played with julian last week. he's plays way more controlled now. we're both looking forward to seeing you again. this time you are the one to give me tips on my game
oh, new page. sorry. folks, read the previous page. it's worth it!!!
Jay's Blog.
happy anniversary jay. this is definitely the most enjoyable (?) blog on modified.
played with julian last week. he's plays way more controlled now. we're both looking forward to seeing you again. this time you are the one to give me tips on my game
oh, new page. sorry. folks, read the previous page. it's worth it!!!
played with julian last week. he's plays way more controlled now. we're both looking forward to seeing you again. this time you are the one to give me tips on my game
oh, new page. sorry. folks, read the previous page. it's worth it!!!
matthias thier
So, Jampionship Writeup time.
Well, I'll start with part of a story, that describes the mood I am writing in. This shall also serve as a day's highlight type of post,
I woke up this morning at 5:45 AM, and left my house for a town called Mississauga to be at work for 7:15. Through some light traffic, against the regular heavy traffic (school is out, thus, less cars on road. Sweet) I changed and got ready for a day of exhaust installation. I started the day working as a partner for a guy named Zak, and we got along quite well. Eventually as the day got busier and busier, I worked alone on cars and pumped out about 4 before lunchtime, one with some really cool stainless exhaust muffler. This is not to give you the impression that I am good at exhaust, I am a total noob, so this was a huge accomplishment. I walked to Subway for lunch, and received an awesome BLT which quenched my hunger. An Iced Tea empowered the glands in my mouth, which since I drink plenty of water, didn't quite need to be saturated. Eight hours later, I finished my day of work, got in a car, and drove home. I guess I got home at 9:15 or so, because it took me about 15 minutes to clean out all of the garbage from the Jampionships in my car, and organize it all. That reminds me, the day before the Jampionships I got my first car, a 2003 (thanks Jon) Honda Civic. Waylon, Nathan, Jon, Matt Cross and I know it all too well I guess. I then proceeded to ignore the fact that I was (and still am?) covered in dirt grime and general debris from the day's work, and laced up my Gunits. For, after a 15 hour day dedicated to work, I knew that I could squeeze in 1 hour of personal pleasure, in the form of footbag with my new 2 stitch matt cross footbag.
I got downstairs, and my feet still felt like they had steel toe / sole workboots on, and that troubled me, for, standing up all day doesn't do wonders for your heel fat tissue. I got on some extra wooly socks to cushion the blow of the tapping of the feet which my feet would soon encounter, due to their nature of being a foot which has a plural form of feet.
I couldn't crank. The big socks actually couldn't let me toe crank, and every toe set, just like lavers, flew infront of me which was annoying. Thus, I exaggerated the fact that I could use Jorden's technique of scooping the bag, and did some toe drills, and then got kind of winded. I knew that my knee's likely wouldn't like the aggressive feeling of quantum sets, so I thought it would be best not to drill them. I then moved onto infinities and drifters, which were REALLY hard. Not being able to crank, with ankles that already have a slight retardation with the concept, was quite the tissue. Shit. So, I figured 'Hey, the worst trick for anti-crank movements is blender, so let's try some! I dropped the first 50 or so attempts, or maybe not just a drop, rather a roll off or shitty set out of it. I got quite annoyed, and realized that this was bullshit, and that I have Gunits and if I wanted to crank enough to get a blender I could. Bam, Ducking clipper->blender->infinity->blender*rpt was born, and I said to myself that once I hit it twice I would stop. Next try, I realized that I was feeling too good to stop, and decided that that drill was far too easy.
FEEL the footbag. Maybe I am a little tired and delusional, but I kept on thinking "feel the footbag" and occasionally saying it, and really just visualzed hitting the blender even before I started the dex. I just kept hitting them, and it felt badass. A little cocky, I thought "Matt Cross showed me how to hit pdx blender better at the Jampionships, perhaps I should use it before I forget everything he said". So, yeah, 3/4 tries each side first time I got pdx blender. This was huge, it IS huge, and I'm going to completely take it for granted a week from now. I've never hit pdx blenders with such mastery, and confidence that my knee wouldn't fly off or bend in some unusual way. Seriously, the feeling of NO fear, and complete harmony with your knee's on a vicious trick that took my so long was sensational. I Felt the damn footbag, and it probably felt me too. I decided to start drilling it, and I got ducking clipper->blender->ducking clipper->pdx blender->ducking clipper*rpt, which was cool. I then proceeded to bsos spinning clipper->pdx blender, and bs mobius->pdx blender, which took only a few tries.
So yeah, my day is pretty well complete. I didn't see one friend all day, and spent no time with my family, but other than that, I did everything that is kind of important to me, which is be productive by working and with footbag. There is immediate rewards in each of these practises, one is money, and the other is feeling good enough to wake up the next day and feel like doing it again.
___-----------------________
Jampionships day One.
Went to work at my Grandparents for a few hours, and then packed up and drove to the Georgetown GO station. In my brand new, well, old, automobile I set up my new GPS system, in the spirit of "Daniel", and started kicking waiting for Jon's bus to come. He walked out in some kick-tush shoes that I couldn't help but remark of (to, on, about?) and I got into the car and felt really nervous as to not screw up. I'm still in the scared and tentative driving stage, for those who really wanted to feel good about my misfortune, and yet read my blog? At this point, I really didn't know who Jon Haber was, I knew him as a footbagger roughly, who lived in Guelph, and that was the extent of my knowledge. Through some chat-room-like questioning, ASL and the like, I began to decrypt Jon Haber for what I think he might be as a person. Like Dave said, you never really know someone from a weekend tournament experience, but as I have not experienced this first hand I probably can't fully appreciate it. The details don't really belong in here, because I guess some of it is somewhat personal, and without context of the situation and how things were said, everyone here could take anything the wrong way. Nothing against any blog reader, but I am sure you can respect the ability of electronic miscommunication.
After an hour long wait at the border, we took off to Matt, THE MATT, Cross' house in Buffalo, and we made it there just fine. Bill! Moses! Bill, he is the bird that lives outside of Matt Crosses current place of living, and should probably be underestimated. I didn't even really see it, but the fact that he has a Bird Cage on his front porch, with Bill inside of it, Matt, what a mangod. Quote "Sketchy Girls are the best!". He was about half done one of his first more successful two-stitch bags, which was headed to a fellow named Drew, who can eggbeater like no one's business. He brought some excitement to the table, as Jon and I had sort of reached the point where it was no longer interesting to ask what he did in his spare time, or how many siblings he had. You know how you call people up at Christmas, and ask them how things are, but you realize after the phone call how you no longer have nothing in common, well, a similar feeling was to be felt here. The conversation wasn't stale or anything, and this shouldn't be taken as a negative thing, but I just wanted to stress how having Matt there immediately gave a more common ground thing to talk about, and since we could experience something outside ourselves, which we both saw, we then had more things to discuss and talk about. I guess this is the point in which people become friends.
Some switching of drivers, and 5 hours later or so I got to State College, the place where David the Cleaver Clavens used to prowl just a month or two ago, and it felt different. I was the driver, not Tom Mosher, and I had to be the one that sort of was responsible for making people's weekends possible, as well as myselve's. We arrived, after a U-turn which was backseat driven (thankfully) by matt cross we got to Scott's, Gordon's, Bevier's, Bev's, and Flash's house just about at the same time. After meeting him, Scott suits him the best I think, relating him to people I already know, however a large part of me still thinks of him as a Gordon, and Bevier, and partially Flash, but not entirely. Brrr. I walked inside to meet the Dog, which Aidan and him co-own I think, which I think has a name something like "Grisabella", but I am 100% that it is not named that. Waylon was there, and I gave him my footbag that he wished to buy, and I also got some Facile in the Deal. Rhyme, mhmm. As soon as I, you know, stop working and have free time to make money, I'll actually turn into a footbag. We called Nathan to make sure that at 12:00 it was ok to go to his house, and his answering machine said, in a girly scream "I snort Cocaine" or something, extremely undecyfer - able. We just showed up anyway, and he answered the phone a second time and from within the shadows of the curtains near his front door, we waltzed in in that slightly awkward "Hey, I'm sleeping in your bed and eating your food, but I don't really know you" type of state. He has AWESOME MILK! As soon as I have the time, I'll upload pictures, but just remember. Weis quality Milk is milk that should be trusted, white and all. Infact, his kitchen in general is something to be trusted, for not a bad taste can come out of it I'm sure. While I am on the topic of folk-tails, one way streets don't have lanes, just like circles have an infinite number of degrees. It makes sense, trust me. I guess that I hope Jon, Nathan or Waylon reads that, because they are the ones who might remember it.... Anyway, we watched and old CIC VHS tape, which had some Penske in it, but because of Exhaustion, and complete paranoia that I just left my brand new car accross his street in the cold darnkess I just fell asleep.
