Wasabi: M(s)+J = BLAST

[Wasabi]

Some good, some bad. Some painful.

• I prescribed some contact lenses. Well, seeing that my favorite pair of glasses broke right on the bridge I thought it was time. I also prescribed some glasses to back up my contact lenses usage. This is going to make my shred much more enjoyable I believe, as I can n try spinning my body and work on much more intensive moves without worrying that my glasses will fall off.
• Went for a check-up at my doctor. It seems that I'm in pretty fit condition, and I lost about 13 pounds (whoo!). Go footbag. He prescribed me with some Claritin-D and Astelin for my nasal congestion and cough. They seem to be working out as well. I was also prescribed some cream as well... Just a note, it seems I have to abstain from any "physical relationships" for at least 6-8 weeks. I'll be getting my blood and urine test results in two weeks, with further info on how to fully treat my body's condition.
• Neo Smasher! Then it rained. Hitting that move felt good. I hit it pretty clean too! I like Neo alot, but I don't know if it'll be a good move to use mid-string. I need to work on my pixies more often.

It was 11:35 in the afternoon of 7/24, and I entered the bathroom with nervous concentration. This was it. I had to take this first step to prove that I couldn't let things get in my way for a better life. A cold sweat stremed down the left of my temple, and my breathing quaked under the pressure. I slowly looked at myself in the mirror. Extremely tanned with the long, outdated trim covering my face. I was shirtless, so the sight of the ugly trucker's tan was obvious to the naked eye. My unbuckled pair of jeans just dangled around my hips to cover my nether regions. No, my pubic hair wasn't showing since I also had my shred shorts on as well.

"You can do this Waylon. Don't pussy out!" I thought. I bit my lower lip as I looked down into the lifeless sink, brimming with the glow of the afternoon sun from the nearby window. "Take it to the next level!"

"I know..." as I mumbled to myself. Quite frankly, this was somewhat the scariest thing I had to do in my life. What if something irreversible happened to me? What will I do? The risk just felt too high for my liking, but I had to do it. It was the only way, and if I didn't do it now, I would only regret not doing it at all.

I twisted the cap off. Slowly. Anxiously. I patiently awaited the monster that I had to deal with in the next few minutes. The action of just turning the cap felt like I was enclosed in an infinite space, where only the sound of my nearby clock ticking down the seconds was the only thing to transcend through my thoughts. Finally, the cap was off, and I looked inside to find the beast I had to conquer.

Contact lenses.

Covered in ReNu formula, I added some more of that liquid wonder into the palm of my hand, and transferred the small lense into the small pool. At first touch, it was a small and flexible piece of plastic that seemed like nothing at all. In fact, the first thought in my mind as I was cleaning it was that it can be used for good bag filler (what a kicker!). Joking aside, though, I gently placed the lense into my finger tip, and began with my left eye.

At first, I had some trouble actually placing it in my eye because of my eyelashes. However, with the advice from my eye doctor (or whatever you call them, I'm too lazy to look up the proper title) like a Jedi Master, I final succeeded in placing it into the left eye. In my opinion, it was lucky try. The true obstacle was with my right eye. I just couldn't get the lense into my eye. Countless begging and yelling at my failed attempts only came to fruitless results. My agitation left me broken and sloppy, dropping the lense into unforeseen horrors of the bathroom. The many washes that lense went through grew in too many for me to count.

Suddenly, my grandmama yelled out, "Lunchtime!" at a time like this. Uneasy and slightly stressed, I retorted "Bitch, this isn't the time! I'm battling against my life here against a contact lens here!!!" Not understanding my premise, she roared that I should do it later and eat up first. "You only say that because you just want me to suffer! I hate you!!!"

SLAM! came from a nearby door. Some stomping and loud mumbling drew away from the battlefield.

...

With some time for me to catch my breath, I began to work on my right eye with the contact lens again. Yes, such an opponent to go up against me for so long is worthy for me to note (hence this blog post), but like many great warriors I must give my all to obliterate my opposition. The last I checked my clock, an hour had gone by. I was near exhaustion and even questioned my own volition to confront this menace. Why was I doing this? Why hasn't the lens attach it's stupid self into my right retna? Why can't Clinton save Lieberman? I don't know! I just don't know!

... Until finally, my painstaking battle turned into success. Bittersweet success. My just desserts seemed like someone spit on it when my right eye flared up into the most intense pain. I slumped into the sink only to give out soundless cries of warrant torture. In fact, the sight of myself and my anguish was truly like I turned into the beast itself that afternoon. However, in reality, I just placed the contact lens on the wrong side in my eye. Ouch.

It took some time for me to take it out, flip, and put it back in, but I think it went alright. Some moviestar crying ensued a la eyedrops, and with 1:45 on the dial everything worked well. The battle against this monstrous demon will be forever remembered. Or not.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

In other news, I'm going to update my passport info in the next coming days, and I'm near to finishing the 3 6-panels that Josh Raye asked for. I'm going to buy some sead beads off of him as well so that I can try them out. The next order of business will be with Pengpeng, and I'll be shipping money to her for some patching tape. Oh, and I got Sick'03, finally. Go footbag!

[Wasabi]

There's been a question that has been popping in my head lately.

"How much do I want it?"

