Fanzine

[C-Fan]

Top post painting:

The Lacemaker, by Vermeer. 1670 ish.



I was first introduced to this when I was obsessed with Dali in High School, and I found that he not only made a painting inspired by it, but he actually made a very faithful copy of it too:


I always loved how deep in concentration the subject is, and there's something about the hazy blurring of the foreground that creates an immediate intimacy to the scene...almost like you walked into the room where she's working and she was so focused she hasn't even noticed you yet. Apparently that blurriness up front is a technique that indicates he probably used a camera obscura to paint the scene. Pretty neat. Some more history on the painting here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lacemaker_(Vermeer)

When I was in DC last month I got dinner with Brian McKenzie and Stan Sagalovskiy, and I had to kill a couple hours of time in DC. I first went to the African American museum because I heard it was great (and it wasn't opened back when I lived in DC), but when I got there I learned I needed tickets to get in. So my backup was to go to the National Gallery and hang out in the Dutch masters wing, which is as good as I remembered it. I'd like to get back into art. I'm hoping that as my son gets older and starts showing an interest, that'll be the catalyst for me getting back into painting/drawing.

In exactly 7 weeks competition starts at Worlds. I really need to get back on track in terms of training. My phone broke a week ago, so I haven't had easy access to listening to my routine song. Bit of a moot point though, since I spent much of the past week in Jersey visiting family and attending a wedding, so from Wednesday-Sunday I wouldn't have had much opportunity to practice anyway. While I haven't been physically practicing, I have been running through my routine in my head a lot lately. Mostly while rocking the baby to sleep or doing other mindless parenting tasks like rocking the rocker, etc. Physically, the only exercise I've been getting lately has been walking the dog, mowing the lawn or vacuumin, and walking places while wearing the baby carrier. It's not footbag, but I guess it's better than nothing. I've also cut back my drinking, and plan to continue that until after Worlds. Figure it can't hurt.

I'm hoping to find a short term solution for my routine practice until I get my phone replaced, hopefully next week. I think we have an old ipod touch floating around that can probably bridge that gap. Honestly though, I'm less worried about practicing with or without music, than I am about practicing period. I probably could do good routine run throughs just playing the song in my head. But I really need to start physically training again, cause I feel like time is running out. I think July should be better though, since Haley's Mom will be in town helping out with baby duties. That should open up more time for training.

Here's a random vid from a couple weeks ago. Just footage from a few sessions:

[C-Fan]

In exactly 6 weeks, Freestyle comps begin at Worlds. On one hand, that feels like it's coming up on me too fast, and I don't have time to prepare as much as I want. On the other hand, I half wish Worlds started tomorrow already. It's a weird tension between those feelings, but I think it's important to remind myself of 2 things:

1. I've already done a lot to prepare. Even if Worlds does creep up on me and I don't get to prepare a lot more, I've already put myself in a decent position in a lot of ways. I got new bags early enough to break in and get used to them. Haley got me good shred shorts that I can trust won't fall apart before it matters. I swapped out my old Units which were comfy but dying for a new pair which took a long time to break in, but should also be more reliable come August. I picked a song out months ago and have worked on it enough that I feel good about the choreo. It's not like I'm completely unprepared for Worlds, and that should comfort me.

2. While I feel I don't have enough time to properly train for Worlds, its not like that's gonna change for the foreseeable future. Like, if Chris Dean announced today that Worlds had been pushed back to October, I'd still have all the parenting/homeowner/full time worker duties that I have now. It's not like I'd magically be able to practice more or anything. The reality of my current life is that I can't dedicate the time that I want to, and that I used to, to training for a tournament. That's part of why I'm approaching this year's Worlds as my last hurrah of serious preparation/competition. And that's fine. Rather than beat myself up over how little time I'm spending training, I should give myself credit for carving out the little time I DO get to train.

On the training front, things are going overall well. I'm still doing some Shred30 practice, mostly for stamina. When I do non-routine strings, my goal is to push stamina as well. And I'm spending a lot of time on routines. I'm trying to push myself to complete routines, even if I have a frustrating drop early on, as I think there's a value in pushing the full 2 minutes every time. I'm not perfect about it, but I'm trying. In some ways, I feel like I may get more value out of doing multiple routine runthroughs with drops than I would from doing a single dropless. Like, if I do 4 single drop routines in a session, that's 4 times the practice I'd get from doing 1 dropless in a session. I'm also making a point to study my runthroughs on video even though that can be tedious. If I can learn one useful thing from re-watching a runthrough (e.g. noting timing/breathing/positioning errors), then that's time well spent.

