Fanzine

[Tjuggles]

Hot tip, it's not, so I will say, nice 10 fearless in that video Ken.

Going back to the clues. What about this one

Ordinarily I don't like giving advice on tricks I haven't mastered

A new version of Tricks of the Trade?...

Oh that's a great guess! I was thinking something along the lines of a mentoring/teaching/class sort of thing, where Ken or someone(s) would give lessons/advice/etc.

EDIT: In the spirit of top-post paintings, here is one by Ian Scott titled 'Jump over girl', Adam Art Gallery Collection. It's in the basement where I kick sometimes.

[Nathan8]

I was here for the midnight release...

[C-Fan]

No announcement today, but we're getting awfully close. More on that later.

TJ: Thank you for continuing the top post painting tradition! I had one lined up, but couldn't get the project launched in time. So I'm glad that the post that did take the top, had a painting in it.

The good news is that my project is almost ready to launch. I think all the heavy lifting is now done, and I'm just cleaning up some final touches. I kind of regret hinting a release when I did, because why impose artificial deadlines on myself? This also turned out to be a bad week timewise for getting anything done in the evenings. It was Haley's birthday yesterday so I took her out to dinner, Daryl popped into Denver unexpectedly a few days ago, and I had to work late 2 days this week. Even with all that, I did manage to work on the project a lot. I could have actually launched 2 days ago, but I just knew that I'm only getting one chance to launch this, so why not wait a couple days and get it as good as possible? Have you ever written a paper for a class in college, and the night before it's due you know it's a B+ paper that could have been an A if you only started a few days earlier? That's kind of how I felt, except in this case I am able to give myself an extension, so why not?

In good news, I've sent footage of various sessions (Boise, Genz visit) to 3 different editors, so hopefully that content will see the light some time soon. Definitely sooner than if I sat on it and got around to editing it a year later. I still have more footage laying around, so if anybody wants to take on some editing of Lon/Penske stuff, let me know.

Video from last weekend:

[C-Fan]

So after months of hard work, I'm very proud to finally launch my footbag project.

The Symposium: A Footbag Podcast


https://thesymposium.modified.in/

That's right, I'm launching a podcast! I'm going to make the main announcement in a separate thread, so people can find the pods more easily, and have a place to give feedback, ask questions or make suggestions, and generally talk about the pods themselves (hopefully). I'll also link to new episodes in the blog, but most talk about the pod here will center on my experiences putting it together.

On that note, I got the idea to do a pod about a year ago. I was listening to a lot of NBA podcasts at the time, and then I started listening to "Serial," which was a pod that went viral, about a murder case that imprisoned a teenager who may be innocent. I remember talking with Haley about how it drew me in even though I had no connection to the subject, and she mentioned that she was getting into a comedian's podcast (You made it weird-Pete Holmes), and how she loved listening to it even though she herself is not a comedian, nor does she know much about the comedy world. I realized that podcasts could be good listening even if you aren't invested in the subject matter people are discussing, provided that the conversations themselves are interesting. Thinking back, this makes sense...my family were big fans of NPRs "Car Talk" even though we knew nothing about cars. So this planted a seed in my head; why not make a podcast with footbaggers? The idea being that if 2 footbaggers had a good conversation on any topic, hopefully it'd be something that people would want to listen to.

I suppose that question hasn't been answered yet, but the only way to try out that theory was to make a podcast itself. Which I have to say, has been a lot harder than I anticipated. I'm not great at technology, I don't have a lot of time, and I don't live near a lot of footbaggers. Even if I surmounted those obstacles, who knows if anybody will find these conversations interesting? Regardless, I had to try.

On the pod we'll talk some footbag, but we'll also talk about other subjects. Ideally I'd love to get this to the point where even non-shredders would be interested in listening, but I expect there'll be a learning curve as I figure out the logistics. Speaking of which, I could have never done this without the support of my wife Haley (audio help, art, Wordpress stuff), Allan (web site, Wordpress), everybody I interviewed, and Kevin Hogan (art forthcoming). If anybody else wants to help out, I am definitely open to that as well! You'd be surprised how much time and effort it takes to edit audio, especially cutting out all the "ums" "you knows" and "likes" we say in a normal conversation.

