Muffinman

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I told you you could do it With your blazing sets, I could tell you had what you needed for HPD. Props. Looking forward to your next session.

[Cass]

I didn't know that was your first one, it looked so effortless! I would have given more enthusiastic props.

Good shred today!

[Muffinman]

Thanks guys! it's even more notable because it's one of those tricks where if you asked me a year ago I would have said that I will probably never hit it

[Muffinman]

Had a craving for Max kerkhoff's old Istanbul video, but I couldn't find it anywhere online, so I uploaded it. And it made me nostalgic for my archival project. So I'm kind of thinking I might occasionally upload some fun videos to that account
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqqBLDlwBdQ[/youtube]

I also threw up The Locker Room, 'cause that was a good one!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HTJuuc0OZI[/youtube]
(Although YouTube is apparently blocking this one in my country?...)

[Asmus]

Just watched the Istanbul one before heading out to a session. Awesome warm-up. Thanks for the re-up.
I think the other one is blocked in all countries.

Do you take requests? If yes, can you upload the Pekka in Berlin and the long one where all the Berlin players had parts.
Also Abshire, Cook(clima cool guy), Maybe Chad? and etc. released some videos around 2006 from a nice sunny spot in California. Maybe Venice Beach. I would like to see those again.

[Muffinman]

I'm not sure which Berlin ones those are. Is Pekka a person? I know the Cali ones you mean, though -- Aaron Orton made those. The Clima guy is Jason Crook. There were a bunch of those. I can take requests I guess.

[Asmus]

That is exactly the ones I meant from Cali.

Pekka is a player from Finland. He is a shy mythical creature so there is to little footage of him.
Pretty sure the video was done by Max Kerkhoff and the music was Drum N Bass. I think it was just called "Pekka in Berlin".
The music was Drum N Bass.

The other Berlin one was long with each of the Berlin players having their own part with a small intro.
Ending with a super hardcore part Yves "The Krusher" Kreil.

[Muffinman]

Haven't played in a couple weeks-ish, so I had light kinda training session today. I wanted to kind of just work on things like pixie, orbits, etc. So I figured I might as well try for the level 1 badge. I did it The hardest part was 6 near outside kicks both sides. It was fluke that I hit it. I liked how there were a number of challenges that required outside kicks, so it forced me to try to figure out a trick, or work towards one anyway. The other hardest one was.. I forget what it's called.. the one where you catch the bag by stomping your feet together -- Climas have terrible surfaces for this!

The funnest part was rakes! I'd never done them before, but after a few tries, I figured it out and it felt super fun!
The whole thing took me about an hour, which seemed kinda long? I kind feel like time should factor into the badge that you get. I mean an advanced player like Ken would probably do the badge a lot faster than me or a new player who might take 2-3 hours to do it. I dunno. I feel like all FAT players should do this to solidify basics. Plus it's fun (and surprisingly challenging!).


Then I had my own training session, inspired by Nick's latest blog post. Consecutive tricks seemed to work for him, so I decided to steal it. I made a list of some things that I will will try to beat any time I want a less intense session. It was nice to have a good workout and not be in pain or really push for high intensity stuff. It's super fun to set goals for some basic stuff that I struggle with! So here's my list and my records. I basically went into it like this for the first records: do as many as I can on my stronger side and then try to get as close as I can to that on my weaker side:
orbit L: 10
orbit R: 14
ATW L: 11
ATW R: 14
alternating drunken clippers: 14
alternating paused butterflies: 10
alternating pasued osii: 11
inside stalls: 34
stepping clipper L: 9
stepping clipper R: 14
smear (with good form) L: 8
smear (with good form) R: 7


The flip pixie was surprisingly on!! Wut. I thought I'd struggle with just 1 or 2... Flip stepping was a mess. All over the place.
I'd love any tips/suggestions on what else might be beneficial to work on.