How much do I want to get into footbag? How much time and effort do I want to put into excelling to the next level? How much pain and mistakes am I willing to put up with in recognizing the flaws in my style? Those are the questions that have truly plagued my mind whenever I sit down to rest or whenever I pass the bag on to a fellow shredder. Even sitting down on this computer, coughing up phlegm like there's no tomorrow makes me turn to this harsh revelation. I recently bought Sick'03 and watched it like a cult fanatic, fully admiring some of the best players in that year of 2003. I want to go up to that level. But how much do I want it, is the real question.

Yesterday night, there was a person (a newb to the club and freestyle) that wanted to learn how to butterfly and use his flip clipper. Out of the blue and outside of my element, the first thing I asked him is, "how much do you really want to learn it?" Like usual, he pretty much hesitated and gave a generic answer and nod. I felt like a jackass for asking so boldly, but it felt right to say those words. Right now, as I look into footbag and even thumbing down the basic components to a person's style and reading their choice of moves per string, I see that I should raise the ante for myself. I need to hit longer strings, drill the basics, concentrate much more on double dexes, and as always have fun as well. I'm not happy with my current level, but I don't feel shitty about it. "Uncomfortable" sounds like the gist of it.

During the end of this week and next week, I'm going to find a solo shred spot that I can enjoy playing at. I think there's a local park I can hang at around my area, without any on-lookers to pester me. I want a serious solo-shred session, not a place where any unsuspecting person can come up to me and ask if they want to "hack." I get enough of that in Union Square. I believe this will do me some good. I'm in need to drill the fundamentals, and lately I've only attempted in hitting double dexy moves. Bruce is right and is a good spotter on my shred. I concentrate way too much on big moves than the simple ones to set a stable ground on my style. If I ever want to get good, I need to practice.

In fact, there's no secret to getting good. No, getting high on weed or pain killers isn't the thing. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of athletes in footbag that express a lot of pain, sweat, and blood into this sport just to get good. It's a hard thing to acknowledge, but it's an actual fact. I think I just came to that realization from watching Sick'03 and reading a few footblogs. Matt Cross, David Clavens, Willie Digges, Ken Somolinos, Stan Sagalovskiy, Jorden Moir, and a few others come to mind. I look up to all of them in their style of play, and hope to go up to their level. It seems like it's time.

Anyway, enough of that. I've hit a few Neo Smashers, and hopefully go for a few Neo Beaters or Neo Swirls. Though I won't be happy about hitting those moves in general, I really want to hit to basics sometime soon. My pixies aren't going the way I want them to, and I think my clippers are suffering as well. I'm going to try using pick-ups so that I don't bail into toes and whatever. Clip mirage seems pretty good as well, as I want to get some grasp on a stepping set soon. Since Daryl Genz (or whomever sent me my Sick'03 DVD) gave me an Freedom's instruction booklet, I'll be looking into that for guidance. And give the Mr. Sandbag to somebody who might want it.

And most important of all, I want to hit moves bsos. I still remember the advice that Jorden gave to the footbag community in one post. It's not just acknowledging the use of your flipside, but truly grasping the idea of bothsidedness that matters a lot. Also, he mentioned that drops are important, as it's a little reminder on why you dropped on that one move. Correct it, embrace it.

Oh yeah, I stitched up Josh Raye's bags, and I'm now working on Pengpeng's. I'm going to stop trading with people because ol' Wasabi needs to make some bang with his buck (somehow, his last 'bang' got him, uh, sick). Maybe a For Sale page might come up with my name on it. Or I'll just post bags up on B&E and announce them. A few free bags to some close East Coasters that I'd want to give to, but that's about it. I have enough bags as it is, and this isn't Pokemon where I want to "Collect 'em all!". I get enough from watching that show with my baby nephew.

[Wasabi]

I had an awesome shred on Saturday. I felt that I had used most of my energy in my shred that day, though it wasn't too great in terms of advancement. Still, I felt my stamina for that day was exceptionally great. These hot days are awesome! I just wish there was more wind coming into the North East.

I love using Neos these days. Like Chris Dean told me, it's just so easy to use when set from an inside delay. He's so right! I feel like I'm using less and less energy making the set and dex that the mucle memory for the move is completely embedded in me. I just need to mirage and butterfly, like, 1 second slower after the dex because I keep hitting the bag with my dexing knee. Neo Smashers and Neo Beaters here I come! I'm also obsessed with how pixies swirl is done. It's a very styley move, but I need to work on my pixies so that I can have full control of them. I have to bsos it to have a solid bs game I believe. Oh, and I'm also going to try for 30+ legovers for a good training regimen.

I think I found out why my clippers suck so much these days. I'm too lazy on my crank for them, and I need to stretch them much more. I've been working too much on my toe game to really focus on clippers. I'm going to try to link Clip mirages bsos as a practice run for Wednesday's shred, and try to incorpoate pickups as well. That way, I can have a solid grasp on proper mirage form, clipper form, stepping form, and whirl form I think.

And from all of this, I have a faint memory of what Dave Clavens was talking about in terms of footbag. I think it goes "It's not how much you control the bag's general destination, but how you control your own movements around the bag that makes for a complete shred style." Sure, it's a bit hard for me to take into context this philosophical point he made, but I'm getting there I believe. At least my string length seems to be a bit more consistent and creative these days.

