Nick "Houdini" Polini

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Everytime I scroll down, I still chuckle at the picture of Matt in the hat.

HA!

Hat.

So I had a duo session with Bonslaver today. It was an awfully good session for each of us, I would have to say. Read Bonslaver's blog later on for his highlights, because he certainly had some.

We started the session off with some strings. Pretty decent. Later, we switched into a link challenge game. I would set a link that was a challenge for both Nate and me, then Nate would have 5 turns to hit that link on both sides, then he'd set the link.

That was a lot of fun and a lot of good stuff came from it. Most memorable links that I hit which I'm proudest of:

DATW> DLO bs (Nick set)
DATW> Double Switchover bs (Nick set)
Down Double Down> Far Symp Swirl bs (Nathan set, Nick match) Super hard for me!
Bubbabeater> Pixie ss Mirage bs (Nick set)

One other highlight from just doing some strings early on in the session was

Ripped Warrior> Blurry Drifter> Ripwalk on one side and without Ripwalk on flipside. I'm going to hit it flipside soon, just to even things out.

So that was pretty fun for a while. After that game, we messed around with links for the camera a little bit. Nathan and I hit a team thing that will be in his Worlds video and it was just the sickest.

Here are some clips from the session:

And I filmed this last night at like 2:30 am. Ivan and Paul thought it was funny, though, so I'm going for it. If you don't like stupid shit, PLEASE watch this. It's very stupid. You've been warned.

Have a splendid night, John.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

This is a half-life/half-footbag post. I'll get the footbag over with first.

Even posted that Last Drills video from Norek and I hadn't seen it in like 3 years. Last time I saw it, I had no chance any any of those drills. Today, I saw it and I realized I could hit at least 2 of them. So I went outside right afterward and hit the 2 I thought I could do and hit another one of just the first 2 contacts on both sides.

Original Last Drills video from Norek:
My copy drills:
My whirls are terrible. It's really been upsetting me lately.

Ok, so if you are actually reading this, and you really don't feel like reading about me venting about life to my blog, then go away now. Seriously, I'm doing this for me, because I've always been told that if you feel shitty, you can write down your shitty thoughts and they become less shitty.

Ok cool, this is awesome, I feel like I'm alone in a dark room now. Well, my "interview" for the Florida job is finally this Wednesday. I say "interview" with quotes because my friend at the museum is giving me the questions to the interview, so I'll know exactly what to say. I can't fuck it up unless I talk about something really stupid. It's so bittersweet. I've never experienced something scarier or more of a life-changing event. This is me finally growing the fuck up. Damn. I've never lived in a different place. I was born here in PA, same town, same street, same house. Never moved. Sure, I went to Penn State, but college ain't shit. College didn't even get me this job! My friend in my major who I used to sit next to got me the job. All I had to do was say, "Yep, I fucking graduated with this degree." Life is so fucked up. It's more about getting lucky and knowing someone than actually spending 5 years working your ass off at college to get a good degree. So, every time I got denied a wildlife job that I applied to in the past, I PROBABLY was looked over because someone knew someone else. SO much wasted time writing cover letters. It's really discouraging.

Well, life is about to flip itself on its head. Everything I ever knew, everyone I ever knew.. all going to be hundreds of miles away. I'm going to be living completely alone in an apartment in MIAMI FLORIDA. Yep, as far fucking south as I can possibly be. What the fuck, man. 24 hours away from my home. 3 hours away from any other footbag player. Ugh. I'm so nervous and scared about what it's going to be like. Yeah, the cool part is that there are TONS of reptiles/amphibians/birds.. the wildlife down there is just going to blow my mind. Marcus (friend at the museum who got me the job) said there will be 4 positions open for a Horticulturist, which is my girlfriend's degree. So, it might be a bit, but if she wants to take the job when it's offered, she can live with me down there. But, we've hit a little bit of rockiness in our relationship recently and my mind feels like a ticking fucking time bomb, because if we don't solve our shit soon, I'm going to be gone.. I really hope we can solve everything soon. I feel better that it's off my chest and onto my blog now. I love footbag, because I don't have to think about this shit and I can just play. I can't wait until my life stops violently shaking my brain around. I'm finished blogging now.

