Fanzine

[Tjuggles]

Great stuff, Ken. Nothing like a good session.

I also think its great that you are conscious that your time with footbag is going to become even more limited, and are making every moment count, i.e., not taking sessions for granted. I feel the same way about my PhD; time is running out (I have 3 months max to finish), and I am really enjoying the last bits of this lifestyle, one that is absolutely awesome.

EDIT: Forgot to top-post painting this (thanks Ken!).

Here is one titled Tangata Whenua by Robyn Kahukiwa. It recently got put up in the building next to the one my office is in. One of my backup indoor shred spots.

[C-Fan]

No top post painting?!?

Here's a Halloween-themed one from me then:


The Garden of Earthly Delights, by Hieronymous Bosch. Worth zooming in on for all the crazy details.

I managed to play all 3 days this weekend! In the last vid I posted in the blog, I hit a montage that felt better than normal. I think the improvement came from attacking the spin and the duck a touch faster than normal, which buys me time to get the symp whirl deeper. Whatever the case, as I continued to think about this more aggressive style of approaching montage, I kept thinking about montage rake. All day at work on Friday, I couldn't stop thinking about this trick. I got out of work a bit late, but since Haley took the dog walk I went out to shred. Spending an entire session repeatedly trying an 8 add trick you've never hit isn't the best idea, but that's what I did. I managed to hit it 6 or 7 times, with varying degrees of cleanliness. I found that if I set high, I tended to crown the duck but get the symp whirling rake deeper. Alternately, if I set lower I'd get the duck deep but the symp whirl would be thin. Getting the set perfectly in the sweet spot is super hard, and even then you're not guaranteed to hit everything cleanly. By the end of the session I hit a few I was happy with, but of course at that hour it was dusk so not ideal light for filming.

Saturday was amazing out. Sunny, and close to 80 degrees. I went into my session with the singular goal of hitting a clean montage rake since the filming conditions were ideal. Again, I managed to hit 6 or 7, and again they were of varying quality. One I sealed with a long run with a bunch of 5s, but upon video review I didn't like the symp whirl dex enough and scrapped it. I hit a bunch more which I tried to seal with Carlton dances, and these takes all varied in quality as well (both the montage rakes and the Carlton dances). After getting about 6 on tape, I moved on to other stuff since my symp leg was getting tired and I hoped at least one montage rake would be clean/usable. The next part of the session I worked on tapping flurry. I first hit that trick 8 months ago, and had also revisited it when I was in Anaheim earlier this month. It's a really weird trick for me...I find that I either do the 4th dex rakey, or the 3rd dex is too high and thin. All my Anaheim attempts fell into one of these categories, so I was really happy when on Saturday I managed to hit one that felt good on all 4 dexes. I closed out the Saturday session by going for a new beast. Over the past couple months strong side whirlwind has felt more solid, so I decided to try for a beast starting with it. It took me a few tries to get a mullet out of it, but once I did I got the mindbender first try! New beast! Finished the session on that note, the cherry on top of a solid session. Sunday my body was feeling pretty creaky, so my aim was to have an easier session. I'm helping out on a video project for a non-footbag audience, so I dedicated my day to filming for that with a floppy demo bag in front of a nice backdrop. I never play in front of that backdrop since the surface is slightly slanted, but for a demo shoot it's fine. It took me a while to adjust to the bag though, since it's at least 2.5 times bigger than my normal bag, but also about a third of the weight. It was also spitting sand out through a seam, so not ideal. Again though, I was just going for single tricks and short themed runs, so that was fine. By the end of the session I got a few usable clips, and I also succeeded in not pushing my body too hard. Hopefully my friend can use some of this for his project.

It's Halloween tonight, so built in excuse to rest up. I'm also taking a couple half days this week so we can visit/interview pediatricians for the baby, so hopefully I can carve out some time to get the next ep of the Symposium done.

Happy Halloween everybody!

[Tjuggles]

Well, isn't my face red! Let me edit.

