Fanzine
No kidding, I woke up in the middle of the night with the horrible realization that I had misspelled "indulge". This has no place here and should've been an e-mail to Ken, but if I ever make it to another tournament I don't want people to point and laugh, "There's that guy who has no respect for the English language.."
for Ken's sake
Saba...researching...Gottya!
A mackerel. He ate miso simmered mackerel for breakfast last Saturday and
Syougayaki in Sunday is baked slices of poke seasoned with grased ginger and soy sauce.
Try them
A mackerel. He ate miso simmered mackerel for breakfast last Saturday and
Syougayaki in Sunday is baked slices of poke seasoned with grased ginger and soy sauce.
Try them
Ha ha, sweet X+Y. I appreciate it.
So I`m having trouble focussing on work or anything else, because Tokyo Shredder Gathering is on Saturday, and I can`t contain my excitement. I`m kinda like that little kid who drinks a big gulp during a movie, then jumps up and down waiting to use the bathroom, because he couldn`t beat the crowd when the movie ended. I`m literally counting the amount of classes I have left until I go to Tokyo, I can`t wait I can`t wait I can`t wait. God it`s going to be so good!
This last weekend my folks came over from Japan, which meant no footbag, but was probably good for my body. I ended up doing lots of walking, which is good for my stamina, and I ate a ton of good food, which probably was good for getting my strength back up. I lost a lot of weight when I had the flu, and still don`t quite feel like I`m at full footbag strength. I also did lots of hot springs, which is always good for the body. This week I am making a point to not play basketball, which is a big sacrifice for me, but is necessary, since I can`t take any risks with my body going into TSG.
Yesterday I downloaded 3 footbag videos for free, and they all kicked ass. Jorden #7, Jason Crook video, and a Brad Nelson video. We`re so spoiled these days... 3 long videos of my favorite players, all bad-ass, all real long, all for free. Hell, I watch them at work, so its like I`m paid to watch footbag. I enjoyed all the videos, but probably liked the Brad one the best. I just really like his style. After work I had a ton of errands to run, but I still snuck in a short footbag session. I took my time warming up, which is a change, but something I think I will try to be more diligent about. I did consecutive toe stalls, then consec legovers, then consecutive alternating clippers. There`s really no drawback to doing a long warmup, except that it eats up time. But I think there are benefits which outweigh it.
Instead of drilling my shred 30 or anything like that, I just played for fun with the hope of getting my stamina and confidence back. I had a pretty good session, considering how short it was. Nothing real notable... I had a run with blurriest and blurry whirl both sides in the same string. Did lots of flip barflies, because of the Brad video. Oh yeah, footed pdx tap a few times too, because of the vid, but no seal. Not bad though, considering I suck at nuclear and never do it. Real close to flurry-toe WHAT?! Weather looks nice today, so I will try and get another session in. I think its always important to remember, that even during a bad session, you are getting better. Every add you put on your lavers, every hour you play, you are getting better. Reminding myself of that can sometimes help save my mental game.
After my session yesterday I did lots of other preparations for TSG. I did all my sock laundry and started packing my bag. I also made a good 4 phone calls to sort out some last minute details regarding judging, as well as places for people to stay (Andrew Grant, Morioka shreditas, etc). TSG is going to be sooooo goood.... I was just checking out the Japanese forums today, and Takumi posted that he recently hit maelstrom and phasing same osis. Boo yah!
TSG TSG TSG TSG TSG.......
So I`m having trouble focussing on work or anything else, because Tokyo Shredder Gathering is on Saturday, and I can`t contain my excitement. I`m kinda like that little kid who drinks a big gulp during a movie, then jumps up and down waiting to use the bathroom, because he couldn`t beat the crowd when the movie ended. I`m literally counting the amount of classes I have left until I go to Tokyo, I can`t wait I can`t wait I can`t wait. God it`s going to be so good!
This last weekend my folks came over from Japan, which meant no footbag, but was probably good for my body. I ended up doing lots of walking, which is good for my stamina, and I ate a ton of good food, which probably was good for getting my strength back up. I lost a lot of weight when I had the flu, and still don`t quite feel like I`m at full footbag strength. I also did lots of hot springs, which is always good for the body. This week I am making a point to not play basketball, which is a big sacrifice for me, but is necessary, since I can`t take any risks with my body going into TSG.
Yesterday I downloaded 3 footbag videos for free, and they all kicked ass. Jorden #7, Jason Crook video, and a Brad Nelson video. We`re so spoiled these days... 3 long videos of my favorite players, all bad-ass, all real long, all for free. Hell, I watch them at work, so its like I`m paid to watch footbag. I enjoyed all the videos, but probably liked the Brad one the best. I just really like his style. After work I had a ton of errands to run, but I still snuck in a short footbag session. I took my time warming up, which is a change, but something I think I will try to be more diligent about. I did consecutive toe stalls, then consec legovers, then consecutive alternating clippers. There`s really no drawback to doing a long warmup, except that it eats up time. But I think there are benefits which outweigh it.
Instead of drilling my shred 30 or anything like that, I just played for fun with the hope of getting my stamina and confidence back. I had a pretty good session, considering how short it was. Nothing real notable... I had a run with blurriest and blurry whirl both sides in the same string. Did lots of flip barflies, because of the Brad video. Oh yeah, footed pdx tap a few times too, because of the vid, but no seal. Not bad though, considering I suck at nuclear and never do it. Real close to flurry-toe WHAT?! Weather looks nice today, so I will try and get another session in. I think its always important to remember, that even during a bad session, you are getting better. Every add you put on your lavers, every hour you play, you are getting better. Reminding myself of that can sometimes help save my mental game.
After my session yesterday I did lots of other preparations for TSG. I did all my sock laundry and started packing my bag. I also made a good 4 phone calls to sort out some last minute details regarding judging, as well as places for people to stay (Andrew Grant, Morioka shreditas, etc). TSG is going to be sooooo goood.... I was just checking out the Japanese forums today, and Takumi posted that he recently hit maelstrom and phasing same osis. Boo yah!
TSG TSG TSG TSG TSG.......
2 after school sessions, 2 days in a row!
Played for a bit after school yesterday. There was a constant, chilly breeze throughout, but I did a decent job ignoring it. Just kept reminding myself that I needed to get more adds on the lavers, and even a bad session (injury free) would help me out at TSG.
I ended up having a pretty fun time. I remembered to warm up, and just started with consecutive inside kicks. I did 100 consecutives, then went directly into consecutive alternating toe stalls, which I did 50 of, then I wanted to go into 50 alternating clippers, but I dropped when I got to 10, because I somehow ended up much nearer to my car than I expected. Still, it was relaxing doing such a long warm up.
I put in a few more serious attempts at my Shred 30, and they ended up going pretty well. A lot of it is just remembering to breathe, and remaining calm when you mess up. No need to panic. Had a couple good run throughs with like 1 drop and over 20 uniques, so I think if things go well on Saturday, I have a shot at breaking my record (I scored a 206 at last year`s TSG, which is my best Shred30 score in competition).
I also just had fun doing some random strings. Today I felt a bit more like Scott Bevier than Brad. Does this happen to anybody else? Like, occasionally you will go into a session and you feel like you are playing with somebody else`s style? That happens to me occasionally... Brad Nelson, Risden, occasionally Pete. Last time I was in Tokyo Tencho commented that I was playing like Risden, which I took as a great compliment. I dunno... if any of you saw me playing yesterday, you`d probably think: "typical Ken style."
For some reason I messed around with toe spinning yesterday. No idea why. Before yesterday I had done a few things with toe spins, but mostly incorporating an extra dex. Like, johnny quest, or pyro mirage. Stuff like that. Removing the initial dex before a spin really buys you a ton of time. I hit toe spinning butterfly on my first try, and hit it for the second time in the same string!
Same thing with toe gyro mirage (starts and ends on same toe). Not that hard. I toyed around some more with it, then thought I should try flipside. It was much harder. Still, I managed to hit and seal flipside toe gyro mirage, and after the seal I actually said out loud: "that one`s for you Mosher." I played around with some combos, and I got my foot on flurry-toe spinning butterfly-ps whi...nuts. Flipside PS whirl is actually almost as good as strong side, but I got flustered for some reason. The best toe spin combo I pulled off ended up being haze-toe spinning butterfly-pdx torque, which I thought was rather styly. I figure my good toe spin is good enough to exploit in regular combos, so I will try to start using it regularly. All about style. I figure if I can hit toe gyro mirage twice in the same string, first try, first time, and the same with toe spinning butterfly, then the set must be pretty natural for me. As if to prove a point, I also hit and sealed toe gdlo! That`s a pretty cool fucking move in my opinion. 
I tried toughing out the breeze, but I had to sit inside my car a couple times to warm up. I remember thinking that I should play a bit more just to get my stamina up, but I also reminded myself that I just got over the flu, and it would be pretty stupid to relapse right before TSG. I went out and hit a couple more nice combos, then went inside.
I had done lots of prep work for TSG the night before, so after this shred session, I decided I`d take it easy that night. I went to my house and played a buttload of Tekken5, which was fun. I never was into Tekken, but I decided I`d try to learn the system. I`m focussing on using Feng, and I really like his style.
Oh man, I`m so excited about TSG I feel it in my stomach...
I ended up having a pretty fun time. I remembered to warm up, and just started with consecutive inside kicks. I did 100 consecutives, then went directly into consecutive alternating toe stalls, which I did 50 of, then I wanted to go into 50 alternating clippers, but I dropped when I got to 10, because I somehow ended up much nearer to my car than I expected. Still, it was relaxing doing such a long warm up.
I put in a few more serious attempts at my Shred 30, and they ended up going pretty well. A lot of it is just remembering to breathe, and remaining calm when you mess up. No need to panic. Had a couple good run throughs with like 1 drop and over 20 uniques, so I think if things go well on Saturday, I have a shot at breaking my record (I scored a 206 at last year`s TSG, which is my best Shred30 score in competition).
I also just had fun doing some random strings. Today I felt a bit more like Scott Bevier than Brad. Does this happen to anybody else? Like, occasionally you will go into a session and you feel like you are playing with somebody else`s style? That happens to me occasionally... Brad Nelson, Risden, occasionally Pete. Last time I was in Tokyo Tencho commented that I was playing like Risden, which I took as a great compliment. I dunno... if any of you saw me playing yesterday, you`d probably think: "typical Ken style."
For some reason I messed around with toe spinning yesterday. No idea why. Before yesterday I had done a few things with toe spins, but mostly incorporating an extra dex. Like, johnny quest, or pyro mirage. Stuff like that. Removing the initial dex before a spin really buys you a ton of time. I hit toe spinning butterfly on my first try, and hit it for the second time in the same string!