[boyle]

Love that Rise Against album. It looks like your second whirl on tricks like whirr is nowhere near as strong as the first one. It may be more of a leg strength issue than on form, I'm not too sure.

It's always hard to move to a new place, but I think it's a very worthwhile experience. I imagine you're going to be working full time, so you will be able to take plane trips every now and then. There are sometimes very good deals from Miami to Colombia, and they have a good scene there, I don't think it takes very long on the plane either.

It's so hard and depressing that search for jobs fresh out of studying, whatever way you can get a gig, doesn't really matter, as long as you get it in the end. Even if you don't get other jobs, it's really good practice doing interviews etc, can come in handy when the bigger interviews come along.

Good luck with the move.

[Tjuggles]

When I was 23 I moved from Michigan, where I was born and raised, to Japan. I know that feeling of being terrified and thrilled at the same time. Let me tell you that it is one of the best feelings I have experienced in my life. It's like a cross between (1) since it's not home, every day is a holiday (which is how we should be living anyway), and (2) having proof of success, and thus everyday is you living your dream. Even today, in New Zealand, I still feel it. You are gonna have a blast down there, the end.

Also, great control of clippers. I think your set is a bit off (not straight) for whirls, hence the difficulty.

Also also, the (slight?) increase in spinning/gyro butters in your game in a recent video has been noted. Good work. Looking forward to more.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Dan & TJ: Thanks to you both for helping me feel better about my crazy life change. I certainly will have to look into tickets to Colombia. If they're cheap enough, I'd definitely check it out. That club is pretty rad. And TJ, just by saying that I bail too much to spinning clipper and I should bail to gyro/spinning butter more instead... that changed my game mentality completely. I always think those words every session I have now. It feels much better. Thank you again. That push was really helpful.

Feeling a little better about my crazy situation. It's certainly a big change, but I've just gotta G.Y.B.A.S. it.

Anyway, no life rants today. Will update after Wednesday's phone interview.

I played footbag with Ivan today. He drove over to my place and we played at the stage where we all played when Matt came to visit. We had a really great, but really sweaty session. Like really sweaty. It wasn't even that hot out, but I was dripping more than I've dripped in a long time. We mostly just practiced some concepts together and tried a few links and stuff. Ivan had some sick strings, and I also got to check out his glow bag. So sick, but not the best for daytime shred. It's good for a demo glow bag

Highlights:

Pdx Illusion> Atomsmasher> Drifter *rpt (Ivan's challenge)
Drifter> Spikehammer BSOS (first time I hit flipside Drifter> Spike)
Drifter> Stepping Diving Clipper *rpt
Spinning Tacos> Spikehammer BSOS
Spinning Ducking Tacos> Ripped Warrior bs
Blurry Drifter> Fog bs (really fucking hard on flipside :/ so I drilled...
...Pdx Drifter> Fog bs
Nuke ss DLO bs (New on flip!)
Tapping Drifter bs (New on flip!) & Tapping DLO bs (not new on either, but rare for me. Way easier now)
Predator bs! second time on flip, 3rd time on strong! Woo! Getting easier for me.
Only hit it one side, so it's kinda like meh, but Whirling Cloud kick> Blurry Whirl
Nuke ss Butterfly b2b Second time I've hit that. A little easier than last time.

But my biggest highlight has some video to back it up:

Ripped Warrior x5.5!!! Finally! Beat my record by 2! I definitely channeled a little bit of Justin Dale and Evan. Video below

https://instagram.com/p/4xaXexpUF2/

Very happy about that session-ender.

After the session, I melted in the new Polini family jacuzzi. Always wanted a jacuzzi. Lovely that my parents decided to get one a month before I move away But man, super nice to hit a jacuzzi right after a heavy footbag session.

I think my Alpine Stepping sets are going to be my priority for a little while.

[Add Block]

Ripped Warrior x5.5!!!

x5.9

Looks good

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

https://instagram.com/p/4x12H4zTrc/



Big news. My first official sponsor. They were interested in sponsoring me, and now it's finally all set up. It's called Proteus Co, they're this extreme sports company, and they said I would make a great addition to their team. I guess they've never seen Freestyle Footbag before and they thought it was cool. Kinda stoked. More publicity for footbag. Win.

