Nick "Houdini" Polini

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks Hun, I hope everything works out for you and everything is safe enough to come up with me. I completely understand if its not gonna work out though. I'm keeping my prayers going for you and my fingers crossed<3. I'm still excited to hopefully see you. I love you too <3

So I had a session with Corey, Jeremy, and Leon today. We got a new member during this session. He seems really stoked on it and wants to go to a tournament already. Jeremy also has a pair of Lavers in his size that he can use if he starts coming to sessions. His name is Brandon and he's 15. Pretty cool kid, really nice and is not full of himself like most kids his age.and the best part is that's he knows how to pass the bag! He was really good with timing his turns with the bag. That was cool.

Anyway, Jeremy didn't kick too much because he had to leave shortly for class. Hope he starts kicking more again.l soon though.Corey was doing really well. And fixed his toe flick thing. I gave him some basics homework to work on.. like ss clipper> osis *rpt and stuff. Leon was Leon. ..as usual. Doesn't really freestyle often but has a good grasp on the basic concepts and is always really creative. He gives me cool ideas. He had just gone fishing at the beach and everytime he would do a dex, sand would DUMP out of his shoes. It was pretty hilarious. It added a mystical aspect to it, almost like fairy dust... but more.. sandy. Brandon learned b2b toe stalls, inside stall bs, and consecutive basic kicks. Hes got a pretty good set up for footbag because he lives close to Corey and Jeremy and his grandpa lives in Bethlehem like 5 minutes from toolan and shramko and he visits his grandpa every weekend of so.



I had a really good session... not much I can blog about. Mostly good dense runs with some style concepts.

Highlights:

hit Fury twice. Cant pretend I wasn't happy about that one. Still one sided :/ soon maybe.
Whirling Cloud> op Mirage Bsos with a dense run
Whale Tail> ss Butter> Fog pretty deep midrun.
FS Fog bs
more DOD Swirls
best highlight was probably just really dense runs with a few bsos Revup> uptime toe sets. Also a few toe ss revups bs.
noticed a few things: 10+ contacts (nonbop) is really easy to pass right through now... especiallyif those are all shuffle. Also..my atomics got really... um... well.. not terrible anymore. As I was doing them, I thought of Kemmers tips aswell as the fact that mine might now look almost as good as ivan's
hit another Blurry muted Twirl and another Swivel..
Quantums were functioning on bs for me today, so that was a nice change... then Corey hit frantic toe and I facepalmed and felt bad about my quantums lol

If there is one thing I noticed that I need work on... its breaking out of shuffle. When I'm in shuffle mode, I find that its difficult to break with anything but a BOP. Drilling shuffle links to some downtime links is probably my best bet. I also wish it was easier to do some style concepts in some runs without thinking so hard about it.like unless I think "ok hit whirling cloud > op Mirage bsos", that cloud stuff doesn't seem to happen. Oh well. Practice makes perfect.

[krustykrakk]

ARE YOU READDYYYYYY!!?!?!?? You and Me, Nick: Pumpkin Jam, unusual surfaces, bendy ankles, outsides, clouds, costumes! Let's get it done!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So I just got home from PSU Pumpkin Jam.

Nadiah rode up with me, and when we got there on Friday night, we saw almost the entire club kicking with each other in one gym hall. It looked like a turnout of a pretty big East Coast Championships gathering, except Mike Toolan was the only one who wasn't from PSU! Everyone else was a member!

I met one new player. Sean. He only has basics right now, but damn, his game looks promising. Aside from that, I knew everyone else, and all of their games had improved so much. Like, seriously everybody. It was awesome.

Mike's game was also looking better and cleaner. Hope he keeps drilling. It's looking good for him.

Pipenbongs was there too. His game, even though he took a heavy break from footbag, was looking awesome. Saw him hit Alpine 69.

Nadiah made pumpkin muffins and I made pumpkin jam, then Ryan made chili. We played lots of 4 square and drank lots of drink. I think everyone had a really fun time.

