle!" Still nothing. Then I whipped out a video of Gatesman at that NYJ. Found a frame where Matt and I were literally standing 3 feet away from each other. He still couldn't remember lol. Anyway, said goodbye to Matt and Dang. Sad to see them go so early. Bummer. Seeing them in 2 weeks though, at Boston Jam. Stoked! Hype hype hype! Glad I got to walk to the arboretum with Dang and talk with him, but I definitely didn't hang out/talk with Kemmer enough.

Got back to shred house. Everyone lazy, except Ben and me. We go down to basement and play footbags. Really fun 2-man session. My knee really hurt, but I hit some ok stuff. Lots of it was just one side, since my knee hurt. Khoa came down after not too long and joined us. He his his first Terrage! Hope he does more of those.

Highlights:

Mobius> Marius
Reaper> Far Blink
Motion> Spinning Swirl
Ripped Warrior> Fog> Phoenix
Inspired by Ben: Stepping Ducking op Tootsie Roll> Ducking op Butterfly That was really cool. Ben definitely got me back into Tootsie Rolls. I saw him ducking them, which I never tried, and I like how it felt.
Whirling Cloud Kick> ss Legover> Pixie op Cloud Kick> ss Legover
Torque xlike10ish? Didn't count, but it was a record for me, since my last record was 2
Ender: Symposium Torque BSOS

Finish session, stretch, go upstairs, shower, food, when Ben was finished eating, he was really stuffed, so he simply says to April "April, let's go home, get me the wheel barrow... I died at that. They didn't actually leave. We then played Farkle (really fun dice game that Ben showed us. April was kicking our asses HARD), Ben drew some inappropriate stuff on my face, Boulderdash, then we packed our stuff, grabbed Jeremy's car, and peaked out of the ST C.

I had a great time this weekend. Thanks to Ivan and Ryan for the hospitality, as always. Thanks to Ben and April for the awesome baked goods and hot apple cider. Thanks to Kemmer and Dan for driving 5 hours to this jam. Thanks to Jeremy for the ride and the really great talks we had. And thanks to everyone for being great friends and for all the laughs that were had. I seriously had an awesomely fun weekend.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Few things right off the bat:

1) I love Paul's new Footbag Weekly News series. Funny, informative, brilliant. Check it out if you haven't. It makes our sport have a more official feel to it. Paul is a very charismatic news caster, too.

2) I have volunteered to host Joulukalenteri 2014. I'm a little nervous for it. I have a lot of room available. If you want to do a video, just message me. Like I said, nervous for this and hoping I don't mess up the calendar's awesome run like Mana Mpepo did to Jay's awesome run at the end of the Vegas Jam section of Dawn of The Shred.... but I am also very excited to be the leader of something so important to this community.

3) Speaking of Jay, I skyped with him tonight. We talked about a lot of stuff. He seems to be doing really well. He inspires me in life and footbag so much. He's really like a sort of like a guardian angel for me. It was nice to hear from him again.

Had a drill session last night. This is where Nick gets really boring and won't have cool highlights for a while. I realized my game was hitting another wall, so I decided to do more basics and strengthen up the base of my footbag tower. Ducks, Ducks, and more Ducks. I want to Lonify my Ducks. They're coming along really well. Here are a few highlights though:

Highlights:

Alpine Blurry Dragonflier bs
Top op Dragonflyer> op Symp Swirl bs. Funny how this link is on the first page of my blog, but only one side. Came back 4 years later and annihilated it. Awesome.
Swirl> Ducking Clipper *rpt> Reverse Swirl> Ducking Clipper *rpt> Ducking Butter> Diving Butter *rpt
Diving Clipper> Zulu Clipper *rpt> Ducking Clipper> Ducking Clipper> Ducking Butter> Diving Butter *rpt> Diving Osis> Ducking Osis

So yeah, I'm going to Duck and Dive until I don't suck at those anymore.

But yes, as I said, boring stuff for the time being. I plan on having a Jeremy and Nathan session soon... perhaps this week?

I really like Diving Gyro Clipper> Blender. That link is just really cool.