I've been watching Sick '03 and Fourkast a lot these days. Sick '03 for the shred, and Fourkast for the music (though the shred is really good too). Sometimes, when I look at Ricky Moran shredding, I just think "his physique looks just like Willy Digges!" I miss that guy a lot, and hopefully I can shred with him in Funtastiks or Kickass 2. I'm sure he surpassed Ricky in terms of shred, but the footage is 2003 I guess. It's a possibility. Also, Lon Smith, Peter Irish, and Red Husted shred styles are so great to watch. It inspires me to play much harder these days. Not to say that Jim Penske, Ken Somolinos, Ryan Mulroney, Ales Zelinka and Jan Weber aren't up there, but they get enough props for their style from the footbag community. You're still awesome, Ken.

I finished up Pengpeng's bag, which was Rose Quartz and Amatista. That will be #21. #22 will be extremely awesome imho. I'm experimenting on an extraminimini template that may be revolutionary (meaning it could be a shredworthy facile bag and not a bouncy little ball). I've been obsessing over Sunil's extraminimini and how well it plays, I just want to try it out. The stitching seems very easy as well, and it's not labor intensive, so it could go into my choice of bags to make whenever I sell! I love stitching! Oh yeah, it's made with Tulip hexes and Colonial Red pents (Tulip because it would be adequate for the bag's size that it won't pill like crazy if taken with good care). After #22, I'm going to make bags that will be sold to the online community and maybe to the next few footbag tourneys (random colors of my choosing).

[Wasabi]

Short write-up.

I had a small session with my extramini. It's doing pretty well, and I'm a bit surprised that the Tulip is still holding up pretty well. I guess the lack of surface area due to its small size makes for less pilling than expected. I think it's a bit overfilled, but I just couldn't waste any of the lead shot I was blessed with.

Oh yeah, sorry brinard, I had to take out the lead in your bag and replace it with steel. You know how bag making goes. My steel shot size 7 is a bit big from you lead shot... 8-9? It's pretty small, but much more denser than my steel shot.

Anyway, I'm pleased with the bag. I'm thinking about putting this product out to sell as well. I just need to get a smaller steel and lead shot to use. I have no problems stalling the bag, and it's so easy to dex with. Hit Neo Smasher with it pretty easy (not sure if it was clean since I sidestepped a bit). The only slight problem I can tell is that the size of the bag might not pique the interests of most shredders, and I guess you'll have to be fairly accurate with it. Maybe I'll stitch one up for the Cleaver or present it as a sponsor bag at Kickass 2.

I have to make a bag for Bruce Dole of NYFA, and I have one last tester to try out my bags. I hope to finish by this weekend, then I can start making bags for Funtastiks.

[james_dean]

Sounds cool Waylon. I'd like to try out that extra mini mini sometime, I lurve small bags did you see the 14p I made that turned out ridiculously small?

[Wasabi]

I feel kind of horrible ever since I went and got a check-up from my doctor. He says that my nutrition is pretty bad, that I eat way too many starchy foods. For playing footbag, I thought I would spend all of what I eat in my shreds. I guess I should control what I eat. Also, my cholesterol levels are pretty high, but that's hereditary. And, it seems I'm allergic to EVERYTHING. Wtf?

I have to admit, when I came in to have them take my blood and urine for testing, I was pretty damn sick. Congested, coughing - the works. I guess it gave a false reading for my levels of immunities. I mean, I have a dog. How could I be allergic? However, everything else is pretty much blunt and factual. The Doc even noted that when I reach 30, I might end up with problem that a 50 year old man would have. Ouch.

So, I'm on the pills. Super mega ultra pure fish oil pills that were skillfilly hunted, skinned, drained and manufacture by the finest eskimos. Mult-V for Iron since I haven't eaten my meatsies and beans in a while. Toot toot, here comes the gravy train! Oh, and Metamucil because I need the fiber and take out my cholesterol count. Thanks Mom and Dad for your love of salty foods and seafood. Oh, and I'm on a strict diet of balancing my starches for the next 3 months (I have to cut down to 30% of the starches that I usually took). It's a hard habit because EVERY food in America and Chinese Cuisine in my household has STARCH in it.

But enough of that.

I'm beginning to understand how to relax my uptime sets now. On Saturday's shred, I kind of pushed too much effort into forcing the bag to my desired setting than to really give it a nice, clear and comfortable way to pass my feet. I watched some shred of Franck Remy and Karim Daouk to help me out on that. Just now, I footed pixie ducking mirage and neo ducking mirage. I wasn't wearing my G-units for these tricks, but just plain old sandals. Epic!

I'm also thinking I'm getting much more creative in my shred. I should also work on string length too. I mean, from toe mirage, I try to go Neo immediately and hit a nice move from there and then go for solid tiltless shred. It's nice thing to note, but I really should get serious in my training. I'm sure other shredders would hate to see me being so lazy (and I hate myself for doing so too).

I took my Red Lavers out of retirement. At first they hurt my feet from a certain part in the right shoe that would make my pinky toe rub around and get all numb and stuff, but I think I fixied it. Plus, i modded the Spencos insole inside to even out my balance just a bit. It's nice to get them out for shred, but I should seriously train in G-units. I shouldn't cramp out my playing style. I don't know.

