Fanzine

[boyle]

There should be some word very shortly on Worlds, so keep an eye on that. Can't say too much but there is certainly progress being made at dates when Worlds would usually be.

And it's a new page, so have this fat horse as a clue, sculpted by Fernando Botero.

[C-Fan]

have this fat horse as a clue, sculpted by Fernando Botero.

Seriously Dan? Could you be any more obvious? OK, here's the answer for anybody too lazy to figure it out:

1. Only a lover of horses would sculpt that statue.
2. The common name "Philip" is derived from the Greek Φίλιππος (Philippos), which translates to "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"
3. The most prominent Philip in footbag currently is the Polish player Filip Wojcik
4. The Polish surname Wojcik is a common variant of "Wojciech" which basically means "a warrior to whom combat brings joy"
5. The player who enjoyed doing Ripped Warriors the most? Clavens.
6. "Clave" is Spanish for "code," meaning this horse is a code in Spanish.
7. "Horses" in Spanish is "caballos." The only footbagger with a name close to this, is obviously:
8. Sebastan Ceballos. From Medellin Colombia.

So Worlds is in Medellin. God, could you have been any more obvious?

[Tjuggles]

So Worlds is in Medellin. God, could you have been any more obvious?

Damn, you beat me to it Ken.

[boyle]

Hey, the picture is actually from Santiago, Chile. However that's not where Worlds will be.

[C-Fan]

Very happy to report I broke my prolonged footbag drought.  After 5 weeks of not playing I squeezed in a shred on Friday.  In a bonus, I even got to play outside, which I very much prefer even if it was a little nippy.  It had been 2 months since my last outdoor session.  

I was pleasantly surprised with how my session went.  I expected to be rusty given how little I've played in recent months, but most of my concepts felt pretty good even on flipside.  My stamina wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as I feared it would be either.  
  

I didn't really go into the session with any goals since I expected to be in bad shape.  Mostly I just wanted to knock some rust off and get some exercise.  If given the choice between weekly sessions where I can't do any tricks over 3 adds or playing once every 5 weeks and going huge, I know the former would be better for me.  Regular exercise would do me a lot of good both mentally and physically. 

I do want to eventually work myself back into good footbag shape, since I'm less than 50 days from my 40th birthday.  A while back I set these target goals for when I hit 40:

beast combo
10 fearless
 Quad dex tricks
 Dropless routine?
 Shred30 over 200 points
 40 contact genuine string  

Not a crazy list, but I'm also not sure I've seen any players over 40 do any of them either.  Frankly, there's not much sample size of players over 40 to begin with, much less ones who are still playing anywhere close to their peak.  Lon is the one notable exception.  I know Scott Davidson gets mentioned in a lot of conversations of older players but I think if we're being honest here he hasn't been near his peak in over a decade.  While my list of age-40 goals is pretty arbitrary, they feel like a good challenge for where I'm currently at in my game.  None of them seem impossible but also none of them seem super duper easy either.  I think it'll be fun to try and cross them off the list systematically after my birthday.  Of course, it would be smart of me to start training my way up them before then.

Still no official word on Worlds.  I should probably hold out more hope for USO, since that'd be a lot more realistic for me to attend.  And yet, USO just doesn't have the allure of Worlds for me.  On one hand I tell myself to be realistic, that I am almost 40 and haven't competed in any tournament in 3 years, so I should just give up the dream of competing well at another Worlds.  On the other hand, there's a part of me that says I still have the physical ability and the mental drive to push for one last grab at the brass ring.    

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

[boyle]

Not so bad for "out of shape". Blurry whirling swirls and associated tricks looking good. Something like alpine legbeater>food processor in there. Some good run length as well, particularly the early runs. Looking good.

The problem is the longer it takes to get the official confirmation, the more people will decide not to go and then it will come with lower numbers.

I'm getting to that point also. It will depend a lot on my teaching commitments for the rest of the year - at the moment the future is only know for a bit over a month and then we'll see after that.

Hope you can play more. It looks quite a nice day there even with the snow in the background.

[C-Fan]

Not so bad for "out of shape".

