Begin Phase 1 again

[Iron Clad Ben]

Awesome day to day... almost perfect

Well our usual shred spot was in use for some pay-admission festival so I had to send out an email to the list telling every body to that we were moving to a new spot. I thought the Story of Texas Museum would be a good place to shred. Turned out to be AWESOME.

The greatest thing about it was I got there and who was there but Cody Rushing (morsecode) and Andrew Koller (not sure if he has a modified acct). They claim to be "rusty" and "not their best"... well that's a hell of a lot better than I am! Cody shreds completely barefoot. He can guiltless no problem and was hitting a lot of drifters, plus a lot of atomic and pixie moves. It was so cool to see him hit everything with no shoes. He even footed whirlwind which and hit pretty thin but nonetheless cool TATW which was pretty crazy. Andrew's really good too, he hit a bunch of cool stuff including drifter x 4 and pixie osis > osis > diving osis which looked really cool. Plus a hell of a bunch of other stuff. These guys definitely have skills.

I didn't hit anything new, but I had a lot of good long tiltless runs. Cody gave me a pointer on osis, mainly about spinning into it, starting the spin before I make contact, and it made a WORLD of difference. Osis feels much more cleaner and reliable now. Turns out we live in the same neighborhood, REALLY close to each other so hope to shred with him some time soon.

Well the part about the day being almost perfect is that my girlfriend got here and was pissed at me about some stuff I did... not really pertinent to here, but otherwise it was a great day, upsetting it has to end on a low note.

[Kljopa]

Sounds like you had a good session keep working on the tiltles! I decided that i should get all my tiltless move more stable and everyone say's that basic's are imporant,no need to rush for the 3add moves

And today im going to shred outside for the first time in my life wooot

[mosher]

Yo Ben!

I finished your footbag last night and it's sweeeeeeeeeeet!!!

I will mail it out today!

[brinard]

thanks for the challenge bud.

ill challenge you to hit (if i havent challenged them yet, and if you havent hit them....)

illusioning legover
pixie ducking butter
pixie ducking mirage

heres some i can hit that i find kinda easy, with some work...you try

ss illusion
far illusion
tapping pixie (magellan) im workin on this one


man sounds like your having a great time footbagging.... i wish we could shred together someday...

i just got my clima 1s dude! i got em this afternoon, for about 50$. theyre sweet. definetly a better alternative to lavers... so if you ever need new lavers, search hard for climas first!

once i start stitching, ill send you a test bag, and you gotta give me a review, k? im sending one to matt mcfarland too... and prolly a few kids im starting to kick w/ regularly...

but you gotta use it!
im getting my facile on the next paycheck... or maybe end of next week...

cya, and shred hard!

brian

[Iron Clad Ben]

Thanks Brian but I can't do pixie set or butterfly, so it'll be a while before I can hit those challenges. Plus I gotta learn whirl for Mike's challenges.

Saw that you got your climas. That rox. I do need some new shoes... I should get some. Tax Return is $44, but I spent 21 bux on Turbo tax so I can get one climacool shoe, not a pair with that.

Haven't been able to footbag at all this week. Work has been like suckymcsuck town...

Boss was out of town so I had to cover for him. All this crap came funneling my way. That sucked. Plus meetings 3 days in a row 5:30 to 6:30 so I wasn't getting home until past 7.
Multiple customers threatening to buy or sell things on the grey market, just to be douchebags
Sites were bitchin' at me for not having enough parts in the hub to cover their forecast. What else is new.
Had some $183K dollar deal get fucked up and had to redo it from scratch meanwhile everyone's bitching at me.
Decommits on planars or some component, 5 different people whining about backlog going delinquent. Everyone proposing worthless solutions.
Had to do a bunch of useless data mining for the big wigs.

Shred this Saturday. Geez if I didn't have footbag to look forward too, life would be much harder to deal with.

