Nick "Houdini" Polini

[C-Fan]

Great job with the calendar this year. Thanks for keeping the tradition alive!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thank you so much, guys. I feel really great about myself after running the Joulukalenteri pretty well this year. It was a rollercoaster, but in the end, I mostly had fun doing it, and I am really glad I stepped up.

The Joulukalenteri 2014 Write-up

First of all, Merry Christmas, everyone! It's been a great December so far I have always had Christmas spirit, but this year was so different. Running the Joulukalenteri has been absolutely incredible.

So, every year I've known about the Joulu, I've been amped for each and every video. Staying up until midnight (host's time) and anxiously awaiting each new video, being one of the first few to click the link, then thoroughly enjoying each one. Man.. such a great feeling. It has brought me so much joy in the past. That.. has been completely flipped on its head this year... in a really really good way. Being the host in the big chair, deciding the player and content, doing the LOTD, making that oh-so-special post at midnight every night, and most of all providing so much joy in everyone's December lives has been some of the most joy I've ever felt in anything I've ever done. I'm so glad I volunteered. Jay mentioned it last year to me, as well, but I kind of forgot about it/didn't want to accept responsibility for fucking the calendar up... but no one stepped up and I was all of the sudden hit with a big burst of self-motivation, and I took it. Wouldn't have changed a thing.

I've always been something like an entertainer... Not because it made me feel good to show off. I don't really even feel good "showing off", even in footbag... no, but the part of entertaining that I enjoy most is inspiring and making others happy. That is THE best part for me. I mean, yeah I loved learning cool tricks, sure.. everyone does. But when I watched footbag videos in my beginning days, I always thought, "I want to be at that level", "I want to hit that trick". It was so inspiring to watch Jay, or Lon, or Evan, or Nick Landes, or Johnny, etc.. They inspired me to keep trying. Their videos were beacons of hope that I could get there someday. Now so many people are saying they love my style and stuff like "I'll be watching this several times" just makes me feel so happy that I've made others happy.

A bit off track.. Back on track.. Hearing stuff like "You helped make my December a lot better" or "You gave me something to look forward to each day" really made me happy. Even if one video got one person to smile, I consider that a feat.

Bonslaver was an excellent filming partner for our big video. We are considering doing more themed videos in the future. I think we made a good team. I was really happy to hear that our video got some people to laugh.

LOTDs really showed me that I was better than I thought I was at the time. I didn't want to do LOTDs at first because Jay and Anz did some really hard links and I didnt think I could do the LOTDs justice. However, I Skyped with Jay last night before posting the final BONUS video and he basically said I held the same difficulty for most of the medium and hard days of the LOTDs, especially the hard days. He really liked Spender> Blurry Blink and said that was probably his favorite. I'd have to agree with him. He also approved of all my Reverse Swirls, since he's also a Reverse Swirl guy. And he also liked my "If you don't like them, you don't have to watch/do them" attitude. I was really pleased with LOTDs this year. Thanks to Paul for combining them into one video. Didn't think about doing that, myself.

Here's the not-so-good news.. If you saw the BONUS video Nathan and I made, you'll see a few tough Zooming Beasts.. All that Beast Zooming overtime messed up my left knee and now I think I'll be off for a little while. I hate to say the "I" word, but I do think I'm injured. Seriously hoping it gets better before NYJ. I DO NOT want to be injured for that. It has been feeling a bit better every few days, but it got to the point where it just felt like my joint was grinding. Ughh. Stupid shit. Not worth those Beasts. Please cross your fingers for me. A little luck would be great. Currently laying around the house with a double knee brace on and a knee covered in Tiger Balm. Hoping if I keep it up, it'll be able to take more weight sooner than later.

But for now, I've been birding. Got a good pair of binocs for Christmas, so I went birding with my dad this morning. Saw my first Golden-Crowned Kinglet. Pretty awesome... if you like birds and stuff. Anyway, I'm gonna put the computer down and go out on my roof with a blanket and pillow and scope out the woods behind my house for some bird activity. Would love to play footbag right now, but that is just not possible. Eh. Hopefully soon.