Made Bruce's bag, #23, Colonial Red pents and Country Cream hexes. New template, with 35% bleed hole length. I like it a lot, and it makes sticking a straw inside much more comfortable I believe. It'll be a pretty good floppy bag for him. Too bad he strained his thigh sometime ago. Hope he gets better so that he can shred this choice bag.

I'm working on #24 for Nasty Nate. It's a mini moneybag. I'm sure he'll like it, and he'll be my last tester I think. Or the Cleaver. They're both great candidates to test bags out.

I really can't wait for Funtastiks. It'll be a great change of mood to see all of my shred buddies from the East, West and Midwest. I'm thinking about stitching a ton of bags, and I definitely have the volition to do it.

Oh yeah, I found a super cool pair of G-units on ebay. I hope they fit me.

[Wasabi]

Let's see...

Wednesday's shred was alright. Nothing good and productive from my runs, but nothing bad as well. I felt really exhausted, however (maybe it's from my drastic change in diet). I hit a really clean Neo beater with a cuddlebaggy, that's it. An asian girl wanted to 'hack' with me but I wasn't in the mood to please. A few things came to mind when she came:

• I'm shitty exhausted.
• Oh god, I'm sweaty as hell!
• I can't see well due to the dripping sweat.
• Girl, what's with the ghetto get-up?
• Wait, I'm getting my vision back... Are you 16?
• Get your black friends away from screaming my ears out!!!

She and her friends left in 10 minutes. Am I reluctant to pass this chance? Maybe, but there were a lot of things that I couldn't take at the moment. Especially screaming black girls. *sass*

Went drinking on Thursday night for this girl's 22nd birthday. It went alright, at least for the first 3 hours. I just found the bar, the karaoke music, my college friends - incredibly boring for some reason. I just couldn't associate with them and their wily behaviors. I guess being a hermit for stitching and dedicating myself to footbag for the Spring and Summer really changed my interests and view of my world. I was just swaying my finger on a lit candle while gulping down a beer at the bar, and that was it. I wanted to play some pool, but apparently the pool table was broken. There was beer pong, but there was a long waiting list for me to begin playing. So I left the place with some friends, vomitted at 59th St. station in a trash can, and finally took a cab home at around 1:30 am. I was pretty much drinking 4 hours straight at that bar, with a slice of pizza to keep me from getting too shitfaced (not like that helped at all). Ugh. If I wasn't so bored, I wouldn't have drunk beyond my own limit. Oh well.

#24 is complete, but I have a lot of other things that's keeping me from getting it shipped out. I'm sure Nasty is having a blast at Portland, so I think I'll ship his tester bag on Monday. I'm in the works of #25, which is an extramini with Princess Purple pents and Animal Print hexes. I got the idea from Josiah Digges, and I just wanted to see how it would look if it shrunk down just a bit. Hawt is all that comes to mind. After all of this, I think I'll just keep it brief on my stitching progress, as I have to stitch for Funtastiks. I can't keep track on all of the bags I make. Not like Matt Cross at least.

Later footblog.

edit: Oh yeah, I just got these sweet G-units on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=016

I just got them on Thursday. They fit a bit snug on the lacing portion of the shoe, but I don't feel any discomfort from wearing them.
My toes don't feel cramped - in fact, they feel pretty easy with some space to breathe. I usually wear a 8-8.5 size G-unit. I'm going to bring this shoe to DC on Funtastiks to see if it fits him comfortably.

[Wasabi]

Saturday shred felt pretty epic. Great weather, great turnout (7-8 people) and we all had a fun time shredding. I didn't want to make today a schooling session, so I just had fun. Worked on Neo ss flying toe, some Soul Stealers (I can't seem to work the x-body sole...), and alot of Neo smashers and beaters mid-string. I think I should drop by to the local park tomorrow and start schooling on my weaknesses, and focus more on string length.

A cool but stupid idea came to my head when I was working on my Neo Smashers, though. "Neo Quantum." I'm definitely not at the level to start working on that move, but the conventions of that uptime move sounds awesome and reasonable. Maybe I should ask the RFA crew about it. Chris Dean, Paul Agostinelli, and maybe Mike Anello and Aric McIntosh come to mind, but I'm not sure if they hit Neos in their repertoire of moves (their quantums are SAUCE though!). Whatever.

My beloved #6 finally got a hole in her. This is the bag that was made with Paizely and Saffron. It was a pretty huge hole, and nearly blew out the whole hex it was put in. I'm awaiting assistance from Pengpeng and her lovely patching tape. I need my fix badly! But, I'm thinking about making a replacement bag in #6's place with Country Cream and Marmalade (but with Marmalade, it tends to turn brownish with some dirt on it). I don't know. I really need to get a very vibrant orange, like Saffron or Sunny Sienna. I don't care about stiffness or thickness, because they all break-in the same for me.

Finished #25. It's just how I expected it. I have to agree with Brian Dennis that steel shot isn't the best filler for some applications, and this is it. There's not much density with the filler and just takes up too much volume for extraminis. If I can get some size 7/8/9 lead shot, that would be awesome. I just looked up some shops around my area that *might* have what I'm lookin for, but it's a long shot at most. I really like the type of shot that Josh Raye places in his bags, but I'm uncertain what it really is. It seems like lead size 8.