Short term, I'm shooting to release a new episode every 2 weeks. Each episode should run between 30-90 minutes. Right now I have 7 episodes recorded, and I'd love to do at least 10 before quitting. But hopefully I get the hang of this, and I can do a bunch more. That said, I am open to others taking over this project eventually, if there is interest in the community.

If you're reading this blog, you're the target audience for my podcast. Please give it a listen, subscribe (http://thesymposium.modified.in/feed/podcast), and give me your honest opinion. From a technical standpoint, know that the audio quality makes a big jump from episode 1 to 2, and then again from 2 to 3. But any feedback on the idea of the project, the format, etc. is more than welcome.

Thanks for listening.

[boyle]

I didn't realise how long you had been sitting on this one for. I went to find my post in this blog that guessed a podcast was in the works, which was made on December 23. I like the name. I haven't listened to it yet, that's my plan for this evening. But great to see it's alive. I like that you've got a whole bunch of episodes ready to go already.

[C-Fan]

Felt really good to finally launch the podcast. Definitely one of those projects where you keep thinking you're 99% done, but then some new technical issue comes up you have to deal with. Just little things like getting web hosting, balancing audio, writing theme music, getting art for the site, tracking down thumbnail photos, tweaking Wordpress and Facebook to make sure the tagline shows correctly on Facebook, writing the text for each post... the list just goes on and on of all the little details we had to take care of before going live. Thankfully Allan and Haley helped me out with a ton of stuff, and now that we've launched people have volunteered to help with future episodes. It will also help that several of these steps we won't have to do again, or at least not all of them at the same time.

In good news, the first pod seems to have been well-received in the community. I think everybody understood it wasn't going to be perfect out of the gate, and it certainty wasn't, but I think it showed the potential of the project and people recognized that. I'm not sure what people's expectations will be as we move forward, but at least we now have a product and I can guarantee a steady stream of episodes for a few months. I think people will be happy with the improvements in sound quality, and I think the flow of the pod improves greatly starting with the 3rd episode, so those should make for a better experience. I think the flow improvements are due to taping episodes face to face in person (as opposed to just a voice over the internet), but I also probably developed some comfort with the medium and format over time as well.

I got a lot of positive feedback via private messages, which is both good and bad. It's good because in a way its more personal, but it's also bad because it's an impermanent record, and when you look at the threads on modified or the Symposium website it looks like a tepid response. I'm not too worried about that though. The only metric that matters is if people are listening, and continue to listen. Hopefully we can figure out a way to do analytics with this, so we can track if interest is growing or waning.

As I mentioned in the main Symposium thread, I wanted to pre-record at least 5 episodes before launching the project. This creates the advantage that I can release them regularly and I buy some buffer time in case life or work eats my time up, and I fall behind editing. On the flip side, it also means I couldn't get feedback from the community before the launch, so any changes I make based on community input won't occur until episode 8. Still, I think I'd rather be in the position I am now, than if I released an episode and had to immediately go back to taping new material, trying to get it out in the next 2 weeks.

Based on the feedback I've received, it sounds like there's a range of appetites surrounding what people want to hear. The first episode with Evan was very heavy on footbag content, and some people definitely liked that. Other people specifically requested more human interest, or more non-footbag content. For me personally, I'd rather listen to more non-footbag content. In practice though, conversations tend to head in whatever direction they want. Some pods will be very heavy on footbag, while others will be very light on it. I expect there isn't a sweet spot that will make everybody happy, but I'm fine with that. Hopefully different listeners will enjoy different episodes for different reasons. I just hope that most people stick around for at least a few episodes to give it a fair shot.

In footbag news...I don't have much footbag news. It's still super hot out, and what free time I do have I spent working on the podcast or walking the dog. Given the fact that I'm not going to any tournaments this year though, that's probably an acceptable trade off. I was hoping to play at least once this past weekend, but I got caught up with house errands. We have one room that's just been full of boxes and clutter since we moved in. I feel like that was fine for the first 6 months, and borderline OK for the first year, but we're coming up on 18 months now. So a good chunk of my time lately has been selling big items on Craigslist, and throwing out or donating small items. Trust me, I'd rather be working on ripsteins, but sometimes being an adult takes precedence.