Christmas Trivia:

1) "St. Nick" is a fitting name for me because my parents actually named me after "St. Nicholas".

2) This is the second year I've been injured due to getting footage for the Joulukelenteri


Merry Christmas, Modified.

[boyle]

Great job on the Joulukalenteri. There were a great variety of videos in there. There's still a few I am yet to see, but have really enjoyed what I have seen so far.

[bobgreen]

Thanks for your work on this, Nick. I really enjoyed all of the videos all month long, and I appreciate the effort it took on your end and on everyone who provided such solid content.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I'm so glad you guys enjoyed it It really makes me smile knowing that I helped make people smile.

So, I had my first session in about a week or so just yesterday with Ivan. Nadiah got me a pair of Lavers (the new heavy ones) for Christmas (she's adorable for trying! and it's the thought that counts I still really appreciated them) but I was hanging out with her in the morning, then in the afternoon, I headed right over to Ivan's area without stopping home, so I couldn't grab my good Lavers. I ended up just using the new heavy ones. It was impossible to play in them with more than just a few contacts. But that made the session pretty fun. Ivan and I were both coming off of injuries so nobody was trying to impress the other. It was cool how we both were just playing because... it's a blessing that we were able to play at all. I always took advantage of that until last week, when I was walking around in pain, hearing the fucking joint in my knee GRINDING against the bone. Ugh.

Anyway, I played super lazy shred style once I got my toes, insides, and clippers warmed up. It was really funny to play in these, because I would try to hit a Butterfly> Osis and since the Lavers are heavy, they would go one way and my body would go the other way and I'd get really off balance. Ivan and I both found that humorous. Which leads me to my favorite part about that session. We both just laughed and joked and had so much fun. I helped him with Zooms and Spins too. He made some killer progress on those in just that session. No real highlights.. Didn't expect there to be. I did get Twirl> Ducking Clipper bs and that wasn't as hard as it was just fun. But it felt nice that I was being super cautious as to not pull the Osis and hurt my knee. Knee felt great by the end of that session. Also, probably one of the funnest sessions I've ever had.

Then I played a session that night, since I was bummed I hadn't been able to drill what I wanted to drill for NYJ due to my injury. I messed with some more complex motions to reacquaint my knee. I decided I didn't want to risk anything with any sketchy Whirl tricks, so I decided I would just do Toes. I ended up focusing on Atomics. Did the Atom> Tap drill once on each side, then Tap> Atom drill once on each side. Then I started analyzing. I came to a huge Atomic epiphany that also ended up helping my Alpine Stepping, Alpine Atomic, and maybe Pixies. Atomic tricks were pretty easy al of the sudden. If you want my tips, ask me at NYJ if you're gonna be there, or if you're not going to be there, just message me and I'll try to explain it as well as I can.

Highlights:

Tapping DLO BSOS
Lots less effort to duck Atomics on both sides. I almost wrote "Much less effort to duck the turkey". I think I'm tired.

Going to continue exploring Atomics soon.

One last note:

I'm super jealous of the intermediate NYJ attendees because they have so many other intermediate players! I think it's going to be really inspiring for them to meet other players at a similar level. This is cool for a few reasons.. 1) Other players their level can increase their desire to get better. 2) More people to relate to and chat about like concepts with. 3) Trading tips on different concepts. Ie. Steve Lanza can Spinning Duck, but Paul Gressett can Blender.

I remember how inspiring it was to have players at my level at East Coasts 2010. I met Mike Angeski there and he could do Smear and Blender. Ever since I saw him hit those, I wanted to learn them so badly. It really pushed me. I'm so pumped for the intermediate players to meet each other and kick with each other. I have a feeling that there will be so many new friendships established amongst everyone.

4 days til departure.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So, in case anyone forgot/didn't know, I had developed a list of drills/stuff that I wanted to complete by 2015 and it is now 2015. I did not accomplish all of them, but I'm so ridiculously pleased with how much I've improved since this time last year and with how many goals I did actually reach.

