Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[boyle]

Good session today with Caroline. We were planning an outdoor session but the weather got rid of that plan.

New link for me of matador blurry whirl, final combo was a 555. Phoenix bl whirl spinning whirl I believe. This was only about 30 mins ago but I am already not sure.

Caroline did some really good two bag juggling, solid ducking stuff as well.

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[boyle]

Alright, let's get this writeup done. Thursday was pretty well a writeoff footbag wise, though we did go to the zoo. I was in poor condition this day. I think I went to bed quite early as we were off to Sweden the next day.

Malmö was our destination, which was only about half an hour from the main station. It took us about half an hour to get down there, but it wasn't a long trip.

There is quite a big Chilean population all through Scandinavia. Many came in the dictatorship era, but plenty also came to study and stuck around, maybe after meeting a bloke. This was the case with Francisca's friend Andrea. She had a little daughter Matilda so Nicolas had some fun playing with her.

I think Nicolas definitely developed his social skills over the trip. He can still be quite shy, but he had good fun there at the park. At first look the city seemed pretty ugly, pretty industrial. But we went further into town where there are large parks. We had a good lunch it what may have been a botanic garden, or maybe just a really well organised park.

I had a short kick of the footbag, as in enough to get a clip for instagram, so it wasn't much. We probably stayed in Malmo a bit longer than planned, so it was a pretty long day. I wasn't sure how long the finals would take (moreso if they would be right on schedule, as they were, or that they may drag on).

Anyway, I was running a bit late and getting a little stressed I wouldn't be able to get there. After my misadventure on Wednesday night I had really lost confidence in my navigation abilities. Anyway, I was able to get on a bus, get in at the Black Diamond, and get there on time for the women's routines.

I got there just as Chrissy was finishing up, and saw Caroline doing hers. She was going really strong in the first part of the routine. There were a few mistakes, but I only know that because I've seen that routine a whole bunch of times in practice. She had a bunch of drops right towards the end which was a bit unfortunate. Cassy also had quite a few drops, and I thought Caroline might even pip her in an upset. Then she finished with a blurry whirl, and I put away those thoughts.

Then Paloma comes and slams out a dropless routine, no worries. She got a standing ovation, that was an awesome routine, I was so impressed.

Things went straight ahead and then the blokes came out. I think the routine results have been discussed enough. Interesting that only Vasek did a dropless routine. Midway through his routine I thought, this is too easy. The discussion in the end was that Vasek would win because of the dropless, but that we didn't think that it was really a winning routine. There was plenty of conjecture about who would take each place. And it seemed it was the same for the judges, which meant there was a very narrow result between the top four places.

I've got to go to work so doesn't look like I'll get to finish the writeup just yet.

[boyle]

Just walked home from work, made it back in just under an hour. Usually takes me a bit over an hour, so good to get those extra couple of minutes, because soon enough I will be going back to work for the morning shift...So that long walk in the wrong direction was not such a surprise, apart from the whole going in the wrong direction thing. I knew it was going to be a long walk, that's why I wasn't concerned until I was way off track.

On the finals night I got there a bit late, so at first I was sitting by myself, then Roy appeared with all his goods. He was planning to stay in the gym, but he didn't know where that was, so he was onto a new location search. I had seen him early days and then hadn't seen him up until that point. Seems I wasn't the only one, and he'd been touristing all the week. I was really looking forward to catching up with him again after we had such a good time in 2009.

There were a few people there I first met on that trip to Europe in 09 that I was really happy to catch up with again. We watched the circle final, and that's been discussed as well. I really felt Jim wasted quite a few turns. Looking at the analysis, some of these "wasted turns" were runs of 50 contacts, but the reality is they didn't have the density or variety in them to push for a medal.

Unfortunately I'm still not going to finish this writeup yet, time for bed. Maybe tomorrow.

[boyle]

So after the finals I was kind of keen to have a kick, and Roy seemed keen too, but I think that was the end of the list of people keen to kick. We ended up in a few hack circles outside while people were waiting but nobody really seemed to know what was happening, except that the plan was to head to the Meatpacking District at a later stage.

Roy had found himself a new airbnb place so I walked back with him. Seemed it was going to take about the same time to go by bus or just walk, so I was happy to walk. After all his touring Roy was now the expert on CPH, so that sounded good after my misadventures in previous days.

I had a pretty early night in the end, didn't get lost after seeing Roy off. Wasn't really interested in a big night out, especially now that I was back at home.