My Footbag Highlights:

Blurry Muted Twirl in front of Nathan and Sick 1 for Matt's comp in front of Matt once and Nathan once. Ivan saw it too
DOD Swirl BSOS (Really good BSOS this time) in front of Mike
Spikehammer> DOD Swirl one side
Toe ss Blink> Toe ss Revup> run. Matt gave me props and thanked me for making him poop himself.
Whirling Blink (Matt's request) New.
Twirl> Mobius bs
Mobius> Twirl bs (Matt's request)
Flog BSOS (First time I've hit that on either side)
Fimmiest (Fairy Paradon) one side. New.
Some really cool stylish runs, with dense shred but also, weird tricks. Liked a few of those runs A LOT.
Blazing Butter b2b
Fury second try in front of Nathan
Fog BSOS
More consistent toe spinning/toe inspinning
Matt gave me some tips on DLO, Flail, Pdx Whirls, Quantums, stuff like Smear and Smog, and Drifters.. I understand these all so much better now.

Jam Highlights:

My personal jam highlight: Nadiah learned some new tricks that I know she was happy about. Read her blog later to find out what they were. But I was really proud of her.
Footbag related-costumes: I wore a shirt that said "Where is Adam?!?!" and carried a mallet... I was an Atomsmasher Nadiah was a Red Ribbon (Zulu Clipper)/Flapper, April was a Dragon. I think that's everyone who dressed up like a footbag trick.
Non-footbag costumes: Ben was a child molester, Derek was a censored naked man.
Seeing PSU improve so much since last time we all kicked
Matt telling me that my game was fun to watch, and that he's excited for when I can do whatever I want in my strings because then I will be really fun.
Seeing one of my favorite players, Matt, start to reach to his peak of game where he left off years ago, and even start passing that. His game looked awesome. He also said I'm one of his favorite players to watch, so THAT was really awesome to hear, because he's also one of my favs to watch.
Everyone loved my jam and Nadiah's muffins.
Watching Matt teach Ivan Quantum sets so easily.
Hearing everyone that was sitting outside during 4square, tell me that I've inspired them so much and done so much for the club that they all really wanna up their drilling and keep recruiting. That was awesome.
Really fun 4square game
Seeing that huge hallway filled with players on Friday night.
Ivan and Ryan's non-footbag friend Joe, passing out on the floor the entire time we all played Cards Against Humanity and even through that passing out on the couch after the game was over and then as he woke up, Nadiah and I were half awake and he farts, checks to see if anyone was watching... then leaves.
Seeing Matt, Nate, and Toolan again.
Noticing that my car got towed then frantically running to the police, describing my car.. they called the towing people.. said they towed no yellow Hyundai Accent... walked away feeling stupid.. found my car one floor up from the place I checked before :/
"Jacked Off" contest with Marc, and Nathan.. to see who was the most jacked. Who could do the most pull-ups. Nate got like 3, Marc got 7, I got 13. I win Better luck next time, Marc and Nate
Matt found my secret about nose-booping. TELL NO ONE, MATTHEW.
Got to watch Matt's video where he reenacts the swamp castle scene from Monty Python & The Holy Grail.. acting as every character and using balloon heads when there was only one character talking. Could be the funniest thing I have ever seen. Matt, if you dont upload that to youtube, I will be upset. But if you dont upload it to youtube, then please send it to me. I need that.
Matt complimenting Nadiah and my relationship, saying that we were a cool couple since we are both pretty weird
Cards Against Humanity. So much fun. Many laughs. Realizing how evil Marc really is lol I won that game though with 4 points, so that was cool. First time I ever played and I won
The walk from the cars with Nahds, Mike, and Matt. Good chats.
Mike and I put Ryan on the right trail to hit Whirls, and Ben on the right trail for Fairy sets.
Got my shred mats back!
There was more, but I have to go be active now. Might add more stuff later.

Have a good day, everyone!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Got my shred mats back from the Shredhaus this weekend, so I'm currently having my first drill session on them.

