Fanzine

[boyle]

I'm glad you still like competing Ken. I think a big problem in footbag in this era is that not too many people like competing. Maybe it's the format, but I think people are more motivated to make a video than to be out their in the heat of the moment (in case the screw up, and they do screw up because they don't have previous experience in tournaments because they don't like the fear of failing and that can become a very vicious cycle. So it's good that you are still pushing on, despite being a "veteran" (though it seems you may just keep on going for many more years, due exactly to the competitive spirit.

[C-Fan]

Thanks for the nice words Dan. I think I like competing because its a completely different feeling than anything else in my normal life. I guess public speaking is somewhat similar. But yeah, just that feeling of getting up in front of everybody, and that uncertainty of not knowing whether you'll blow them all away or fail miserably. Its terrifying and exciting all at the same time, and it makes me feel alive. Of course, its also pretty crushing when you do compete and fail miserably, as I can attest to many times in my career. But those times when you do compete and rise to the occasion, its just the best feeling in the world.

Its my last day in Sacramento. The forecast for Denver for the next week doesn't make me optimistic for outdoor sessions when I get back, so if at all possible I'd like to get in a final shred here. The weather has been fantastic here this week, but all the shred spots I've found have been on concrete, which has definitely taken a toll on my knees. All the fearless practice the first couple days likely didn't help either. Yesterday I took it pretty easy, and just did a short session where I did some consecutives practice. I figured that'd help me with form and stamina, which are things I want to work on for circle comp in NOLA. I didn't come away with any revelations about my game or how I do the tricks. My flip ripwalks get slurry when I run low on breath, which I knew already. My ducking butterflies are not as efficient as they used to be, but I can get them back up to snuff. I still have to be conscious about keeping my knee straight on flip pixies, etc.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-2I_gT_VlA[/youtube]

That said, the atom smashers and drifters are both personal records, so I'm happy about that. If I play today, I'll try and go for more interesting stuff. Ultimately though, it'll come down to listening to my body. I'm definitely leaning towards resting a bit when I get home.

[C-Fan]

Back in Denver now. First day back it actually snowed, but it supposed to be nice out today. I might get in a session.

I managed to squeeze in one last session in Sacramento before leaving. My legs felt pretty worn out by this time, so I tried to focus on spins and double dexes to give the soles of my feet a rest.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x1CqizQx-0[/youtube]

Its crazy how many different components there are in footbag, and how easy it is to have some of them slip when you're working on other stuff (e.g. furious and fearless). I definitely need to patch up a few holes before NOLA. I'm getting more and more excited for that trip.

In other news, Nick Landes posted a video on Facebook of him hitting 19 fives in a row sealed with a mindbender. No x-dex, and everything was super controlled. What a joy to watch. I hope this also motivates Aleksi/Milan/Penske/Clavens to get more. I still think this Fearless challenge month was a good idea. I'm a little disappointed to see that only three people have participated so far. At least all 3 of us have gotten at least 14 each.

[Asmus]

Your looking like a KING in Sacramento!

I have really been enjoying the submissions so far for the fearless challenge.
There is still a half months left. I am sure some more sickness will surface.

[boyle]

I feel I have this same competitive spirit (though unfortunately not the same results....) maybe it stems from us being quite big fans of other sports, so that we are somewhat tuned in to some kind of mental preparation of "competing".

Just saw that video from Nick, haven't seen anything from him in ages. Very impressive, to say the least.

Hopefully we will see a few more "stars" pushing it at the last moment. There is a cash prize after all (not that it's a huge amount, but one thing people will never stop complaining about is that there's not enough prize money in footbag).

Congrats to you on breaking your fearless record!

[C-Fan]

Your looking like a KING in Sacramento!

Does that imply that I'm:
A. Talented but lacking any discipline
B. Have a non-existent fan base
C. Haven't been good since the early/mid-2000s
D. Threatening to move to Seattle
E. All of the above

Oh man, I don't know who got burned worse in my joke...myself or the Sacramento Kings!

Hopefully we will see a few more "stars" pushing it at the last moment.