_)___________________
Woke up to an alarm, and darkness. My bedroom always has sunlight in it, I guess that means it is on the southern side of the house, and I never awake in darkness during the summer months. It was nice, and BLUEBERRY PANCAKES AWAITED US! MRS. FUCKING PIPENBERG! Hell yeah! Pancakes! We ate pancakes, drank milk, drank some more milk, and then talked about movies. We all had cool opinions on which movies were good, and I stand by Stephen Segal and every movie he has ever made. Hard to Kill? Pistol Whipped? Oh yeah. We each took showers, which was decided I believe in the same fashion that chose who got to sleep on the bed per night, and that was rock paper scissors. Since I won in rock paper scissors, the rules I made stated that I sleep on the floor, however, by the new rules I made I got to shower second after Jon I think. We talked footbag in the meantime, and came up with stiff-legged footbag, and PS whirl would be really awesome to see in that style. Snowflake, pdx drifter rake. Try it, and get back to me. Yes that means you. We drove to WEIS and got some groceries, at Weis quality only, Beef Jerky, and Gatorade, and headed to the park which my GPS actually found. There were hackers there already, and that feeling of walking up to a circle is a warm one. I parked in the sun.
I played with Scott Bevier, who is GOOD at footbag.
I'm losing steam, and it's 11:20, and I'm going to work tomorrow morning. I'll write the rest of this tomorrow.
I actually will, I wont just let this slide, it needs to get done. Grunt out.
????
Back to writing.
I got to the tennis court, where a circle of shred was alreaedy in place with Matt Cross drilling tiltless, which consisted of Ripped Warrior's, and Drew, Jon Schneider and Scott. We introduced ourselves, and then some Grandmother with her grandkids came to the tennis court, played for about 15 minutes (and, being polite we gave them the court without them kicking us off) and left. I thought that was kind of annoying, but hey, if I was in there shoes as a 5 year old I probably wouldn't enjoy tennis that much either. We stuck to the basketball court to shred, where I found myself in a circle with (varying members) Nathan, Mr.Haber, Matt Cross, Drew, and Scott. Hot damn, Scott can play footbag. I knew he was third in the world and all, and I've seen his videos, but for some reason seeing the consistency in person (just like James said about Clavens) enlightens you to how good someone is. Every string some weird concept triggered its way into him, and bam a pdx grifter was born, or bam an inspinning osis was destroyed. On video Scott's spinning looks unusual compared to others, however, for whatever reason in Person I find that it looks completely natural and, normal
On request, Nathan hit 69 no problem, and I failed miserably in attempt.
Eventually Scott decided that he was going to stop, and I still had enough energy to play, but not enough to care to string in 30+ degree weather, and just tried random five adds that I don't normally do. All day I didn't drop a blurry whirl or stepping ss whirl, which is really weird considering I am just starting to do them mid-string, and they were easy, same with blurriest. I got blurry drifter bsos, as well as mobius and tomahawk I believe. Everything just felt decent, and I couldn't really complain, however much I was boring Nathan and Drew at the time. My superflies were shit, which is to be expected because I never have drilled them in any considerable way, but at least the dex's felt easy. I studied Drew's eggbeaters and got them really easy, and I think that in the future I'll be a better 'beater for them. Alliteration. Waylon got some quantum tricks which was cool, and eventually Jon Haber was all alone on the tennis court, which him and his ripped shoulders migrated to sometime before with another circle. We started by trying to build up to Gangster Party, and the bag flew off his foot a few times, well enough to (in my opinion) say he hit it. Apparently I got close, and I recall bitch slapping the bag, but I didn't really care, we were just fooling around. Jon Schneider and I reunited in a circle, since the last time we played was Cornell, and hell, I don't recall even being in his circle then.
Jay: So Jon, how did this part of footbag history go?
Jon: ----
Jay: more...
Jay: So, how did you get into BAP anyway?
Jon: Well you see, it really wasn't all that hard Jay. You know, you just have to suck alot of Dick.
Waylon: Laughing harder than I have ever seen him laugh.
Jon: Squinting and giggling loudly.
Jay: Wondering how you can squint loudly.
Jon: Tells us the real story. Dragons.
Nathan and Danny joined the circle, and we tried Jon's favourite drills that he never hits when he never drills. Stuff like stepping ss clipper->sidewalk->stepping opp clipper->sidewalk->rpt type stuff, and drills that in all honesty, take a few tries to comprehend how difficult they are. I came deathly close to mobius b2b, and I was pretty thrilled how I could become part of a thread, and Matt Cross slapped the ground while trying to get barefoot montage. There was what Johnny would call "Banter" in the circle, and it was all in all a pretty light hearted shred. Eventually, I felt pretty dead and called it a day, and emmigrated towards the place where Matt Cross, Drew, Aidan and her dog were. Matt and I traded bags, well, he was still stitching mine and we watched a Nick Laroche Special, which I couldn't pay particularily close attention to. Waylon came over next, and we spoke of stitching and patterns, and he actually took my footbag and photographed it for documentary evidence, I made that expression up, it makes no sense. Waylon. Oddly, Danny and Haber walked over to a Jungle Gym, really far away and I never knew what they did discuss or do. Perhaps they played like school-girls in the sand pit, while giggling discussing their skin-shedding habits. The world will never know. Since the Jam didn't really have a competition, Scotts first prize of a Free Pizza in State College Domino's was granted to Johnny and I, as we were the furthest travelled. I then realized that I really wanted to get my bags out into the free world, for others to see and feel, and I felt that since Scott was an incredible freestyler that he deserved it, he got the red/white soccer ball.
We all left, and the Gordon crew went to his house and then a bar, while the rest of "my" crew, which, I was merely a part of, went back to Nathans to shower and eat some,
GODLIKE
Spaghetti. We walked in, and as a Jaguar would take out a small Koala, my nose inspected the very delight in the air which was from Nathan's mom's kitchen. There was sausage and spaghetti waiting for us, and Milk. I pondered as to how Waylon had NEVER been to Dairy Queen, and truly madly deeply wanted to frolic in their Savage Garden backyard.
I noticed that Nathan had season 3 of the Office on the top of one of his T.V's, and had an urge to watch "Pretzel Day" episode, which is actually called something else, which has to do with the Temp Guy.. That is unimportant, Stanley the black guy is a badass, and that episode was dedicated to him. In fact,
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zUEj_6nDKww
Everyone watch that and hold hands with Jon Haber while singing Ring around the Rosy. SMall Pox my ass, that song was written for Pretzel Day. So anyway, we ate the dinner and proceeded to become more full after each bite, and then I noticed that the salad dressing was Caesar, MHMM! This dinner couldn't get any better. By the way, the only reason Nathan is good at Nuclear is because of his Kitchen, and all the boys who come to the yard know it. Even some girls that couldn't give us change for a parking meter knew it, although I had to tell them first. We drove into town to try and get into the Grill and Bar to meet Scott and the gang, but since a few of us were underage we couldn't post much of a threat to their sanitary place of eating. Instead, we walked to an Italian Ice shop, where I didn't get any Ice, or Italian. We spoke alot of Facile and bags, as I had the time on my hands to look at my new facile, and I never did buy any Amaretta from Nathan. We then proceeded to stalk in the intermittent rain towards the Dwelling, nevermind, that is creepy.
You all know where we went,
Actually, probably not. Anyway, after we didn't go to see where the Cleaver lived in utter awe, and didn't steal a baloon from some random girls birthday party mailbox and try to pop it with one hand for 10 minutes, we went to McDonalds. Yoghurt Parfaits were the delight here, which was just not good enough for me. Earlier in the trip, I looked at the side of Nathan's Weis Quality cereal and it explained how you could make a parfait with it, and I really wanted one. When we went to McDonalds and I didn't get anything, it was kind of odd that I didn't want one, and everyone else got one. Jon was surprised, because it was on the Dollar Menu there, while in Canada it was 2 dollars. Sauced. We spoke about random things of course, where the conversation took its journey through random caverns of life, and then just then, I heard "Ba baaa bahh, ba baaa bah, bu ba bah, du do dah". Yes, that is the beginning of the Jem song that Johnny used in his first video. Entranced, I had to hit nuclear muted clipper, and I did just that. Waylon still didn't go to Dairy Queen, but was content with his heretic Parfait. AS I am a selfish whore, when we passed a yoghurt place I got a milkshake while everyone else sat there, staring at 2 out of 4 large TV's which didn't work.
Some of Nathans school mates walked in, and apparently everyone in State College goes to one highschool. Walking back to our Automobile, an "Insomnia Cookie" place, which was featured on the Food Network, one of 14 locations, was infront of our eyes. It intruiged many of us, but not I, as I didn't care for the cookie. We walked in, and met a super cool employee who really made it all worth while. We asked him about their business practise, and who their biggest customer was,
Someone: So, who really is your biggest customer?
Employee: Well, generally stoners and fat chicks.
