Fanzine

[quadgun]

And just because I like using smiley faces, here`s my expression when I took a dump before going to the park:

That made me acutally laugh out loud .... haha ... oh man ... good stuff ken!

[x+y]

mlos? mlo...mlo...mlo....
Miraging legovers!

[C-Fan]

Haven`t had much opportunity to play footbag lately, and it`s definitely frustrating me. I took a 5 week break from footbag a while back, and since then I`ve only got to play 5 times. I played twice during a weekend last month in Tokyo, twice during a weekend this month in Tokyo, and once in Morioka. So after my 5 week break, I only played twice last month, and 3 times this month. For assorted reasons beyond my control, Morioka shred sessions have fallen through twice this month. But since the weather was getting better, I thought maybe I could start playing outside again soon. Then it started snowing again. It`s sleeting horizontally outside my window right now. Anyway, hopefully all this inactivity is helping my knees and legs recover. It`s still frustrating though.

I recently bought a new pair of lavers from the WFA, which my folks are mailing to me. They already mailed me a pair of Metatarsal Arch Support gel insoles which I`m excited about, but I`m gonna wait for the new lavers to arrive, so they stick better to the shoe. I just hope I can break everything in before TSG3.

The main reason I`m making this post though (besides venting), is that I got some real good news from work. Apparently, I have 4 more days of vacation time than I thought. Why is this key? Because my job finishes on July 28th. Because I have to move out of my place, leave Japan, etc. at the end of July, it seemed like I`d have to sacrifice going to Worlds this year. I would have put my chances of going to Helsinki at about 15% or so. But now, these extra 4 days make it a much more do-able possibility. I still can`t say for sure that I will go, but at least now it is a possibility, which is definitely a bright spot.

[HG]

Sorry to get all up in your grill homey, but i got confused 2 nights ago. I was watching a celtics game and i saw 'Toine on the court! I was fucking confused. I thought he was on the mavericks? Did he get traded back? Celtics are back together?

[King Monkey]

Do it Ken! Do it for sure! Go to Helsinki!

[C-Fan]

Wow, lots to catch up on here.

Definitely glad the virus craziness cleared up. Very, very big props to Mike Hansen on that. I was this close to announcing my retirement from Modified at least until things cleared up, but thankfully the problem was dealt with earlier than that. Still, taking time off from modified was probably a good thing.

Oh, y`all might have noticed I have a new avatar. Last week I found an incredible avatar of Mario and Luigi re-enacting a scene from the Second Matrix movie. http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/image.p ... 1098655348 The thing was the right pixel size, but the file size was too big, so I ended up losing my original avatar, and needed to replace it with something. I looked around some but couldn`t find anything usable that I liked. I found a great picture of Mikhail Tal, my favorite Chess player ever, but it was 5 pixels too big. http://www.dreamchess.com/meccaimages/g ... al_jpg.jpg I was going to use a picture of Rasheed Wallace http://www.nba.com/media/playerfile/rasheed_wallace.jpg , but it was too big, so I settled on Dwyane Wade. Probably temporary.

Lately work has been real slow, since the Japanese school year starts in April. Since I had no classes last week, I modified my lavers at work. I also inserted my new metatarsal arch supports, which I think will be good for my body in the long run. Unfortunately, I feel like I need to adjust my form because of them. My last pair of lavers got real worn down on the soles of the toe, so playing in new lavers+insoles is a little awkward. My main concern is getting them broken in in time for TSG3. Worst case scenario, I just strap on the old pair and I should be OK.

So the big news for me was being able to play in Morioka this weekend! Outside! This was a great surprise, considering how crap the weather was leading up til then.

On Saturday I make it to Morioka early, run some errands, then meet up with Shinchan on the Main Street. He`s already wearing his footbag gear, running down the street in short shorts waving to me, and I`m half-tempted to act like I don`t know him, cause I`m dressed normal, like all the regular people. We got the campus of Iwate University, and I`m happy to see everybody is out for the session. Yukari, Ayako, Gochin and Shinchan. I can`t even remember the last time all 5 of us played together. I`m mostly just happy to see that Yukari can play again, considering she went down with a nasty ankle injury a couple months ago.

This is my first session in the new lavers and insoles, and it definitely took some adjusting. I was also aware I hadn`t played in a bit, so I tried to be more patient with myself, and look at the whole experience as just a conditioning/laver break-in session. Whenever I play with a new pair of lavers, I get kinda nostalgic about my last pair, and think about all the moves I hit for the first time with the last pair, or what countries the last pair had been to. My last pair had been to Japan, Montreal, and New Zealand. The pair before that had been to Japan, New Zealand, China, and Prague I think. But yeah, playing in the new pair for the first time, i was pretty keenly aware of what my `firsts` in this pair would be.

As it turned out, the first 6 add I hit in the new pair was bs bed. It was only my 2nd time sealing it with a combo, so that felt real good. I got to thinking that the no-plant on the step set was probably the same for whirligig, so I proceeded to hit flipside whirligig for the first time as well. I was pretty stoked about that, and then I remembered that whirligig was one of my first 6 add moves ever, if not my very first 6 add. I hit that way back at 99 Worlds in Chicago. Strange that I didn`t hit flipside until this weekend. I`m sure I could have hit it in the last 3 years, but I never really tried. Cool move. The first 5 I hit flipside in the new lavers was either alpha smasher or fs leg. First triple dex was blurriest or flurry. First flyer was flailing eclipse.

