Packed my bags for worlds yesterday, don`t think I forgot anything. Here`s my packing checklist, maybe others can use it as a template so they don`t forget anything either.
1. Lavers
2. Footbag shorts
3. Footbag socks
4. Routines CD
5. Couple footbags that I like
6. Small towel
7. Footbaggable t-shirts
8. Surprise gift for Erik Chan
9. Band aids/bandage wrap +safety pin
10. Nail clipper
11. Tylenol
I also trimmed my leg hair in the shower yesterday. I`ll take any competitive advantage I can get.
I also trimmed my leg hair in the shower yesterday.
I'm not game enough to do that, especially in the shower I'd end up backing up the drain so bad , that and I don't think there's a razor on this planet that would survive trying to cut my hairy as legs
I notice you said tshirts (plural) so this time ppl can get video of you with different shirts eh (I'm joking )
[hijack]
I need to also remember:
Video camera
Tapes (lots of them)
Batteries for said camera
Power cords and plug adaptor (these are critical)
Laptop (for editing purposes, and various event related doc, and other vids of course)
[/hijack]
Thanks for the reminder list Ken, sorry for hijacking your fanzine, see ya in Montreal
Yeah, so this is just a quickie for you people who couldn't make it, and who want to hear some of whats going on. I will write an actual worlds report later, which reads well. That said, some scattered thoughts.
Team Japan flew in on Saturday night, and as the plane came in over Montreal, we could see huge balls of green and red fire lighting up the sky over the St. Lawrence river. the timing of our flight was such that we saw the fireworks display over the river just as we were landing. I'll never forget it.
Tam tam jam was super fun. So many people I hadn't seen in 2 or 3 years, old friends, and new people who I met through the internet. It was overflowing with shred circles. Finally met Johnny Murphy from New Zealand, whom I had been in e-mail contact with for 4-5 years. He's nuts. Today I saw him hit 9 matadors in a row. He hits alpine matador and ripstein like nothing. Vasek also hits ripstein like nothing. I havent really seen Vasek try hard yet. Every circle he is in he dominates, but I dont think he has really broken a sweat yet. That said, here's some stuff I saw him hit which was cool;
jani-blurry whirl-blury whirl-jani-blurriest-blurriest
scorpions tail swirl.
I havent seen him miss a single symposium flurry all tournament.
frankenstein-double blender-superfly
Ive also seen Vasek try ridiculous moves, miss them, get a rebate, and then do long strings. Im pretty sure hes hit some/all of the crazy moves that he tried and dropped. I saw him come close to symposium flurry where the last legover is a double atw. I also saw him try gyro surging spinning something. He's tried symp whirling ripstein several times as well, and its clear hes hit it.
The finns are consistent and impressive. Yesterday I had several fun sessions in circles where I was the only non-finn, and each time it was a different group of strong finns. I was in a circle with Felix Zenger, Miko lapisto, and Lasse Salmenhaara which was cool. Felix is somewhat injured, but I still saw him hit 4 double spinning clippers in a row. Hes hit more than that though. I asked him to try a triple spinning osis for me and he was right on it. I also saw him hit like 7 or 8 pdx blenders in a row. I also played with tuuka, who was my favorite person to play with at last years worlds, but he has a serious ankle injury. He totally shouldnt be playing, but hes been playing through the pain. He hit one of the coolest tricks of the tournament so far: pixie dark side of the moon. I also played in a circle with jere Vainikka, Toni P, and Jere Linnanen, which was lots of fun. Jere really impressed me. The finn whose style I liked the most though is 15 year old Juho 'super' Marjo (pronounced like Mario). He kinda reminds me of Vasek 2 or 3 years ago, mixed with Felixs style and spins. Finland is representing real well.
My French really sucks.
I've been real proud of Team Japan. They're not being shy at all, and they've been real brave stepping into real hard circles, and staying there trying their hardest, even in intimidating circles. Masa did well in a circle with Honza, Vasek, Penske, and Chad, and then Henmo tagged in for Masa, and did well too. Team japan is having a blast, Im so happy they came with me.