Next day we got up early and planned to do some sightseeing. We hadn't really done much overall in terms of tourist activities. We didn't really have a particular plan, just started walking towards the downtown, we had decided we would go to the Tivoli park, which had been a possibility on some of the other days, but we never really got the time.

So we just walked, it was quite a nice day. There had been a fair bit of rain during the week, so it's good we had the indoor gym as an event site. We got to the place where they keep the crown jewels (Rosenborg Castle is what Google tells me it's called). We didn't go in as there was quite a lineup outside and an entry fee which wasn't too much, but was offputting enough. Nicolas had a great time playing in this wooden structure outside and I played a little footbag, some seconds of which you can see on my instagram.

From there we just continued walking on with no particular plan of action. We eventually made our way to the waterside and went by the Black Diamond, the venue from the finals action. We crossed the river at one stage, but then just crossed back and made our way to Tivoli. It was just on opening time, so the queues were quite long. We just got the entry and then had to pay for tokens to do the rides.

Francisca had her sights set on some of the rollercoasters or the big drop, though I wasn't really enticed. This big ticket rides also had the big ticket prices. In the end, as per usual, the focus had to be on Baby Nico. Francisca took him on the carousel and I took him on this ride where you drive a vintage car. He wasn't impressed when we had to go off.

After that I went to the venue for the last day of competition. Before going I had been reasonably keen on footbag golf, but that was easily sacrificed for a good day of being on holidays as a family.

We hadn't eaten yet, so I immediately got my sandwich and then started kicking. While it's not that sensible, it's something I do regularly enough to make use of my breaks at work with a kick, as well as getting in the eating that needs to be done.

I played mainly with Roy and Rory Dawson before things kicked off eventwise. Francisca and Nicolas joined a bit later on. The three remaining events were request, sick 3 and sick 1.

In request, the first combo was legover>osis and something like pickup>illusion. Milan hit the first one, and so did I. Everyone else in our circle went for the all toe combo. The combos were a bit weird, and the increments didn't really make sense. Anyhow, I was out trying spinning osis>pdx torque. I still haven't got that one yet, so it's fair enough that I went down on that one. The previous combo was gyro butter>blur. The other option on that one was tripwalk>twirl, which I think is a cool combo, but I wasn't going to risk that in competition.

Sick 3 was up after a while. My planned safety was phoenix>blur>paradon. I dropped that so I went one safer, with dimwalk>blur>paradon. At least I was on the board. I had two attempts at darkwalk>spinning ducking butterfly>spinning ducking osis but couldn't get that, then tried phoenix>ripped warrior into something on the last go, but couldn't get anything there.

I'm not sure how many people competed they only showed the ten combos that got on the board, I finished in 8th, but so far behind the top. It's interesting though, one of my combos I hit before leaving to europe was phoenix>fog>pixie paradon. Nothing particularly remarkable, however Filip Wojcik got 4th with almost that exact combination, except a fairy ducking set.

Before the sick 1 I was playing with Phil Morrison a bit, great to see him back in action and I really hope to see that continue. Jim joined us for a while and I'm fairly sure he hit janiwalker rake in that time. Considering he was going for nemesis rake in the competition, it may have been that, but I don't think so. It was one of those moments where you are a little off in concentration, then glance over and somebody has hit something really big, but my feeling is still that it was janiwalker rake. He managed to do that though without anyone much outside even blinking. He told us to keep it quiet before he went on.

I did phoenix straight up to have a score on the board. Next up I wasted two turns going for pixie diving ss symp mirage. While it is a bit more complex than the previous one, but not by much. I had a couple of goes at food processor to finish, but couldn't hit it.

Just after that not impressive performance, I hit sailing butterfly playing there with Phil. I was a long way off the pace in that event, and it reflected in the results. So that was that for competition. Nicolas was becoming a bit restless so we went home for a while, had some dinner, took it easy.

Once Nicolas was in bed, I went back to the event site to see what was happening. Played a bit with Evan and Nick, who were much around with dragons and things. The medal ceremony started and I thought it would be much better with a beer, so I went over the road and got a couple.

I talked to one of the French guys wearing a Sepultura shirt about metal for a while, then just sort of hung out a bit after that. A lot of people were still needing to go back, change, have dinner etc. And the plan was to go to the club by 11, which I felt was some way past my bedtime.

Spent a fair bit of time with the Austrian crew that evening. The club was a bit of a bust in the end, nobody really liked the music despite the various levels of the club. Also, probably more than half the crowd was just hanging out outside, which was a theme which kicked off in the early part of the week.