I spent most of the session practicing my Shred30 for TSG3 and giving tips and advice on moves. I was real stoked to hear that all 4 of the Morioka players are planning on going to TSG3. It`s going to be such a huge event. Yukari spent most of the day schooling mirages, and made some good progress. She hit 3 in a row, which oddly enough inspired me to try a cool trick, but no dice yet. I got her to start schooling flip mirage, which is close. I firmly believe that once she understands flip mirage, her strong will become better. Ayako played very well all session. Toe mirage bsos, toe mirage-clipper-almost clipper set mirage was real close. She also got some butterflies on one side, and her flip clippers improved as well. I`m glad 2 more shreditas are going to TSG3. There wasn`t enough Shredita representation at JFC2, in my opinion. Gochin seems a bit frustrated this session. I give him some advice on how to approach phat combo at TSG3. I don`t think he hit anything new, but he was close to double switch and double pick up. I demonstrated both moves for him hitting them both sides, and thought to myself: "why don`t I do these more often?" Seriously, I need to mix it up more. Shinchan had a solid day. He was coming real close to Haze. His set looks perfect, he just needs to start that mlo a bit faster. He also was real close to whirl-spinning clipper. In general good runs.

Towards the end of the session we all felt satisfied, and I thought: "we really should start using 4 square as a warm up and cool-down game." Something to consider doing at sessions with 5 people. I ended up spending like 5 minutes just repeatedly trying a ridiculous move, and after a few moderately close attempts, tried it flip, and found that I was almost equally close. In all truth, I`m probably not close at all, but it`s always worth trying the flipside, cause you never know which will end up being stronger.

This was a pretty rambling entry. But yeah, the main thing was I got to play footbag, and I tried out the new lavers. In order to make up for this sloppy, ugly entry, here`s a link to something really beautiful:
http://www.angelfire.com/games3/AJs01Do ... 1rpg0.html

edit: this game is also particularly excellent. Keep in mind that Morphy (white) is playing blindfolded throughout.
http://batgirl.atspace.com/Paulsen_Morp ... dfold.html

[hacksterbator]

hey ken,
i really feel for you, in respect to the moving on to new lavers. i had one hell of a time letting go of my last pair. i had done so much, been so many places and hit so many first time tricks in them.
some high lights from my old shoes...
they were my first pair of mesh, hit my first 5>5>5, hit my first 6>6, hit 3 different 7 adds, used at my first worlds, shredded on 4 different, continents and 12 different countries, stepped in camel poo in egypt, took a dipin the mediteranean, the agean sea, the north sea, in loch ness, the thames, and the atlantic, were puked on 8 times (7 by me, once by some one else)
the good thing is that the smell is now gone! and now i get to make new memories in the new ones!

[Jackbag]

Ken thanks for posting about Yukari and Ayako.
It's good to learn about their progress.
Keep us updated!!

*A

[C-Fan]

the good thing is that the smell is now gone! and now i get to make new memories in the new ones!

That`s a good attitude. I`ll make a point to puke on your lavers in Tokyo.

Amelia: Expect a lengthy shredita report after TSG3 (end of this month!)

I`m feeling real good today, because yesterday I had my first after-work-outdoor-weekday session of the year! It was lots of fun. I`ll write up about it later on today.

[C-Fan]

Yesterday I got out of work early, and the weather was again amenable to shred! So even though I had a dentist appointment at 5:10, I played from 4:00 til 5:04. I ran to the dentists.

Anyway, two days ago I had a real nice session outside. I put no pressure on myself to hit anything or school anything. The main goal was just to get some burn on the shoes, so they will hopefully break in some more before TSG3. I also just figure that any amount of exercise I get between now and TSG will help get my stamina back up. So I ended up practicing gyro tricks for some reason, and I managed to hit:

Vortex, no plant, both sides.

and

GDLO, no plant, both sides.

For me, this was a big deal. I had hit all those tricks before, but never all 4 on the same day. Felt really stoked about hitting all of them. I also did some run throughs on my shred30, and tweaked it slightly. I`m real happy with the changes I made, since now I can get through it more easily.

Nuts, school assembly now. I swear I will finish this up today... cause I`m going to Tokyo this weekend! More later... in like 3 hours.

[C-Fan]

Man, I hope none of y`all lost any sleep waiting for me to update on Friday. I had my first basketball practice in 2 months, and that ended up going way longer than expected. I left work at 7, and just didn`t have the energy to finish typing up my entries. So yeah, hopefully I can catch up on all my recent sessions today. Man, it makes me so happy that I can have footblog backlog... that means I`m playing a lot of footbag again!

Last week I had my first two after-work outdoor sessions of the year. I play in the parking lot by my house. Both times my main goals were to break in the new pair of lavers some more, and increase my stamina. I hadn`t been playing that much recently, the new insoles felt kinda strange, and with TSG3 looming, I needed to address these issues.

My first session went pretty well. After 7 years of playing, I`ve come to realize that I`m not very good at solo sessions. I watch vids of Jorden, and I`m just impressed that he can stay motivated and focussed when playing by himself. My mental game was pretty good throughout, but towards the end I started to get a bit frustrated. Then I looked over at the far end of the parking lot, and saw that there were still small banks of snow which the rains hadn`t completely succeeded in melting yet. Seeing the snow helped remind me how lucky I was to be able to play outdoors at all. I went over to the snow to touch it to remind me of this fact. I ended up making some snowballs, and tried hitting some tricks. It was really difficult. I almost always kick a footbag a few times before dropping into a clipper or toe to do a trick, but with these snowballs, you couldn`t kick them without them exploding, so I had to drop the snowball immediately into a stall, which messed with my timing a bit. I hit a smear and a blur, and then decided I should try and hit a triple dex. I hit a smog, felt better about my session, and went back to skooling. I ended my session with flip gdlo (no plant), and felt satisfied.