The lack of participation from high level players is part of my disappointment, but really it's just general disappointment in the overall lack of participation. When the contest kicked off, I really hoped to see 2 things:

1. Elite players getting competitive with each other and really pushing to get 25 fearless.
2. "Normal" players pushing themselves to set personal records in fearless.

So in my ideal world, we'd be seeing a few videos like Jim and Nick's (with people like Clavens/Milan/Aleksi in the mix) pushing 20 fearles, as well as videos of people like myself/Polini/Monistere etc. pushing our personal bests. As of today, only 3 people have posted any videos, which I find disappointing. You can't tell me there aren't at least a dozen people out there who could film a string of 10 fearless on their iphones and post them.

Changing subjects, yesterday I got in an outdoor shred. It was warm out, but there were periods of really gusty winds. Ended up having a pretty fun session. I worked a bit on flip spins (still bad), and messed around a bit with nuke set. I was inspired by Landes' 20 fearless to do some stepping out of matadors, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that link was working well on one side. I was particularly happy to get a fearless drill out of it too:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_3qURJPiHk[/youtube]

I'm planning on taking it a little easy this week, as I feel playing on concrete in Sacramento was wearing me down. I may do some crosstraining by going for walks with my fiancee or shooting hoops.

[C-Fan]

Taking a few days off from footbag. Hoping that's good for my body, though I'm already getting a little restless. Maybe one more day and then I'll start playing again. NOLA is just over 3 weeks away, so its probably a good time to start playing again and getting my stamina and variety in competition shape.

Looking over the past couple pages of my blog, I realized I never posted my "season ender" video. The backstory on that project can be broken down like this:

Anz and Dan Boyle had posts where they showed videos from various parts of their career, and commented on them.
I realized that I spent most of 2013 preparing for comps, and competing. I didn't have many videos that showed what my normal shred was looking like.
During the Joulukalenteri, Juho posted his third Jupe video, which blew me away.
I hadn't played around with making a well-edited footbag video since my last laptop died.

Adding all that up, I decided it'd be fun to shoot a video at the end of 2013. My goals were to capture my current shred level, to make a video with some editing effort, and to do a bit of a "trib-jupe" to my favorite video of the year. I found a good song, shredded in the same clothes 2 days in a row, and learned a good amount of Windows Movie Maker. Here's what I was able to produce:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exN8iSxNGa8[/youtube]

Watching the video again a couple months after I made it, I have the same reactions now as I did then:

My current camera isn't good enough to make quality videos. It films great in direct sunlight, but it does badly indoors or at dusk. The incompatibility with a tripod doesn't help either.
I'm glad I made the effort to capture my 2013 level of shred in an edited video. The visual quality varies in it, but it still ended up being a fun video for me, and in the future when I watch it I'll enjoy it more than if it were just raw clips strung together.
It doesn't take much to improve a video. Just simple stuff like filming in front of nice backgrounds, mixing up the shooting angles a couple times per session, and getting a couple up close shots really brightens things up. Good to keep in mind for future videos.

I still have a bunch of credit hours from work that I accumulated over the past couple weeks. If the weather is good tomorrow, I might use them and get in an outdoor shred.

[boyle]

what's your tomahawk record - that looks like something you can do really easily. It's a fun video too. Good idea to have something to "close out the season".

[C-Fan]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs7KVPku398[/youtube]

I still want to do a post where I go through my career in 3 year snapshots with videos and commentary. Maybe next post if I can make the time.

[C-Fan]

I still have a bunch of credit hours from work that I accumulated over the past couple weeks. If the weather is good tomorrow, I might use them and get in an outdoor shred.

Weather was good, and I got in a session. Scratch that, weather was perfect. Before going out, I made a post on Facebook asking for requests. Overall I liked them, though it was a little heavy on symposium. Considering I had taken a few days off to rest my legs, that wasn't really how I wanted to get back into playing, but I gave them a shot. I was particularly skeptical of some of Ianek's challenges, since they involved symosium blink, which is a trick I had never hit before on either side. Happily, I was able to kinda figure it out on both sides. Here were the results:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BA2ZuGvNCQ[/youtube]

In almost exactly 3 weeks, I'll be at the airport on my way to NOLA jam. Sweet. Need to get in some stamina-building shred this weekend.

