Bobby G's footblog

[C-Fan]

Johnny Suderman had a post today on the Freestyle Footbaggers group page on Facebook that “we're all just flow junkies", referencing this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28ps ... sm_of_flow

[bobgreen]

Nice, Ken. This link provides a flowchart Mad Men fans may find useful.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/wwddd

[bobgreen]

I’ve been waking earlier than everyone else, so this morning I decided to sneak out of the house and head to a nice little coffee shop to do some bloggin’ and work on some other projects. Works out well since my in-laws are LDS and do not have coffee at their house. I even managed to nab a nice little spot by the Christmas tree.



Saturday morning we did some family activities to celebrate Ruari’s birthday, and then in the afternoon I headed to Jim Penske’s place in Boise. Turns out the "Potato Bowl" was going on, which this year was played between Air Force and Western Michigan. It was quite rainy and neither of the teams are local, so I don’t think it was attended too well. Jim and I shot the shit and ran some errands for a couple of hours. After that, we headed toward the Boise State University Student Union Building (BSU SUB) where the local crew shreds regularly. Though we didn’t attend the potato bowl, I did get to see this amazing truck on the way to the SUB.



Jim initially thought it would be him, Red, and myself, but it turned out that Daryl was back in town from his work trip so we had a 4 man circle. I was really struggling with this cold, so even while trying to do my easiest stuff all of my strings were very short. I just kept my mouth shut and played through as well as I could, because I didn’t want to be the guy in the circle making excuses. Jim was pretty phenomenal as always, and Daryl and Red were hitting some cool stuff too. Hopefully I’m not blowing a secret here, but I challenged Jim to furious same side whirling rake and he hit that within a couple of tries. I told him since he named triple over down rake “the equalizer” that if furious same whirling rake is an invention, he should call it the “the neutralizer”. Maybe it is a bad comparison since the dexes are broken up in the latter and not the former. In either case, Jim didn’t seem too concerned with trying to stake his claim on that trick.

After shred Daryl, Jim and I went back to Jim’s place and split a growler of Lagunitas Brown Shugga’. Jim bought that earlier in the day at this really awesome place called Brewer’s Haven that is a home-brew supply that also sells both bottled beer and draft beer. Then we went downtown where Red joined back up with us and I also got to meet Jim’s girlfriend Casey and a couple of other folks. Casey was totally awesome, and I was stoked to meet her.



Some pizza and another beer later, and we were back at the apartment watching a movie and easing in for the night.

The next morning we got a little coffee and chatted for a couple of hours, then I was off to visit my Uncle and Aunt for about 5 hours before heading back to Twin Falls.

One other thing that deserves a mention is that Jim’s dogs are awesome! Jim has a dog named Brutus that you may have seen in some of his footbag videos. Brutus has very limited use of one of his front paws, so he is pretty gimpy but that doesn’t seem to deter him at all. Super friendly dog with a great personality. Jim’s roommate has a dog named Fletcher. I didn’t realize it until the 2nd day, but Fletcher is a Teapot Chihuahua. I am NOT a Chihuahua fan, but Fletcher is awesome! Not at all yippy while I was there, quite a little snuggler, and he even sings with you. I’m sure it was quite a site with my cold-induced, froggy throat singing with Fletcher.

That’s it for now. Off to Salt Lake City for a couple of days, then to Rock Springs, Wyoming on Christmas Eve to see my Dad’s family. Hoping that by the time I’m in Rock Springs that I’m up to shredding (properly) again.

[krustykrakk]

Wow, sounds like quite the trip! Busy, busy, busy.

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

Agreed on the last part of your last post. The peace and tranquility found 30 contacts midstring don't really compare to much else.

nice writeup of the BAP vs Bobby g sesh, sound like denzel washington would be proud. it's cool that you and jim have gotten to hang so much this year.