To finish up this blog post, there were some asian girls that sat in front of us while we were playing. Maybe they were attracted to Bruce's buff bod. Or maybe my cool cool hair that covered half my face when I played. Or maybe they're actually interested in footbag? Who knows, they just giggled.

I'm going to send out Nate's stuff tomorrow, and begin stitching after my shred for Funtastiks. If I can get a ride down there, that would be awesome. I don't like being cramped in a bus without any pit stops.

[Wasabi]

I didn't have a good solo session on Monday at the park, since I only played for about an hour. I just didn't feel as pumped as I wanted to. My Neos suffered alot in that session, so, I thought I'll just warm up to basics. Worked on clippers bsos. Tried my best to get 30 Legovers a la lighteningbolt. Only managed 8. Ouch. I really need to work on my motivation. Pretty much in the whole session, I was working on my flipside for everything basic. I didn't accomplish much, but I have to keep up being optomistic on my form. Maybe I'll have to put down my HenryG shrine and dust off/pray to Jorden Moir a bit before every session.

Y'know, I think I mentioned that I made a list of potential 2-3 add moves that I can work with to help me at a potential tiltless level. I even remember writing down that list. I guess I kind of neglected it since I feel that my originality in strings are going down. I really should work on pdx. moves much more, since I feel that my strings often feel too rigid. I still can't get the turn right for osises as well. And I'm going to Funtastiks and Kickass2? Wtf Wayway!? Get your mojo going!

However, my day planning for those two events are going well, I guess. Labor Day weekend is an easy 3 day holiday, but Kickass 2 is a bit harder for me, I think. I'm the type of guy that doesn't like to miss a day of class unless it's allowed (since I won't know shit the next day of class), but October seems a bit early in the semester to shrug off that kind of mishap. Still, I need to sort out the hours for my trip to Rochester as a safe bet, and then transfer with the RFA to go to Ontario. Then there's the trip back. Tom wants me to get some NYFAlites to go to Kickass2, but 2 things come to mind:

• They'll be kind of drained from Funtastiks '06.
• They won't be interested in making a trip to Canada for a footbag event. Especially when it's not a holiday weekend.

The same thing happened for GRASS, but it was situated at Rochester. I was the only NYFA member that showed up to that event. Plus, Hugh Martin has been MIA from footbag for some time, though i have heard he had taken part in a footbag documentary with NYFA that I apparently missed. I just feel confused on how to work things out here.

Session on Wednesday night. Weather looks promising for the coming of summer's end. Will work alot on flipside and pdx.

[Wasabi]

Wednesday night was taken over by some teens hacking at Union Square. So, like most freestylers with Restless Leg Syndrome, I went and played some hacky. It was fun impressing them with some basic moves and whatever, but I just didn't feel hyped up enough to actually display my true potential. My strings were really short this time, and I just felt that I made much improvement. I did see some old friends in NYFA past and present, but that was it. Some kid wanted to play me on Kills/Elimination, but I guess he was a bit intimidated by my love for freestyle more. Plus, they were kind of brutal and immature in their behavior, so I had a ton of unwarranted violent kicking surrounding me. Not the types that I want to leave any of my bags to, y'know.

So, Wayway has been taking his time stitching for Funtastiks. I think I'll be selling 6-7 bags tops. No extraminis will be made, as I don't have a lot of adequate filler for that type of size right now. Plus, I doubt the community is ready in using extraminis (it's more likely a novelty item, but they're totally shreddable I can guarantee that). I haven't made the trip to go to any ammunition shops just yet, because I've been partially taking care of my nephew and taking up a few orders from NYFA.

As in the earlier blog posts, my #6 recently died. I can just feel the Paizely melting away little by little. The only noticeable hole is the huge one that was made on Saturday's shred, so I'm waiting up on patching tape to at least repair it a bit. As super floppy the bag was, it felt likely that I had to make a new replacement bag - with sharper playability even. I made a regular sized footbag (not sure/don't care about the number now) with Dark Jade pents and Animal Print hexes with tighter gather, 46.8 grams (for some reason, I'm drawn to that weight ratio, which is weird). I'm keeping her, and I named her "Jade East." Those who know what I mean by the name, don't ask. It just felt like it had to have that name, because she's oh-so sexy.

But yeah, a lot of bags have been made, so I lost count. Plus, my text messaging service seems to have shut down like I requested 3-4 months ago, so it's doubtful that I'll post any pictures of these bags on modified. Anyone going to Funtastiks will see my bags, but as for the rest of the online community, tough luck. Unless you refer to me a good digital camera with amazing resolution, clarity, and is compact enough for travel (and affordable), let me know. It's about time for me to get one, and I'm pretty much a huge dunce when it comes to these types of purchases. Help a brotha out.

Oh, and as for shred, I've been working on eclipses and illusions lately. More bsos training tomorrow on Saturday's shred.

[Wasabi]

Nothing much from today's session for me. I was pretty late for shred, therefore I got my just desserts (only playing for little over an hour. I hit my first infinity of the month, so I should really push my flip clipper much more. Legover training bsos, clipper bsos. No Illusion or eclipses because I wanted to school simpler tricks. I did finally hand-seal Neo beater (I've been running into some poor luck and form on that move), but I doubt it was really clean. Neo Smashers super clean! I just need to calm my set whenever I want to nail that move.