I didn't capture it in one tenth of the hilarity, but it went along well and was funny. Waylon got a brownie and Jon a peanut Cookie, and after I barely showed him footbag we were on our way. At Scotts house, we all went to the basement while everyone was already pre-stoned or pre-drunk, or a combination of the two, and we "chilled" in his basement. I have a slight fascination with seeing where the shred-location of videos are, like I am sure at PRague this year I will cream myself everytime I see a familiar section of prague. Scott's birthday video was right infront of me, and I felt special. Jon Bullshitted his way through every conversation, and it was quietly hilarious because he was partially intoxicated, and Matt called him out on it. I have no idea where Aidan was the entire time, but she could have made it interesting somehow, whatever. Trailor Park Boys was on upstairs and no one was watching it, so I guess that entertained the top floor while no one was there. I snuggled up to my backpack at 1:30 in the morning, and took a nap while everyone chatted about Canada/USA, and footbag of course. Vasek word word Vasek word Johnny word Vasek word word Johnny etc. Read Johnny's Blog, page 2.
We went to Nate's house, and basically just fell asleep. Woke up, and boy oh boy, was it milk time. We got our Americaland cerial, Smorez, and barely ate an nutritional breakfast. Then, pretzel day was on, and we watched it. I laughed quite a bit, but JOn and Waylon barely did. Perhaps they thought it was stupid, or perhaps I am just easily amused by Stanley.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zUEj_6nDKww
It deserved another plug. Nate woke up, like, an hour later, and he was no where to be found. I saw some random kid on a computer, with a head-shape quite similar to Nate's, and said something to him as if it was Nate, but no, it was his brother. We checked all the rooms, and he was not there, and randomly from the stealthy ninja corners which his Cat learned its ways from, he emerged from a room which was never there before. By the way, Nate's shower fan doesn't make a sound, a smooth criminal it is. I got my Duck, and we left to the Campus for shred, but first it was DQ time. We drove there, and damn was it pretty, it looked oh-so-decorated and no one seemed to mind. We all got Blizzards, Nate with the "Strawberry Cheese Quake", Waylon with the "Reeces Pieces", Jon with the "Something that I forgot" and myself with a Cookie Dough. Waylon was impressed,
and after the guys found some coffee we were on our way to campus, just where ANOTHER video was shot sometime last year. Soothing. It was covered and I felt like taking my shirt off to play, as there was no sun and Jon Haber didn't take his shirt off and walked around town for a really long time. Scott and Matt Cross showed up, and I was already almost warmed up. Matt helped Waylon a bit, and then took the opportunity to "Un-the" my barrages along with helping Drew. Matt hit blurry barrage bsos first try, and midstringed spender, mobius and other cool tricks along the way. He helped me eventually with pdx blenders, which as you have possibly read, went a long way.
Gyro Barroque. Randomly, as I have half-hazzardly paying attention I see Matt in utter claritty clean all the dexes, and then my brain does a "wtf". He looks up, as he caught it facing the other direction, and says "Nooo" with a grumble in his vocals. I then, in the moment say "Yeah" with a slight squeak in disbelief. Apparently the first attempt at a Gyro Barroque was born, and then he hit it 2/3 times after that. One was "thin" though, but I didn't bother telling him. Now he knows? Drew got his first flails, which were natural to him, and then Danny hit controlled shuffle after that. Nathan kicked with Scott and Jon in the other corner, and Aidan made an appearance with her puppy-dog too. Jon finally came back, and apparently it was near 2:00, which was the time of our departure, and we slowly said our Goodbyes and were gone. I got the "wow, this is over" feeling and began to think of the jam as a whole, even though it was far from over. I drove a bit on the way back, thankful to have others to guide me in my noobish ways, and we stopped at a McDonalds where Jon's order took forever. Jon made an axing motion, and implied that they must have been killing a Cow out back, and later as Matt didn;t eat his second burger we found out that really hit him hard, and he didn't want to think of the dead animal he was eating. Once my bag was finished being manufactured in the back of the HONDA civic, Matt took the wheel and I wondered what it would have been like if Johnny was there. I always feel bad about not making things like car rides "epic", and wish I could. Someone like Johnny would just effortless-ly make everyone laugh and the car ride would be a great part of the feeling of the tournament, but because I suck I can't have that ability, I haven't upgraded yet. In defeat of the feeling of this, I started to doze off, and who knows what happened in and around there. Eventually we made it to where BILL was still waiting on the front porch, and we said our goodbyes to the companion that is Matt Cross. After a comment by Jon earlier in the drive, I double checked the trunk to make sure Waylon hadn't forgotten anything in there, and was relieved.
Jon and I spoke of things that were related to life, and I prodded for his bits of wisdom that age and experience gain. I learned alot about things in a somewhat appreciative way, and again I must stress that Jon Haber is a vital part of a footbag event. At the hour long wait at the border, we cut the time by stopping in at DUTY free, and asking the Cashier about something odd...
Jon: Hey, I was wondering if you could explain as to why we can only bring one bottle back into Canada, and you have so many "two for $40" deals?
Lady: Well, um, uh, I, it is because there could be two people of age crossing the border.
We spoke more of stuff that is a little boring, or too personal to put in a random blog writeup, and the trip to Guelph to drop Jon Off suddenly made me realize that the Car Ride wasn't such a waste. Without the super powers of Johnny Superman, I could end a car ride and feel like it was a fair portion of the footbag jam experience, and then stopped by McDonalds in it's memory.
Well, I'll start with part of a story, that describes the mood I am writing in. This shall also serve as a day's highlight type of post,
I woke up this morning at 5:45 AM, and left my house for a town called Mississauga to be at work for 7:15. Through some light traffic, against the regular heavy traffic (school is out, thus, less cars on road. Sweet) I changed and got ready for a day of exhaust installation. I started the day working as a partner for a guy named Zak, and we got along quite well. Eventually as the day got busier and busier, I worked alone on cars and pumped out about 4 before lunchtime, one with some really cool stainless exhaust muffler. This is not to give you the impression that I am good at exhaust, I am a total noob, so this was a huge accomplishment. I walked to Subway for lunch, and received an awesome BLT which quenched my hunger. An Iced Tea empowered the glands in my mouth, which since I drink plenty of water, didn't quite need to be saturated. Eight hours later, I finished my day of work, got in a car, and drove home. I guess I got home at 9:15 or so, because it took me about 15 minutes to clean out all of the garbage from the Jampionships in my car, and organize it all. That reminds me, the day before the Jampionships I got my first car, a 2003 (thanks Jon) Honda Civic. Waylon, Nathan, Jon, Matt Cross and I know it all too well I guess. I then proceeded to ignore the fact that I was (and still am?) covered in dirt grime and general debris from the day's work, and laced up my Gunits. For, after a 15 hour day dedicated to work, I knew that I could squeeze in 1 hour of personal pleasure, in the form of footbag with my new 2 stitch matt cross footbag.
I got downstairs, and my feet still felt like they had steel toe / sole workboots on, and that troubled me, for, standing up all day doesn't do wonders for your heel fat tissue. I got on some extra wooly socks to cushion the blow of the tapping of the feet which my feet would soon encounter, due to their nature of being a foot which has a plural form of feet.
I couldn't crank. The big socks actually couldn't let me toe crank, and every toe set, just like lavers, flew infront of me which was annoying. Thus, I exaggerated the fact that I could use Jorden's technique of scooping the bag, and did some toe drills, and then got kind of winded. I knew that my knee's likely wouldn't like the aggressive feeling of quantum sets, so I thought it would be best not to drill them. I then moved onto infinities and drifters, which were REALLY hard. Not being able to crank, with ankles that already have a slight retardation with the concept, was quite the tissue. Shit. So, I figured 'Hey, the worst trick for anti-crank movements is blender, so let's try some! I dropped the first 50 or so attempts, or maybe not just a drop, rather a roll off or shitty set out of it. I got quite annoyed, and realized that this was bullshit, and that I have Gunits and if I wanted to crank enough to get a blender I could. Bam, Ducking clipper->blender->infinity->blender*rpt was born, and I said to myself that once I hit it twice I would stop. Next try, I realized that I was feeling too good to stop, and decided that that drill was far too easy.
FEEL the footbag. Maybe I am a little tired and delusional, but I kept on thinking "feel the footbag" and occasionally saying it, and really just visualzed hitting the blender even before I started the dex. I just kept hitting them, and it felt badass. A little cocky, I thought "Matt Cross showed me how to hit pdx blender better at the Jampionships, perhaps I should use it before I forget everything he said". So, yeah, 3/4 tries each side first time I got pdx blender. This was huge, it IS huge, and I'm going to completely take it for granted a week from now. I've never hit pdx blenders with such mastery, and confidence that my knee wouldn't fly off or bend in some unusual way. Seriously, the feeling of NO fear, and complete harmony with your knee's on a vicious trick that took my so long was sensational. I Felt the damn footbag, and it probably felt me too. I decided to start drilling it, and I got ducking clipper->blender->ducking clipper->pdx blender->ducking clipper*rpt, which was cool. I then proceeded to bsos spinning clipper->pdx blender, and bs mobius->pdx blender, which took only a few tries.
So yeah, my day is pretty well complete. I didn't see one friend all day, and spent no time with my family, but other than that, I did everything that is kind of important to me, which is be productive by working and with footbag. There is immediate rewards in each of these practises, one is money, and the other is feeling good enough to wake up the next day and feel like doing it again.
