Fanzine

[C-Fan]

I have to admit, this year`s JFC3 snuck up on me a bit. It was just a timing thing; my job ending, my move, Worlds, my trip to Osaka and Kyoto, then *BAM* JFC. No time to catch my breath.

This year`s JFC was a bit different than previous tourneys, in that we decided to try a 2 day format, with qualifying rounds held on Saturday, then Finals on Sunday. This had its advantages and disadvantages, but overall it worked well. I think it made for more accurate judging, but some players weren`t able to attend both days, which was unfortunate.

Saturday the event was held in the Cosmic Center. There was a judges/staff meeting at 1 pm, which gave me time to eat a good veggie tempura on rice lunch before heading out. There`s like 12 of us there, which I think is fantastic. There are 6 judges total, including myself, which seems like a large number, but I thought of myself as more of a supervisor than anything, and having 5 judges there meant there would be more experienced judges at future tournaments. Judges and tournament organizers aside, we still had like 5 volunteers to count drops, set up tables, film, etc.

Players start to trickle in, and people start shredding real early. It kills me not to play, but I`m aware I shouldn`t warm up because I`ll be sitting most of the day. I compromise and play in a baggy shirt and cargo pants, and play real lightly. Walking around, I see some cool stuff hit, notably alpine tap by Keita, and just real long both sided strings by Kenzo.

Routines go pretty well. I`m most impressed by Haseken and Taishi, who really step up and hit their routines well. We have 4 pools, and only top 2 advance, so I really respected Taishi and Haseken essentially demanding to be in finals with their strong performances. Overall, the routines just seem stronger than at JFC2. I laugh when Kenzo`s routine starts; he used "Lets get Retarded" by Black Eyed Peas, not realizing that I used the same song at Worlds. He hit a real solid routine, which would have put him in finals, but he couldn`t attend the next day.

Big 3 is a mixed bag. For qualifiers we only gave 5 attempts, whereas finals there were 7 attempts. There were some upsets, but everybody who made finals deserved to be there.

Judging takes forever. That`s partially my fault, as I require every judge to explain their decisions in detail. When every judge is done with their presentations, I point out some details which they didn`t consider, and praise them for taking into account judging points which were easy to miss. Judging wraps up around 8 pm, and we have to be out of the gym at 8:45, so the judges hardly played at all on Day One. Still, it was worth it, because now I have a lot of confidence that future tournaments will be judged well without me.

Most players take advantage of the showers at the facility, then we all break off into groups. I go get dinner with Masa, USK, Kim, Morii, and Sue Kitchi, and cancel plans with Kenzo to go clubbing. Sunday`s event starts at 9 am for staff, and considering all the things I was scheduled to do, clubbing would be like suicide. Its a good decision.

[C-Fan]

Sunday started off pretty badly, with me waking up to Kim`s alarm at 6:30. Then at 7:00. Then every 5 minutes until 7:30. Kim is a deep sleeper. The heat at night meant I slept real fitfully.

We are out of the house by 8, and at the site by 9. The actual comp starts at 10, but like yesterday there is a staff meeting and of course the setting up of tables, chairs etc. The thinking is that if the event starts way early, we will have plenty of time for players party.

Day 2 was held in a gym in Meguro, and unlike the cosmic center, this place wasn`t air conditioned. People were sweating before they even played, so I knew it would be a long day. The heat kind of made me sick, but the tournament adrenaline got me through.

Kenzo is there in the morning, but has to leave before comp starts. The day before, I didn`t get a chance to play with Kenzo due to judging, and the way the schedule was set up on Sunday, I`d only be able to play with Kenzo in the morning. I really didn`t want to do this, because it would mean warming up, then cooling down, then warming up later for my workshop, then cooling down, then warming up for my Sick 3 demo, then cooling down for judging, then warming up again for Rippin` Run. Still, I`m tight with Kenzo and I knew this was likely my last chance to play with him, so I started the day off in a circle with Morio and Kenzo. I don`t really recall much notable stuff being hit, but I was just glad to get to play with him one last time.

The day really starts around 11 am, when workshops begin. 3 workshops are held simultaneously: one for beginners, run by Masa, one for intermediates, run by Taishi and Yama, and one for advanced players, run by me. My topic is: "how to plan and prepare for routines and shred 30". I get a pretty big audience, like 20 people, and my workshop ran about an hour. I was pretty happy with it. I talked about what to eat, what judges look for, how to build stamina for routines, what to do if your music cuts out, how to structure Shred30 so you don`t drop, how to warm up for shred 30, and more. Of course I did it all in Japanese, but I had Kim on hand to translate in cases where I thought my Japanese was unclear. Usually though, I`d say something in Japanese, and when I`d ask Kim to translate it, he`d look at everybody and say: "you all understood that, right?" and they did. I dedicated the last 20 minutes or so of the workshop to giving advice and tips on various moves and sets.

I have a real slight break before my Sick3 demo. I feel mentally calm, so therefore I am real surprised when, 10 minutes before my demo, I have a wet fart Not to be disgusting or anything, but I had to waddle to the bathroom to clean myself up. I tried to do so as non-chalantly as possible, but I was definitely mentally rattled by it. I go to the toilet and to lessen the chance of it happening again, and try to mentally compose myself. I think it was the result of bad sleep, the stifling heat, and lack of ventilation. Anyway, I figure this is as good a test as any to see how well I can do Sick3s. I also feel strong, knowing I`ve been in worse situations for sick3, like finals at Worlds this year.

I go down to the gym again and hop in a circle with Morii and Takumi, to practice sick 3s. I wanted to hit ewalk-fog-dod swirl, but I`d never hit that before. It doesn`t look great in the warm up circle. I decide to go for a safety instead, and practice darkwalk-bl drifter-pdx torque. That feels OK. Takumi is hitting spinning whirl-spinning osis-pdx blender like a safety in the circle. Morii also looks real good, with combos like fog-pixie butter-bl whirl.

Finally, my time comes, and everybody gathers round to watch my demo. I`m told I have 7 chances, but they`ll give me more just to put on a good show. I feel comfy in front of this crowd, but I miss my first two attempts, because the floor is slippery. I spray my soles with some slip-resistant formula, and then on my third try, I`m blinded in mid combo by somebody taking flash photography of me in mid combo? Use your fucking head. Finally, on my 4th or 5th try, I manage to hit dark-bl drift-pdx torque real well. The crowd gives me some love. I feel the pressure is off, cause I`ve at least hit something. Not sure what to try next, I give a shot at my worlds sick 3 (ewalk-fog-tobius), and to everybodys surprise, I hit it first try! The crowd really erupted then. I should have ended my demo right then, but stupidly I burned a few more chances going for silly stuff before I decided to bow out. Still, at the end of the demo I felt good: I hit 2 combos, one which is legitly hard and cool, all within my first 7 tries, and I did so not 10 minutes after shitting my pants. Who`s a trooper?

Right after my demo, my girlfriend drops by, and gives me a chilled towel and some sliced, chilled peaches. I couldn`t have prayed for better timing. I ask her if she saw my demo, and it turns out she saw everything after I hit my combos... so drops. D`oh!

Re-energized by the food and the towel, I`m ready to start judging Sick3 finals. There are 8 finalists, and to my dismay, only 3 of them hit combos! Dunno what it was... Morii ended up taking 3rd place, with a shuffle combo that had 2 4s and a 5. I think the 5 was blurry whirl, but I can`t recall. Henmo hits a sweeet combo: symp whirling swirl-spinning osis-barfly. That`s good for 2nd place, since Takumi stepped up. Takumi hit spinning whirl-spinning osis-pdx blender on his 3rd try, but ultimately that didn`t matter since he followed it with surge-pixie whirl-pdx blender! The surge was immaculate. Good stuff little guy.

We transitioned immediately to routines, and all the finalists did pretty well. 1st through 5th was pretty close. USK and TJ only had 3 drops a piece (routines were only 90 seconds though), and Henmo, Tencho, and Takumi had 5 apiece. TJ hit the best routine of his life, which had good variety, and few drops. All the judges had him or Henmo in the top 2. Henmo`s routine was incredible for the first 86 seconds. Completely on the beat. Great variety. Good use of space. And the crowd was really feeling him. Then, he dropped a ripwalk at the very end, picked it up, and dropped a blur. Ultimately, those last 2 drops are what killed him.
Judging took an extremely long time, for the same reasons as the day before: I used the tourney as a final exam for the Japanese judges to see how good their skills are. I was not disappointed.

