Fanzine

[C-Fan]

Taking Friday and Saturday off from footbag was a good move; my legs feel healthy and strong now.

I realize now that I actually played on Saturday. In fact, not only did I play Saturday, I even blogged about it! Weird that I'd forget something like that. Anyway

Got in a session after work yesterday, which was nice and relaxing. I split my time 70/30 between shred and routine practice. The routine is definitely coming along. I'd say I'm averaging just over a drop right now, which isn't bad considering the choreo isn't locked down. Yesterday I managed one dropless run-through where I hit most of my cues and sections. Felt promising. I need to keep in mind that Worlds isn't for another three months, so while I want to practice my routine a bunch, I also don't want to burn out on it or get frustrated by it. Yesterday I did just the right amount of routine practice.

Shredwise there wasn't too much notable stuff. Mostly skooled spins as usual, but I also did a little shuffle practice to knock the rust off of it. I only really need a few shuffle tricks for my routine just for variety. Once I retire from routines, I figure I'll get rid of it altogether.

Highlights:

*blurry whirl-scorpion's tail
*vortex-pdx drifter-drifter-spinning arm bump
*GDLO-toebius

On my way to work today a bee accosted me, and made me a little nervous as it followed me around for a bit. I think the Berlin crew must have sent him as a threatening reminder for me to buy my tickets to Worlds this week.

During yesterday's shred I got two more omens that I should go to Worlds. First, there was a guy sitting near me who was wearing a shirt with the german flag. Second, and weirder, there was a single, big, red balloon floating around. Could it have come all the way from Berlin? These signs, combined with the Worlds 09 bumblebee that harassed me in the morning, finally convinced me to pony up and buy my tickets to Worlds. And I did. So I'll officially see you all in Berlin!

Now I just need to find housing. Anybody have an extra spot in their hotel room from Tuesday night through Saturday night?

[boyle]

Hey Ken, great you can make it to worlds, looking forward to kicking with you again.

[james_dean]

It supposed to make it up to 90 again today, which is crazy considering we're still in April. It's like we got 2 weeks of Spring and dove headfirst into Summer.

Damn, Australia's doing this to us in reverse. It's supposed to be -1C here overnight... that's not fair! That's against Autumn rules!

We should Riot!!!


p.s. props on GDLO > Tobius that's hot.

[C-Fan]

Having a really rough week, both professionally and personally. There's even some overlap: thanks to swine flu, I had to drop all my other work yesterday to work on a project with a 24 hour deadline, which was stressful and leaves me unprepared for two meetings I have today. I'm also probably going to have to cancel a trip to NYC this weekend, because that's the worst epicenter of H1N1 in the US. I was really looking forward to going to NYC too.
Adding to my stress, my alarm clock didn't work this morning, and I woke up 20 minutes after I was supposed to be at work. Please God, get me to the weekend already...

Took yesterday off because it rained. I actually welcomed the rain for two reasons:

1. My body needed a break
2. It washed away some pollen.

I'd seriously never seen as much pollen before in my life. Spring in DC this year is a vague yellow haze. It's a fine mist in the air, it's an itch in your throat. All the cars on the street have a thin film on them, as if somebody applied a dirty yellow filter on the world using photoshop. The sidewalk looks like its covered in sand. When I drop my bag during a session, it comes back up half coated in yellow dust. I don't even have allergies, and it was starting to drive me crazy. So rain was a godsend, as it tamped some of the pollen down and washed some of it away. I'm not sure how much that will affect me though, given that I may not play for a few days anyway. I give blood today, and then the next few days the forecast calls for rain. Hopefully I can sneak in a session somewhere.

Anyway, I had a pretty solid session two days ago. The session was divided something like 60/20/20 between working on challenges, working on my routine, and just shredding. The thing that I was most excited about was finding that my flip spin hadn't abandoned me. Onto highlights:

Highlights:
*osis x21 to infinity x21 to osis x21
*gdlo-drifter-torque both sides

Challenge highlights, in rough order of how happy I was with them:

*ducking clipper-spin clip-gyro clip-gyro clip [repeat], both sides
*merkon-swirl [repeat]
*spin butter-spin clip-spin osis rpt
*strong spinning clipper x13
*swirl war
*dyno x7
*flip spinning clipper x12, new personal record
*gyro clipper x12!
*vortex-pdx drifter-drifter-got the dex for vortex. Both sides.