My 2nd outdoor session wasn`t as filled with cool tricks, but it put some more adds on the shoes. I sealed a matador, which is something I hadn`t done in a while, but couldn`t get my flip one. I hit another gdlo (no plant) but only on one side. I toyed around with snowball tricks again, but not much luck. Had some real good flailing sets with them, but no follow-throughs. Did some more run throughs of Shred30, but had to cut my session short to go to the dentist. The new lavers felt like they started to break in some though, which was positive.

On Friday I played basketball for about 3 hours, which was incredibly fun. I worried a bit that it would tire me out for the next day`s shred in Tokyo, but thankfully that wasn`t the case.

[C-Fan]

This last weekend was Iwate University Orientation in Morioka, which I really wanted to go to to shred with the Morioka crew outside in front of big crowds. But when I checked the weather on the internet, I saw that the projected high temperature of Morioka (11 C) that weekend was also the projected low for Tokyo. Coupled with the fact that it`s Cherry-blossom viewing season in Tokyo now... going to Tokyo was a no-brainer.

Friday I played 3 hours of basketball, but I made a point to stretch well. I got to bed later than I should have, thanks to a celebrity karaoke program I stumbled upon, which entranced me. Since I bought special cheap Shinkansen tickets, I had to wake up mad early, but I got on my 7:28 am train OK, and set a new personal record for myself by sleeping over 3 hours on the train ride. I woke up around Ueno, and got real excited looking out the window at the exploding white and pink blossoms bursting all over the dark boughs of the cherry trees. I stepped off the train and had to stash my hoodie in my bag, because it was summer hot out. Awesomeness.

Yoyogi was brimming with people due to the blossoms. I myself had a small picnic of Indian food with a friend under the blossoms, which was real idyllic. I took some photos of cherry trees, then met up with the shred crew. I was sad to learn that Keita is moving soon, but at the same time it made me even happier that I chose to come to Tokyo that weekend, because I got to play with him in his farewell sessions. All day there were only 6 of us, but it worked out perfectly. The shredders were Takumi, Morii, Kim, Keita, X+Y, and myself.

Instead of doing two 3-man circles, we ended up doing a 6 man circle all day. In theory a 6 man circle sucks, but somehow it worked out to be just perfect. There was an excellent energy in the circle all day, with lots of props handed out, and just a good pace overall. We played a good 4 hours or more, and none of us really needed to take any breaks or anything.

Morii and Takumi probably had the best sessions. I hadn`t played wit Morii in a while, and I definitely missed his style. It`s just real laid back, real big and wide and clean. He had lots of good shuffle, and is throwing down more downtime 4s, which helps his game. He hit a bunch of good fives too, including both blurry whirls, both fogs (I think he had both... if not his flip was real close), bedwetter, and sealed foodprocessor midstring. He had a couple long runs which would have scored real well in a shred 30. He also managed a janiwalker, but from my vantage point it looked kinda jay... like the bag was behind him, and not under him. I think he could skool it and fix it though. I was most impressed by him hitting flurry for the first time. It reminded me of Chad`s, only slower. Very clean.

Takumi is just constantly impressive. Everytime I play with him, he has fewer bails, longer strings, and at least one new trick. He`s going to be so good. Scratch that, he`s already great. But he should eventually develop into a Felix/Vasek level talent, which is extremely exciting. He`s done a good job of phasing out his 2s, mostly clippers and far legovers. And when he shuffles, his links are longer than before. He gave a couple attempts at double spins which looked pretty good. I think they will become easier for him when he grows taller. I saw him hit blender bsos, dyno to zooming clipper (or osis?), and hit some spinning rakes. He had his foot on spinning osis-zooming gyro rake which was real cool. I was most impressed by his consistency, and improved run length.

Keita had an average session. He`s been toying around with toe-spins which look good. He hit some fs eggplants which looked cool, and he`s started doing some symple legover variants which are nice and styly.
Kim had a good session. He footed a very clean barroque, but no seal. I really want to see him hit flurry already. He had some good styly runs, and started doing more blurs, which I was happy to see. He stopped doing blurs for a while, but I think they look real good in his game, so I was glad to see them back. X+Y played well. Lots of shuffling... I saw him hit smear-magellan-dlo-something. My memory kinda sucks. He also put in some attempts at rubberman, and I was very good about keeping my mouth shut until he dropped. I have this bad tendency to yell `nice` when he`s like 3 tricks into rubberman, which makes him drop the 4th trick. When I shut up, he`d usually make it through the 4th trick.

I was very happy with my session. Most importantly, I really felt like my lavers finally broke in. I was able to play without really thinking about them, and when the session was over my legs felt real good, which may have to do with the new insoles; who knows. I had some good run throughs of shred30, but mostly I just enjoyed doing long, varied runs. I had one run with pdx whirl-ducking clipper-duck clipper-pdx whirl, and later in the same run I hit the same combo, but starting from the other side. I was doing a lot more gyro clippers in the session as well, which fely solid. I also finally managed to put an add component in front of WHAT?!? which felt good. I`ll try and get it on film and submit to the online sick trick contest. I also hit reverse swirl to WHAT?!? which I think is a stylish combo. One funny moment from the session was when I footed a PS egg, but it rolled off my foot. Morii commented: "that looks different than it used to." I got a give-back, dropped the bag to my right clipper, and hit WHAT!?! first try. Morii just nodded.