[C-Fan]

edit: broke this post into 2, to make it more read-able.

When we finally finished judging, Rippin Run began. This was the one event I was actually entering, so I really wanted to do well. Unfortunately, the cycle of warming up and cooling down throughout the day, combined with the heat, really wore me out. I tried to get through it on sheer adrenaline, but it wasn`t to be. If there is a farewell jam before I leave, I think I`d like to do Rippin Run again, when i`m at full strength. In any case, Rippin Run was a definite highlight of Day 2.

When the initial matchups are written up, I`m shocked and thrilled to see my first match-up: Haseken! For those who don`t memorize my blog, Haseken is the guy who eliminated me from Rippin Run last time. I dunno if this time it was karma or a set-up, but I didn`t care. I was ready for my chance at revenge. This time around, I promised myself I wouldn`t do any 5s. But I still went fairly genuine, and probably averaged about 3.75 adds throughout. Haseken proved to put up a good fight, cause I had to go for (what felt like) 20+ contacts to win. I`m guessing he went in with the smart battle plan of going real easy, like guilting, with the hope that I would again beat myself by going too hard. Thankfully though, I pulled out the win, and I felt real satisfied by that. Some measure of redemption for TSG3.

The first rounds of Rippin Run are so-so, with lots of players going outrageously bail-y until they knew they won. That`s not what Rippin Run is about. I told Takumi that he should plain semi-genuine, cause otherwise, whats the point? He did me real proud, playing mostly genuine throughout. He started one of his later rounds with fairy ss whirl. That`s my boy! I also didn`t understand what was the point of the judges being present... considering they never called people on bails. I saw Masa do a toe stall in mid run once, and he wasn`t whistled for it, and won the match. That`s wrong. In any case, it was good fun for the spectators, and Takumi made it to finals by going genuine. And once in finals, he beat QP for the win! Yeah!

By this time, everybody was exhausted. Still, I made a point to hop into a few circles just to be social. Henmo was hitting some nice stuff in the circle with me. He`s picked up a nice phasing set. Apparently he hit frankenstein earlier that day, which is rad.

I`m pulled out of the circles to go sign the prize certificates, and just like that: *bam* awards ceremony. I had known in the abstract that this would be my final Japanese tournament, but I was so busy all day with judging, my workshop, my demo, and rippin run, that it didn`t entirely hit me until the very end. I handed out the prizes, like I do at every tournament, and then at the end I was asked to give a speech.

It was a real emotional moment. I took a second to look around the gym, and I knew it would be hard to speak. So many friends, so many good times shared... all of them so much better than when I first met them. It was a real strange and poweful mixture of pride and gratitude that I felt, and I did my best to express it in my crappy Japanese. I told them quite honestly that I couldn`t believe it had been 2 years since I gave a similar speech... back at JFC1. Before JFC1 there hadn`t been any tournaments in Asia, and I remember how proud I was of all the growth and hard work the Japanese scene had undergone in just a year. And how hopeful I felt for the future of the Japanese scene. And now, 2 years later, I`m having a good time with friends, friends I made through the joy of footbag, and I can see my hopes were justified, because the level of play has gotten so much incredibly better in that time. And while I like to think I`ve helped the scene in Japan in some small part, I am in its debt for all the friendships and fun it gave me.

I got choked up in the middle of the speech, and when I saw people in the audience wiping at their eyes, it hit me real hard, and I ended it as best as I could. It was a real intense moment.

Prizes handed out, we all hit the showers, then went to the players party. The players party was excellent. We rented out a cafe, and had all-you-can-drink for 3 hours. I didn`t drink very much because I wanted to have clear memories of the night, and I did a good job of spreading myself socially and thanking lots of people for various acts of kindness.
The highlight of the party was the first Japanese public screening of the infamous "Haseken" promotion video that was made at Worlds. Josh B and Alex S saw it, but its hard to explain. Its like a parody promotion video of Haseken, set to the music from Champions league, but with new lyrics which are hilarious. Hopefully it will go online and I can post a link to it.

Anyway, as the party wound down, I found myself feeling positive. Mostly because a big crew of people were free the next day, and expressed interest in a shred in Yoyogi! Sweet. As people filed out and home, I set up an impromptu game of Foursquare on the street, and 5 of us stuck around to see it completed.

JFC3 was finally done, and with it my streak of organizing/helping/judging/advising Japanese tournaments. While that makes me sad in a way, I feel real positive about it. I`m happy that I had the chance to help out as much as I did, and that Japan has had 6 major tournaments so far. I also feel confident for the future, because Japan has a good base of tournament organizers, judges, and volunteers. The structure is in place for successful future tournaments. And while I won`t be living here much longer, I know that I will see many of these friends again at future World Champs and who knows, future guest appearances at Japanese Tournies? With footbag they never feel like goodbyes, its always a promise to play together, and share more good times at a future tournament.

[C-Fan]

Here`s the results page from JFC3:

http://footbag.jp/jfc/2005/result.php

Its mostly in Japanese, but if you scroll down it has the names and big 3 combos written in English.

Oh, and for those who have asked: yes, I still plan on writing my Worlds blog.

[C-Fan]

Listening to Hifana now, my favorite Japanese band. Hifana.com for anybody who likes breakbeats.

Let`s catch up, starting the day after JFC3.

Day after JFC3 (8/22)

Monday morning I wake up and my back feels like I slept on an anvil. Usually when I drink, my back muscles feel all tense the next day. My head is usually fine, but the muscles between my shoulders kill... does this happen to anybody else? Anyway, the shred isnt til 3, so I take my time and eat a good lunch of sushi, and then hit Yoyogi. QP, Ryota (OBT), Yuko, Kushy, Takumi, Hearts, and Morii all were able to make it.

The fountain and pond at Yoyogi are drained for cleaning, and the cleaning staff use super noisy, irritating equipment. We suffer under the cacophany for the first hour, and it makes me go nuts. You seriously cant hear yourself think, and the noise keeps changing, so you can`t tune it out either. After a couple hours of torture, I suggest we go move to any other part of the park. Once we do, the day dramatically improves. Strangely enough however, some good stuff was hit even with the irritating noise. Takumi hit double spinning osis to inspinning osis, which blew me away. I hadnt seen him double spin successfully before, so to see him hit inspinning osis out of it... Just awesome. QP played fantastically well. Blazing mirage. Blazing ss butterfly for the first time. Blazing far osis. And paradon swirl for the first time! X+Y also showed and had a good session. Sumo real nice, and some good links.

I also had a surprisingly good session. I finally hit pdx torque-pdx torque. Got a big rush from that, because I had wanted to hit that for several years. I sealed with a handcatch, but later sealed the combo again, this time with a run. I also hit pdx-torque x2 starting from the other side, and sealed with a hand catch. Later, I also sealed that combo with a run, and in the same run hit each pdx torque one more time. I also hit pdx torque to pdx drifter bsos, which felt stylish. Maybe I`ll try to link them together sometime.

Then we played foursquare, which was a blast. Masa did a tricky-serve on Morii that so faked him out, Morii actually said out loud: "Huh? Where`d it go?" Then a second later, the bag dropped right before his eyes, and he was out. I had trouble standing after that, cause I was laughing so hard. pwn3d!

