1:12 am... I have no idea what day it is.
Historium: I started getting into footbag last september because of my cousin. He's been doing footbag for like... 10 years and I always enjoyed watching him play. Eventually, I ordered a dirty juice facile footbag and started learning the stalls and the dexterities. 2 months later I bought leather lavers at the local sportchek and then everything came real fast. I think a month or two later I met Jared and Kevin and they taught me the way of the in-to-out. Balance was soon acquired. I find footbag addictive... there's always tricks to be hit and every trick is a new rush.
Tricksy: I can hit most two adds. I'm a strong tiltless player and I like the bothsided flow. Notables: plo, smear, smudge, dimwalk, parkwalk, ducking butterfly/mirage/legover, infinity
Immediate Goals: (In overlapping order)
- pixie shuffle
- spinning anything
- 3-add bails solidified
- stepping set
- fairy/atomic set
- ???
praestigiae?
Rory's Journey
Rory's Journey
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
2:09am... is it morning or night? Technicalities aside, I think it's both.
Story: Terday... I searched for a job... A summer job to be exact. Where better to search than the BIGGEST mall in the world? Or so I thought... Anyways, when I arrived at the mall I flimmed out and ended up watching spiderman-2 instead of doing job search. So after the movie I felt guilty and decided to rush the stores kamikaze style. I applied at a computer store and an arcade in less than 10 minutes. Feeling I was on a role, I did not think twice when I saw a "help wanted" sign on some store near the foodcourt. I pulled a resume out of my holster and marched right in, not even bothering to look at the name of the store or what they were actually selling. The manager took the resume and proceeded to ask if I wanted an interview on the spot. I was ill-prepared. However, this obstacle did not deter me and I dutifully agreed. About 4 horrible answered questions into the interview the manager asked me... "so what do you like to do?".
<disclaimer>THIS IS WHERE IT GETS WEIRD</disclaimer>
Without thinking I blurted out, "FOOTBAG!".
Interviewer: "Oh really? Like hackey sack?"
Me: "Yeah, i'm trying to get a club started up!"
Interviewer: "Do you have a hackey sack on you?"
Me: "Yes. A special one!" I proceed to pull out my mr. sandbag and pass it to the manager. At this point a little voice starts whispering something into my ear. Sounded maybe like "danger! danger!", but I can't be certain and I was much too bewildered to think any better of it.
Interviewer: "Wow this is nice!" he says, as he does a bunch of toe stalls and outside stalls.
Me:
(wtf?) "You play footbag?" ... and i walked right into this one.
Interviewer: "Yeah, I played a lot back in high school. Hackey sack and smoke WEED. What else was there to do?"
Me: (crap.) At this point, I was absolutely horrified. "eeee. aaaaah. I'm not into that" (lame) Damn stereotypes!
The manager gave me back my footbag and then pulled out this yoyo and started doing a bunch of tricks. I was shockified. It was one of those horribly surreal moments where looking back you can't believe it actually happened. Anyways... this manager called in another manager and they double teamed me with questions for another 15 minutes. I was so confused by the end of it I'm pretty sure I confessed to all the outstanding murders and crimes in the municipal area. Needless to say, I don't think I got the job... Thank god.
Story: Terday... I searched for a job... A summer job to be exact. Where better to search than the BIGGEST mall in the world? Or so I thought... Anyways, when I arrived at the mall I flimmed out and ended up watching spiderman-2 instead of doing job search. So after the movie I felt guilty and decided to rush the stores kamikaze style. I applied at a computer store and an arcade in less than 10 minutes. Feeling I was on a role, I did not think twice when I saw a "help wanted" sign on some store near the foodcourt. I pulled a resume out of my holster and marched right in, not even bothering to look at the name of the store or what they were actually selling. The manager took the resume and proceeded to ask if I wanted an interview on the spot. I was ill-prepared. However, this obstacle did not deter me and I dutifully agreed. About 4 horrible answered questions into the interview the manager asked me... "so what do you like to do?".
<disclaimer>THIS IS WHERE IT GETS WEIRD</disclaimer>
Without thinking I blurted out, "FOOTBAG!".
Interviewer: "Oh really? Like hackey sack?"
Me: "Yeah, i'm trying to get a club started up!"
Interviewer: "Do you have a hackey sack on you?"
Me: "Yes. A special one!" I proceed to pull out my mr. sandbag and pass it to the manager. At this point a little voice starts whispering something into my ear. Sounded maybe like "danger! danger!", but I can't be certain and I was much too bewildered to think any better of it.
Interviewer: "Wow this is nice!" he says, as he does a bunch of toe stalls and outside stalls.