Perks: I send them pics, they post them on IG, store wide 70% off discount on everything, free t-shirt every month.

But of course, I have to send them pics wearing their brand... So I have to "sell out" and become slave to a clothing company, which is kinda awesome, because I've never been offered the chance to sell out before! Lol its getting the sport more publicity, though, so I'm ok with that.

Vojta: Thanks man! It felt as good as it might look.

Sent from my C6916 using Tapatalk

[Add Block]

To me it always looked like the sponsoring companies had no idea how to utilize footbag players, resulting in fairly poor, but still awesome offers.
As far as footbag goes, unless you're a marketing mastermind like Honza, free shit from a clothing company is the best you can get.

I never liked discounts, because you're going to spend more money if you have a discount than if you didn't, but at the end of the day, even if I had no use for it, I'd sell out instantly just to be able to say 'yeah I'm sponsored'

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Vojta: I totally agree, it's kinda cool to say "Yeah, I'm sponsored", but I' more stoked on the fact that more people have seen the sport, thanks to my initial Proteus shout out. I got about 5 new followers from that, and I'm pretty sure we got some new freestyle_footbag instagram followers, too. Spreading the sport, one gram at a time.

So, I had a session earlier, and at first, I thought it was kind of total horse shit. I tried to go for some World Records. Got one, but man, it's kinda pathetic... Stepping Clipper x30.. Previous record was 27 ON VIDEO. I'm positive others have done it or could do it off video with a way higher number. It was so hot out, though, I think breaking world records was a bad choice today. So I could post that footage, but I just don't care to do so. Nothing special. I hit x11 on flipside though, so at least I proved to myself that I have a flipside.

Next, I tried to break Ryan Thomas's Torque record. His record is 14... I hit 11. Shit. So close, but I was running out of breath. Then, this is where my session turned into not-so-horse-shit... I tried flipside. Holy crap, dude. The most I could bust was 2! Holy hole in my game! So I spent some time on flip Torque. Had a lot of trouble at first, but eventually realized I was coming down with my Taco way too hard. So I tried it again with a softer, flimsier Taco and bang, I got flip Torque x3 soon after.. Which turned into flip Torque x5 after a little more work.

May not seem like a lot, but that realization helped make my second session totally epic.

So, I was in my room around 11:00 pm and I was watching my footage from the previous session. I filmed myself doing some Pdx Whirls, because mine just still feel wrong. Studied them for a while, and figured out some ways to fix them. But shit, it's raining outside and it's like 11:30 pm now... I can't have a session this late. Then I was like, "STFU yes you can." So I did. I played in my kitchen on 3 mats that I squished together. The session started out with Pdx Whirls, Toe op Whirls, and Toe ss Whirls all bs. Started getting some better ones. But I got bored after a bit of Whirls.

Then I dabbled with a few flip Torques... They were really feeling good. Wow. They felt like a new, easier trick.Then I thought back to how I was getting bummed about my flip Mobius> Stepping sets. So I thought, hell I'll try some. This is where the magic happened. From practicing those flip Torques earlier, my flip Mobius is now.. dare I say it?... Easy! Not just easy, as easy as my strong side Mobius! What a huge highlight right there! But then, I figured, why stop there? So I messed with stepping sets out of each Mobius... Now here is the big highlight...

BIG HIGHLIGHT:

Mobius> Stepping sets are basically EQUAL ON BOTH SIDES!!!!

I hit a bunch of Mobius> Ripwalk bs, then Mobius> Blur bs and WOW, I almost forgot which side used to be my strong side. I couldn't even figure out which one was stronger and that made me really happy.

One more highlight that made this session way more special:

SECRET SET A new set came to me on both sides, pretty much equal on both sides, too. I've hit the set before, but never this clean. This set is going to be the set that I secretly work on this month until I own it. I started from total scratch with this today, flumping the set way too often, to finally hitting it and getting the bag to go uptime. Really excited for this one. I'm aiming to be the best at it, since it's rarely used.

After that session, I went to the backyard and sat in the new spa for about half an hour. That's so nice to chill out in after a hard session.