Here is my list of 2014 Goals:

2014 Footbag Goals:

EASY:

[ ] Blender x10
[ ] Barfly x10
[ ] Red Ribbon (Zulu Clipper) x10
[ ] Ripwalk x50
[ ] Solestice x10
[ ] Ducking Butterfly x20
[ ] Drifter x50
[ ] Near Butterfly Swirl> Infinity Swirl *rpt
[X ] Fog> Dimwalk *rpt
[ ] Bed Wetter BSOS


MEDIUM:
[ ] Ripped Warrior x10
[ ] Double Spinning Clipper> Ripwalk *rpt
[ ] Inward Tobius BSOS
[X] Gyro Reverse Swirl> Ripstein *rpt
[ ] Plastic Man
[X] Rubberman x2
[ ] Xanabox (Reaper> DSO> Paradon *rpt)
[ ] Pdx Whirl> Pdx Drifter *rpt> Barfly b2b
[ ] Tombstone> Blurry Drifter *rpt
[X] Stepping Whirl> Blurry Whirl *rpt
[ ] Jacknife> Ripped Warrior *rpt
[X] Vortex> Void *rpt
[X] Blurriest b2b



HARD:
[X] Mobius> Pd. Torque> Pdx Torque> Mobius
[ ] Scorpion's Tail> Spinning Whirl> Mobius bs
[X] Beast (hit one already, but I wanna get a better one this year.. Maelstrom was thin on 1st Beast)
[ ] Blurry Drifter> Blurry Whirl *rpt
[ ] Blurry Whirl> Spinning Whirl *rpt
[ ] Riptide b2b
[ ] Ripstein> Ripped Warrior *rpt
[ ] Spikehammer> Alpine Legbeater> Ripped Warrior *rpt
[ ] Reverse Swirling Blender b2b
[ ] 10 Unique Fearless

So yeah, there is my list.. I didn't hit 10 Fearless, which was my biggest goal, but I'm pretty damn ok with that. I dont even think it's going to be very high on my goal list for 2015, anyway. However, I did hit 6 new Beasts (all on video):

1) Food> Spender> Marius
2) Food> Whirlwind> Spender
3) (Mobius>)Spender> Spender> Marius
4) Marius> Spender> Marius
5) Food> Spender> Spender
6) Blurry Torque> Marius> Spender

So that makes 7 Beasts, total! I'm very pleased that I hit 6 of 7 all in this past year! I don't really want to chase Beasts anymore. I think 7 is a pretty lucky number to chill at for now. If I really feel another sometime, I'll try it maybe, but for now, Beasts are the least of my concern. I have really been thinking much more about style than huge tricks.

I will be making some 2015 goals very very soon (when I finish this post) and then I'll update.

But I did just come home from New Years Jam and it was... IMMENSE. Wanted to post the biggest highlight for me first...



Rippin' Rick Reese and Jay Moldenhauer awarded $100 to the most inspirational player of the year... turns out that was me!?! I was so shocked. It was easily the best moment in footbag for me so far. The money is great, but just being voted most inspirational player was enough to permanently choke me up. This certainly let me cross off one of my long term goals.. "Teach and Inspire Many". I wrote this list years and years ago. So surreal to be able to check that one off. Now for some other highlights:

New Years Jam Highlights:

Walking into Anton's house, meeting Nick Landes. I gave him Quantums, which he currently uses (way cool!) and he traded me 2 32 panels. I felt like I already knew him...
Second place in Last Man Standing! Matt Kemmer got first place! Such an honor to lose right next to him
Meeting a lot of new friends, including Paul & Sabastian Gressett, Kyle Cook, Steve Lanza, David Moutard, Brandon Patternson, Jay Moldenhauer, etc..
Being able to assemble the 3 amigos tribe of Matt, Hogan, and me again.
Seeing PSU Footbag REPRESENT!!! Ben, April, Greg, Ryan, Khoa, and Pipe. And then Nate ripping it up in finals. The PSU Car ride home was a lot of fun with April, Ryan, and Ben. Loads of footbag trivia and fun foottalk. Also picked up a really sweet bag from April!
Sharing Safety Car with Ryan, Kyle, Nick, Pipenberg, and Khoa
Boatz manning the microphone for Whirlyball!
Whirlyball, in general! I wore my GoPro on my head, so there will be footage!
Huge for me: I got multiple props from Johnny Suderman. That has never happened before, so I was really excited about that. I kinda proved myself, I guess. "Johnny, this is for you" *hit Alpine Blurry Blink first try*
A face to face encounter between Ott Boggly & Lick Popsickle! I was dying! Paul Gressett is hilarious and consistent.. and his son, Sabastian is awesome! So much potential in them both.
Had a dream one night that I was drilling Inspins? That was just cool/weird.
Double Spinning Thumbwallstabjamfuckfuckfuckcan'tfeelmythumb
Basement hangout at Adam Keith's. Adam is really cool. Really enjoyed the few chats we had. Hoping to see him again in the future.
Kory Swanson and I were the only ones repping punk band tank tops on Saturday
Seeing Arron Price (Brown Rice) hit his first Clipper> ss Rakes after helping him in my Rake Workshop! Success!
Really fun dinner with 5 guys (Aaron, Matt, Kyle, Kevin, me) at Five Guys.
"Syrup shots" dare from Pipenberg. Gonna miss him.
Wild goose chase on Friday, trying to find a place to play then bailing after we found one because we were all hungry
Talking with David Moutard about punk bands/shows. I really like that kid, even if he is an 18 year old with a constant rager hahaha
Hogan's hilarious "David Clavens Presents: Shuffle"
Nick and his chainmail bag. Eye-opening experience, to say the least.
Nick's yoga classes... also ridiculously eye-opening. Also, talk of an online Ustream footbag yoga class.
Mikie having the itch on the drums.
Just Steven Lanza as a whole. I really like that kid. He reminds me so much of myself at his age.
Kyle Cook is the man. I really love his mindset for footbag. He's gonna be very fucking fun to watch in a year or so.
Helping so many people with Osis, Spins, and Rakes during my workshops. Also, being able to host workshops with Nick and Ianek. Great experience. Also, helping Hogan with Behindyerbackswirls.
Nick's Shuffle & Pdx Whirl workshop (on tape, will upload soon) Very helpful.
Brian Bear has a cool leather jacket. He looked awesome playing Whirlyball in it. He also has like the sickest footbag floatmaster style.
Inventing a bunch of tricks!!!! (Will mention in trick highlights)
Grand Rapids Crew is so great. I love those guys. I grabbed Mac's beard and held him hostage as I was talking to Ianek and Nick about workshops. Fun!
Zach Jahner "The Champ" killing combos in one circle with me. He's so fun to watch still. Ans he and Anton and Adam did a hell of a job making this come to life! Props, guys! Really wish I got to kick more with Anton though.
Nick's yerba mate. Interesting. So very Portland.
David and Matt realizing they both like to push people's personal comfort limits during Saturday's breakfast lol
Cass is really good at yoga. Pretty inspiring.
Wish I would have talked to Derek Littlefield more.
Giving Sabastian 3 tries to hit Rake before I left the jam and he got it on the 3rd try! Nice job, buddy!
Talking to Evan while I scratched from Request and filming him hit some heinous stuff at the end of the Whirlyball party.
Ianek and I have become much better friends since Worlds '13. He's such a cool guy and we have really similar mind sets for footbag.

Trick Highlights:

Flapper Stepping ss Mirage bs (new on both) INVENTION!
Flapper Sidewalk BSOS! (first time hitting both of them INVENTION!
Flapper Pdx Tap new! INVENTION!
Flapper Stepping Far Muted Flapper (David's request) New!
Swirling Pdx Illusion (new!)
New way to hit Pixie ss Symp Swirls! Thanks Ianek! Much easier now.
Pixie ss Blink bs! Brand new on flipside and was really hard last time I tried it. Now it's really easy!
Revstein! Not new, but haven't done it in about 2 years.
Fairy ss Symposium Blink! New! Kevin's request.
Drifter Flapper NEW! (Right after I saw Landes do Drifter Dragon "Dragster")
Blurry Twirl> string> Double Spinning Clipper> Mobius> Ripped Warrior> string *Johnny Props* Woo!
Vortex> Blurry Blink

Woo, that's good for now. Lots of stuff. Going to start making a new list of goals now. Peace!