Yesterday I had one of my best Shred30 practices to date. It clocked in at 30 tricks, 29 which were uniques. Total of 3 five adds, 2 three adds, and 25 fours. I had to bail to a repeated blizzard instead of a bedwetter, but if I hadn't then it would have scored I think 244, which easily would be a record for me. Unfortunately my GoPro had an SD Card error when I filmed it...figures, since it was the only good clip I shot the whole day. Still, good confidence builder there, even if I don't end up competing in Shred30.

On YouTube I noticed that I recently passed the 2500 mark in terms of videos uploaded. I'm at 2527 total videos now, and I'd say 99% of those are footbag related. I wonder if anybody else has published more total minutes of footbag video than I have? Just in terms of sheer volume of minutes of footbag footage, is there anybody else who is close?

Random closeout video is an old one of when Mark M visited Boulder a couple years ago. I'm not sure I've seen him since, so I'm getting excited to see him in 6 weeks.

[Tjuggles]

I haven't finished preparing choreo yet, and am not practicing as seriously as I want either. From my point of view you are in a better position that me, so hopefully that comforts you, and hopefully that pushes me to get my ass in gear!

[boyle]

2500 videos - that's a huge amount. I just checked mine and my next one will be 200. I have no idea who would be close in terms of footbag content. Mads Hole? It would have to be someone who has been involved for a long time and putting up regular videos. Nice job on those shred 30s. It's really important not to get those repeats though, you'd be probably even better off to do a pdx mirage if that was not done as yet.

That's a really hard thing to do - not start again when you drop early, same for shred 30, even more so. That's not how it works in competition.

[C-Fan]

Quick update>no update, right?

Nice job on those shred 30s. It's really important not to get those repeats though, you'd be probably even better off to do a pdx mirage if that was not done as yet.

Almost certainly true mathematically. I think that may be true even when there's a big point disparity...like repeating spinning ducking osis may be worth less than bailing to a unique osis. There's definitely some weird quirks that come out from the formula, but in general I think it does a good job encouraging variety and difficulty.

That's a really hard thing to do - not start again when you drop early, same for shred 30, even more so.

I actually find it easier to recover in Shred30. Since there's no choreo, I just re-start on the trick I dropped on. With a routine I find it much harder, because you need to figure out how to get back in sync with your choreo... do you skip ahead 3 tricks to get back on beat? 4? Deciding on the fly is hard for me and stressful. But that may be due to me choreographing my routines down to the trick.

Today was my last day of paternity leave; Haley's Mom arrives tomorrow and is helping us out for all of July. Then Griffin starts daycare the first week of August, and that's the new normal going forward. I'm definitely thankful I got to take off as much time from work as I did for the baby. I think it's real important for bonding for both of us. I really tried to enjoy the time together today...definitely a bit of nostalgia already that this first phase in my parenting is coming to a close. From a footbag perspective though, the hope is that I will be able to practice more regularly in July since Haley's Mom will be around to help. That'd be really helpful if I can ramp up my practice in the month leading up to Worlds, since I feel I haven't been able to train as hard as I want to lately.

On that note, I managed to play 3 consecutive days last week. Pretty sure that's the first time I had the opportunity to do that since Griffin was born. I wanted to see how my body would deal with 3 consec days playing, both in terms of performance and also recovery. On the bright side, I was able to play well all 3 days, though the last 2 days took me longer to warm up. On the 3rd day I even hit a nice training milestone: 2 dropless routines in a row. That's my first session this season with more than one dropless, much less 2 in a row. That was a nice confidence booster. The downside to this 3 day span? I hurt my knee. It didn't feel weird until the next day, and I can't tie it to any one specific moment, but after looking up the symptoms it sounds a lot like something called "runner's knee." I took off 4 days in a row, took advil, rested and did the recommended stretches. In good news, it feels better now, but I haven't had a session yet. I will try tomorrow and go from there.