Here's vid from a shred from last weekend. Highlights include:

One combo stolen from Hogan, that I hadn't done since 2009.
Playing out of ripstein with a non-BOP for the first time ever.
Setting a new personal record for atom smasher.
This week I anticipate I won't have time to shred during the week, but hopefully next weekend cools off some and I can sneak in a session or two.

[anhkhoashevakt]

"In good news, the first pod seems to have been well-received in the community. I think everybody understood it wasn't going to be perfect out of the gate, and it certainty wasn't, but I think it showed the potential of the project and people recognized that. "

I don't know what you are talking about Ken. I have already listened to the PodCast like 10 times. It is awesome to me!
However, if you are referring to the fact that there is no Ancient Greece Philosophy in there, then yes I agree with that statement, and yes you should be ashamed!

[C-Fan]

Khoa, if you listened to episode 1 ten times, then that alone justifies the project in my eyes. And honestly, I think the quality of the pods only goes up from here on out. I can say that relatively confidently, because I spent some time this weekend editing episode 2, and the sound quality alone is just so much better, its a lot easier on the ears. I'm optimistic I'll have the pod finalized by tonight. My release schedule is every 2 weeks, so that'd mean the next episode hits this Friday, but I'm half tempted to release it a bit early. Maybe tie that to some sort of participation goal, like comments on the site or something.

I think a pod on Greek philosophy could be quite interesting. When I was in undergrad at Brown, I took a ton of Classics courses, and thought about double majoring in it for a while. The key to The Symposium is finding topics your guest is interested in that can generate an engaging conversation. I'm really hoping that future episodes have topics all over the map, and that listeners are exposed to new facets of personality of the guests. Like, you may know Penske as a hardcore shredder, but listening to him talk about LeBron and the NBA is a side of him you didn't know, and that turns out to be interesting. Or something like that. I think footbaggers are pretty interesting people even aside from footbag, and I hope the podcast can mine that for a lot of good content.

Worlds 2016 has started, and I definitely feel some regret that I didn't make an effort to go. There's just something so life-affirming about competing at World championships of anything, that it feels wrong to not show up. Given the expense and all the life stuff going on though, I should forgive myself for passing this year. That said, looking at the pools in comp, I can't help but look at them and wonder how I would have done. Routine seeding appears to have gone in this order:

1. Vasek (bye to second round)
2. Jindra
3. Evan
4. Anssi
5. Patrik Cerny
6. Rafal
7. Taishi
8. Jakub M.

Considering that Anz is coming off injury and hasn't competed for a few years, I'm guessing I would have been either 4th or 5th seed in the tournament, with a legit shot at stealing a bronze. When I finally retire from comp, I think I'll look back at this Worlds and Worlds 2014 in Paris and wonder if I missed a shot at a medal. Who knows. I'm going to promise myself to go to Worlds in Portland next year, and train hard for it. I anticipate it will be a harder field, but man I'd love to make Finals one last time, and do a dropless there.

For today's video, I put in some effort. I was sitting on some old footage from a trip to Dutch John Utah, and this weekend I finally forced myself to cut it down and release something already. I left a lot of decent stuff on the cutting room floor, but if that's the price for getting a video released, it's worth it. Now if I can just carve time out to get my Japan vid done, I'll be really happy. It'd also be cool to see some of the footage I outsourced released, but that's beyond my control now.

[C-Fan]

FYI, there's a subtle hint in my last post related to the announcement. I wonder if anybody found it?

Realized I never revealed what the hint was. Here's the preceding post, with highlights to show it:

Paradox whirling swirl is kind of a weird trick.
Ordinarily I don't like giving advice on tricks I haven't mastered, but I think I understand this trick well enough to give a few tips that have helped me hit it in combos:

1. Don't set high; the set is lower than a normal paradox whirl and therefore should be no higher than knee height.
2. Correlated with #1, you need to pivot super fast, because setting this low reduces your time to dex.
3. As long as you set super low and pivot your hips into the dexes fast, you should be fine.