 

Yeah, it felt like a bit of a fluky good session but I think I should be happy that I still have them sometimes.  Like, I could easily imagine a reality where I play this infrequently and never have fluky good sessions.  I'm honestly pretty confused with how wildly my level of play has varied since I stopped playing regularly (aka since I became a father). I try and approach it by appreciating the times I play well, and not letting the bad sessions get me down so much. 

alpine legbeater>food processor

  
That was the link I was happiest about in the session, mostly because I am so bad at flip food processor.  Flip blenders in general really. 

 

 The problem is the longer it takes to get the official confirmation, the more people will decide not to go and then it will come with lower numbers.

  
Completely agree, and that's a shame since it's the first Worlds in South America.  I remember the excitement at 2003 Worlds in Prague and how much of that came from it being the first Worlds in Europe.  Worlds in Colombia definitely has that potential for excitement, especially if it had good turnout of top players from the US and Europe.  I agree that a late announcement will hurt turnout especially if Worlds happens around the traditional July-August timeframe.  We're just a couple days away from March and airfares are already pretty steep.  From Denver to Medellin the cheapest I'm seeing is $650, but that's with a 32 hour leg just one way.  The cheapest itinerary that doesn't involve over a day in transit is $862, and that's still 10 hours one direction and 19 coming back. I can only imagine its more expensive and more flight time for players coming from Europe, Oceania, and Asia.  

Selfishly from my standpoint as a competitor, I wonder how much a lower turnout would improve my odds of doing well if I did go.  Like, if the cost and location prevented 75% of top players from going, would it be worth $1000 to me to go knowing I'd have an easier path to good results?  An interesting question, but a moot one since I almost certainly can't leave the wife and kid for over a week on their own.

 

  
 It looks quite a nice day there even with the snow in the background.

That sums up Colorado pretty well.  It's beautiful here all year round, even when we have "bad" weather.  
Since I don't have new footage since my last post, here's an old favorite of mine.  It's a 2002 video of Chad, a player very ahead of his time in terms of creativity and bothsidedness, edited by Sam Colclough, who was an editor very ahead of his time.

[Tjuggles]

 

 The problem is the longer it takes to get the official confirmation, the more people will decide not to go and then it will come with lower numbers.

  
Completely agree, and that's a shame since it's the first Worlds in South America...We're just a couple days away from March and airfares are already pretty steep.  From Denver to Medellin the cheapest I'm seeing is $650, but that's with a 32 hour leg just one way.  The cheapest itinerary that doesn't involve over a day in transit is $862, and that's still 10 hours one direction and 19 coming back. I can only imagine its more expensive and more flight time for players coming from Europe, Oceania, and Asia.  

A quick search from NZ shows upwards of $2500...

[C-Fan]

A quick search from NZ shows upwards of $2500...

Yikes.  Yeah, if flights are in the $1000-$2500 range for most players outside of South America, I wonder what kind of turnout they'll get.  Somebody like me is probably the best case potential attendee for a tournament like this (i.e. already have a passport, highly motivated to attend a competition like this, comfortable traveling, has financial means to afford the trip, speaks Spanish, etc.) and even I'm probably not going to go.  

Looking at it from the perspective of the city of Medellin, I also can't blame them for dragging their feet on it in light of the uncertainties of the Coronavirus.  Like, I can't imagine they're getting much money or press coverage for hosting Footbag World Champs, and if big sporting events like the summer Olympics are considering cancellation because of fears of coronavirus spread then why should Medellin take on that risk for so little in return?  I don't envy the IFPA in this situation either since they know players need advance notice to make travel plans, and yet the uncertainty around coronavirus makes it impossible to confidently make said plans.

In more positive news, I snuck in a second session in February:

  

This brings me up to three sessions in 2020 and two in February.  Both of my February shreds felt flukily good but I'm not putting any stock in that.  I expect a reversion to the mean at some point, so if my next 2 sessions are bad that wouldn't surprise me.  I need to shift the way I judge my sessions.  In the past I would evaluate my sessions on the difficulty of what I'd hit whereas now I feel the emphasis should be on whether I got a good workout.  Like, even if I have a session where I don't play well, I should still view it as a success just because I made time to play and I got some exercise.

Hopefully I can play sometime this week since the weather looks promising.  I'd like to work on ripsteins, since I still suck at them but I love how they look.  I'd also like to work on my stamina some.  I'm about 5 weeks out from turning 40, and a lot of my 40th birthday shred milestones require more stamina than I currently have.