Highlights:

Toe ss Reverse Swirl> Swirl 10x bs
Swirling op Toe 10 x bs (some muted, some planted, so I could get the best of both worlds.)
Nice Swirling Mirage BSOS. Cleanest I've ever done on flip
Might have hit Swirling Twirl on flipside, but it could have been THE. Not sure, but I think it felt good. We'll leave this on up to the camera when it gets hit next time.
Tried to see how consistent my Toe muted op Swirls were. Toe muted op Swirl Strong side> hand> weak side> hand. Only dropped once on strong side getting up to 10 each side. Really proud of that.
Drill Matt Kemmer gave me this weekend: Drifter> Schmoe> Pixie ss Clipper *rpt I really suck at this :/ Will keep doing it though
Strong side Toe Far Blink is basically dialed, so I did 10 flipside Toe Far Blinks. They are still so hard. But I'm slowly cracking their code.
Clipper ss DLO> DLO 5x bs.. DLO got way easier.
Drilled a bunch of Pdx Blenders on flipside to catch them up with strong sides, because Strong Pdx Blenders are dialed in basically. Made some AWESOME progress on flip tonight. Really pleased with it. Starting to feel like Matt Kemmer's look.
To seal the deal and end the session, I hit Pdx Blender> Whale Tail bs. Pumped on that.

Really happy about the improvements on this session. I think I really spanked some concepts that needed spanking.

...Is that legal to say?

Anyway, I'm feeling really confident in most of the concepts that were drilled tonight. I analyzed how my body did them and my mats are nice because I can see exactly how far I turn or where I set the bag for every trick, because there are 4 slabs of mat that fit together and there is a big plus sign in the center which lets me do little measurements for tricks, like how far to spin for Pdx Blender and to make sure I turn 90 degrees for toe far blinks.

I'm really feeling my game these days, and I think I'm at the point where I can actually see where my next steps will take place. Pretty awesome. I also used to not really like my game much, but now that things are clicking in and falling into place, I'm really happy with it.

Anyway, going to bed now. Night all.

[C-Fan]

Sounds like you're blowing up! Do you have any goals for your game for the next year?

[Nathan]

"Jacked Off" contest with Marc, and Nathan.. to see who was the most jacked. Who could do the most pull-ups. Nate got like 3, Marc got 7, I got 13. I win Better luck next time, Marc and Nate

ACTUALLY NICK, I did 5 -- and I had already drank five beers. You did 13, but had zero beers. So we tied.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Ken: First off, thank you so much I hope I'm actually blowing up. I'll actually make a list of my goals below.. good question.. I hadn't thought about it really.

Nathan: ACTUALLY NATE, I had 2 beers by that point, and next time I challenge you to a "Drunk Off Then Jacked Off", where we both have 5 beers then do pull ups, then we'll see who wins

So I didn't kick today. But I just spent a bit of time creating a little secret weapon for drilling. I thought this up last night before I went to bed. It's a Cartesian plane combined with a clock. The clock indicates how far I have to turn/spin for certain tricks, like Pdx Torque, Pdx Blender, etc... and the plane indicates foot placement and/or bag placement. I can also use them together to see how far to turn and where to place my feet for certain tricks, like Inspins. It's great because it gives me exact coordinates I can use. This helps me so much since I'm always already imagining a clock or a plane on the ground.



I'm excited to start using it for drills. I think it will help a lot.

First I want to list one selfless goal:

Help Nadiah get to a more-or-less Tiltless level before 2014 (You can do it, Nahds, and I can help you <3

Goals for the Remainder of 2013:

1) Don't drop Toe Spinning/Toe Inspinning that often. Basically be able to play out of it more often than drop it.
2) Swirling sets locked down off of both sides
3) At least 25 contact runs with dense shred, as well as some cool stylish unusual stuff
4) Feel confident with toe-to-toe shred for at least 5 contacts
5) Blender x10
6) Lockdown link: Toe Far Blink b2b
7) Ripwalk x30 (Quality over quantity)
Pdx Whirl x10 (First fix Pdx Whirls)
9) Ripped Warrior b2b on demand
10) Pdx Blender> Mobius *rpt
11) 7 Fearless


That list seems pretty doable. I'm going to write that on my whiteboard too. I think I can get all of them before 2014. Thanks a lot, Ken I never thought to really make short-term goals. My only short term goal was "Stop sucking at footbag" and I think that's starting to come true, which feels fantastic.

I'll post it when I cross any off the list.

Trying to have a session in Kutztown with Nadiah, Toolan, and Corey this Thursday. Hoping that comes through.

Nadiah was asking me about Swirls and Reverse Swirls today, and what tricks she should be practicing to do them well. That was just cool that she was wondering about those. I can tell she's starting to get more into it I saw her get the motion for Reverse Swirl once by accident, so I'm fairly confident that she'll be hitting Swirls and Rev Swirls sooner than later.