[Muffinman]

Had a fun session with Adam and JJ today.
I was really off. I'm not sure how much I can blame on my inconsistency and how much I can blame on having gotten very little sleep last night. I was winded really easily and had no energy. Both Adam and JJ were playing at the tops of their games, which was great to be a part of!
JJ must have done, like, 20 alternating clippers, which was by far his record, and, like, 10 same side on his flip!
Adam was doing his usual stuff. I honestly can't remember.. uhh,
blaze > pixie whirl [repeat] first try
spinning whirl > blurry whirl [repeat]
spikehammer > smog > phoenix > spikehammer > smog > run?
4 pdx torques?
lots of great stuff. I got it all on video, though!
Unfortunately, he was standing pretty far from my GoPro, so he's gonna be really, really teeny in the frame, I fear. You have to super close to this camera to fill the picture. I'll see how it turns out though.

I couldn't do runs. I had a realization, though. I think a big part of that is having lost my pixie set. I think relearning that will give me a lot more options and transition opportunities. It was frustrating, though, I kept dropping easy pixie stuff. And then at one point I tried consecutive smears, and it was no problem, like, 7 or 9-ish BSOS first try... So I obviously need a new schooling approach for that...
Some highlights of mine:
blaze > tapping whip > blaze > tappi...
blaze > paradon > whirling same mirage > paradon > blaze > paradon > whirlin... (first try)
rev maelstrom and blurry whip both BSOS, ended on blurry ducking whip > hand catch
...
really not much else, I don't think. Bleh.
Reaally looking forward to spring outdoor shred.

[Muffinman]

Awww. Lost a good post 'cause I got some weird forum maintenance error
Don't feel like writing again, but I had a great session and hit lots of good stuff, some of which I posted on Facebook.

[Muffinman]

Lemme try to recap and from now on always remember to copy and paste any future forum posts just in case. Here's a Facebook post I made:

Really good session today with Adam and Cassy
-Reverse maelstrom > blurry whip [repeat]
-Reverse montage > mobius [both sides]
-and beat my paltry fearless record from 10 years ago with blurriest > blurriest > rev whirlygig > rev whirlygig > rev mullet (dropped on the second rev mullet)
-(also hit rev whirlygig x2 > rev mullet x2 > almost rev whirlwind?)

But it was also just a great session in general. I played really well, and this is especially notable because I didn't even want to come out today and was telling Cassy while we were waiting that I might not even play, didn't feel like it, felt lazy, and didn't have energy. So, what a turn-around. To top it off I didn't feel any really bad pain anywhere, so Adam and I had a pretty good bout of fearless and single big tricks/combos.

Some other stuff I did:
-bling blang > stepping whip > blaze > pixie whip > blazing nothing [both sides] (shouldn't be too hard to drill)
-blaze > pixie paradon > blaze > pixie...
-started a run with pixie paradon > paradox torque, which are two neat tricks that I don't do enough of
-had a run with pdx torque BSOS and then dropped BSOSing the mobius because I decided to throw in a spinning whip before the second one (mobius was my trick of the day, I think)
-kinda solidified scorpion's tails -- hit 2 good side and almost flipside, BSOSed it a bunch
-ended the session on a solid 41-contact which was mostly fluff to start, but the last 10ish contacts were, like, all intense whip stuff, like, spinning whip > tomahawk, whatever

Now back to Dark Souls 2.

[Muffinman]

Before I forget, 10 fearless to try that I thought of while trying to fall asleep last night:
spinning ducking mirage > ducking symp whip > spinning ducking butterfly > rev mullet [repeat] > spinning ducking osis x2
Not sure how well I will be able to try that in my 6" shred space, but excited to try it soon!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

My thoughts exactly Been thinking a lot about 10 Fearless. I'm feeling it's doable for me too. Wanna race to it? All in good fun, of course.

[Muffinman]

Holy.
2-3 hour footbag session > walking 3 blocks with like 50 lbs of groceries (and a bag full of footbag gear) = killer
My shirt was almost as drenched from the walk as from the footbag.
On the plus side, ribs will be in my tummy in half an hour!

I gave the fearless combo a first try today, and it went pretty swimmingly!
I beat my previous record from the other week of 5 (blurriest x2 > rev whirlygig x2 > rev mullet, I think?) with 6! Spinning ducking butterfly > rev mullet > spinning ducking mirage > ducking symp whip > spinning ducking butterfly > rev mullet > spinning... On first-ish try? Brilliance! If I had a place big enough to practice these kinds of tricks I could probably hit it in a session, but I'll have to draw it out over a few and that spinning ducking osis x2 at the end might be a challenge since I suck at zooming.