I don't want to overreact to the injury, or read too much into the timing of it. But knowing the freestyle schedule at Worlds is compressed (Freestyle starts on Monday and ends Friday, with only Thursday as an off day), I am leaning now to either just doing routines, or just doing the events on the days when routines are held. Who knows though, maybe if I ramp up my training in July I'll get in better shape, and then playing 4 days in a 5 day span is more realistic. Gonna play it by ear, but err on the side of caution for sure.

One last minor note on my training: since June 11 I have cut out alcohol except for one day (19/20 days so far), and that was only because we were at a wedding. Even then, I only had about 3 beers...nothing crazy. I want to push this streak through Worlds, though we'll see how stressful July is both with my return to work full time, and having my mother-in-law under our roof for the whole month. But yeah, giving up booze for 2 months before Worlds feels like a good test of discipline, and probably can only help me from a health perspective. I think on Finals night at Worlds I'll have a drink (hopefully in celebration), but abstaining until then feels like a fun little side challenge I want to pursue.

I need to chop up some footage I have laying around, but I have been busy lately. So here's a video from 6 years ago when I was working on some mobius challenges:

[boyle]

How much time did you end up getting off? Is that just through your employer? I imagine there is no general government support for that sort of thing in the USA, but you never know. Big challenge to go drink free through Worlds, but wouldn't it be great to be drinking champagne from a gold cup...

Also at the moment there are only 7 registered for routines, so at this stage you would be straight through to the finals!

[C-Fan]

Big challenge to go drink free through Worlds, but wouldn't it be great to be drinking champagne from a gold cup...

Oh man... almost can't even bring myself to fantasize about winning Worlds. But then you know what, why shouldn't I? With the exception of Vasek, I've beaten everybody else who is attending in routines within the past 4 years. And even Vasek is theoretically beatable, especially if I can nail the artistic side of the card. All I can control at this stage is my own training, and hope for the best. If I end up going dropless in finals with a routine I'm happy about, I think that gives me a good shot at a medal. But if I go dropless and somehow end up in 5th place, that's OK too.

For the record if I do medal or go dropless, I'm gonna drink a nice single malt whiskey and not champagne.

at the moment there are only 7 registered for routines, so at this stage you would be straight through to the finals!

Back in 2011 I had the opportunity to go to Euros. The organizers made a big deal about everybody pre-registering online ahead of time. Like, you wouldn't be able to register once you got on site, no exceptions, etc. So I'm checking dot org obsessively in the days leading up to my flight, seeing the names on there until the day registration closes. When it does, the biggest names on the list are: Aleksi, Mikko, Wiktor, Rafal Kaleta, and Rene Ruhr. But this was in the days before Aleksi was a crazy routines player, and I also got the sense that nobody else had been training a routine seriously. Given how hard I had been training, I liked my chances to go in and actually steal a Euros title. The day I land in Spain, I take a cab direct to the event site, and guess who I see sitting in the bleachers? Vasek. And of course they made an exception to let him compete, because how do you not let the greatest freestyler of all time compete in your tournament? I can't recall how many drops I had, but I didn't go dropless and Vasek did. He rightfully won, I took 2nd, and I didn't even feel all that bad about it. But long story short, I learned that you can't go by the names on the pre-registration. On the flipside of that, you can also have a bunch of people pre-register for events and then scratch. I'm currently signed up for all freestyle events, but I wouldn't be surprised if I only end up doing just routines.

In good news, my knee felt good enough on Saturday morning that I got in a session. I warmed up slowly, but eventually felt good enough to work on routines. I even managed to get one dropless, so I called it a day after that. Sunday morning I was relieved to wake up without any pain, so I got in another session. Knee felt even better than the day before, which is encouraging. Again I spent 90% of the session working on routines, and got another dropless. While it's good that I'm able to get one dropless per session, I want to start getting them more consistently. Now, I may abort several attempts (especially if I drop early in the attempt) before getting a dropless. As July comes to a close, I want to be getting the dropless within fewer attempts. I'm going to continue my regimen of stretching more and taking more time to warm up, and also forcing myself to take rest days here and there for recovery.