I'll look forward to our next shredz in 2015 homie!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hey Bob! Merry Christmas Eve! Hope you're having a swell time in ID. Sounds like it! Thanks again for hosting Boston Jam. I was thinking about how amazing of an experience it was the other day. You and your family were some of the best footbag jam hosts ever! Stay well and have a Merry Christmas!

[bobgreen]

Catching up on a couple of replies….

Have a great trip!!

Thanks Cass! I saw that you are in something of a Christmas funk so rather than Merry Christmas, I wish you a Happy New Years Jam! I hope the whole year is good, but wishing for all of you that the Jam is off the hook.

Wow, sounds like quite the trip! Busy, busy, busy.

Yes sir! My family is pretty spread out and I’m on the opposite side of the country, so I have to get around as much as I can. Hopefully I won’t bore my readers, but I plan to blog a bit more about it despite not a ton of footbag content so far.

it's cool that you and jim have gotten to hang so much this year. I'll look forward to our next shredz in 2015 homie!

Certain aspects of this year I am very ready to move on from, but I’ve been really fortunate on the footbag front. Hanging out with Jim a couple of times has been awesome, meeting new friends and old at jams has been rad, and I have a pretty kick ass shred partner. Looking forward to our next session too!

Hey Bob! Merry Christmas Eve! Hope you're having a swell time in ID. Sounds like it! Thanks again for hosting Boston Jam. I was thinking about how amazing of an experience it was the other day. You and your family were some of the best footbag jam hosts ever! Stay well and have a Merry Christmas!

Thanks for the very kind note, Nick. My family and I had a ton of fun hosting everyone. I don’t know what the future holds with the moving situation, but I hope to host more jams in the future.

[bobgreen]

This post is almost entirely non-footbag related, so feel free to skip down to the section marked Footbag Stuff if you don’t want to read the vacation blather.

Vacation Stuff

I left off summarizing the Idaho portion of our end of year vacation. Prior to our scheduling the trip, my Mother-In-Law had booked a non-refundable room in Salt Lake City for the couple of days preceding Christmas. When she found out that we wanted to spend the week prior to Christmas with her, she decided to book us in the same place for two nights as her Christmas present to us….so off to SLC we went. The drive on I-84 from Twin Falls, ID to SLC, UT was smooth sailing.



For the most part, we laid pretty low. Kristin, Ruari, and I were still fighting a cold, and in the meantime my sister-in-law came down with the flu. We managed to go watch the new Hobbit movie, and also to go see the lights at Temple Square. I am not LDS, or religious at all for that matter, so I was just there to see the pretty lights but for my Mother-In-Law it is a very special place to visit. Despite not having religious significance for me, I must admit it is really quite beautiful. Here are a few snaps of the Temple and the Christmas lights.









After visiting SLC for a day and a half, we parted ways with my in-laws and headed East about 3 hours to Rock Springs, WY where my Dad lives. About 15 miles prior to Rock Springs is a town called Green River where there is a tunnel that is maybe half a mile long. Every time we drive there I make it a game for Ruari and I to hold our breath all the way through the tunnel.



As you might gather from the name, there are some pretty interesting rock formations near where my Dad lives. Here are a couple of photos we snapped from the freeway. Actually it reminds me of a lot of the scenery near Radiator Springs from the movie Cars.





We’ve just returned to SLC today so that we can fly home in the morning, but the time in Rock Springs was quite pleasant. We got a lot of time visiting with my Dad and his family, which was really nice (we are fortunate to get along with them very well). One of the ‘family time’ highlights was playing cards against humanity. There are some pretty epic stories from that, but even with my foul mouth and crude sense of humor I won’t go there in this forum. Lets just say I had to educate my family on the definition of some pretty crude terms a time or two.

Outside of family stuff, it turned out one of my high school classmates was in town because his wife has family in the area, so we got together for lunch (marking the first time we’d seen each other for two decades). We weren’t tight in high school but we did play football and wrestle together, and it was really cool to see him again and meet his family.