The weather was summer-hot initially, but I enjoyed that. Soon it cooled off enough that it was just perfect weather to be outside and play. I hadn`t had such nice shred conditions probably since August. I really savored it. I wanted to end the session with a good string, and did: I started my last combo with flipside fog, and then BSOSed it a good 15-17 moves later in the string. The whole string was maybe 20-25 contacts, but what was cool for me was spacing out the BSOS. Normally, if I start a string with a flipside difficult move, I will hit it strong side within a few moves. But spacing it out like I did, is more unpredictable and shows greater control I think. Lots of fun. One of the best sessions in a long time for sure.

[Lankstrosity]

I had a great time with you and the whole tokyo crew ken. I wish I could have stayed longer but I had an obligation to fulfill. I want to thank you and everyone else there for teaching me some new tricks (and even some Japanese). I definitly will be shredding more on my free time and get those moves down before TSG and learn some more practical japanese so I can communicate better.

I never knew you had this kind of blog so ill be checking up on it often as I can. I still have so many questions to ask you both in footbag and life here.

anyway, be seein you latorz

peace


Matt.

[B_Man]

I have a fever, Ken, and the only prescription is more blog entries

Your recollections are so inspiring, not only with what you are hitting but what everone else is as well. I sincerely hope I will have an opportunity to kick with the Japanese crew (as well as yourself) sometime in the future!

[C-Fan]

I have a fever, Ken, and the only prescription is more blog entries

Alright, when I first read that, I laughed out loud. But here`s the strange thing: that same day, I got an actual fever and came down with the flu I`m serious, that`s why I`ve been offline a few days. I had a fever of 38.1 degrees celsius, which I can`t be bothered to convert, but is over 100 degrees fahrenheit. I missed work for 3 days and felt like I was gonna die. When i was sick, I kept getting this mental image from an episode of the Simpsons. Springfield gets hit by `the dreaded Osaka flu` and on the news the graphic they have for it is Godzilla with a thermometer in his mouth and a cold-pak on his head. Yeah.

Aaaaaanyway, hopefully I can find the energy and time today to write my Sunday report. The main highlights were playing with Tencho (rare) and meeting Matt (holler). More on that later, energy willing.

edit: 38.1 C = 100.58 Fahrenheit. Apparently I could be bothered to look it up.

[C-Fan]

I`m in Osaka now, and I realize this is my only chance to recap last weekend before it falls prey to hopeless backlog.

Sunday: After being spoiled by Saturday`s perfect weather, I headed out to Yoyogi park on Saturday with the idea of warming up by picking up garbage, then throwing frisbee for a while. My new insoles did their work well, which combined with a good long bath the night before, meant my legs felt real fresh even after Saturdays long session. This bodes well for the future. So, legs feeling fine, I boldly headed out on Sunday to the park, only to be greeted by gale-like winds! It was kind of sad to see so many picknicking families and couples having waves of dust and grit blown on them, but considering how much people were littering, I thought that more than a few of them deserved it. As planned, I spent a good chunk of time picking up random garbage. I brought a decent sized bag with the idea of clearing a large area, but it filled up depressingly fast. Japanese people are normally so conscientious and good about picking up their crap, that I could only explain away the wastezone of the day on the massive alcohol intake which is traditional/mandatory during cherry blossom viewing season.

Garbage bag filled, frisbee plans foiled, I make my way to the pier, and am struck by 4 notable things.

1. I am not the first to arrive, a fact of which I am proud.
2. Yusuke and Tencho are there, which is like a double-whammy treat for me, since its rare for me to play with either of them, and I love both their styles.
3. Keita is there. He is moving to Tochigi on Tuesday, and the day before he wasn`t so sure if he`d have the time to come to Yoyogi. He`s an even bigger sweet tooth than myself, so on the off-chance that he`d show up for his last session, I bought him a tiramisu goodbye cake, which I gave to him before changing into my gear.
4. There is some white guy in the circle who is as tall as Chad.

I take my time strapping on the lavers, mosey to the circle, say my `heys` and introduce myself to Matt: "I`m Ken, you must be Matt right?"

Living in Japan so long, I start to take for granted that I`m actually a short guy in most parts of the world. Matt reminded me of that in spades. It was nice meeting him and talking about Japan. He`s only been here a couple weeks, so I found myself giving lots of advice on things that helped my transition 3 years ago, as well as other things which make life here easier for me. Why is it that I`m always teaching things in Yoyogi? It also felt kinda weird talking in English in Yoyogi. I hadn`t really done that since about a year ago, when Paris Max and Berlin Max came to visit around this time of year.

The session goes decently well, but we`re a bit stymied by the wind. I`m constantly squinting to keep shit from flying into my eyes, and when I change positions in the circle to try and get my back to the wind, it shortly reverses directions to thwart me. Bastard. All said, most of us play decently well. We all give Matt some tips on mirage and ATW, and he makes immediate progress. I think its real cool how the Japanese players try and give him tips, despite the language barrier. Footbaggers are just helpful people in general I feel.