Some players showed up to Union Square. There was a teen that had played before I showed up - I forgot his name. He was pretty good, and hit Dada before he left. He wore those Adidas shoes with the shell toe, which he just laced up the toes and whatever. Another one showed up later. Caleb Abraham would know him. He's a newbie kicker, and his name is Mike. He definitely has the right stuff, and wore Rod Lavers. That was pretty cool. I miss Caleb alot, and hope to see him and Mike at Funtastiks.

I was wearing some pretty tight clothing today too, as I wanted to restrict my game just a bit. I wore the ECFC "Dragon" shirt sized small, and Adidas soccer shorts that was somewhat baggy and constrictive on my crotch. Though the session was short, I felt a bit pleased. It was only toward the end of the session that I was tiring myself out and pouring sweat all over.

Anyway, short write-up. I'm going to stitch some bags now. NYFA will be getting first dibs on my Funtastiks' batch.

[Wasabi]

New NYFA member came by, named "PJ." He's a pretty good player, using his strong side a lot. His mirages feel a bit stiff (I can't judge well because my mirages turn out to be unclean or thin sometimes), but his butterflies and osis is solid. It was good playing with him.

Huge highlight I want to note!

Stan came to play today, and he nailed Barroque SUPER CLEAN. Me and Bruce couldn't stop laughing for a good 5-8 minutes! I mean, how could you follow up with that? Stan is super cool, and I simply couldn't think otherwise. Just... WOW!

I wore my red Lavers for today's session. It definitely felt refreshing to play in them again. Traction felt a bit different due to my G-unit wearing experience, but it was easily manageable. I felt that my clippers still felt really solid from the transition, since G6s have a slight clipper rail to them. I don't see why some people complain (or maybe it's due to my experience with playing with really rolly bags when I play in my G-units). In any case, wearing Lavers definitely felt comfortable for me. If I can get them in a men size 8 and all green that would be super cool. What would be the conversion for a men size 8 for the all green women sized Lavers anyway? Just a thought. Maybe I should ask Pengpeng about that conversion ratio.

Pixies felt pretty good for me, but not solid yet. I tend to drag the bag sometimes, and most of the time the set isn't solid. I need to school on them more, and for flip pixie so that I can get a solid foundation going. Neos are alright, but I need to limit myself more on that set due to lower back and hip pains. Plus, like Stan mentioned "Nuclears are cooler." I agree, but I should really clean up my atomics first. i haven't used that set in awhile.

Toward the end of shred, I tried doing some eclipses which felt really good. Ken David says I do them really high, but in essence I just wanted to incorporate the "flying" component to the move. Like, I remember watching the move on flipsider's old archive back then and how Andrew Grant hit it. It was super high. Ken Somolinos in Sick'03 was also fairly high. Tom Mosher in the Manfred shred video explained the height value on his flying toes, as did Jorden Moir in his Lethal Weapon vid (I think that was the one?). Is it good for me to go that high, or should I limit the height so that I can help limit the amount of energy I use for that move? It's something I've been pondering tonight.

I think I'm going to stick to using Lavers for these few days of shred before Funtastiks. I might bring my G-units for that event to help ease up my clipper game, but that's about it. I definitely need a half/full size smaller to feel comfortable in playing in Goonitz.

Back to stitching!

[Wasabi]

Played some hack with some guys from central NJ that stopped by Union Square. I was walking around Chinatown and decided to walk up to the usual shred spot after my appointment with the optomotrist (contact lenses). So anyway, I showed off some freestyle and blew them away with some simple strings and tricks in my repertoire. They had some rolly crochet bag they bought from "Element" (th fashion store for the hip and styley... right). I was wearing baggy nylon pants folded up to shin length to limit my playing. The result? I ripped it apart after a huge outside kick, exposing my groin. Good thing I had my shred shorts on.

Some highlights (with a rolly crochet!):

-pixie x-bod sole
-neo beater
-neo smasher x2
-legover x8
-lo x2>mirage>neo beater>smear>fairy...drop.
-neo-ducking clipper
-eclipse

That's about it. I wasn't too serious about shredding because of the rolly crochet bag. However, I'm SO FREAKIN' STOKED about showing up to Funtastiks! That was the one thing in my mind in this quasi-session. I want to shred to my heart's content there! I'm a bit behind on my set bag quota for the event, but I'm definitely planning on selling bags that weekend.

That is, until my ride, Ted Fritsch, called to tell me that they plan on renting a car to the site where I need to shell out $50 plus gas if I want to get to Harrisburg. That might be a problem if I want to bunk in on some floor space where the fee may be a bit steep. But, Jon Nagela shows a lot of promise in that he's going to have a ton of people staying over in his hotel room(s). I won't have to pay so much. And with bag sales, that would be keen. I just want to make at least some profit for the bags I'm selling. Maybe I'll get a ride with Drew Martin, but he's also kind of iffy on who's driving down with him. And I don't want to pester Jon Schneider about a ride (and I don't want to take a train ride to rendevous at NJ with him). It's a bit junky right now, but the week's still early. Who knows? Maybe I'll be more than lucky to get to Harrisburg.

From what I'm reading on the roster at the Funtastiks topic, it looks freakin's epic. Can't wait!!!!!!!