I love getting this excited and stoked up about footbag. Such a good feeling to feel this good about your game. Anyway, I'm out. Good night.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

My new secret set is apparently not clean at all :/ Total bummer. But Ken said he sees potential in me for the set, since these were only my first attempts. So I guess, the big trick I hit at the end on both sides was a bust and I didn't actually hit it. I was really happy about that too. Oh well, that's what practice is all about. Hopefully, I can learn to understand the set enough to actually get them clean eventually. Here's the video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP_dvE3BUWw[/youtube]

I guess just ignore the Surging sets in this, because they're no good. I'll have to study some good ones for a bit and then try again. If anyone can link me to some actually clean surging sets, please do. Thanks.

In the video, I'm still happy with these 2 highlights:

Flipside Alpine Fog
Mobius> Fog BSOS

Hearing that all of the surges were 'the' was a big bubble burst :/ I was so happy about them all day. Whatever though, I know I can get good at them... I just have to understand them better first I guess.

[C-Fan]

But Ken said he sees potential in me for the set, since these were only my first attempts. Oh well, that's what practice is all about. Hopefully, I can learn to understand the set enough to actually get them clean eventually..

Yeah, that is a good takeaway. Some sets are a lot harder to clean (or get good height off of) than others, and I don't think you should get discouraged if they aren't perfect right from day 1. I think filming your attempts, studying the best ones, and making small adjustments is the path towards getting better sets (for surging, but for any sets really). I think the very first day I figured out the proper technique for furious sets, I hit a "the" nemesis. I didn't let that discourage me, since I knew that if I could get a "the" one on day 1, that I'd eventually be able to hit a clean one if I kept refining my technique. If I was hitting surging sets like yours, I'd definitely spend some time seeing if I could clean them up with some refinement, rather than giving up on them.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Ken, thanks man. You and Aleksei, and Hogan and a few others are really encouraging me to keep with it. I'd like to think I can own them eventually. Surging Blink would be a nice little invention that I'd like to make eventually.

So, I had a very short session today after work. I set out to practice Shuffles. Fuckin' shuffles, man. I suck at shuffles. That's going to change. Well, it already started to change today, which was cool. I warmed up, then I set myself some goals. 5 contact shuffleduffles on both sides. Here, I'll write "Highlights:" like I always do, then I'll list the highlights of what I accomplished here.

Highlights:

Ripwalk> Sidewalk> Blur> Legbeater> Schmoe 3x bs
Blur> Smear> Paradon> Blurry Legover> Parkwalk 3x bs (I know the Paradon isn't shufflemuffle, but I feel that it'll be useful to learn to throw downtimes into the middle of a shuffleuffagus)
Pdx Whirl> Blazing Butter 3x bs Thanks for the inspiration, Dave! I always loved how those looked when he did them.
Spinning Whirl> Blazing Butter bs (Also Derve...)

Those Pixies felt pretty good after watching a Pixie demo that Derek filmed for me.

Dave has actually been my driving force for putting my game together recently. I watched that Euros 2010 video the other day and, I'm noticing that (and I know this sounds really whack and stupid, but bare with me) I'm not extremely far from SOME parts of Dave's game. Dave throws Alpine Fogs or Pdx Whirling Swirls or some other huge trick that you wouldn't expect in willy nilly right after a nice string of density, and I'm now starting to learn the basics of that. Granted, he's still amazing at it... I think I'm ALMOST almost there

I can feel links of 4 to 5 Fearless becoming "normal" recently... Stuff like Tomahawk> Spinning Whirl> Scorps> Mobius doesn't phase me anymore.. which is really really weird but also really exciting. Because if Nick Polini from 4 years ago or even a year ago would have time traveled to the future and seen that, he would have dropped a fat deuce right in my present day trousers.. but that would be really strange for present day me. "Someone just shat in my pants! I swear it wasn't me this time!"

Anyway, like I was saying, I've been trying to crack into David's mental game and I'm kind of doing it. I don't think my Symposium game will ever be close to as good as Dave's, but one step at a time. Shuffle is my current first step.

After shuffle practice, I knew I wasn't going to have much time left, due to the quickly approaching storm. So, I started messing with some bigger stuff. Stuff that I want to eventually throw in willy nilly, like Dave.