[C-Fan]

Thanks TJ! Definitely a tradition I enjoy in my blog. Neat painting you chose...reminds me of some of Picasso's cubist phase art. Also very parental themes in that painting. Crazy to think I'll be there soon enough myself.

Been taking half days here and there so we can interview pediatricians so we have a doctor in place for after the baby's arrival. It also helps me burn some of my use-or-lose leave. I'm also trying to take advantage of these half days to get in some footbag before daylight savings and winter officially arrive. Of course, weather this time of year is so temperamental that you're not guaranteed anything. It was mid 70s and sunny when I headed to my spot yesterday, and I was using AC in the car cause it was so warm. I get to my spot, and as I'm taking my shoes off this giant black cloud covers the sun. It drops 15 degrees and a cool breeze starts steadily blowing. Stayed that way the whole session so I never felt like I truly warmed up, and of course the footage looks more washed out too because of the lighting. Just no way to predict/time that kind of thing in Denver. Still, I was glad I made the effort to exercise, and after the perfect weather and solid session from Saturday, I can't complain too much.
I messed around a bit with phx-blw-psw, since I enjoyed seeing Henmo and Taishi hit it synchro in their latest vid. Also worked a bit on PSW, trying to make the landings softer and consequently more energy efficient. My consec record is still 9, back from 2008 or so. I'm not really aiming to break that record, but I can see some benefits for my overall fearless game by improving my PSWs with some dedicated practice. I also did one run of toes. I'd still like to get 20+ unique that's not overly drill based, but I either find myself falling into set patterns or losing track of which tricks I've already done. You can see me brainfart as I start doing a symp pixie midstring, realize I've already done it, and bail to mirage cause I didn't know what to do.

I still need to get firmer answers from HR at work to figure out how much time I'll have for paternity leave. The key question revolves around something called FMLA (The Family and Medical Leave Act ), and whether I am forced to use it concurrently with my sick leave, or if I can use it separately as unpaid leave. This could make a huge difference in how much time is available to me, which directly affects my chances of going to Worlds or not. If I have to use it at the same time I use my sick leave, then my chances of making it to Portland drop precipitously. Hopefully I get an answer on this soon, and can start figuring out my plans for next year.

[C-Fan]

Weather was unexpectedly nice yesterday. While I was warming up it was overcast and kind of glum, but then the sun burned through the clouds and it was perfect shred weather. Maybe even a little too hot!

Dan Boyle recently posted a vid of him hitting open motion-mindbender, and it reminded me that I still hadn't mined all beast options using set+motion to mullet combos. Last year I had one session where I picked up 2 beasts doing open/blurry motion-mullet-spender, but I hadn't played around with beast possibilities beyond that. I started the shred with some open motion to mullet work, but found that locomotion was more consistent for me, so I switched to that pretty early on. The other thing that made me optimistic to try beasts, is that my whirlwind has felt stronger in recent months, so I was hopeful I could get some new beasts ending in mullet-wind. Here's vid from my session:
I ended up hitting 3 new beasts in one session. I think if I had packed more water I might have managed 4, but I'm happy with 3 since that's likely a new record for me. Those 3, plus the new beast from a week ago, brings my total of "pure" beasts (no x-dex or x-spin) to 46. Here's my current list of pure beasts.

X-mullet-spender

1.Food
2. Locomotion
3. Mullet
4. Whirligig
5. Pixie motion
6. Maelstrom
7. Shooting down
8. Blurry torque
9. Alpine blw
10. Shooting osis

X-mullet-mullet

11.Genesis
12. Mullet
13. Maelstrom
14/15. Whirligig (both)
16. Shooting down
17/18. Alpine blw (both)

X-mullet-mindbender

19. Whirligig
20. Maelstrom
21. Whirlwind
22. Shooting down
23. Mullet

X-mullet-whirlwind

24. Whirligig
25. Food
26. ABW
27. Locomotion
28.Mullet

X-mullet-big apple

29. Food
30. Whirligig
31. Blurry torque
32. Shooting down
33.Mullet

X-mullet-PS whirling swirl

34. Mullet
35. Food
36. ABW
37. Gig

Random

38. Shootdown-bl.torque-mullet
39. Shootdown-bl.torque-mind
40 . Shootdown-gig-mind
41. Maelstrom-blurry torque-mindbender
42. Mullet-Mullet-ducking pdx torque
43. Alpine blw-Mullet-ducking pdx torque
44. Gig-mullet-superduperfly
45. Shootdown-maelstrom-mullet
46. Shootdown-gig-mullet (spender after this, but the unique beast is the first 3).