[Wasabi]

Forgot to note some further things involving footbag from the last post. I have to say that Drew Martin is one of most gracious freestylers I've known in footbag. I'm sure this isn't something great or spectacular for anyone to receive, but I got a retired Lonn bag from him! I don't remember the date it was stitched, probably East Coast from last year or the year before, but it's pretty big (like Carol bag big) and way cool. I'm planning on being resourceful with it by using whatever filler that is left inside, and dissect it for stitching purposes.

He also gave me two choice Lonn bags to help him replace the filler. What an honor! One of them busted a stitch and had the old Lonn type filler with small steel shot (I think), plastic pellets and stones. Had to fix that bag and replace the filler to give this choice Lonn some more life. The other Lonn was the Willow/Saffron/Navy(?) 10/10 blur pattern deal, and the filler inside was rusting! Eww!!! Had to replace all of it. For both bags i had to do a huge shampoo/conditioner wash down to remove whatever rust and grimy stuff that was left on the facile, which took quite a long time. I think I did a good job, since they're both super soft now. I just need the patching tape from Peng to finish the job. If not, hopefully I can mooch some off from people at Funtastiks.

Drew Martin is the man. Not only this, he even saved my cell-phone charger from the NYJ up at Rochester. And he gave me some great tips in footbag. You're a great guy, Drew. This blog post is for you.

And as for Lonn, you're one of my biggest idols in stitching. Funtastiks, my first serious tournament that brought every person in East Coast into Pennsylvania, is the first place that I've heard the biggest name in stitching other than Richie Abshire. I can still feel the amazement when I took a good look at several Lonn bags at that tournament. Nobody stitches like you, and I hope to reach up to your expertise sometime soon.

I'm so stoked about everything! It's raining right now, but it's fucking sunshine in this room as I'm typing this blog entry! Footbag say whaaaaaat!!

[C-Fan]

I'm glad to hear you are being conscientious in your approach to getting better at footbag. I met Pascal the other day, and he definitely does seem like grade A nyfa. I am planning a jam in Ithaca on November 10-12, so let NYFA know. Oh, I maaaaaaaaaay have some free time to play on the weekend of October 1st, cause my sister is getting married in Jersey, so I will be in the area.

[Wasabi]

Ithaca sounds pretty cool, and I'm sure NYFA will still have enough energy to play footbag around the month of November. Global warming, right? Anyway, I hope the big names (Bruce, Stan, Drew, Ted?) will be influenced enough to drive up there.

I'll hold your word to that, Ken. You can be pretty unpredictable sometimes, but that's your style. I hope you have the time of your life at your sister's wedding.

[crazylegs32]

You should have pestered Jonathan S. for a ride!! It was good to see you again Waylon, shred on.

[Wasabi]

Funtastiks '06 write-up: Expect a long description.

*Friday 9.1.2006

I had to take my classes for that day, so the only thing in my mind was how badass it would be to show up to Funtastiks. I could expect that it would be a fun weekend. The classes were from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm, so it was a pretty long wait. After that, I took a quick bite of food and went straight to the rendevous point that Ted Fritsch and his hottie Edna wanted me to go. Everything was going smoothly I guess. Ted had to finish up on a few things before we could head out, but it was alright. I think it was 4:30 pm where we officially headed out.

Edna had guessed we would show up to the Holiday Inn host hotel within 2 hours. I told Chris Miller that when he called me. We were pretty much on the road for a little more than 4 hours, but we finally made it. I met Chris Miller, Ben Roscoe and Taishi (!!!) at the recreational/pool/jacuzzi area of the hotel. The most badass part of showing up to see them there was when Chris Miller was stitching, and there was a whole variety of bags there, sitting on a small table! That was a good memory, so thanks guys. Ben Roscoe and Chris Miller took pictures of all of the bags that were displayed there, so that was super fun.

I still had my car legs, and my vision sucks when it comes to dark places, so my game wasn't so great. We were playing with an Aiden bag which was Royal and Petit Pois, I think, and I could barely see it. Whatever, it was my first day at the event. We then went to the bar to have a drink and a shot of Chocolate Cake, and had some din-din. I really like to note that Taishi is super cool and super nice. I like his playing style a lot, and talking with him about the Japanese shred scene was amazing. I told him about Ken Somolinos' jam at Cornell in Ithaca, NY, and I'm sure Ben Roscoe is pumping him up for Kickass 2. I can't wait for those two events.

Ben Roscoe really liked my Animal Print/Atlantis Blue bag. I really like it too, and it was one of the best bags I made, I believe. I put it on reserve for him. Going ahead of the timeline here, EVERYONE WANTED THAT BAG. It was good thing that Ben payed up ASAP, or people would have swamped me for that bag. Especially Chris O'baras who showed up tomorrow afternoon.

We then waited for Chris Balch to set up the room, and we had some time sharing and having fun. It was a good time and a good night's rest.

*Saturday 9.2.2006

A Hurricane hit Harrisburg and whatever. Everything was wet. There was even water leaking in from various parts of the hotel. I don't like wet weather. GRASS is a good example, and I was literally drenched on the first day there. Whenever the weather gets like this, my mentality always shuts down somehow, and I just get so tired. So, I just sat back and did my best to stitch a bag with Petit Pois and Country Cream. I only went so far as 3/4 done, I guess.