Same thing with toe gyro mirage (starts and ends on same toe). Not that hard. I toyed around some more with it, then thought I should try flipside. It was much harder. Still, I managed to hit and seal flipside toe gyro mirage, and after the seal I actually said out loud: "that one`s for you Mosher." I played around with some combos, and I got my foot on flurry-toe spinning butterfly-ps whi...nuts. Flipside PS whirl is actually almost as good as strong side, but I got flustered for some reason. The best toe spin combo I pulled off ended up being haze-toe spinning butterfly-pdx torque, which I thought was rather styly. I figure my good toe spin is good enough to exploit in regular combos, so I will try to start using it regularly. All about style. I figure if I can hit toe gyro mirage twice in the same string, first try, first time, and the same with toe spinning butterfly, then the set must be pretty natural for me. As if to prove a point, I also hit and sealed toe gdlo! That`s a pretty cool fucking move in my opinion. I tried toughing out the breeze, but I had to sit inside my car a couple times to warm up. I remember thinking that I should play a bit more just to get my stamina up, but I also reminded myself that I just got over the flu, and it would be pretty stupid to relapse right before TSG. I went out and hit a couple more nice combos, then went inside.
I had done lots of prep work for TSG the night before, so after this shred session, I decided I`d take it easy that night. I went to my house and played a buttload of Tekken5, which was fun. I never was into Tekken, but I decided I`d try to learn the system. I`m focussing on using Feng, and I really like his style.
Oh man, I`m so excited about TSG I feel it in my stomach...
-
Senor Grommet
- Post Master General
- Posts: 3394
- Joined: 18 Oct 2002 20:25
- Location: Greater Santa Cruz, CA
Im sorry that my bag will not get to TSG intime for the event. It wll be sent tomrrw morning however, so I guess you may tell whoever "wins" it for a specific event that he/she will get it when it arrives. If you're opposed to this idea, you can always give it to a club there and it can be a communal bag.
Intthe last 5-6 days, Ive trult had little to no time to hit up a post office drg hours of operation.
Sorry,
Jeremy
Intthe last 5-6 days, Ive trult had little to no time to hit up a post office drg hours of operation.
Sorry,
Jeremy
My name: Jeremy Mirken, AKA Chocolatey Shatner, AKA jerk enemy rim.
I kick it with trunk chef elf and liz luck key my.
I kick it with trunk chef elf and liz luck key my.
edit: made this post into a PM. But just so it`s not a total waste of a post, I also just remembered a couple other things about yesterday`s session. I hit barfly-torque bsos for the first time, which felt cool. I should be able to link them all consecutively. I also had a run with spinning butterfly bsos, which I was extremely happy about because I wasn`t explicitly going for spinning butterfly bsos, it just kinda happened. The first one came like 5 tricks into the string, and the second one was like move number 12. That means that spins are becoming a bit more natural for me, which is something I`ve always struggled with.
Today also looks to be nice weather, so I`ll try for another light session today, probably just going for longer strings.
Today also looks to be nice weather, so I`ll try for another light session today, probably just going for longer strings.
_______ session
Yesterday I had an absolutely fabulous session. Don`t like the adjective? Blame Jorden. I was going to describe my session as `epic,` but then y`all would be expecting I hit nemesis or gyro blender or some other idiotically hard tricks. The main thing was I had a ton of fun, and my confidence shot up. TSG is this weekend, and this week I worked hard to get my stamina and confidence up (since my flu), and I feel like I accomplished that goal.
The chilly breeze from Tuesday`s session was mercifully gone, and it was downright balmy throughout. I decided to continue my warmup regimen, and started the session with 100 consec inside kicks directly into 50 alternating toe stalls. I remember when I first started out, how I would drill consecutive kicks, and if I reached 60, it was a rush. Now I can hit 100 first try, every time, and its no big deal. Its important to remind yourself how far you`ve come.
I decided to approach this session completely open-minded. Didn`t do much with toe spins, but I was close to toe gyro mirage to toe spinning butterfly. For some reason, the move I wanted to play around with was reverse swirling pick up. Up until yesterday, I had never played into or out of it with anything other than butterfly, something I sought to remedy. Happily, I managed to hit rev-up (shortened for convenience) to toe drifter on my first try! Whoo! I also got stepping butterfly to rev-up first try. But the best feeling was hitting legbeater (hippie)-rev up-eclipse to a run. That just felt like a real stylish combo, especially since it was my flip hippie legbeater.
Since my goal for the week was working on stamina, I also skooled some consecutives. Skooling consecutive tricks probably improved my consistency on some of them, but it also reminded me why I seldom skool consecutives: it bores the hell out of me. I had one string where I linked 7 or 8 ripwalks then went directly into 15 or so ducking butterflies. I stopped by hand catching, because I got bored, and also cause I wasn`t really counting. If I`m going to put in the energy to do more than 20 ducking butterflies, I might as well count them and break my record.
Had a couple fun, creative runs. My spins are coming in better for sure. I started one run with parkwalk-ducking butterfly-schmoe, and as I was completing the schmoe I thought: "Andrew Grant is coming tomorrow! Hm, he likes both-sided repeat drills..." and so in mid combo I decided to repeat the combo, and I did. Park-ducking butterfly-schmoe repeat. In the same string I also hit ducking clipper x2 directly into gyro clipper x2. Very happy with that. I also had a run which started with flailing eclipse, then a few moves later had bedwetter, then barrage bsos (no idea how clean either was... guessing they were both thin but not the), then gyro clipperx2 starting in the other direction than before.
The biggest rush I had all session was skooling my Shred30. Because of judging and time restraints, I will likely only compete in Shred30 and Rippin Run at TSG3. But I don`t really view rippin run as a real competitive event, so I really want to do well in Shred30. Yesterday I had my best run through yet. Here were the numbers from yesterdays run through.
0 5 add tricks
1 drop
10 3 adds
19 4 adds
22 tricks hit before a drop
27 uniques
29 tricks hit overall
200+ score, I think.
My goal at TSG is to break 200. I feel like the only person I`m competing against is myself, specifically my last TSG performance. It should be an exciting event. Morii, Andrew Grant, Henmo, and Kenzo all could conceivably beat me too. It should be pretty competitive at the top.
After my last good run I was feeling pretty stoked, and was ready to end my session. But I reminded myself to be disciplined, so I decided to skool consecutive osii. I had a couple attempts where I only got 3, which I thought was pretty pathetic. So I really concentrated, and got 10...15... still going... 19!.... reeeeach... 20 osii! I hand caught the last one and jumped up and down. That totally annihilated my old record, which must have been like 9 or 10. No idea how I got 20, but that was an awesome surprise. After that I decided I should try and warm-down. I used my new miki bag and did 10 right clippers directly into 10 left clippers to 10 right clippers to 10 left clippers to pdx mirage-pixie butterfly-pdx mirage-pixie butterfly hand catch, end of session.
Walked back into my house with a big smile on my face. I started this week not feeling confident about my stamina and conditioning, but I was diligent about practice this week and kept a good attitude, and now I feel very ready for the weekend.
Next post: TSG mothafuckaaaaz!
The chilly breeze from Tuesday`s session was mercifully gone, and it was downright balmy throughout. I decided to continue my warmup regimen, and started the session with 100 consec inside kicks directly into 50 alternating toe stalls. I remember when I first started out, how I would drill consecutive kicks, and if I reached 60, it was a rush. Now I can hit 100 first try, every time, and its no big deal. Its important to remind yourself how far you`ve come.
I decided to approach this session completely open-minded. Didn`t do much with toe spins, but I was close to toe gyro mirage to toe spinning butterfly. For some reason, the move I wanted to play around with was reverse swirling pick up. Up until yesterday, I had never played into or out of it with anything other than butterfly, something I sought to remedy. Happily, I managed to hit rev-up (shortened for convenience) to toe drifter on my first try! Whoo! I also got stepping butterfly to rev-up first try. But the best feeling was hitting legbeater (hippie)-rev up-eclipse to a run. That just felt like a real stylish combo, especially since it was my flip hippie legbeater.
Since my goal for the week was working on stamina, I also skooled some consecutives. Skooling consecutive tricks probably improved my consistency on some of them, but it also reminded me why I seldom skool consecutives: it bores the hell out of me. I had one string where I linked 7 or 8 ripwalks then went directly into 15 or so ducking butterflies. I stopped by hand catching, because I got bored, and also cause I wasn`t really counting. If I`m going to put in the energy to do more than 20 ducking butterflies, I might as well count them and break my record.
Had a couple fun, creative runs. My spins are coming in better for sure. I started one run with parkwalk-ducking butterfly-schmoe, and as I was completing the schmoe I thought: "Andrew Grant is coming tomorrow! Hm, he likes both-sided repeat drills..." and so in mid combo I decided to repeat the combo, and I did. Park-ducking butterfly-schmoe repeat. In the same string I also hit ducking clipper x2 directly into gyro clipper x2. Very happy with that. I also had a run which started with flailing eclipse, then a few moves later had bedwetter, then barrage bsos (no idea how clean either was... guessing they were both thin but not the), then gyro clipperx2 starting in the other direction than before.
The biggest rush I had all session was skooling my Shred30. Because of judging and time restraints, I will likely only compete in Shred30 and Rippin Run at TSG3. But I don`t really view rippin run as a real competitive event, so I really want to do well in Shred30. Yesterday I had my best run through yet. Here were the numbers from yesterdays run through.
0 5 add tricks
1 drop
10 3 adds
19 4 adds
22 tricks hit before a drop
27 uniques
29 tricks hit overall
200+ score, I think.
My goal at TSG is to break 200. I feel like the only person I`m competing against is myself, specifically my last TSG performance. It should be an exciting event. Morii, Andrew Grant, Henmo, and Kenzo all could conceivably beat me too. It should be pretty competitive at the top.
After my last good run I was feeling pretty stoked, and was ready to end my session. But I reminded myself to be disciplined, so I decided to skool consecutive osii. I had a couple attempts where I only got 3, which I thought was pretty pathetic. So I really concentrated, and got 10...15... still going... 19!.... reeeeach... 20 osii!
I hand caught the last one and jumped up and down. That totally annihilated my old record, which must have been like 9 or 10. No idea how I got 20, but that was an awesome surprise. After that I decided I should try and warm-down. I used my new miki bag and did 10 right clippers directly into 10 left clippers to 10 right clippers to 10 left clippers to pdx mirage-pixie butterfly-pdx mirage-pixie butterfly hand catch, end of session.Walked back into my house with a big smile on my face. I started this week not feeling confident about my stamina and conditioning, but I was diligent about practice this week and kept a good attitude, and now I feel very ready for the weekend.