___-----------------________
Jampionships day One.
Went to work at my Grandparents for a few hours, and then packed up and drove to the Georgetown GO station. In my brand new, well, old, automobile I set up my new GPS system, in the spirit of "Daniel", and started kicking waiting for Jon's bus to come. He walked out in some kick-tush shoes that I couldn't help but remark of (to, on, about?) and I got into the car and felt really nervous as to not screw up. I'm still in the scared and tentative driving stage, for those who really wanted to feel good about my misfortune, and yet read my blog? At this point, I really didn't know who Jon Haber was, I knew him as a footbagger roughly, who lived in Guelph, and that was the extent of my knowledge. Through some chat-room-like questioning, ASL and the like, I began to decrypt Jon Haber for what I think he might be as a person. Like Dave said, you never really know someone from a weekend tournament experience, but as I have not experienced this first hand I probably can't fully appreciate it. The details don't really belong in here, because I guess some of it is somewhat personal, and without context of the situation and how things were said, everyone here could take anything the wrong way. Nothing against any blog reader, but I am sure you can respect the ability of electronic miscommunication.
After an hour long wait at the border, we took off to Matt, THE MATT, Cross' house in Buffalo, and we made it there just fine. Bill! Moses! Bill, he is the bird that lives outside of Matt Crosses current place of living, and should probably be underestimated. I didn't even really see it, but the fact that he has a Bird Cage on his front porch, with Bill inside of it, Matt, what a mangod. Quote "Sketchy Girls are the best!". He was about half done one of his first more successful two-stitch bags, which was headed to a fellow named Drew, who can eggbeater like no one's business. He brought some excitement to the table, as Jon and I had sort of reached the point where it was no longer interesting to ask what he did in his spare time, or how many siblings he had. You know how you call people up at Christmas, and ask them how things are, but you realize after the phone call how you no longer have nothing in common, well, a similar feeling was to be felt here. The conversation wasn't stale or anything, and this shouldn't be taken as a negative thing, but I just wanted to stress how having Matt there immediately gave a more common ground thing to talk about, and since we could experience something outside ourselves, which we both saw, we then had more things to discuss and talk about. I guess this is the point in which people become friends.
Some switching of drivers, and 5 hours later or so I got to State College, the place where David the Cleaver Clavens used to prowl just a month or two ago, and it felt different. I was the driver, not Tom Mosher, and I had to be the one that sort of was responsible for making people's weekends possible, as well as myselve's. We arrived, after a U-turn which was backseat driven (thankfully) by matt cross we got to Scott's, Gordon's, Bevier's, Bev's, and Flash's house just about at the same time. After meeting him, Scott suits him the best I think, relating him to people I already know, however a large part of me still thinks of him as a Gordon, and Bevier, and partially Flash, but not entirely. Brrr. I walked inside to meet the Dog, which Aidan and him co-own I think, which I think has a name something like "Grisabella", but I am 100% that it is not named that. Waylon was there, and I gave him my footbag that he wished to buy, and I also got some Facile in the Deal. Rhyme, mhmm. As soon as I, you know, stop working and have free time to make money, I'll actually turn into a footbag. We called Nathan to make sure that at 12:00 it was ok to go to his house, and his answering machine said, in a girly scream "I snort Cocaine" or something, extremely undecyfer - able. We just showed up anyway, and he answered the phone a second time and from within the shadows of the curtains near his front door, we waltzed in in that slightly awkward "Hey, I'm sleeping in your bed and eating your food, but I don't really know you" type of state. He has AWESOME MILK! As soon as I have the time, I'll upload pictures, but just remember. Weis quality Milk is milk that should be trusted, white and all. Infact, his kitchen in general is something to be trusted, for not a bad taste can come out of it I'm sure. While I am on the topic of folk-tails, one way streets don't have lanes, just like circles have an infinite number of degrees. It makes sense, trust me. I guess that I hope Jon, Nathan or Waylon reads that, because they are the ones who might remember it.... Anyway, we watched and old CIC VHS tape, which had some Penske in it, but because of Exhaustion, and complete paranoia that I just left my brand new car accross his street in the cold darnkess I just fell asleep.
_)___________________
Woke up to an alarm, and darkness. My bedroom always has sunlight in it, I guess that means it is on the southern side of the house, and I never awake in darkness during the summer months. It was nice, and BLUEBERRY PANCAKES AWAITED US! MRS. FUCKING PIPENBERG! Hell yeah! Pancakes! We ate pancakes, drank milk, drank some more milk, and then talked about movies. We all had cool opinions on which movies were good, and I stand by Stephen Segal and every movie he has ever made. Hard to Kill? Pistol Whipped? Oh yeah. We each took showers, which was decided I believe in the same fashion that chose who got to sleep on the bed per night, and that was rock paper scissors. Since I won in rock paper scissors, the rules I made stated that I sleep on the floor, however, by the new rules I made I got to shower second after Jon I think. We talked footbag in the meantime, and came up with stiff-legged footbag, and PS whirl would be really awesome to see in that style. Snowflake, pdx drifter rake. Try it, and get back to me. Yes that means you. We drove to WEIS and got some groceries, at Weis quality only, Beef Jerky, and Gatorade, and headed to the park which my GPS actually found. There were hackers there already, and that feeling of walking up to a circle is a warm one. I parked in the sun.
I played with Scott Bevier, who is GOOD at footbag.
I'm losing steam, and it's 11:20, and I'm going to work tomorrow morning. I'll write the rest of this tomorrow.
I actually will, I wont just let this slide, it needs to get done. Grunt out.
????
Back to writing.
I got to the tennis court, where a circle of shred was alreaedy in place with Matt Cross drilling tiltless, which consisted of Ripped Warrior's, and Drew, Jon Schneider and Scott. We introduced ourselves, and then some Grandmother with her grandkids came to the tennis court, played for about 15 minutes (and, being polite we gave them the court without them kicking us off) and left. I thought that was kind of annoying, but hey, if I was in there shoes as a 5 year old I probably wouldn't enjoy tennis that much either. We stuck to the basketball court to shred, where I found myself in a circle with (varying members) Nathan, Mr.Haber, Matt Cross, Drew, and Scott. Hot damn, Scott can play footbag. I knew he was third in the world and all, and I've seen his videos, but for some reason seeing the consistency in person (just like James said about Clavens) enlightens you to how good someone is. Every string some weird concept triggered its way into him, and bam a pdx grifter was born, or bam an inspinning osis was destroyed. On video Scott's spinning looks unusual compared to others, however, for whatever reason in Person I find that it looks completely natural and, normal
On request, Nathan hit 69 no problem, and I failed miserably in attempt. Eventually Scott decided that he was going to stop, and I still had enough energy to play, but not enough to care to string in 30+ degree weather, and just tried random five adds that I don't normally do. All day I didn't drop a blurry whirl or stepping ss whirl, which is really weird considering I am just starting to do them mid-string, and they were easy, same with blurriest. I got blurry drifter bsos, as well as mobius and tomahawk I believe. Everything just felt decent, and I couldn't really complain, however much I was boring Nathan and Drew at the time. My superflies were shit, which is to be expected because I never have drilled them in any considerable way, but at least the dex's felt easy. I studied Drew's eggbeaters and got them really easy, and I think that in the future I'll be a better 'beater for them. Alliteration. Waylon got some quantum tricks which was cool, and eventually Jon Haber was all alone on the tennis court, which him and his ripped shoulders migrated to sometime before with another circle. We started by trying to build up to Gangster Party, and the bag flew off his foot a few times, well enough to (in my opinion) say he hit it. Apparently I got close, and I recall bitch slapping the bag, but I didn't really care, we were just fooling around. Jon Schneider and I reunited in a circle, since the last time we played was Cornell, and hell, I don't recall even being in his circle then.
Jay: So Jon, how did this part of footbag history go?
Jon: ----
Jay: more...
Jay: So, how did you get into BAP anyway?
Jon: Well you see, it really wasn't all that hard Jay. You know, you just have to suck alot of Dick.
Waylon: Laughing harder than I have ever seen him laugh.
Jon: Squinting and giggling loudly.
Jay: Wondering how you can squint loudly.
Jon: Tells us the real story. Dragons.
Nathan and Danny joined the circle, and we tried Jon's favourite drills that he never hits when he never drills. Stuff like stepping ss clipper->sidewalk->stepping opp clipper->sidewalk->rpt type stuff, and drills that in all honesty, take a few tries to comprehend how difficult they are. I came deathly close to mobius b2b, and I was pretty thrilled how I could become part of a thread, and Matt Cross slapped the ground while trying to get barefoot montage. There was what Johnny would call "Banter" in the circle, and it was all in all a pretty light hearted shred. Eventually, I felt pretty dead and called it a day, and emmigrated towards the place where Matt Cross, Drew, Aidan and her dog were. Matt and I traded bags, well, he was still stitching mine and we watched a Nick Laroche Special, which I couldn't pay particularily close attention to. Waylon came over next, and we spoke of stitching and patterns, and he actually took my footbag and photographed it for documentary evidence, I made that expression up, it makes no sense. Waylon. Oddly, Danny and Haber walked over to a Jungle Gym, really far away and I never knew what they did discuss or do. Perhaps they played like school-girls in the sand pit, while giggling discussing their skin-shedding habits. The world will never know. Since the Jam didn't really have a competition, Scotts first prize of a Free Pizza in State College Domino's was granted to Johnny and I, as we were the furthest travelled. I then realized that I really wanted to get my bags out into the free world, for others to see and feel, and I felt that since Scott was an incredible freestyler that he deserved it, he got the red/white soccer ball.