Anyway, it was a duo session with Adam and we got winded so easily. We filmed again, but I forgot my charger, so it only lasted like an hour and Adam says we were both playing better after too. Oh well. Some of my highlights that I remember:
-blaze > rev reactor > blurry whip [repeat] > hand catch
-the 6 fearless as noted above
-gyro diving whip BSOS and dropped on the second rev maelstrom (Kevin Crowley requested gyro diving whip x2)
-scorpion's tail > ps whip [repeat] (first/second try? though Adam said the second scorpion's tail was the?)
-ended the session on mobius > pdx blender BSOS, first try (and then Adam footed it first or second try too I think?)

Fun session, but 2-man circles are killer. Holy.
I'm just beat.


EDIT:
Oh, I also hit barroque first try (I think I've done it before years ago?) and Adam said it looked clean. I feel like I hit a new trick at some point too, but maybe not. Maybe that was Adam? But I can't remember what... Also I hit pdx torque BSOS twice flip and dropped the double BSOS on good side, but it tweaked my back. I really want torques, but... will have to do some core strengthening I guess

[Muffinman]

JAMPS was really fun. It was my first East Coast event I think, but hope to make it to a lot more. Cassy's post with all the pictures is super great. It's fun to look back at everything. I drove down with Cassy, Adam, Alex, and Johnny. It took, like, 8 hours? We stayed at Ben B's house, which we had trouble finding. It was great to meet so many new people. I was really bad with names and didn't talk to too many of the PSU players, but met some people I've known online for a long time for the first time, most notably Josh Gayhart and Ryan Thomas. Super cool. I played a little bit with Josh, but then I think April called me to go judge events with Ianek and Johnny? I don't think I got to play with Ryan, but I saw him a bit, including his participation in Circle. They both seemed super rusty like they hadn't played in years, but I think Josh said that he was really motivated from the event to start playing more again. I felt really awkward talking with him at first, but eventually we found common interests and had a nice talk for a pretty long time. I think I find that with a lot of footbaggers, that the only thing we have in common is footbag, and that it's difficult to talk about anything else.

I hung out with Chrissy quite a bit, which was nice. I also met Khoa for the first time. He was so excited. Hahaha. I introduced myself and said that I watched all his videos and then he yelled really loud something, like, "OMG ERIK CHAN WATCHES MY VIDEOS! NOW I CAN DIE HAPPY!" Hehe. He's super cool and I really liked talking to him about his thoughts on freestyle football and footbag. It's neat to know that a primarily-football-player sees the silliness in so many unrelated tricks being called "_____ around the world." I learned a neat new fact too: magellan is known as magellan in freestyle football, taken from hack. We also talked a bit about how so many footbaggers are engaged in graduate studies. He's doing his PhD at Penn State now, which I didn't know.

And I met two guys who are doing PhDs in math, and I tried to mention Rene Ruhr, since he's in a similar program, but they may have been too newbie to know him? I also talked a bunch with Aaron Price. I was pretty surprised since I guess I just assume that new players are always younger than me, but he's in his early 40s (42 I think?) I think we have a lot in common too -- he does web design, graphic design, and photography for a living, and those are things that I like to do for fun (and potentially for a living if anyone will call me back...) I'm kind of eager to help him progress in his game and tried to convince him to start doing more livestreaming. Nick and I tried to push this a bit more on some other people too. Josh was one of them.

I talked with April quite a bit on Sunday too. I like her and Ben -- they're a really cute couple. Ben reminds me a lot of Rory Dawson. I think his sense of humour is really charming and he made me smile a lot. April kept having questions about osis and pixie form and for so many of her questions I felt like I didn't have good answers and realized that I'm terrible at giving advice for certain things. I think Johnny feels kind of the same. Any time I ask him for advice on something he kind of just says that he doesn't know how to explain it or what he does special, he just does it. I think I'm better at giving advice to players who are closer to my level? Or maybe it just depends on the questions or tricks I'm being asked about.