Next post: TSG mothafuckaaaaz!
TSG is tomorrow... I wonder if I can sleep tonight? First session of the weekend went down today. The weather was summer-like, 27 degrees Celsius or so. People were getting sunburns.
Good showing today, especially for a session before a tourney. Lots of people didn`t play or show because they wanted to save their legs for tomorrow. Some people came but didn`t shred, but still played some foursquare at the end, and some others didn`t play but shot some film.
This was my first real session with Andrew Grant, and I was very impressed. Way more consistent and smooth than at worlds. The word all the Japanese players kept using to describe his style was `karui` which means light. Kenzo also played pretty hardcore today, and Ryota OBT also showed and shredded some. Morii showed up late but played some. i`ll write a more in-detail report later, but the main thing was that everybody had a nice, light session, and it was a great appetizer for tomorrow.
I played OK. I recently found out that a tape we had sent to Eli got lost, which means I wanted to get a few things on film today on the chance that Eli might still be able to use some. I got a couple good stuff on tape, including my new WHAT?! variant, and some funny windoring shenanigans with Kenzo.
Gonna take a bath tonight and go to bed real early so I`m ready for tomorrow. Andrew looks like he could give me a real run for my money in Shred30, but I`m really just competing against my score from last year. There are a few Japanese players who could also pull off upsets I think.
More interesting, long in-depth write up coming later.
Good showing today, especially for a session before a tourney. Lots of people didn`t play or show because they wanted to save their legs for tomorrow. Some people came but didn`t shred, but still played some foursquare at the end, and some others didn`t play but shot some film.
This was my first real session with Andrew Grant, and I was very impressed. Way more consistent and smooth than at worlds. The word all the Japanese players kept using to describe his style was `karui` which means light. Kenzo also played pretty hardcore today, and Ryota OBT also showed and shredded some. Morii showed up late but played some. i`ll write a more in-detail report later, but the main thing was that everybody had a nice, light session, and it was a great appetizer for tomorrow.
I played OK. I recently found out that a tape we had sent to Eli got lost, which means I wanted to get a few things on film today on the chance that Eli might still be able to use some. I got a couple good stuff on tape, including my new WHAT?! variant, and some funny windoring shenanigans with Kenzo.
Gonna take a bath tonight and go to bed real early so I`m ready for tomorrow. Andrew looks like he could give me a real run for my money in Shred30, but I`m really just competing against my score from last year. There are a few Japanese players who could also pull off upsets I think.
More interesting, long in-depth write up coming later.
Andrew Grant comes to Japan
Ah, vacation has started, and started well. And while I`m by no means complaining about having 10 days off work and having lots of fun, it also makes blogging hard. Lots of blog-worthy stuff going down, little time to write, and by the time I`m regularly back on the net, I`m afraid I`llhave forgotten a lot. Normally I wouldn`t care that much, but after reading Andrew`s GLASS blog, and talking about having a blog battle... why do I put these pressures on myself? So nice to have such petty worries...
So at the risk of making this a hatchet job, I`m gonna see how much of the weekend I can get through in the next, oh, 20 minutes.
TSG was on the brain since at least Monday of last week. Hard class at work? Dangle TSG in front of the mind`s eye like a carrot. Go to bed, dream of TSG, wake up, work, daydream of TSG, session, repeat. On Friday I could barely contain my excitement. I got lucky in that Thursday was a half day or the students, which meant I ran basketball practice early, and was finished way ahead of schedule. Because of that, I was able to save an hour by catching an earlier shinkansen to Tokyo. I slept on it for a bit, but was clutching my cellphone the whole time, in case Andrew had any problems meeting up with Kim. Once in Tokyo station, I wasted a good 20 minutes in a futile attempt to get Andrew train tickets to Kyoto for Monday. Frustrated, I went off to meet everybody in Shibuya, and just mentally erased my frustration. I was determined it would be a good weekend.
I find the place in Shibuya alright, and I feel great just seeing that Andrew made it safely and had a beer in his hand. He struck me as well-travelled, but it was still a relief to see he had made it. I slide into the booth, say hey to Kim and order a beer. I`d met Andrew before, but there`s always that moment initially where your brain adjusts its mental image of a person to fit the actual image the eye provides. I`m reminded a bit of the first time I met Brian MacKenzie in person... I had a rough idea of what he looked like from video, but seeing him in person was slightly different. We eat, talk some, but my mind is already on Saturday. Actually, its on Friday, with the longer view towards saturday. My plan for Friday is to do some light sightseeing and shredding in order to get some sun on Andrew to beat the jetlag out of him before the tourney. Before calling it a night, I give him a token, Japanese-footbag-themed present, and he gives me a special Erik Chan DVD. He tells me there are lots of extras on it, and I get excited hoping for a X-Mas tree documentary. Have yet to check it out, but am very excited for it.
Friday morning I wake up feeling good. Its beautiful summer weather out. I call a few people and we set up lunch plans at my favorite cheap tempura place.
gotta go meet up with Andrew now, more later. And yes, there will be lots of footbag talk too, not just culinary and meteorological ramblings.
So at the risk of making this a hatchet job, I`m gonna see how much of the weekend I can get through in the next, oh, 20 minutes.
TSG was on the brain since at least Monday of last week. Hard class at work? Dangle TSG in front of the mind`s eye like a carrot. Go to bed, dream of TSG, wake up, work, daydream of TSG, session, repeat. On Friday I could barely contain my excitement. I got lucky in that Thursday was a half day or the students, which meant I ran basketball practice early, and was finished way ahead of schedule. Because of that, I was able to save an hour by catching an earlier shinkansen to Tokyo. I slept on it for a bit, but was clutching my cellphone the whole time, in case Andrew had any problems meeting up with Kim. Once in Tokyo station, I wasted a good 20 minutes in a futile attempt to get Andrew train tickets to Kyoto for Monday. Frustrated, I went off to meet everybody in Shibuya, and just mentally erased my frustration. I was determined it would be a good weekend.
I find the place in Shibuya alright, and I feel great just seeing that Andrew made it safely and had a beer in his hand. He struck me as well-travelled, but it was still a relief to see he had made it. I slide into the booth, say hey to Kim and order a beer. I`d met Andrew before, but there`s always that moment initially where your brain adjusts its mental image of a person to fit the actual image the eye provides. I`m reminded a bit of the first time I met Brian MacKenzie in person... I had a rough idea of what he looked like from video, but seeing him in person was slightly different. We eat, talk some, but my mind is already on Saturday. Actually, its on Friday, with the longer view towards saturday. My plan for Friday is to do some light sightseeing and shredding in order to get some sun on Andrew to beat the jetlag out of him before the tourney. Before calling it a night, I give him a token, Japanese-footbag-themed present, and he gives me a special Erik Chan DVD. He tells me there are lots of extras on it, and I get excited hoping for a X-Mas tree documentary. Have yet to check it out, but am very excited for it.
Friday morning I wake up feeling good. Its beautiful summer weather out. I call a few people and we set up lunch plans at my favorite cheap tempura place.
gotta go meet up with Andrew now, more later. And yes, there will be lots of footbag talk too, not just culinary and meteorological ramblings.
Friday`s shred
So Friday I meet up with Andrew and Kim at my favorite cheap tempura place, and some of the Osaka crew join us. I kinda feel bad having all of us meet up there... its one of my favorite places, and I figure Andrew will dig it because its good tempura, but I kinda feel bad having all the Japanese players join us. Its like if a german tourist came to california, and I made all the californian players join us at In-N-Out burger or something. 
As if that isn`t bad enough, I also insist we go to Yoyogi park via a rather large detour, just so we can pass by a dental clinic with a funny sign. Andrew appreciates it, but I worry that the rest of the Japanese crew think I`m nuts. Hopefully Andrew will post the pic later.
We head to Yoyogi and I just feel real good. TSG is the next day, I`m on vacation, and its summer-hot out. Once at the fountain we take our time warming up. I planned on warming up real slowly, but the fact that Andrew was there had me excited, so I ended up playing a little earlier than I should have. I felt the tempura in my stomach for a bit, but still had a good session.
I had played a bit with Andrew at worlds, but not much, so I really had no idea how good he was, or what it would be like to play with him.. I probably best remember warming up for Shred30 at Worlds with him and Derek, but we were all just drilling our Shred30s and were nervous. And then I`d seen a little bit of recent vid that Erik had put out, but that doesn`t tell you that much. So, standing on the pier on Friday warming up with Andrew, there was a sense of anticipation akin to opening a gift.
Andrew definitely surprised me. I figured he`d be better since Worlds, and I knew that he had a fast learning curve (he competed Open at worlds after roughly a year playing), but I was still surprised by how much better he was. What struck me the most wasn`t the bothsidedness or difficulty of his game, both which were notable, so much as the control that he showed over his basic tricks. Osis, drifter, whirl were all very controlled, textbook form. Maybe that will inspire me to go back and perfect my foundation, but I don`t want to underestimate my laziness. Andrew`s runs were definitely way longer than at Worlds, and were very shuffle-y. I made mental notes of things I`d ask him for tips on (stepping ducking!), but mostly just wanted to play lightly. My main goals for the day were to get Andrew lots of sun (to combat jet lag), run through my shred 30 a couple times, and make sure nobody pushed themselves too hard or got injured.
Lots of people showed up on Friday, which was really cool. A few people sat out in order to save their legs for the next day. Incredible self-restraint. I got some of them to film parts of the session, so hopefully a video will be out in a bit. The best circle I was in on Friday was probably Andrew, Kenzo, and myself. Saw some good stuff on Friday for sure, but its hard to remember it all. I played 4 days in a row this weekend, so a lot of it is all blurred in my head. I saw Kenzo hit Janiwalker to torque both sides. He was also trying chainsaw massacre, and was pretty close. He also put in some attempts at Clownface which impressed me. Like, he was ACTUALLY trying for clownface, and not just dicking around. I saw him clear 3 dexes and come close to 4 on one attempt. I`m guessing he will hit that trick in the next 3 months or so if he really skools it. Takumi played some on Friday, and it was apparent he`d been preparing for TSG. Pretty much guiltless now. I recall seeing him hit a real pretty mobius, and hes starting to throw blenders and dynos into his runs now which are a nice addition. I asked Andrew what he thought of Takumi`s game, and I commented that it was more Felix than (early) Vasek, and Andrew said he thought it was incredibly similar to Johnny Su(d)erman`s game. That`s definitely a compliment.