Looking at the above list, I can definitely see a few possible beasts I should be able to hit. Any combo that had food in it, I should be able to hit with locomotion or pixie motion. Then there's stuff that just looks like oversights, like how have I not hit food-mullet-mullet? Now that I've bothered to write out this list, its definitely clearer to me where I can pick up some new ones. It'd be nice to get to 50 pure beasts, as that's a clean round number. Of course it's pretty arbitrary, considering something like mullet x3 is an uncontroversial beast, while something a lot harder like fury-fusion-PSWS isn't counted since it uses x-dex, even though that's way harder.

[Tjuggles]

Great post Ken, and great vids! It is inspiring. Makes me want to start keeping better track of my footbag life, for real.

[boyle]

Very impressive organisation...Nice to get a mention as an inspiration!

pixie motion>locomtion>x should get you about 10 new beasts, but some may argue that's a fairly cheap beast combo.

How is your blurry whirling swirl? I don't see that on the list anywhere. I would imaging if you can do PS whirling swirl, you can do that too.

I guess you could add a lot of different motion tricks with stuff like motion sickness, atomic motion, ducking motion.

[C-Fan]

Thanks for the comments guys!

Organizing my list of beasts is something I should have done a long time ago. The two main benefits I've gotten it are:

1. Realizing that I had under-counted the number of beasts I had hit.
2. Identifying several potential beasts I haven't hit yet.

Going through the list, I've already written down 10 beasts that seem viable. I'll be in Arizona for the next few days, so I'll definitely try and hit a few while I'm out there.

I'm wondering if I should compile a similar beast list for my x-spin and x-dex beasts. Those concepts are weird, as many players seem to be reflexively against them (x-spin isn't a real thing!), but when you lead them through basic thought experiments, they change their mind. Here's an example conversation to illustrate:

Me: Double spin gets x-spin.
Player: That's not a thing.
Me: Is osis one body add harder than clipper?
Player: Of course it is!
Me: Is the amount of rotation to do an osis vs. a clipper more or less than the amount of rotation to do a spinning clipper vs. an inspinning clipper?
Player: Less I guess...
Me: Is the third spin in a triple spinning trick harder than the amount of rotation in an osis?
Player: Yes of course.
Me: Yet without x-spin, they are worth exactly the same.

Or this hypothetical conversation:

Me: Is voodoo (paradox merlin) 6 adds?
Player: No way, it's too easy.
Me: Is blur 4 adds?
Player: Yes of course.
Me: Is backside blur five adds?
Player: Well yes...
Me: So what is paradox backside blur worth?
Player: Six I guess...
Me: And what's another name for paradox backside blur?
Player: Voodoo

Like I pointed out in my last post, tricks like mullet or mindbender are way easier for me than fury or fusion, but while nobody would question a beast using mullet/mind, a lot of people will argue that a beast using fusion/fury isn't a "real" beast. Of course, trying to link adds to difficulty is a losing battle, and the whole idea of "beast" combos is completely artificial anyway. But yeah, for footbag motivation in early November, getting to 50 "pure" beasts is as good as anything.

pixie motion>locomtion>x should get you about 10 new beasts.

You know, I've never done any stepping tricks out of motion. I suppose I could try, though I wonder if a more likely path to a beast would be something like food-loco-X. I'll give them both a shot, but I'll probably spend more time on my current list of low-hanging-fruit beasts, since none of them require learning new links per se.

How is your blurry whirling swirl? I don't see that on the list anywhere.

My BWS is OK, but maybe not at the level where I could use it in a beast. I can hit it both sides, but I've never hit it BSOS, so that speaks to my level of consistency with it. Based on that, it'd probably have to be the first trick in a beast for me, and almost certainly linked to a downtime six like mullet. I can give it a shot.