.... crap, I`m having some trouble remembering the session highlights. Not only was it like a week ago, but I also had a delirious fever for like 3 days this week. That said, I remember Tencho having one of the most solid sessions. I particularly remember a nice vortex, as well as this combo: atom smasher-motion (paradon style). He also hit ducking paradox mirage to motion. Very styly. He also footed spinning pdlo, but I kinda felt like the dexes were Jay, like under his `cheeks, and not his legs.

I had a few nice runs, but was mostly taking it easy. I just accepted the crappy wind and had fun, which was a good mental move I am proud I could make. I toyed around with some trials off of a bench, maybe a foot and half off the ground. I hit the following tricks off of it: dlo, pdlo, drifter, torque, and paradox torque. I was particulaly happy about the paradox torque, since that was my first time doing that as a trials trick. I don`t remember too much more, except that I again ended the session on a strong run. I think its always a good idea to end your session with a hard move, hard bsos, or hard combo. Preferably combo. My last combo started with blurriest, a few moves later had blurrier using the same double down, a few moves later paradon swirl using the other double down, then blurry whirl using the step set I used on blurrier, a few other 4s linked in the string, and then a paradox torque towards the end. Maybe 20 contacts or so, but it felt solid, and I liked the midstring paradon swirl.

I stretch down then say some goodbyes, and it feels exciting to say: "see you at TSG3 next time!" It`s going to be so good...

Next: Osaka! (aka: Ken vs his recovering flu, vs his desire to play footbag and go clubbing.)

[C-Fan]

I was going, it was just as simple as that. Nothing was going to stop me going, not this year.

Some context: last year I wanted to go to Osaka for my birthday, but a host of serious injuries to my right leg stopped me from going. I had to take 2 months off from April to June of last year, which was torture. The weather was turning spring-y, Worlds was looming, and I couldn`t walk on my right foot without pain. But I sat it out, did my rehab, and recovered in time to be 90% back for Worlds.

So this year I was pumped up to go to Osaka on my birthday (in Japan you can buy cheap flights on your birthday. They`re called "birthday tickets." Without them, there`s no affordable way for me to go all the way to Osaka), and bought my tickets 2 months in advance. Then last week, *BAM* I get the flu out of nowhere, and miss work for 3 days. Things looked grim. I was so feverish that I saw myself practicing my Shred30 on the ceiling of the waiting room at the docs. But Wednesday I felt better, Thursday I improved even more, so on Friday I went to work, gritted it out, then went to the airport. Going to O-town was a last minute decision, but I figured that if I could tough it out enough to make it to Kenzo`s place Friday night, I could sleep early, and maybe be in decent enough shape to play on Sunday. The big risk of course was relapsing, in which case my school wouldn`t be very happy that I decided to go to Osaka and relapse rather than stay home and recover. But fuck it, I was going, and that was it.

I pretty much pass out on the plane, waking up 90 minutes later at the Osaka airport.

Kenzo was incredibly cool as host all weekend. It`s just in his nature. Me? I would be annoyed if I offered my house to somebody, and they kept me guessing until the last minute as to whether they were coming at all or not. Not Kenzo, he came to pick me up at the airport. What a champ. I didn`t realize ahead of time that "pick me up" meant he`d give me a ride on his scooter. I`ve always been scared of motorbikes and scooters, since 4 or 5 of my cousins have had serious bike accidents. But Kenzo brought an extra helmet, so I climbed on, gave Kenzo the heimlich, and we were off. It was thrilling in a terrifying way to be zipping through the streets of Osaka. I kinda felt a bit like I was in Akira; I kept peeking over my shoulder to make sure no guys in Clownface helmets were gaining on us. In my weakened state would I be able to whip out a laver to bash in their face? Thankfully, I never had to answer that question. Instead, I tried to sound non-panicky and cool as we made some footbag small-talk on the ride to his place. When we got there, I dismounted, then literally kissed the floor. I`m such a pussy.

I dump my stuff at Kenzo`s, and I`m impressed by how big a place he has. Very cool bachelor pad. I give him some omiyage (thank you gift/food expressing gratitude), then we head out and get some ramen for dinner. I`m drop-dead exhausted, but there`s definitely some adrenaline pumping... it just feels good to do something other than lie in bed with a fever all day. The ramen place is real cheap, super packed. Those are always the best places. I order the same as Kenzo, and I`m taken aback by how good it is. I half wonder if there`s MSG in it, cause there`s something sinister about the deliciousness of it. Whatever, the tastiness makes up for my lack of appetite, and I finish it off. We roll home, pick up some snacks, and take baths. Man, that hit the spot. My face was all dirty too from the bike ride, but mostly my body just needed to relax, and it was all I could do to keep from falling asleep in the hot water. After the bath I watch some hip hop DVD, make a bad joke about Japanese people like Nori, and go to bed. I`m asleep before my head touches the couch arm.

Next morning I wake up feeling pretty good. Not good enough to play footbag, but definitely way better than the day before. That said, I slide my lavers into my backpack before we head out for breakfast, and I don`t bother making the claim "I wont play today, for Sundays sake" because I don`t like lying to people in my family, including myself.