[Add Block]

Are you going to finish those from 2014? They look interesting.

[MetZelRio]

"Rippin' Rick Reese and Jay Moldenhauer awarded $100 to the most inspirational player of the year... turns out that was me!?!"

Yes. That is accurate in Sabastian's and my own opinion. To us you're a major force, personality, inspiration, player, teacher, contributor, encourager, in footbag regardless of BAP status or competition placing.

[Derek]

Wish I would have talked to Derek Littlefield more.

Who would want to talk to that non-Clipper mo'fo'?

The feeling is mutual, yo. 'Tis hard to do it all at an event like that, but glad we got a fair amount of shred in, and multiple good-bye hugs. There shall be a next time, and maybe you can enlighten me on some more ska

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Vojta: I still have them saved, so I will still be working towards them. I got ridiculously close to some of them, like Blender x9, Atom x9, etc.. Anyway, new goals have been set.

Paul: So great to meet you finally. Can't wait to shred again and hang out and chat about stuff. Thanks for the kind words.

Derek: I don't really LOVE ska anymore I used to be obsessed. I still enjoy it. That's kinda how I do things. I get into something, get obsessed with it until something better comes along. I dont think anything will knock footbag out of it's number one spot now, though. Not for a long time, at least. Looking forward to that "next time". It's stupid that we've been to 2 jams together now and haven't actually talked much.

Anyway, tons of stuff has happened since my last post. I'll try to highlight some of it.

Bad stuff:

1) At NYJ, I tried a Double Spinning somethingorother in Adam's basement and jammed my thumb into the wall with all the force of the first spin. Some of you may have seen that. I'm thinking that I may have shattered something inside the knuckle. It's still really sensitive and painful to the touch. Thankfully, it's just a thumb and I don't play video games AND... I have another one on my other hand. I'm so thankful it wasn't my toe or leg or something. So yeah, that has been sucking.

2) I have pink eye. Been on those nasty eye drops they give you that taste like rotten ass cheese when it drips down into your throat. That's been sucking.

3) Knee is giving me slight problems again :/ I'm currently trying to rebuild my game though. More on that later.

Dope stuff:

1) Hit 3 years with Nadiah the other day. Went out for a nice dinner at Red Lobster. We had a really great time. 3 years is fucking crazy, man. This is my longest relationship yet. Second longest was 1 year. 3 years with her, but 5 years knowing her. I've never even kept in contact with another girl for that long. Pretty real, but totally awesome.

2) LOTW with Ianek! Check it out! viewtopic.php?f=20&t=23828&p=492956#p492956

3) Life is just dope. Great girlfriend, awesome friends, rad family, cool pets, dank vibes. 2015 is off to a pretty sweet start. Just would like to find a different job soon.

I modified my chain mail bag to weigh 60 grams, and I have been rebuilding my game with that. Did a bunch of basics tonight. It showed me that my flip Clippers and Flip Osis really suck, so I spent a bit on them until they were a little better. Can't wait to work on them more. None of the basic stuff messes with my knee. Just Whirls, so I'm avoiding them for a little while.

As I said before, I'm trying to get really consistent with things this year. Inconsistency bugs me. I set a bunch of consistency goals for a handful of tricks (will post later) that I plan to drill all this year. So, again, this is where Nick's blog get really boring with fewer posts, when he isolates himself in the attic shred room for the winter. But yeah, I had a cool session with Nathan Bonslaver the other day and we decided to work on Drifters. Then we felt like filming some footbag comedy, so we made this (all improvised): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTAMQWdZpYE

We thought it was hilarious.. It is a small New Year's resolution of Nathan and mine to keep doing funny footbag comedy stuff for the community. Another one of mine if to finally achieve a 6 pack of abs.