We all left, and the Gordon crew went to his house and then a bar, while the rest of "my" crew, which, I was merely a part of, went back to Nathans to shower and eat some,
GODLIKE
Spaghetti. We walked in, and as a Jaguar would take out a small Koala, my nose inspected the very delight in the air which was from Nathan's mom's kitchen. There was sausage and spaghetti waiting for us, and Milk. I pondered as to how Waylon had NEVER been to Dairy Queen, and truly madly deeply wanted to frolic in their Savage Garden backyard.
I noticed that Nathan had season 3 of the Office on the top of one of his T.V's, and had an urge to watch "Pretzel Day" episode, which is actually called something else, which has to do with the Temp Guy.. That is unimportant, Stanley the black guy is a badass, and that episode was dedicated to him. In fact,
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zUEj_6nDKww
Everyone watch that and hold hands with Jon Haber while singing Ring around the Rosy. SMall Pox my ass, that song was written for Pretzel Day. So anyway, we ate the dinner and proceeded to become more full after each bite, and then I noticed that the salad dressing was Caesar, MHMM! This dinner couldn't get any better. By the way, the only reason Nathan is good at Nuclear is because of his Kitchen, and all the boys who come to the yard know it. Even some girls that couldn't give us change for a parking meter knew it, although I had to tell them first. We drove into town to try and get into the Grill and Bar to meet Scott and the gang, but since a few of us were underage we couldn't post much of a threat to their sanitary place of eating. Instead, we walked to an Italian Ice shop, where I didn't get any Ice, or Italian. We spoke alot of Facile and bags, as I had the time on my hands to look at my new facile, and I never did buy any Amaretta from Nathan. We then proceeded to stalk in the intermittent rain towards the Dwelling, nevermind, that is creepy.
You all know where we went,
Actually, probably not. Anyway, after we didn't go to see where the Cleaver lived in utter awe, and didn't steal a baloon from some random girls birthday party mailbox and try to pop it with one hand for 10 minutes, we went to McDonalds. Yoghurt Parfaits were the delight here, which was just not good enough for me. Earlier in the trip, I looked at the side of Nathan's Weis Quality cereal and it explained how you could make a parfait with it, and I really wanted one. When we went to McDonalds and I didn't get anything, it was kind of odd that I didn't want one, and everyone else got one. Jon was surprised, because it was on the Dollar Menu there, while in Canada it was 2 dollars. Sauced. We spoke about random things of course, where the conversation took its journey through random caverns of life, and then just then, I heard "Ba baaa bahh, ba baaa bah, bu ba bah, du do dah". Yes, that is the beginning of the Jem song that Johnny used in his first video. Entranced, I had to hit nuclear muted clipper, and I did just that. Waylon still didn't go to Dairy Queen, but was content with his heretic Parfait. AS I am a selfish whore, when we passed a yoghurt place I got a milkshake while everyone else sat there, staring at 2 out of 4 large TV's which didn't work.
Some of Nathans school mates walked in, and apparently everyone in State College goes to one highschool. Walking back to our Automobile, an "Insomnia Cookie" place, which was featured on the Food Network, one of 14 locations, was infront of our eyes. It intruiged many of us, but not I, as I didn't care for the cookie. We walked in, and met a super cool employee who really made it all worth while. We asked him about their business practise, and who their biggest customer was,
Someone: So, who really is your biggest customer?
Employee: Well, generally stoners and fat chicks.
I didn't capture it in one tenth of the hilarity, but it went along well and was funny. Waylon got a brownie and Jon a peanut Cookie, and after I barely showed him footbag we were on our way. At Scotts house, we all went to the basement while everyone was already pre-stoned or pre-drunk, or a combination of the two, and we "chilled" in his basement. I have a slight fascination with seeing where the shred-location of videos are, like I am sure at PRague this year I will cream myself everytime I see a familiar section of prague. Scott's birthday video was right infront of me, and I felt special. Jon Bullshitted his way through every conversation, and it was quietly hilarious because he was partially intoxicated, and Matt called him out on it. I have no idea where Aidan was the entire time, but she could have made it interesting somehow, whatever. Trailor Park Boys was on upstairs and no one was watching it, so I guess that entertained the top floor while no one was there. I snuggled up to my backpack at 1:30 in the morning, and took a nap while everyone chatted about Canada/USA, and footbag of course. Vasek word word Vasek word Johnny word Vasek word word Johnny etc. Read Johnny's Blog, page 2.
We went to Nate's house, and basically just fell asleep. Woke up, and boy oh boy, was it milk time. We got our Americaland cerial, Smorez, and barely ate an nutritional breakfast. Then, pretzel day was on, and we watched it. I laughed quite a bit, but JOn and Waylon barely did. Perhaps they thought it was stupid, or perhaps I am just easily amused by Stanley.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zUEj_6nDKww
It deserved another plug. Nate woke up, like, an hour later, and he was no where to be found. I saw some random kid on a computer, with a head-shape quite similar to Nate's, and said something to him as if it was Nate, but no, it was his brother. We checked all the rooms, and he was not there, and randomly from the stealthy ninja corners which his Cat learned its ways from, he emerged from a room which was never there before. By the way, Nate's shower fan doesn't make a sound, a smooth criminal it is. I got my Duck, and we left to the Campus for shred, but first it was DQ time. We drove there, and damn was it pretty, it looked oh-so-decorated and no one seemed to mind. We all got Blizzards, Nate with the "Strawberry Cheese Quake", Waylon with the "Reeces Pieces", Jon with the "Something that I forgot" and myself with a Cookie Dough. Waylon was impressed,
and after the guys found some coffee we were on our way to campus, just where ANOTHER video was shot sometime last year. Soothing. It was covered and I felt like taking my shirt off to play, as there was no sun and Jon Haber didn't take his shirt off and walked around town for a really long time. Scott and Matt Cross showed up, and I was already almost warmed up. Matt helped Waylon a bit, and then took the opportunity to "Un-the" my barrages along with helping Drew. Matt hit blurry barrage bsos first try, and midstringed spender, mobius and other cool tricks along the way. He helped me eventually with pdx blenders, which as you have possibly read, went a long way.
Gyro Barroque. Randomly, as I have half-hazzardly paying attention I see Matt in utter claritty clean all the dexes, and then my brain does a "wtf". He looks up, as he caught it facing the other direction, and says "Nooo" with a grumble in his vocals. I then, in the moment say "Yeah" with a slight squeak in disbelief. Apparently the first attempt at a Gyro Barroque was born, and then he hit it 2/3 times after that. One was "thin" though, but I didn't bother telling him. Now he knows? Drew got his first flails, which were natural to him, and then Danny hit controlled shuffle after that. Nathan kicked with Scott and Jon in the other corner, and Aidan made an appearance with her puppy-dog too. Jon finally came back, and apparently it was near 2:00, which was the time of our departure, and we slowly said our Goodbyes and were gone. I got the "wow, this is over" feeling and began to think of the jam as a whole, even though it was far from over. I drove a bit on the way back, thankful to have others to guide me in my noobish ways, and we stopped at a McDonalds where Jon's order took forever. Jon made an axing motion, and implied that they must have been killing a Cow out back, and later as Matt didn;t eat his second burger we found out that really hit him hard, and he didn't want to think of the dead animal he was eating. Once my bag was finished being manufactured in the back of the HONDA civic, Matt took the wheel and I wondered what it would have been like if Johnny was there. I always feel bad about not making things like car rides "epic", and wish I could. Someone like Johnny would just effortless-ly make everyone laugh and the car ride would be a great part of the feeling of the tournament, but because I suck I can't have that ability, I haven't upgraded yet. In defeat of the feeling of this, I started to doze off, and who knows what happened in and around there. Eventually we made it to where BILL was still waiting on the front porch, and we said our goodbyes to the companion that is Matt Cross. After a comment by Jon earlier in the drive, I double checked the trunk to make sure Waylon hadn't forgotten anything in there, and was relieved.
Jon and I spoke of things that were related to life, and I prodded for his bits of wisdom that age and experience gain. I learned alot about things in a somewhat appreciative way, and again I must stress that Jon Haber is a vital part of a footbag event. At the hour long wait at the border, we cut the time by stopping in at DUTY free, and asking the Cashier about something odd...
Jon: Hey, I was wondering if you could explain as to why we can only bring one bottle back into Canada, and you have so many "two for $40" deals?
Lady: Well, um, uh, I, it is because there could be two people of age crossing the border.