Highlights:

Spinning Ducking Pdx DLO bs & bsos. New on both sides. I love Ducking DLO now. It feels so good. (video below)
I hit my 10th Beast!!! It's special though, because it was one of my first Beasts, but I hit it on flipside this time.. also special because it's my 2nd 4 Unique contact Beast. Finally. 10 Beasts. Wow. I never ever ever never ever (never ever? forever never?) thought I'd hit 10 Beasts. (video below)

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

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i9ro7l-uBY[/youtube]

To quote one of my favorite people/one of the wisest men I know.. "Cool combos of our lives".

[Add Block]

Shuffle, fuck yeah!

Try my special brew of a shuffle combo, I call it 'the Walkman'

Dimwalk > Ripwalk > Blur > Tripwalk > Ripwalk > Blur > Repeat


I don't think your Surges are any worse than others', it's probably that you keep your ankle bent after the set that gives an illusion of pulling the set.

[Nathan]

I'm a bit late to the party, but just want to say-- as someone who habitually moves cross country/world once a year or so..it's not so bad. The first move is probably the toughest. It gets easier, and you have a sweet job to look forward to. I know you're a compulsive hoarder, but maybe de-clutter and simplify and it'll be less stressful.

Nice beast, your strong blender is super solid. You've now hit 9 more beasts than I have.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Vojta: I now know how to correctly pronounce your name I'll try your drill soon. Sounds pretty good to me. And I think you're right about the Surging sets. More practice.

Nate: I agree. I think some decluttering is in order. Thanks for the words.

PSU Arts Fest was so sick. Easily my favorite East Coast jam I've ever been to.

I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to list some jam highlights.

Jam Highlights:

Duo session with Ryan as soon as I arrived. I was the first to show up, so Ryan and I went out back and practiced Pixies and stuff. Fun session.
Moving a sofa back inside with Ryan after his room mate's mom paid some kids $40 to move it outside in the first place haha The mom came back with the family, furious at us. "You owe me $40! We just paid some kids $40 to move that!" Shaking her head and rolling her eyes at us, to make sure we felt awful about what we did... We didn't. Damn, what a total bitch.
Meeting Krystof Maler.. He is the man. Lives in Czech Rep, but is on a summer job in Hershey Park for 3 months. Ivan picked him up on the way to PSU.
Boatz and me walking back to the house with Krystof, teaching him his new favorite english word.. "Sphincter". We all laughed all the way back to the house.
Deciding that Krystof's BAP name will be Krystof "The Sphincter" Maler. He thought it was a very good idea.
Krystof brought a Czech brandy made from plums that was 50% alcohol, called Slivovice! That became the word of the weekend. He tells us: "Drink Slivovice and you will have better Whirls."
We tried to give Krystof some culture shock by teaching him different words that sounded the same, but meant different things. Like "cracker".. It is a food snack, but also slang term for a white person. Krystof: "So all white people are crackers?" Me: "Yep." Krystof: (Boatz was sitting right next to him) *grabs Boatz by the shoulder, shakes him a bit* "WHAT'S UP CRACKER?!?"
Another great culture shocker for him was "wife beater" lol Marc was wearing one and we tried to explain it to Krystof.
Midnight adventure to see some bats in a cave just off campus. Krystof didn't know what a bat was, so someone said "Like Batman", then Krystof got really excited and said "Batman? Yeah, lets's go. I want to see." Dan, Boatz, and I were in the back seat, while Krystof sat in front of us. We were explaining another word to him earlier... "Juggalo". Then on the ride to the cave, we brought up Juggalos again and Krystof turns to us and says "I feel... like a little Juggalo". The van exploded with laughter.
Arriving at the bat cave was probably my personal favorite part. I had my nature tour guide hat on and I guided the group. It was a blast for me, because I love teaching people about wildlife. We walked in and there were about 10-12 bats hanging on the ceiling of the cave and a few Cliff Swallows were nesting high up on the sides of the cave. Explaining a little bit about each species was really fun for me. Then we left and explored the arboretum, which looked really magical at night. We found a xylophone hidden around one of the walls, and we all played on that. Boatz really enjoyed that. We had to leave soon after, because Matt Kemmer got locked out of the house, and Khoa was sleeping.
Krystof was teaching Dan and me some Czech. He taught us a few nouns, like "boat", "water" and "shoe". Then I wanted to make my first sentence, and with a few extra words I learned I came up with: "Bílé boty va vodye ye dobra loď.".. Which means, "White shoe in the water is a good boat." Krystof said this was the best Czech sentence he has ever heard.
Staying up til 3 am, learning Barflies and Pdx Whirls (the Czech way) in the middle of the living room, while Boatz and Dan were sleeping. Woke Boatz up like 3 times Sorry Boatz.
As always, watching some shred videos on the wall with the projector.
Ben licked my head.
Found a geocache with Dan, Boatz, Ryan, and Krystof.
Big Bowl trip with everyone/mostly everyone. We wanted to take a picture of some stuff with a few of us in the picture, so Ben took my camera and instead of taking a picture of the group, he took a picture of himself, then gave it back to me. Reenacting that Jurassic Park scene with Malcom dripping water on the back of Ellie's hand... but I was Malcom, Boatz was Ellie, and the water was soy sauce. Ben stole my camera and took a bunch of pictures from his trip from the table to the wall and back again. April gave me one of her chinese donuts. I drank 2 boba teas.
Mostly, seeing all of my East Coast friends for one last time for a while...