Wednesday 8/24
No shred today, but I had an incredible time at a super-cool event, all thanks to having cool footbag friends. Flash back a year and a half, when Tosh gave me a CD of Hifana, a Japanese breakbeats band, just cause hes cool like that. They fast became my favorite Japanese band. Flash to today: mailed on my cellphone at 1 pm. Kussy: `free hifana concert today, you in?` Um, give me a second... hell f*ing yes I am! We get to the Apple store 2 hours early, where we queue up, and are first in line. We as in me, RyotaOBT, and Kussy. We discuss the demo at the club on Saturday, and the whole time we can hear Hifana warming up because we`re right by the door. Its like a free concert before the concert. Doors finally open, and we`re let in. First row is reserved for the press and special guests but wait... there are 3 open seats in the front row right in front of the turntables? I do the math in my head, then we sit down in our VIP seats and proceed to have our socks rocked off for the next hour. Seriously, if somebody told me that morning that I`d be seeing Hifana front row for free that night, I would have continued with my pleasant dreams. After the show, Kussy shows one of the 2 bandmembers that she bought the new album already, and he rewards us by giving us stickers, then signing her album and posing for photos. The room was packed at the event, and I took some pride in noting that I was one of only two gaijin in the whole room. It pays to have cool friends, and I definitely have footbag to thank for that.

8/26 Friday, shred at Nakano

Felt like forever since I`d shredded, even though I played Monday. Good turnout for a weekday session too. In decreasing height order: myself, Tosh, Hearts, x+y, Kussy, and Takumi Hadn`t played with Tosh in ages, and it was good to see his consistency up. Paradons, ripwalks, and quantum both sides?!? When did that happen? Cool. Tripwalk to ripwalk for the first time, a nice combo. X+Y hit his first tombstone ever, and was wicked close to blurry drifter. Nice. I started a string with phoenix to pdx torque, which I was stoked on because:
a. I hardly ever do phoenix
and
b. It was my weak pdx torque! Yay!

I was also pleased to do a string with little apple and spinning pdx mirage both BS in the same string. For somebody who is ass at spins, this was a big deal. Probably my biggest rush came from hitting flurry to toebius for the first time. I just think that combo looks cool.

Takumi surprised me by doing some flip datws. Other than that, nothing super-notable, just real solid strings. He also hit around 48 consecutive infinities, which is a good stamina builder. In a very good development, I lent him my iPod, and told him to steal, I mean, borrow, err.... transfer all the songs onto his computer. When I last hung out with him (monday), I asked him what kind of music he had on his iPod. He played me a song which was a reggae-fied remix of the Disney song `Under the Sea.` I wish there was a `mortified` smiley on these forums. Man, that was like a cry-for-help kinda deal. You know when somebody tries to commit suicide as a way of getting attention to get help? Sorta like that.

We close out the session with a game of foursquare, which increasingly seems to be catching on over here. I think its absolutely perfect as a cool down game.

[C-Fan]

Some background: footbag demos at nightclubs have gone on in Japan for at least 2 years now, but up until last weekend, I never had a chance to go to one. Back when Pepsi was doing a footbag campaign, it sponsored a team of Japan`s 5 best players, and shuttled them around the country to do demos. This was Team Twist. I was always real jealous that I wasn`t invited a long, but there were several reasons for this. One was that I lived real far from Tokyo, another was that I wasn`t Japanese, and maybe the biggest reason was they (Pepsi, everybody else) didn`t think it would be good to have a team do demos where one guy was way better than everybody else. It wouldn`t look good, and might be discouraging to the audiences. I can`t complain too much, cause Pepsi hooked me up BIG time during JFC1, and to this date have been my biggest sponsor. But still, demos in front of live audiences sounded sooooo much fun.

So when Tosh asked me if I wanted to do a demo over the weekend, I flipped out.

The demo would take place at a club called Milk, which is one of Tokyo`s better clubs, and it would be one of several live acts at a record release party. Normally, I`d have to pay around 30 bucks for entrance (2 drinks included, but no re-entry), but since I was doing the demo, I got free entrance, 2 drinks, and could come and go as I pleased. Sweet. The one catch was the footbag demo would start at 3 am, but I figured I`d be good to go provided I didn`t play any footbag that day.

The demo would consist of 5 players, Ryota-OBT, Tencho, Hearts, Tosh, and myself. Unfortunately for us, a Typhoon hit Tokyo on Thursday, robbing of us of the one night when we could all meet and plan the demo. So planning and practice were left for 6:30 pm, the night of the event. Tencho had work until midnight, so at 6:30 pm 4 of us met up and hammered out the plan for the demo.

I think we did a good job of structuring it. We knew there would be like 7 footbaggers in the audience, who`d just come to watch, but our goal was to make a real easy and accessible presentation, in the hopes of getting new people in the sport, and also because an easy presentation would be easier to keep the drops down. We were also mindful to include things that blow away newbies, so we had a section with ducking (OBT), double ATW (Hearts), fliers (me), grabs (Tosh), and spins+juggling (Tencho).

Tosh had some non-laver shoes which were decent for freestyle, but didn`t look like freestyle shoes, which inspired a funny bit for the demo.

We started off the demo real easy, with toe stalls, then escalated it with a battle between Hearts and Tosh, where they upstaged each other, one guy doing consecutive toe stalls, the other doing inside stalls, the other following with tiltless toe play, etc. Then Ryota bust in and did clippers and butterflies, to show the audience that theres more than toes to the sport. Then Tencho came in and did a run with clippers and toes, but still easy. Then Hearts and Tosh did synchronized tiltless. Up until now, I was sitting with the rest of the audience, wearing baggy cargo shorts, a big UNC shirt, and Tosh`s civilian-esque shoes (he was wearing my lavers up until this point of the demo). Next, OBT did some stepping sets, like ripwalks, crispy drifters, and blurs. The crowd really got into it then, but I started booing from my place in the audience, and even threw a plastic spoon at Ryota. Ryota pretended to get pissed and got up in my grill, and we shouted at each other (there was a real tight breakbeat DJ mixing our set).

I was all (in Japanese): "you suck man. You ain`t shit."
And he got back up in my grill: "Oh yeah tough guy? Lets see YOU do anything"

The crowd didn`t really know what to make of all this, and I was a bit worried that somebody not-in-the-know would give me shit, but after Ryota`s "challenge", I stepped on stage, and took the bag from him. I stared at it, feeling it for a second, as if I had never touched a bag, then I proceeded to go guiltless for like 10 contacts, and finished with ps whirl-handcatch, then tossed the bag at Ryota. The crowd was all for a second, then realized that we`d been fucking with them. I pretended like I was returning to my seat, and (this had all been planned beforehand) Ryota stopped me, inviting me to shred with the crew.

I dashed to the back and changed into my shred gear, and in the meantime we started a system similar to Chad and Eli`s bit on The Lion`s Den where they do like 5 tricks, then pass off a stall to the other guy, who rips off 5 tricks. This bought me time to change, and hop in as the 5th man in the cycle. This was the part where we demoed datw, fliers, etc, then after that we pulled some of the footbaggers in the audience in to lure crowd participation. After that, we did the Lion`s Den thing one more time, but this time with legit runs. I went last and did a real long string that started with fog, and in the middle had DATW i-o to DATW o-i, which I knew the crowd would dig. I dropped after 30 contacts or so, which was my first and only drop of the night. I was real happy about that. The crowd was really good, and we all bowed, then the DJ transitioned back to dance music. Only then did I realize that we were all completely soaked in sweat.

The whole experience was plain awesome, and after that we got to enjoy a real happening party. I saw 2 amazing live bands play, and I danced a ton. Even if there were no footbag, I would have had an awesome time, just cause the club was so good. When you factor in that I got in free because of footbag, that just made it that much sweeter.

One of the footbaggers in the audience filmed the whole thing, but I dunno if there are any plans to do anything with the footage. Since this is Japan, I wouldn`t be surprised if the footage never touches the net, but you can always hope.

The whole footbag crew danced and partied til closing, at which point we all hit a cheap diner and got eats at 6 in the morning. Keita had a bit too much to drink, so we weren`t real confident about bringing him into the diner with us. Hearts and Hanzo babysat him outside, but I figured he was improving, cause I would occasionally look out the window between bites and see him kicking some footbag. I commented that it was unfair that his atomic sets are better than anybody else`s in Japan, even when he is drunk. I almost snorted food out my nose though, cause one moment I look out the window and see Keita hitting atom smasher, then not 30 seconds later when I look out the window again, all I see are his legs sprouting out of a bush and reaching to the sky. Too good! I was gasping for air laughing, but the people with souls (everybody else) ran out to see if he was OK. Thats life for you though. One moment you are hitting atom smasher, the next moment your ass is in a bush and the sky is spinning around your feet. Good shit Keita.

