RipWalker - Post East Coasts

[RipWalker]

Haha, it was cool meeting you too bro! I hope to shred with you at some more east coast jams soon!

Saturday Continued...

Ok, so after Sushi... I don't really remember too much. I ate way too many rolls and was in a light coma. I remember scoring a free RedBull from a couple of chicks who were handing them out.

We headed over to Ben's place to chill for the night. Ben is such a chill dude -- thanks again for letting us hang and for being a great host! I sipped at a Blue Moon most of the night, despite sniping some of Hogan's 4Loco like a tool, and mostly just chilled on a beanbag chair in the corner.

After a while, a few of us decided to roll down to the party room for some shred. Unfortunately, the room was packed full of snobberish folk who had apparently reserved the place until "late." We kind of made due by shredding in the dimly-lit corner outside of the game room. At one point, the children's play room was investigated but it was quickly determined that the carpet was too spongy and that there were no light switches on the entire first floor.

As the night wore on, some more people trickled down to the lobby area. I think that was where Matt Cross's blender tutorial vid was filmed, as pointed out to me by someone who I can't recall. I had fun shredding with Doug (it was hard) and Nick who pointed out some things with my spinning (or lack thereof) and suggested some moves. I came very close to some clean Gryo and Spinning clippers which was cool -- and all thanks to Doug and Nick's awesome advice. Toolan joined us after a while and I hit Pixie Muted Same Dyno which they were trying for which felt good but only because I know that both of them are so much farther along in footbag than I am. I finally felt like I was able to shred at a level were others weren't consistently waiting for me to string butterflies and legovers. After that I strung some butterflies and legovers.

Eventually the game room emptied out but I was already wiped out from the earlier shred. I did get to enjoy watching John and Will play some ping pong and then played Will afterwards. I haven't played in forever so it was really cool to bring back some of the old tricks and techniques, etc. Soon enough we rolled back up to Ben's place and I was overjoyed to find that my beanbag chair was still vacant. I hit that piece up and watched the sick laser show that Ben was orchestrating. I think I passed out a few times because it was getting a little late... maybe 3:30 - 4 by then?

All in all, we ended up saying our goodbyes closer to 4 AM. It was a pain trying to wake up Bowler who had apparently passed out on the couch and was probably dreaming about Sweets. Hogan backhanded him a few times, though, and he was ready to go. The walk back was a bit sketch but we made it. We hit up a little deli that was apparently always open and I got a mad good ham sandwich. After that it was right over to Bruce's place where I promptly laid down and fell asleep.

Sunday later...

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

i forgot all about bitch slapping pete....

[RipWalker]

Ok, I'm interrupting this admittedly terrible write-up to bring you a few footbag related events in my recent past and future.

Firstly, on Monday night, I was able to head up to Syracuse, NY to meet up with Doug Tank and Pat Thompson. We shredded in a nice park for a bit until it got dark and then we moved over to an ice cream place where there was light (and a ridiculous amount of mosquitoes). I recall the following from the sesh:

Flip Pixies (hit a couple, which I didn't think I was capable of)
Flip Dimwalk
Footed Godzilla (Nuke Muted Dyno?) 3-4 times
Some mediocre strings with Butterflies and Legovers... and Dynos, Refractions, Ducking, Diving, etc. etc. blah blah

Altogether, I was a bit disappointed with how I played but it may partially have to do with the fact that my legs were already sore from a combination of footbag and ultimate frisbee. Ducks felt a lot cleaner; Doug even asked me if I'd been schooling those at one point (nice to see drilling pay off in the eyes of others too). Pat and Doug had some really nice, flowy strings with some sick tricks thrown in all over the place. I definitely enjoy both of their styles. I really appreciated their advice on my flip Pixies... it made me realize all the more how much playing by myself sucks.

In other news, John Schneider is stopping by tomorrow night on his way through NY and crashing at my place in order to break up his drive and, of course, get in a bit of footbag. Looking forward to the shred! It feels weird going from playing solo for the past... long time (outside of tournies, of course) to playing with other people twice in one week. I realize that this probably won't be the norm but it's a welcome change for sure.