One unexpected highlight on Sunday, was trying a new beast...and hitting it first try! I think I've only ever done that once before (wind-mullet-mind). I was also stoked about this beast, since the first link of alpine blw to stepping potentially opens up a few more beasts. Like, I could theoretically swap out the second trick for locomotion, or the third trick for mullet. May mess with that more after Worlds:

[C-Fan]

In exactly 4 weeks I will be doing my 1st round routine at Worlds. Good time to take stock of where I'm at with training.

I feel good, but not great healthwise. I am thankful I'm not currently dealing with any major injuries, but I also don't fully trust my body either. I'm doing stretches and taking time with my warm ups/downs to keep the plantar fasciitis and runner's knee at bay. In an ideal world I'd like to compete in all events at Worlds, but based on some of the minor injuries I've dealt with over the past couple months I'm thinking I probably shouldn't, and just focus on routines.

The routine is coming along nicely. I feel good about all the major cues, so now I'm ironing out some of the smaller inefficiencies. This literally gets to the level of minutiae of identifying whether I take a breath before a specific trick or right after it. Also little things like whether I do a butterfly before a stepping set or just a clipper. With that last example you might say: "Ken, one add isn't going to make a difference in how your routine is scored." While that's true, figuring out which link is more optimal for me may improve my chances for not dropping that link, or conserving a tiny bit of energy which may help me get to the finish line. Even those tiny improvements are things I should try to optimize.

I'm trying to ramp up the frequency of my training. Having Haley's mom in town has helped, though this heatwave has been a challenge. Still, I managed to play both days last weekend, both days this weekend, July 4th holiday, and yesterday after work. So 6 days in a 10 day span, which is a huge improvement over my frequency in June. If I can continue to train on weekends, and get in an average of 2 weekday shreds a week (so 4 days a week), I'll feel like I'm in a good place training wise. I'm telling myself that while I may not be playing as often as my competition, hopefully I'm training the same amount total.

I shot a Vlog this weekend. It had been a while, but I'd like to do more of these:

[Muffinman]

That's a lot of beasts

[C-Fan]

Thanks Erik! I've hit 52 "pure" beasts, that is ones with no x-dex or x-spin or any controversial adds. If you count xdex (mostly fury & fusion) or xspin (double spins, double peeks, etc.) then I'm over 60. I think after Worlds I'll try for a few more beasts, as I identified several do-able ones when looking over my list. Still, considering I didn't hit a beast until I was in my 30s I'm pretty happy that I've gotten over 50 now.

In 18 days I'll be on a plane headed to Worlds. I'm not training as much as I'd hoped to, but its not for lack of trying. I thought being a parent of a newborn would be the big challenge going into Worlds this year, but its turning out that being a homeowner has been more of a problem. Last week we had a bunch of problems with our AC system in the middle of a heatwave, which cost me a couple days of training as I had to get a repairman out to fix it. Less than a day after we get it fixed, our microwave dies. I still haven't gotten that fixed, and last night I noticed frost on the AC unit, which is a bad sign as well. Throw in keeping the lawn mowed/alive, trying to vacuum once a week so we don't drown in dog hair, and the fact that its inspection season at work (so lots of walking) and it's been really hard to find time to train footbag. I just wish the house problems would hold off until AFTER Worlds, when addressing them doesn't come at the cost of taking away training days from me.

I keep telling myself though that this summer is my last shot at really training hard and trying my best for a good finish at Worlds. I tell myself I only need to keep this up for 18 more days and I won't get another shot at this, so that's motivated me to get in training even when I've been exhausted or the weather has been crappy. I like to tell myself that whatever results I get at Worlds are being earned on days like this in Denver while I'm wiped, and not when I'm at the tournament. Like, if I manage to win a medal in routines in Portland, I actually earned that medal in Denver yesterday when I forced myself to do reps of the routine even though I had trouble keeping my eyes open. Hopefully that ends up being true, and all this pays off in a couple weeks.

On a related note, I looked at the online registration today and was surprised to see there are only 18 players currently registered for Open routines. On one hand I find that disappointing, since it's World champs, that's one of the 2 main events, and its in the US for the first time in forever. You'd hope we'd have at least 30 people competing in a marquee event like that. I also feel like I'm killing myself with my routine training, and its entirely possible I'm doing it for nothing if it turns out we only have a handful of competitors and I could have just sleepwalked into Finals anyway. On the other hand, if this is my last Worlds where I'm making the effort to train seriously and push myself to get my best result, maybe I shouldn't complain if the path to Finals is easy.