Oh, do I need even say it? Yes, most of us shredded the next day.
Japan go hard baby!

[Samurai]

DUDE! BEST STORY EVER! - Ah I love it. Ken I believe it is your duty to get that video online. PLEASE I wanna see you coming up and talking shit and then busting SOOO BAD. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE GET IT ONLINE.

Thank you Ken, I'm gonna go floss now.

Ps. Stretch every day Yay. Goodnight.

[C-Fan]

School starts for Takumi on September 3rd, which means I really need to cram in as many sessions with him on weekdays as possible. Been doing alright with that, having played with him on Friday, Sunday, and today (Monday.) Saturday he had some school event, and I couldn`t play because I was saving my legs for the Club demo, so it all worked out.

Sunday`s session wasn`t all that great. The weather was fine out, so it`d make sense to play in Yoyogi, right? I mean, Yoyogi has wood decks which don`t slip and are nice to your legs, plus it has better visibility and is close to food, etc when we`re done. But because a single shredder (who will go unnamed) was too lazy to go to Yoyogi, we ended up playing in our rain spot, Nakano, despite the fact that it wasn`t raining, and that Nakano is hella slippery. I was extra bitter, because getting to and from Nakano takes a full hour more than it takes for me to get to Yoyogi. Seriously, if it was raining I would do it, but why waste the good weather? Sorry for the rant, but this was seriously stupid shit.

Because we play at Nakano, I get there hella late, and the floor is incredibly slippery. Hearts isn`t there, so we don`t have any bags that I really like, and play with a real rolly mini abshire. Very little of note was hit, because everybody suffered under the shit conditions. Takumi did manage to hit his first gyro blizzard ever, and while I didn`t have a great angle on it, I think it was good. His surges were real good all day, and his blizzards have improved. I gave Takumi lots of advice on bedwetter, and while I was demonstrating one of my points to him, I hit: bed-infinity-other bed-infinity-bed-infinity-bed-infinity-drop. So bedwetter double bsos. The high point of the session for me was hitting go-go mirage...like, step set, then spin away from the set, and do a mirage with the other leg. It felt real cool, and not nearly as fast as I expected. I was told my step was real clean too, which was a relief. I also got back my iPod, which is nice on 2 fronts; I get to listen to my tunes again, and hopefully Takumi will develop good musical taste from now on.

Today was a much better shred. It was blazing hot out, but we played at Yoyogi, and it was a total relief to play on non slippery floors again. Takumi and I were there pretty early, and we spent the first 30 minutes or so just doing warm-up consecutive drills. Once Tencho showed up, we continued with the consecutives theme. It was like a skooling session, but with friends. Nice to get a chance to work my weak components and get some confidence in them. I set a lot of new personal records, as well as approaching old records which I hadn`t tried in like 4 years.

The following is a list of consecutives that I hit today. In cases where a move is followed by 2 numbers, the first number is how many I hit on my strong side, and the 2nd number is how many I hit weakside. If a number is proceeded by a T, it means it is Takumi`s record. Here we go!

Butterfly (infinity): 81, T 48
Osis (opp foot): 20, T 54!
Pdx Drifter: 4, 3
Smear: 26
Forward swirl: T 12
Far Dyno: T 3
Toe gyro mirage: 2
Drifter: 11
Spinning Clipper: 5, 5!
Pixie ss mirage: 5, T3
Symp pixie: 29
Spinning osis: T8
Magellan: 14, T8
Whirl: 14, 9
Torque: 5,2 T2
PS whirl: 2
Spinning butterfly: 3,2
Tap: 8
Down double down: 3
Gyro Clipper: 3 T11
2 bag juggling, # of catches: 12 T: 19!

The first half of the session was entirely us just trying and breaking records for consecutives, and after that we were exhausted. Kushi unexpectedly dropped by, and so we did a 4 man circle for a bit. We were all tired as shit, so nobody was hitting much, and we were dropping clippers and toe stalls. But then, out of nowhere, I noticed how Takumi holds his upper body when he does gyro moves, and something clicked in my head. By imitating Takumi`s upper body, one of my spins magically became way WAY better, and I was hitting no-plant vortex much more controlled than usual. I used to hit it real downtime, but now it looks more like Vasek`s, where he spins, looks, then does the drifter. I`m going to school this a ton, cause its always been a dream of mine to have a consistent mobius. With this new method I hit vortex-ducking butterfly-pdlo-pixie butter, which was the first time I ever played out of vortex with anything other than infinity. I also hit a real controlled mobius (no plant) with this method, and nearly hit toebius using the other torque in the same string! Very very excited by this new development.

[C-Fan]

Had a nice session today in Yoyogi. I`ve really been playing a ton lately, which I`m really happy about. Unfortunately, today was probably my last weekday session with Takumi, since school starts up for him this weekend. Still, it was really great playing with him a lot this summer, and I`ll still shred with him on weekends. Towards the end I really felt my spins improved, largely due to playing with him, and hopefully some of the advice I gave him will have a positive effect on his game as well.

Today`s session had a real good, laid-back feel. Yet again there was that heat that makes you sweat even when you aren`t doing anything, but somehow I didn`t mind it so much. Good turnout for a weekday session too; Hearts, Yama, Takumi and myself all showed up.

The session was a nice compromise between a shred and a skooling session. Each player would kind of ease between skooling a component, and playing normally. I gave lots of advice on frantic set to Yama, and he had a few good looks at it. I think he just needs to sleep on it a bit, and he`ll get it sooner than later. Hearts mostly played normally I think, but not much sticks out.

I spent the entire day skooling my gyro sets. I`ve noticed that lots of people who are good at spin tricks have 2 different types of spins. One type is used for spinning clippers, scorpions tail, and spinning whirl; the other type is used for mobius, vortex, gdlo, etc. Vasek and Takumi are examples of players like this. When Takumi does mobius, he leads with his arm, which lets him kinda stop after the initial spin and really spot the bag when it peaks. By watching Takumi do this, I started to figure out how to do this 'gyro' kind of spin. I used to do my mobii and vortex almost completely downtime, but I never had them very consistent, and I never could play out of them with anything interesting.

Today I continued my breakthrough from Monday, and really skooled this different style of spin. I was pretty happy with my results. Even when I missed moves, I still felt good, because I felt my form was good, and I was spotting the bag instead of chasing after it. I had lots of spinning highlights all day.

-drifter to mobius, but planted on the mobius.
-gyro pick up ending on inside, on purpose, first time.
-gdlo, no plant, both sides!
-mobius, no plant, both sides!
-vortex both sides, but planting on one side.
-vortex to torque, my second time playing out of vortex with something other than butterfly!
-mobius bsos, but planting on the second mobius.
-vortex bsos for my first time ever! But again, planted on one side. Still, real proud of this one.
-mobius bsos, no plants either side. That`s a milestone for me.

I also had some decent non-spinning surprises, like starting strings with both matadors. I also started a string with double switchover, then hit reaper with the other foot, and in the same string also hit double switchover back to back, which I hadn`t done in over a year.

Takumi was pretty consistent throughout, and is really throwing lots of mobii casually into his strings. It looks really good. He also hit void for the first time ever, and was real close on flipside. Lots of vortices today too. Spinning swirl, missed the bsos attempt. Surging far dyno, clean. Not a lot that really stood out, but his consistency and difficulty are so much higher than they used to be. Just a few months ago we`d give him props for gyro mirage, but now we can tell its a bail for him... or like when he does long spinning runs, sometimes he gets half-assed props, because he`s so good we know its easy for him. That in itself is prop-worthy.

I feel good I`m playing so much these days, because if things go well, my footbag talents may give me a cool opportunity next month, and I want to be in shape for that. More on that later if it pans out. Same fan time, same fandango.

[C-Fan]

Woke up this morning with my right ass-cheek feeling kinda tight. I obviously overdid it with skooling the spinning stuff yesterday, and my technique isn`t perfect yet. Sometimes this happens, when I`m still ironing out my technique with a new concept. Happened with frantic, but I picked that up pretty well, so hopefully this will also be a temporary setback on the way to me mastering a new technique.