[DC Clinks]

And last but not least on the sure shot, It's the Zulu nation.

[Add Block]

You can't really spoil the calendar for me. I'll always be happy for new videos. And if I can get one every day, I'm not going to complain.

This might be a silly question, but how close could you get to ducking a Quantum set?

[boyle]

Good stuff on the calendar. It's definitely good to share around who is running it....it is a huge task.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Dan: No idea. Can't even begin to guess. Props though.

Nathan: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bewl1m0bH4[/youtube] Fast forward to 3 minutes and 34 seconds. This was the first 5 I've hit with it. And glad to hear that about the Joulukalenteri.

Danny Boi: Yes, I have com to realize this. It's harder than I thought. Lots of work has already gone into it. Got some good promises for videos from lots of people already though. So that's cool.

Hi this is Boring Nick here again. I drilled again tonight again. Again, I only have one highlight, since, again, I feel like this would be very boring to read without at least one good highlight again every now and again again.

Highlight:

Tripless drill: Spinning Osis> Gyro Osis> Spinning Ducking Clipper> Blender> Ducking Butterfly *rpt both sides!

Yeah, so that drill was just the crusher of all crushers. I'm really stoked on it. I could only do up to the Blender at first on both sides, then I kept pushing it, finally got the Ducking Butter bs but couldn't Spin out really well on flipside. I kept pushing it though and in no time I hit strongside. I kept footing the final Ducking Butter on flipside though. Then after pushing that side a little more, I hit it. The self-pride I got from that drill feels really nice. Just kind of basking in it right now, although the "YES" feeling I got from it has diminished for the most part. Still really proud of myself. If I tried that a year ago, or even a month ago, or probably even a week or 2 ago, I wouldn't have been able to hit it. That is one reason I'm so happy about it. Visible improvement.

In case you were wondering, in my drill sessions, I've just been marathoning Ducking Clipper *rpt. Very boring, very monotonous, but very helpful. My Ducks are starting to feel like they are going from "OK" to "Good"... now I just have to push "Good" to "Great".

That's all for tonight. Good night all.

[Add Block]

Fast forward

That's not how I watch footbag videos.

But seriously, big plus on that. When there's a discussion about Alpine Rubberman, I always end up thinking about Alpine Blubberman. It's not my goal, I'm just surprised that no one ever mentions it. Maybe you could get it after Alpine Rubber.

Watched your pointers a week ago. I never remember to practice or hit tricks like Osis, but since your video has a lot of good points, I decided I would at least hit a combo in your honour. Took me like 2 minutes with your advice:

Spinning Osis > Pdx Torque

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nathan: Alpine Blubber would be ridiculous. If I got good enough at Quantum, it's a possibility... in the far future. Right now I'm sticking with my Reverse Swirls and Spins and junk Nice job on the link too.

So tonight, I drilled again lola Told you, boring. But whatever. I filmed a bit to make it a little interesting. Got some pretty ok highlights tonight. Drilled Ducks & Zulus & Drifters. Drifters are the bane of my game, BUT, Matt Kemmer and Lon Smith gave me some great advice on them tonight. Now I think I understand how to get where I want to get.

Highlights:

Talked to Lon for like an hour tonight. Didn't fanboy while talking with him... but I will fanboy here OMGOMGOMGOMGLONLONLONOMGOMG Nah, jk. He really is my hero though. Very cool chatting with him tonight.
Lon-inspired drill: Mobius> Gyro Mirage> Double Over Down *rpt (in the video below)
Pdx Revup! Both sides! First time for each! Video below!
Zulu Ripped Warrior bs! New on each side. Really stylish trick. One reason I want to own Zulu eventually.
A really easy Pdx Reverse Swirl x3
Spinning Osis> Infinity Swirl BSOS
Definitely dialed Spinning Swirl a bit more on flipside
Spinning Ducking Osis> Ripped Warrior bs! Why is that harder than Mobius> Ripped Warrior??? Footbag is ridiculous sometimes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1rb6Nf3kkU[/youtube]

Matt showed me a drawing for how Drifters should look and that really helped me understand how to do them. Lon told me that learning to own Drifters and Pdx Drifters bright him right to owning Pdx Whirls, so there's my light at the end of the tunnel on those. I will be working my Drifters a lot in the upcoming weeks.