We spoke more of stuff that is a little boring, or too personal to put in a random blog writeup, and the trip to Guelph to drop Jon Off suddenly made me realize that the Car Ride wasn't such a waste. Without the super powers of Johnny Superman, I could end a car ride and feel like it was a fair portion of the footbag jam experience, and then stopped by McDonalds in it's memory.
Last edited by jay7 on 01 Jul 2008 11:56, edited 4 times in total.
Jay Boychuk
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7nWwyC3AJI[/youtube]mosher wrote:Come shred with me soon. I need to be pushed!
Don't forget that Mrs. Pipenberg makes awesome spaghetti. Also, American cereal rocks socks, McDonald's yogurt costs a dollar each, and Insomnia Cookies caters to stoners and fat chicks.
Oh, and post up a picture of the fat duck. We have to ask Nathan to buy that for you for your birthday, so that your little quacker can have a momma.
Waylon Lew - maker of Wasabi bags
NYFA represent.
"Footbag can be pretty frustrating when it's supposed to be fun. I was partly driven by this forum - practice, practice, practice... As that is true, I think someone can be too focused on progressing and training that they miss the fun aspect of it." - Bander87
NYFA represent.
"Footbag can be pretty frustrating when it's supposed to be fun. I was partly driven by this forum - practice, practice, practice... As that is true, I think someone can be too focused on progressing and training that they miss the fun aspect of it." - Bander87
Hey Zach, it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to get to London this weekend, due to that wonderful thing called work.
Anyway, some random stuff that occured to me today that I should write in my blog.
Exposing yourself is another good way to get better, and I think I have a few reasons for it. Every tournament I go to, I push myself the week before to try and hit the harder stuff that I have been recently drilling, so that I guess I could "impress" anyone at the tournament. Well, For the Jampionships I decided that I would play like, I normally play, and not try to impress. I guess I did alright in the matter, but what I really want to get to is again, exposing yourself.
Quantum, my everlasting struggle for perfection on one of the cooler toe sets, had recently been changed around before the Jampionships. At the jam, I don't think I hit a single Toe Blur, because of this change, and it pissed me off. Now, this motivates me to get better in a few ways, and that is 1.) Embarrassment. Seriously, why should I not be able to hit this? Having the pride or ego become destroyed due to not being able to string a trick is a useful reason to get down in your basement and drill it. And 2.) You get help from people. This isn't to say that I think you should start every string trying stupid shit you can't hit, but I think it is healthy to try to do stuff in your respective drill-set, for me Quantum, and fail so that better people, or people with good eyes can tell you what you are doing wrong.
This is all kind of odd, because I don't think I have ever 'hid' something like this from a tournament before, but, I just really recognized it today with Jorden, when I received help on MANY concepts that I wished were better. Like Blurry Whirl, Jorden taught me the secret to making it a sexy slicing tool instead of a hoppy boppy pouncing jackknife. If I had of just been happy with the fact that I should keep it in my basement until it was perfect, to unvail it to the world, it would have taken months of practise to improve it to the current state, which Jorden fixed in 5 minutes. The same goes to Merlin, Quantum, Bubbabeaters and even simple stuff like posture, and clipper position. Note, everyone, if you want Jorden's delightful clipper, point the shoulder over-top the clipper as if you were looking over your shoulder behind you in that direction. I still suck at it, but, yeah, give it a try.
Another thing, that came up in conversation, is that unless Tom Mosher goes to Worlds, I think I might be the only Ontario representation. I don't know what to feel about that,
Anyway, some random stuff that occured to me today that I should write in my blog.
Exposing yourself is another good way to get better, and I think I have a few reasons for it. Every tournament I go to, I push myself the week before to try and hit the harder stuff that I have been recently drilling, so that I guess I could "impress" anyone at the tournament. Well, For the Jampionships I decided that I would play like, I normally play, and not try to impress. I guess I did alright in the matter, but what I really want to get to is again, exposing yourself.
Quantum, my everlasting struggle for perfection on one of the cooler toe sets, had recently been changed around before the Jampionships. At the jam, I don't think I hit a single Toe Blur, because of this change, and it pissed me off. Now, this motivates me to get better in a few ways, and that is 1.) Embarrassment. Seriously, why should I not be able to hit this? Having the pride or ego become destroyed due to not being able to string a trick is a useful reason to get down in your basement and drill it. And 2.) You get help from people. This isn't to say that I think you should start every string trying stupid shit you can't hit, but I think it is healthy to try to do stuff in your respective drill-set, for me Quantum, and fail so that better people, or people with good eyes can tell you what you are doing wrong.
This is all kind of odd, because I don't think I have ever 'hid' something like this from a tournament before, but, I just really recognized it today with Jorden, when I received help on MANY concepts that I wished were better. Like Blurry Whirl, Jorden taught me the secret to making it a sexy slicing tool instead of a hoppy boppy pouncing jackknife. If I had of just been happy with the fact that I should keep it in my basement until it was perfect, to unvail it to the world, it would have taken months of practise to improve it to the current state, which Jorden fixed in 5 minutes. The same goes to Merlin, Quantum, Bubbabeaters and even simple stuff like posture, and clipper position. Note, everyone, if you want Jorden's delightful clipper, point the shoulder over-top the clipper as if you were looking over your shoulder behind you in that direction. I still suck at it, but, yeah, give it a try.
Another thing, that came up in conversation, is that unless Tom Mosher goes to Worlds, I think I might be the only Ontario representation. I don't know what to feel about that,
Jay Boychuk
Dear Diary,
Footbag is going decent I guess. I finally have adapted to the routine of working and then playing footbag, but I truly think what helped my feet the most is buying new insoles for both my work boots and gunits, as the work boots were (literally) just walking on a slab of steel, and I had worn my Spenco Gunit insoles into shreds. Another secret to working and energy for footbag, is sleep, but another thing that I should mention is how you drill as well. Instead of trying millions of things and expecting good, firm, responsive muscle memory for every concept, warm up as usual, but limit your session to a single train of thought. It is easier to concentrate, and not get frustrated when you aren't the shredder you would be, at full potential.
There are plus and downsides to this I guess, the plus' are probably more heavy improvement on one single concept, as, an entire 1:30 is dedicated to it. However, I imagine over the long term it could also be positive, but possibly also negative. The way I see it, is if you really drill something so that it feels
________
I just re-thought what I just wrote, and I think I was lying to myself. I still jump around quite a bit in my sessions after work, but I think I just have a longer warm up. I think that I thought I "specialized" what I did per session, because I only have 45 minutes to drill concepts, while the other 45 is more or less warm up. Generally, before, a 15 minute warm up was all that was necessary to get my legs confident enough (feeling) so that I could try stuff like barflies and be confident. Now, a 45 minute warmup does the same, but I DO do just as many concepts as before I guess. Funny, that today I didn't do a single barfly though.
What I did drill was flip stepping ducking, which, as of 8 months ago was not flip. When I left Germany they were the same, I could ripped warrior out of both sides nicely (pah, they were probably horrendous) but when I played with Johnny, who has recently begun (began?) tons of Alpine drills, I realized that my lack of drilling has opened up a flipside component in my game. Fuck. So, after a bit of drilling and analyzation, the gap is waaay tighter, and that makes me happy. I got osis->ripped bsos a couple of times, and stuff like infinity->ripped->infinity->infinity->ripped, ducking /spinning clipper->ripped and the like, both sided. This then reminded me of how I should ultimately get blender or torque and stepping ducking in line, and then I just drilled torque->osis*rpt and torque->blender*rpt a bunch of times. Randomly, I got osis->ripped*flip->ss butter->pdx blender*flip->infinity->matador*flip, and well, it was definetly first try out of the blue. I wonder if my "strong" side is even as consistent as my flips...Meh, Nuclear is something I'll drill tomorrow. It will be FUN! Damn, Nukes are peach-o-gasm like (for those that don't know, a peach-o-gasm is exactly what you think it is). Every once in a while a certain peach just tastes so good that that is pretty much what your tongue tells your brain.
Still plugging away with my routine for worlds. Every once in a while I'll get it dropless and drop on a crucial part, and then do it again and drop somewhere else crucial. This makes me wonder with routines, as to how you can over-practise them. This was something Jim Penske was talking to me about just before TOjam, and how you shouldn't do entire sessions on a routine because you will over-practise it. I just notice that when I drop, it isn't because the part of the routine is hard by ANY stretch, it is just because I stop concentrating, because the routine is just so, exactly, routine, now... Just like a string you do over and over, and when you practise it inside a basement when you go dropless, it doesn't really matter, and you just do it over and over again. Since I am going to Europe and traveling before worlds, and I might not have the time to drill the routine every day multiple times, perhaps it will do me good because I'll really concentrate.
Dear Diary.
Worlds will be oh-so-much fun. I think that because so many of my north american friends will not be there, just like last worlds I will meet about 300 new people, and feel much more personable when posting on "my fizzied". This will be good, but I think it would also be good to be able to go back to a north american tournament and re-live or discuss worlds, and have something awesome in common to relate to. Either way, Worlds this year I think will be better than last, and I am excited to see who I make friends with. It could be you? Maybe since it is just a week I'll go un-noticed, and people will barely remember that I was there? That is a bullshit attitude, I'm sure that after Worlds if I try and expose myself from some weird self concious shell I'll get alot closer to alot of people.