After I get a lot better at fundamentals with chain mail, I plan on drilling 3 concepts until they are solid. My first 3 are Drifter, Pixie, and Cloud Kick/Stall. I have around 3 goals set for each trick, oriented toward that trick, of course. I also intend on doing Drifter War bs, at least once each at the end of every session. I also intend on hitting around 5 Swirling ss Mirages bs every session, so I can slowly build more consistency on that set.

I look at this method as being better than my old methods, because it's like hyper-focusing in on consistency of just a small handful at once. If you think about math homework, I used to treat drills like this: Do some of problem 5, then jump to 7, do some of 7, then go to 3, do just a little of 3, then jump to problem 10, etc.. But now, I think my new method will be better. Same example: Math homework.. I plan on solving the entire problems for 1, 2, and 3 before I move on to trying other problems. That way, at least I'll have the full answers to those 3 at first.

It's been going really well. I chose a fun group of 3 to work on first. I like doing Pixie shuffle with Cloud kick> downtime trick in the middle of them. I just love how that feels and looks.

Might not be blogging a ton in the near future, since I'll just be doing boring drills. Gotta drill to get good.

Recent Highlights:

Reverse Swirl> Tombstone bs REALLY FUN. LOVE TOMBSTONES NOW
Pdx Sidewalk (first time)
Cloud Kick> ss Drifter




That's all for now, I guess. Life is cool. Footbag is cool.

Peace

[Add Block]

My goal was to make Quasi popular one day. Looks like Jim did it for me. Love the Pdx Sidewalk. A couple times a week, I catch myself trying Stepping Quasi Far Mirage, just because it's fun to say 'Blurry Blur'.

Abs are overrated.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Vojta: Blurry Blur would be unreal! I think if you kept training, you could hit it. You have very fast dexes.

So... First off, Hello. Second... Um.. I dont know how to introduce this one. Been feeling brain dead today. Let's try this...


LIFE IS A THING WHERE STUFF HAPPENS. Life is nice, but so is ice. And ice is twice as nice as lice.

Shit, this is going nowhere quickly. Quick, do a little dance for the people.

Now I've got you where I want you, Audience!

Now, Read this shit!

Lots of workoutt'ing this week. Been doing bundles of yoga and bundles of workoutting. Ab rolls! yoga! chain mail basics drills! more ab rolls! I ended my workout tonight and I noticed that my chest had a little visitor... a new ab set! I think I have a 4 pack now. Almost seeing 2 more! That's been exciting. Chain mail drilling is nothing short of incredible. I promise you, if you try drilling with a chain mail bag, you will get very good at footbag. It's already fixed my flip Clipper, Flip Osis, and Flip Butter. I hit Torque bs with it, which is really freakin hard before you get to know how the bag works and how to get your body to work with the bag. Switched to a real bag after a medium session with chain mail. Chain mail makes you appreciate real footbags so much more! Everything feels so easy afterward.

Highlights:

Pretty sure I couldn't have hit this drill without practicing with chain mail. This has immediately become my favorite drill I have ever hit. Reverse Swirl> Tombstone *rpt. No way I could have done that a few days ago.
Ended on Drifter War bs, once each. But this time, it came within about 2 tries per side. WHat?! Last session, it took me about 10 tries to hit strong and shit... like 25 to hit flip. I already see improvement with my Drifters. Feels great.

Taking a few days off of all footbag. I want to let my knee heal up. Slightly injured from before NYJ. I think with some rest, I can come back with a healthy knee. Been buttering it up with Arnica gel for several days. That has already helped.

Anyway, I'm out like stout in a drought.

[krustykrakk]

It'd be cool to see a blurry blur with the last mirage dex planted.

[Derek]

You still gotta have some remnants of ska love, no more RX in ya life? I'm pretty bashful and definitely not versed in communicating, so it's not that unheard of. Unless there is a substance. Next event, I'll be sure to seek ya out for a real conversation. Good luck with the healing, and stay up on the working out!