Andrew had lots of nice shuffle runs all day. He was throwing lots of tombstones all over the place, which made me think I should do more of them too. Its a nice trick, and really not that hard. After one particularly nice tombstone run, I got the bag and asked Andrew: "hey, do you do this trick much?" and hit stepping grifter first try, then passed it to him. His expression didn`t change at all, and he responded: "no, I don`t really do grifters much." I nodded my head cooly. Then, 20 seconds later I dropped the cool facade and yelled excited-fanboy-style: "dude give me some props! Stepping grifter!" Surprised, he gave me a high five. He thought it was an easy trick for me since I hit it first try, but really, that was only my second time ever hitting it!
The biggest combo I remember seeing on Friday was Andrew hitting ripped warrior back to back. That`s a really cool combo. The Japanese players were real impressed with Andrew. They kept marvelling how light he was on his feet. They also said that he looked really cool, and even commented that he looked like he could be a character in an RPG. I thought that was a real Japanese compliment. I laughed when I translated that to him, because I remember how at Worlds all the Japanese players said Kevin Regamey looked like the guy from Initial D. When I got back to Japan after Worlds, I read some Initial D, and I thought it was a real funny back-handed compliment.
Personally, I had a pretty light session. I was a bit self-conscious about my relative one-sidedness playing with Andrew, but was having too much fun playing with all the out of town players to worry about it. I hit my WHAT?! variant on tape, and its pretty clean. So hopefully I`ll submit that to the May online competition. I`m thinking about naming it Jigga WHAT?!?, but 3things are holding me back.
1. I wanted to name my first WHAT?!? variant a New Zealand name, but it doesn`t really fit this trick. Eh, maybe good enough.
2. Jigga WHAT?!? would be a better name for gyro WHAT?!, but I haven`t skooled that yet.
3. Kevin Regamey said that if I named every variation of WHAT?! instead of using the techinical names (spinning WHAT, atomic WHAT, etc) he would buy me a Welsh Corgi (my favorite dog), wait 6 months, and then kill it.
It was blazing hot, and Andrew started getting a bit burnt, so we decided to take a break and do some quick sight-seeing. The beauty of Yoyogi park is that there is always interesting stuff going on to see (breakdancing, double dutch, schoolgirls singing gospel songs) within the park, but there`s also Harajuku right next to it, and Meiji Shrine. Meiji Shrine is one of my favorite places in Japan. It`s just a very peaceful temple in the middle of a forest plot. Its comforting to visit such a quiet place in the middle of such a bustling city.
Next: more sightseeing, more hilarity, more shred, and yes.... more cowbell. I`m serious too.
As if that isn`t bad enough, I also insist we go to Yoyogi park via a rather large detour, just so we can pass by a dental clinic with a funny sign. Andrew appreciates it, but I worry that the rest of the Japanese crew think I`m nuts. Hopefully Andrew will post the pic later.We head to Yoyogi and I just feel real good. TSG is the next day, I`m on vacation, and its summer-hot out. Once at the fountain we take our time warming up. I planned on warming up real slowly, but the fact that Andrew was there had me excited, so I ended up playing a little earlier than I should have. I felt the tempura in my stomach for a bit, but still had a good session.
I had played a bit with Andrew at worlds, but not much, so I really had no idea how good he was, or what it would be like to play with him.. I probably best remember warming up for Shred30 at Worlds with him and Derek, but we were all just drilling our Shred30s and were nervous. And then I`d seen a little bit of recent vid that Erik had put out, but that doesn`t tell you that much. So, standing on the pier on Friday warming up with Andrew, there was a sense of anticipation akin to opening a gift.
Andrew definitely surprised me. I figured he`d be better since Worlds, and I knew that he had a fast learning curve (he competed Open at worlds after roughly a year playing), but I was still surprised by how much better he was. What struck me the most wasn`t the bothsidedness or difficulty of his game, both which were notable, so much as the control that he showed over his basic tricks. Osis, drifter, whirl were all very controlled, textbook form. Maybe that will inspire me to go back and perfect my foundation, but I don`t want to underestimate my laziness. Andrew`s runs were definitely way longer than at Worlds, and were very shuffle-y. I made mental notes of things I`d ask him for tips on (stepping ducking!), but mostly just wanted to play lightly. My main goals for the day were to get Andrew lots of sun (to combat jet lag), run through my shred 30 a couple times, and make sure nobody pushed themselves too hard or got injured.
Lots of people showed up on Friday, which was really cool. A few people sat out in order to save their legs for the next day. Incredible self-restraint. I got some of them to film parts of the session, so hopefully a video will be out in a bit. The best circle I was in on Friday was probably Andrew, Kenzo, and myself. Saw some good stuff on Friday for sure, but its hard to remember it all. I played 4 days in a row this weekend, so a lot of it is all blurred in my head. I saw Kenzo hit Janiwalker to torque both sides. He was also trying chainsaw massacre, and was pretty close. He also put in some attempts at Clownface which impressed me. Like, he was ACTUALLY trying for clownface, and not just dicking around. I saw him clear 3 dexes and come close to 4 on one attempt. I`m guessing he will hit that trick in the next 3 months or so if he really skools it. Takumi played some on Friday, and it was apparent he`d been preparing for TSG. Pretty much guiltless now. I recall seeing him hit a real pretty mobius, and hes starting to throw blenders and dynos into his runs now which are a nice addition. I asked Andrew what he thought of Takumi`s game, and I commented that it was more Felix than (early) Vasek, and Andrew said he thought it was incredibly similar to Johnny Su(d)erman`s game. That`s definitely a compliment.
Andrew had lots of nice shuffle runs all day. He was throwing lots of tombstones all over the place, which made me think I should do more of them too. Its a nice trick, and really not that hard. After one particularly nice tombstone run, I got the bag and asked Andrew: "hey, do you do this trick much?" and hit stepping grifter first try, then passed it to him. His expression didn`t change at all, and he responded: "no, I don`t really do grifters much." I nodded my head cooly. Then, 20 seconds later I dropped the cool facade and yelled excited-fanboy-style: "dude give me some props! Stepping grifter!" Surprised, he gave me a high five. He thought it was an easy trick for me since I hit it first try, but really, that was only my second time ever hitting it!
The biggest combo I remember seeing on Friday was Andrew hitting ripped warrior back to back. That`s a really cool combo. The Japanese players were real impressed with Andrew. They kept marvelling how light he was on his feet. They also said that he looked really cool, and even commented that he looked like he could be a character in an RPG. I thought that was a real Japanese compliment. I laughed when I translated that to him, because I remember how at Worlds all the Japanese players said Kevin Regamey looked like the guy from Initial D. When I got back to Japan after Worlds, I read some Initial D, and I thought it was a real funny back-handed compliment. Personally, I had a pretty light session. I was a bit self-conscious about my relative one-sidedness playing with Andrew, but was having too much fun playing with all the out of town players to worry about it. I hit my WHAT?! variant on tape, and its pretty clean. So hopefully I`ll submit that to the May online competition. I`m thinking about naming it Jigga WHAT?!?, but 3things are holding me back.
1. I wanted to name my first WHAT?!? variant a New Zealand name, but it doesn`t really fit this trick. Eh, maybe good enough.
2. Jigga WHAT?!? would be a better name for gyro WHAT?!, but I haven`t skooled that yet.
3. Kevin Regamey said that if I named every variation of WHAT?! instead of using the techinical names (spinning WHAT, atomic WHAT, etc) he would buy me a Welsh Corgi (my favorite dog), wait 6 months, and then kill it.
It was blazing hot, and Andrew started getting a bit burnt, so we decided to take a break and do some quick sight-seeing. The beauty of Yoyogi park is that there is always interesting stuff going on to see (breakdancing, double dutch, schoolgirls singing gospel songs) within the park, but there`s also Harajuku right next to it, and Meiji Shrine. Meiji Shrine is one of my favorite places in Japan. It`s just a very peaceful temple in the middle of a forest plot. Its comforting to visit such a quiet place in the middle of such a bustling city.
Next: more sightseeing, more hilarity, more shred, and yes.... more cowbell. I`m serious too.
TSG3 wrap up
Back at work after 10 days of vacation. God it was so good. TSG and Andrew`s visit was the bomb, and I followed that up with a trip to Okinawa... Japan`s tropical islands. I felt like I was in a beer commercial, it was so beautiful. I`ve been offline a while, and have massive journal and fanzine backlog, but hopefully I can capture a bit of the feel of TSG3 and what went down. Come on memory!
Flashback to Friday. Andrew had flown in the night before, after about 27 hours travelling, and I had also just gotten into town. Going into that weekend I felt pretty good. I had had 3 light sessions leading up to TSG, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, as well as a light basketball practice on Thursday, so I felt in good shape. It was scorching hot on Friday, but neither Andrew nor I pushed too hard, and Andrew seemed in good shape, like jet-lag wouldn`t be a factor. I finished a bit earlier than everybody else, and filmed for a bit. Andrew hit a bunch of stuff I listed in my last entry, as well as blurry whirling swirl, which I somehow forgot to write about. I was filming him when he hit it, but I was at exactly the worst posible angle; I couldn`t even see his swirl. Andrew wasn`t 100% his swirl was clean, but Kenzo thought it was good. I filmed him hitting it again later, this time from a good angle, but this time the swirl was "the." I apologized for not getting the first attempt at a good angle, and sympathized with him about "the"ing swirls:
Me: "Yeah, that happens to me sometimes when I hit paradon swirls."
Andrew: *does consecutive toe kicks, getting ready for his next trick.*
Correcting myself: "I mean, that happens to me sometimes when I hit paradon."
Andrew: *does 8 more toe kicks, then cracks up and passes the bag.*
The rest of the Japanese crew play for another hour or so, but I take Andrew on a quick sight-seeing tour of the area. We hit Meiji Shrine first, and take some photos. I hadn`t been to Meiji Shrine in like a year, and I was glad Andrew came cause it gave me an excuse to check it out again. It really is one of my favorite shrines in Japan. So peaceful, such a simple big space. Before entering the shrine we purify ourselves by washing our hands and faces with water from a fountain, using bamboo ladles. Andrew points out that we didn`t rinse out our mouths with the water, which his guidebook said was proper procedure, and I advise against it.
Once inside the shrine, I explain to Andrew the proper way of praying.
Me: "Are you right or left footed?"
AG: "Right."
Me: "OK, so you should stand on your left foot. Then, raise your left hand above your head, and close one eye..."
AG:
Me: "Damn it, you`ve already caught on to my shit."
I spent a good chunk of the weekend trying to float BS by Andrew, but he was pretty good about catching me. We pray traditional style, and in my prayer I ask that TSG go well, and that everybody have a good time.