Because my legs were kinda sore (ok, it was the ass more than anything), and because I knew Takumi wasn`t free today, I planned on taking the day off footbag. But then Yama invited me out, and I thought to myself:

1. I spent 3 years not being able to play with anybody else on weekdays, and before then, roughly 4 years not being able to play with people on weekdays. Now I`m in a situation where I can play on weekdays, so I owe it to my old self to play when the opportunity is there.
2. Its great weather out.
3. I can skool lightly.
4. Every add I put on my lavers makes me better.

So I ended up doing a 4 man session today with Yama, Taishi, and x+y. The session went OK. I`ve definitely been spoiled by Hearts` lovely Lon bag, but today`s bags were particularly bad. Normally Takumi or Tencho have a nice bag, but amongst the 4 of us today, there wasn`t a single bag I really felt comfortable with. That, combined with my tweaked muscle, meant a real easy session for me. I did a little skooling of spins, but the bags felt alien, so I kinda stopped early on. I got my foot on Jeremy O`Wheel`s challenge of mobius-pdlo, but no seal. I`ll leave that to a day when I feel better and have a good bag. I also managed to hit vortex to ducking butterfly again, which felt nice. Oh, and 14 drifters in a row.

X+Y had a real good day for shuffle. Stuff like blur-leg-ripwalk repeat (or something similar) and sumo to legbeater. I was sure he`d hit rubberman, but not quite. Very bothsided. Taishi played OK, but nothing really stood out. I pushed him to make his strings harder, telling him that if he`s top 6 in Japan, he should really lose the guilts, and straight up pass the bag if he has a toe stall error. Yama played very well I thought. He hit his first void ever, and sealed with a handcatch. Props! Pixie ss drifter for his first time ever as well. Most impressive to me however, was him guiltlessly bsosing smog. Nice!

I really want to play hard on the weekend, so I`m making a point to not play under any circumstances at all tomorrow... unless Takumi finishes his homework and invites me out to play.

[sampotter]

Ken - the trick to learning a really good gyro set has to do with where your feet are after you spin where you set. There's a way to sort of reverse the position of your feet when doing a gyro clipper (you of course spin half way) that results with a lot of balance after the spin. It's a lot easier to show than describe. I'll see if I can take a picture for you. It also helps to be very concious of the set. You can do gyro style (half spin) spinning clippers this way. I haven't played with Felix, but from footage I was always under the impression that this was how he did most of his spinning moves, including spinning clippers. Also, this style of spinning is the gateway into spinning ducking. However, a thing to bear in mind is that there are two styles of gyro, and the separation is closer to spinning clippers, butterflies, merkons, gyro clippers, spinning whirls, spinning ducking/diving whatever, void, etc. vs. gyro mirage, vortex, gyro pick-up, mobius, and the like. The distinction being whether you are actually doing a traditional gyro move or not. If you're doing an actual gyro move (ss no plant dex following) it really helps to do the gyro set with the bag set under your extended arm. This allows the bag to keep much closer to your body and there's a sort of flow that helps with these tricks. Hope some of that was helpful coming from someone who has been in the sport 1/4-1/5 as long as you.

And to stay on topic, your blog is the best!

[C-Fan]

Thanks for the tips Sam. And thanks to Max for the tips via PM. Both of your advice seems to support what I`ve learned from Takumi and Hearts... I just need to assimilate it a bit better, and let my body get used to it, but I think I understand the theory, and thats at least half the battle.

Ken Hope some of that was helpful coming from someone who has been in the sport 1/4-1/5 as long as you.

!

Yeah well, Vasek was better than most of the world after 2 years, and after 3 years he was better than anybody. Different speeds of learning I guess.

And of course, if I do make progress with gyro, I`ll be sure to write like a 6 page ramble about it here.

[C-Fan]

NOTE: This is a continuation of Day 3 of my Worlds Blog. It`s been a couple weeks since I`ve posted about Worlds, so you may want to read the last few posts of page 18, and the posts on page 19 to re-fresh and re-orient yourself.

Worlds 2005, Day 3, continued
Another major highlight of the day was the safe arrival of Team Japan. There was a Richter 6 quake a couple days before, and I read that there were delays at airports. I got a mail from Kim back home saying Team Japan was alright, but it was still a big relief to see them in person. Like last year, I help them at the registration table, and it feels good to help iron out little problems like exchanging shirt sizes, etc, that would have been more difficult for them without a translator. We run into a small glitch when Takumi can`t sign his waiver, because he`s only 15 years old. I end up signing in his stead, and when he gives me a "what was that all about?" look I tell him that he is now legally my son.
Takumi: ...
I made this a running joke throughout the week, buying him icecreams and such.

The day so far really seemed off to a good start. I woke up with no hangover from drinking with Team Russia the night before. My documentary shoot went well, and I got a free lunch out of it. I discovered a good Finnish candy bar. And Team Japan arrived safely and got registered. Then, a mixed blessing: Jere Vainika`s friend showed up with a basketball!

Since my job ended, I really craved playing basketball, and as I`ve mentioned before, it had always been a dream of mine to play team sports with other shredders at Worlds. Jere Vainika, Juho Marjo, and Sami (Jere`s tall friend) were in, and I immediately tracked down Arkady, whom I knew to be into basketball big time. We decided 3 on 3 would be best, so I went around in search of a 6th player, and Alex Strassman signed on. I felt like there was a bit of pressure on us, since we`re both from NYC, and I think we really rose to the occasion. Here`s a shot of us playing
http://www.kapsi.fi/~jfk/kuvat/worlds05_39_small.JPG
The ball was a bit overinflated, which affected ball-handling, but I didn`t mind because I think it encouraged us to pass more. We picked teams using rock-paper-scissors, which produced one team which was big and tall (Sami, Jere V, and Arkady) vs a short and skinny team (Juho, Alex and myself). As it turned out though, the teams were pretty balanced. We were lucky that the two best players (Arkady and myself) ended up on different teams. Everybody ended up having a real fun time. I felt like the game was always competitive, and that everybody got a lot of touches. Personally I was just really satisfied to get a few fancy passes in and a couple meanly effective crossovers as well I also have to say that I`m real happy that Ville`s photo shows me playing fundamentally sound basketball (boxing out on a rebound) instead of committing an obvious palming violation on one of my bogus crossovers. Respect to Arkady for taking on point guard duties on his team. He`s naturally a shooting guard, but has surprisingly good handles for a 2. Props to my team too for taking advantage of speed mismatches and always staying in motion.

The streetball game turned out to be one of the most fun moments of the entire week for me, and one of my best memories from any Worlds, but it came with a price. Doing all those crossover dribbles in loose socks and shoes produced the nastiest blister of my life, smack on the ball of my right foot! Not to get graphic, but a flap of skin bigger than a quarter came off, and the pink below it was tender to the touch. Right as I was assessing the damage, Vasek walked by and caught a glimpse of it, commenting" Maybe you can`t play tomorrow"

Indeed. In a credit to my mental game, I didn`t spend any time beating myself up for getting injured at worlds, a day before routines, doing a sport unrelated to footbag. Instead, I realized that the injury happened, and that all I could do now was figure out a way to minimize the pain so I could compete the next day. In a testament to the kindness of the international footbag community, a plethora of footbaggers from different countries chipped in advice and supplies to help me out. Max K (Germany) gave me some mole skin, Sergey P (Russia) gave me some medicated gauze, USK (Japan) gave me another medicated bandage with fast-healing properties, and Aron Tennant (Canada) gave me some wrap.

I used all these medications at the same time, made a point not to drink any alcohol, hydrated a lot, and went to bed real early. My plan was to stay off my foot entirely, and only play footbag for 20 minutes the next day: 18 minutes of warming up, and 2 minutes of droplessness to get me into semis.

[C-Fan]

Day 4
I wake up and immediately check my foot. Light pressure on the ball of foot produces... PAIN! OK, now I`m really awake. I got injured in a stupid manner, but again, I stay focussed in the moment and tell myself that all I can control now is my recovery.