Me:
(wtf?) "You play footbag?" ... and i walked right into this one.Interviewer: "Yeah, I played a lot back in high school. Hackey sack and smoke WEED. What else was there to do?"
Me: (crap.) At this point, I was absolutely horrified. "eeee. aaaaah. I'm not into that" (lame) Damn stereotypes!
The manager gave me back my footbag and then pulled out this yoyo and started doing a bunch of tricks. I was shockified. It was one of those horribly surreal moments where looking back you can't believe it actually happened. Anyways... this manager called in another manager and they double teamed me with questions for another 15 minutes. I was so confused by the end of it I'm pretty sure I confessed to all the outstanding murders and crimes in the municipal area. Needless to say, I don't think I got the job... Thank god.
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
9:54pm...
Today Kevin came over and we made a bit of a video. I mostly played while the 30 second clips were uploading. Some neat stuff today.
Progress: osis bsos... I'm still mostly doing ss pickups, but today I hit my first osis > mirage. :O. Also hit a 16 contact string with 5 pixie moves (including smear and plo bsos ). Spinning is also coming along... spinning toe bsos
My foam katana's also came in today. My mom and I played on the driveway. It was going pretty even until she wacked me across the face. The face is not a target.
Hopefully, they'll be some more backyard thunder after the stitches heal.
Today Kevin came over and we made a bit of a video. I mostly played while the 30 second clips were uploading. Some neat stuff today.
Progress: osis bsos... I'm still mostly doing ss pickups, but today I hit my first osis > mirage. :O. Also hit a 16 contact string with 5 pixie moves (including smear and plo bsos ). Spinning is also coming along... spinning toe bsos
My foam katana's also came in today. My mom and I played on the driveway. It was going pretty even until she wacked me across the face. The face is not a target.
Hopefully, they'll be some more backyard thunder after the stitches heal. Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
10:02pm...
There was a footbag session outside of the futureshop today. The crowds aren't that great, but it's better than kicking outside of moxie's. It wasn't that hot so I had a pretty decent sesh. The concrete is starting to kill my shins though. I'm hoping the new polo brisbane's will help with that... Also I wrote up a bit of a conclusion to that job search fiasco. genießen?
Story Update: Yeah, so those people actually called me back and asked if I wanted to do a trial evaluation thingy... meaning I would work for a day and then they would decide if they wanted to keep me. I think they must have been pretty desperate. Anyways, I agreed and tried it out the next day... The job ended up being selling these cheap hong kong knockoff video game consoles (76000 games in 1
). The pay was commission and the consoles were being sold at a little kiosk in the middle of mall traffic. Ugh.. Also the price of the consoles was enough that in order to sell them you had to be really pushy to the point of making some of the customers feel uncomfortable. The experience I had that day was quite negative. I repeatedly observed my "sales associates" mix truth with complete lies in attempts to make a sale. Hmm... Well it was a new experience and I guess I learned somethings from it: That i'm not comfortable making other people feel uncomfortable... and ergo commission sales is not for me. Life is study!
Progress: I hit osis bsos again today. Also managed to do a rep of the butterfly > pdx mirage drill. Woohoo! The Bops are coming along...
. I hit stepping toe as well bsos during a tiltless string... Which reminds me: Tiltless strings are getting longer and more varied . For tricks, I hit pixie ss illusion and toe ripwalk... only strong side though. 
There was a footbag session outside of the futureshop today. The crowds aren't that great, but it's better than kicking outside of moxie's. It wasn't that hot so I had a pretty decent sesh. The concrete is starting to kill my shins though. I'm hoping the new polo brisbane's will help with that... Also I wrote up a bit of a conclusion to that job search fiasco. genießen?
Story Update: Yeah, so those people actually called me back and asked if I wanted to do a trial evaluation thingy... meaning I would work for a day and then they would decide if they wanted to keep me. I think they must have been pretty desperate. Anyways, I agreed and tried it out the next day... The job ended up being selling these cheap hong kong knockoff video game consoles (76000 games in 1
). The pay was commission and the consoles were being sold at a little kiosk in the middle of mall traffic. Ugh.. Also the price of the consoles was enough that in order to sell them you had to be really pushy to the point of making some of the customers feel uncomfortable. The experience I had that day was quite negative. I repeatedly observed my "sales associates" mix truth with complete lies in attempts to make a sale. Hmm... Well it was a new experience and I guess I learned somethings from it: That i'm not comfortable making other people feel uncomfortable... and ergo commission sales is not for me. Life is study! Progress: I hit osis bsos again today. Also managed to do a rep of the butterfly > pdx mirage drill. Woohoo! The Bops are coming along...