Breakfast kicks ass. We do some fast-food type breakfast place, and my food literally arrives 2 seconds after I place my order. I must have benefitted from some order mix-up or something. Breakfast is a bowl of rice, bowl of miso soup, saba (maybe x+y will continue his tradition of teaching me fish names in English) with my favorite kind of radish on it, block of tofu, and some eggplant in sauce. Beyond the fact that its cheap, fast, and real healthy, its also incredibly delicious. I get a little sad as I eat it though, because it dawns on me that I won`t be able to get something like this when I move from Japan. I try and savor each bite a little more.

We`re at the kicking spot early... we`re playing a good 30 minutes before anybody else shows up. The spot we`re playing at is called `Hatch,` and it brings back a flood of memories. The first time I ever went to Osaka, I played at hatch, and that`s where I first met Masa, Kim, Tencho, and Henmo. They`d all end up becoming good friends. The next time I went to Osaka was for JFC2, but we never played at Hatch. So this was my first time going back, and it made me feel so fortunate that I didn`t quit footbag when I moved to Japan, and that I found some players and worked with them to make a bigger scene over here.

The nostalgia was nice and all, but I still didn`t have the energy to play. I shouldn`t have played on Saturday. But who are we kidding, you know I played. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful all weekend. I actually got sunburned on Saturday. We kicked to a good 90s throwback CD of hiphop Kenzo brought, which even had some Slick Rick on it. Excellent. Playing with Kenzo was a real treat. I hadn`t played with him since JFC2 back in November, and his game has definitely taken off since then. Everything is more consistent and confident, and the string length is up. I think I was most impressed by flurries bsos, cause they didn`t look that hard. Also saw bedwetter bsos, and some cool drills. Kenzo hit spinning butterfly-gyro butterfly repeat. He plants on the gyro butterflies, but still. He also hit double spinning clipper on both sides. On Sunday he hit his first gyro blender right in my face. Very very impressive. His ducks and especially dives need to get deeper, but he knows that, and I`m sure he`ll work on it. For now though, I was just happy to see a Japanese player hit fog midstring... after opening the string with fury.

Kenzo quite obviously isn`t the only Osaka player to have stepped up his game since November. This weekend was cool because I got to play with Shin (Otayan) which is a very rare opportunity indeed. He is still definitely one of Japan`s best players. Double switchover X2 is easy, saw enterrage in person for only the second time (first was Daryl), and just some real cool staple combos like toe drifter-barrage-double over down-double pick up. All clean dexes. I also saw him hit dyno-dyno (dy-no-mite!) and gyro dyno, though his spins are a little froggy.

Nuts, schoolbell. More tomorrow, I promise.

[yp]

Don't be fooled into thinking that there are people out there who are not endulging in your blog.

All proper and stuff..

We be readin' yo!

Thanks for writing.

stan

[C-Fan]

Man, I really need to stop making promises as to when I`ll update. It`s like I`m jinxing myself or something.

Anyway, glad to see a NYFA post in my blog! I miss NYFA so much... I should write an entry about my last summer in NYC, that was so much fun.

Right on. Last I left you all, I was summing up the Saturday session in Osaka. I was most impressed by Kenzo, but Shin also held it down, both guys hitting all the stuff I listed in my last post. Kenzo also hit motion from same clipper, like down double style. First time I ever saw that. He and Shin also both hit double switch over from same side clipper: like a double pick up with the dexes reversed. First time seeing that too, but they both made it look really smooth and easy.

Cha-han also improved greatly since last time. Almost guiltless now, he throws in some good pixie shuffle (including some flip stuff), spins both sides, and lots of cool double dexes like double pick ups and barrages. Phoenix was probably the biggest move I saw him hit. Devi also improved a lot; things like pixie butterfly to blur, and strong atomics. QP and Yuko played OK, but neither had played much during the winter, so their consistency was kinda down. Still, I saw Yuko hit ripwalk bsos and sidewalk bsos, in the middle of tiltless strings. Her butterflies are really coming in. I also gave her some tips on torque, and she hit a nice one in front of me. QP played pretty well. I was easily most impressed when he hit flurry cleanly in front of me. I thought it was really cool how at a single Japanese footbag session, I saw 2 different Japanese players hit flurry (one of them bsos), and yet another player hit enterrage. Japan is coming up strong.

Both days we played with an incredibly sweet Miki bag. Miki is QP`s girlfriend, who also shreds, though she hadn`t been playing much. Saw her hit a whirl which was rad. She stitches incredibly nice bags, just the right size and weight, a touch heavy. On Sunday I was taken aback when she gave me a bag as a birthday present. I almost felt like I couldn`t accept it, cause its such a sweet bag, but I thought it would be rude to refuse. Its a real beauty of a bag, I just know it will be awesome. I introduced myself to it by hitting infinity-fog-handcatch as the first contacts on the bag. I think it will have a good life.

I really shouldn`t have played on Saturday, but I did. I think I averaged about 1.3 spinning tricks per string, which is really good for me. Being exhausted was sort of good for me, because I never got frustrated. If I dropped early in a string, I could just blame my flu. I did alpha ripwalk on both sides for the first time, inspired by some CSS Lon video from a year ago. I don`t think I managed any new tricks all day, except for flailing gimping mirage. Sort of like tap, but the first dex is symposium, and there is a knee bump in the middle. Really hard to control. Despite being tired, I still had a few real long, video-worthy strings imo.

It was pretty nice weather out, but when the breeze got too chilly for me, I would just lie down on the clay tiles, which would warm me up real nicely. it was fun to take breaks and just look around. At hatch there are lots of groups of young kids practicing various things. 4 hot girls practicing for a fashion show, various pairs of young guys practicing comedy routines, and large groups of high school kids practicing choreographed group dances.