In 24 hours I should be at the airport, waiting to get on my flight to Tucson. I'm excited to see my family, and also just take a few days off work. If I can record some family history, get in some shreds in the sun, and eat some good food, it'll be a great trip.

[C-Fan]

Trip to Arizona was good, but it's definitely nice to be home again. Spent a lot of quality time with the folks, ate a lot of good home cooking, and went on some nice walks in the desert wash with my dad. Footbag was a mixed bag, but overall good. I landed Wednesday afternoon, but the folks hadn't eaten lunch yet so we got tacos. Wrote off playing footbag that day since I would have been rushing against the sunset by the time I'd have digested. Hoped to play Thursday, Friday, and Saturday...but when I woke up Thursday morning I had a crippling pain in my shoulder/back. I get that like once a year, and this time I think what triggered it was sleeping on a new bed. I couldn't even go for a walk on Thursday the pain was so bad.

Friday I felt a lot better, to the point that I went out to shred. Wasn't sure if the back felt good enough to try for beasts, but after I warmed up it wasn't that bad. Before I left for AZ I wrote down 10 beast combos I thought were possible, so I worked on a few of those. Happily, I managed to hit 3 of them! I think that ties the record I set last weekend, for most new beasts in a single session. Was pretty happy I managed this, especially given I wasn't 100% with the back. Once I got home and reviewed the footage though, I was disappointed to find 2 of the new beast clips weren't usable. One of them I didn't realize the sun was backlighting me so intensely, and the other one I was too close to the camera so my head was not in frame for the last two tricks. Which of course were both ducking tricks.

Saturday I got an early start on the day, since I knew I'd have to leave for the airport at 12. I still managed to go for a walk with my dad, eat a light breakfast, clean out some clothes from my closet, and carve out one hour to shred. My only goal for the session was to re-hit the 2 beasts from the day before, and then if I had time left over re-visit the beast list I had made. My back felt a lot better than the day before, so I was optimistic. I got the 2 re-shoots pretty quickly, but didn't have much success with the beasts from the list. Then for some reason I decided to try stepping out of my flip shooting butterfly. On strong side I can do stuff like whirligig and blurry torque, but on flip I don't know that I'd ever tried any big stepping tricks before. To my happy surprise, I found that I could! I parlayed that into 2 new beasts, bringing my total for the trip to 5, which in turn brings my total for "pure" beasts up to 51! Definitely a nice way to wrap up the trip. Here's vid of my Tucson beasts:
And here's my updated list of pure beasts:

X-mullet-spender

1.Food
2. Locomotion
3. Mullet
4. Whirligig
5. Pixie motion
6. Maelstrom
7. Shooting down
8. Blurry torque
9. Alpine blw
10. Shooting osis

X-mullet-mullet

11.Genesis
12. Mullet
13. Maelstrom
14/15. Whirligig (both)
16/17. Shooting down (both)
18/19. Alpine blw (both)
20. Locomotion

X-mullet-mindbender

21. Whirlwind
22. Shooting down
23. Mullet
24. Alpine blurry whirl
25. Whirligig
26. Maelstrom

X-mullet-whirlwind

27. Locomotion
28.Mullet
29. Whirligig
30. Food
31. ABW

X-mullet-big apple

32. Shooting down
33.Mullet
34. Food
35. Whirligig
36. Blurry torque

X-mullet-PS whirling swirl

37. Gig
38. Mullet
39. Food
40. ABW

Random

41. Maelstrom-blurry torque-mindbender
42. Mullet-Mullet-ducking pdx torque
43. Alpine blw-Mullet-ducking pdx torque
44. Gig-mullet-superduperfly
45. Shootdown-maelstrom-mullet
46. Shootdown-gig-mullet (spender after this, but the unique beast is the first 3).
47. Shootdown-bl.torque-mullet
48. Shootdown-bl.torque-mind
49 . Shootdown-gig-mind
50. Shootdown-food-mind
51. Shootdown-loco-mind

[boyle]

I like it how in one post you're all, well it would be cool to hit 50 unique beasts sometime (as if this might happen many years down the track) and then next post, just smashed through the 50 barrier with multiple beast in a session. Not bad for an old bloke...