It was so surreal. Ryan actually moved to Michigan after leaving the Shredhaus yesterday.

I have to say, Krystof is one of the best players I've ever seen in person. No one had ever heard of him before the jam, but he was hitting stuff like Leviathan BSOS and Spinning Double Pickup BSOS. Just crazy crazy tricks and combos. I'm glad he's in Hershey, which is only about an hour and a half away from me. Ivan and I might try to visit him soon.

Highlights:

Over all just played really well. Like way better than I ever have before. I remember a few combos though..
Started a string with Flip Big Apple. Mauris> Spinning DLO. Started a string with Alpine Fog. Mid string Mobius> Mobius> Ripped Warrior> few shuffle> Smog> run. Food> Blurry Torque. Learned how to do proper Czech Barflies and Pdx Whirls. Derek Littlefield will be happy to know that my Pixie game is probably now almost as strong as my downtime game (now for atomics).. Leviathan to start a string. Symposium Torque BSOS.
New tricks: Symp DLO bs, PS DLO bs, Swirling Cloud Kick> Stepping ss Butterfly.

This jam was an excellent "fare well East Coast" jam. I'm going to miss all of my friends, but I'm going to try my best to come back for a few jams every year.

[Add Block]

Great highlights. Glad you got to meet Kryštof, his style is crazy clean.

I don't think drinking Slivovice is enough to improve Pdx Whirls, but if well brewed, it can grow hair on your eyeballs.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks Vojta. I think the coolest part about learning some Czech and talking to Krystof so much is that, I guess I never mentioned this before, but I've got about 15% to 20% Czech blood in me. My great grandmother was from Czech. Hope to meet you at some point eventually, too.

I was going to rest today, but after Krystof gave me all those tips on Pdx Whirls and Barfly, I had to drill..

Massive amount of new highlights:

Ripwalk> Pdx Whirl> Stepping Mirage> Dimwalk> Barfly *rpt Several times.
Lots of Barfly work.. found out my legs were too loose.. tightened the dex legs and they were so on point.
The previous got me way better at Motion on flipside. Had my first dobra BSOS of that, which felt great.
Mobius> Barfly BSOS
Barfly> Mobius> Blur bs Several times each
Gyro DLO> Porque bs
Spinning Pdx DLO> Smear bs
Super long improvised Fearless run: Blurry Drifter> Spinning Ducking Osis> Spinning Ducking Butter> Mobius> Blurry Whirl> Spinning Whirl> MaelstDROP.. The only thing I planned was the Blurry Drifter.
Definitely figured out my flip Fog for good this time. There was one thing I was doing wrong. Started doing it right and they were mega consistent. Also hit Fog> Phoenix> Fog> PhoenDROP.