. I hit stepping toe as well bsos during a tiltless string... Which reminds me: Tiltless strings are getting longer and more varied . For tricks, I hit pixie ss illusion and toe ripwalk... only strong side though. Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
2:11 am ... It's a thursday I think. I just got home from a wild night 
. To make things even better... there's a thunderstorm going on outside... Gorgeous... I love the smell of rain.
Anyways, the day started off pretty good. I had a school session this morning where I figured out what was messing up some of my clipper moves. Then I went and looked for some more jobs. It's weird... it's practically a job looking for a job... .
Ridiculoso: Hmm, so my cousin calls me up late in the afternoon and asks if I want to shred at this local festival called "street performers". I'm totally game. Expectations are huge. There's always tons of people and it would be a great oppurtunity to try and spread the sport. 2 hours later we were there and ready for some mad shredding. We found a neat area right on a corner where there was some grass and lots of people. Prime spot right between two venues, so there was a lot of traffic... I started busting huge (huge for me
) and it was looking to be a great sesh. We even started to get a bit of a crowd going (5-6 people). Unfortunately, the whole thing was ruined when 5 minutes later we were very rudely asked to leave the event. The reason for this you might wonder? Well, I left my hat sitting sideways against my backpack (I always keep my watch and wallet in there), and some kid, encouraged by their parents lifted the hat right side up and put in a tooney. This is despite my cousin and I telling the parents that we could not accept money because we didn't have a busking license. After the incident my cousin quickly moved the hat under my backpack so as to avoid any further altercations. However, less than a minute later security showed up and sternly told us we had to stop. We explained the situation, and the security guy responded by telling us we had to leave anyways because we were stealing customers from the performers that had booked venues. I was totally shocked. The last place I thought i'de ever be kicked out of. I mean it's called "street performers"!? Ridiculous...
Getting Warmer: After that stupidity, I was quite angry. It turned out to be an OK night though. We found another spot down the road a bit outside of the festival. The shred spot was a street corner in front of an ice cream store. My friend Brittany showed up about an hour later to shred. She's the one who bought the pink and white lavers off ebay. Tonight I finally got around to modifying them... and I must say, they were the sweetest shoes I've ever seen. If my feet were even just one size smaller I would have kept them for myself.
Brit's toe tricks also improved++. It's great to see her progress and learn new stuff so quickly. Excited++. Anyways, I had a pretty good session. It's great to perform in front of people. It was actually kind of difficult to leave (it was starting to get dark and hard to see the bag) because as I was trying to pack up, people that were watching (fans ) kept asking me to do more tricks. Apparently the crowd favorite was ducking butterfly... or as the crowd liked to call it "leperchaun" .
Midnight Shred: After the ice cream store Brit and I went back to her house to play some video games/juggle/shred. The juggling was actually quite new to me. She just taught me how to do 3 balls tonight... it's actually a lot of fun. She also has a dance studio in her basement which is great for shredding. That's where we eventually ended up. She hit A LOT of neat things. NOTABLES: sole stall consistently, toe > inside > toe > outside drill, 9 alternating toe stalls, atw, illusion kick (on 2nd try ever!), and for me the most amazing... dragon delay. She has quite a bit of flexibility which I think probably comes from her dancing. Exciting++. Overall (including the beautiful thunderstorm), a very enjoyable evening. After all that shredding though, i'm quite exhausted... gonna head to bed...
Progress: 11 consecutive infinities, as well as infinity > infinity > osis and infinity > infinity > pdx mirage both sides. I'm quite pleased with my progress on the bails today. Almost ready for regular use in strings. Speaking of which, the strings are going quite well. Lots of long tiltless stuff with both sided pixie stuff thrown in for fun. I also hit symp mirage both sides in separate strings (First time hitting flip symp mirage in a string, 3rd time hitting it ever!) woohoo!
. To make things even better... there's a thunderstorm going on outside... Gorgeous... I love the smell of rain.Anyways, the day started off pretty good. I had a school session this morning where I figured out what was messing up some of my clipper moves. Then I went and looked for some more jobs. It's weird... it's practically a job looking for a job...