Met some people coming in that day. A few net players, Ryan Thomas, Jon Nagela, Chris O'baras, Jeff Richards and some others showed up in the early afternoon. I sold an Ocelot/Willow bag to Ryan Thomas, and I'm sure he's going to have fun with it. Super fast break-in, definitely.

We then went to Morrison Park to see what was happening at the gazebo. Even in the worst conditions, net players muscle through and play the super fun game of net bag. That was pretty cool. I saw Peter Irish there and some other kickers. John Mahood, Jake Milofsky, Caleb Abraham, and Brad Nelson showed up to represent the WV crew. Paul Agostinelli and his girlfriend, Chris Dean and Matt Cross represented the RFA. Drew Martin, Benny Kellman, and <insert> showed up to represent central NY. Dave Clavens and Flash Gordon came to take names and kick ass. It was just a great culmination of players in a horrible storm.

I didn't play much at the gazebo, but did some kicking with my flip-flops on. I lent my G-units to Matt Cross because he left his pair at Paul's place. Bummer. But, at least he had some shred in my shoes, so that was cool. I sold #15, Dusky, to the guy who's name I forgot. Werd, that bag is badass.

When I got back to the hotel, HooD wanted me to fix his pair of G-units. That was pretty good, because I wasn't up for shred in a rainy day. He took out most of the toe box and separated the tongue, and he wanted me to reattach the toebox with some leather backing. Frankenstin shoes anyone!? This is a job for Wayway, and it pretty much took me the whole weekend, but I still had fun doing it. And definitely, HooD loved my craftmanship.

There was a fight that happened there at the hotel, between footbaggers. It was outside our room. I don't want to go to details, but it was a brawl between Jon Nagela and Chris Miller. Pretty much woke up the whole 2nd floor and a Fire Extinguisher that was propped on a wall was left hanging by a single screw after that fight. Footbag events should never come to this, if you ask me, and the one thing that I was scared of was being kicked out of our room and whatever.

I tried to make some reason why this fight came about, and it definitely put me on a tight grip. I've been friends with Jon Nagela since Funtastiks '05 and Chris Miller with the New Year's Jam at Rochester, so it was a hard thing to settle. I walked and talked to Jon about the whole thing, and he seemed to have cooled down. Paul was there to talk to him as well. I finished some mods for HooD's shoes and when the night was over we cleaned up the conference room where most of the people shredded, and Ben, Taishi and I walked to our room.

So... Chris Miller and I had a small argument and such. I guess I was playing Devil's Advocate like he mentioned. If you ask me though, anything involving violence has no proper excuse so both parties were at fault then. I tried to reach to that reasoning, but I was a bit tipsy with my beer drinking so everything went out a bit wrong. I made a lot of interjections, especially when the conversation was directed to between Chris and Ben. Chris told me off with some very harsh words, and I took it. And, yeah, Chris is right about one thing - I'm full of shit. That is true, and that was one thing I didn't doubt from his argument. I mooch off of people sometimes, sure, and make observations that people may not like. However, I never mean offense in my actions, and whatever the case may be, I try to make it up whenever I can. Apparently, Chris is pissed off that I had eaten some of his noodles at the Rochester New Year's Jam. Maybe I'll buy him dinner the next time I see him, but I doubt that food is that important to really wail on me. Whatever. I'm sure he's at ease for telling me off, and I still had a good night's rest even with the bad atmosphere hovering the room.

More later...

[PegLegHolly]

its definately cool that youre mature about the situation (with the fight) and you dont "take sides" or try to make matters worse... or at least after the situation... i dont know how things were in the heat of it all. and its good that you can recognize and admit when youre full of shit. i cant even do that. i like to fight and i like watching fights. i like being aweful and vulgar.

there are a few people that id like the punch in the nose. and i know that when i get mad i dont have rational thoughts. so i guess i can understand the fight no matter how menial the reason was. but i guess thats one thing i would like to change about myself... how bad i get pissed and how i react without thinking.

so great job waylon... at keeping your cool.




ps. amatista? facile trade? bag trade? want some filler mailed to you? (brian said you emptied his bag cause you couldnt resist haivng lead or something like that.)

[Wasabi]

Thanks for the reply Holly. That meant a lot, eventhough my posts sound pretty nonchalant about it. I guess you can say that I've been through a lot of bs for the past few years that I'm used to having people yell at me in the face. It's not like I actually wanted it, but that's how things go. It's beyond my power and my measure of human limits.

And about the lead shot, I think it's pretty cool. Size 9 lead shot is pretty awesome. That's the type of filler I would want to use for extramini bags, but not something close to the range of minis or regular sized bags unless there are plastic pellets to build some body to it. For extraminis, you can just fill the bag with only lead shot and it'll give it some good body and weight. The highest and most feasible weight I can get to extraminis is 42.5, and for steel shot it was only 33. In any case, it makes the bags fully shreddable and majorly dope.

I guess I like to fill my bags close to half full. I like to predict on bag break-in, so the notion of "shreddable out of the package" doesn't apply to me. Only to Mr. Sandbags and Footfighters I guess. I don't know.

Anyway, I'm going to list some names just so that I don't forget on orders. Ted Fritsch, Chris O'bara, Chris Dean, Erik Savage, Jake Milofsky, Holly Mathews.

I'll continue typing the news of Funtastiks tonight.