[brinard]

i cant do pixies well yet.im just startin... but i can do some...

whirl is too hard for me now. ican barely hit swirl.

sorry works been a bitch... but that means a paycheck, which means maybe some new shoes.... catch my drift..er..
i found about 3 or 4 pairs of climas, but in like womens 8s and some 8.5 euro, soo that means 9.5. . .

you got big feet right?... i cant remember if you said so...

something to look for!

butterfly was my first 3. its pretty easy, and you should def. add it to your trick list... inventory... vault...something of the sort...


happy easter when it gets here

shred hard

brian

[Iron Clad Ben]

OKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK...

Let's see what's been going on? Not much turn out at shred sessions lately! That's been frustrating. Work has been sucky-mcsuck-town. I hate corporate america, but it pays the fucking bills.

The last 3 weeks I've only shredded 3 times. YIKES . I'm always busy, but usually I make time during the week. Not lately, Saturday only. I'm a weekend warrior. I want to change that! My game actually got worse. I was actually feeling shitty about footbag and life in general the past few weeks. My girlfriend wrecked her car, she's OK, but it led to this big drama fest and things were tough for a while. Now everything's copasetic and if anything, it's brought us closer.

Session today! One new guy showed up, Luis, he could hit toe and outside stalls with a mister. I helped him with ATWs and clippers. He can hit clipper now! He had to leave a little early to help out his little brother or something, but it's good. He needs to get lavers!

Well, I haven't learned ANY new tricks in a while, not since I hit reverse swirl for the comps. What I've been working on is STRINGS. I FINALLY HIT 20 TILTLESS TODAY!!*!*!*!*!*!*!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEEYEYEYEYAHHAH!!... TWICE

Legover > Mirage x 10
Legover > Mirage > Clipper > Mirage x 5 (half the mirages were clipper set and I think I had one far legover in there too)

Plus also hit Pdx mirage + Clipper set mirage BSOS (8 tiltless contacts, two of which were 3's)

Found a new spot to shred near the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue. I love Texas rock and roll! Woooooohooo!! Going to go see ELVIS ON SPEED tonight. They fucking rule http://www.elvisonspeed.com

Till next time, peace and rock on.

EDIT: Holy shit, I totally forgot, I got my mosher bag (FINALLY!) the other day. It fucking rules. It looks cool and it shreds friggin awesome. Sets great stalls great. PERFECT. Thank you Tommy Boy!

[sidekick]

First of all...

PM5K! HELL YES!

Secondly, I was read your blog, and I must say you're making some good progression in your game. Keep it up! Hopefully we can shred soon, and if not, make a vid please!

[Iron Clad Ben]

Not been footbagging too much lately. Lotsa shit going on, mostly good things, and I've just been really busy.

Had a session with James, Cody and new guy Glenn yesterday. It was hot as hell outside! 94 degrees, I was guzzling down water just as fast as I was sweating it out.

Had some good runs.
clipper > pdx mirage x 3
pdx mirage > clipper > pdx mirage > ducking clipper > pdx mirage

Got some help from James on clipper technique. We talked about dropping your weight when you crank and bend your support leg to better cradle the bag. HOLY CRAP! 2 minutes after that I hit my first butterfly! F&*($ING FINALLY! Still only hitting it on my right side (left foot) but I'm sure strong side will come pretty soon! The technique helped everything clipper related. My set out a clipper is much cleaner and easier to duck, osises are much cleaner, clipper set mirage and pdx mirage are even more cake, WOW!

Planning on doing 2 demo's this summer! One for kids at the library and then one down in San Antonio for Ozarka. San Antonio guys if you ever read this, shoot me a PM. Our clubs need to kick together like I hear we used to.

[Iron Clad Ben]

It was a good week. After a groundbreaking tip on clippers that helped tremendously with butterflies, I have been butterflying it up! It's so fun, because for the longest time it was a trick I just could not conceive myself being able to do it. Now I am hitting them great! I can even hit infinity, kind of, still unreliable.

I started a challenge topic, so go there and challenge me! Link is in my sig now!