Then I started thinking about the logistics of pools with only 18 competitors. For the sake of math, and optimistically hoping a few people register last minute, let's say we end up with 20 total competitors. If you want Finals to be 8 players, you could set it up so first round is 4 pools of 5 players where only one person is cut in each pool and everybody else goes to semis. Then semis would be 4 pools of 4 players, where the top 2 in each pool make the cut to finals. Those are pretty light cuts, but with so few competitors what can you do? I suppose another potential solution would be to just make routines 2 rounds. First round would be 4 pools of 5 players, and top 2 in each pool goes direct to Finals. That'd kinda be like eliminating the first round and skipping forward to semis off the bat. I'm not sure I see any downsides to that actually. Maybe a bunch of people register last minute though, and this is all a moot point. I'd love it if we got to 30 competitors, and the first round actually counted for something. 5 pools of 6 players, top 4 in each advance to semis, then 4 pools in semis where top 2 advance to finals. But if the number stays around 20 competitors, I do question the need to even do a first round.

Here's some old footage I don't think I ever posted:



I haven't been generating much new footage since my recent sessions have pretty much been 100% dedicated to just routines stuff. Once Worlds is over I'll get back to just playing for fun, which should result in more current video.

[boyle]

There are a few signed up to do other events but not routines (Nick Polini, Lon Smith), there are few big name US players not on the list as yet (Evan, Jim). Scratch that, Jim is there I didn't see him on first look. I would have thought more of those Stanford guys would be signed up as well. Cool to see Peter Irish is going to be competing. With many legends etc meant to be turning up, it would be awesome to see more of them competing in the freestyle.

It think 24 is a good number, (4 pools of 6, top 4 go through, top 2 from there) but that could well be a stretch from here, I think 30 is highly unlikely.

This would be a guess at finals from those currently registered

1. Vasek
2. Jim
3. Nick
4. Ken
5. Aleksi
6. Taishi


Then there's a few possibles and probables, could be interesting to see who fills those remaining slots.

[Muffinman]

So much stress around competition. I don't regret never competing, though it would be fun to try a routine one day even if not to perform it for anyone. Wow, yeah, Worlds is so close. I can't wait for footage.

Challenge: 6 unique flip spinning tricks in a run

[C-Fan]

Thanks for posting Dan and Erik!

2 weeks and 2 days until I get on that plane...I'm already having trouble containing my excitement. It's been a challenging few months in terms of training, but overall I feel good about where I'm at now. I'm not injured, I think my stamina is slowly improving, I feel like I've built a solid routine, and I'm getting pretty comfortable doing it. If I can keep this status quo for a couple more weeks, I'll have put myself in a great position to achieve my goals.

Recapping my goals for Worlds, in ascending order of importance to me:

*Set new PR for Shred30 (I think its 214 now?)
*Go dropless in any of the 3 rounds
*Make Routine Finals
*Make Circle Finals
*Medal in routines
*Go dropless in Finals

The Circle and Shred30 goals are contingent on me even competing in those events, which may just come down to how the schedule shakes out and how I feel. Though it appears they moved Shred30 Finals off of Friday night, so that improves my motivation to do it. The "dropless in Finals" goal is my top goal, if for no other reason than it likely crosses off 2 other goals at the same time. I can't remember any years when somebody went dropless in finals and didn't come away with a medal.

It think 24 is a good number but that could well be a stretch from here, I think 30 is highly unlikely.

As of today, there are 19 people registered. Most years, you also have to factor in a couple last minute scratches due to injury/hangover/people registering for events they may not actually compete in. But I really do hope we end up closer to 24 than to 20. With 24 competitors, you'd have 4 pools of 6, with 2 cuts in each pool. With 20 competitors, you'd only be cutting one person from each pool, and honestly that's a lot of time and effort to run an entire round of comp just to cut one person in each pool. But you'd probably still need to do it, to ensure your seeding in semis pools is based on something. Otherwise, how do you seed somebody like Pete Irish? He's won Worlds 5 times, yes. But he also hasn't competed in Worlds in 12 years. Or guys like Aleksi and Bear, who were great routine players but suffered bad injuries in the past couple years. Without doing that first round, it'd be impossible to set up balanced semis pools because there's too many unknowns.