We do a whirlwind tour of Takeshita Street in Harajuku, but it`s packed. We decide to check it out more leisurely on Monday, which is a good call. Still, we decide to pick up some bling on the cheap. Andrew picks a chain whose pendant is a hubcap where you can spin the rims. I think they`re referred to as "Dubs", like: "we rollin` on dubs." You know what I`m talking about, like flashy hubcaps. I nearly bought bling with a superman logo (the "S" would stand for Somolinos) but it broke right when I put it on the counter to buy it. Good timing... We go back to the pier in Yoyogi, and people are playing 4square. We hop in for a couple rounds which is fun. I can`t remember any particularly inspiring new rules... mostly the same as last time in Osaka.
I bow out early cause I`m staying at a non-footbagger`s place. I really wanted to stay at a footbagger`s place, but thought it would be selfish to take up that space, when players from out-of-town needed spots to sleep. It worked out well though on Friday, since that meant I didn`t drink much, ate well, took a bath, and went to bed early. Going into TSG, I feel real good... Andrew made it safely, Osaka crew is looking sharp, and my body feels ready for a good showing the next day.
Next: Big show.
Flashback to Friday. Andrew had flown in the night before, after about 27 hours travelling, and I had also just gotten into town. Going into that weekend I felt pretty good. I had had 3 light sessions leading up to TSG, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, as well as a light basketball practice on Thursday, so I felt in good shape. It was scorching hot on Friday, but neither Andrew nor I pushed too hard, and Andrew seemed in good shape, like jet-lag wouldn`t be a factor. I finished a bit earlier than everybody else, and filmed for a bit. Andrew hit a bunch of stuff I listed in my last entry, as well as blurry whirling swirl, which I somehow forgot to write about. I was filming him when he hit it, but I was at exactly the worst posible angle; I couldn`t even see his swirl. Andrew wasn`t 100% his swirl was clean, but Kenzo thought it was good. I filmed him hitting it again later, this time from a good angle, but this time the swirl was "the." I apologized for not getting the first attempt at a good angle, and sympathized with him about "the"ing swirls:
Me: "Yeah, that happens to me sometimes when I hit paradon swirls."
Andrew: *does consecutive toe kicks, getting ready for his next trick.*
Correcting myself: "I mean, that happens to me sometimes when I hit paradon."
Andrew: *does 8 more toe kicks, then cracks up and passes the bag.*
The rest of the Japanese crew play for another hour or so, but I take Andrew on a quick sight-seeing tour of the area. We hit Meiji Shrine first, and take some photos. I hadn`t been to Meiji Shrine in like a year, and I was glad Andrew came cause it gave me an excuse to check it out again. It really is one of my favorite shrines in Japan. So peaceful, such a simple big space. Before entering the shrine we purify ourselves by washing our hands and faces with water from a fountain, using bamboo ladles. Andrew points out that we didn`t rinse out our mouths with the water, which his guidebook said was proper procedure, and I advise against it.
Once inside the shrine, I explain to Andrew the proper way of praying.
Me: "Are you right or left footed?"
AG: "Right."
Me: "OK, so you should stand on your left foot. Then, raise your left hand above your head, and close one eye..."
AG:
Me: "Damn it, you`ve already caught on to my shit."
I spent a good chunk of the weekend trying to float BS by Andrew, but he was pretty good about catching me. We pray traditional style, and in my prayer I ask that TSG go well, and that everybody have a good time.
We do a whirlwind tour of Takeshita Street in Harajuku, but it`s packed. We decide to check it out more leisurely on Monday, which is a good call. Still, we decide to pick up some bling on the cheap. Andrew picks a chain whose pendant is a hubcap where you can spin the rims. I think they`re referred to as "Dubs", like: "we rollin` on dubs." You know what I`m talking about, like flashy hubcaps. I nearly bought bling with a superman logo (the "S" would stand for Somolinos) but it broke right when I put it on the counter to buy it.
Good timing... We go back to the pier in Yoyogi, and people are playing 4square. We hop in for a couple rounds which is fun. I can`t remember any particularly inspiring new rules... mostly the same as last time in Osaka. I bow out early cause I`m staying at a non-footbagger`s place. I really wanted to stay at a footbagger`s place, but thought it would be selfish to take up that space, when players from out-of-town needed spots to sleep. It worked out well though on Friday, since that meant I didn`t drink much, ate well, took a bath, and went to bed early. Going into TSG, I feel real good... Andrew made it safely, Osaka crew is looking sharp, and my body feels ready for a good showing the next day.
Next: Big show.
-
hacksterbator
- Washed-Up Child Star
- Posts: 4141
- Joined: 12 Jul 2003 18:33
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i believe it was rise your right hand above your head and raise your left foot and balance on it while you pray. and i almost fell for it, but noticed no one else was doing it. i also remembered reading something about clapping twice which you didn't mention, so i figured you were pulling my leg. i got my pictures back and some of them are really good, but some of them are really really dark. i wish i had remembered my camera! urgh!!!
A.G.
TSG pictures!
Expect a big TSG entry today or tomorrow... but for now, check out these rad pictures of the event that Tosh took!
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo01.html
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo01.html
Tokyo Shredder Gathering 3
Saturday I wake up ready to take on the world. Last night`s decision to take a long bath, stretch a lot, and sleep early all paid off in spades. No soreness in any muscles, and I felt springy.
I grab a small burger for brunch, and hop on my trains to get to the site. Bouncing mails to various players from my phone, last minute directions, meeting times. I get off my train at Shin Okubo, and see that 3 shredders were on the same train as me! Matt Long, Paul (Japanese player), and another player I don`t know. At the station exit we run into a posse of like 5 more players, and then a minute later, even more show up. You can feel the excitement of the event like the hum of a motor, but everybody acts cool and normal to mask it. Or maybe that was just me. It turns out I`m the only one who`d eaten already, so I send everybody off to eat (eat now so you can digest in time!) feeling like my mom, and wait for a couple other shredders to show at the station. Andrew shows with Kim finally, and we head out together to the site. Andrew tells me about how he has discovered a cure for Cancer, or his discovery of Cold Fusion or something, and I smile and nod repeatedly as my mind floats through my Shred30 routine.
Finally, we`re at the site. I see TJ juggling, but my attention is more immediately grabbed by Shige, Hiromi (his shredita wife... not that he has non-shredita wives or anything), and Kenta (da baby). Kenta`s walking now, and I immediately feel happy for him, knowing that now several more bite-able objects are in his reach. The first chinese character in Kenta`s name is the same as the chinese character for my name, so I feel a special bond with the kid. I say hey to TJ, and we reminisce about the one tournament we both attended where we met. We don`t reminisce that long, because I mostly just remember Greg Nelson wearing a RATT t-shirt.
The tourney was held in "the Cosmic center," whose best feature is the ceiling of the elevator, which is a depcition of the night sky, complete with light-show comets and shooting stars on it. We`re told we have to wait 10 minutes before being let in, which is excruciating. I say hey to lots of shredders, including my Morioka posse! Hadn`t seen them in a while, and it was real cool to run into them at the tourney.
Finally we`re let in, and I spend the first 20 minutes or so just helping set up things. Getting chairs, posting the Phat Combo pools, and making sure people don`t have pebbles in the soles of the shoes. Finally we put up a sign which takes care of that. People start shredding and warming up almost immediately, and it`s torture not being able to jump in. I made the decision 2 months ago that I would not warm up until right before Shred30. I didn`t want a replay of JFC2 where I warmed up, cooled down while judging, then had to warm up again before performing. That`s just pain incarnate. I contented myself by borrowing Andrew`s Bling and wearing it around. One time while watching a circle with Andrew, Takumi, and Kenzo, I commented to Andrew:
"You know, I really like wearing Bling. I find it comforting."
"Makes you feel like a big man eh?"
Without skipping a beat I reply: "Yeah! It totally compensates for the small penis."
Andrew: -->
After a seeming eternity, Pool A of Phat Combo is finally about to begin. The judges are Ryota "OBT" and Sue Kitchi. I had a final judges meeting with them the day before, and they had been asking me excellent questions ever since. I felt they`d do a great job. At the risk of distracting/blinding the competitors, I decided to keep my bling on while judging. Pool A goes pretty well, and the judges decide the top 4 who make finals pretty quickly. X+Y hit atom smasher b2b and didn`t advance, and I personally thought that was a mistake, but the important thing was that the other judges had sound, well-thought out reasons for their choices. I already forgot who was in which pool, but I may edit this later when I look that up.
We`re able to transition almost immediately into Pool B, which is good. I love it when events run roughly on schedule. Pool B had a lot of talented players in it, and to their credit, most of them pushed pretty hard. Morii didn`t hit a combo though, which was a bit of a let-down for me, since I thought he had a legit shot at winning the whole deal. Takumi didn`t make finals either. He hit spinning whirl to gyro mirage, but was clearly looking for mobius. He ended fifth in his pool though, because the whirl was thin, and the other combos stronger. He would more than make up for it in the other disciplines though... more on that later. Andrew came out guns blazing. He hit blurry whirl b2b on his first try, and then hit ripped warrior b2b towards the end. I also remember Henmo hit blur to pixie swirl real smoothly and easily in the first round. Tencho also made finals... one of his combos was blur to paradon style motion. QP made finals with ripwalk to blender... later in the weekend I saw him hit blender to ripwalk which is way phat.
Once we decided who was advancing to finals, I busted out my lavers and finally got to kick. I only had about 30 minutes or so until I was on deck to shred, and was a bit nervous whether or not I would be able to warm up in time. The way it worked out though, I ended up being completely warm and feeling real confident within 10 minutes or so. I mostly practiced with Andrew to stay warm, considering he was the 2nd to last to go, and I was the last. Because of this, we didn`t really get to see any other people`s shred, though I did end up watching about half of Takumi`s, and it looked gooood. There was also a big cheer for Henmo, so I was happy that it sounded like people were hitting pretty well.
The one moment I regret from the whole weekend happened while I was warming up with Andrew for Shred 30. We were all feeling good, and we were both due to go on in about 5 minutes. Then I saw Andrew take his shoes off so he could lace them tighter, and seeing him there, shoes off, with a couple minutes left to compete.... I really tried resisting, but the left shouder couldn`t resist and I yelled out: "dude Andrew you`re up now!"
I should really be shot for that... I`m amazed I didn`t get a nut-punch for my mischief. I apologized immediately, and it didn`t really throw his mental game, cause he ended up performing his best Shred30 in competition ever. I later told him that if he wanted to walk away with more prizes and free food for the rest of the trip, he should have gone up and dropped like 6 times. I would have felt so guilty that I would have given him my prizes, the shirt off my back, etc. Thankfully Andrew stayed cool. When Andrew went up, I made a point to not watch his performance. I did end up watching the last few contacts where he had a couple drops, and being impressed that he had the presence of mind to drop into a whirl directly from a handtoss. Andrew`s Shred30 was real easy to calculate afterwards, since it was pretty much a series of linked repeating drills.