Blurry Blur would be nifty, but, I like where Ben's head is.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Quick post.

I didn't play for about 2 weeks due to knee pain that I was experiencing before NYJ. I played well at NYJ and my knee felt fine, but when I came home, I should have taken some time off. It was dumb, on my behalf.

Anyway, I started back up sort of recently. Had some good sessions.

Best highlight was this:

http://instagram.com/p/yI27hoJUI4/?modal=true

and this:

http://instagram.com/p/yI11sMJUHR/?modal=true

Yeah, I do the instagrahams now too. It's become pretty popular for footbag stuff, and I think this will be one way our sport will spread.

I've also been training basics with that chainmail bag. Man, my BOPs got so fucking good. Like, Pdx Mirage used to feel like a bit of effort, but now after training chainmail for some sessions, it feels like nothing more than a toe stall. My legs just know how to stall the bag really well now. It's really incredible what chainmail can do for your game. It seems like it's getting more popular too. Anton just started making chain mail bags for people.

In other news, I'm trying to get a new job (despise my current one) and I've also decided to start writing stand-up comedy. I experience too much funny shit in my life to not try stand-up. I have to work on my presentation, but the nice part is that my comedy comes to me every time I put the pen on paper. It just flows out and it's all been pretty funny, so far. Just have to keep organizing it.

George Hayward (PSU graduate/PSU Footbag Club member) really influenced me to get into it a few years ago. I tried it, but realized I sucked at presentation. So I stopped.. But now that I've reached this point in footbag, I realize that everything takes practice. I might not be great at stand-up right away, but with practice and passion, I think I can succeed.

Also, I realized that stand-up is a lot like footbag. There is Bit 1, Bit 2, and Bit 3... You have to learn how to connect those 3 bits together in a way that sounds nice.. just like you link footbag tricks. And can't talk too fast or else your words will mash together and you'll mess up... just like you can't shred too fast, or else you'll end up mashing 2 tricks together, starting one trick before the previous has finished. Lots of cool similarities I've noticed already.

If I get good enough by Jamps, I'd like to perform a set at one of the after parties. Gotta talk to Ivan about that.

But yeah, I have some pretty hilarious/outrageous bits in the works. I know it will take a lot of work, but I think an understanding of footbag will actually be really helpful in this.

By the way, I'm still going to keep practicing footbag Just have something to try to get good at when I'm resting from kick.

Good night.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So I had another session yesterday after a few days off. Trying to take breaks between sessions for a little while, until my knee feels 100%. It felt great after the session. Still feels great now. Just don't want to play too long and wreck it.

This has been my method of drilling recently and it's worked better than anything else I've ever tried:

I found that drilling 3 concepts per month, with more focus on one of those concepts, is the best method. I pick 3, one downtime, one uptime, and one unusual/special trick to add some spice.. (currently: Downtime- Drifters, Uptime- Pixies, Spice- Cloud Kicks).. More focus on Drifters... Then I have one bigger trick that I try to link with something easy every session (currently: Tombstone), and I also choose one "focus trick"-related drill and end on that, both sides, every session (currently: Drifter War (Drifter> Pdx Drifter *rpt))

Tombstones have been slowly becoming mine. The timing is almost perfect on all of mine now. I always loved that trick, ever since I saw Pipenberg nailing them.

Highlights:

Vortex> Tombstone bs
Tombstone b2b
Blurry Drifter> Tombstone bs!
Spinning Butterfly> Tombstone *rpt
Ripped Warrior> Pdx Blender BSOS
Challenge from Kyle Cook: Stepping Knee Bump> Inspinning Flapper That was really cool. We saw this freestyle football player on Instagram hit that and Kyle wanted to see it with a footbag. The football dude did it without the step set, but I wanted to add that because it looked cooler.

Not really a highlight, but I tried a handful of Voids bs and couldn't miss any of them! They just stuck right there... the turn-snap was perfect. I was really quite happy about that.

So yeah, Drifters.