[Asmus]

Nice stuff!

Can you do Phasing Butterfly > Blurry Symposium Revup?

[C-Fan]

Can you do Phasing Butterfly > Blurry Symposium Revup?

Maybe? I don't do phasing very often, and like I said in my last post I hadn't hit symp blink before. So going from that to linking blurry symp revup is probably a stretch. That said, I managed to get symp blink without too much resistance, so I suppose I could try. With NOLA jam in 2.5 weeks though, I'm not going to spend much time or effort on new tricks or links I won't use in comp.

Speaking of which, I really need to start training more. Due to work, weather, and personal obligations, I just haven't been playing footbag as much as I should be. I have been going on long walks with my fiancee though, which hopefully has some cross training benefits. Our walks are generally like 5 miles, but they are just walks. I never break a sweat or anything like that, but it definitely is exercise in some form. She's out of town for the next few days on a business trip though, so hopefully I'll be good about shredding during that time. I think the weather is supposed to be good enough for outdoor shred on Saturday and Sunday, so I'll aim to film some then.

Last Sunday I got in a nice outdoor session in Golden, CO. That's the town where I'm getting married this summer; we went up to check out parks where we could do a pre-wedding BBQ. I found a nice little footbag spot near one of the parks. It's right by a creek, so I got to hear the soothing burbling of the water while I played. I went into this session with very few goals. Since it was such a public location, I mostly just wanted to play for fun and keep a good attitude. I also wanted to rehit the silver double dex badge. Unfortunately, I didn't read the requirements before going out, so I spent my time trying a combo that was the wrong length (8 contacts instead of 7) which had the wrong number of required flipside tricks (2 instead of 3). Now that I know the requirements though, I know I can get it. I still like the combo I hit on Sunday though. Here's a vid of the session:

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

In other news, the Sport/Life Fearless challenge ended yesterday. Nick Landes won it with a very worthy combo of 19 fives capped with a six. I'm glad the comp was won with a combo of that caliber, but overall I was disappointed with the level of participation. Only a handful of top players participated, and I didn't get the sense that most really pushed themselves to their limits. Maybe they did and I'm being unfair, but based off of my knowledge of what their personal fearless records were, most didn't really come close to their bests. I had also hoped that other players would use the contest as a personal challenge to improve their own fearless records and post them. For example, if a player had hit 3 fearless in the past, I was hoping they'd push themselves to hit and post a combo of 4-5 contacts. I didn't see anybody post anything like that. I'm not sure what accounted for the low level of participation. It could be general footbag malaise for this time of year, or it could be people didn't want to participate if they didn't think they had a chance to win it. I really don't know. But it kinda bummed me out.

For me personally, I enjoyed the contest. I hadn't really pushed fearless in a couple years, and my last attempt to get 10 fearless was surprisingly challenging (took 2 sessions). I wanted to see if I could get my fearless game going again, and the contest provided a great excuse for that. My old fearless record was 11, so my main goal was to break that. On the first day of the contest, I was surprised to hit 2 different combos of 10. That made me optimistic I could get 12, and sure enough I managed to get 13 a few days later, and then 14 later in the month. While I was really happy with 14, I also didn't feel like I had pushed my personal best either. Still, I achieved my goal of setting a new personal best, which was 27% better than my last record. I may re-visit fearless at some point in the future, since I think I could get 16 or 17 if I pushed myself harder. But for the time period, I think 14 was a good effort.

I'm gonna try and shred a lot while my fiancee is out of town. I feel like my game is in good shape from a technical standpoint, but I don't feel I have the stamina I'll need to get through a competition with the results I want. If I can get in slightly better shape, I think I'll be in position to do well in NOLA.

[boyle]

Yes, bit disappointing the participation. The whole idea - from a "marketing" standpoint, was to have some of the best players really pushing and having them talking about "the Sport/Life Challenge". I guess with these events coming up, maybe it's not just a good time, but in reality there is always "an" event coming up somewhere - and a lot of the top guys could do at least 15 fearless with their eyes closed.

The worst part is that many of said top players really expressed enthusiasm - my original idea, which in this case may have even worked better - would have been that each player was given a timeslot on a particular day, and that was their window to get it. Nobody really like that idea, so I thought a month was a good frame, but that was no good either.