Boston Jam is next weekend! Oh man, I'm so excite for that! I'm really excite because Brogan Kogan isn't injured nearly as badly as he assumed he was. So he'll be able to shred at his jam. Thank my agnostic version of god.

Christmas Calendar is going smoothly.. so far. I have a few more spots I'd like to fill up.

Oh and message me if you would donate some money to get Lon a plane ticket to New Years Jam. I want to start a fund for him, since he is starting to get up there in age and I think it would be immense if he was able to go to this huge jam and inspire so many of the newer generations who may have never gotten a chance to meet him (like me :/ ). Anyway, message me if you would donate and how much. I'm planning on donating 50. We need 400 total. Hopefully we can get there.

On top of that stuff, all is dope and swell and cool and shit. I should probably go to bed. It's really freaking.. early.

Stoked for the next Footbag News episode!

BED.

[Matt K]

Here's the drawing I made in Paint to explain the motion of drifter to Nick:

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Matt, that picture works so well with no explanation It's hilarious just as is with no explanation though. I'll give the explanation. If you attach a marker onto the bottom of your foot, pointed at the ground, that is the shape the marker would draw on the ground. So this picture would be looking at the top of your head. Also, the image on the left is the correct way, and the image on the right is the incorrect way (how I used to do them). If you have trouble with Drifters, think about this picture and it will really help you.

Matt and Lon's advice paid off so nicely. My Drifters visibly got better today from their tips. Thank you, gentlemen.

Also, as of today, I will do no Pdx Whirls until I can hit Pdx Drifter x10 both sides. Lon's advice. Pdx Drifters will teach me Pdx Whirls. Makes sense. Right now I'm at 3 on both sides.

However, I had a session today and I broke my Drifter record. I'll post May 8th's Drifters first, then I'll post today's. You can notice a huge difference.

Here are my Drifters from May 8th (27 contacts):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIr0Ymm1cVo[/youtube]

And here are my Drifters from today, Nov. 8th (29 contacts!):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjOWiPl7S4Q[/youtube]

I really love how my new Drifters look. If I spent about a week on them, just marathoning b2b, I can see them looking very good. I'll probably end up doing that. For once, Drifters feel smooth and fun. I also sauced Smoke, which is not common. It looked better than my previous Smokes.

After my session, I talked with Hogan about his incredibly Boston experience at the Watsky show last night. I hope he blogs about it. It was so Boston. Later, Jeremy and I did our first day of cross training. We're going to be doing a planned run/walk every other day. Each day, it progresses a little bit. By the end of this, we're hoping that Jeremy's legs will have built up some more muscle and his legs can stand footbag again. Fingers crossed.

After our run/walk, our legs were burning, since we both aren't runners, but they felt really good. It was still early, around 7 pm, so we decided to go geocaching. He had never gone before, so I was hoping I could find a cool enough cache to take him to. We ended up at this place where Pete Bowler actually visited for a pool/billiards convention a long time ago. Just outside of it, there were 2 caches. Both of them were in the bases of street lights. Super easy and boring. We did find 2 cool little handmade "I <3 Geocaching" magnets that we traded for a $5 pita gift card. Our 3rd one was different. A short hike in the woods at night led us to a pretty neat area with a really cool look out point. Found the cache there, but the view was very cool. You could see a big nearby water tower, which was all lit up with purples and blues, as well as the reflection of the lights in the reservoir below us. I wish I took a picture. it was sick. After that, we headed out. I have another jog with Jeremy on Monday night. Looking forward to it.

Other thoughts:

Another very pleasing experience watching Paul's second Footbag News video. I love them so much. I really look forward to each one every week. I liked the part where he was waving the stick.

I think I might be going to the camper tomorrow, if Nadiah can make up her mind I'd like to get together with Sam Potter soon.

Drifters feel so very fun when you do them correctly. Can't wait to get better at them.

All for now. Good night.