.Ridiculoso: Hmm, so my cousin calls me up late in the afternoon and asks if I want to shred at this local festival called "street performers". I'm totally game. Expectations are huge. There's always tons of people and it would be a great oppurtunity to try and spread the sport. 2 hours later we were there and ready for some mad shredding. We found a neat area right on a corner where there was some grass and lots of people. Prime spot right between two venues, so there was a lot of traffic... I started busting huge (huge for me
) and it was looking to be a great sesh. We even started to get a bit of a crowd going (5-6 people). Unfortunately, the whole thing was ruined when 5 minutes later we were very rudely asked to leave the event. The reason for this you might wonder? Well, I left my hat sitting sideways against my backpack (I always keep my watch and wallet in there), and some kid, encouraged by their parents lifted the hat right side up and put in a tooney. This is despite my cousin and I telling the parents that we could not accept money because we didn't have a busking license. After the incident my cousin quickly moved the hat under my backpack so as to avoid any further altercations. However, less than a minute later security showed up and sternly told us we had to stop. We explained the situation, and the security guy responded by telling us we had to leave anyways because we were stealing customers from the performers that had booked venues. I was totally shocked. The last place I thought i'de ever be kicked out of. I mean it's called "street performers"!? Ridiculous... Getting Warmer: After that stupidity, I was quite angry. It turned out to be an OK night though. We found another spot down the road a bit outside of the festival. The shred spot was a street corner in front of an ice cream store. My friend Brittany showed up about an hour later to shred. She's the one who bought the pink and white lavers off ebay. Tonight I finally got around to modifying them... and I must say, they were the sweetest shoes I've ever seen. If my feet were even just one size smaller I would have kept them for myself.
Brit's toe tricks also improved++. It's great to see her progress and learn new stuff so quickly. Excited++. Anyways, I had a pretty good session. It's great to perform in front of people. It was actually kind of difficult to leave (it was starting to get dark and hard to see the bag) because as I was trying to pack up, people that were watching (fans ) kept asking me to do more tricks. Apparently the crowd favorite was ducking butterfly... or as the crowd liked to call it "leperchaun" . Midnight Shred: After the ice cream store Brit and I went back to her house to play some video games/juggle/shred. The juggling was actually quite new to me. She just taught me how to do 3 balls tonight... it's actually a lot of fun. She also has a dance studio in her basement which is great for shredding. That's where we eventually ended up
. She hit A LOT of neat things. NOTABLES: sole stall consistently, toe > inside > toe > outside drill, 9 alternating toe stalls, atw, illusion kick (on 2nd try ever!), and for me the most amazing... dragon delay. She has quite a bit of flexibility which I think probably comes from her dancing. Exciting++. Overall (including the beautiful thunderstorm), a very enjoyable evening. After all that shredding though, i'm quite exhausted... gonna head to bed... Progress: 11 consecutive infinities, as well as infinity > infinity > osis and infinity > infinity > pdx mirage both sides. I'm quite pleased with my progress on the bails today. Almost ready for regular use in strings. Speaking of which, the strings are going quite well. Lots of long tiltless stuff with both sided pixie stuff thrown in for fun. I also hit symp mirage both sides in separate strings (First time hitting flip symp mirage in a string, 3rd time hitting it ever!) woohoo!
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
1:12 am... I think it's a friday.
I just drank a tall glass of iced tea. Tastes so good. Now i'm feeling kinda antsy though. Iced tea was a bad idea, but I can't stop drinking it... I have difficulties with the caffeine.
Brittersweet: I had another session with Brit in her shred studio tonight. I really like the sound of the feet tapping against the hardwood. Brit hit some really cool stuff including legover > legover, legover > atw, and atw delayed on insides... bothsides . Unfortunately, the session came to an early end not long after I tried to teach her downtime mirages. The problem being her hip started hurting/popped out?. I really hate that. The same thing happened to both Geoff and I when we first started learning it. Took about a week or two to go away... hmm... I'm going to do some investigation and see if I can't find any solution to this problem for beginners (strengthening stretches?). Anyways, I feel really bad. . I hope she gets better soon.
Mesonola: During the session I mostly just practised the BOPs. They're slowly getting better and more consistent, but I find it frustrating to practise them. Brit also requested a ripwalk... which I'de never hit/tried before. I ended up hitting it for her on my third attempt. :O I'm not sure how clean it was though.
Sets/Uptime Dexterities: Dum di dum.This is a infospeel on how I learn sets:
1) Practise motion without bag
2) Practise motion with bag (after set: just letting it drop/hand catch/toe stall)
3) Once I can hit the set fairly consistantly on BOTHSIDES (25-50% of the time) -> start trying basic tricks out of the set (i.e pixie legover, atomic butterfly, ect)
4) After hitting a couple tricks (bothsides!) -> start trying to hit the set out of basic 2 or 3 add moves (i.e legover > smear, mirage > atom smasher
5) Once the set tricks can be done consistantly on BOTHSIDES midstring (25-50% of the time), start doing the set tricks into and out of each other: i.e (tap > tap, or plo > plo)
6) Mad shuffle mid string!