One day the weather got up to about 20F (-7C), and I convinced my Dad to pull out the 4 wheeler and let me go for a ride. He gave me a heavy pair of overalls to wear, and off I went. That was awesome! I had brought my GoPro with me in anticipation of shred footage, so I did try to capture some of my ride with that. The rest of the week was downright frigid and way too cold to go riding (low yesterday of -18).



It has been a great trip, but I am definitely ready to get back home to my normal routine. Also excited for regular shred sessions with Hogan in 2015! Of course I'm hoping to shred with many others as well!!

Footbag Stuff

On the footbag front, I finally got well enough to play footbag the 28th-30th. I am not used to getting sick much at all, and this is the longest I can remember staying sick in quite some time. First two sessions back were still pretty bad because of my lingering cold, but my last session yesterday was pretty good. I tried to play today when we got to SLC, but the rec center I went to was closed early due to New Years Eve and I didn’t know where else to try shredding. My main footbag accomplishment for the trip is the video below. This is my first attempt at making an edited video, and I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I hope those featured were satisfied with the footage I included of them....I spent a lot more time that weekend playing footbag than filming, so I'm certain I did NOT capture everyone's best stuff.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs4sg4N0 ... rf7oWRddCg[/youtube]

Sorry for the lengthy post. I do have some New Year footbag goals, and I hope to make that the topic of a future post in the next week or so.

I hope those of you going to Michigan for New Years Jam have a really awesome time!

[bobgreen]

2014 Year In Review

I started playing footbag again in fall of 2013 after not playing footbag regularly for over 8 years. A big reason that I started playing footbag again is because I finally started to get myself into shape after letting myself slip pretty terribly. In 2014 I completed a weight loss journey that started at over 240 lbs at my heaviest (2008 timeframe) and ended up right around 175 lbs at present. I tried and faltered a couple of times, but luckily was able to stay committed to weightless in August 2013. I started playing footbag again when I still weighed somewhere around 210 or 205, so footbag was a big part of finishing out that goal.



I kept a footbag log in 2014 outside of this blog. I’ve gone through that data, and made this chart that provides a high level summary of my year. Left y-axis for point data, and right ordinate for bar chart data.



I ended up playing 169 days total last year, and my longest streak in any given month was 5 days. These numbers came out a lot lower than I had anticipated. I felt that I played quite a lot through 2014, so it really makes me appreciate the dedication it takes for people like Mathieu Gauthier and Scott Davidson to play daily.

Throughout the year I called out 6 sessions as “significant non-event sessions”. Those 6 sessions were:

• 1) Played with Kevin Hogan for the first time on March 10th. Exited hermit mode and got a kick ass shred partner in the process.

• 2) Session with Mike Angeski while on work travel on May 19th.

• 3) Session with Aaron Price during his Boston visit on May 30th.

• 4) “BSC Reunion Shred” on July 9th. First time I met Pete Bowler and Dave Remillard.

• 5) Session with David Owen Beyers in Boston area on December 6th. Love Boats’ shred style and personality.

• 6) Session with Penske, Genzu, and Red on December 20th in Boise. I was sicker n’ hell and played terribly, but it was fun just hanging out with those guys.

I also attended 3 events in 2014:

• 1) NYFA 8. Awesome weekend shredding and crashing at Bruce Dole’s place.

• 2) ECFC. Awesome weekend shredding and hanging out with my family in NYC. Staying at the shred house helped convince my wife that holding an event at our place was an acceptable idea!

• 3) Shoetown whatever the heck we called it Boston-ish jam. It was an honor to host a house full of shredders.

If I were to critique my performance, I’d say I was happy with how I played at all of the events but struggled to play well at the individual sessions.

2015 Goals

In 2014 I did not formally make goals. I did not know how much of a commitment to playing I could make, so I wasn’t quite sure what goals to prepare. I did work hard toward improving in 2014 and I’ve monitored my progress so I feel like I have a lot of data to draw from in setting up 2015 goals. Relative to many shredders they may seem modest, but I believe they will be a challenge (but achievable hopefully). Below are my goals for 2015.