Next day I was fairly hungover and did the interview with Verena for her project. I am really interested to see the results on that, I'm sure it will take some time to transcribe and then to process all of the interviews.

We were off to the airport that day, and I knew that the 5A would take us to the airport from near the event site. Unfortunately not all 5A buses go to the airport, so we had to change buses from one 5A to another out in the burbs somewhere. Then we got to the airport and I wasn't sure what terminal we needed to go. As you can see that part was well prepared. We flew from Copenhagen to Berlin and it seemed we weren't the only high level tournament finishing up. There were archers there hanging out with their medals from the World Championships, and also some Ultimate Frisbee teams just on their way back from the Euros I believe.

[boyle]

Hi mates. Had a session with Caroline today at this place Westside. I mentioned it a while ago, we kicked there and I have been planning to go there since. That was about 3 months ago, but today was the day. At the hostel today someone was asking about swooping birds. I told him they shouldn't start for another month or so, but apparently I was wrong, a plover was right after me, swooping me a few times.

Anyway, on to the session. Very good from me, I hit almost every 6 I have done before, including one run which had two 6 add tricks in it. It has alpine blurry whirl and food processor in the same run. Something I came close to was pixie swirl>spinning swirl hopefully I get that combo in the next weeks.

Anyway, I'll just mention the 6 add tricks I hit today. I mentioned two already, plus bs spikehammer, pixie motion, locomotion, whirlygig, spinning ducking whirl, blurry torque. I was really trying to link one into the other, but that didn't happen today. I've only hit blurry torque a few times before, so being worried about trying to hit food processor out of it, is actually not a worry at all.

[boyle]

141 tiltless last night. That's a new record for me. Hoping to crack 150 by next week, 200 in the next couple of months. I started to feel really sore once I was well past the 100 mark.

It's my birthday next week, 31. Still plenty of life left in these legs.

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[boyle]

135 tiltless last night. The previous day I would have been very happy with a new record, this drop brought out a number of expletives.

Later I did an impromtu routine, over 2 minutes dropless, ended up dropping on spinning whirl around the 2.30 mark. What I was most pleased on that one was that it was the end of the session, after that long tiltless run.

Have the next couple of days off. Think I will get a new bike today. My old one has been out of action for quite some time.

Also want to go and see, if it's still there, somebody has built some Rapa Nui style moai on the other side of Canberra, out of empty cases of beer.

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[boyle]

76 today. Double pickup pixie op whirl bs, that's a new link. Dbl pickup phoenix on one side. Trying to link 3 dex combos at the end, didn't get there. Got a new bike today, it's pretty good. Going to celebrate my birthday tomorrow. Haven't seen a lot of mates since we came back.

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[boyle]

Had to search a little bit to even find my blog. Probably shows I haven't been playing too much. I've been a bit sick so haven't been playing much of late. My main time to have sessions is late night in the garage, but it's too cold for that.

We went on a trip to Bendigo, down in Victoria. Was hoping to get Jamieson back into action but unfortunately that didn't work out. Caught up with our friend Joe, and I made another skatepark video.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXl6S3FgJPc[/youtube]

Didn't really get too much time to get the footage for this one, so it's probably not as good as I was hoping to make it. However, that skatepark was pretty awesome.

[boyle]

Another skatepark video, this is also from our trip to Bendigo. Stops on the way down at Albury and Shepparton. We could have moved to Shepparton, I went for a job interview as sports editor on the paper there. That was our debut in town the other week and we have to say we were all happy to miss out on that opportunity, seemed like a bit of a rough place.

Played a bit yesterday. Ducking butterfly>torque rpt was a good combo that was a little harder than expected. Played a bit more today, some good long tiltless runs (80ish). Some other cool links. Pixie ducking osis>motion was a good one.

Got some assignment work to do, better get on with that.

[boyle]

Been working on a bit of variety stuff in recent sessions.

Couple of highlights

Spinning diving clipper- far swirl
Pixie ss guay- blender
Terraging op inside-neo op butterfly
Spinning diving xbd toe

Terrage with soccerball.

35km bike ride yesterday

[Asmus]

I love those highlights!

[boyle]

Thanks man! Had a reasonable session yesterday. tripwalk>pdx dlo was the combo I wanted at the start, and I got it. Also got tomahawk on both sides. Would like to get that b2b. That would be great. I hit mindbender once as well, which I hadn't done in a while. A few longish runs, but not crazily long. Going to Melbourne in a couple of weeks. I think Dan Ednie is back in Australia so I might try and play with him. Going down for the Oceania Freestyle Football Championships.