I don't have anything fantastically new for sick 1 and sick 3 unfortunately, because up until a week ago, I was having a shitty run with footbag. However, tomorrow is a holiday! No work! Maybe I will hit something new

My girlfriend is going to Mexico for the week with the family she is a nanny for Guess it just means more footbag time!

[Iron Clad Ben]

For a short work week it was one hell of a week.

I've been shredding my ass off. 6 days in a row. That's a personal record. Booyah.

Highlights:
-Hit 5 BOPs in a row that's a PR too.
-Footed 2 different 4-add's several times
-Did a demo for the kids!
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=13492
-Set a date for Texas Statewides!!
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=13493

I've just had footbag on my brain this week. It's been great. I love it.

A lot of kids seem to pick up footbag in high school and then drop it during college or after. They couldn't fit it into their life any more. I think that's unfortunate. For me it's a different story. I was a hacker for years and years, blissfully unaware of any form of real footbag. I didn't know and never thought to do a search. Wow I'm so glad I finally did. I had to incorporate it into my life after many things had already been figured out. Up until a little while ago I was kind of bitter, I thought I was unlucky for finding it so late. Now I realize, it was meant to be that way because there is no way I am ever going to quit.

After college what do you do? You get a job, you get your own place, you do all the shit you have to do. I guess I'm lucky that that crap is pretty easy for me. I have a good job, a great girlfriend, a good place to live, the essential schnizznoz.

But then what's next? What do you do in your free time when you're in your mid 20's? Some people watch TV. Some people drink. Some people do drugs. Some people fish. Some people start a band. Some play the stock market. Lots of different shit. I didn't want any of those. I'm so glad I discovered footbag.

Maybe my frame of the world sounds fucked up to people. That's fine. I don't mean to preach or to brag. I'm just trying express what I think and how I feel.

I'm just I'm glad I've found this and that it brings me so much joy. It fills up a hole in my life. I really want to get more kids into it. There's so many bad things out there kids get into, drugs, gangs, cutting themselves, video games, religous fundamentalism, etc.

C-millz used to say "Life is a storm, I take refuge in footbag". I don't let life be a storm for me, but I see so many people who see it that way. Footbag is such a better refuge than what so many people end up doing to try to fill that void. It teaches so many important lessons. It brings so much satisfaction. Whatever you put into footbag you get back in spades.

I could ramble on forever. I guess this just another one of those I <3 footbag posts. If you're reading this, have a pleasant weekend and happy shredding

[Iron Clad Ben]

Saturday session was good! I think I have finally brought the 3 retired Austin shredders out of retirement! We have been kicking pretty regularly!.

I was in a lot of pain from basically shredding all week but I still managed hit some cool shit:
long tiltless strings avging 8-12 contacts
op infinity, for like the 2nd time ever
Gyro toe delay. Gyro/spinning set is feeling natural.
Consecutives mirages, hit like 15+, lost count.

Cody hit a bunch of cool shit including
smear > atomsmasher > toe blur

Plus a bunch of really random shit.

James was really on fire:
blurry whirl
zulu butterfly!
footed blurrier once or twice
run of like 10 guiltless

Andrew was his usual sick self with pixie drifters, BSOS torques, ripwalks and other crazy stuff.

Well, I set a date for Texas Statewides, so I have to do it!

OK gotta cut short this blog entry to do my chores and make dinner!

[Iron Clad Ben]

Man it's been two week since I updated this thing? No fucking way!

I've been shredding a fair amount. Not as much as I would like to be, but still a few times a week is good.

Hit symp mirage the other day. Made me sore as fuck! Still can't manage flipside at all. Also can't link into runs at all yet.

Well I set a date for Texas Statewides. I better get my shit together on organizing it!

I found out yesterday I have 133.98 hours of vacation accrued! I'm seriously considering hitting up portland in August.

I always want to post in my blog and then I can never think of anything to say. Perhaps another time when I'm feeling more verbose...

[SandWraith]

Be careful with symposium: that's one of two components I won't do (the other is now whirling). It puts a lot of stress on your knees, but maybe I'm just a pansy.