So much stress around competition. I don't regret never competing

I get that, and I respect that. I've been competing almost 20 years now, and in a lot of ways its just as scary now getting on stage in front of everybody as it was when I first did. But for me that's part of the appeal, part of the thrill of it. I like getting in situations where I'm outside my comfort zone and seeing how I do. In some weird way it's make me feel alive. It's like jumping off the high dive when you're not sure you can. The payoff isn't always there... there's few feelings worse than spending weeks training for a routine and then choking when it matters. I've been there many times, and it's just so painful. On the flipside though, there's no feeling in the world quite like the one you get when you get on that stage, you step up and hit your cues, you tap into something inside yourself you weren't sure was there, and you crush it. It's just the best rush, and it makes you feel like all the blood, sweat, and tears you've put into the sport were worth it. I really want to experience that one last time, which is why I've been training so hard.

No new footage today, but I should have some this weekend. I've started warming up for routines by getting a few 20 contact runs first. I think that warms me up better than just doing routine stuff, and it also means I generate a bit more footage. Today though I'll leave you with an old favorite of mine. Just such a nice chill vibe to it:



Have a great weekend modified!

[C-Fan]

10 work days until Worlds! Getting harder and harder to contain my excitement; just gotta take it one day at a time. Overall I feel like I’m in a good place training wise. Physically, I can do blocks of 3 days in a row of shred without any negative performance impacts on the last day. I’m getting to the point where I’m playing close to 5 days a week, I use the foam roller on off days, I’ve gotten better about stretching when I cool down, I went swimming to crosstrain on an off day, and I’ve only had alcohol on 2 days in the past 1.5 months. I feel like I’m getting stronger which I also think makes me less susceptible to injury. I’m also avoiding big tricks/links to reduce my chance of getting injured on something that won’t help me at Worlds. Mentally, I’m in a good place. Having Haley’s mom in town for the past month enabled us to take a couple date nights, which was refreshing emotionally and mentally. It’s important to remind myself how fortunate I am to have such a great wife and life, and that while footbag is a big part of my identity it’s also not the entirety of who I am.

Basically my goals for the next two weeks are to avoid injury/stay in shape (physical goals) and to not stress out (mental goals). If I can manage that I should be in great shape for Portland.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my goals for this years Worlds, and how to be strategic to achieve them. It almost feels like a puzzle. Like, there are elements I control (which events I choose to enter) and ones I cannot (schedule of when those events are held). Some events require more energy and time to compete in, like circles compared to Sick Trick. Some events I can scratch from last minute without affecting the tournament organization (Shred30), versus others where it’d screw up seeding for pools. And finally and most importantly, I don’t personally value all events equally. Winning Routines is worth more to me than winning Request. So basically the puzzle comes down to: how do I structure my week so I give myself the best chance to perform my best in the events that truly matter the most to me?

In descending order of how much I care about them, I’d rank the events: routines, circle, shred30, Sick 3, Big Trick, Request. If I were to compete in all of them, that’d mean I’d have to play 5 days in a row. Also important to note that finals of the 2 events I care the most about would be happening at the very tail end of that gauntlet. Not only would I be playing 5 days in a row, some of those days I’d be warming up and cooling down multiple times too. Could I physically pull this off, and get to Finals night feeling like I could give my best in routines and circles? I honestly don’t know. But given that I don’t care about all events equally, I think the smart play would be to structure my week so I maximize my rest for the events I care about at the expense of entering other events I care less about.

My decision making process basically ended up being a Cost/Benefit Analysis weighing the following factors:
How much do I care about placing well in this event?
What are my chances of doing well in this event?
How much time/energy will it take for me to compete in this event? Or to view it from the flipside, how much time/energy do I save by NOT entering the event? Does it buy me any rest days?
Does entering this event force me to have to warm up/cool down twice or more in a day?
Can I scratch last minute from this event without creating headaches for the freestyle staff over seeding/pools?

I thought hard about this for a solid week, and came to a few conclusions.