I stepped up for my turn, and made a point to clear my mind. Depsite that, there`s always that exciting rush I feel: "I`m finally at this moment!" I recently saw a Kurosawa Akira movie called "Sword of Doom", and I thought about how the main character did so well in sword fights because he completely cleared his mind of everything except the moment. Adopting that mindset, I went right into my Shred30, and the first 20 seconds or so went very well, very automatic. Bfly-step bfly-schmoe-parkwalk-rip-sidewalk-diving butterfly (a bit thin, but we counted it)-ducking butterfly-blur-smear-leg-pdlo-pixie bfly-rip... then I messed up because I had somehow moved near a wall during the course of my shred. It was good that I was focussed on my moves, but I should have been more aware of my surroundings. I recovered from my drop pretty well, dropping into my unused butterfly-blur-symp pixie-pixie ss clipper-pdx mirage-paradon... drop? Video should be posted soon. I heard the "3...2...1..." countdown, dropped into a butterfly and finished with fog.
My initial reaction was that I was a bit disappointed... the wall thing surprised me. But I accepted my props and bowed, because I think its key to always appear professional at events, and even if I wasn`t 100% pleased with my performance, the crowd enjoyed it. Andrew high-fived me and I said: "I`m a ceiling fan, not a wall fan damn it!"
The way we organized the event, we minimized the wait time between events. That meant that I`d have to judge Sick Combo finals 5 minutes after my shred. Everybody dispersed to practice and stay warm, so when I went to the judges table, there weren`t many people in the area. Sue Kitchi and Ryota were already seated, reviewing their sheets. I approached the table from the competitor`s side, raised both my hands, and bowed deeply to the judging table, and to the handful of people who had come early to claim good seats for the finals. Everybody looked at me pretty confused.
My bow completed, I dropped directly into butterfly-bedwetter-darkwalk-pdx torque-hand catch- bow. The judges laughed, and I sat down.
Phat combo finals kicked off, and there was a bunch of good stuff hit. Whenever there were close calls, we used a videocamera to re-watch the questionable moves. This was a really good policy I thought, and we ended up checking film like 4 times in the finals. We figured that in cases where there was any doubt, we were obliged to check it. In one instance, Henmo was trying symposium whirling swirl, and when we called him on the whirl, he was real surprised. But the video backed us up, so he tried some other combos. It kinda threw his rhythm off which is a shame, so he didn`t place. Yusuke (USK) ended up taking third with tapdown to paradox whirl. Tencho took 2nd place with spinning ducking clipper (which looks way waaaaay easy) to spinning xbd rake. And Andrew took first with blurry whirl to food processor. Andrew got big props from me for stepping up and hitting a real combo. Since he had top seed, by the time he hit the stage, he probably knew he could win with a much easier combo, but from attempt #1 to attempt #5, he only tried for the hard combo. Well-deserved victory.
I grab a small burger for brunch, and hop on my trains to get to the site. Bouncing mails to various players from my phone, last minute directions, meeting times. I get off my train at Shin Okubo, and see that 3 shredders were on the same train as me! Matt Long, Paul (Japanese player), and another player I don`t know. At the station exit we run into a posse of like 5 more players, and then a minute later, even more show up. You can feel the excitement of the event like the hum of a motor, but everybody acts cool and normal to mask it. Or maybe that was just me. It turns out I`m the only one who`d eaten already, so I send everybody off to eat (eat now so you can digest in time!) feeling like my mom, and wait for a couple other shredders to show at the station. Andrew shows with Kim finally, and we head out together to the site. Andrew tells me about how he has discovered a cure for Cancer, or his discovery of Cold Fusion or something, and I smile and nod repeatedly as my mind floats through my Shred30 routine.
Finally, we`re at the site. I see TJ juggling, but my attention is more immediately grabbed by Shige, Hiromi (his shredita wife... not that he has non-shredita wives or anything), and Kenta (da baby). Kenta`s walking now, and I immediately feel happy for him, knowing that now several more bite-able objects are in his reach. The first chinese character in Kenta`s name is the same as the chinese character for my name, so I feel a special bond with the kid. I say hey to TJ, and we reminisce about the one tournament we both attended where we met. We don`t reminisce that long, because I mostly just remember Greg Nelson wearing a RATT t-shirt.
The tourney was held in "the Cosmic center," whose best feature is the ceiling of the elevator, which is a depcition of the night sky, complete with light-show comets and shooting stars on it. We`re told we have to wait 10 minutes before being let in, which is excruciating. I say hey to lots of shredders, including my Morioka posse! Hadn`t seen them in a while, and it was real cool to run into them at the tourney.
Finally we`re let in, and I spend the first 20 minutes or so just helping set up things. Getting chairs, posting the Phat Combo pools, and making sure people don`t have pebbles in the soles of the shoes. Finally we put up a sign which takes care of that. People start shredding and warming up almost immediately, and it`s torture not being able to jump in. I made the decision 2 months ago that I would not warm up until right before Shred30. I didn`t want a replay of JFC2 where I warmed up, cooled down while judging, then had to warm up again before performing. That`s just pain incarnate. I contented myself by borrowing Andrew`s Bling and wearing it around. One time while watching a circle with Andrew, Takumi, and Kenzo, I commented to Andrew:
"You know, I really like wearing Bling. I find it comforting."
"Makes you feel like a big man eh?"
Without skipping a beat I reply: "Yeah! It totally compensates for the small penis."
Andrew:
--> After a seeming eternity, Pool A of Phat Combo is finally about to begin. The judges are Ryota "OBT" and Sue Kitchi. I had a final judges meeting with them the day before, and they had been asking me excellent questions ever since. I felt they`d do a great job. At the risk of distracting/blinding the competitors, I decided to keep my bling on while judging. Pool A goes pretty well, and the judges decide the top 4 who make finals pretty quickly. X+Y hit atom smasher b2b and didn`t advance, and I personally thought that was a mistake, but the important thing was that the other judges had sound, well-thought out reasons for their choices. I already forgot who was in which pool, but I may edit this later when I look that up.
We`re able to transition almost immediately into Pool B, which is good. I love it when events run roughly on schedule. Pool B had a lot of talented players in it, and to their credit, most of them pushed pretty hard. Morii didn`t hit a combo though, which was a bit of a let-down for me, since I thought he had a legit shot at winning the whole deal. Takumi didn`t make finals either. He hit spinning whirl to gyro mirage, but was clearly looking for mobius. He ended fifth in his pool though, because the whirl was thin, and the other combos stronger. He would more than make up for it in the other disciplines though... more on that later. Andrew came out guns blazing. He hit blurry whirl b2b on his first try, and then hit ripped warrior b2b towards the end. I also remember Henmo hit blur to pixie swirl real smoothly and easily in the first round. Tencho also made finals... one of his combos was blur to paradon style motion. QP made finals with ripwalk to blender... later in the weekend I saw him hit blender to ripwalk which is way phat.
Once we decided who was advancing to finals, I busted out my lavers and finally got to kick. I only had about 30 minutes or so until I was on deck to shred, and was a bit nervous whether or not I would be able to warm up in time. The way it worked out though, I ended up being completely warm and feeling real confident within 10 minutes or so. I mostly practiced with Andrew to stay warm, considering he was the 2nd to last to go, and I was the last. Because of this, we didn`t really get to see any other people`s shred, though I did end up watching about half of Takumi`s, and it looked gooood. There was also a big cheer for Henmo, so I was happy that it sounded like people were hitting pretty well.
The one moment I regret from the whole weekend happened while I was warming up with Andrew for Shred 30. We were all feeling good, and we were both due to go on in about 5 minutes. Then I saw Andrew take his shoes off so he could lace them tighter, and seeing him there, shoes off, with a couple minutes left to compete.... I really tried resisting, but the left shouder couldn`t resist and I yelled out: "dude Andrew you`re up now!"
I should really be shot for that... I`m amazed I didn`t get a nut-punch for my mischief. I apologized immediately, and it didn`t really throw his mental game, cause he ended up performing his best Shred30 in competition ever. I later told him that if he wanted to walk away with more prizes and free food for the rest of the trip, he should have gone up and dropped like 6 times. I would have felt so guilty that I would have given him my prizes, the shirt off my back, etc.
Thankfully Andrew stayed cool. When Andrew went up, I made a point to not watch his performance. I did end up watching the last few contacts where he had a couple drops, and being impressed that he had the presence of mind to drop into a whirl directly from a handtoss. Andrew`s Shred30 was real easy to calculate afterwards, since it was pretty much a series of linked repeating drills. I stepped up for my turn, and made a point to clear my mind. Depsite that, there`s always that exciting rush I feel: "I`m finally at this moment!" I recently saw a Kurosawa Akira movie called "Sword of Doom", and I thought about how the main character did so well in sword fights because he completely cleared his mind of everything except the moment. Adopting that mindset, I went right into my Shred30, and the first 20 seconds or so went very well, very automatic. Bfly-step bfly-schmoe-parkwalk-rip-sidewalk-diving butterfly (a bit thin, but we counted it)-ducking butterfly-blur-smear-leg-pdlo-pixie bfly-rip... then I messed up because I had somehow moved near a wall during the course of my shred. It was good that I was focussed on my moves, but I should have been more aware of my surroundings. I recovered from my drop pretty well, dropping into my unused butterfly-blur-symp pixie-pixie ss clipper-pdx mirage-paradon... drop? Video should be posted soon. I heard the "3...2...1..." countdown, dropped into a butterfly and finished with fog.
My initial reaction was that I was a bit disappointed... the wall thing surprised me. But I accepted my props and bowed, because I think its key to always appear professional at events, and even if I wasn`t 100% pleased with my performance, the crowd enjoyed it. Andrew high-fived me and I said: "I`m a ceiling fan, not a wall fan damn it!"
The way we organized the event, we minimized the wait time between events. That meant that I`d have to judge Sick Combo finals 5 minutes after my shred. Everybody dispersed to practice and stay warm, so when I went to the judges table, there weren`t many people in the area. Sue Kitchi and Ryota were already seated, reviewing their sheets. I approached the table from the competitor`s side, raised both my hands, and bowed deeply to the judging table, and to the handful of people who had come early to claim good seats for the finals. Everybody looked at me pretty confused.
My bow completed, I dropped directly into butterfly-bedwetter-darkwalk-pdx torque-hand catch- bow. The judges laughed, and I sat down.