On my plate for the future:

Drill Illusions on both sides
Drill ATWs and Double ATWs on both sides / both directions
Drill lots of flipside concepts including Refractions, Dynos, Pixies etc.
Drill Spinning and Gyro Clippers on both sides

I think focusing on the list above, while continuing to hone the moves I can already hit will really (hopefully) round out my game.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Super happy to see you've been drilling the basics. You really should add pickup and legover to the mix. Do every style of those tricks (toe op, toe ss, toe op symp, toe ss symp, clip near, clip far, clip far symp, clip near symp, and downtime) This will help more than you think.

Also, MARK BULL DOES NUKE!!??! Godzilla??!! W3333RRRDDDD!!!!

Hit that shit, you can do it. If you're getting a good enough nuke set, I know you can nail the dyno.

And yo, I'm really really sorry that you had to play with Doug Tank the other day. Are you alright? If you need to talk and get some things off of your chest, I can lend you an ear Lol Nah, jk Doug. Sick you got to play with Doug and Pat. Lern some cool weird shit from Jon S when he comes by. Hit Anchor!

PROPS on butterflies and legovers man, out of this world

Keep up that drilling dude. It'll get you far.

[RipWalker]

Brief update:

I hadn't been playing much until I heard about East Coasts. Realizing that a couple of years had already flown by made me wish that I was practicing more. That being said, I decided to up my training schedule to every other day (where possible). I've been sticking to it with the exception of a two-day break forced on me by other responsibilities.

Lately I've been really concentrating on streamlining my game (cutting out inefficiencies) and working on string length. Honestly, I've been seeing lots of progress and that, imo, is super valuable in footbag. From what I've seen written by other players, progress is the thing that can make or break a footbag career. I suppose it's a pretty fundamental concept that applies to many other activities, but when I see it in my own game it really brings it home.

Highlights (Last Few Sessions)

Longer, more controlled strings (no contact counts yet but ballparking 15-20 tiltless)
Paradox reverse whirls on both sides (PS reverse coming soon I hope)
Really working flip pixies -- paying off slowly
Whirls on both sides looking a little bit better
Spinning on both sides (brand new concept) starting off pretty well

Hopefully I'll have some less ambiguous highlights and perhaps even video to share in the future. Here's a question to anyone who reads this blog:

Pretty sure I'm going to East Coasts. Do you think that I should compete intermediate or open?

I'm kind of torn because I drop A LOT which has me leaning towards intermediate. I can, however, bust an occasional phoenix, blurry rev whirl, GYBAS, blurry refraction, reverse whirligig, etc. but I wouldn't be putting those in comp unless I went for an attempt as a first try in circle. Because I can hit some of those moves, I don't want to feel like I'm trophy hunting if that pushes me out of the intermediate category. I've asked some other peeps already and have mixed responses so let me know what you think!

Peace.

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

go open for sure if you feel comfortable.

If you think that your performance will be altered (especially for the worse) if you play open, then intermediate will be the more logical route.

I think you'll be good either way, its just hack brothah you got that rev gig in comps .

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Mark! Good to see you posting in here again...

As for competing... Some of my noobs are competing in intermediate... You would slay them for sure. So I would definitely compete in open... What's better, coming in first over kids that have been playing for only a few months, or coming into the lower to medium rankings of some highly talented professional players.

Let me share a little story:

At NYJ last year, I was still madd tiltless... tiltless record was probably barely 25, if that. I competed in open and in my circle was Seb Duchesne (sp?), Dante Diotellevi, and Matt Kemmer... They were tearing it up, and my strings were AWFUL. That circle really effected me. I was thinking about how pathetic my game looked that whole weekend... By the time I drove our crew home from Chicago back to PA, I realized... I don't wanna suck at footbag anymore!!!! So when I got home, I trained for a while and was so driven by Matt, Dante, and Seb... And by the time the next tournament rolled around... I was pretty much Guiltless.

tl;dr version: Competing in open can be really inspirational and beneficial to you in improving your game.

See you in the open circle at East Coasts

(No, seriously, I can't wait to kick with you and hang out again man)

[h0ag3yb3atZ]

What's better, coming in first over kids that have been playing for only a few months, or coming into the lower to medium rankings of some highly talented professional players.

yup. i would still do whatever you want, but what nick said coudent be more true.

[Outsider]

Disagree -- Intermediate category is not necessarily a category with a guaranteed win for some "kids that have been playing for only a few months". Intermediate is a category for anybody who is not yet ready to compete against elite freestylers.