Congrats on that though. 133.98 hours of vacation? Wow, did anyone tell you about the majestic beauty and moo-cows in Wisconsin? Perhaps I might recommend a city to visit....

[Iron Clad Ben]

Didn't get to shred much this week because work was unforgivingly brutal. I feel like I'll be approaching crossroads soon. I like the financial freedom that a corporate america job affords me, but the amount of work and the stress is really limiting me from a lot of the things I want to do, mainly footbag. I think I need to find a new job, but finding a new job is so fucking annoying.

Anyway, Saturday session was decent. Andrew and Cody were there plus new guy Luis. He got lavers a couple weeks ago and hit mirage and ATW for the first time today! yeah!

I had some fairly consistent runs, good tiltless with some BOPs thrown in for 10-12 contacts on average. I hit symp mirage again and footed it flipside a couple times too. I went for Mosher's trail but lost the bag at some point along the trail. I've always been good at handstands, I need to hit that move.

I hit 8 contacts of butter > pdx mirage rpt!!! I was pretty stoked.

I tried to start a regular Wednesday night Austin session and it has lived on without me! It's pretty cool. This week at work will be unbearably strenuous, so I don't know if I'll be able to make it, but I definitely want to.

I was pretty pleased with my online comps entries this time. I hit butter > pdx mirage > butter for my sick 3 and symposium mirage for my sick 1. I want to be able to hit a 4!! Stupid ADD system! I need to work on pixie and atomic.

OK off to a BBQ... wait I don't eat meat... WTF... well, there will be beer. Adios.

[Iron Clad Ben]

On Tuesday 6/27 at approximately 11:50pm Dr. A. Isadore Gordon died He was 89. He was my grandpa. He was a tremendous guy and lived a very long and amazing life. He was the last grandparent I had left.

I had to bail out of work for the rest of week and hop on a plane to Pennsylvania. I got to see my family and a lot of extended family members I hadn't seen in a long time. I wasn't sure if I'd cry at the funeral or not, but I did. It was sad, but not tragic. He lived a long life and died in his sleep of natural causes. He taught me so many important things, especially about dealing with people. Many of those things I didn't understand or apply until the last few years. He had so much wisdom, I'm just glad that I was able to absorb as much of it as I did.

In the Austin airport I saw about 4 kids watching me shred while I waited for my flight. They would run away if I saw them looking at me. They seemed really thrilled. I picked up a couple of old crappy croteched bags out of my footbag-bag and walked over to them. "You guys look like you want to try this" I said. They were pumped and immediately began trying. After about 30 minutes one kid was hitting 4-5 kicks fairly consistently. They loved watching my tiltless game. I gave them the "you gotta practice a lot to get good" spiel. I gave them a Freedom Footbags flyer and let them keep the croteched bags. They were ecstatic.

Flights and layovers are so great for shred. I got tons of stranger-props in Cleveland, it was awesome. You have to hang around a carpeted area for long periods of time. So great for shred.

I'm still without a 32, although my Zilla bag is in progress and should arrive hopefully soon. I've been working on the following:

Cleaning up symp mirage to be less rakey
Clipper-set ducking. This is tough for me being 6'1"
Infinities... I'm still sucky at these
Pixie set... nothing yet but I feel some progress
DLOs... still can't find the right set height.

Still can't hit seal a 4-ADD... GRRRR!!!

[Iron Clad Ben]

Normally I like to stay in my rythym of blog posts only on Sunday nights but what the hell.

About a week and a half ago I was IMing with the notorious Chris "Shredzilla" Miller and I mentioned that I still hadn't hit a 4-add move. He challenged me to go for ducking pdx mirage. I have been drilling clipper-set ducking lately and it seemed feasible. After about ten tries Wednesday night I hit it!!! I've footed it a handful of times since then but it just feels good to know I've hit a 4-add trick. Yeah the ADD system is lame blah blah blah but fuck it, it made me happy. I hit a 4-ADD trick!! YEAH!!

I came close to hitting ducking infinity as well. First things first I still need to work on normal infinities because I haven't hit two b2b yet.