Ive found its really hard to find a good warm-up circle at this tourney. No matter what circle you enter, theres always somebody who is kicking your ass. People are playing so hard and so well. I've been real impressed by Jorden Moir. Great style, lots of variety, and the best grifters and fluxes Ive ever seen.
Id never seen a frantic set before this week, and sebastien did some great stuff with it. Hes also toying with a variant set which is suuuuper cool, but Ill ask him first if he minds me mentioning it.
Watched parts of fourkast last night, and it looks real good. Lots of great ricky, lon, justin, penske footage, and the music is nice. Some good backgrounds too.
Foursquare is happening, but luckily it isnt getting in the way of shredding.
Tomorrow freestyle competition starts, so Im cutting it short. Just wanted to give you all a brief snapshot of how the tourney has been so far.
Oh, and Brad Kaplan's baby is unbearably adorable.
Ryan Mulroney looks like he's not gonna show up at all at this tourney.
Rippin is also MIA.
And I finally got to play Windsor at Marvel Capcom 2. He used Guile/Doom/Morrigan, and I used Magneto/Storm/T.Bonne, and I won all our games. It was a lot of fun.
Ive also been really rocking out eating lots of western foods that I havent had since moving to Japan. Of note: Orange Julius drinks, A and W burgers, Root Beer, Brisk Iced Tea, and Baklava.
wow awesome Ken, thanks heaps for the updates! keep em coming plz!
good to hear Johnny is ripping it up there.. and symp whirling ripstein?!! wtf?! i hope that gets on a video somewhere hehehe
Some more quickies. Freestyle competition started today. Shit was vicious in some pools out there.
There was one pool (in prelims) which had Dexter, Jere Vainikka, Nate Linscott, Ales, Scott Davidson, Juho Marjo, Andrew Coleman, and somebody else really good. It was the pool of death. Nate Linscott did a beautifully choreographed 1 drop routine... and was cut (top 5 out of 8 make it to semis). Shit man, a 1 drop, well done routine, and you dont even make it to semis? jesus. In maybe the most shocking news of the tourney so far, Scott Davidson didnt make the cut to semis. Scott Fucking Davidson didnt make semis, and his routine was pretty good I thought. Andrew Coleman also had a great, low drop routine and got cut, as did Dexter, who had a great routine. Absolute craziness.
The best part of my day was seeing Team Japan represent. And they represented better than I ever thought they could. I was almost moved to tears... you get to really root for your friends. You really want them to do well so badly. So Masa and Yusuke both made it to the intermediate finals. I cant wait to see them do their thing tomorrow. Im add counting for them, so I guess I will see it. Kinda wish I could just relax and watch, but still. In even huger news, Henmo, the only Japanese player going Open, did a spectacular routine and took the 4th seed in his pool, advancing into the semis! So good!
My routine went disastrously, which was massively disappointing for me. My practice went so well ahead of time, and when I got on stage, I had a horrible middle, where I dropped 6(!) times. Ugh. I finished strong though and managed to squeak into the semis with the third seed. Im gonna look at today as having been a good day of practicing my routine, and just gonna pray tonight that some miracle happens and I get a relatively easy pool in the semis. While I feel disappointed with myself because of my routine, the thing that really hurts is that I feel like I let down Team Japan. I know they wont look at it that way, but... anyway. Im proud of how well my team repped today, and Im gonna go into tomorrow as positive as I can. I just want to show everybody that I can do a kickass routine. So I'll give it a shot tomorrow.
Im going to go see a fireworks display tonight, then go to a party, so hopefully I can kick back and relax a bit. I hope people are enjoying these updates. I'm doing them somewhat for my future reference, but I also just thought that people who couldnt make it here would like to know whats going on.
Oh yeah, Vasek won his pool with a 1 drop routine. The drop was on the final move, which was symposium flurry, the first Ive seen him drop this week. Ales, Greg Nelson, and Dylan Fry won their pools as well. And I think Honza won his pool too.
WOOHOO!! johnny made the cut! excellent news for our part of the world heheh... Ken, do u know how Dan Ednie went in his pool,if u have seen him?
thats kind of ironic that Vaska dropped the move u were only just saying he hadnt dropped all tournament... still crazy tho
thanks heaps for the updates, i know i appreciate them so much cos the boards are so quiet at the moment and no-one else is keeping us informed! theyll be pretty handy to look back on in a few months too, thanks dude
I only have a couple minutes on the forum, so I'm sure most of my shit here has already been posted elsewhere. Again, more detailed write up much later.