That last one is obviously an attempt at vortex-pdx drifter-drifter [repeat], which seems doable to me. I was also stoked about my flip spinning stuff. It was my first time cracking double digits on spinning clipper on flip, and I was proud that I got 12 or more on each side. I also hadn't broken double digits in gyro clipper since February, so 12 GCs felt good too.

Routine practice went well. I think I did three run-throughs altogether? I just need to make sure I practice it every session, and I listen to my song everyday. I'm not going to start imposing dropless quotas on myself until a month before Worlds, and even then I'm not sure if I will.

[C-Fan]

Like I mentioned in my last post, this was a rough week for me both professionally and personally. Because of that, the weekend weather forecast bummed me out as it predicted rain from Friday through Monday. Given that footbag is my best stress-reducer, a weekend rainout wouldn't be good for me mentally.

In a fantastic turn of events though, the weather ended up being perfect after work yesterday. Sunny, and not too hot or humid. The rain also took some of the pollen out of the air, so I was able to focus more just on playing. I ended up having a 2.5 hour session, which was a lot of fun. In between runs I'd take breaks by reading Preacher, which is a great comic. I spent the majority of the session working on spinning drills and challenges, but I did practice my routine a few times. I really don't want to burn out on my routine too early, or put too much pressure on myself, so for now I'm making a point to practice it, but not go overboard. Maybe two or three run-throughs a session, tops.

Challenges I hit/rehit/tried, in rough order of how happy I was with them:

*duck clip-spin clip-gyro clip-gyro clip [rpt], both sides.
*dyno x5
*vortex-gyro clipper. Sauced the vortex.
*swirl war
*gyro clipper x9
*spinning clipper-merkon-spinning osis-spinning clip-merkon-spinning slip on loose slate pieces. I was robbed!
*gyro clip-gyro clip-spin clip-spin butt-spin osis-spin clip-spin butt-merkon-toe spinning clip-spinning osis. That's 10 unique spins if you consider toe spinning clipper unique from spinning clipper.
*gyro clip-gyro clip-spin clip-spin butt-spin osis-spin clip-spin butt-merkon-gyro mirage-spinning drop

I also did some drilling of basic concepts, like spins and flip zooming:

*spin clip x13 strong, 6 flip?
*osis-spin clip bsos
*osis-gyro mirage bsos

Given that there's no extra cost for Shred30 at worlds, I'm considering entering it just for fun. Even though I haven't done much shuffle lately, I managed to get this first try:

*sidewalk-ripwalk [rpt] to pdx whirl-whirl [rpt] to barfly-diving butter [rpt] to duck clip-dive clip[rpt] to gyro clip-spin clip-gyro clip-spinning drop.

Other random highlights:

*12 or 13 contacts of torque-osis [rpt]
*gdlo-smog
*flurry-whirl-pdx whirl [rpt]

It's supposed to rain today too, but there's a small window in the forecast where it should be nice, so I'm gonna try and sneak in a shred then. Wish me luck.

[C-Fan]

Rained out yesterday and today. At least I got in long sessions on Friday and Saturday. A couple days off probably isn't bad for my body either.

Saturday was overcast, but it was warm and I was able to play. Nobody bothered me either, so I had a good 2.5 hour shred in where I could just lose myself in playing. I only did a couple run-throughs of the routine, but I feel like I'm on track to get it in good shape by Worlds.

I kicked off the session by toying around with non-symple swirls in both directions on both sides, and had fun with that. I tried to get all 4 non-symple swirls in a run, but no luck.


Highlights, in rough order of how happy I was with them:

*ducking infinity swirl, both sides
*blw-blw-psw-psw, both sides
*smoke-egg repeat, first try
*rev swirl-drifter [rpt] to blender.
*rev. swirl-ripwalk bsos
*GDLO-smog-smoke-pdx torque-pdx blender
*torque-pdx drifter-dyno [rpt]
*twirl-merkon-symp dlo
*swirl x3

Challenge highlights:
*spin butter-spin clip-spin osis [rpt]
*gyro clip x7
*flip spin clip x7. Forgot to try strong.
*dyno x8
*spin clip-merkon-spin osis [rpt]. Pdx egg and PDLO bsos in the seal

Super stoked about that last one. Max originally challenged me to the non-drill version of that, which I thought was way too easy, so I made it into a drill. I didn't realize how tricky it would end up being. But flip toe spins felt good on Saturday, and so did zooming, so after a few close tries I finally nailed it. Feels good to cross it off my list.

Weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get in a shred then.

[C-Fan]

Here's a quick recap of the weather the last few days.

Sunday: rained all day, no footbag
Monday (my day off): rained all day, no footbag
Tuesday: overcast, but no rain until 4:30, when it started to pour. I get out of work at 5:30, so no footbag.
Wednesday: Periods of sun and clouds. Got to my shred spot at 6, rain starts at 6:30.

So I've only got to play 30 minutes in the last four days. Given that I've been dancing on the edge of depression since Thursday, and footbag is my emotional anchor, this weather could not have come at a worse time.

That said, I knew my shredtime yesterday would be limited, so I made a point to warm up fast, cram in as much shred as I could, and enjoy the time I did have. Overall I did pretty well.

Highlights in order of how happy I was with them:

*mobius-torque
*blw-mobius
*gdlo bsos with one vortex in the same run.
*gdlo-paradon-pdlo bsos
*vortex-psw-good look at mobius
*torque-mobius

Mobius-mobius definitely seems like an attainable goal. If I spend a couple weeks just skooling flip mobius and getting more comfortable zooming out of it, I bet I could hit it. For somebody who spent almost 10 years not being able to spin, this would be a big milestone.

In other footbag news, I paid my registration for Worlds. I'm only going to seriously compete in routines, but I signed up for other stuff too. I wouldn't be surprised if I end up scratching in the extra categories though. So now I've bought my tickets and registered for Worlds, but I still need to get a better edited copy of my routine song, and try and nail down housing. I think once I get those two things taken care of, I'll be able to relax a bit and get more pumped up for the tournament itself.

Weather forecast says sunny skies and good temps when I get off work. I don't trust it.

[Rieferman]

gdlo-paradon-pdlo

I like that one particularly

Philly's been getting the same weather as DC.. I agree, not cool. Although it makes me feel less bad about barn obsessing.

barn warming soon, stay tuned. we have yet to take advantage of how close you live now

[Ian Brill]

The rain has been pretty brutal here in Pittsburgh. I haven't kicked since Sunday myself. Hopefully, one way or another, I will get a chance to kick today. It will be my last chance before traveling.

[Muffinman]

Why so depressed, Ken?

Nice highlights.
Spinning totally feels the best, doesn't it???
You can do mobuis x2. No prob. If I can, you can. I'm surprised you've never hit it even though you only started schooling spins. Did you ever hit the spinning mobius, or is that still a race? I haven't tried it since you asked me in Prague.

[Wasabi]

In NYC me and Ben Cooke had the lucky chance to play on Wednesday at around 4-6:30 pm. That is, until the rain started to hit after the 6:30 mark. It was a grueling two man circle, but it was sweaty good fun.

This weekend is looking to be good weather, so if you don't have plans for Mother's Day use them for fun highlights.

[Sporatical_Distractions]

Your hilights are ridiculous!

and pixie flurry what?!

props!

and if you can hit twirl>merkon, mobius b2b is yours

ps. your spins are off the hook! they caught on super fast

[C-Fan]

your spins are off the hook! they caught on super fast

I have to say I'm really happy with my progress on strong side spins, but my flip feels like it isn't making much progress. At least I'm being diligent about continuing to skool it, so hopefully I can eventually get it to catch up.

In a welcome bit of good news, on Friday I got in my first proper session in almost a week. I played a solid hour and a half and got in a good mix of challenge work, shred, and routine practice. Its hard for me to explain how much I needed this session. I was feeling really down all week, and without footbag I felt like I didn't have a release. For those 90 minutes on Friday I felt like things were finally right with the world, and that everything was going to be OK. It's weird how a beanbag can have that kind of impact on my mental stability, but it does.

Anyway, onto highlights.

Challenge higlights:

*Very early in the session I got gyro clipper x8, and dyno x8.
*At the very end of the session, I got gyro clipper x11, and dyno x12! Dyno x12 completes one of my challenges, and is a new personal record.
*Spinning clipper x15. New personal record.
*torque-mobius
*spinning osis-mobius
*mobius-spin clip-spin osis-duck clip-mobius

Routines: one dropless run-through. Choreo still needs a lot of work.