The first three goals are really an attempt to make a commitment to playing and being heavily involved in footbag for 2015. With competing life priorities, just playing regularly does require an effort. This will help feed into the remaining goals which are things that will hopefully challenge my game and make me a better player.

The year has started out well. I had my first session of the year with Hogan the other day and hit magellan for the first time ever. Though it didn’t formally make the goal list, I want to get a lot better at pixies this year.

[bobgreen]

Just coming off five sessions this week and looking forward to shredding both days this weekend, including a Sunday jam with Hogan. I’m excited for that….always excited to kick with Kevin, and I generally have more energy on the weekends.

Normally when I’ve done drill lists, I’ve picked 5-10 drills and done at least 5 replicates of each drill both sides. Drills might be individual combos all the way up to mini-strings up to around 10 contacts in length. I think that has served me well and brought my consistency up, but I wanted to change things up so this week I picked 15 challenges and tried to hit each one at least once on both sides. There was one longer combo, but mostly shorter combos that are more challenging for me to hit. The challenges chosen were somewhat themed, so even though I didn’t require as many replicates I still worked high reps of certain concepts. This week I worked a lot of osis, pixie sets, spinning/gyro, and rakes.

• 1/10/2015 - 13/15 challenges complete; alt clip x 16 (ties record)

• 1/11/2015 - 15/15 challenges complete; 23 tiltless, symposium mirage bs

• 1/12/2015 - 15/15 challenges complete; toe duck clip > ducking pdx mirage > toe duck clip

• 1/14/2015 - 13/15 challenges complete; gyro clip bsos, toe duck clip > duck pdx mirage (BSOS)

• 1/15/2015 - 14/15 challenges complete; gyro clip bsos, spinning clip bsos, pdx mirage > pixie butterfly bs; same illusion b2b; toe set far rake, clipper set far rake, and toe set near rake all bsos.

I want the toe duck clip > duck pdx mirage B2B, so I’m going to definitely keep training the toe ducking. Also having fun with rakes and want to get good at them.

I’ll probably do another week of more challenging drills over themed concepts with fewer replicates allowed, but I’ll have to return to higher rep work again soon to maintain/improve string length. Right now it is fun to just build concepts though.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

A little bird, who pukes up full pasta shells in the back of work vans, told me that you're getting so much more consistent and hitting better and better tricks. Keep it going, man. Looking forward to our next shred.

[bobgreen]

Hey Nick, thanks man! Trying to play a lot and to get a little bit better every session.

I’ve played 19/27 days so far this month, so I am pleased with how much time I am putting in. A very compressed version of my highlights the last 10 days.

• 1/17/2015 - pixie same butterfly (left only); footed PLOx3

• 1/18/2015 - Hogan session; symposium mirage > same illusion (first side)

• 1/20/2015 - symposium mirage > same illusion (flip side)

• 1/21/2015 - none (rough session)

• 1/22/2015 - Hogan session; diving legover (bs; new trick!)

• 1/24/2015 - drifter (bs); terrage (r); DLO (r); osis x7 (new record); pdx mirage > pixie clipper (bs)

• 1/25/2015 - atw>pixie>rpt (24 contacts); pdx mirage > pixie legover (bs); gyro clip (b2b; first time!).

• 1/26/2015 - pixie clip > pdx illusion (bs); pdx mirage > pixie osis (bs)

That b2b gyro clipper was a long time coming. Several solid attempts at both flip DLO and flip terrage this week (footed both).

The pasta shell puking bird hit some fatty shit when we kicked, but I don’t know the etiquette regarding posting other people’s highlights. Some people like to keep their shit under wraps, and some people don’t care. Anyway, Hogan hit one link in particular was pretty effing nuts, so I hope he blogs about it.

Snowy day in Massachusetts today with a travel ban in place, so I worked from home. Shoveled a fair bit of snow in the late afternoon and elected to just relax the rest of the evening afterward (i.e., no footbag today). Hoping to get back to it tomorrow, even though there is still more shoveling to come. Cross-training I guess.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

God damn, Bob. Proof is in the pudding. Great highlights!