Phat combo finals kicked off, and there was a bunch of good stuff hit. Whenever there were close calls, we used a videocamera to re-watch the questionable moves. This was a really good policy I thought, and we ended up checking film like 4 times in the finals. We figured that in cases where there was any doubt, we were obliged to check it. In one instance, Henmo was trying symposium whirling swirl, and when we called him on the whirl, he was real surprised. But the video backed us up, so he tried some other combos. It kinda threw his rhythm off which is a shame, so he didn`t place. Yusuke (USK) ended up taking third with tapdown to paradox whirl. Tencho took 2nd place with spinning ducking clipper (which looks way waaaaay easy) to spinning xbd rake. And Andrew took first with blurry whirl to food processor. Andrew got big props from me for stepping up and hitting a real combo. Since he had top seed, by the time he hit the stage, he probably knew he could win with a much easier combo, but from attempt #1 to attempt #5, he only tried for the hard combo. Well-deserved victory.
Last edited by C-Fan on 12 May 2005 16:47, edited 1 time in total.
TSG3 Rippin Run!
edit: split this post into 2 to make it more readable. Previous post has some new edits in it too.
The main competition events over, I turned to my fellow judges, gave them props on a job-well-done, and breathed a sigh of relief. Just as that breath was over, we began the awards ceremony. Kim MCed the entire event, so somehow I just thought that I would watch the awards instead of present them. I don`t know why I thought that... I`ve had to give a speech at every single Japanese tournament I`ve been at. Called up to give the awards, I give my usual speech congratulating everybody on their effort, and honestly explaining how hard it was to judge, since there was so much good stuff hit. I also heartily thanked the sponsors: Freedom Footbags, Richard Abshire Muffinman DVD productions, and Jeremy O`WheelJ. It just feels so good to be able to give excellent prizes to the competitors, especially since they put forth such good effort. After announcing third and second place winners for Sick Combo, everybody knew that Andrew had won 1st. Since I was giving the speech in Japanese, I decided to announce Andrew`s name using Japanese (katakana) pronunciation. It was his first tournament win, and I think a lot of it was memorable. He took home a bunch of prizes for first, including a really sweet Abshire bag. I asked him if he`d let me have the honor of hitting the first 5 with the bag and he aquiesced. I decided to make its first 5 be something cool instead of a lame 5 (blurry whirl, ps whirl, etc) so I dropped to a toe stall and hit a paradon swirl. AG hit food for the bag`s first 6er.
Although the main event was done, we also ran Most Rippin` Run 30 minutes later. I was able to warm up a second time better than expected, and felt real happy jumping into the circles I so wanted to play in before. Takumi was going strong all tournament. His consistency is way up, he hardly guilts, and he`s bringing his flip up to speed. I saw fairy butterfly bsos, and more flip spins too. I was probably most excited about playing with Henmo, because of the way Henmo approaches tournies. Henmo is VERY serious about tournaments, so he doesn`t shred too hard or take any risks with his body before the main show. After the main comp is over however, he busts out and shows everybody what he can REALLY do. I was most impressed by symposium flurry, although sometimes the second dex isn`t there. Tomahawks looked good... really good smooth shuffle.
Finally, Rippin Run was due to start. Tosh took over the MCing controls, and it was a nice change of atmosphere. Kim did a real professional job of MCing the main events, which was exciting, but also dignified. Tosh, rocking his bigass fro, totally made it more of a pro-wrestling atmosphere, which I think is entirely appropriate considering its Rippin` Run. People got into the whole atmosphere by staring down their opponents and acting out stylized fights before getting it on.
I was in the very first pool to go. It was only my second time doing Rippin` Run, and I don`t think I went in with the right mindset. My pool consisted of 3 people: me, Devi (high intermediate) and Haseken(intermediate). I went tripless throughout, and Devi was the first to drop. I dropped a little thereafter, and Haseken won. I was pretty disappointed in myself, and it didn`t help to hear that Haseken was mostly doing 2 adds. That was legal under the rules, but the rules also said that you had to play at your level, and by that reckoning Haseken was definitely going conservative.
Andrew`s pool comes up in a bit, and he loses to Yusuke. At least Yusuke was playing at his level though. Andrew and I feel pretty humbled getting peaced out in the first round like that. At that point, Andrew had won Sick Combo, and it was obvious that we would end up taking 1st and 2nd in Shred, though we weren`t 100% sure who would win.
Rather than watch the rest of the Rippin Runs, I decided I would tune in for the ones which looked particularly good, and compete on the sidelines against the rest. It would be good practice for future rippin runs, and also be entertaining for other people. Andrew and I faced off against each other in this fashion several times, using the official clock start. I felt like I was playing particularly well during this period. Takumi, Kenzo and QP also joined in occasionally... only Takumi had advanced to semis, so we viewed ourselves as the losers bracket, and as a way to help give Takumi practice. Andrew and I occasionally did tripless rippin run comps, which were also good fun. At one point I "beat" the competing Rippin Run candidates with a run with 4 triple dexes, and a couple 5s. But it was all kinda pointless at that point.
In my opinion, the best moment of the tournament came during the semifinals of Rippin Run. TJ from Michigan faced off against Takumi, which was a good pairing of skill I thought. They both started well, and the crowd was cheering at its normal volume for a while. But then after trick 20 or so, both shredders were still going, and the crowd kicked it up a notch. They kept going, the volume kept growing. I mostly watched Takumi, and his run was 95% genuine (for his level), consisting of ripwalks, spinning clippers, and lots of butterflies. I saw him do a baily clipper once, but I also remember checking TJ for a bit and saw him do an obvious bail legover as well. I really want to find video of this matchup, since a bunch of people were filming. Trick 26, 27, crowd gets more into it... then on like trick 30 Takumi busts phoenix. Fucking phoenix around trick 30 of Rippin` Run. The crowd goes apeshit with me the top offender. TJ almost drops at this point... later he told me the big cheer made him think Takumi had dropped, but out of his peripheral vision he saw he hadn`t. I think both shredders topped out around 40 contacts? Maybe it was less, but it seemed really long. Takumi pulled out the victory, and the crowd erupted huge, giving props to both shredders for such a memorable display of skill and guts.
Takumi rode that momentum into finals. Hasken got eliminated in semis, and I competed on the sidelines against them and "won." USK made it to finals, but during his semis Andrew also "competed" against him and "won." Moral victories. Another memorable semis matchup was Sue Kitchi vs his girlfriend Ko-neko. Sue Kitchi won, and Andrew observed: "looks like somebody isn`t getting laid tonight" Finals was Takumi vs Yusuke, and Takumi pulled out the win. Nobody was happier about it than me. I know that Takumi is just going to keep on getting better, and I`m real excited about it. The crowd mobs the floor and I give Takumi a good-natured shove... tough love props.
Right after the event, its obvious the crowd is still into it, and so Kim announces an exhibition 4 way match. It`s a replay of the finals, including the special guests Andrew and me! A chance at redemption! I comment to Andrew: "you know, its real sweet of them to give us another chance... we must have looked so sad competing on the sidelines. They`re taking pity on us 
." This special rematch had modified rules though: each player was given a judge to make sure they wouldn`t sandbag it, and every player had to go guiltless. I recognized my second chance, and was damned if I wasn`t going to go all out. "It`s on!" I thought to myself.
I started my Run with fog, trying to earn the love of my judge straight up. I played pretty hard throughout, but not tripless. I only focussed on my own game, and tried not to think about who was getting eliminated or what. later on I found that Yusuke was the first to drop, then I think Andrew, and then Takumi, and then finally me. I think it was a good 30 contacts or so, but I kinda lose sense of time with these things. As the "champion" of this rematch, I got to select another player to go against me, and so I chose Henmo. Another good Rippin` Run ensued, but Henmo pulled it out. I didn`t even feel tired from the previous round, I just dropped... it happens sometimes ya know? I had received a DVD for winning the exhibition match, which I had accepted even though I already had gotten one as a gift from Erik. I decided to give this copy to Henmo for beating me, but really more just as a way of giving him thanks for being such a cool friend.
Finally, all comp was done, and it was time to shred!
It felt so good to play without any pressure finally, and to know that the event went off so well. I did a decent job of spreading myself out amongst the various circles, regardless of skill, but I obviously still gravitated to the circles with my closest friends and the playes with my favorite styles. Can`t remember much specifics... though I did start one run with my WHAT?! variant (sorry to be vague, but we got it on film, and I want to enter it in the May online comps) and in the same run hit flurry to paradon swirl. Was stoked about that, since thats a hard combo, muchless midstring. Takumi is an energizer bunny... even after his strong performances in all the comp, he still rocked long strings in the circles. Props little buddy. Towards the end, things started winding down... but then I heard that Henmo and Kenzo weren`t going to attend the next day`s shred in yoyogi, and so I rounded them up and had a circle with Andrew, Kenzo, Henmo and myself. Takumi also jumped in for a good long spot. I thought it would be criminal if Andrew left Japan without having a shred in a circle with most of Japan`s best players. Somehow, we all found our 2nd to 3rd wind, and had a pretty tight session.
Thankfully, there are showers at the cosmic center, and everybody used them. After cleaning up, we all headed to the party, which was in a crowded isakaya (restaurant/bar). We had reserved the basement floor, so it was all footbaggers. Maybe 70 or so of us. The food was pretty excellent, and it was an all-you-can-drink for 2 hours deal, so good times were had. There was much discussion about whether some of us would hit a club or not that night, but Andrew was pretty tired and wanted his legs for the next days session, so we called that off. After the party, we all milled around outside as people figured out their sleeping/travel arrangements. I was pretty buzzed, but not even close to being able to fulfill my promise of puking on Andrew`s lavers. So instead we found Keita, who was looking ready to spew, and asked him that if he were to spew, to please do so on Andrew`s lavers. Didn`t happen unfortunately... the night ended on a high note, with a cool interaction between Andrew and a tipsy intermediate shredder.
The shredder shyly approached Andrew, congratulated him on his perfomance that day, and shyly requested in English: "please kick me again tomorrow." Inside, I cracked up really hard, but didn`t show it externally . Andrew didn`t even crack a smile, and diplomatically replied something along the lines of "totally, I`m looking forward to playing with you tomorrow" or something equally diplomatic. Definite props from me on that.
I made it home by myself alright, and I like to think that the warm glow I felt inside was due more to the success of the tournament than to all the alcohol I drank. In any case, it was enough to make me sing Elvis Costello songs out loud on the way home, and to fall asleep with the ear-ear grin firmly in place.
Next: Sunday shred, Grant wittiness, and more ramblarama. oh yeah, I also edited this post, so theres a LOT of new stuff scattered throughout.