I've been working on pixie sets forever, and they are slowly starting to work on my strong side. I hit smear (another new trick for me) a couple times Wednesday night as well. That felt good. Pixie set still needs a lot of work, and flipside is terrible.

I was fooling around trying to do stepping set Wednesday night. It always hits my dexing leg, I can't get my dexing leg over the bag. Cody saw me attempt it and told me to turn my body (hips) to the my stepping set side to help get the dexing leg over the bag. It worked! I was amazed! I just need to work on my balance so that once the stepping set is done I'm balanced. I managed to hit stepping toe delay. I bet if I drilled it another 100-200 times I could hit stuff like crispy barrage, crispy dlo, ripwalk and blur out of it.

Life is good.

I'm probably going to make it to Portland in August! Working out the details of taking some time off work for the tournament and heading home to Boston to spend some time with the fam.

Well, another shred session tomorrow with the Austin crew. I'm pumped. Peace.

[brinard]

i want to go to portland too... but i dont know if ill have the moolah yet.


if id have known you didnt have a 32, id have shipped you one already.

props on ducking pdxmirage. ive been trying that one for a long time now (since i had clippers) and still havent hit it.

sorry about your grandpa. i lost mine a few years back.

hope shred is going well.

cya

[Iron Clad Ben]

Been sick since last Friday starting to feel better finally.

Got my Zilla bag on Saturday. It's sweet! Being cooped up inside for 3 days I had plenty of time to break it in. I took showers with it, did the finger break in a la the silly Mosher vid and it's really coming along.

I booked my flight for Portland! I'm going! My first real tournament, I'm so pumped. Afterwards I'm heading home to Boston for a week to catch up with the fam, it's been a long time. Also, coincidentally my favorite Austin band Lions is on tour and will be playing a show in Boston. Also hoping to catch up with an old friend who I haven't seen in over 2 years. That should be a good time. I really need a vacation because my workload at work has just been ridiculous.

Session today at the Austin High Tennis courts. Cody and James were there are were both easing their way back to playing after injuries. Luis was also there. He hit mirage BSOS a couple times which was really cool. His form with mirage is getting really good. He's still learning clippers and is doing them entirely with crank! Once he learns to use his support leg his clipper ability is going to be sick!

I got the proper food and fluids in my body before the session and it helped a lot! Not a killer session but I hit some good shit
a few 10+ tiltless runs with BOPs thrown in
infinity b2b
butter > infinity > footed infinity
mirage x 18 new PR
legover x 11 tied PR

Portland in 30 days!

[Iron Clad Ben]

I FOUND MY MOSHER BAG IN MY COUCH TODAY! HOOOOOORRRRAAAAAAAAYYYYYY!!!!

It's funny because I lost it like 2 months ago only 2 or 3 days after I got it. Now I have it again, YaY!

In other news, shredded solo yesterday Mon 7/17 at the pool.
Drilled: Infinities, Legovers, Illusions. It was out>in dex day.

I realized a while back that my flipside legovers really suck in comparison to my strongside. I can do the strongside ones completely downtime with no hop, by my flipside ones I still need a big hop and a huge dex. I corrected that a lot I did the dex a little differently and it made all the difference in the world. I broke my standing legover record hitting 14 and the drop was actually on my strongside.

I hit 4 infinities again which was nice. I really like the feel of infinities. I want to do Mosher's "break your infinity record every time you shred" but that's going to be tough to realistically do. I'll try to break my record every time I shred, what the hell, I'll TRY.

I've noticed lately how lots of advanced tricks require illusioning ability. These are definitely a "chore" trick for me, I've never liked illusions. Well, after hitting a bunch of legovers I decided what the hell (I'm noticing this is a very progressive mindset for footbag). It really helped. I did illusion kind of like I do pickups. I go for legover and bail to a catch on the setting foot. It works well. Illusions still need a lot of work, but I felt definite progress in my form.

I did hell of a lot of stretching which felt really good.

PORTLAND IN 24 DAYS!!!