I don't see Leviathan anywhere in your lists...

[C-Fan]

I like it how in one post you're all, well it would be cool to hit 50 unique beasts sometime and then next post, just smashed through the 50 barrier with multiple beast in a session. .

In my defense, I didn't expect to hit so many new beasts so quickly. My first beast was in February of 2010, and in the 6.5 years after that I only hit 42 beasts. That averages out to 1 new beast every 2 months, and while I know these things tend to come in spurts, I was still surprised that I hit 9 new beasts in a 3 week span. I attribute that mostly to just organizing my list so I could see where I was missing viable combos.

Regarding beasts using leviathan, I like the idea. When I went to Tucson, 2 of the beasts on my list started with alpine pixie paradon (APP), which is the same concept. My strong spanish fly ends on my left foot clipper, so if I could land a solid leviathan/APP I should be able to do mullet-mullet or mullet-mind off of it. The two tricky parts for me are:

1. Really cleaning the barfly dexes after the duck. I don't find this too bad with spanish fly, but sticking a dex in front of it makes it harder. A beast with a thin spanish fly in it isn't something I would want or claim, so I need to school this more.
2. Ensuring I don't slur the step on leviathan. That's part of the reason I was working with APP more, since that's basically a guaranteed clean set. I find that when I focus on getting a clean stepping duck set off my right clipper, it doesn't leave me with a lot of energy coming out of the duck. For a trick like ABW that's fine, since throwing whirl that side takes no energy, but if I'm trying to get deep barfly dexes, it eats up a lot of energy. I can do it, but usually if I'm going for a textbook leviathan I'm not doing a 6 right out of it, much less 2 sixes off of it. So I think it'd be tricky, but definitely do-able with some practice.

The other beast trick you asked about was BWS:

How is your blurry whirling swirl? I don't see that on the list anywhere.

My BWS is OK, ... it'd probably have to be the first trick in a beast for me, and almost certainly linked to a downtime six like mullet. I can give it a shot.

I messed around a bit with BWS last session, and feel more optimistic that I'll eventually link it in a beast. Over the summer I had a minor breakthrough with pdx whirling swirl, by consciously setting it a lot lower and pivoting faster. Applying those concepts to BWS made it feel more controlled, so hopefully if I keep working at it I'll eventually be able to do a controlled mullet off of it, into a beast. I hit one BWS in the following video and was surprised how easy the duck was out of it. Had I kept my wits about me, I bet I could have thrown the PSW after that duck.
That was a fun session. The first combo was inspired by Allan's old trial stuff, albeit with a much shorter obstacle to go over. The Shred30 was my best attempt of the day. The sidewalk towards the end after the ducking butterfly was supposed to be a blurrier, but I didn't have the energy to do it, so it kind of fell apart after that. I'd still like to get a 260 on video, and I think that goal would have a lot of side benefits like improving my stamina and linking tricks when I'm tired.

Life's been kind of hectic outside of footbag, but a lot of it are things that should pay off long term. I have a professional certification exam on Monday that I'm cramming for, and we're also just still getting the house ready for the baby in January. The weather is taking a turn for the colder, so maybe that will translate to fewer shreds and more time working on the podcast. I really need to get back on track with that project. One thing at a time.

[Tjuggles]

In my defense, I didn't expect to hit so many new beasts so quickly. My first beast was in February of 2010, and in the 6.5 years after that I only hit 42 beasts. That averages out to 1 new beast every 2 months, and while I know these things tend to come in spurts, I was still surprised that I hit 9 new beasts in a 3 week span. I attribute that mostly to just organizing my list so I could see where I was missing viable combos.

I feel you regarding the organization and finding new links/concepts/things to try.

