SandWraith's Footnovel: Now with more footbag!

[MaelstromEx]

Brian and Zach's adventure truly was a great tale, especially when you have experienced it first hand. best moment was:

Do you have the stuff?
I'm in a TRAIN station!

OH YEAH NEW PAGE BOO YAH

[SandWraith]

Yay for people commenting! Boo for still being sick and not being able to play footbag!

I woke up at noon today, brushed my teeth, put in my contacts, took a shower, ate breakfast and... fell asleep on the couch. Woke up at 3:30. And of the rest of the time I've been awake, I spent nearly 5 hours playing Doom 3. Ooooh vacations.

My legs feel so ready for footbag, so I'm hoping I'll wake up tomorrow with no sore throat, and then I'll kick till my legs fall off.

[SandWraith]

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

We cannot be happy
if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity.
Happiness is not a matter of intensity,
but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.

[MaelstromEx]

hope you're having fun playing doom 3 hombre!

[Wim]

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Dude! I didn't know Shakespeare was on modified! Does he have a blog?

[SandWraith]

If Shakespeare had a blog, I would totally read it. That man kicks (kicked?) ass.

And as for me, I'm still sick, but only a bit now. When I posted those quotes I was literally death incarnate. My throat was extremely scratchy, my nose was running continuously, I felt like shit, and my right ear was pressurized and wouldn't pop. I spent all that day just waiting for it to end.

I'm amazingly almost better now though. With any luck, I will feel great tomorrow and can begin lightly kicking again, almost exactly one week since my last session. :S

[SandWraith]

I played for the first time since January 1st. Dear God it's been a long time....

My nose is still runny, but other than that I'm feeling fine. Still, I didn't want to tempt fate so I only kicked for about 30 minutes in my basement, which means poor lighting and the equivalent of a 4 foot by 6 foot kicking area.

I didn't want to get breathing to hard, as that could incite the respiratory demons back again. Therefore, it was mostly just single tricks.

I wanted to hit fairies again, since that's my greatest goal and greatest joy at the moment. I managed to hit fairy legovers BS again, and then I just did some fairy sets for a while as practice. I then tried atomics for some reason, and found that not only do I still have my strongside atomic, I somehow developed a flipside! I managed to hit flipside eggbeater!

I wanted to hit wauxpins but the confined space made that too difficult. With a couple reverse whirls and a few small, light strings, I called it quits.


I am really excited about my game though, because with consistent fairy, atomic, and stepping sets, I could finally realize my dream of long, diverse shuffles. Ohhhhh a man can dream.

"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

[SandWraith]

Nose still runny. I'm starting to think it has to do with the fact that I was trying to grow a beard. As a matter of superstition, I'm gonna shave it off today.

Kicking again in the basement, so very few runs at all. I'm hoping to get a real session going tomorrow at the high school gym, where I have space to spread my wings.

I began by trying to hit paradox DLOs, and was quite tickled (yes! tickled!) when I hit it from right foot clipper on ~3rd try. I tried a bunch from left foot clipper but couldn't make it-- I footed it several times, but no cigar.

I spent most of my time working on my fairy set and atomic set. Neither one is very useful at the moment-- I can set it almost every time but I don't have the footwork/form down so that I can do anything downtime out of the set. With a lot of time, I did manage to hit tapping mirage a.k.a tap both sides, with plants and a nice high set. I spent a good deal of time on fairy ss mirages, and can hit it decently without a plant both sides, but then it's susceptible to being a bit the (or at least, not as clean as I'd like). With a good deal of effort, I hit it both sides with a plant, but it wasn't easy. My left fairys have a tendency to squirt off to the left of my body, meaning I'm not dragging the bag a bit while dexing.

Overall, the amount of time spent on fairys and atomics should help those sets, and I look forward to getting them to a useful level.

New Hits:
-paradox DLO from right foot clipper
-fairy ss mirage BS with plants
-tap BS

If I can get some good shuffle going by late March or April, there's a nice spot near my dorm where I could kick and get a LOT of exposure, so that's my goal: develop and integrate fairys and atomics into tolerably long runs.

[Bander87]

Glad your getting better Zach... Still keep it easy, you've been sick for a while it seems. Try eating healthy if you don't already. I've been making an effort and I noticed I'm more energetic and wake up easier.

[SandWraith]

Thanks for the advice. I seem to be have gotten better in the last couple days; the final remnants of this abominable cold are leaving me, but apparently my mom and sister are getting it now. At least I'm sure it won't hit them nearly as hard, given that I got mine as a result of a very poor environment (cold + exhausted + tired + sweat-covered).