Some random footage to avoid a video-less post:

Tomorrow I hope to make a major announcement in the blog.

Episode 2 should come out Thursday or Friday.

[Tjuggles]

Haha, awesome.

[bobgreen]

Realized I never revealed what the hint was. Here's the preceding post, with highlights to show it:

Paradox whirling swirl is kind of a weird trick.
Ordinarily I don't like giving advice on tricks I haven't mastered, but I think I understand this trick well enough to give a few tips that have helped me hit it in combos:

1. Don't set high; the set is lower than a normal paradox whirl and therefore should be no higher than knee height.
2. Correlated with #1, you need to pivot super fast, because setting this low reduces your time to dex.
3. As long as you set super low and pivot your hips into the dexes fast, you should be fine.

Some random footage to avoid a video-less post:

Tomorrow I hope to make a major announcement in the blog.

CF going all Robert Langdon on us. I was totally clueless....had actually re-read that post looking for the clue too. I hadn't commented previously, but I did enjoy the podcast. I can't claim to have listened 10x like Khoa but I did listen to the entirety of it and look forward to the next.

[C-Fan]

Man, and that's not even the biggest secret I'm revealing this week!



Yep, we have a little ceiling fan on the way! In past posts when I've vaguely mentioned "life stuff," this was one of the things I was alluding to. Definitely exciting news. From a footbag perspective, this will limit the amount of travel I can do, though I am still hoping to go to Worlds in Portland next year. That will depend on how the baby is doing, and I also wouldn't be surprised if I can't prepare as hard for competition as I'd like. But if it's a choice between one last shot at footbag glory at this stage of my career, or having a baby...that's not a choice at all.

In other footbag news, I got to watch some of Worlds circle contest live on Facebook. As somebody whose formative years with the sport were in the late 90s, when I'd start a video download the previous night and wake up to a 2 minute video, this blow my mind. Technology is amazing.

I'm gonna put my prediction on paper: I think Evan sweeps all events.

New episode of the podcast drops tomorrow!

[Tjuggles]

Huge news! Congrats bops...I mean pops.

[C-Fan]

Huge news! Congrats bops...I mean pops.

I prefer "Dada" myself.

Yesterday we finally got a reprieve from the hot weather. It was in the low 70s after work, thanks to overcast skies, so I took advantage and went out to shred. It sprinkled a little rain on me, but I was still able to play and film. I’ll get that video done this weekend. I felt out of shape and out of practice, and I didn’t hit much, but it still felt great to play again. Footbag definitely gives me something I can’t get anywhere else. I hope I can keep doing it even as I transition into the parenthood stage of my life.

In case anybody missed it, episode 2 of the Symposium came out yesterday. Check it out:
https://thesymposium.modified.in/podcas ... no-kemmer/

So far I feel really good about the project. It’s getting a good reception in the community, I’m learning a ton about podcasts, and I’ve managed to stay on schedule. I definitely feel some validation on my decision to pre-record a bunch of episodes before launching the project. Between the learning curves of audio editing and podcasting, in addition to all the pregnancy stuff, there’s no way I would have been able to stick to a regular release schedule otherwise. I think with some discipline I should be able to edit at least one more episode this weekend, and if I manage to get 2 in the can I’ll feel like I’m in real good shape.

The whole experience of learning to podcast reminds me of an interview I read back in 2001, with Daniel Clowes in The Comics Journal. Clowes is a comic writer/artist who made a comic I loved that eventually became a movie I also really enjoyed: Ghost World. Unlike most comics that become movies, Clowes was deeply involved in the making of the movie, so it was neat to read his thoughts on learning how to work in a new medium. One thing that stood out is that he got so involved in the minutiae of movie making, that he said he can’t watch movies the same way anymore, especially not Ghost World. The example he used was background music and background noises. When normal people watch movies they don’t give much thought to the choices of background music, and I think we just assume that all the background noises are picked up off of a mic at the time they were filming. In truth though, most of them are not; they’re done in post by somebody who is making/finding noises to fit what we’re seeing on the screen. Apparently Clowes watched Ghost World hundreds of times before the final edit was done, and they’d do things like “watch” the movie only focusing on background noises, then “watch” it again only focusing on volume levels, etc. There’s so much work involved behind the scenes that the end product consumer is unaware of, but once you’ve been involved in those processes, it’s harder to ignore. I feel like I’m beginning to experience that on some level with the pod.