Anyway, those are my goals, and I'm hoping I can cross those out throughout this next handful of weeks.

[C-Fan]

Nathan: ACTUALLY NATE, I had 2 beers by that point, and next time I challenge you to a "Drunk Off Then Jacked Off", where we both have 5 beers then do pull ups, then we'll see who wins
.

If this happens, I'd love to see video of you and Nathan having a drunken jack off. Wait, that didn't come out right.

Goals for the Remainder of 2013:

That list seems pretty doable. I'm going to write that on my whiteboard too. I think I can get all of them before 2014. I never thought to really make short-term goals. My only short term goal was "Stop sucking at footbag" and I think that's starting to come true, which feels fantastic.

I'll post it when I cross any off the list..

Yeah, it really helps/helped me to write down goals, and actively work toward them. My challenge thread in particular helped me drill towards goals, and improve concepts I knew I had to work on. (For me) it really helped to have a concrete goal instead of an abstract goal. For example, rather than challenge myself to get "better at fearless," I made the goal specific: "hit 10 unique fearless." Or instead of challenging myself to "get better at long strings," I'd challenge myself to hit at least 5 strings of 25 contacts in a session.

Some goals I'd like to see from you in the next year:

30 unique guiltless
10 unique fearless
10 unique spinning
7 add trick ending on a dragon/flapper
dropless routine

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Have just been talking to Anssi and he suggested I make those goals from earlier be yearlong goals.

He also suggested some 2013 short-term goals that I'm going to use for now until New Years:

Learn Symp Whirls the proper way (Aim for 5-10)
Sidewalk (Aim for 20)
Spinning Butterfly (Aim for 10)
Rev Swirl> Swirl *rpt (Aim for 20, but do 10 a few times each session)
Muted Spinning Clipper (Aim for 10 a few times each session)

So yeah, I'll accomplish these before 2014 gets here.

[Muffinman]

Those are all consecutives? I want goals from Anssi. I'm going to try all of these.

[janis]

I really like that footbag drill angle helper thing!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Erik: Yes, all consecs. Try them! I think they should really benefit anyone's game
Janis: Thanks! It really helps a lot!

So I drove an hour and 20 minutes to shred with Nadiah and Mike at Kutztown. Really fun session. We found this cool room with like gym floors and metal doors to drown out the sound of Mole-y Cyr-Ass being blasted in the rest of the gym. Mike figured out that he could hook his laptop up to the wall and play shred music through the overhead speakers. It was awesome. But in the end we ended up getting kicked out by some security guard. Everyone had a pretty good session I think. Nadiah hit some new tricks bs and then bsos, and some new tiltless links (which she will probably blog about soon). Mike hit Rubberman, some dense runs with Barfly in and out of some tripless downtime stuff, lots of dope toe-toe stuff, and some good runs. I tried some of Anssi's goals that he gave me. Pretty happy with those. Mike and I also had a "toe-to-toe" theme game during the end of our session, where every run we hit had to include at least one link of 4 toe-to-toe tricks. I'm going to keep this up, because in the long run, I think it will help me a lot.

Highlights:

Muted Spinning Clipper x10 bs!!! new PR. Old PR was around 3? Never did many muted spinning clippers.
Spinning Butterfly x10 bs!!!! new PR. Old PR was around 3 I think.
Proper Symp Whirls x5 on strong side, x3 on weakside. Will work on this.
Smear> Atomsmasher *rpt
Magellan> Fear> PLO *rpt
Fairy ss Mirage> Symp Mirage *rpt
Blurry Muted Blink (only 2nd time I've hit it muted)
Tried to end on some 25 contact Guiltless runs, but only got to around 20, 16, 15, and worse :/ I got pretty frustrated at those runs. and we got kicked out before I could get a solid 25 contact run in.

In other cool news, Pipenbongs is stopping by tomorrow to shred with me so I'm excited for that. Probably do some filming.

Anyway, I'm gonna go to bed now. Peace

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nathan Pipeenberg was on a road trip and passed through my area yesterday, so he stopped over for the night, had dinner, played some footbag, then ate breakfast and left in the morning. He also left his coat... I HAVE YO COAT BITCH! I'm gonna shit in your pockets.