Setopolis: So with the above in mind... here's my status on some of the sets i've been learning:
pixie- This is currently my best set. I'm probably in transition from step 5 to step 6. Smears/dimwalks/plo's now appear quite frequently bsos in my regular strings.
fairy- My worst set.
. I started learning this one before I'de come up with the above plan. The only trick I've hit is fairy ss pickup and only on one side. Flipside is horrible. I'de say stuck on step 2 or 3.
atomic- Coming along quite nicely. Just about ready for step 3.
quantum- I really like quantum a lot... So far i've hit quantum butterfly on strongside and also had it off my foot on flipside. Right now i'm upping it a notch and progressing my quantum sets from step 3 to step 4.
stepping- Meh... I have a love/hate relationship with this set. Stuck on step 2.
lalala, I have the sudden urge to play tennis...
[/b]
I just drank a tall glass of iced tea. Tastes so good. Now i'm feeling kinda antsy though. Iced tea was a bad idea, but I can't stop drinking it... I have difficulties with the caffeine.
Brittersweet: I had another session with Brit in her shred studio tonight. I really like the sound of the feet tapping against the hardwood. Brit hit some really cool stuff including legover > legover, legover > atw, and atw delayed on insides... bothsides
. Unfortunately, the session came to an early end not long after I tried to teach her downtime mirages. The problem being her hip started hurting/popped out?. I really hate that. The same thing happened to both Geoff and I when we first started learning it. Took about a week or two to go away... hmm... I'm going to do some investigation and see if I can't find any solution to this problem for beginners (strengthening stretches?). Anyways, I feel really bad. . I hope she gets better soon. Mesonola: During the session I mostly just practised the BOPs. They're slowly getting better and more consistent, but I find it frustrating to practise them. Brit also requested a ripwalk... which I'de never hit/tried before. I ended up hitting it for her on my third attempt. :O I'm not sure how clean it was though.
Sets/Uptime Dexterities: Dum di dum.This is a infospeel on how I learn sets:
1) Practise motion without bag
2) Practise motion with bag (after set: just letting it drop/hand catch/toe stall)
3) Once I can hit the set fairly consistantly on BOTHSIDES (25-50% of the time) -> start trying basic tricks out of the set (i.e pixie legover, atomic butterfly, ect)
4) After hitting a couple tricks (bothsides!) -> start trying to hit the set out of basic 2 or 3 add moves (i.e legover > smear, mirage > atom smasher
5) Once the set tricks can be done consistantly on BOTHSIDES midstring (25-50% of the time), start doing the set tricks into and out of each other: i.e (tap > tap, or plo > plo)
6) Mad shuffle mid string!
Setopolis: So with the above in mind... here's my status on some of the sets i've been learning:
pixie- This is currently my best set. I'm probably in transition from step 5 to step 6. Smears/dimwalks/plo's now appear quite frequently bsos in my regular strings.
fairy- My worst set.
. I started learning this one before I'de come up with the above plan. The only trick I've hit is fairy ss pickup and only on one side. Flipside is horrible. I'de say stuck on step 2 or 3.atomic- Coming along quite nicely. Just about ready for step 3.
quantum- I really like quantum a lot... So far i've hit quantum butterfly on strongside and also had it off my foot on flipside. Right now i'm upping it a notch and progressing my quantum sets from step 3 to step 4.
stepping- Meh... I have a love/hate relationship with this set. Stuck on step 2.
lalala, I have the sudden urge to play tennis...
[/b]
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
-
innersmile
- Multidex Master
- Posts: 314
- Joined: 08 Jul 2004 04:22
Check out this book, Pavel is the man when it comes to stretching and strengthening the right muscles.Unfortunately, the session came to an early end not long after I tried to teach her downtime mirages. The problem being her hip started hurting/popped out?. I really hate that. The same thing happened to both Geoff and I when we first started learning it. Took about a week or two to go away... hmm... I'm going to do some investigation and see if I can't find any solution to this problem for beginners (strengthening stretches?).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... 18-1949667
It's the way forward... hope it helps
Greg
Have love; will travel
Have love; will travel
1:04 am ... Strange day. I don't feel like explaining.
Progress: Practised the BOPs some more. The pdx mirage is starting to get much better on flipside. I did 5 reps of the Butterfly > pdx mirage drill. woohoo. More exciting: spinning toe > same spinning toe and I did it both sides. I also hit spinning toe bsos a bunch of times. Now i'm very dizzy...
Ralph Lauren: I finally got around to modifying the polo brisbane's. I was contemplating just leaving the leather alone, but it ended up being WAY too slippery, especially for toe sets. So I cut off the toe leather. Turns out I'm the best leather cutter ever . It went so well that I want to cut off the inside leather out too. I'll post pictures and a full review in the other thread sometime later this week.