Routines is really the only event that matters to me. While it’d be nice to make Circle Finals or set a new PR in Shred30, I know I’m going to look back on this Worlds and judge it entirely based on how I did in routines. The hypothetical question that really made this clear to me was when I posed the following “would you rather” to myself. Would I rather go dropless in routine finals and finish in last place in all other events, or would I rather have a 3 drop finals routine and win gold in all other freestyle events? When I realized the answer was “dropless in finals,” it helped me prioritize accordingly.

I’ve never been in Circle finals. It’s something I’d like to accomplish, and I think I’d have an outside shot at it this year, but even just trying for that goal comes at a cost. Circle is the event that takes the most time and energy to compete in, so more than any other freestyle event it’s going to be harder to recover from each day thereby affecting my chances in other events. Schedule wise I’d also gain a full rest day by not doing Circle (Monday), which could make a difference in terms of how my body feels on Friday. Finally, when weighing the risks/rewards in conjunction with my competitive odds, it just wasn’t worth it. I’ve finished one spot out of Circle finals multiple times, so unless I expected to beat that result, I don’t stand to gain anything. Looking at the pre-registration, I’d have to beat one of Lon/Landes/Penske/Vasek just to make it to Circle Finals, and if I wanted to win a medal I’d have to beat one of those guys again. So basically it’d be a lot of work, with slim odds, for low payout, and at some cost of physical recovery.

Of the remaining events, Shred30 is the most appealing to me. I like the lack of subjectivity in the scoring, I like that I can probably get warmed up and finish competing in less than 20 minutes, and I like that I can scratch at the last minute if my body isn’t feeling great. I only see 2 minor drawbacks to doing Shred30 for me. First, is I’d have to warm up twice on Tuesday. But even then, at least the second warmup is for Shred30 and not routines, and if I’m not liking how I feel on the second warmup I can scratch. The second drawback is that Shred30 Finals is on Thursday, so I’d lose having a rest day before routine finals. For both rounds of Shred30 though, I’m hoping that the physical toll of warming up and competing is pretty minimal. If I only play 30 minutes total on Thursday, it’s still basically a rest day. And if I can set a new personal best in the process, that’s worth it to me.

So that’s over 1000 words explaining why I’m only competing in Routines and Shred30 at Worlds. I think it’s the right choice, and hopefully my performances bear that out. I’m also hoping that limiting my events opens up other aspects of Worlds to me, like doing some tourism and maybe recording some podcasts. It’ll be a lot easier to do stuff like that if I’m not constantly warming up and competing.

As promised, I cut up a bunch of recent footage over the weekend so I could share some newer stuff in the blog posts. I threw together clips from 2 sessions in this one, and wasn’t til I was editing that I realized the first session I’m wearing all blue and its blue skies, and the second I’m wearing all grey and its grey skies. Even weirder, the first 2 clips in the blue skies section I’m listening to “Mr. Blue Sky” by ELO.

[Muffinman]

Love that Vegas video.
Atomic double switch is so sexy!
I envy all you guys around my age who can play so hard with so few physical limitations. You're so good at footbag Ken.

[C-Fan]

You make me blush Erik. In all seriousness though, I do feel very lucky to have played 20 years with as few/minimal injuries as I have. I don't take that for granted anymore. On a related note, I've made a point to be careful with my training going into Worlds so I don't get hurt at the worst possible time. I've been very deliberate with my warm ups and cooldowns, and I've been really good about not chasing hard tricks or weird links. I don't even call my sessions these days "shreds," since they really feel more like trainings. Warm up, multiple run throughs of the routine, some dedicated practice of specific routine elements, stretch down, go home, more stretching. Even if I don't do well in competition next week, I'm at least proud of how disciplined I was with my training going into the tournament. Work and life were pretty stressful and busy leading into Worlds, and the fact that I carved out the time I did to train and that I was disciplined enough to do things like cut out alcohol for 2 months (excepting 2 days) are things to be proud of.

The real MVP though is Haley, as she understands how much this tournament means to me, and enabled me to train as much as I have by picking up my slack on baby/house stuff over the past month. I plan on making it up to her after Worlds. Just that much more motivation to nail my goals.

Just over a day I get on a plane... still can't believe it.

[boyle]

Good luck Ken, look forward to your writeup of the event. Wish I was going this year, sounds like it will be a good one. Some good long runs in this video.