The main competition events over, I turned to my fellow judges, gave them props on a job-well-done, and breathed a sigh of relief. Just as that breath was over, we began the awards ceremony. Kim MCed the entire event, so somehow I just thought that I would watch the awards instead of present them. I don`t know why I thought that... I`ve had to give a speech at every single Japanese tournament I`ve been at. Called up to give the awards, I give my usual speech congratulating everybody on their effort, and honestly explaining how hard it was to judge, since there was so much good stuff hit. I also heartily thanked the sponsors: Freedom Footbags, Richard Abshire Muffinman DVD productions, and Jeremy O`WheelJ. It just feels so good to be able to give excellent prizes to the competitors, especially since they put forth such good effort. After announcing third and second place winners for Sick Combo, everybody knew that Andrew had won 1st. Since I was giving the speech in Japanese, I decided to announce Andrew`s name using Japanese (katakana) pronunciation. It was his first tournament win, and I think a lot of it was memorable. He took home a bunch of prizes for first, including a really sweet Abshire bag. I asked him if he`d let me have the honor of hitting the first 5 with the bag and he aquiesced. I decided to make its first 5 be something cool instead of a lame 5 (blurry whirl, ps whirl, etc) so I dropped to a toe stall and hit a paradon swirl. AG hit food for the bag`s first 6er.
Although the main event was done, we also ran Most Rippin` Run 30 minutes later. I was able to warm up a second time better than expected, and felt real happy jumping into the circles I so wanted to play in before. Takumi was going strong all tournament. His consistency is way up, he hardly guilts, and he`s bringing his flip up to speed. I saw fairy butterfly bsos, and more flip spins too. I was probably most excited about playing with Henmo, because of the way Henmo approaches tournies. Henmo is VERY serious about tournaments, so he doesn`t shred too hard or take any risks with his body before the main show. After the main comp is over however, he busts out and shows everybody what he can REALLY do. I was most impressed by symposium flurry, although sometimes the second dex isn`t there. Tomahawks looked good... really good smooth shuffle.
Finally, Rippin Run was due to start. Tosh took over the MCing controls, and it was a nice change of atmosphere. Kim did a real professional job of MCing the main events, which was exciting, but also dignified. Tosh, rocking his bigass fro, totally made it more of a pro-wrestling atmosphere, which I think is entirely appropriate considering its Rippin` Run. People got into the whole atmosphere by staring down their opponents and acting out stylized fights before getting it on.
I was in the very first pool to go. It was only my second time doing Rippin` Run, and I don`t think I went in with the right mindset. My pool consisted of 3 people: me, Devi (high intermediate) and Haseken(intermediate). I went tripless throughout, and Devi was the first to drop. I dropped a little thereafter, and Haseken won. I was pretty disappointed in myself, and it didn`t help to hear that Haseken was mostly doing 2 adds. That was legal under the rules, but the rules also said that you had to play at your level, and by that reckoning Haseken was definitely going conservative.
Andrew`s pool comes up in a bit, and he loses to Yusuke. At least Yusuke was playing at his level though. Andrew and I feel pretty humbled getting peaced out in the first round like that. At that point, Andrew had won Sick Combo, and it was obvious that we would end up taking 1st and 2nd in Shred, though we weren`t 100% sure who would win. Rather than watch the rest of the Rippin Runs, I decided I would tune in for the ones which looked particularly good, and compete on the sidelines against the rest. It would be good practice for future rippin runs, and also be entertaining for other people. Andrew and I faced off against each other in this fashion several times, using the official clock start. I felt like I was playing particularly well during this period. Takumi, Kenzo and QP also joined in occasionally... only Takumi had advanced to semis, so we viewed ourselves as the losers bracket, and as a way to help give Takumi practice. Andrew and I occasionally did tripless rippin run comps, which were also good fun. At one point I "beat" the competing Rippin Run candidates with a run with 4 triple dexes, and a couple 5s. But it was all kinda pointless at that point.
In my opinion, the best moment of the tournament came during the semifinals of Rippin Run. TJ from Michigan faced off against Takumi, which was a good pairing of skill I thought. They both started well, and the crowd was cheering at its normal volume for a while. But then after trick 20 or so, both shredders were still going, and the crowd kicked it up a notch. They kept going, the volume kept growing. I mostly watched Takumi, and his run was 95% genuine (for his level), consisting of ripwalks, spinning clippers, and lots of butterflies. I saw him do a baily clipper once, but I also remember checking TJ for a bit and saw him do an obvious bail legover as well. I really want to find video of this matchup, since a bunch of people were filming. Trick 26, 27, crowd gets more into it... then on like trick 30 Takumi busts phoenix. Fucking phoenix around trick 30 of Rippin` Run. The crowd goes apeshit with me the top offender. TJ almost drops at this point... later he told me the big cheer made him think Takumi had dropped, but out of his peripheral vision he saw he hadn`t. I think both shredders topped out around 40 contacts? Maybe it was less, but it seemed really long. Takumi pulled out the victory, and the crowd erupted huge, giving props to both shredders for such a memorable display of skill and guts.
Takumi rode that momentum into finals. Hasken got eliminated in semis, and I competed on the sidelines against them and "won." USK made it to finals, but during his semis Andrew also "competed" against him and "won." Moral victories.
Another memorable semis matchup was Sue Kitchi vs his girlfriend Ko-neko. Sue Kitchi won, and Andrew observed: "looks like somebody isn`t getting laid tonight" Finals was Takumi vs Yusuke, and Takumi pulled out the win. Nobody was happier about it than me. I know that Takumi is just going to keep on getting better, and I`m real excited about it. The crowd mobs the floor and I give Takumi a good-natured shove... tough love props. Right after the event, its obvious the crowd is still into it, and so Kim announces an exhibition 4 way match. It`s a replay of the finals, including the special guests Andrew and me! A chance at redemption!
I comment to Andrew: "you know, its real sweet of them to give us another chance... we must have looked so sad competing on the sidelines. They`re taking pity on us ." This special rematch had modified rules though: each player was given a judge to make sure they wouldn`t sandbag it, and every player had to go guiltless. I recognized my second chance, and was damned if I wasn`t going to go all out. "It`s on!" I thought to myself.I started my Run with fog, trying to earn the love of my judge straight up. I played pretty hard throughout, but not tripless. I only focussed on my own game, and tried not to think about who was getting eliminated or what. later on I found that Yusuke was the first to drop, then I think Andrew, and then Takumi, and then finally me. I think it was a good 30 contacts or so, but I kinda lose sense of time with these things. As the "champion" of this rematch, I got to select another player to go against me, and so I chose Henmo. Another good Rippin` Run ensued, but Henmo pulled it out. I didn`t even feel tired from the previous round, I just dropped... it happens sometimes ya know? I had received a DVD for winning the exhibition match, which I had accepted even though I already had gotten one as a gift from Erik. I decided to give this copy to Henmo for beating me, but really more just as a way of giving him thanks for being such a cool friend.
Finally, all comp was done, and it was time to shred!
It felt so good to play without any pressure finally, and to know that the event went off so well. I did a decent job of spreading myself out amongst the various circles, regardless of skill, but I obviously still gravitated to the circles with my closest friends and the playes with my favorite styles. Can`t remember much specifics... though I did start one run with my WHAT?! variant (sorry to be vague, but we got it on film, and I want to enter it in the May online comps) and in the same run hit flurry to paradon swirl. Was stoked about that, since thats a hard combo, muchless midstring. Takumi is an energizer bunny... even after his strong performances in all the comp, he still rocked long strings in the circles. Props little buddy. Towards the end, things started winding down... but then I heard that Henmo and Kenzo weren`t going to attend the next day`s shred in yoyogi, and so I rounded them up and had a circle with Andrew, Kenzo, Henmo and myself. Takumi also jumped in for a good long spot. I thought it would be criminal if Andrew left Japan without having a shred in a circle with most of Japan`s best players. Somehow, we all found our 2nd to 3rd wind, and had a pretty tight session.
Thankfully, there are showers at the cosmic center, and everybody used them. After cleaning up, we all headed to the party, which was in a crowded isakaya (restaurant/bar). We had reserved the basement floor, so it was all footbaggers. Maybe 70 or so of us. The food was pretty excellent, and it was an all-you-can-drink for 2 hours deal, so good times were had. There was much discussion about whether some of us would hit a club or not that night, but Andrew was pretty tired and wanted his legs for the next days session, so we called that off. After the party, we all milled around outside as people figured out their sleeping/travel arrangements. I was pretty buzzed, but not even close to being able to fulfill my promise of puking on Andrew`s lavers. So instead we found Keita, who was looking ready to spew, and asked him that if he were to spew, to please do so on Andrew`s lavers. Didn`t happen unfortunately... the night ended on a high note, with a cool interaction between Andrew and a tipsy intermediate shredder.
The shredder shyly approached Andrew, congratulated him on his perfomance that day, and shyly requested in English: "please kick me again tomorrow." Inside, I cracked up really hard, but didn`t show it externally
. Andrew didn`t even crack a smile, and diplomatically replied something along the lines of "totally, I`m looking forward to playing with you tomorrow" or something equally diplomatic. Definite props from me on that. I made it home by myself alright, and I like to think that the warm glow I felt inside was due more to the success of the tournament than to all the alcohol I drank. In any case, it was enough to make me sing Elvis Costello songs out loud on the way home, and to fall asleep with the ear-ear grin firmly in place.
Next: Sunday shred, Grant wittiness, and more ramblarama. oh yeah, I also edited this post, so theres a LOT of new stuff scattered throughout.
I`ve edited the last two posts a bit, so if you read them a while ago, there might be new stuff in there... like combos or funny stuff. But yeah, mostly just excited to post:
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo03.html
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo04.html
More photos by Tosh, including photos of various prize winners. There`s also a shot where you can see me wearing bling.
Some names to faces: guy in green tanktop with white towel around his neck: QP.
Guy holding fourkast and Just Shred2: Yusuke.
Girl holding prizes: Yuko
Guy in red shirt, also with prizes: Tencho.
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo03.html
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo04.html
More photos by Tosh, including photos of various prize winners. There`s also a shot where you can see me wearing bling.
Some names to faces: guy in green tanktop with white towel around his neck: QP.
Guy holding fourkast and Just Shred2: Yusuke.
Girl holding prizes: Yuko
Guy in red shirt, also with prizes: Tencho.
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo05.html
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo06.html
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo07.html
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo08.html
More photos added... some more shots of my bling, and Henmo`s awesome t-shirt. The small print below it says "this is a very old t-shirt."
Legit blog entry coming at ya today or tomorrow.
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo06.html
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo07.html
http://gubug.fc2web.com/tsg3photo08.html
More photos added... some more shots of my bling, and Henmo`s awesome t-shirt. The small print below it says "this is a very old t-shirt."
Legit blog entry coming at ya today or tomorrow.