For me personally, I wanted to hit 4, as my current record is three. But that never came around.

The worst thing for me is that a serious complaint, particularly from the top echelon, who may be eligible for prize money, is that "there's no money in footbag". Even though there was not much on offer, it wasn't nothing...but it didn't seem like that was any extra motivation.

There is still $100 that was going to be given to someone, so I might used that as a prize for a new challenge. A thought is that the 25 would need to be hit at an "official" event (let's say Vegas, PSU Jamps, NOLA, any time on the tour, Euros, USO, Worlds).

I think 14 was definitely a good effort from you, though I think you could easily do 2-3 more from the end of your combos.

[C-Fan]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dan. That's the weird/hard part about fearless; its all about breath and energy management. If you're being efficient with your breath and energy, you can get through 10+ contacts and feel like you can do 10 more. But if you mess up your breath/energy at some early point in the combo, good luck even making it to 10. In the Sport/life contest, I had one run of 13 where I was gassed and barely snagged the 13th trick. And then I had a run of 14, where I finished with energy to spare. Footbag can be such a hard sport. But I guess that's part of the fun of it too.

My short term plan for my game is to work on stamina before NOLA, and then right after NOLA is over go back to working on furious stuff. I feel like I was making some very promising progress towards nemesis a couple weeks back, and I'd like to come away from that with some more milestones achieved. I do think I'm making the right decision though by putting it on the backburner before NOLA. Nemesis is probably less helpful in comp than being able to do multiple turns of 30 BOP with good energy management.

Here's a vid of my first outdoor furious session, which I never posted in the blog:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp36622giSo[/youtube]

In exciting news, I'm meeting up with a potential footbagger tomorrow. Nick Polini contacted me about a new footbag.org club listing near me, so I emailed and facebooked the kid. I didn't hear back for a week, but I decided to try texting his phone. I got an answer within minutes, and after a long back and forth, we set a time to meet. My plan is to get in a "real" session before meeting up with him. I need to get in good shape for NOLA so I don't want to punt a session, but I also don't want to scare the kid off if he's never seen freestyle. Hopefully he's cool, we have fun, and we can take his interest in footbag to the next level.

[C-Fan]

I also wanted to rehit the silver double dex badge. Unfortunately, I didn't read the requirements before going out, so I spent my time trying a combo that was the wrong length (8 contacts instead of 7) which had the wrong number of required flipside tricks (2 instead of 3). Now that I know the requirements though, I know I can get it.

Sure enough, I hit this combo first try:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a9Sf5xCXEI[/youtube]

I definitely think the gold badge is realistic for me. DATW-barrage-DSO repeat to motion-barfly-barfly-superfly would do it. I may try for that next time I can shred outside. The way my camera shoots indoors makes it too depressing to go for double dexes really.

In exciting news, I'm meeting up with a potential footbagger tomorrow. Hopefully he's cool, we have fun, and we can take his interest in footbag to the next level.

Well that was a gigantic disappointment. We arranged to meet at the mall at 2 pm on Saturday. Friday night I get a text from him confirming we're meeting at 2 the next day. I take that as a good sign, that he hasn't forgotten and isn't afraid to text me. Saturday I head out to shred near the mall, get in a quick session (the double dex badge is from that shred), then go to Best Buy to meet him. I get there at 1:50, and shoot him a text letting him know I'm early and there already. No response. I kill time until 2, and text him again. No response. I figure he may be driving, so I give him a 15 minute grace period. Still nothing. 10 minutes later I get a text: "I'm sorry, man. I just got home. It was a very late night."

Seriously?!? Wow. Just wow. My entire footbag career I would kill to meet up with another player, much less somebody better than me, much less somebody way better than me. And if I couldn't make it, I damn sure would let them know BEFORE our meeting time, and not 25 minutes later. So basically I cut short my session, drove 30 minutes each way out of my way on a weekend, waited in a best buy for 35 minutes, all to get a half-assed text. Wow. What can I say, the kid totally blew it. Lame.

In more positive news, I filmed my Saturday session, so I'll post that next time.