I get breakfast with Team Russia. I`m happy that I`ve fallen into a breakfast routine, and that its healthy. Granola and yogurt. Rye bread sandwich. Juice. Make another cheese sandwich for lunch. I check the net and make a quickie post on modified, then head to the site. Big BIIIIIG props to the Worlds Staff for having the event site so close to all the major hostels, and in the same building as the host hotel. It really takes the pressure off, having the site so easy to get to.

I`m in the building pretty early, and stay in civilian clothes for most of it. I check the pools, and my pool looks decently easy. Even with my injury, I think I can make the cut to semis, but my foot still hurts enough that its not a given. About an hour later, the pools are re-shuffled, and I am really disappointed to see that Takumi is now in my pool. I really didn`t want to compete against any other Japanese players at Worlds, but I guess its better to do so in the 1st round than in semis. Having another Japanese player in my pool also makes me wonder if I have time to see their routine, but since its Takumi, I know I will. My pool has Oleg Donner, Ville Lasko, Takumi, Ondrej Skrabal, myself, Tuukka, and Jorden Moir.

I kill time by watching shred circles for a bit. I see Felix hit venom-double spinning osis-pdx torque. Pdx whirling swirl-spinning swirl-attempt at blurry whirling swirl. Karim Daouk makes stepping whirling swirl look easy, and when I tell him that, he replies: "because it is." Vasek plays a little bit. Scorpions tail-ripped warrior repeat to scorpion`s tail-superfly. Flurry-double over swirl-ripstein-flurry-double over swirl. Spinning mobius to food. Jorden hits fs jani to ps torque.

I watch a few routines early on. Peter Irish does a great routine with just one drop at the very end. I write in my journal: "Peter Irish: the only man in the world who takes 3 bags into a routine and doesn`t plan on dropping any." At some point I am walking by the judging table to get something, and somebodys routine music starts. I decide to stay where I am, so I don`t distract anybody or get in the way of any filming, and watch some Polish guy I never heard of start his routine. It starts off pretty well, and after 30 seconds or so, I wonder when he`s going to drop. He leaves me wondering... for the next 1 and half minutes! The routine is beautifully choreographed, and he fucking nailed it. First dropless routine of the tournament, and the crowd goes apeshit. I`m jumping up and down on my one good leg. Viktor Debski. First dropless Polish routine ever. I`m amazed at my luck. Had I not been caught unawares by the judging table, I likely would not have seen the routine. It turned out to be one of the most exciting moments of the tourney. Nice job!

I keep my eye on the clock and eat my sandwich one hour before I am scheduled to warm up. I really am sticking to my plan, alotting 18 minutes of warm up time, and no more. I sit in the bleachers and keep my leg elevated as I watch routines, making mental notes of what I plan to do. At 3:30pm, I start to warm up. I borrow one of Mosher`s felix bags, and I like it so much that I end up using it for every event I enter from that point on. I definitely feel pain in my right foot, but I tell my body that it only has to deal with it for 20 minutes, and I only have to totally shut it out for 2 minutes. This is World Champs, so if ever there is a time to step up, the time is now.

I take 2 minutes off from my warm up to watch Takumi compete. I give him some advice right before he goes on stage: Relax, try to have fun, and when its over, smile at the judges and crowd even if you fucked up. This is his first routine ever, not just at Worlds, and he`s going Open. That`s my boy! With 8 drops, I know he won`t make it to semis, but the important thing is that he really stepped up and tried hard. I think he hit spinning ducking clipper bsos? Great variety and good spins. I`m relieved when he`s done, because I was more anxious about his routine than my own.

I don`t watch the other routines in my pool, until I am called up. I have the 2nd seed, so only Jorden goes after me. I take a moment to savor it: `I`m at World Championships, competing for Team Japan, maybe for my last time. OK, let`s rock this shit.` I signal fr my music, and then proceed to do the best routine of my life. I hit my musical cues, I have a long run of consecutive fliers which the crowd likes, I feel on the beat, and I end on fog. When I handcatch after the fog, I beam at the crowd. I feel like yelling: "I didn`t choke!" It`s just a great feeling. The fact that I did it on a bad leg makes me feel like I`ve come a long way mentally from where I was last year.

I take off my shred gear and go elevate my leg again, and watch Jorden`s routine. When he drops 3 times, and his artistic isn`t that great, I get real excited: I had never won a pool at Worlds before. Holy crap, this gives me a chance at finals! A bunch of people (mostly open players) come up to me afterwards, congratulating me on winning my pool. It`s pretty clear to everybody that I won my pool. And by "everybody," I really mean "everybody except the judges." When they announce the results of my pool, I`m shocked to hear I got second behind Jorden. When I later tell Jorden he beat me, he`s equally shocked. I ask him if he`d mind if I posted both of our first round routines on modified to show the world how fucked up the judging was, and he says go for it.

Jorden`s routine wasn`t bad, but he acknowledges that he spaunched. Mine was just plain better. I watched both routines in Team Japan`s hotel room that night, and it just illustrates the travesty even worse. One of Jorden`s drops was a handcatch after a blurriest. I wonder how many judges mentally discounted the blurriest because of this? Gah.

I calm myself down, and tell myself: " I can only control what I do. I hit the best routine of my life. I hit the best routine in my pool. I cannot control judging." I know that I will have a harder time in semis, because I took 2nd in my pool and not first. That said, I still could have a shot at finals, so I calm down. Little do I know that the winner of my first round pool (jorden, as it turned out) would get a piss easy semis pool, advancing with Jere Linnanen (no other BAP level players in that pool), while I would end up in a pool competing against Jon Schneider, Tuukka Antikainen, Mikko Leppisto, Felix Zenger, and Peter Irish. This was the hardest pool in the entire tournament, and I wouldn`t be in it had I won my first round. So my reward for doing my best routine ever and getting robbed by the judges? Pool of death. That`s just plain shit.

I watch the rest of routines all day, and take it easy. Vasek`s routine is crazy, but it seemed like he hit lots of his big tricks "the." Quite a few other members of BAP enthusiastically concurred, and again I wondered: I wonder how many of the judges could tell that any tricks were `the`? Sebastien Duschesne... Yves... maybe Caro. Still, Vasek deserved to win his pool simply based on the fact that he went dropless, and nobody else was even close to his difficulty.

That evening I got dinner with Team Japan, to celebrate their safe arrival, and to give props to Takumi and Henmo for trying hard in Open. Oh yeah, and to celebrate my moral victory (I still didn`t know that I`d get pool of death in semis). Its my first time eating Greek food in a year, and its Takumi`s first time ever eating Greek food. I really think its great how footbag has helped Takumi see the world. Japan can be really insular... I know a ton of Japanese people who have never left the country. But thanks to footbag, Takumi has a swiss friend, has been to Finland, has eaten Greek, been adopted, etc.

After dinner, I take a shower in Team Japan`s hotel, and change the dressing on my wound. It really is nasty... I can`t believe I did a one drop routine on it. Thank you adrenaline. We watch some of the day`s routines, including mine and Jorden`s like 3 times apiece. Robbed. Plain and simple. While we watch videos, Henmo starts doing some chiropractic work on members of team Japan. This soon becomes WAY more entertaining than anything on TV. Henmo works on everybody`s knees and backs, pushing pressure points, cracking joints, and making people writhe in pain for 30 second periods, only to stand up a minute later and say: "heyyyy.... that feels SO much better!" It was great entertainment just watching the looks on peoples faces as they suppressed groans of pain... we all laughed a ton, until it was our turn.

Right then, Alex S. and Josh Benham knock on the door.

...to be continued...

[mohkale]

Awesome read, Ken! Congratulations on your routine, I saw it and liked it.

You know, you wouldn't have gotten Jorden's pool, even if you had won your pool. Surely, you'll pool would've been easier, but not the same. I guess you knew that, but whatever.

MAtti

[C-Fan]

You know, you wouldn't have gotten Jorden's pool, even if you had won your pool. Surely, you'll pool would've been easier, but not the same. I guess you knew that, but whatever.

tti

Really? How does that work? In any case, you`re right: I definitely wouldn`t have ended up in a pool with two other people who won their pool. Gah, Felix and Irish. If you surveyed most people at the tournament and asked who they thought would place in the top 3, I bet 90% would have had Vasek, Honza, and Felix in there. And Pete announcing that it was his last time competing at Worlds...