Shred highlights:

*psw-mobius
*mobius-inspin clip
*mobius-isis
*tomahawk-gdlo-merlin first try
*torque-spin eclipse-other torque
*torque-vortex

I was particularly proud of those last two, as I felt they were rather styly. I still feel like mobius x2 is possible for me, but I need to skool the hell out of flip mobius. I only hit like, 3 on Friday, and was only able to spin out of 2 of them. I'm pretty confident I'll get it eventually though.

[C-Fan]

The good news is that I got to play footbag Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The bad news is that I'm still fighting off depression, and while playing footbag helps, it's not always the answer.

On Saturday I got in a solid 90 minute session with Adrienne and Vince. We all played well; I love it when that happens. It's like everybody feeds off each other's success. Saturday felt like my first non-solo session in a while, so I spent most of the time just going for strings and trying to spin as much as possible. So no routine practice, and not too much in the way of highlights, though I did hit a new move.

Saturday highlights:

*dyno x15. New personal record.
*mobius-inspin clip
*gyro clip x9
*amadeus

Sunday was beautiful weather out, but I had to force myself to get out of the house, and I had to force myself to play. That's not normal or healthy. I had a good spot and all the time in the day, but I didn't do my routine a single time. Just didn't have any motivation. I spent most of the time reading depressing comic books (Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine, and Black Hole by Charles Burns) and taking occasional breaks to skool consecs of tricks.

Consecs highlights:

*flip spin clip x9
*osis x78, new personal record
*drifter x24
*torque x7 strong, x3 flip
*whirl x25 strong, x14 flip
*pdx drifter x7 strong, x 5 flip

I also spent some time working on improving my flip spins. I feel like my strong side spinning got to be more reliable by always preceding it with ducking clipper, but on weak side spin I usually don't kick it off like that. So I spent some time just skooling flip ducking clipper to flip spinning, and had mixed results. I did hit flip mobius a lot easier than I had in past sessions, which was nice.

Highlights:
*duck clip-vortex bsos
*duck clip-mobius bsos
*spin osis-torque [repeat]
*twirl-spin eclipse-drifter

I thought that last combo was cute.

Weather this week looks to be a mixed bag. I'm going to force myself to play as much as I can, but put no pressure on myself as to what I hit. I think this week I'll just be content if I'm outside getting exercise, even if I'm not practicing my routine or working on challenges.

[C-Fan]

Got in a light shred yesterday. It was cool out, and I wasn't super-motivated to play, but I'm glad I made myself do it. Didn't do any routine practice at all, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. My session could be divided into three areas:

1. spin practice
2. shuffle practice (so I can use in routines)
3. random stuff I don't normally do.

Spin Highlights:

*A run with vortex, GDLO, and mobius all midrun, all using the same spin
*ducking clipper-vortex [repeat]

Shuffle highlights:

*rubberman, second try, starting on legbeater
*blur-atom-tripwalk [repeat]
*blw-psw-tomahawk both sides.

Got that last one BSOS too, but I think the last whirl was "the." Made a point to pronounce my atomic tricks so none of them were pulled, and was pleased to find I could do so easily.

Random stuff highlights:

*dominatrix, first try
*flurry-fairy butter-pdx blender. Vortex bsos off my foot in the seal.
*fairy legover-toe blur-spinning eclipse
*rev swirl x7, new personal record.
*whirling ss cloud kicking ducking pdx mirage

In other footbag-ish news, I sent my camera back for repairs again. Last time I got it repaired, it broke within five minutes use, so I don't have high hopes this time around. That said, I figured it was only $3.30 to ship it back, so if they do happen to fix it, that's a small price to pay.

Oh, and my new Waylon bag kicks so much ass. He really does make the best bags.

[C-Fan]

Legs have been killing me the last few days. I'm running a contest at work which involves me going to various DOI agencies and conducting office safety inspections, which means I've been walking a ton everyday, and it's definitely taken a toll on me.

The weather has been decent this week, so I'm getting in sessions, but I'm not really feeling it. It could be the shin splints slowing me down, or it could be that I'm feeling depressed, but whatever the case footbag hasn't been very much fun for me lately. I'm forcing myself to play though, because the exercise can't hurt, and hopefully it'll help me improve my game.