[bobgreen]

Snowpocalypse and the Eye of Sauron

Since my last post I’ve still been training a lot and pleased with the progress I am making. I have a bunch of my highlights written down, but that summary will have to wait for another day. I will mention that I got a Ben bag a few weeks back, and I’ve been really happy with it. I really have meant to write a glowing review of it, but I've just had too much going on.

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy. Work is very busy, but mostly in a good way. The time demands are stressful, but the work is really enjoyable so I focus on that. Beyond work, the main thing making things crazy lately is WINTER. It is funny how quickly you can get sick of something. A month back we hadn’t had too much snow yet. Then February comes and we have record breaking snowfall totals and prolonged below freezing weather. I haven’t been excited about the shoveling, but whatever….that’s what you get when you live in the north. No biggie.

Rewind to last Tuesday. Hogan and I have been trying to have a session and things haven’t worked out between our schedules and big ass snow dumps canceling our travel plans to meet up. We make plans for a session in Beverly, so I take my gear with me to work so I can head there straight away. Around 4:30 that afternoon I get a phone call from Kristin (my wife) that Aubrey (my daughter) has called sobbing and that the house has been flooding. Aubrey was able to shut the water off at the main in the basement, and literally used every bath towel in the house to soak up what she could. I pack my shit up and leave work, cancel with Hogan, and head home.

Some of you have stayed at my house. You may not know it, but her name is Annie. Annie was named a few years back when my son Ruari was really little and had gotten frightened during a storm. We comforted him by letting him know that our house would protect us, and somehow in that process she was named Annie. Anyway, Annie has seen better days. A pipe burst above our bedroom ceiling on the 2nd floor. If you are familiar with gravity (and I think all of you are), you will recognize that water flows down. What that means for us is fairly substantial damage in our bedroom, the 2nd floor hallway, the living room, and a small room on the 1st floor we use as a game room. The basement got wet too, but nothing much in there of consequence. Our bed was destroyed as were most of our electronics, and our dressers have some damage to them. The photo below is the eye of sauron as seen in my bedroom ceiling (or Derek Littlefield’s tattoo, I’m not sure which).



Hopefully in the grand scheme of things, this misadventure is a little blip on our life trajectory. First world problems, right? That said, it does kind of suck for now. We are sleeping on an airmatress in my office, which is cramped but manageable. We’ve had large industrial fans and a dehumidifier in every floor for the last week. I knew the constant sound was getting to me, but I didn’t realize how much until I got home today. They are actually gone now, and I was so happy about that! It is such a big deal just to be able to eat a meal at the kitchen table in peace. Unfortunately, we are not the only ones who have been hit with burst pipes or a collapsed roof. Seems the insurance folks are all out, and they won’t be here to assess the damage until Thursday (10 days after the incident). You can see from the picture above that we clearly have some wall and ceiling damage, but the floors are concerning too. We have a lot of wood floors, which both of us really love about the house. I feel good about the first level floors being refinished, but the second level floors are kind of cupped now and I’m not sure whether it is too severe to be sanded level. Very nervous about how this will all go. It is still our plan to move, but we love Annie and I don't want for corners to be cut on the repairs. I hope that things go well with the insurance and that we are not out a ton of money.

Hogan stopped by last Thursday for a shred with me amongst the fans and dehumidifiers. Was awesome for him to come out as footbag always helps take the edge off. I recorded some footage of us shredding a few weeks ago, but I’ve been to busy to try and edit it. Maybe I can get to it this weekend.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Jesus. Hogan told me about the house. Sorry to hear about all that crap. Sucks you had to deal with all of that. This winter has been hell. I feel so bad for you Mass guys. Hope everything goes well with the house clean up. Hogan has also been telling me how much better you've been getting. Cant wait to play with you again man. Sounds like you've leveled up-up-up-and-up. Looking forward to some highlights and maybe footage in the future. Good luck, brah. Peace.