The session was alright, at best. Both of our legs hurt and we had shitty lighting and played on my shred mat, which is hard to actually string on. It's good for drilling, and that's what I use it for. Anyway, that video was filmed in the greenhouse, which is a SWEET background for a shred flick. I'll get to editing that soon. Nate has a stress fracture in his foot and it really fucked him up by the end of it. I felt bad. Then we ate pie.

Got some ok, kinda cool stuff in that video. No great runs, but some sweet links.

Today, I visited my parents and had dinner with them. My mom, dad, and I were all sitting in separate chairs in the livingroom, eating dinner, watching a movie. On each chair, there existed one cat staring at the food on our plate. I filmed that.

When I got home, I went upstairs and drilled some Reverse Swirls. I know they're getting better now. I tried something new.... Before each Reverse Swirl, I chanted "Feel confident strong side".. then hit strongside> hand catch.. "Feel confident weakside" .. then hit weakside> hand catch *rpt... I kept that going strong for around 30 - 40 contacts. Proud to say I dropped on strongside because of a stupid error in foot movement. I RARELY drop strongside rev swirls. I commonly drop them on flip. So, needless to say, not dropping on weakisde was a treat for once. Got one highlight off of this..

Highlight:

Flip Reverse Swirl x6.. new PR. Broken by at least 3... I can do them pretty flawlessly on strong until I get tired. But weak was always a chore. They have a more.. powerful feel to them. Big boost of control in my flip Rev Swirl, and I hope this will trickle into my other weaker tricks ending on flip clipper...

In other news, I'm eating a mango.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

The reason my laptop will probably fry from sweat dripping into the keys, could possibly be because of one of my best breakthrough sessions ever just a bit ago.

So I had actually just finished bitching to Ivan about how my flip Blinks sucked and all I could do with them was hit Clip Near Blink and Toe ss Blink... But on my other side, I hit Ducking Blink, Spinning Blink, and I suppose this goes for my one sided Blurry Twirls and junk like that. So, I'd basically had enough of sucking at Blinks and I guess Flip Rev Swirls (which I always thought I was good enough at these, but I was so wrong). So I went into the greenhouse to drill some.. I did the first few drills there, but the floor is flat glazed tiles, and I kept slipping everywhere during my spins. So that got frustrating as hell.

I closed up shop in the greenhouse and moved to the mildly less pretty basement. I hadn't had a session down here yet, but I can assure you, this is mow my training spot for the rest of fall and winter. It's conveniently located next to a refrigerator with real water and real Craisins. Anywho, I unleashed hell in that basement tonight, in the best way possible.

Highlights:

Spinning Butter> Reverse Swirl 10x bs
Gyro Clipper> Reverse Swirl 5x bs
Realized I could only do ss Butters by spinning a little after each one, which eventually spins me in a circle and I feel like if Anssi saw me doing that, he would tell me I sucked goatballs. So I didn't feel like sucking goatballs tonight. I hit 3 sets of x10 each side, trying not to turn in circles. The first 2 sets were ok, but I ended up spinning a good bit. The last set on each side was so much better. I faced the stairs the whole time. Forced myself to not spin around. Also, sadly, I think 10 is a new PR on these :/ I haven't tried them since I wore G-Units for the first time, back in 2011. So I'm pretty happy with this.
Ss Butter> Reverse Swirl 10x bs
Ducking Clipper> Reverse Swirl 5x bs
Big ass milestone that I'm really pleased with: Gyro Reverse Swirl b2b!!! Both Reverse Swirls were non-symp. Took a few tries, but I got in some reps of flipside Gyro Rev Swirl. Strongside is pretty dialed in. But now flipside is really not that far behind.
Gyro Blink 5x bs (got way easier on flipside)
Toe muted far Reverse Swirl 5x bs (feels so much stronger on flipside... thinking this will be bail'y soon.)
Another dope milestoner: Toe Far Blink x3! Doug Tank-inspired #stupiddougstuff Really stoked on this, because x2 was hit a bunch of times, easy as pie too. I figured out what I was doing wrong on flipside... I was stepping around too much to position myself for the Blink. Now I know you mute it and kind of power yourself through the dex. So glad I don't have to learn how to do these again Also happy, because one of my goals for the rest of 2013 was to have Toe Far Blink b2b as a lock down link.
Toe ss Blink> Far Blink> ss Whirl bs (the Whirl was an accident I was trying to repeat it. I'll get that in the future.)
Clipper Far Blink BSOS! Flipside actually came somewhat naturally, which was definitely a gift from drilling so many Rev Swirls recently. This really felt good. And it wasn't a lame bsos either, it had a lot of variety.
Toe Drifter> Reverse Swirl 10x bs (The last one, I BSOS'ed in a decent string.) I'm really bad at Drifters from clipper and I dont know why. They always hurt my hip. I figured, maybe I should drill Toe Drifters for a little while until the are basically flawless, then maybe Clipper near Drifter will get easier. I'm going to try to do a handful of Toe Drifters every session. I think it might be what I need.
Ended session with: Reverse Swirl x10 bs! My last record on weakside was 6, just this evening...uh.. in my last post I also ended up trying it several times and getting up to around 6, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9, then finally 10! Strong side made my weakside look like a bitch because it kicked those 10 Reverse Swirls out in around 10 seconds during my first attempt. Still have some evening up to do with Reverse Swirls, but for the most part, looking good.