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

Well that was a gigantic disappointment. We arranged to meet at the mall at 2 pm on Saturday. Friday night I get a text from him confirming we're meeting at 2 the next day. I take that as a good sign, that he hasn't forgotten and isn't afraid to text me. Saturday I head out to shred near the mall, get in a quick session (the double dex badge is from that shred), then go to Best Buy to meet him. I get there at 1:50, and shoot him a text letting him know I'm early and there already. No response. I kill time until 2, and text him again. No response. I figure he may be driving, so I give him a 15 minute grace period. Still nothing. 10 minutes later I get a text: "I'm sorry, man. I just got home. It was a very late night.

in fairness, pete did that to me one of the first times i kicked with him, after dropping loot on a train ticket & hour and a halfish commute... but we know how that turned out. knowing my hangover recovery process, I wouldn't' be down on a younger kid for having a rough night, come on mom. with that said, that dude is lucky to potentially to learn footbag from one of the greats such as yourself and if he's at all serious i hope he realizes that. I would have killed to bail on a session with Ken Somolinos back in the day

siiiiick first try double dex combo, loved the toe barrages and i like your proposed one even more. motion>superfly is the hotness. We need to shred at least once this year!

[C-Fan]

Damn it, Hogan. I was more than happy and comfortable to write the kid off completely, but after reading your post now I feel I should give him another chance. That said, I'm not going to bend over backward to make it happen either. It sounds like he doesn't have a car, so now I'd put the chances at us meeting and playing somewhere around 30%. We'll see.

While we're on the topic of Hogan inspiring me, yesterday I had a fun session. NOLA Jam is less than 10 days away for me, so I should really be working on stamina more than anything. But yesterday I straight up didn't feel like doing stamina runs, so instead I spent the whole session going for links and Sick 3s I had never hit before. I drew inspiration for various links from Hogan, Zach Jahner, and Aleksi:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-LWQU4HGmc[/youtube]

Will any of that help me at NOLA? Who knows. But I had fun, and that's kinda what I needed yesterday. Tonight I'll atone for the fun session by leaving the camera at home, and just working on string length/breathing/stamina.

[Jazzkid]

DAMN looking damn good Ken. I feel bad for not posting as much as i would like on your recent videos. Your game is sick as fuck and that the fact that your still pushing is great for the group that we belong to for being over 30. As far as preparing for Nola Jam, I have to mention.... (please check the event post about the rest of this) Do not feel any need to do anything differently in your sessions to prepare for this. If I get the indoor spot, that may or may not allow me the reservation that day, then it will be your ideal comp situation .....and ill know soon...then truly make a detailed schedule and full attendance list . It would be easy for you to show up, kick my own ass and (forgive me ) Polini's ass on my own new deck.....and personally the footage of the ducking drifters and the tomahawks, and dlos, and double spins, and everything else I just saw excites me to think that after a day of shredding with you im sure Ill see something cool (lots of pressure) and thats fucking awesome.....as far as comp goes......I understand that you want to be going for longer strings.....but whatever..........at this point im just hoping my leg is fully healing by next week (knee sore from bad whirls...and closing off my nukes on one side) so im taking off until monday then ill start something to see..... so have fun .....

[Jazzkid]

^ wait I just looked and Polini's gunning for you and there are about 20 players i think coming...(which is fucking amazing ) so if I were you I would buy this and train as hard as you can.... http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q= ... 5667952687

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nice links, Ken. That Gyro DLO> near Swirl is such a Zach combo lol I was wondering which one Zach would have inspired you on, then I saw that and I was like "Oh DERP! Of course!" Good shred though.

Bummer that the kid bailed. You should let him know that you're giving him one more chance to meet up, but say it nicely somehow, to still not scare him off. And just act like the last session bail didn't bug you. Sometimes you have to be patient with new students. I've had my share and so have you. Hopefully he actually comes out to meet up with you.

He's young right now, but who knows? Maybe he's the next Dave or Vasek?

...Or maybe he's a scummy turd who has a giant Panic At The Disco tattoo on his chest, because he claims that one of their songs stopped him from killing himself when he was 14 and on top of that, he bails again…

You never know