This can be a bit of a dangerous position to be in, because the whole point of the pod is to entertain an audience. It can be easy for the maker of the pod to get so deep in the weeds on things like website design or audio editing, that you lose sight of the overall end product. For example, I might spend an hour getting a picture of the podcast guest, adjusting the size of the image, posting it in the wrong part of the website, figuring out that it doesn’t show properly on the Facebook thumbnail because of that, fixing the image so it appears correctly, etc. Then I’ll spend more time cutting out all the “ums, likes, you knows” out of the audio. Then I’ll play with the audio balance, decide how to fade theme music in and out, etc. And these are all things that need to be done, but at the end of the day most listeners won’t even notice any of this work, and instead just want to listen to an entertaining pod. So all that work is wasted if the actual product isn’t fun and entertaining. On the flipside, if I recorded entertaining pods but didn’t put effort into producing them, they’d be hard to listen to. It’s a lot to juggle and it’s a lot to learn, but I’m hopeful I’ll get better at it over time.

The other interesting thing I’m figuring out, is that my audience has very varied expectations for the pod. Which totally makes sense, but still surprised me a little bit. Details like the tone of the pod, the length of the episodes, the ratio of footbag to other topics, the format and structure, etc. …these are all key aspects of the podcast, and everybody has different ideals for each. As the maker of this podcast, I went into the project with my own pre-conceived notions of how I wanted to answer these questions. It’s been interesting to get feedback (thank you again everybody who answered my survey!) on some of these decisions, especially when 2 people give you completely opposite notes on the same detail. Again, it presents the challenge of juggling everybody’s input and trying to find a sweet spot. At the end of the day it’s probably a good idea for me to realize I can’t keep everybody happy, and I should just shoot to make something I enjoy and can be proud of.

Closing this one out with a vid from a couple years back.

[C-Fan]

We got a brief reprieve from the brutal summer heat over the weekend. We had several weeks of temps in the 80s and 90s, which made it really hard to play. But from Thursday through Saturday it was overcast and cool, temps in the low 70s and some rain. I took advantage those days and ended up playing 3 days in a row. Of course, it rained on me each day, but I forced myself to play through that cause I knew light rain and cool temps would be better conditions than the normal blazing sun and scorching temps.

Shred wise, I'm happy to report that ripstein continues to improve. My success rate is going up, and I'm able to play out of it more easily than in the past. It's still far from perfect, but I'm definitely excited that this trick is starting to make more sense. It's so stylish. The other big shred news is that whirr is starting to make a bit more sense. I've always struggled with this trick, even though I like to think my whirls are very strong. I had a bit of a breakthrough over the weekend by consciously setting a lot lower. I find that I need to be a bit faster with a low set, but it also minimizes the range of motion, which is something that traditionally gets me in trouble with this trick. I think I overdid it a bit with the whirr practice, since my hamstring is sore today, but I'm excited to continue working on it. I'd be so excited to one day hit whirr to ripstein, considering I've long been so bad at both of those tricks.

Here's a short vid from the weekend. The wife took our dog for the evening walk, which enabled me to play. They dropped by in the middle of the session to say "hi" and Barkley was way excited about it: I also spent some time this weekend editing episode 3 of the pod. Initially I thought it'd be a real easy edit, since it was recorded in person and we were the same distance from the mic. In practice, this is going to require more work than anticipated since my guest's voice is lower volume than mine for big chunks of it. There's also a lot more content than past episodes, so I'm having to cut out a lot more, which presents its own challenges in terms of preserving the flow. The project overall is definitely a lot of work, but I believe in it, and I think its worth putting in all the effort if I can make a fun product people enjoy.