Another goal of mine with Reverse Swirls is Flip Revstein. I can actually feel that coming in the not-so-distant future. I think once my Reverse Swirls are a bit more even, my game will be a little more effortless. Looking forward to that.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Haven't played in a few days. Legs needed to rest up. Shins are fine, but calves were tight like a tiger. However, I've been carrying a bag around with me and hitting TONS of Reverse Swirls bs just about everywhere I go.

For instance, I went hiking at this place where a new job MIGHT arise for me (hopefully) and every time I saw something interesting, I would drop the bag and do flipside Reverse Swirl> hand catch> strong side> hand catch. I saw a lot of interesting things on the way back from my hike, I changed it to Reverse Swirl> Gyro Clipper *rpt or Reverse Swirl> Osis *rpt. Did each of those on some strange grounds a bunch of times. Then, at the end of my hike, I found a flat spot on the balcony of the preserve's office building and I did my second set ever of Reverse Swirl x10 on flipside. Great feeling. Got 9 a few times and some 8's too. So I absolutely got my reps in.

One highlight from the other day:

Highlight from the Other Day:

Reverse Swirl> Swirl *rpt 10 contacts! That was a new record. Old record being 4? Dammit, I sucked.

Highlight from This Morning:

Fairy muted ss Illusion bs several times each (new trick on bs.. sadly :/ )

Then I went outside to help my grandmother put some table umbrellas away and I had lavers on and a bag in my pocket, so I wanted to test out my Reverse Swirls.. Hit one notable drill..

Reverse Swirl> Blender *rpt Like BUTTER. I hit it before, but this used to feel like it was tough and I had bad form while doing it I think. Now it's good form, and feels so easy.

So then I had a drilly session tonight. My intention was to go down to the basement and drill Swirling sets. But when i got down there, I realized that maybe if my Pixies were great, then Swirling would be a lot easier.. So My drill session was to focus on Pixies and Fairies. I also got a new trick from this session, that had nothing to do with Pixies or Fairies..

Highlights:

Smear> Pixie ss Clipper 10x bs... For every one of these, I hit different tricks out of the Pixie ss Clipper on each side, like Ripwalk, Blender, Revup, Reverse Swirl, Whirl, etc... Just to seal it with another contact. Felt better that way. Did notice a lot of improvement in my Pixies, which is great, because they have always sucked.
Fear> Fairy ss Clipper 10x bs... Ended up saucing the last 6 or 7, which was sweet. Also, I found out a new, easier way to hit my flip Fairy set and I can get it ducking height with this method pretty easily. Only figured it out during my last 3, so I did my last 3 like that. Still need to work out some kinks in the new method, but it feels much better, looks like I'm not trying as hard, and also actually lets me use a lot less effort. I'm pretty excited about that realization.
Had 1 run with BSOS Toe Far Muted Blink and I hit the flipside Blink to a Toe ss Blink by accident, then I hit one more flip Toe Far Muted Blink near the end of the run. Never hit more than just 1 flip Toe Far Muted Blink in a run before this.
Cloud Kick> ss Osis *rpt (fun little drill)
Cloud> ss Blender bs
Twirl> Ripwalk BSOS
New trick: Toe Far Muted Revup!!! First try! So shocked by that. Felt amazing. Only one side, but once I drill flip Toe Far Muted Blinks a few more times, this trick will be easy on flip I think. Pretty sure it's basically dialed in on strong side, but I dont wanna do any more until I hit at least 2 on flipside.
Ended on a really clean run of Ripwalk x15