Footbag is going decent I guess. I finally have adapted to the routine of working and then playing footbag, but I truly think what helped my feet the most is buying new insoles for both my work boots and gunits, as the work boots were (literally) just walking on a slab of steel, and I had worn my Spenco Gunit insoles into shreds. Another secret to working and energy for footbag, is sleep, but another thing that I should mention is how you drill as well. Instead of trying millions of things and expecting good, firm, responsive muscle memory for every concept, warm up as usual, but limit your session to a single train of thought. It is easier to concentrate, and not get frustrated when you aren't the shredder you would be, at full potential.
There are plus and downsides to this I guess, the plus' are probably more heavy improvement on one single concept, as, an entire 1:30 is dedicated to it. However, I imagine over the long term it could also be positive, but possibly also negative. The way I see it, is if you really drill something so that it feels
________
I just re-thought what I just wrote, and I think I was lying to myself. I still jump around quite a bit in my sessions after work, but I think I just have a longer warm up. I think that I thought I "specialized" what I did per session, because I only have 45 minutes to drill concepts, while the other 45 is more or less warm up. Generally, before, a 15 minute warm up was all that was necessary to get my legs confident enough (feeling) so that I could try stuff like barflies and be confident. Now, a 45 minute warmup does the same, but I DO do just as many concepts as before I guess. Funny, that today I didn't do a single barfly though.
What I did drill was flip stepping ducking, which, as of 8 months ago was not flip. When I left Germany they were the same, I could ripped warrior out of both sides nicely (pah, they were probably horrendous) but when I played with Johnny, who has recently begun (began?) tons of Alpine drills, I realized that my lack of drilling has opened up a flipside component in my game. Fuck. So, after a bit of drilling and analyzation, the gap is waaay tighter, and that makes me happy. I got osis->ripped bsos a couple of times, and stuff like infinity->ripped->infinity->infinity->ripped, ducking /spinning clipper->ripped and the like, both sided. This then reminded me of how I should ultimately get blender or torque and stepping ducking in line, and then I just drilled torque->osis*rpt and torque->blender*rpt a bunch of times. Randomly, I got osis->ripped*flip->ss butter->pdx blender*flip->infinity->matador*flip, and well, it was definetly first try out of the blue. I wonder if my "strong" side is even as consistent as my flips...Meh, Nuclear is something I'll drill tomorrow. It will be FUN! Damn, Nukes are peach-o-gasm like (for those that don't know, a peach-o-gasm is exactly what you think it is). Every once in a while a certain peach just tastes so good that that is pretty much what your tongue tells your brain.
Still plugging away with my routine for worlds. Every once in a while I'll get it dropless and drop on a crucial part, and then do it again and drop somewhere else crucial. This makes me wonder with routines, as to how you can over-practise them. This was something Jim Penske was talking to me about just before TOjam, and how you shouldn't do entire sessions on a routine because you will over-practise it. I just notice that when I drop, it isn't because the part of the routine is hard by ANY stretch, it is just because I stop concentrating, because the routine is just so, exactly, routine, now... Just like a string you do over and over, and when you practise it inside a basement when you go dropless, it doesn't really matter, and you just do it over and over again. Since I am going to Europe and traveling before worlds, and I might not have the time to drill the routine every day multiple times, perhaps it will do me good because I'll really concentrate.
Dear Diary.
Worlds will be oh-so-much fun. I think that because so many of my north american friends will not be there, just like last worlds I will meet about 300 new people, and feel much more personable when posting on "my fizzied". This will be good, but I think it would also be good to be able to go back to a north american tournament and re-live or discuss worlds, and have something awesome in common to relate to. Either way, Worlds this year I think will be better than last, and I am excited to see who I make friends with. It could be you? Maybe since it is just a week I'll go un-noticed, and people will barely remember that I was there?
That is a bullshit attitude, I'm sure that after Worlds if I try and expose myself from some weird self concious shell I'll get alot closer to alot of people.Jay Boychuk
Bust hard at worlds and be your genuine enthusiastic self and people at worlds will remember you for sure! Your game is gonna be insane by then!
Jon's FootBlog
MSN: [email protected]
"It was clean enough to be thin..." - Andrew W.
MSN: [email protected]
"It was clean enough to be thin..." - Andrew W.
I have a strong desire to get good at footbag, and it is kind of frustrating at the moment. I played with Matt Cross today after work, since I was working 10 minutes from his humble abode across the border in Buffalo New York, and it really opened
up my eyes as to how I need to get better in so many ways. I can't say I am entirely dissapointed as to where I am in footbag, but it is extremely frustrating when I try to push my limits, but my foundation isn't good enough to pull it through. As I was playing with another, far more experienced, player I was naturally inclined to try and hit five adds, and that is where a certain problem lies. In my basement, I haven't drilled blurriest, blurry whirl, sumo, ripped warrior, ps whirl, superfly, symp. eggs, blurry drifters, mobius', jani's, and other tricks like I think I should. I find that the only time I ever try these tricks is with people like Matt, and it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth because of the fact that practise makes perfect, and I haven't practised them enough. I can't badger myself about not doing the fundamental parts of these tricks, like, I drill the smaller value-d components every time, but when I expect myself to simply put them together for an awesome string I always fall short, because I expect the consistency of the smaller components.
To solve this, I will give 5 adds about 15 minutes a session or so, just so that when I play with other people I am not such a bumbling fool I guess. Since I am on the "cusp" of actually doing them, I think that it is still terribly important that I keep drilling the smaller components 5 times as much as anything else, but I really believe that just a simple bit of practise with the harder tricks would allow me to more comfortably push the fact that I do practise.
So yeah, that being said I have some goals for before worlds....
Blurry whirl b2b*4,
Stepping ss whirl->blurrywhirl*rpt [note, call cleaver once done]
Blubberman at least 10 times, not sloppy.
Drifter->blurrydrifter*rpt
Blender->pdxblender*rpt, in a controlled manner.
Blurriest->sidewalk*rpt
Reaper, for the love of god.
Spinning Whirl->ducking clipper*rpt
A note on reaper.
For the last 3 months, I have thought about getting reaper as a part of my vocabulary, but have always tried it once and figured "I'll do something else". With Matt today, I tried it a few times, and got close, and I imagine that with ANY practise I could get them. Why is it that on some tricks I shy away from, and others are such a strong goal in mind?
On top of those goals, I think that perhaps it should be a good goal to write down some nice drills to do daily just to get nice and solid, so that my actual strings aren't unbalanced....
Rubberman*2,
Pixie-man*3
Fairy-man*2
Ripwalk->barfly->ripwalk->ripwalk->barfly->ripwalk*3
Ripwalk->pdx whirl->ripwalk->ripwalk->pdx whirl->ripwalk*3
barfly->spinning clipper->barfly->spinning clipper->barfly->spinning butter->barfly->spinning butter.
Pdx whirl->spinning clipper->pdx whirl->spinning clipper->pdxwhirl->spinning butter->pdx whirl->spinning butter.
Blender->ripwalk->ripwalk->blender*rpt
Dyno->ripwalk->ripwalk->dyno*rpt
Torque->ripwalk->torque->ripwalk->torque->blender->torque->blender.
Swirl->far swirl*rpt*2
Barrage->paradon->ripwalk*rpt*2
pdx double legover->dimwak*rpt->pdx eggbeater->dimwalk*rpt
I figure that if I can actually get all of the above before worlds, comfortably, I will have gotten my game to a place where I will be more satisfied than today. Some of these goals are going to need alot of work, but if I print this out as a list I imagine that I will have a structured session, and possibly just the written commitment will subconciously push me in the right direction. The good news is, if I fail on each and every one of these goals, I will still be better than I am today.
I wish I played with Matt sooner. Thanks for helping me today,
up my eyes as to how I need to get better in so many ways. I can't say I am entirely dissapointed as to where I am in footbag, but it is extremely frustrating when I try to push my limits, but my foundation isn't good enough to pull it through. As I was playing with another, far more experienced, player I was naturally inclined to try and hit five adds, and that is where a certain problem lies. In my basement, I haven't drilled blurriest, blurry whirl, sumo, ripped warrior, ps whirl, superfly, symp. eggs, blurry drifters, mobius', jani's, and other tricks like I think I should. I find that the only time I ever try these tricks is with people like Matt, and it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth because of the fact that practise makes perfect, and I haven't practised them enough. I can't badger myself about not doing the fundamental parts of these tricks, like, I drill the smaller value-d components every time, but when I expect myself to simply put them together for an awesome string I always fall short, because I expect the consistency of the smaller components.
To solve this, I will give 5 adds about 15 minutes a session or so, just so that when I play with other people I am not such a bumbling fool I guess. Since I am on the "cusp" of actually doing them, I think that it is still terribly important that I keep drilling the smaller components 5 times as much as anything else, but I really believe that just a simple bit of practise with the harder tricks would allow me to more comfortably push the fact that I do practise.