Brian and I went to the Y and kicked for about two hours-- in our own private room. Score! It was a group exercise room with a mirror along one wall, three other walls, good lighting, and a pretty good floor.

I don't think either of us kicked that especially well: he had already kicked for an hour that day and as a result was sore, I hadn't done any runs since two Sundays ago. All in all though, we didn't do that bad either.

I really have to work on runs though.

[SandWraith]

I just got back from the high school, where I had gone to work on my runs. When I got there though, I discovered that there was an "open gym" going on, which is essentially a bunch of semi-organized team sports played in there. Every part of the gym was being used, so I couldn't kick.

In actuality, it's not that bad however, because the volume of fairy practice I had done two days prior resulted in one of my ligaments/tendons on the outside back of my left knee becoming tender. My plan of attack was to not do any fairy stuff today, and to wait until my leg felt completey better before doing any more fairy. Hopefully, by constantly reintroducing the stress, my ligaments/tendons will adapt to it. I'm not sure if that will work, but it seems like a possible solution.

So today will just be another rest day then, and I will focus on kicking tomorrow.

I also bought 10 pounds of 5 gauge (really small) lead shot today for $10. There's almost no way I'll use even a half pound of the stuff, since it's mostly just to add a bit of weight to my lighter bags, but I couldn't find it in any smaller size. I have toyed with the idea of stitching, but probably wouldn't take it up until summer, since I don't think I'd have any time during this upcoming semester.

I added some weight to my footfighter and am very excited to see the difference in performance.

[slapdash21]

I added some weight to my footfighter and am very excited to see the difference in performance.

i actually did the same thing very soon after getting it. i was pleased with the result, myself.

[SandWraith]

i was pleased with the result, myself.

Me too. Boy does it play a lot better now; it feels a lot like my emmings except less full.

I played about 30 minutes in my basement even though I hate playing down there. Today was my first "mechanics session" in a while, based on several recommendations on improving string length. So here's the best I got:
-14 contacts of mirage > legover > [rpt]
-8 contacts of butterfly > paradox mirage > [rpt]
-8 consecutive butterflys

Given my lack of kicking, I'm not disappointed in those results at all. I'm gonna try to continue doing drills like that in the future, and hopefully my runs will get better.

I also hit paradox whirl BS first try, so perhaps I might give whirl war a shot at some point (paradox whirl > whirl > [rpt]), but don't expect that to become a drill. I'm not nearly good enough at those yet.

--------
Brian and I played at the Y again, this time from about 6:30 to 8. We had a lot of fun and some decent runs. I hit far pickup > op clipper > paradox whirl BS and feel that if I work paradox whirls a bit every session I should be able to throw them in midstring without too much trouble.

I also shattered my three string length records set earlier in the day, getting:
-22 contacts of mirage > legover > [rpt]
-20 contacts of butterfly > paradox mirage > [rpt]
-11 consecutive butterflys
-11 contacts of illusion > pickup > [rpt] on the only try of the day

...and I'm ordering some G-units tonight. I'll throw pics up or a link or something. Woot

NOTE: I edited the first post of my blog with a current pic of me, and check out this fabbity fab-fab pic my sister took of me and our kitten Mindy looking at modified:

(sorry for the size)

[Krafty]

Nice shirt (and kitten)! I just noticed that Shakespeare quote at the top of the page; I don't know how I missed it! We just finished reading Macbeth in my AP Lit & Comp class! I'm glad to see that you're feeling better and hitting sweet tricks! Hope to shred with you soon!

[SandWraith]

Hope to shred with you soon!

Like next year, perhaps? Seriously, you can't imagine how pumped I'd be to have you at WashU next year. We could start a club! That'd be the shit!

Another session today, but since that damn gym is always occupied, I had to wait until 10 pm to go down there. I was still a bit sore from the drill and run-based sessions yesterday, so I didn't kick all that well. I decided to work on my DLOs, since I realized that I don't have much of a flip, though my strongside is pretty consistent. I did maybe 5 DLOs each side. I'm hoping eventually to replace my mirage > legover > [rpt] with DLO > legover > [rpt]. We'll see. I also did one wauxpin each side but was getting frustrated with them. I had them pretty well two weeks ago, so failing repeatedly wasn't much fun. I also touched a little on atomic and fairy, but by that point I was exhausted, so I'm gonna work on those tomorrow, time permitting. The reason I was exhausted is that I spent some more time near the start of the session working on my drills, and hit:
-21 contacts of mirage > legover > [rpt]
-14 contacts of butterfly > paradox mirage > [rpt]
-10 consecutive butterflys

More importantly, I discovered that I can get around 7 or 8 consecutive butterflys each try. The aspect of that move I had missed is , right before you're going to cushion the bag, perform a little hop. It helped tremendously in my consistency with them.