I decided to cool down by doing a big foursquare game. This went over well, and I was real happy to play again. I hadn`t played since Worlds. Foursquare is such a low-energy way to have fun, it really made my day. Almost everybody participated, and soon people got the hang of introducing rules which made the game fun. Some of my favorite rules included:

- you have to say the name of every trick you perform. This led to lots of people saying "inside kick, inside kick" repeatedly, but I had fun throwing down some runs and doing play-by-play for myself.
- left leg only+crazy serves. Depending where I served, people got real confused, or contorted real strangely.
-Toes only. Toe stalls and toe kicks are OK, but inside kicks are illegal. Fun.
-You have to say the name of a footbag trick when you pass to a new square. No repeats allowed.
-People outside the circle can vote.

After a few competitive, raucous games of foursquare, we headed out to eat. The place we wanted to go to was closed, so we ate some generic stuff for dinner, while I did my best to convince Yuko and QP to go to TSG3. After dinner some people went home, but a bunch of us hit an arcade. Faithful fanzine readers will remember my Street Fighter fights with QP from JFC2 in November. Back then, we only played Street Fighter Alpha3. I like this game, but can only really use Charlie. QP beat me like 3 sets to 1 (each set being a best of 5) using Zangief, who is particularly strong in that game. We promised we`d have a rematch sometime, in a different street fighter game. That game turned out to be Capcom vs. SNK2, which seemed fair to me, since we both play that game. The arcade we hit was sweet, since it was only 50 yen per game, which meant we could have more grudge matches.

*note, if you don`t follow street fighter, you should skip this paragraph*
In our first match, I picked K-groove and selected a Ratio2 Honda, Cammy, and claw Vega (Balrog in the states? The claw ninja guy). QP picked a ratio 4 N-Gief, which was an intimidating choice. R4 Gief can fuck you up fast, and in N-groove he has LOTS of mobility. I ended up winning that round pretty easily though, so QP came back with a R1 Guile, R3 Gief team. I really enjoyed pitting my Cammy against his Guile, because I`m pretty good at Just Defending the flash kicks and airthrowing him in the recovery. I win the second fight too. Then the third. Four. Five. Six. After my seventh straight victory, QP throws in the towel. I feel avenged after last time. I gotta say though, that QP is easily the strongest Street Fighting Footbagger I have ever played against.

After CvS2 we got a couple matches of MvC2, which I paid for because I figured it would be unfair. MvC2 is one of my best games, and QP doesn`t play it much, so I predictably stomped him. I picked Team Combofiend (Magneto-a, Ironman-b, Sentinel-a), and stuck to the general gameplan and won. The gameplan consists of rushing down with Magneto and Sentinel`s assist, and killing 1 to 1.5 characters without using meter. By that time I`ve usually built to level 3. If the opponent hangs an assist or I land a clean hit anywhere, I do Magnetic Tempest (instant) frame cancel to proton cannon, let that run up 45 hits, then DHC to Sentinels HSF then do standing fierce plus magneto assist, then rocket punch. That usually kills whatever I hit. After that, I go stompometer with Sent using IM`s AAA to back me up. Lots of possibilities there, but against the arcade comp and QP, my Mags usually killed everybody before I even got to the DHC.

After going undefeated in the arcade we go buy some famous Osakan cheesecake and eat it on the street. Pretty ghetto. The cake was OK, but the New Yorker in me always holds his nose up whenever I eat cheesecake or pizza in Japan. Whatever, it was tasty. I`m almost passing out with exhaustion by this point, so I`m happy when somebody suggest going to a public bath. Adam meets up with us, he had been busy at a guitar lesson all day, but planned on shredding on Sunday, which I was stoked about. We hit the public bath and my body thanks me. I soak my legs in the cold water bath, and loosen up my back muscles in the jetstreams of the massaging baths. Sitting in the hot baths with a towel on my head, eyes closed and inhaling steam deeply into my lungs, I talk about Osaka`s footbag scene and the social dynamics of it with Adam and Kenzo. I`m so happy to be there.

Refreshed, we go home. I could use a beer, but I`m still on meds. I make do with ice cream and chips, which is such a good combination. We watch Vortex, which I hadn`t seen in ages. Some more footbag talk, and then I again fall asleep instantly on the couch.

[C-Fan]

note: there`s another long entry at the bottom of page 11... I`m writing this shortly thereafter, so if you missed the last entry, this one would seem weird. Just letting you know.

OSAKA: Sunday morning

Sunday morning I follow the pattern I set the previous three mornings: I wake up feeling way better than the day before. I almost feel completely over the flu. I`m still hacking up phlegm, but the moment I get off the couch, I already know I will be able to play well that day. I can`t tell you how good that feels, considering I was too weak to get out of bed just a few days before.

I say good morning to Adam and Kenzo, and we decide to eat out for breakfast. We do the same place as the previous morning, and on the way I hype the place to Adam telling him how incredibly fast the service is. Why do I do stupid shit like that? It`s like I`m taunting God to mess with me. Predictably, our food takes forever to arrive. It`s real good, I got shougayaki, but yesterday`s fish was better.