[Sporatical_Distractions]

How do you manage to get eye drops to drip down your throat?! lol

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Crowley: The nasolacrimal duct goes from your eye to your throat and the excess liquid can drip down the duct and go down your throat.

So I've been playing footbag lightly, every few days. I did play... well.. drill tonight and came out with some improvements in my game, which is always nice.

Drills/Highlights:

Diving Butterfly> Drifter> Blur 3x bs
Torque> Blender> Spinning Osis 3x bs
Spinning Butter> Pdx Drifter> Blur 3x bs
Fairy ss Reverse Swirl> Swirling Mirage bs
Pdx Drifter> Blur 3x bs
Pdx Drifter> Diving Butter 3x bs
Tombstone> Stepping ss Pickup bs (session ender)

The drills are all things I should be able to hash out first try every time by now. But those 3 three-pack links all took me a good bit of time to hit at first. But by the end of their sections, they were much more achievable, and that's how I know I've made some progress. Stepping out of Drifter and Pdx Drifter has always been tough for me, but I realized that was due to rushing the stepping set. I would do the Drifter and pop into the step asap. I now take time and cushion the Drifter before even thinking about the step set and that feels oh so much better.

Also, I found this neverbeforereleased clip of me when I was one-sided and Tiltless. About 2011 maybe? I had already been playing for at least 2 years at this point. I had no uptime dex sets at this point. It's amazing that some of the beginners we have currently are doing dex sets like crazy. I had such a slow start to this sport. I found this to be pretty funny, so I wanted to share it. Watch how one sided I was. It's ridiculous.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjRzytVR ... e=youtu.be[/youtube]

Worked on my comedy a good bit in between session days. It's coming along. It's hard to sit down and "work" on it because my ideas are often spontaneous. I've got a good structure right now, but every time I work on it, I try to make a few parts funnier and that has actually been working well. I'm excited to perform for the first time. No idea when that will be, though.

I can't wait til it gets warm. I'm sick of the snow. I'm sick of the cold. And mostly, I'm sick of drilling in my cooped up attic space. I always end up kicking a desk or something. However, I always make solid improvements in that small space every year. So maybe that's good for me.

Either way, I just found mystery blood on the back of my thumb, so I guess I should figure out what part of me is bleeding now. "Guess What's Bleeding" is one of my favorite party games. Bye!

[Add Block]

Those links seem fun, I might steal some of them when I'm not injured. As for Drifter > Blur, it's meant to be a hard link, I have been practicing just than link for 10 minutes every single session and I'm still bad at it.

By stalling the bag inbetween two moves for too long, you erase the link. You're just doing tricks, no links. That can't be fun.

As for everything in footbag, try everything and see what works for you, I'll give you what works for me so you have somewhere to start.

1) If you're doing Toe Drifters, set the bag higher than usual a raise your knee fast. Dexing comes while you're landing. When I do the Drifter this way, my stall is more controlled and I can quickly jump back into the Blur

2) With Near Drifters, it's good to finish that Drifter with a clipper very close to your body. For some people this works the other way round, so I guess you may want to do a bit of research on what clipper position works the best for you.

3) This is the hardest one, but also the one that helps me the most. It is a hard link, but if I hit one exact spot on my clipper after the Drifter, I can ALWAYS get that Blur. I don't know why, but it just works for me like that. The problem of course then is to hit the Drifter that way. So in reality, you're just transforming your problem into another, easier one.

Edit: Ken Somolinos has very quick clippers and has no problem with Drifter > Stepping, and I can guarantee you that it didn't just come to him one day. Just drill the shit out of that, it might even help you in the future for Torque > Stepping, Grifter > Stepping etc.

Edit2: I know this is probably what you didn't want to hear, sorry for that, it's not gospel, just my two cents. Nick Landes has long delays and he's doing fine. Anssi just gave me props for it, though, so I'm gonna go blush in a corner.

[Matt K]

I found this post of yours from an old "name your best tricks" thread. Almost didn't recognize it as you:

1. Motion Sickness
2. Janiwalker
3. Marius
4. Swirling Spinning Butterfly
5. Stepping Ducking Solestice