When I initially heard that I took 2nd in my pool, I tried to roll with it and not complain too much, because I knew there were people who got fucked harder by the judges that day. There was some veeeery questionable judging in the first round. Does anybody know how many times Ales Zelinka dropped in his first round routine? I counted over 12 drops. And he made semis. And Dexter`s routine was all dancing and drops. Again, does anybody know the number? Eight or nine sounds right. People in Dexter`s first round pool who barely missed the cut were robbed, straight up. To Dexter`s credit, his performance in semis totally earned him a place in finals. I just don`t think he deserved to be in semis in the first place. When I found out the next day that I had the deathpool of the tourney, then I got real pissed about losing my pool first round.

[quadgun]

yeahah! it was cool chatting with you man!

[C-Fan]

Saturday I didn`t shred, and instead played my first game of Ultimate Frisbee in like 4 years. It was a total blast, but I played in my lavers which slowed me down, since everybody else had cleats. It was cool though, cause it forced me to rely more on being tricky, `throwing` hammer fakes, etc. At one point, somebody commented on my shoes and asked: "do you play footbag?" That really surprised me. I did a little demo, and was asked to do a demo at some school festival for elementary kids, which sounds like a nice chance to expose kids to the sport.

Anyway, Ultimate was fun, but it left me a bit sore for the Sunday session. The weather also seemed to conspire against us, and there was lots of last-minute talk to change to a rain location, due to the ominous clouds. We decided to roll the dice though, and happily it didn`t rain at all during our session.

I walked to the pier, and when I was like 50 feet away, I saw Takumi sitting alone on one end of the deck, not 30 feet away from... Kim? Who was also sitting alone on the other end of the deck? Right at the moment when I surprised Takumi, he was sending Kim an e-mail on his phone, asking when he would arrive at the pier. Takumi has real bad eyesight, but Kim was equally oblivious, and had no good excuse.

It was pretty hot for the first hour, but that also seemed to be the window in which we all hit our best stuff. Yama showed up a bit after I did, rounding out the session at 4 people. It felt like just the right number of players for that day, and I thought we all played pretty well.

I hadn`t played with Kim in about 3 weeks, so it was nice to shred again with him. I gave him some tips on tapping dlo and flurry, and he was annoyingly close to both throughout the session. He`s hit flurry before, but tapping dlo would have been a first. It rolled off his foot at least 3 times, sooooo close. Yama had a pretty solid session. He`s trying to learn frantic, and I keep giving him tips, but hes not quite there yet. He`ll get it eventually... He did hit blurry drifter for the first time ever, real nicely. It seems like lately every time I play with him, he hits some new cool drifter trick. Good stuff. Takumi played real solidly. Had his foot on spinning whirl-mobius-pdx blender. He hit gyro diving osis-pdx blender solidly. I was most impressed though by surreal both sides, super duper clean. Its weird, he sometimes hits the surging version of tricks cleaner than the regular versions... He also is working on his 2 bag juggling, which I hope he starts to put in his routines. I explained to him how every trick he does while he has 2 bags, is worth 2x as many adds. So, when he does 2 bag juggling, every toe stall is counted as 2 adds, and a clipper stall is a 4 add trick. He looked shocked by this, and proceeded to hit toe ss motion with one bag on his support leg, and asked: "so that`s a 10 add move?" Yep.

I had a decent session. My frisbee legs caught up to me after the first hour, and I never felt like I was really in the groove, but I still hit lots of stuff I was happy with. In no particular order:

*Mobius to pdlo. This was a challenge from O`WheelJ, so I was glad to hit it. I think it`s also probably my first time playing out of that mobius with anything other than pdx mirage.
*Flurry to double switchover.
*Vortex to drifter, my third non-bop trick out of vortex.
* Started a run with mobius, then hit toebius in the same string using the other torque. Tried to go for mobius bsos but couldn`t.
*HPD first try. Hadn`t hit that in ages either, took everybody by surprise, especially me.
*vortex-ducking butterfly-blur
*Started a string with dod swirl, then pdx torque bsos, then finished the string with paradon swirl ending on the other swirl.
*gyro pick up bsos. Happy about this, because the second gyro pick up was my weakside, and I think my first time hitting that ever!
*Jawa to flurry!

After shred Takumi went home because his teeth still hurt from a dentist appointment the day before, so Yama, Kim and I went out to dinner. Usually, there`s a huge crew that goes to dinner after shred, which relegates us to going to the same Chinese place every time, since its the only place that can accomodate a big group like ours without a reservation. So I was pretty stoked to be able to go eat anywhere, since there were only 3 of us. We got dinner in Shibuya, and I had a few Awamoris (Okinawan liquor) which were really good. I don`t recall how, but the subject of Japanese music came up, which led to us talking about what we normally sing at Karaoke, and finally ended up with us going to sing Karaoke. I hadn`t been to Karaoke in a few months, and this was only my 2nd time doing karaoke with footbag friends, so I was real stoked about this. We sang for an hour, but since there were only 3 of us, it didn`t seem short at all. I was real proud that I sang half my songs in Japanese. Mostly Okinawan stuff. Yama is a really really good singer. I was also real stoked to hang out with Kim again. Kim`s one of the coolest people I`ve met through footbag, but even though I now live in Tokyo, I hardly see him. So it was cool to hang out again and catch up a lot. Good times.

[C-Fan]

Evening of Day 4, 7/26 Tuesday

When last we left off, Henmo was cracking joints and realigning spines in painful style, fixing Team Japan`s aching bodies, and making us all laugh at each other`s humorous facial expressions of pain. Then, Josh and Alex dropped by the room, and I headed out with them to figure out what to do for the evening.

This was indeed a difficult issue to resolve. There was a player party happening that night, but Alex is under 18, and I ruled out walking/dancing/drinking due to my injury. We sat in the hall of the hotel for a bit, when I thought to ask: "hey, do any of you guys have sore backs, knees, etc?"

As it turned out, everybody had a whole slew of maladies, so not 5 minutes after I`d left Dr. Henmo`s clinic (aka Team Japans hotel room), we were back in there, and Henmo was having me translate directions like: "lie on your back, hold your breath, and get ready for some intense pain in your groin area."

If Team Japan was laughing hard before, Alex`s reactions to pain was Chappelle-funny, and had us all on the floor. Henmo made Alex and Josh`s backs emit noises from the crypt, which were usually followed by surprised declarations of greater ease of movement, etc. I felt pretty proud that my translating held up pretty well, considering it was mostly vocab that I never use. I did give into temptation however, when Henmo was explaining to them exercises they should do on their own to keep their knees/etc in good shape.

Henmo, rotating his knees: " Before a shred, they should do this motion to get loose"
Me: "He says you should do this motion before shredding, as a way to get loose."
Henmo, raising his knee to his chest: "They should also hold this position, and really stretch it so they feel a burn at the joint."
Me: "You should also do this stretch, until you really feel it at this joint.
Henmo, pressing 2 fingers into the area where his groin and hip flexor meet: "and they should press on this pressure point until it really hurts"
Me: "Be sure to masturbate before doing these stretches, to relax your joints."
Alex and Josh:



We went outside the hotel, and saw a tram right outside, packed with footbaggers on their way to the players party. They all urged us to come, and there was a second there where I thought we might just spontaneously jump on. I love that about Worlds... so many friends, so many cool people, so many possible adventures that you can go on, and each small decision can totally change the complexion of your week.

As it turned out, we didn`t hop on the bus, and I ended up having one of my most fun nights of the week. We decided to go get icecream, but had no idea where to get any at 11pm. Although none of us were guests at the Cumulus hotel, we decided to ask the front desk for advice. For some reason I was skeptical that they`d have any good advice, but as it turned out, the young lady at the front was super friendly and helpful. She gave us good directions to a supermarket that was still open, and even gave us advice on what kinds of ice cream were best. We headed out and got ice cream, but had to ask for spoons, and got really weak plastic ones. As we were walking back in the general direction of the hotel, Alex`s spoon broke, so we thought: "hey, the lady at the Cumulus was real nice. Maybe she can give us a new spoon."