The other big news from the weekend is that Worlds 2016 concluded. The main emotion I feel is happiness for Evan. I've been playing since 1997, and in those 19 years I've seen a lot of people win Worlds. While I've liked a lot of those players, I wouldn't say that any of them were close friends of mine. I'd see the results of Worlds and congratulate the winner, recognizing the work they put in and their final performance to seal the deal. But I never was able to share in the happiness the way you would when a close friend achieves something that you know is super important to them. I remember feeling a bit jealous of Sergio Garcia last year when Paloma won for that very reason. With Evan's win, I felt like I finally got to experience that. It's just so great to see your friend grow and develop as a player and a person, and have it culminate in the ultimate prize. I met Evan at 04 Worlds, I remember playing with him at CSS7 when he was up and coming, I was there when he made BAP at Worlds 10, I competed on the same stage as him at last year's Worlds where he dropped the final trick of this routine, and I've seen him push and push and push to be his best. And now he did it, and it just makes me so happy for him.

[bustinjustin]

You did the request contest combos in your video. I thought of the same thing after watching it, I'm going to do those combos next session. I only wish your video showed how many attempts it took. You probably hit them all first try anyway.

[C-Fan]

I wanted to do the request combos, but I couldn't find a list before I headed out. I only remembered 3 combos, and only tried 2 (blw-blw seemed too boring). I think I hit blurriest-tomb 2nd try, but the seal combo was awful so I cut it. The one in the vid came later. The ripped to jani combo I think I hit 3rd try? Might have been 4th...that was 3 sessions ago. What I do remember was I tried it several times after that and it got worse, which is why I rolled with the sloppy one in the vid.

Bad news: the weather has turned back to the sweltering mid 80s and blazing sun. I had a chance to play today, but it had to be early, which meant peak heat. The only spot I could easily get to that had shade was my back porch, but it's way uneven since the concrete sank after it was built. I tried to make the best of a bad situation by spending the session going for 2 trick requests, since I knew runs were out of the question. I had fun going for requests, but spins and inspins were pretty rough given the uneven incline of the surface. I broke the session up into 3 parts. Polini requests, Hogan requests, and the request contest from Worlds.

Here's what I managed for Nick and Kevin:
And here's my attempt at Worlds 2016 request:
In other news, I've been watching a lot of Olympics. It really bugs me that athletes who have been caught doping are still allowed to compete. I was super happy when one American swimmer (Lilly King) taunted a Russian swimmer for doping, and then went on to win the gold. That felt satisfying.



I really hope this heat breaks soon. It makes playing footbag close to impossible. Given all the baby stuff I need to prep though, that might be a decent thing.

[HG]

So I came looking to see if modified was still alive, and now I want to know what the shoe situation is in today's footbag world. Can I get some legitimate lavers anymore? Do quantum's exist? Did Richie every make the nucleus? I have some nice bags hanging about, itching to shred.


-Henry

[boyle]

What are your thoughts on Worlds now, you certainly would have been a good chance for a medal with a good routine.

[C-Fan]

Holy unexpected blast from the fucking past batman! Did NOT expect to see Henry Griese post in my blog! I'll try and answer your questions as best as I can.

Can I get some legitimate lavers anymore?

Short answer is "yes." Longer answer is that for a few years they stopped making the China lavers, and lavers went back to being heavy. Now they make the light versions again. When buying online (ebay, retailers, etc.) you want to check to find out where they were made, as this makes a big difference. You might want to ask on the freestyle footbaggers group on Facebook, as people like Larry Workman on there know a lot more about this than I do. I haven't played in, or owned Lavers since 2005 so I'm a bit out of the loop.

Do quantum's exist?

They were put on hiatus for several years, since the last production line (2008?) had flaws where the soles wouldn't stay on. I know that at Worlds this year they were demoing a prototype of new Quantums, but it sounds like they are still in beta mode. So might be a while before new quantums come out.

Did Richie every make the nucleus?

Yes, and by most accounts they were a disaster. Good toe box, awful instep. Only players with massive ankle crank (Penske, etc.) could do clipper game in them. I don't think any prominent players endorsed them, and none ever competed in them.

I have some nice bags hanging about, itching to shred.

It'd make me real happy to see you back in the scene playing. I hope you get back in!

Danny, I'll answer your question at length in my next blog post. I need to run to a doctor's appointment to see how Lil' Fan is doing at week 16 of the pregnancy.