[C-Fan]

There's a winter's edge to the breeze these days, signalling the end of the outdoor shred season in Denver. When I walk the dog on weekdays I need a hat, scarf, gloves, and flannel pants. Weekday shreds are over thanks to Daylight Savings, and weekends are now at the point where I need to time them just right and be lucky with the weather for them to happen. I think this winter I'm going to get a gym membership, but that'll probably mean much lower quality footage due to indoor lighting (assuming they let me film in the gym). My winter training will also depend a lot on how I'm allowed to set up my paternity leave schedule. If I can go to Worlds, I'm going to spend the winter working on stamina and routines. If I can't go, then I'll probably work on more fun stuff.

Life's been kind of hectic outside of footbag, but a lot of it are things that should pay off long term. I have a professional certification exam on Monday that I'm cramming for,

The exam in question was really weird. Like a mashup of basic math (triangle problems, standard deviation, probability, interest rates, unit conversions, etc.), code knowledge (fire code, electrical code, ISO, ANSI, etc.), occupational health, and other esoteric safety stuff. I'm pretty good at trivia and remembering stuff, so I really just studied flashcards and practiced math problems to prepare. My trip to St. Louis in August was actually to go to a prep class for this test, so I went into it feeling pretty strong. The test center itself was pretty intense. They made you put all your belongings into a locker, they took a photo and a hand scan, checked your pockets before going into the testing room (video monitored), and did a ton of other anti-cheating measures. The nice thing is that they tell you your result immediately. Happily, I passed!

The weather is taking a turn for the colder, so maybe that will translate to fewer shreds and more time working on the podcast. I really need to get back on track with that project..

Even with the recent cram sessions for my exam, I made some time this weekend to work on footbag projects. I got episode 5 of the pod completely edited, but I need Haley's help to put the intro/outro on it. I'm optimistic I can get it out this week. I also listened to the raw audio of episode 6, and it sounds like the audio quality is a lot better than ep 5, so hopefully I can get that one out a lot faster. I also did some video editing work this weekend. The past few years I've contributed to the Joulu, but this year I didn't think I'd have the time to. Then I talked with Hogan and it sounded like he could use some backup videos in case people flaked out, so I took footage from a single session, slapped a song on it, did minimal transitions, and sent it to him as a backup. Almost from the moment I did I felt bad, since I knew I could do better. A week later, we had one day of perfect weather which coincided with one of my stronger sessions, so I decided to edit that new footage into a better video and submit that to Joulu instead. The newer footage is in better light, better framed, better shred, and just overall feels a lot less half-assed. Yeah, it's all from a single session, and it's also all tripod, but I feel better knowing that if Kevin needs to use it, it will be less disappointing. There's also an outside chance that I may be able to edit a proper, good video for the Joulu...but I wouldn't bet on it.

Here's the video I originally gave Kevin to use as a backup. I shot it 1.5 weeks ago when we got our first snow of the season in Denver:

[Tjuggles]

Congrats on the exam!

I dug that video, thanks. There was a real North American winter vibe to it for me, and took me back to all of those years spent outdoors during Japanese winters. Nostalgia. Also, nice work keeping mentally stable for those runs on the snow! I'm sure you were conscious of the fact that one wrong step could have been bad news bears.

[C-Fan]

nice work keeping mentally stable for those runs on the snow! I'm sure you were conscious of the fact that one wrong step could have been bad news bears.

You know, I kinda wasn't until I slipped in the first clip in the video. That kinda woke me up. All the other footage was from before that, so I guess I was lucky to get some stuff on film before realizing how dumb I was being.

Pretty quiet lately on the playing front. Didn't play over the weekend, so I might hit close to 2 weeks without a session. I'm actually welcoming a little rest for a change. Even though I didn't go to a single tournament in 2016, I feel like I played a good amount over the course of the year. I didn't have any notable injuries that cost me time, and not competing meant I spent some time on goals I normally wouldn't have messed around with, like ripstein and beasts. But yeah, a little rest going into the holidays isn't a bad thing.