Ok, so that isn't everything.. I played for a while and hit all that stuff, then Jackson came home and we chatted a bit about his concussion he had the other week. He still can't do anything that makes him think, so he asked if he could watch the rest of my session. Somehow we got on the topic of bigger Reverse Swirl tricks. Then I hit:

PS Rev Swirl b2b (never done that before)

Jackson was pretty stoked on that, but he asked if I could do any bigger Reverse Swirling tricks that have either never been done or that few have done before. So that got me thinking about some tricks, that I have hit on strong side, but never flipside. Then, I remembered some stuff that Evan told me a while ago and that Krystof and I talked about this weekend... How footbag is mostly mental. "It's all in your head." I had both of their words running through my head, then I told Jackson that I would try a few that I hadn't hit on flipside yet. What I came up with was pretty insane, because I honestly thought I wasn't ready for them yet, but it was really just my mind that was blocking me.. So I tried removing the mental road blocks...

Mental Road Block-Removed Highlights:

Flipside PS Revup!!! Holy crap. Never thought I would be ready for that trick on flipside. I hit it strong side for the first time just 2 weeks ago. But I thought I'd take it a step further.. PS Revup BSOS!!! Felt like Jorden!

That was pretty amazing, but I thought maybe I could mentally push myself a little more, since i hit that highlight, which i never thought I would have been able to do... So I tried one that has been a "You'll NEVER hit this on flipside" trick in my head for quite some time...

Flipside Blurry Revup!!! (Dedicated to Paul G, since he was the one to get me to hit it on strongside earlier this year) Whoa! I mentally broke it down and said "I'm pretty both sided, and I hit strongside Blurry Revup like 3 times this weekend, mostly with on try each.. Why shouldn't I be able to hit it on flipside?" And it was no fluke, because I hit it on flipside like 7 times, total. It really didn't feel too difficult, which was a nice feeling.

Then Jackson told me I should try Blurry PS Revup... At first I was like "Hell no, no chance I could hit that." But then I thought.. "If I can hit those 2 tricks on flipside now, I should be able to hit the combined trick, at least on strongside. Got it 2nd try:

Blurry PS Revup! Just one side, which is why it wasn't my absolute favorite highlight. But it was still pretty great that I was able to convince my mind that it was possible. But damn. I've never even seen that trick hit by anyone before, even though I'm sure Jay, Gatesman, and Jorden could all hit it. But damn, that's good company!

Wanted to end the session on Blurry Revup BSOS, but kept missing strong side. Then I figured that I could make my muscles even more used to that trick by just doing it Pdx, without the Blurry...

Pdx Muted Revup BSOS! They both felt so slick. But what a good session ender. Ultimately a great session. Possibly one of the best I've ever had. Very happy about it all, but I must sit in a spa and eat shrimp now.

[Nathan8]

Thanks for the write up! I l love reading reading Jam write ups. I think blurry symp revup should be called revupgig. Krystof sounds pretty cool, maybe I can kick with him before he leaves. Kick this week? Wednesday or Thursday maybe? I got that big package of Hacky Sacks today need more than one to test them all out!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nathan: I should be able to play tomorrow. I will let you know. Glad you enjoyed the write-up. Let's drill Whirling Swirls with every footbag you received.

So, It's technically Wednesday and I had a short session around 12 am, because I was kind of just sitting around, thinking about that flipside Blurry Revup, Jorden Moir, and just being in that state of "Fuck yeah man, I'm playing footbag and not worrying about life". So, I went out to kick under the streetlights out front of my house.

I have a new tactic to push my level higher. As of the first session practicing this, it worked.. and I felt like a monster, which is a very rare feeling for me. I was stomping down big tricks midrun and then continuing. BANG. That felt so great.

New Tactic:

Earlier, I was thinking that my big tricks are fairly consistent on each side (for the most part). The only thing that was stopping me from doing them was my MIND. Again with the mentality of it all. So today, I wrote down all of my big/interesting tricks (only the ones that are fairly consistent) on a whiteboard, in an organized manner and during this session today, I chose 3 per run and hit them all midstring. Runs were not long but not short, and very dense. Some of the run highlights I hit:

Midstring Big Trick Training Highlights:

Ripped Warrior, Symp Blink (one side), Symp Revup (other side)
Vortex> Pdx Torque, Gyro Revup
Blurry Drifter, Gyro Blender, Fog
Spinning Ducking Osis, Pdx Blender, Twirl
Whirling Cloud> op Mirage, Mobius, Ripstein

Can't remember anything else from that part.