Womens open results:
1. Carol Wedermeyer
2. Verena Lenneis
3. Sunny Freeman Genz
Mens Open results
1. Vasek
2. Honza
3. Scott Bevier
All 3 were dropless, and I agree with the judging. Honzas choreography was great, and it was a hard routine. I think that if Vasek dropped once, Honza would have taken it. Vasek easily took technical though. There were really no flaws in his routine, whereas Honza had a couple sets where he bailed to toe, and one near-drop.
Shred 30
1. Vasek
2. Honza
3. Felix
4. Brett Campbell from Canada. Something like 24 uniques!
There WAS a sick 3 contest, and Vasek did NOT enter it. Andrew Weglarz organized it, and it was last second and pretty informal. Many players were too tired to hit their combos. I tried to do my combos from TSG2, but I got baily.
Rippin showed up, but I didnt get to play with him. Lon, Ryan, never showed.
Im sticking around Montreal through next Sunday, so I will be at the Tam Tam Jam next Sunday. Looking forward to finally playing with Eli and the Czechs.
Kevin Ritchie is a good dancer.
Vasek finished his semis routine with montage to spinning pdx blender.
I saw Johnny Murphy hit triple atw and swirling dlo.
Jorden Moir is nuts. He hit nemesis this week.
Sorry for the quickie, and sorry if its all been posted before.
still in montreal. typing illegally on a museum computer. my legs are achey from dancing and doing museums this week. party hard. the czechs are playing outdoors as i am typing, will go watch them soon.
just remembered some more things from worlds.
saw sebastien hit a beta frenzy. so beta frantic set is a reality.
i remember justin dale hitting diving drifter real easily in midstring. like, the 15th move of 30 or so.
saw Vasek start a 40 or 50 contact string with double blender to food. then, a few tricks into the string, he hit the other food to food. then, later in the string, he hit spinning pdx blender to his strong food. craziness. also saw him start a run with jani to jani, and then in the same string hit high stepping butterfly back to back, then hit the other side. in the same string he also hit high stepping same whirl. gah. swirling vortex.
Im going to try and play at the tam tam jam tomorrow, since I havent really played with the czechs yet. Im worried about reinjuring my ligament, but its also the last session at worlds, and I want to leave with no bullets in my gun so to speak. ill pretty all this up later.
ive drunk so much orange julius, ive gotten 2 free drinks using the card.
gotta run before the guards tell me to stop
wow shit thats awesome! 40-50 contacts with all that hardcore stuff.... i read that 40 contacts is like, standard for vasek now swirling vortex is sooo massive!! liam from nz hit swirling torque the other day
i cant believe they are all still shredding after like, 2 weeks! do the czechs ever take a day off?!
what is beta frantic set? if its ok to ask here...
at yacines now, i leave way early in the morning. gonna go out hard. played at the tam tams today, had a ton of fun. I took the week after worlds off to heal up, but i did so much walking and dancing, that my body was still feeling kinda tired. got to play with yax, honza, charles from paris, and seb for a nice chunk of time. missed playing with vasek because a friend showed up and I played frisbee with her. saw vasek hit gyro barroque to ripstein, and he tried gyro barroque out of it, but thed the dexes. still, like whoa. sebastien hit pdx masacre for the first time, which was cool. i played pretty well, had lots of fun. i did a long run out of diving parkwalk-fog-paradon swirl, did a pdx torque, bedwetter, ps whirl, and some other fives. saw yacine hit mobius bsos really easily and real prettily. honza hit some real styly links, but i am exhausted and dont remember so well. just real glad i could get in a final tam tam jam, and i am overjoyed that I made it through the vacation without reinjuring my leg. gotta go drink a trois pistoles, and stop being antisocial. more later,
ken
david wrote:I was just sitting here surfing and my mom looks over my shoulder. I had to jab down the down key real quick so she wouldn't see that topic title and question me about what kind of site I was going on.
)
swirling vortex is sooo massive!! liam from nz hit swirling torque the other day