Ichiban time:
Progress: Practised the BOPs some more. The pdx mirage is starting to get much better on flipside. I did 5 reps of the Butterfly > pdx mirage drill. woohoo. More exciting: spinning toe > same spinning toe and I did it both sides. I also hit spinning toe bsos a bunch of times. Now i'm very dizzy...
Ralph Lauren: I finally got around to modifying the polo brisbane's. I was contemplating just leaving the leather alone, but it ended up being WAY too slippery, especially for toe sets. So I cut off the toe leather. Turns out I'm the best leather cutter ever
. It went so well that I want to cut off the inside leather out too. I'll post pictures and a full review in the other thread sometime later this week. Ichiban time:
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
2:06 am... what a torrential evening...
Folk Fest: Well the evening started pretty good... My friend Geoff called me around 4pm and asked if I wanted to goto Folk Fest. Entrance fee was a bit steep at $40, but hey, whatever... it's FOLK FEST MAN! If you don't know what folk fest is, it's a festival with folkey kinds of music and tons of folkey peoples. Perfect atmosphere for Footbag. After stocking up on canday and fruitopia we headed downtown. We ended up parking at this parkade about 20 minutes walking distance from the festival (Geoff had this funny card that let us get into this private upstairs parking lot). When we got there we lucked out because some guy was scalping some tickets... so we got them for cheaper. And yes it was awesome. Nothing beats playing footbag to LIVE music. Some neat stuff was hit and some good music was enjoyed. Hawksley Workman was definately my fav... so entertaining. I want to buy the cd and make a footbag routine to one of his songs. Anyways, time goes by and everyone is enjoying themselves. Pretty soon it's 10:30pm. At this time a humongous storm rolls in. This being an outdoor festival everyone scrambles to pack up and leave. The wind was going nuts and thunderclouds could be seen off in the distance. It was going to be a big one. Geoff and I weren't too worried though. We enjoy a challenge. Accordingly, we took our time packing up and by the time we left the festival it was lightly raining. The light show was incredible. Lightning was flashing across the entire sky against the backdrop of the downtown highrises... Beautiful. Apparently, there were actually tornado warnings out... but Geoff and I were oblivious. Nothing could ruin our night. The rain picked up a bit, but that was ok. We were still quite dry. Eventually, we reached the downtown area and found this huge puddle on a corner... Having had too much ridiculous pudding, we thought it would be cool to jump into the huge puddle... in modified lavers. Worst idea ever. The water seeps in the through the sides of the toe and fills the shoe. Instant regret. To make things worse... about 5 minutes later we realized we were completely lost. Neither of us could remember the address of the carpark and all the buildings looked the same. By this time we were both quite wet. An hour and a half more of walking in the heavy rain and we were VERY wet. Finally, we found the carpark and it was like.... euphoria. We took the elevator up to where the car was parked and promptly stripped down to our boxers. Geoff turned the car on and blasted the heater onto full. As we changed into our less drenched clothes (the damp change of clothes we had brought in our soaked backpacks), we enjoyed listening to "Light my Fire" by the Doors. In fact we even danced around a little in the empty parkade. We were both a little hysterical by this time. 20 minutes later and we were home. Chicken noodle soup never tasted so good. I still can't believe it actually happened... I get the chills just thinking about it.
Progress: BOPs are doing pretty good. I can now do infinities and pdx mirages pretty consistently. Osis still needs work though. Set's are coming along. Tonight I hit stepping clipper bothsides and fairy ss clipper. Pixie stuff midstring is getting more and more common too. I actually had phoenix off my foot again tonight... first/only attempt since my last video. Spinning is getting better as well. Spinning toes galore. A neat tidbit: I hit my best/cleanest datw for a bunch of circle kickers at the folk fest. Geoff also hit diving butterfly for them: They were impressed++.