In potentially good footbag news for the winter, I bought gym passes for Haley and me. 30 admissions each, no expiry, and I can also use them in conjunction with classes. Ideally that would be something like going to the gym to shred, then doing a yoga class right afterwards. Having a gym spot is also good for when out-of-town guests come and we need a place to play. I suspect the lighting will be meh indoors, so I may not film as much. I kinda like the idea of having my winter gym sessions focus on drills and stamina instead of my normal freestyling. Like Anz' old Perustreenit series. I was going to do that a couple years ago, but I didn't get a gym membership that year: In any case, I'll feel less bad about poor indoor lighting if I'm just filming drills instead of freestyle or beasts or stuff like that.

On the podcast front, I finally released episode 5 of the Symposium. Probably my most difficult pod from an audio engineering standpoint. Even though it clocked in at only 24 minutes, it was a lot more work than some of the longer episodes since I had to keep balancing the audio for Daryl. I was a bit bummed I was so late releasing that episode, but a variety of factors contributed to that (studying for my exam, visiting my folks last minute, being bummed about the election to name a few). In good news, I've already started work on the next episode, so I'm optimistic that one will be on time. I listened to the raw audio on one of my dog walks last week, so I know generally what areas I need to cut/edit.

https://thesymposium.modified.in/podcas ... aryl-genz/

On the video front, I've been greatly enjoying the Joulu so far. Props to Hogan for making it happen this year. Good mix so far of high level shred, new players, and solid editing. I already feel bad about my video, since it's tripod footage taken from a single session with minimal editing. Compared to videos I've submitted for past Joulus, it's a step down. But at least I contributed something. Here's my vid from last year to close out:

[C-Fan]

Broke in my gym membership on Sunday, effectively snapping my 2 week break from footbag. My gym is at a different rec center than past ones so I wasn't sure what to expect. So far, it seems really good. I was able to get a racquetball court without any issues, and the court was better lit and less slippery than most ones I've played on in the past. I spent the session catching up on the LOTDs for the xmas calendar. Difficulty wise this year feels easier than past years, but its also been a lot more fun in terms of weird concepts. I'm curious to see if the difficulty ramps up towards the end of it. Either way it was great to play again and nice to get caught up on the LOTDs

My last session before this was 2 weeks ago, outdoors. That's the session I used in my Joulukalenteri video. Hogan released it a couple days ago, and I was pleased it got such a warm reception from the community. I think the song combined with the slow-mo created a laid back vibe that allowed people to look past the fact it was all tripod footage from a single session. So yeah, not my finest piece of editing, but also not the worst video I've ever done. At least I kept my streak of contributing to the Joulu alive:
That was a fun session for sure. The alpine motion sickness wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I've never hit ducking motion (still haven't), so I bet altitude sickness would be easier if I schooled that first. I'll probably put some work into ducking motion, since it'd open the doors up to a ton of beasts if I got it anywhere near the consistency of my strong mindbender. The trick I was much more excited about was whirring swirl. I'm pretty bad at whirr, and I hadn't been practicing whirrs at all lately, so whirring swirl really came out of nowhere. I actually hit it 5 times throughout the session, but none with anything interesting in the sealing run. I ended up using the one in the video since it was the best overall in terms of angle and execution. I'd like to get a few more of these on film in good runs, but I may wait until its playable outside again, since a trick with fast dexes like that won't film well inside the gym.

While I didn't play any footbag last weekend, I did have a weird footbag moment while shopping. I buy all my normal sneakers at Ross, cause generally I can get something nice and comfortable for $20-30. Ross has been my go-to for sneakers for the past 8 years or so, so I was shocked when last week what do I see on the rack? Lavers! In my size! New! Unfortunately they felt heavy to me when I picked them up, so I checked to see where they were made. Indonesia. Not China, but not Eastern Europe either. It had been so long since I've owned Lavers (2005) that I couldn't be sure if they were heavier than normal lavers or not. But between them feeling heavy, not saying "made in China," and being $40...I left them on the rack. Still, it felt cool to find a pair of Lavers in my size in Ross for the first time ever.