Other highlights:

Pdx Blender> Gyro Revup bs
Blurry Whirl> Spinning Whirl> Mobius bs (common for me on strong, never done it on flip)
Food Processor> Reverse Swirl BSOS! Aleksei Kljopa told me that he wanted to see Food> Reverse Swirl> Spender bs. I just wanted to see if I could hit this link first, since I have never done it before... now I know I can get the whole Sick 3 on both sides.
Ended on one more Flipside Blurry Revup. Really hoping after a bit of work, this one becomes as manageable as my strongside.

Pretty excited to keep working with my new training method.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I visited Bob Reifer last night. We had a great time catching up on things. His body hurts too much when he plays footbag, so he's definitely done, but I thank him in my head every few sessions, for not giving up on me and for helping me and providing me a shredbarn to play in and for teaching me everything I know about footbag. Here's a picture of us and a video of us hitting Orbits.



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYQ0gcE82wc[/youtube]

Bob is still the man.

Today I had a really good... well.. great session. I really feel like it is a new chapter of footbag for me. Big tricks midstring are starting to just get easy and attainable. So happy about that. I have to thank 2 people for this.. 1) Paul Gressett for sending me the Moir Sessions and 2) Jorden Moir for making the Moir Sessions.

After watching a few of them, I saw how Jorden played and I wanted to do that too. So I kind of tried to crack into his mind and I think I'm starting to do it. Just the very beginning of this new method. I have had all these big tricks locked away for a while, just gathering dust, really. But I've been working on my long strings of basic tricks recently. It was only the other night where I realized.. "Holy shit, I can combine these 2 parts of my game and it will look better than it does now". I'm very pleased how it turned out. I think this is the best footage of mine, to date.

Hope you enjoy:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw53Th80llk[/youtube]

So. after I played today, I went for a kayak ride with Jackson and this kid he just met. He asked me to use one of my kayaks but he also invited me along, which was nice. When everyone shows up and we start taking the kayaks to the water, I find out that they have both been drinking a lot and they are planning on shooting down the river. I was really uneasy about this, because the river has claimed so many lives in the past. I was even more uneasy about it because on the way to the river, you have to paddle along the canal then walk across a road and portage into the river. On the canal, Jackson and the other kid were messing around a little too much and Jackson flipped his kayak. That was a mess. Warning sign #1.

Then When we went to take the kayaks out of the water, Jackson got up on the dock and fucking fell over with his kayak and almost really messed up his arm.. could have even broken it because his kayak fell on top of him. Warning #2.

Then we get up on the bank and they're about to walk across the road to the river (I opted out because I just wasn't feeling like shooting the river at 12:30 am on a Thursday), Jackson tries to pick up his kayak and he loses balance and falls over it and down the short embankment. Warning #3.

There was no way I could let them shoot the river in this condition. I would be an awful person for letting them do this. It's like not taking keys away from a drunk friend who is trying to drive, but even more dangerous. I tried to convince them to just paddle the canal, which is safer with no current, but they were dead set on the river and convinced me that they weren't that drunk, but Jackson just proved it to me 3 times. Come on, dude. I care about Jackson a lot. He's always been like a little brother to me, even if he rarely plays footbag now. But we got into a little argument about it and then parted ways. They did the river anyway. They made it back safely, but I just felt like wtf am I supposed to do in that situation? It's still illegal to kayak under the influence. There were no keys to take. I guess you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. However, in this case the horses had already drank plenty and the water was so harsh, it easily could have taken them both in a second.

After they went to the river, I kayaked the safe canal alone with my headlamp turned off. It was really nice and serene. I wish I could have stayed out there forever.. unfortunately, all I had for food was a half a granola bar, so staying there forever was looking like an unintelligent option. But I meditated there in my kayak for a while. It was kind of just what I needed tonight. I've had a lot on my mind. Oh well, what are you gonna do.. Life is life, but it is also a brand of tasteless cereal with neo-nazi-looking children on the front of the box, and neo-nazi children make me hungry. But I think sleep is a great alternative to eating right now, because it's 3:30 am. Fuck my insomnia.

Happy mailman day.