Yesterday was ideal weather, but I made the decision to delay my session so I could buy new insoles and take my time cutting them properly. I think this was a very good decision. I've been needing new insoles for well over a year, but I kept getting discouraged by buying new ones and not having them work out. The ones I got yesterday though feel excellent. Once I get my second Waylon bag in a couple weeks, I'll feel set for Worlds at least in terms of equipment.

I did a little routine practice, and got one dropless runthrough. It still feels really loose though. I feel like most of my good routines in the past were much more tightly choreographed. Part of my problem is I don't really have a good sound-system to play my song, so it can be hard to hear it.

Did some basic spinning practice, which felt pretty good:

*gyro clipper x8
*spin clipper x10
*flip spin clipper x8

I also toyed around a bit with various swirl concepts:

*rev swirl-far symple swirl [repeat]
*whirling ss cloud kicking ss swirl

I also hit all three links that comprise the drill: forward swirl-far symple swirl [repeat], but I'm still a long way from getting the whole thing.

[C-Fan]

Forced myself to play yesterday, despite leg pain and my lack of desire to footbag. No routine practice. Spent most of the time working on spins and drills. Only new notable thing was using a new technique to hit spinning pdx tricks. Basically, I now think of the spin in these tricks the way I do for a good gyro clipper. It seemed to help.

Highlights:

*dyno x7 on two occasions
*spin osis-GDLO, with vortex-dyno in the same run.
*marius
*spin osis-torque [repeat]
*merkon-torque [repeat]
*void both sides, almost bsos each time

Weather looks like a mixed bag this weekend, but I'm not going to worry about stuff I can't control. Next week I'll be in Denver for work, and the weekend after that I'll likely go to NYC for memorial day. I'm hoping that the changes of environment will help bust me out of this funk.

[Frank_Sinatra]

Help bust me out on this funk!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EukUbkzy6w8[/youtube]

[C-Fan]

Thanks Nathan and Rick.

Got out of work at a quarter to five on Friday, and headed straight to a happy hour with some old co-workers. It was fun, but it was also over really early, so by seven I found myself at home with 2.5 beers in my empty stomach. I was buzzed, but I was also still very aware of the fact that there was at least one more hour of nice sunlight out, and I also remembered that the forecast said I might be rained out Saturday, and Sunday for sure looked like a rain out. Knowing all that, I threw on my shred gear and headed out.

The first half hour I just tried to clear my head and get the buzz out of my system. I didn't hit anything of note. As the session progressed and the sun set, I regained my senses enough to hit some decent stuff.

In rough order of how happy I was with them, here are my highlights:

*phoenix-rev swirl-pdx blender
*spin clipper-spin osis [repeat]
*phoenix-swirl-pdx blender
*gyro clipper x8
*spin osis-spin osis-inspin osis
*gyro clipper-gyro osis [repeat]
*PLO x20.
*gyro osis-dyno [repeat]

[C-Fan]

New page in the blog, and hopefully a new page for me mentally too. I'm still feeling down, but yesterday I had my first session in a long time where footbag felt fun.

Got a call from Ryan Thomas saying his work was cancelled, so we met up in Georgetown to play. We got to play in this little park that I've wanted to play at for a while. It's a circle of ionic columns facing a bust of Francis Scott Key, and there's vegetation growing around the top of the columns so there's a bit of shade. Very pretty spot.

One of my New Years Resolutions was to stop drinking sodas, and I've been pretty good about it. I had a Dr. Pepper yesterday, which was my third soda of the year. I think the caffeine, combined with the excitement of playing with somebody else, helped me play well.

For the most part I just focused on practicing my spins. At one point I tried pixie double pickup (starts and ends on different toes) for fun, and was surprisingly close. Gave it a few more tries, and finally hit a good one. Definitely surprised to hit a new triple dex at this point in my career, especially given my recent focus on spins.

Highlights:

*pixie double pickup
*spin clip-spin osis [rpt]
*gyro clip-gyro osis [rpt]
*spinning clipper x11, both sides
*gyro clipper x11
*spin butter-spin clipper-gyro clipper [rpt] to spin osis-spin osis
*dyno x8

Ryan has excellent style and form. I think that playing with him could be very good for me, especially at this point in my game.