Oh, and I did some reverse whirls and whirls, and am getting better at flip reverse whirls.

I'm about to go downstairs and finish changing the filler on my abshire. I haven't used that bag much, partially because it seems overly-filled and underweight. Since I have 3.5 pounds of lead shot, I figure I'll take out the filler in the abshire and replace it. I have already gotten 2/3 of the original filler out with a straw-- it appears to be very small steel balls and some semi-transparent beads. I assume the balls are steel because they're magnetic, which lead isn't. It could be some other metal though. I'm gonna take some pictures in case anyone is curious as to the process and what the filler looks like. And this blog entry got far longer than intended and far longer than anyone would want to read. Sorry about that.

[HG]

Lmao you always end your posts with something funny.



Where did you get all the lead shot?! I would love to find some and put it in my old ass abshire thats so big and floppy. Its really light. And also put some in my jbag cause that bag sucks hard.



Im pumped to see you pumped about footbag again!

[SandWraith]

Nice to hear from you Henry! I bought my lead shot at a gun shop in town. It was $10 for 3.5 pounds, but I coulda gotten a better deal if I did $25 for 25 pounds, but I seriously didn't want 25 pounds of lead.

I didn't kick today, but rather took it easy. I have pictures of my filler-changing, in the hopes that it may help someone. The images will probably be ginormous, but oh well.

The tools (I took this half-way through, so that's why the original filler is out of the bag :/)


The lead shot container:


The original Abshire filler:


The replacement filler (it's not nearly that much larger than the Abshire filler, but is much heavier):


Inserting the straw:


The process:


I used a toothpick to pull the hexagons far enough apart to insert the straw. For a while, I was able to remove the original filler by just tipping the Abshire upside down and shaking it about. When that failed, I had tried a variety of tactics before eventually using my mouth to suck out the remaining filler, then spitting it into the bowl. It wasn't pleasant and it still wasn't overly successful. As you probably can tell from the last picture, my process wasn't that great either. It was not very effective and I eventually just started shoving the pellets in the hole that resulted from having the straw in there. It all worked itself out though, and now I have a much heavier bag.

In case you're curious, the original Abshire pellets aren't lead. They are attracted to magnets, whereas lead is not. My dad speculates that they're steel, but I can't say either way.

Oh, and tomorrow I head back. /:(

[CIC flurry]

Allo

[SandWraith]

Hey Tom.

So I'm back at WashU. I arrived yesterday around 9:20 pm and proceeded to unpack my stuff while Mike and Josh and I chatted. Then we found Peter and the group of us ate dinner, followed by playing Super Smash Brothers Melee until 2 am. Some things never die.

Today I picked up my books and then went to play footbag. I found a nice spot across Wydown Street from campus. It's a middle school, and has a blacktop parking lot less than five minutes from my dorm. The spot is nice but I'm afraid it might be bad for my bag. I used my emmings and it got kinda dirty, lightly covered with that blackish blacktop dust (just put your hand on blacktop once and see what your hand looks like-- my bag is kinda covered like that). It's only a bit darker, but we'll see how it affects the bag after more time.

Unfortunately, it gets dark around 5 pm, so I won't have time to play there except weekends until the sun starts setting later (class till 4 every day of the week).

The session, though, was fabulous. I spent some time on my drills and some time on new things, but sadly didn't get time to work on whirls, reverse whirls, fairy set, or atomic set. Hopefully I will be able to tomorrow. What I did accomplish, on the other hand, is some work on ducking butterflys, double legovers, and runs in general. I hit ducking butterfly BSOS, DLO > legover > DLO, and several runs with paradox whirls. I think that little pre-landing hop I mentioned a couple days ago helps with landing a lot of moves.

Some of my runs today were huge! I was hitting butterflys very well and, even better, my paradox mirages were butter. Some notable things to mention are:
-21 contacts of mirage > legover > [rpt]
-20 consecutive butterflys-- this beats my previous best of 19 butterflys, set on June 1, 2005!

My runs were great, so I'm really hoping I'll have time to kick tomorrow. All I have is physics lab and work study, so I should be able to. In fact, I think I won't have physics lab (first day of the semester), so I can push work study forward.

Oh, and tonight Peter, Mike, and I are likely gonna go watch "Hostel".

[Tjuggles]

Hey!
Good work on consecutives!
That is something that I dont do enough
Well, I do i guess but I get fede up soon after.
Also thanks for the pics of changing filler! I thought about changing mine, but im kind of lazy, and the current weight doesnt seem to effect my game at all, so maybe i will just leave it alone...

drills are fun...

TJ