In other news, I found a new player who lives not too far from me. His name is Nathan Bonslaver, 15 years old, been freestyling for 6 months. Can already hit stuff like Clipper bs, Butterfly bs, Pdx Mirage bs, Atws bs, yadda yadda. Point is, the kid's getting good quick. I talked to him a little bit, and he idolizes Vasek and is super anxious to compete at Worlds this year. And he drills for an hour every day. Meeting up with him soon and gonna show him the ropes and tell him how to get good, Hopefully, I'll meet up with him every other week or so and take him under my wing. He seems to be a real nice kid so far, too. usually 15 year olds act like they're the shit, but this kid seems to be really down to earth. I'm looking forward to meeting him and teaching him.

Anyway, I'm gonna get some rest. Cant wait until Pixies and Fairies are mine. I'm really liking the alley my game is going down. Lots of techy, "below the waist" links. Definitely need to get better at Pixies, Fairies, Stepping, dammit, there's too much, shit that, I suck at, etc...

[boyle]

Nice work on the rev swirls. Probably my favourite trick to do, though I haven't drilled my flipside enough. Rev swirl>blender is a cool combo.

I think your young friend might have some trouble going to worlds "this year"...

Good luck on the job

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

sick stuff. toe far muted rev up is the shit, big style. I dig the stepping out of twirls as well, it would be sick to see like blurry torque, pogo or nuclear out of them too, thats a really great trick to be so controlled at.

i think you inspired me to drill this morning thanks bud. your getting so good.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Thanks a lot, Kev. That means a lot coming from you. I had a session today inspired by you.. well, I told you every highlight, so I guess you know

So I've really sucked at drifters for a very long long time. Then I think I get good at them or figure out a new way to do them to make them easier. Then it turns out I'm wrong. That process has gone on for far too long. I walked into today's session not really knowing what to drill. Then I figured I'd just do some more Toe Drifters, because maybe those would get me better at near Drifters and Pdx. Then I realized that if I make all my Drifters and Pdx Drifters close enough to the set position as a Toe Drifter, then they should be easy, right? RIGHT. Immediately, I started hitting better and easier Drifters with this new technique I thought up (that everyone probably has known forever lol) Better late than never...

If you're having trouble with Drifters, like I was before today, the trick is to practice Toe op Drifters, then set near Drifters and Pdx Drifters as close as possible to mimic the set of a Toe Drifter. Always a straight set though.

I was very pleased with my session.. Quite shocked, as well.

Highlights:

Twirl> Pogo Grundlegrab> Legover. Fantastic mistake.
For Kevin: Twirl> FS Blur bs
Drifter War (Drifter> Pdx Drifter *rpt) 10 separate times. The most I've ever done in one session is 3 separate times, so yeah, big improvement in my Drifters in just today's drill sesh.
Drifter War> run> Drifter War! This was too good to be true.
Drifter War +3 more contacts (SO CLOSE.)
Vortex BSOS
Void BSOS smooth like buttah (oh word?) I'm stepping out of it on bs soon. Also I think I can hit it b2b soon.

It seems like I've been solidifying my older concepts to the point where they are damn consistent. I'm loving the journey right now. Looks lke Operation: Don't Suck Next Year is a go!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Dan! Thanks man, I forgot to reply to you. I really hope I land that one or any of the wildlife jobs that I applied to.

So yes, this is my second session of the day that I'm about to yap about... I wasn't very satisfied with just the Drifter stuff. Soooooo... I wanted to go down the basement and drill more tonight. I'm glad I did.