(I wrote that part of the post a couple of days ago, but never got to the end). Had a short session today and happy with a few things. Particularly 56 contacts of guiltless. Had a couple of runs in the high 30s as well.

phoenix>blurry whirl>spinning whirl was a good combo, though I would have like to hit something more from the spinning whirl. Next time.

[boyle]

Just a short session today. Spinning legover dimwalk rpt and drifter spinning butterfly rpt were a couple of combos ehich were a bit tricky together. I have been struggling quite badly with hayfever recently, but still playing quite regularly.

[boyle]

I am down in Melbourne for a freestyle football comp. That's on this evening, we will see how I go in that. Yesterday I hit ripwalk with the ball, and also spinning mirage, it was a first time for both for me, was pretty happy with each of them. Had some nice long runs with footbag as well, people were impressed.

Broke 100 tiltless for the first time in a while a couple of days ago. I played in the airport the first day I was here, hit food processor>twirl which was a pretty good combo.

Interesting announcements for the next two Worlds. I don't think I will be able to go to Europe again next year as we have plans for going to Chile next year, but Portland will hopefully be on the agenda. I should be finished my studies by that stage, so it could be a good end-of-studies celebration. That's quite a while away though, we will see what happens between now and then.

[boyle]

Had a pretty rough day at work. So it was good to have a bit of fun with footbag after. Was tired and sore and had to get the police to come to work to throw someone out.

Finished with zulu butterfly x 6, which I believe is the Australian record. It's quite tricky to get higher numbers on that. Might try to get more in future.

Did alpine blurry whirl to finish that one off. Feeling sweaty now, so time for bed shortly.

[boyle]

Hi all. Very sore today. The night before last I gave a performance of freestyle football and threw in some footbag for good measure. I was going along at a reasonable intensity for a fair while, so now I am feeling it. It was at the soccer match, the Aus team were in a world cup qualifier. Easy victory in the end 3 nil.

The calendar is beginning to come together. I spent quite a bit of time recently sending out some inquiries rather than hoping that people would telepathically receive my message...

No Juho video for Christmas Eve, but I have something lined up which should work well. I will also say that Juho won't be completely absent this year...

I just ordered two bags from Ivan, the colours look quite good. I have been keen to get one of his bags for some time now.

[boyle]

Playing right now in a crazy wind. Hit 38 guiltless earlier which was good in these conditions. Calendar is beginning to come together. Still plenty to do and not long until kick off.

Hit the other day stepping ss guay-neo op butterfly. That was a fun combo. Haven't had too much time to get in proper sessions lately.

Met a Czech bloke named Milan at the skatepark yesterday. I gave him a bag and he was immediately doing around the world etc. Hopefully can meet up again with him soon.

Got a couple of bags from Ivan in the post. Haven't kicked them yet, but they look great.

[boyle]

Not sure if all this living and breathing footbag with the calendar has got me inspired, but I had a really great session today. It might be that I got in a good 3 hour snooze this afternoon to catch up on some rest, and that I wasn't drinking beers during the session, that could have helped.

I normally have a beer or a few during this evening garage sessions, as a lot of time it's a wind down from a long time at work. Today was a day off though, and that is already a positive.

Anyway, here are some new tricks I hit. I was playing with a new bag from Ivan and judging by this list, it is just wonderful.

haze (new on both sides)
lots of zipper stuff, including zipper set ripped warrior, bs blur and locomotion
zipper set wet dream (stepping ss egg) on the other side
Then I thought maybe I should learn that trick from clipper too, so I did
Later in the session I hit fairy gyro mirage, which I had never even thought of trying. Very happy about that.
Finished the session with a fusion, which I am not sure if I have hit before. I'm going to say no.

I remember a few years back I was really close to hitting it, but I don't think I ever got it. So pretty happy with that session, which lasted about 2 hours. Probably longer than I normally play for too. I was delving into a few CDs that a friend gave me recently which brought back plenty of memories.


So anyway, good session. Things seem to have kicked off well with the Joulukalenteri so far. I haven't really been putting too much time into the Sport/Life site this year, so the calendar has given it a good post, the first two videos are already in the top 5 posts of the year in terms of views, which is a good start to things..

[Asmus]

Props for the great session!

And thanks for running the joulukalenteri so well. When is my video coming out?

Keep kicking butt!