So yeah, that being said I have some goals for before worlds....
Blurry whirl b2b*4,
Stepping ss whirl->blurrywhirl*rpt [note, call cleaver once done]
Blubberman at least 10 times, not sloppy.
Drifter->blurrydrifter*rpt
Blender->pdxblender*rpt, in a controlled manner.
Blurriest->sidewalk*rpt
Reaper, for the love of god.
Spinning Whirl->ducking clipper*rpt
A note on reaper.
For the last 3 months, I have thought about getting reaper as a part of my vocabulary, but have always tried it once and figured "I'll do something else". With Matt today, I tried it a few times, and got close, and I imagine that with ANY practise I could get them. Why is it that on some tricks I shy away from, and others are such a strong goal in mind?
On top of those goals, I think that perhaps it should be a good goal to write down some nice drills to do daily just to get nice and solid, so that my actual strings aren't unbalanced....
Rubberman*2,
Pixie-man*3
Fairy-man*2
Ripwalk->barfly->ripwalk->ripwalk->barfly->ripwalk*3
Ripwalk->pdx whirl->ripwalk->ripwalk->pdx whirl->ripwalk*3
barfly->spinning clipper->barfly->spinning clipper->barfly->spinning butter->barfly->spinning butter.
Pdx whirl->spinning clipper->pdx whirl->spinning clipper->pdxwhirl->spinning butter->pdx whirl->spinning butter.
Blender->ripwalk->ripwalk->blender*rpt
Dyno->ripwalk->ripwalk->dyno*rpt
Torque->ripwalk->torque->ripwalk->torque->blender->torque->blender.
Swirl->far swirl*rpt*2
Barrage->paradon->ripwalk*rpt*2
pdx double legover->dimwak*rpt->pdx eggbeater->dimwalk*rpt
I figure that if I can actually get all of the above before worlds, comfortably, I will have gotten my game to a place where I will be more satisfied than today. Some of these goals are going to need alot of work, but if I print this out as a list I imagine that I will have a structured session, and possibly just the written commitment will subconciously push me in the right direction. The good news is, if I fail on each and every one of these goals, I will still be better than I am today.
I wish I played with Matt sooner. Thanks for helping me today,
Jay Boychuk
don't be down on your game, you're an incredible talent and you will only get better and better as you play.
also, everyone knows the best stegal movie is OUT FOR JUSTICE
'I see all this...boxing memorabilia...who da boxer? you da boxer?'
proceeded shortly after by an elbow to the face.
also, everyone knows the best stegal movie is OUT FOR JUSTICE
'I see all this...boxing memorabilia...who da boxer? you da boxer?'
proceeded shortly after by an elbow to the face.
James McCullough
So, there is this thing in Footbag where a player can relate himself much to the patterns of a mario game. Take Super Mario for Nintendo Entertainment System. That is right, the old system that every 17 year old punk/emo child pretends he actually likes and sports an "old school" t-shirt and belt buckle to sport this.
That is not an nes controller. Don't mind it,
So, how this relates? Find a computer or actual nes system, and try to beat bowser by jumping over him and hitting that damn battle axe. You go all the way through the level, jumping and pwning various forest creatures and bullets, and then one god damn series of hammers thrown from the vicious dragon hits you, and you must throw your hands in the air and go all over again.
Earlier today, I had a session, and it was O.K. I hit some drills here or there, and out of the 3 hours I drilled blubberman for about 2 of them. This is again intermittent, but whatever. I went upstairs, threw my hands in the air, when I just thought "How would Johnny do this?" and I delayed the bag, and there was a blubberman. Peaches. So, I go to the computer, shower, and eat a delayed lunch, and then an hour after dinner I thought "screw this, I need to get my worlds routines down!"....So, I went into my closet, got an old pair of surfer bathing suit shorts, knowing that they would limit me from doing anything but a routine. Well, yeah right, these shorts are the shiznit. It makes me feel like Vasek when he wears that pure red shred outfit for this euro 2007 routine, all glorious and pure. After I did alot of practise on the routines, which I ended with doing back to back dropless (Mhmm,) I thought I should work on some harder 5 add stuff and the like, because these shorts are just too good. Well, with the exception of nuclear (note, long shorts) I hit a whole christmas sleigh of new drills that felt GREAT, because controlling 5 adds is what the cleaver does.
And Jorden.
Favourite drill from first session -> Smear->toe blur->atom->atom->smear->toeblur->*rpt
Favourite drill from second session-> Well, I bsosed ps whirl, and ripwalk->blurry whirl, and I even had barflies out of my osis'. One run!
So yeah, when you go through the level a second time, knowing that Bowser is sitting at the end of the bridge, you can not wear your spiffy red shorts and fail, or you can suit up and jump over his head, and feel special that you found "toad", because the princess is in the forseeable future.
That is not an nes controller. Don't mind it,
So, how this relates? Find a computer or actual nes system, and try to beat bowser by jumping over him and hitting that damn battle axe. You go all the way through the level, jumping and pwning various forest creatures and bullets, and then one god damn series of hammers thrown from the vicious dragon hits you, and you must throw your hands in the air and go all over again.
Earlier today, I had a session, and it was O.K. I hit some drills here or there, and out of the 3 hours I drilled blubberman for about 2 of them. This is again intermittent, but whatever. I went upstairs, threw my hands in the air, when I just thought "How would Johnny do this?" and I delayed the bag, and there was a blubberman. Peaches. So, I go to the computer, shower, and eat a delayed lunch, and then an hour after dinner I thought "screw this, I need to get my worlds routines down!"....So, I went into my closet, got an old pair of surfer bathing suit shorts, knowing that they would limit me from doing anything but a routine. Well, yeah right, these shorts are the shiznit. It makes me feel like Vasek when he wears that pure red shred outfit for this euro 2007 routine, all glorious and pure. After I did alot of practise on the routines, which I ended with doing back to back dropless (Mhmm,) I thought I should work on some harder 5 add stuff and the like, because these shorts are just too good. Well, with the exception of nuclear (note, long shorts) I hit a whole christmas sleigh of new drills that felt GREAT, because controlling 5 adds is what the cleaver does.
And Jorden.
Favourite drill from first session -> Smear->toe blur->atom->atom->smear->toeblur->*rpt
Favourite drill from second session-> Well, I bsosed ps whirl, and ripwalk->blurry whirl, and I even had barflies out of my osis'. One run!
So yeah, when you go through the level a second time, knowing that Bowser is sitting at the end of the bridge, you can not wear your spiffy red shorts and fail, or you can suit up and jump over his head, and feel special that you found "toad", because the princess is in the forseeable future.
Jay Boychuk
Well, I am off to Europe. I will try to take cool pictures, and get better all around at footbag. I don't think I'll stitch much, because I have a strange feeling that I will probably want to take the time I would be stitching and go see cool stuff, as I'll be in some of the coolest places in the world.
As there wont be any blog updates until probably after worlds, unless I get the time and motivation to do a mid-trip blog write-up, I'll leave you all with a video I took at GRASS..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRhyKe0aCog -> It's got cleaver.
I'm going to bring a note-pad to jot down interesting occurances, emotions, or whatever else that may come about, I hope I can do a really cool write up of each city and a really nice Worlds capture.
I was thinking of what I could set as an overall goal for footbag progression, and I think that I am going to get my pdx whirls to look good. Tom helped me with them yesterday, and I know that my game will look better with them. I also want to get nuclear more on hand, as I am just on the cusp of getting it string-able. I am in the same situation with Furious set, so I think a good goal for me is to get Furious Mirage, I've never bothered to try it, and it would be impressive if I could consistently throw it in there.
As there wont be any blog updates until probably after worlds, unless I get the time and motivation to do a mid-trip blog write-up, I'll leave you all with a video I took at GRASS..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRhyKe0aCog -> It's got cleaver.
I'm going to bring a note-pad to jot down interesting occurances, emotions, or whatever else that may come about, I hope I can do a really cool write up of each city and a really nice Worlds capture.
I was thinking of what I could set as an overall goal for footbag progression, and I think that I am going to get my pdx whirls to look good. Tom helped me with them yesterday, and I know that my game will look better with them. I also want to get nuclear more on hand, as I am just on the cusp of getting it string-able. I am in the same situation with Furious set, so I think a good goal for me is to get Furious Mirage, I've never bothered to try it, and it would be impressive if I could consistently throw it in there.
Jay Boychuk
Furious mirage = fury. Much cooler name.
Have fun Jay. Learn a lot and see a lot. Don't just spend all your time in some gym playing footbag. Only most of your time.
Stay safe.
Have fun Jay. Learn a lot and see a lot. Don't just spend all your time in some gym playing footbag. Only most of your time.
Stay safe.
Ben Skaggs
Amateurs practice until they can get it right.
Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.
No, I don't play soccer. Yes, there are competitions. 4 years. Lots of practice.
Amateurs practice until they can get it right.
Professionals practice until they can't get it wrong.
No, I don't play soccer. Yes, there are competitions. 4 years. Lots of practice.