Highlights:

Swirling set> hand catch 20x bs didn't count them unless they were waist height or above. Got some duckable sets on flipside by accident, which was cool. Needs more work on flip, but strongside is set above waist every try. Will work on this every few sessions.
Whirl> Blender 10x bs
Whirl> Blender *rpt
Drilled some Pdx Torques... BSOS x2 in 2 runs, but they still dont feel quite right.. Why do I feel like I need to drill them from toe for a while? Should have just drill them right then and there. Dont know why I didn't. I will soon.
Pdx Blender 10x bs.. his was really great. I only missed a few. Got these pretty locked in. A few more sessions on them to tighten up form a little on flipside, and they're good to go I think.
It really fucked with my head that Pdx Blender is easier than Pdx Whirls, so I guess I went a little insane and did Toe Whirl 50x bs... By around 20, they were feeling really great on each side. I figured maybe the Toe Drifter realization from earlier today (Get good at Toe Drifters and then try to make Pdx Drifter as similar to a Toe Drifter as possible) would help me turn Toe Whirl into Pdx Whirl. And it really started to work well. I hit a handful of Pdx Whirls afterward... and they felt SO GOOD. So clean. So crisp. So MATTHEW KEMMER.

Anyway, really awesome drill sessions today. Got a lot of headway on some tricks at which I've really needed to get better.

In other news, before my session, I was eating a pop-tart and I dropped a bit and it landed on the sofa, so I picked up a little piece of the filling and popped it into my mouth and chewed on it a little bit... It was not pop-tart filling. In fact, it was not meant to be put anywhere within 25 feet of the human mouth. I still don't know what it was, but it was not the least bit edible. I would have rather chewed on a nugget of poo instead of whatever I chewed on. I may never know what it was... But I just wanted to beg all of you... please, PLEASE.. don't eat stuff off your couch, even if you think it's pop-tart filling.

Now I must sleeps.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So, I've really noticed how much progress I've made since Worlds.. I'm so much more confident, consistent, yadda yadda. This isn't a post to toot my own horn (I'm not even good enough to have a horn to toot, really.. not yet at least), but rather to explain how I've made so many improvements recently..

Every night, I watch my favorite players in slow motion. I downloaded "downloadhelper" and it lets me download movies from youtube, so I can slow mo them as I please. A 6 minute video could take me 20 or even 30 minutes to get through. I swear, it's crazy to think that when I started doing this JUST AFTER I came home from Worlds (Matt Kemmer's advice.. THANK YOU SO MUCH DUDE), I noticed at least one small detail on a trick that I've been missing out on. The next session, I incorporate it and It slowly morphs into my muscles and boom, that trick improves. Maybe it improves a little each time, but a few little improvements make one big one.

Tonight, I watched Johnny & Jorden's Xmas video and Lon Smith Special. I figured out Fairy a little bit more from Johnny and from Lon... Pdx Torque has all it's missing pieces now. You set the bag, make it as similar to toe torque as possible.. then LIFT YOUR KNEE STRAIGHT UP AND PUT IT STRAIGHT DOWN while twisting. I was so shocked when I found this. I couldn't believe it. This is why mine always felt huge and the Osis was sketchy all the time. I was doing a big sweepy mirage, when it should have been UP and DOWN. I swear it clicked in my muscles just from ghosting a couple. I'm so excited to try some tomorrow. This also made me think.. Maybe I'm doing Torques wrong in general... I think I am. I can hit any of my tricks out of torque already, so now I'm thinking torque will soon be a trick that takes very little effort for me. Hopefully same with Pdx Torque.

Speaking of playing tomorrow... Vince Richardson, newer player from Grand Rapids, Michigan is traveling for business to Immaculatta college tomorrow. I happen to live 10 minutes from Imaculatta. On top of that, Drew Martin is visiting his mommy and wants to shred. So We're all gonna meet up. Should be a lot of fun. So excited for some new and improved Fairies and Pdx Torques.

Vince ordered a bag from me today and I have it ready for tomorrow. I also got another bag order from Nathan, the new kid I blogged about last time. He sent me video of him hitting clipper> op clipper and some mirages, all with great form. So also, gonna meet up with him at some point this upcoming week. Oh! And I finally started using a thimble to stitch! It's so much quicker and easier! No more blood! And now the festering hole in my thumb from pin pricks will finally heal and hopefully smell like roses!