We`re running a bit late, but when we get to hatch only QP is there before us, and he`s still eating lunch. It seems like most Japanese players I know can shred real soon after eating, but I can`t. Or I think I can`t. Somehow I end up being the first person in lavers and kicking. I end up spending most of my shred time in a circle with Kenzo and Adam. They have a real good vibe playing together, because they play together all the time. I fed off that, and joined in on the whole `trying drills` thing, which is totally not what I usually do. I think I managed to hit drifter-torque repeat, but maybe I didn`t seal the last torque. Same with pdx whirl-torque repeat. Drills aren`t really my style, but they did give me some ideas. I did hit blurry whirl-stepping butterfly repeat which was kinda fun.

It was fun playing with Adam again. It`s such a different vibe playing with people who speak your native language. I think I`m a much friendlier shredder in English, since I`m usually cracking jokes or giving props and advice. In Japanese I give lots of high fives, but usually reserve my comments for giving tips. I`ve been making a conscious effort to give more random props in Japanese. Adam really soaks up advice well. He makes a lot of the same mistakes on moves that I used to make, so I usually can spot what he`s doing wrong real easily, since I used to do the same things. It`s funny, it always seems that I just give him a totally generic, worthles tip like "keep it tighter" or "don`t focus on the 2nd dex" or something stupid like that, and then he manages to hit the trick immediately thereafter. That pretty much happened with bedwetter. He just nailed his first one right in my face, after minimal advice from my end. Of course I take full credit in those situations. Ahhh, I`m such a bastard. I get Adam to hit schmoe-pixie butterfly repeat, which he does real easily. I really admire how bothsided his game is. I just hope he starts taking out his easier 2 add bails, he should totally be going guiltless.

I probably spent 70% of my session with Kenzo and Adam, but I can`t blame myself: they were playing with the sweetest bag, and there was a good vibe. Still, I made a point to spread myself out and play with some beginners and other players. Unlike the previous few days, I ended the session feeling real tired, but in a good way. Like, a satisfied, healhy tired.

Again we wrap up the session with a foursquare game. I have so much fun playing that I intentionally under-report my score, so I can play longer without being intimidating. As things wind down, I`m happy to hear that we are able to get a reservation for an Okonomiyaki restaurant. Okonomiyaki is an Osakan specialty, which is kinda like an omelet with all sorts of tasty seafood and veggies in it. Real good stuff. We need to kill some time before the restaurant, so we hit one of the shopping streets, and I buy us some takoyaki, which is another Osakan specialty. It`s fried balls of octopus meat in batter, with mayo and special sauce and bonito (fish) shavings on top. Doesn`t sound great, but trust me, good stuff. I take some silly photos with Octopus statues, then we go eat. I finally take the last of my meds, which makes me feel a bit better about being the only person at dinner who isn`t drinking. Real good joking vibe at dinner. QP teases Yuko about her boobs getting in the way of her shred, and I counter by slapping his gut and asking: `what about this (doesn`t it get in the way?)?` He responds by saying its like his ballast which balances him out.

After dinner we decide to go to a sports center/arcade type place. For about $10 USD, you have unlimited use of ping pong, minigolf, basketball shooting games, batting cages, and an arcade for like 2 hours. We mostly went for the ping pong, which ended up being real fun. The best was playing doubles. One time I was paired with Morio, who was on hi high school ping pong team. So to even things out, I played left handed in that match. Otherwise I mostly played using pen-style (chinese grip) which I really like for the spin you can generate. In the basketball cage Cha-han showed me some of his streetball dribbling, and I showed him some of my crossover stuff. He gave me a cool tip about how to make the ball boomerang in my shirt, which I`ve started toying around with since. QP and I complete Time Crisis 2 together. I continue (for free) maybe three times more frequently than he does. We both complain our arms ache from holding the guns so long.

Finally we decide to leave, and I get all excited, because Kenzo, Morio and I are planning on hitting a big hip-hop event at a club. It normally costs 2,500 yen to get in (2 drinks), but since Kenzo is cool with the owners, we all get in for 1,000 yen (1 drink). Kenzo is the man. I`m so excited to be at a really good club, but I`m not really dressed for it. I also still can`t drink, and I can`t hit on girls because I`m paranoid about starting a flu epidemic in Osaka. Still, I get my dance on which feels great. We party til 5 or so in the morning, at which point I know my legs cant hold my weight much longer. We head home, take baths, and sleep late.

Monday morning Kenzo makes me one of my favorite breakfasts. Bowl of white steamed rice with a raw egg cracked over it, add some soy sauce and mix. The heat from the rice cooks the egg a bit, and the sauce adds the right amount of saltiness. Ate that and some miso soup, felt great. Was a little sad packing my bag, but I just felt so happy that I decided to make the trip out. it was such a good weekend, and I didn`t relapse with my flu. Kenzo and I head out, and I become really jealous when I find out that Kenzo can go to work in street clothes. He does some sort of photo editing for a newspaper. We go to a big bookstore together where I`m stoked because I can read a bunch of new NBA magazines in English. Kenzo hangs with me a bit, then has to head to work. I soul hug him and thank him for everything. Thankfully, TSG3 is in 2 weeks, so we don`t have to say a real heavy goodbye or anything. More like: "looking forward to more party and shred in a couple weeks!"

I stick around reading more NBA mags for an hour, then leisurely make my way to the airport. The last leg of the trip involves riding the monorail, and I can`t help myself from singing the Monorail song from the Simpsons in my head. I feel good, no, great. And I think again to myself for the thousandth time in my life: I`m so happy I`ve found footbag. Footbaggers are the best people. Footbag is the best.