Folk Fest: Well the evening started pretty good... My friend Geoff called me around 4pm and asked if I wanted to goto Folk Fest. Entrance fee was a bit steep at $40, but hey, whatever... it's FOLK FEST MAN! If you don't know what folk fest is, it's a festival with folkey kinds of music and tons of folkey peoples. Perfect atmosphere for Footbag. After stocking up on canday and fruitopia we headed downtown. We ended up parking at this parkade about 20 minutes walking distance from the festival (Geoff had this funny card that let us get into this private upstairs parking lot
). When we got there we lucked out because some guy was scalping some tickets... so we got them for cheaper. And yes it was awesome. Nothing beats playing footbag to LIVE music. Some neat stuff was hit and some good music was enjoyed. Hawksley Workman was definately my fav... so entertaining. I want to buy the cd and make a footbag routine to one of his songs. Anyways, time goes by and everyone is enjoying themselves. Pretty soon it's 10:30pm. At this time a humongous storm rolls in. This being an outdoor festival everyone scrambles to pack up and leave. The wind was going nuts and thunderclouds could be seen off in the distance. It was going to be a big one. Geoff and I weren't too worried though. We enjoy a challenge. Accordingly, we took our time packing up and by the time we left the festival it was lightly raining. The light show was incredible. Lightning was flashing across the entire sky against the backdrop of the downtown highrises... Beautiful. Apparently, there were actually tornado warnings out... but Geoff and I were oblivious. Nothing could ruin our night. The rain picked up a bit, but that was ok. We were still quite dry. Eventually, we reached the downtown area and found this huge puddle on a corner... Having had too much ridiculous pudding, we thought it would be cool to jump into the huge puddle... in modified lavers. Worst idea ever. The water seeps in the through the sides of the toe and fills the shoe. Instant regret. To make things worse... about 5 minutes later we realized we were completely lost. Neither of us could remember the address of the carpark and all the buildings looked the same. By this time we were both quite wet. An hour and a half more of walking in the heavy rain and we were VERY wet. Finally, we found the carpark and it was like.... euphoria. We took the elevator up to where the car was parked and promptly stripped down to our boxers. Geoff turned the car on and blasted the heater onto full. As we changed into our less drenched clothes (the damp change of clothes we had brought in our soaked backpacks), we enjoyed listening to "Light my Fire" by the Doors. In fact we even danced around a little in the empty parkade. We were both a little hysterical by this time. 20 minutes later and we were home. Chicken noodle soup never tasted so good. I still can't believe it actually happened... I get the chills just thinking about it. Progress: BOPs are doing pretty good. I can now do infinities and pdx mirages pretty consistently. Osis still needs work though. Set's are coming along. Tonight I hit stepping clipper bothsides and fairy ss clipper. Pixie stuff midstring is getting more and more common too. I actually had phoenix off my foot again tonight... first/only attempt since my last video. Spinning is getting better as well. Spinning toes galore
. A neat tidbit: I hit my best/cleanest datw for a bunch of circle kickers at the folk fest. Geoff also hit diving butterfly for them: They were impressed++.Rory "Tophat" Dawson
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
11:11pm ... t - 10 hours till lift off.
I started university this week. Seems pretty neat. Greek mythology is my favorite class. I'm pulling a hackrifice tommorow and missing 2 of my classes...
I'm so pumped. I'm off to winnipeg!
I started university this week. Seems pretty neat. Greek mythology is my favorite class. I'm pulling a hackrifice tommorow and missing 2 of my classes...
I'm so pumped. I'm off to winnipeg!
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
11:48pm... I figured out whirls today. I also figured out how to post an avatar.
Kevin and I did some planning for the edmonton jam, so that was kind of exciting. We've also been looking into getting some space for a weekly session at a high school gym. I wrote up a proposal and got it forwarded to the principle. Hopefully, it works out. *crosses toes*.
Tiddly winks
Kevin and I did some planning for the edmonton jam, so that was kind of exciting. We've also been looking into getting some space for a weekly session at a high school gym. I wrote up a proposal and got it forwarded to the principle. Hopefully, it works out. *crosses toes*.
Tiddly winks
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
11:33pm... demo DEMON! I did a DEMO tonight at the YMCA.
It was so exciting. It's hard to even describe the feeling. The setup was like this: Byrin, Ben, Kevin, Andrew and I upstairs in this nifty dance studio. A wicked sound system to boot. We listened to Todd PERFECT FOR FOOTBAG BPM Edwards. Unfortunately, it was kinda sucky at first cause all the kids were downstairs playing basketball. Eventually, a couple kids came upstairs and saw what we were doing. Then they went and got their friends and pretty soon we were rolling. Circles everywhere. There were some stupid boys who started to throw around netbags, but they eventually went away when they realized we weren't going to play their game. We found some kids who were really interested though. I must have taught about 8 kids to do toe stalls...bothsides. It's like crack for their feet. You give them a little to get them started, then they're hooked for life. Some crazy tricks were also hit by the PROS. We're the PROS. I'm the PROS . I hit muted atomic ss osis first try. Felt GOOD. The best part though was teaching the kids. It is so exciting to see them hit new tricks. (sometimes I was more excited than they were!). Legovers and ATW being hit in their first session is just insane. Overall, a wicked evening. And......... the YMCA asked us to come again back next week! cha ching! I'm stoked!