[boyle]

If you're only getting in a couple of sessions a month, I think the biggest tick is getting the session at all. I read something similar about people going to the gym, and they were saying the biggest part of it is to get in the door and then to go from there.

Hard to say what the spread of Coronavirus will be and what impact it will make. That's it, if something like the Olympics is considering any changes (though they are saying they won't at this stage), then we will have to see what happens. It may make flying very difficult or potentially very expensive.

[C-Fan]

Both of my February shreds felt flukily good but I'm not putting any stock in that.  I expect a reversion to the mean at some point, so if my next 2 sessions are bad that wouldn't surprise me. 

The good news is that I have already got in those 2 sessions!  The "bad" news is that one of the sessions was indeed bad and the other was just OK.  But as Dan pointed out, what should matter to me is the fact that I got in the sessions, as opposed to the relative quality of the shred.  I only played once in January and twice in February, so the fact that I've gotten in two shreds in the first week of March should be cause for celebration even if they weren't great sessions.

Here's video from the first, better session:

I'd like to work on ripsteins, since I still suck at them but I love how they look. 

I actually did hit a ripstein in both of my sessions but in both cases my sealing run wasn't video worthy.  I also haven't been very encouraged by my hit rate on them.  I bet I'm only getting like one ripstein for every 30+ attempts and I don't know that I'm learning much from even the successful attempts.  Still, better than not hitting any I suppose.

In related news, I've come up with a fun video idea for my next minor video project.  It may take me a few sessions to get enough good clips for it, but I'm excited to be working towards a bigger project than just my normal "here's the best 90 seconds from my session" videos.

Hard to say what the spread of Coronavirus will be and what impact it will make. It may make flying very difficult or potentially very expensive.

Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked if Coronavirus ended up actually making flights cheaper, but in other ways more complicated or risky.  Like, I checked flights again today and they all seemed to be a few hundred dollars cheaper than when I checked a couple weeks ago.  That said, I think it's risky to book flights with international layovers (Mexico and Panama) when there's no way of knowing what countries may get hit hard by coronavirus, and consequently how travel restrictions could affect said itineraries.

[boyle]

Yeah, you really need a direct flight to wherever you're going, as you could get held up (even not allowed to return to where you come from). It's a pretty weird one all round. We just got our first confirmed case in Canberra today so we'll see if anything changes on that front.

[Tjuggles]

It's like you aren't even trying:

Screenshot_20200306-201536.png (1.38 MiB) Viewed 8297 times

[C-Fan]

Figure a brief update here is better than no update.

The only update that truly matters, is that my family is safe and healthy now.  Things were a bit scary in mid-March, when I learned a coworker I was sitting next to in a meeting was likely COVID positive.  He was eventually  hospitalized with pneumonia and his doctor said he was COVID positive despite not getting to take a test (due to lack of available tests). Shortly afterward I had a low grade fever and a cough and self isolated from the family for 3 days, then Haley got a 102 fever that didn't break for 3 days so I could no longer self isolate.  Griffin also had a low grade fever and a cough, which concerned us, and we've kept him home from daycare since then.  Thankfully all our fevers broke and we are all doing OK now.  I'm teleworking full time, we're avoiding going out, and we're just doing our best to stay sane.

Despite being one of the craziest and scariest months I can remember, March did have the positive distinction of me playing 4 times.  Two before things got super crazy, then two in the past week once we started adjusting to the new normal.  My focus with the March sessions was to work towards my age 40 goals, and I was doing pretty well with that.  Unfortunately, I broke my only usable 32 panel at the end of yesterday's session.  I got frustrated with a combo and threw my bag onto the concrete in my anger, and it just burst open across multiple panels.  In retrospect, I think my anger was way beyond footbag, I think it was more my body having a primal reaction to the stresses and frustrations of the previous month.  