Though obviously not a real suggestion, we decided it`d be funny if Alex tried, and even funnier if he didn`t say a word and instead just went to the desk holding up the broken spoon and ice cream and having a `cry` face on. He actually did this, and to our amazement, she opened the restaurant and got us two metal spoons! That lady rules. Around this time we met up with Adrienne, an East Coast Shredita, and decided to play pass-the-pigs. The seating arrangements in the entranceway weren`t that great, so the lady at the front desk let us use a backroom, which looked like a bar that was closed. Sweet! We ended up playing pass-the-pigs there for a while, periodically harassing the lady at the front with ever more outrageous requests and telling jokes to each other. We thought it really funny that she was being so helpful to us, especially since none of us were even guests at the hotel. We decided the best punchline would be if at the end of the night, we all asked her: "hey, do you know of any good places to stay in town?" While I`m not doing a great job of capturing the atmosphere, trust me, it was a hilarious night. My sides and face hurt by the end after laughing so much.

At the very end of the night, Mosher and Matt Cross dropped by, and they also seemed to have had a great night, though I imagine much different from us. That sort of hammered home the "choose-your-own-adventure" nature of worlds with all its possibilities. I really love that.

We all went to our respective hostels around 5 am. In my case, I had to jump a fence and climb onto a balcony to get into Team Russia`s apartment. I felt really good about the day. I saw some good sideline footbag, I played through my injury and did my best routine ever, I hung with Team Japan, and I had a real fun night with some East Coast shredders, without drinking at all.

[C-Fan]

7/27/05: Worlds: Day 5

Wake up feeling pretty good. Automatically, my first action of the day is to reach down to my foot and give it a light squeeze. Yep, the injury still hurts, but it could be feeling better... in any case, the only event of the day is Sick 3, and that`s at 5 pm. Like the day before, I only plan on playing 20 minutes total. Warm up, compete, then take the rest of the day off in the hopes of healing for routines the next day.

I went to bed late, but I didn`t drink at all, which made the morning tolerable. The early sunrises and late sunsets have messed a bit with my head, but I know the important thing is that my muscles are fine. I go get breakfast with Team Russia, where we all congratulate each other on our surprisingly good routines the day before (Sergey went from like 5th in his pool to take 2nd. He used "push up" by the Freestylers, which effectively stayed in my head the rest of the week.)

Since there was pretty much no freestyle all day, I figured I should try and justify my trip to Finland with some sightseeing. So naturally, I went with the sight-seeing pros: Team Japan. Seriously though, I hadn`t really hung out with Team Japan as much as I wanted to, so I thought the day presented a perfect opportunity.

Initially it appeared that the weather would thwart our plans, as the skies opened up in the morning, forcing us to find shelter in a supermarket. I love supermarkets in other countries... you never know what jewels you may uncover. In this case, we ended up finding Muumi drinks, which had adorable labels. We each bought one, figuring we could take the empty bottles home as nice souvenir water bottles. We all agreed that the drink itself was pretty nasty, and wondered if our inability to read Finnish had resulted in the tragic result of us drinking Muumi blood, which as we all know, is excellent for fertilizing garden vegetables, but can be fatal in children under 5. Luckily however, Takumi survived. I`m kinda happy to be with Team Japan in a foreign country where none of them speaks the language. I think it may give them a feel of what my life in Japan can be like.

The weather graciously cleared up, and from there on out we had perfect tourist weather. We kicked the day off down at the pier, where the market and all the touristy spots are. We went to a souvenir shop where I was stoked to find a bunch of Muumi stuffed animals. There was a small size, which was about 10 Euros, as well as a bigger variety which sold for 20. I can`t control it, but in these situations my mind always calculates to see which is a better value, and I determined the bigger one was more Muumi for the buck, but I wisely decided to acquire the smaller Muumi. Easier to take home, and if I fed him properly, I could likely get him close to the other size in time. Takumi really liked my Muumi, and got inspired to get one of his own. Throughout the week we started pronouncing Takumi`s name Finn-style, to rhyme with Muumi: Takuuuumi.

The main goal of the day was to check out Suomenlinna Island. We had to wait a bit for the ferry, which was sweet, because it gave us time to get some ice cream and meet up with USK and Masa. Finnish dairy products really are excellent, every ice-cream I had was notably delicious. With Masa and USK joining us, it really felt like Team Japan was in full effect. On the boat there is much silliness and photo-taking, as well as much cringing from the wind. It`s summer, but damn if it doesn`t feel like late fall sometimes.

Suomenlinna Island is an island fortress which was built several hundred years ago with the dual purpose of defending Finland from foreign attack, as well as a greeting post/hospitality stand to welcome the Swedish invaders whenever they felt like taking over the country again. Seriously though, I did learn a ton from the signs all over the island, which were written in English and Finnish, and possibly Swedish as well. I translated a lot of what I read to Team Japan, which made me feel like one of those tour guides for those Japanese tour companies. The island was stunningly beautiful, and a little bit surreal. Here you would see a huge Church surrounded by decomissioned cannons, right by it you would see flanks of a fortress, and right next to that you would see... laundry drying in the wind? I thought it was pretty cool that the island isn`t just a tourist attraction, and that 800 people actually still live there.

We walked around a lot, and took a ton of group photos acting silly. My favorites were the ones where we posed like power rangers on a bridge. While there are lots of outrageous stereotypes about Japanese Tourists taking a ton of photos and being weird, I think just the 8 of us alone justified them all. At one point we found some overgrown bushes and undergrowth, and Takumi and I posed our Muumi stuffed-animals in there as if they were in the wild. We all took pictures, and I have to say, they looked pretty convincing. One Muumi looks like it`s caught completely surprised, while the other Muumi looks like its diving to safety into the bushes. For the rest of the week I`d get a lot of mileage by showing these photos to other footbaggers, who sometimes would be taken in, saying things like: "Holy shit, Muumi really exist?"

We took a break and got some pastries, which meant I finally got to eat some traditional Finnish food. Karjalan piirakka: Karrillian Pie. Nice in a non-threatening, bland kind of way. Though it was only 3 pm, I started to eye my watch in a nervous way, so we headed back. Somehow we managed to get on the wrong trams twice, but eventually got back to the hotel so I could get my shred gear and head out. Sick3 was scheduled for 5 pm, and when our tram missed every light on the way there, I started getting real antsy, and having to wrestle with my mental game to stay calm. By the time we got off the tram, it was 5:20 pm. Fuck.

Buuuuuuuuut... luckily Sick 3 was way behind on time, which meant I had enough time to change, and get warmed up nicely in circles before the comp was even announced! Lucky lucky lucky. I could still feel my foot injury, but I knew I`d be able to ignore it. Unlike yesterday, where I had to do a complete routine, today I just had to link 3 tricks together. So in practice circles I`d usually just warm up the componentsof my sick3, then pass. I warmed up with Sergey and Max from Berlin, which had a good vibe and calmed me down for the comp. Max really improved a ton since the time he came to Tokyo last year. He was footing: fury-smoke-gravedigger in the practice circle. Damn. When Sick3 started, I was like the 2nd to sign up, cause I hoped to go early and get it out of the way. They ended up doing pseudo-seeding however, which meant I was towards the end. I decided I`d go stay warm in a shred circle, and jumped at the chance to play with Paul Croenjaeger.

Here, I finally met Stefan Siegert, who was also staying warm for the Sick 3. Very nice game, I was especially impressed by how nice his frantic sets look. He was hitting a bunch of good sick3s in practice, but was unlucky when it was his turn. In practice though, frantic lo-pig-pixie butterfly swirl looked easy as nothing.

Finally, it was my turn to go. I was real excited about my Sick 3, cause I had practiced it for the last month, and it was getting more and more consistent up until Worlds. Ewalk-fog-toebius. I was really hoping to hit it first try, because I figured the last trick would really really surprise everybody. Toebius is rare, but in a sick 3? And who expects Somolinos to spin, much less do a hard toe spinning trick, much less in Sick3?