I had lots of fun and met lots of people. I felt especially antisocial on the last day though so I talked even less than usual. I did a quick geocache run with Vince and Mac though, and had a nice talk to Vince after too. Oh I also talked with Anton for a while at some point and I talked with Johnny about LockStitch. I didn't get a chance to play much since most of the shred happened while I was judging open circle, but I did play for maybe an hour or two before that. I hit some okay stuff, but my runs were really short. Kinda more like short neat combos. Nothing new or particularly notable. Mathieu hit phobia first try (his second time ever?) in a 2-person with just him and me. He was also trying fairy merkon > fairy gyro mirage >.. fairy pandora I think?

Anyway. Really fun time. I want to go to more events and start playing more outdoors with Adam since it's starting to get really nice out. I didn't play Sunday, but "we" played outdoors. Johnny and Cassy got sunburns and I didn't realize until I got home and showered that I did too! My poor hairless scalp is burned and on my nose also. I will have to be careful this summer with no hair! I guess bandanas will provide additional benefits now. Oh, I competed in Request and tied 4th place with... Nick I think? I think one of the highlights of the weekend was hitting pixie whirl (real whirl!) in request. I think the combo was ducking pdx mirage > pixie whirl? Most people in the circle recognized that that's a thing I don't do too. I ended up dropping on pdx blender > diving legover. The other combo (which I also tried) was spinning illusion > far symple rev swirl. That one probably would have been easier. And both sound too easy to drop on, but it was okay and I just smiled, got props, and went to watch the rest. I did beat out Jim though. Hehe. He dropped on something silly too. Johnny won Request, but I forget the combo. Then he was trying further combos, but missed. Johnny told Ianek to try and as always Ianek hit the combo first try. Hahaha. It was bedwetter > something. Request is fun.

Oh yeah I also talked with Jim a bit. He was one of the first ones I talked to the most when we first arrived in the city. he was showing me some footage he'd taken from Vegas Jam and also showing me this very light shoe that he found. It seemed lighter than my Climas and I'm really interested to hear more about his findings once he's played in them some more. He also gave me a tip on blazing barfly that I'm gonna try some time. It seemed kind of obvious once he said it. He was also giving pixie advice to one of the PSU guys and I was listening really intently, since I'm trying to relearn mine and I want to implement those aspects too.

Another highlight from the trip was one of the first things that, like, 6-ish people said to me upon meeting me for the first time -- that they had just finished watching the video I put up of Adam and me and how much they liked it. Apparently at both houses they were watching the same video on projector screens. I really want to work on getting back my longer runs because I feel kind of embarrassed by how short my runs were both in that video and at the event.

[Cass]

Yayyyy I'm glad you made it and had fun

There will be many jams and sessions in our near future.

[krustykrakk]

Woo! Thanks for coming out! It was an intense experience to have such well-known and influential players with whom to kick! I only wished we could have kicked together, I was really looking forward to seeing some whips. That just gives us more incentive to meet up (hopefully when I am closer to your level!) Also,sorry for you being roped into judging, as well as the hard wood status of my floor.

[bluevampire101]

Awesome right-up!..left-down.
Sorry for asking so many questions. I realize that everyone has their own ways of doing things, and didn't mean to make you think you were terrible at giving advice.
I hope we can hang out sometime soon again! Perhaps kick in the same circle, and the likes. Also, perhaps find things in common! (Sorry once again, I realize I was talking practically strictly about footbag-related things).
And also, thank you for attending! I'm glad you were able to make it!

[Muffinman]

Thanks guys
I was happy to judge and it was fun, I just didn't realize that people would stop shredding immediately after for the rest of the day. The floor was fine too. I knew I would be on a floor, so I had no qualms with that. I was super appreciative of my Canadian crew fighting to get me the couch on the second night though. I don't understand why they fought so hard to ensure I get it over themselves, even when I said that it would probably be more appreciated by someone else. I slept a ton better on it, though, and huge thanks to Alex for spearheading that endeavour. Also thanks to Cassy for pushing me to go in the first place -- it was a really last minute decision for me. What a great bunch of people!

[C-Fan]

Really enjoyed the write-up. Props on hitting a whirl trick in request! I find that half the time I get knocked out in request on stuff I'm supposedly "good" at, much less concepts I never do.