Either way, it leaves me with no real good bag to play with.  I have a few 12 panels and even dirtbags which are playable enough for me to destress and get exercise, but not good enough for me to hit things like beasts or quad dexes.  I reached out to Ivan and he said he could make me new bags, but that it's crazy to ship things from Germany to the US now so I may have to wait a while before they arrive.  Maybe that's a blessing in disguise.  Maybe playing for a month with dirtbags and working on spins and ducks and flowing is actually better for me than chasing 10 fearless.  Or I might pick up skateboarding again, and see if I can break through some plateaus I always struggled with.  In the big scheme of things, my bag was going to die eventually anyway, and I should be thankful it wasn't something like my shoes breaking or me getting injured.  I can still play with other bags, even if I can't go for my age 40 goals with them.

 

One piece of bittersweet good news, is that I finally received my test models of the Quantum 4s!  I had pretty much given up hope that they'd ever arrive, or that they still wanted me to test them.  It's bittersweet though that they literally arrived the day after my best footbag died.  I'll still try them out with my 12 panels though, and I'll make a video if they let me.  I'm not really sure what to expect, since the insteps look similar to lavers/old quantums, and I've gotten so used to playing with G-Unit insteps.  I'm also curious to see what effect some of the gaudier cosmetic details have on how they play.

Stay safe everybody.  
 

[boyle]

That's awesome you got a pair of the Q's. Would love to see a bit of you in action.

Such a weird time worldwide in the Corona virus world. It's certainly not easy being a parent and trying to work at home.

Yeah I think there's moments of frustration that are way beyond footbag. I was trying to film some entries for that comp Mark was running, and I just found myself getting so frustrated when I couldn't do things.

[Muffinman]

Good to hear you are your family are healthy! It's scary times for sure, especially for those at risk, or with loved ones at risk. Also great that you've been able to keep playing pretty regularly! I'll second Daniel -- would be great to see more shred and also the shoes in action! I will definitely be buying a pair when they're released, even if I don't play footbag in them!

[C-Fan]

Unfortunately, I broke my only usable 32 panel at the end of yesterday's session... it leaves me with no real good bag to play with.  

One silver lining to the lockdown is we're slowly cleaning out the house and organizing old piles of stuff.  As I was clearing out an old box from the office, I found a pretty nice 32!  It had a couple minor holes and you could tell I had patched it up in the past, but it looked a lot more playable than anything else I had.  If I had to guess I think this bag is probably from late 2016, and I took it out of service so I would have time to break in new bags before Worlds 2017.  

I got in a session 2 days ago and contemplated bringing the Q4s with me.  I decided against it since it was windy out, I was feeling a bit stressed out, and I had no idea if my recently rediscovered 32 would hold up.  I didn't want my first session with the Q4s to be under such inauspicious conditions, so I stuck with my G-Units.  When I got to the site, I didn't feel optimistic about how the session would go for all the aforementioned reasons.  Amazingly though, I was able to really control my mental game and avoid frustration throughout.  I was good about not chasing tricks or links, not fixating on anything, not letting the windiness or my stress get to me.  I just focused on breathing and putting adds on the shoes, and the universe rewarded me with a good session.  I didn't hit many hard tricks and I only had one new link (which wasn't as clean as I'd like, but still was a nice surprise that gave me a burst of joy), but I would argue it was one of my greatest sessions just for the fact that I never got frustrated.

 

I think that if I'm going to make it through this pandemic, I need to approach every session with this mindset.  It'll definitely require discipline and work, but I've already seen what the payoff can be. 

 

  
  I have a few 12 panels and even dirtbags which are playable enough for me to destress and get exercise

Even though I found a usable 32 panel I'm thinking maybe I save that bag for after my birthday.  If I use my crappier 12 panel bags in the interim, I should be able to stay in shape and destress and then once I turn 40 in the middle of the month I can use the 32 to try and hit some of my age 40 goals.  Maybe I can use the time to try and repair my 32 better as well.

I'm also thinking about maybe doing some more Vlogs.  If anybody has any random questions or topics they'd like me to cover, let me know here or shoot me a private message.

Stay safe everybody.

[boyle]

Glad you are still getting some "moments". Some good long runs in there, particularly the very first one. You can hear the wind in the background at times - good you could get the mindset right to get into the session. I think that's absolutely the big focus for any of us when we get the chance to play at the moment.

[Asmus]

Watching that made me wanna play. Totally gonna do that tomorrow!

[Tjuggles]

Watching that made me wanna play. Totally gonna do that tomorrow!

Yay!