Final bit of footbag news is that I spent some time this weekend editing a new episode of the Podcast. The audio quality on this one is pretty good, and it's a longer episode...so half of you should be happy. After this one comes out I think I only have 3 more episodes left that are recorded. Maybe I revisit Skype recording once the baby comes. In any case, next episode should drop on time, which I'm excited about.

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

Difficulty wise this year feels easier than past years, but its also been a lot more fun in terms of weird concepts. I'm curious to see if the difficulty ramps up towards the end of it.

oh c-fan, you are going down son.

[C-Fan]

Uh oh, sounds like I may have woken a sleeping giant. But hey, if I got through flying toe-flying toe, then I can hit anything.

Here's the LOTDs I've hit so far, all at my last session:
I'm hoping I can do another gym session this weekend and catch up on the new LOTDs. The only one I anticipate potentially giving me problems is the one with fairy same egg to start. I don't think I've ever hit that trick, but who knows, maybe the link isn't that bad once I get the first trick.

In cool footbag news, it sounds like Gatesman will pay a visit to Denver in January. I haven't seen him since the summer, so it'd be great to hang out and catch up. Of course, there is the wildcard that the baby could come early in which case I wouldn't be able to hang. But I'm hoping for the best.

In podcast news, I'm happy to report that the next episode is 99% done. I've edited the audio, a guest illustrator has done a drawing, and the copy for the site has been written. All that remains is slapping the intro and outro on it and uploading it to the site. Shooting for a Friday release.

On the Worlds front, I got some promising indicators from HR on my paternity leave. They didn't straight up veto my request to take FMLA separate from sick leave, which leaves the door open to me taking off a longer stretch of time, which keeps my hopes alive for attending worlds. I can't count my chickens yet though, as I still need to propose my paternity leave plan to my boss and have him sign off on it. My strategy there is to complete a couple major work projects before then, so he'll be more OK with me taking off so much time. Cross your fingers for me...Worlds is on the line here.

[boyle]

The hardest thing though is basing taking the leave around the baby arriving, which will appear around any date except the expected one...

[C-Fan]

Brutal cold this weekend. Saturday our high was 1, our low was negative 6. Got around 8 inches of snow too. Braved the roads to hit the gym though. When you only get to play once a week, you gotta take it seriously.

Went into the session with 2 goals. First was to catch up on the LOTDs. I haven't seen anybody else post any videos, which is a bit disappointing, but not going to let that stop me from participating. I have a feeling somebody may swoop in at the end and hit more combos than I do, but I'm crossing my fingers I might win. I could really use a new bag...all of mine are getting holes and spitting beads faster than I can patch them. My second goal of the session was to work on some boring drills. Filming indoors is going to be worse quality no matter what, so rather than try for beasts or flashy combos, I'm hoping to use the winter as a time to revisit my basics and improve my foundation. If I can come into the Spring with better stamina and more solid foundations, that would be a great springboard to preparing for Worlds.

So onto LOTD:

I'm hoping I can do another gym session this weekend and catch up on the new LOTDs. The only one I anticipate potentially giving me problems is the one with fairy same egg to start. I don't think I've ever hit that trick, but who knows, maybe the link isn't that bad once I get the first trick.

Sure enough, the fairy same egg link caused me problems. None of the other links took more than a couple tries. In good news, I did manage to hit fairy ss egg for the first time. Silver lining there. Not sure if I'll be able to hit the link with my once-a-week schedule, but worst case scenario at least I hit a new trick because of the LOTDs.

Since my Sat night session, 3 new LOTDs have been posted. Porque-rev mullet seems straightforward. Tombstone-spin duck gyro toe might be a bit tricky, since I'm bad at gyro toes. I always do them rake-y, but I'm optimistic I'll be able to get one decent one with enough attempts. The last one starts with phasing pickup, so that'll be a wildcard. I haven't done phasing tricks in several years, so who knows how hard or easy that'll be. Pickup to smog is pretty automatic, so if I can get one decent phase set I think I'll get it.

I'm hoping for an early release on Friday, so maybe I can get my next session Friday night. I'd like to finish this year's LOTD with 20+ combos hit. I'm at 15/16 so far, so I'm optimistic I'll make that goal.