I did a DEMO tonight at the YMCA. It was so exciting. It's hard to even describe the feeling. The setup was like this: Byrin, Ben, Kevin, Andrew and I upstairs in this nifty dance studio. A wicked sound system to boot. We listened to Todd PERFECT FOR FOOTBAG BPM Edwards. Unfortunately, it was kinda sucky at first cause all the kids were downstairs playing basketball. Eventually, a couple kids came upstairs and saw what we were doing. Then they went and got their friends and pretty soon we were rolling. Circles everywhere. There were some stupid boys who started to throw around netbags, but they eventually went away when they realized we weren't going to play their game. We found some kids who were really interested though. I must have taught about 8 kids to do toe stalls...bothsides. It's like crack for their feet. You give them a little to get them started, then they're hooked for life. Some crazy tricks were also hit by the PROS. We're the PROS. I'm the PROS
. I hit muted atomic ss osis first try. Felt GOOD. The best part though was teaching the kids. It is so exciting to see them hit new tricks. (sometimes I was more excited than they were!). Legovers and ATW being hit in their first session is just insane. Overall, a wicked evening. And......... the YMCA asked us to come again back next week! cha ching! I'm stoked!Rory "Tophat" Dawson
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
Yeah Rory!
I have great news, though. My father says that I can hit the YMCA on Fridays (with next Friday being the exception) if I have a place to crash. He comes in Saturday mornings to do some training and he can totally pick me up from there. It works!!
It was a great evening man! I look forward to doing it more with you guys!
Wooooooooo!
I have great news, though. My father says that I can hit the YMCA on Fridays (with next Friday being the exception
) if I have a place to crash. He comes in Saturday mornings to do some training and he can totally pick me up from there. It works!!It was a great evening man! I look forward to doing it more with you guys!
Wooooooooo!
- Byrin Wylie
ShrEdmonton
ShrEdmonton
rory i know exsactly what ur saying, and thats my new saying, its like crack for your feet. bc thats the best explanation for it. its true, give some one a little talk about how great it is, and explane some simple stuff to them and try not to get to much in to concepts bc thats where they get convused. teach them some basics.. and its on next thing u know they are geting lavers and a bag and welll from there we know how it gose
great stuff rory, keep that up.
great stuff rory, keep that up.
1:18am....... fuzzy windows
Well, first year university completely consumed my life. After much pain and effort I managed to complete my first year of engineering with somewhat decent grades. It totally sucked up all my time. I was always busy living from one assignment to the next.
I still played footbag though. I played for at least half an hour a night, every day, through both semesters. Even the nights before exams and midterms. I spent my entire friday nights at the YMCA teaching footbag sometimes after 7am-5pm schooldays. Did my marks suffer? It's hard to say. Did I improve at all at footbag? I like to think that I did.
It's summer now. Even after school I can't seem to relax. I always have to be doing something. I'm on my 2nd job already. My first was a computer sales rep. Now I'm a space camp instructor. Last week I worked 9 1/2 hours every day. I play footbag a couple times a week with other people, but I don't really have solo school sessions anymore. If I don't slot up my free time with activities, I usually just crash and fall asleep right after dinner. I always need to be distracted.
Well, first year university completely consumed my life. After much pain and effort I managed to complete my first year of engineering with somewhat decent grades. It totally sucked up all my time. I was always busy living from one assignment to the next.
I still played footbag though. I played for at least half an hour a night, every day, through both semesters. Even the nights before exams and midterms. I spent my entire friday nights at the YMCA teaching footbag sometimes after 7am-5pm schooldays. Did my marks suffer? It's hard to say. Did I improve at all at footbag? I like to think that I did.
It's summer now. Even after school I can't seem to relax. I always have to be doing something. I'm on my 2nd job already. My first was a computer sales rep. Now I'm a space camp instructor. Last week I worked 9 1/2 hours every day. I play footbag a couple times a week with other people, but I don't really have solo school sessions anymore. If I don't slot up my free time with activities, I usually just crash and fall asleep right after dinner. I always need to be distracted.
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
9:37pm... First solo session in a while
I just hit ingyro toe bs, spinning clipper bs, and toe inspinning clipper all in one run. Yippee! It's a thunderstorm during a sunset and I'm going to go play outside in my underpants.
I just hit ingyro toe bs, spinning clipper bs, and toe inspinning clipper all in one run. Yippee! It's a thunderstorm during a sunset and I'm going to go play outside in my underpants.
Rory "Tophat" Dawson
---
"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"
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"You can ask a stranger, my legs is fast and danger!"