[C-Fan]

It's been 10 days since I left Portland and Worlds 2017. In some ways, it already feels like a lifetime ago. In other ways, it feels like I never left. That's probably because I've been having stress dreams about Worlds most nights since returning. I'm still struggling to process how badly my Finals, and consequently my tournament went. I'm hoping that by writing about Worlds in my blog it helps me achieve some kind of catharsis.

Maybe it'd help for me to start by examining my goals before Worlds. For better or worse I set some very high goals for myself this year, and felt like I had a lot of pressure to do well. 2017 marks my 20th anniversary in the sport and given that I now have a baby and Worlds doesn't take place in North America very often (every 3-4 years), I viewed this year as my last chance to do well. Realistically, I don't see myself taking a week off to go to another country to compete in hackysack anymore. That means there's a good chance I'd be in my 40s with a toddler next time Worlds was in North Am so I really viewed this year as my last shot to do well. On top of that, even training for and going to Worlds this year was an uphill battle as we were raising a newborn. Haley also made a ton of sacrifices to enable me to train, and go. Taking all this into account, I felt a lot of pressure to do well this year.

What does "doing well" entail? In a nutshell, for me it boiled down to doing a Finals routine I could be proud of. It bugged me that I had never done a Finals routine I was happy with. I had only made it to Finals twice before, and neither time did I leave the stage feeling like I performed my best. So while I had specific goals for this year (dropless, dropless in finals, etc.), it really came down to: make Finals, and do a Finals routine I could be proud of. That's why it was, and remains, so crushing that I had such a bad showing.

It's crazy to think that the success of an entire week, an entire year, an entire career in some cases... can boil down to what happens in a 2 minute period. But in many ways the 2 minutes of my Finals routine feels like it had that impact on me. Had I gone dropless, as I had countless times in the previous months, or had I even just done a 2 drop routine, I don't think I would be losing sleep still. I think I'd feel really good walking away from competition, feel like I had a solid career as a competitor. And despite all the difficulties and setbacks I had leading into Finals, when I stepped out onto that stage I was still in great position to do well. I was in Finals. I had a decent seed. I had trained hard, and built the best routine of my career. I slept well the night before, and my energy felt good. So to be in such a good position to try for a lifelong dream, and then have one of my worst performances in memory... it was as surprising as it was crushing.

Don't get me wrong; I've had tough Worlds before that left me questioning why I play the sport, or why I care so much about it. What feels different this time around, is that in the past there was always "next year." I could train harder, I could hope for better luck, I could buy a ticket to Poland or Finland or wherever and just give it another shot. This time? It feels like the book has shut. I can still go to USOs or East Coasts or other minor tournaments, but none of those are Worlds. None of those represent to me being the best in the World at something, or having the chance to at least try to be the best in the World. I don't think I'll have any more chances at that, and it makes me sad that in 3 tries in Finals I never was able to do a routine that came close to what I know I could do.

So now here I am, trying to figure out a narrative that will let me move on, let me let go. Writing this was surprisingly difficult, but hopefully that's a sign that it's helping me work through all my thoughts and feelings. I'll try and do some more posts about Worlds and see where it takes me. Hopefully to a better place mentally.

Wish me luck.

No video this post, as I haven't played since Worlds. Hell, I barely played at Worlds...and I took no video. Maybe later I'll edit up some clips from before Worlds. For now, here's a song I like:

[Muffinman]

Yikes. That's really harsh.
I'm sorry that you feel so down on yourself about it.
I can see how that would be a let-down.

As you see this as potentially the close of your professional game, maybe it would help to re-frame your achievements. What about that year that you went from, like, no beasts(?) to as many as the years you've lived?? How about doing as well as you've done in competition, especially when facing off against younger, harder shredder players. That's nothing to scoff at. How about being offered induction into the elitest of the players in the world? How about playing at the level that you do, at the age that you are, and for the most part avoiding major injury and being able to continue to play, even if just for fun? How about the social interactions and the friendships you've formed and the amazing people and opportunities you've had for travel and will continue to have, even if in a more restricted capacity now because of growing life commitments? I'm not saying that you're discounting all of this, but what I am saying is look on the bright side <3

Congrats at being awesome at footbag! And happy 20 <3

[Muffinman]

Accidentally posted twice and don't know how to delete the second one...