[Kylescook]

The photo below is the eye of sauron as seen in my bedroom ceiling (or Derek Littlefield’s tattoo, I’m not sure which).

[Derek]

Damn dude, know I didn't cause it, but so sorry. Is Annie staying on the market, or waitin' to fix her up? Heart sank while perusing, hope the insurance peeps aren't total dicks. Good vibes headin' your way.

The photo below is the eye of sauron as seen in my bedroom ceiling (or Derek Littlefield’s tattoo, I’m not sure which).

That's not my tattoo? Fooled me. At least I can say my tattoo also looks like the Eye of Sauron, which is cool.

[bobgreen]

Hey guys, thanks for the well wishes.

We pulled Annie off of the market last November just a few days before the Shoetown Throwdown Boston-ish Jam. Our intention was to re-list in mid March, so this will put a delay in that. The claims consultant (e.g. damage assessor) from the insurance company came out on Thursday. I haven’t seen his written report yet, but the things he commented needed to be re-done are in line with what we were thinking. His report should be submitted to the insurance company by now, and he said the next stage is for them to review and hopefully approve his assessment so we can get some cash flowing for repairs to start. They will probably cut a check for some fraction of his assessment so we can make down payments to people to get them started on the work. He thought it would take 1-2 weeks before the insurance company reviews his report. In the meantime, we will start to get bids for the repair work. I think we will probably try to go with a general contractor instead of subcontracting out the jobs ourselves. We are both super busy, so it will be a lot better for us to have a single point of contact I think. Anyway, the intention is still to re-list the house for sale but I just don’t have a sense right now how this impacts the timing. We still want to get it listed as early as possible to not ‘miss the season’.

Some summaries of accomplishments over the past month:

• infinity x 10

• osis x 8

• clipper x 21

• clipper > pickup rpt drill for 44 contacts

• butterfly > pdx mirage drill for 10 contacts

• atomic same pickup (new trick; one side only)

• atomic near rake (new trick; setting foot and raking foot are the same; one side only)

• symp mirage bsos

• symp mirage > near rake

• drifter bsos

• same butterfly > drifter

• drifter > same butterfly

• spin clip > osis > osis > pdx mirage > tiltless stuff > flip spin clipper > osis > pdx mirage > tiltless stuff

• whirl > far rake (bs)

I think in general that rakes are under utilized, so I've started working on getting better at them.

Gearing up for a good Sunday session now.

[Sporatical_Distractions]

Great highlights Bob!

[bobgreen]

Thanks Kevin!

I didn’t play last night, but I had good sessions on Sunday and Monday.

• ducking osis (bsos)

• pdx mirage > ducking osis (bs)

• ducking clipper > osis > osis > pdx mir (bs)

• toe duck squeeze (bs)

• progressive clipper drill, e.g. ’triforce’ (42 contacts)

• osis x 8 two more times

• toe duck clip > pdx mirage > rpt

I’m apparently unable to count. I got through 6 iterations of the triforce drill on Sunday and had written down 6 reps = 36 contacts. Because I’m a dork and I have Matlab though, I can check my work:

sum(2*(1:6))

ans =

42

Don't you all wish you were Matlab users now? If you want a rep by rep snapshot, there is always this too:

2*cumsum(1:6)

ans =

2 6 12 20 30 42

One of my goals for the year is to break 50 tiltless (with no uniques requirement). It would be a very lame way to do it, but it is kind of cool to see that I am within 1 rep on that triforce drill of > 50 consecutive clippers.

Working from home today. We are having a general contractor coming in to get the process rolling with collecting bids. Hopefully that goes well.

Due to scheduling conflicts on my end, had to push out weeknight session with Hogan until Saturday. Always fun to shred with my fathah. After shred I will go to some kind of “Casino Night” I believe is a fundraiser that Kristin and I will be going to. Hopefully that is cool....I'm always apprehensive about social functions like that where I don't really know anyone.