How does one know when you should move on up out of the Intermediate category? There are several ways to judge, but one way is to actually come-out on top (or very near the top) of a large pool of intermediate competitors. If you have never won the intermediate category at a medium-to-large sized event, and you are not certain that you would simply be spanking the shit out of all the other players in that intermediate pool, than you probably belong in intermediate.

Years ago, I competed intermediate. I had been playing for about 3 years before I entered any sort of competition at all (there just weren't any freestyle competitions in Colorado in those days, and I didn't have a car or $$ to just go flying all over, otherwise I probably would have competed -- also, although I knew other freestylers with lots of competitive experience, I didn't really know what competition even looked like -- there was very little footbag video on-line in 1997). I competed Intermediate at the Southern Regionals in Dallas in 1998, and thought I'd win. I came in last. I learned a few things about competing. I kept practising. I entered intermediate again later that year at Funtastiks, and in the first round I finished somewhere in the middle. I had learned a little more that day, though, and refined my strategy, and was also just a little luckier the following day, and managed to take 1st place. I've competed in Open ever since. Both Intermediate competitions that I entered in 1998 were filled with players who had approximately as much freestyling experience as me, and just because I was arguably the best shredder of all those Intermediate competitors that weekend, that alone was no reason why I needed to go up against Noah Dubreuil, Greg Nelson, Peter Irish, Carol Wedemeyer, and Eric Wulff that day (Greg, Peter, and Carol all went dropless that day, and Eric, having had only one drop in his first ten seconds, still managed to finish 2nd. Carol won.)

I might have gone into Open category earlier, if I had started competing earlier... or maybe not. Part of what made me better at competing was things I learned by actually being in a competition -- Although I didn't know it at first, I could not have been well-prepared to compete without having had previous competition experience. So, I encourage everybody to compete as soon as they have the opportunity, to begin to learn those lessons as early as possible. But, even still, SHOULD I have moved up to the Open category sooner than I did? That is a tough question, because competition experience was only ONE of several things I needed to learn in order to compete better. In any case, winning a reasonably large competition was the indicator that I was looking for that I should move out of the Intermediate category, but, my next competition was AT LEAST one year later. If I had won Intermediate at Funtasiks that year and then had another competition the following month, I MIGHT have gone intermediate again... I remember watching my competition on that Finals round at Funtastiks and feeling sick -- my win was definitely not guaranteed, and maybe even not unanimous, and I clearly remember seeing some other Intermediate competitors doing some things much better than I did them... Even though I won, in some scoring categories I got spanked...

I think that unless one is a prodigy with skills that progress MUCH quicker than the average shredder, than everybody deserves a chance to be at the top of the Intermediate category before moving up into the Open category, where one may never manage to win again...

Intermediate competitors also deserve to compete against somebody better than themselves, to make the competition interesting, and to make a possible victory even better. Also, Intermediate competition shouldn't necessarily be won by the beginner player who is the least bad amongst the other beginner players in that pool. Intermediate category should have some players who are on the cusp, who are ALMOST ready for open, but not quite...

[RipWalker]

Sweet, thanks for the replies, all!

I'm still not 100% sure what I'll register for but I can wait up until the last minute to decide so I might as well make use of that time and see how I feel towards the end of this week.

Had a sick session (by my standards) yesterday at the tennis courts. Must be something about that playing surface or maybe it's just the fact that I'm outside in the fresh air.

Highlights:

Warmup string of 20 toe stalls > 10 ss clippers left side > 10 ss clippers right side > 10 osis b2b > hand catch -- felt real clean
Warmup of 50 alternating clippers > hand catch -- similar awesome feeling
10 ducking clippers b2b
Spinning clipper BSOS
14 alternating legovers
More control than any session prior (at least it felt like it)
Lawnmower kid mowing right next to me the entire time... BSOS

[Outsider]

Lawnmower kid mowing right next to me the entire time... BSOS

Lawnmower kid bsos? For real? NICE

Anyway, Yeah, at this point, I like your plan -- we are not yet certain who is actually going to compete this weekend, and who will enter Intermediate and who will enter Open... You can wait until Saturday, when we'll have a better idea of who will actually be competing in each category, to decide which category YOU should enter. Good plan.

Thats the thing -- you're SO on the cusp, that what category YOU should be in depends in part on who you'll be competing against.

If this was WORLDS, I'd say Intermediate for sure -- no offense, but I've seen guys better than you in Intermediate category at Worlds. On the other hand, the Intermediate category at ECFC will be nowhere near as big and as deep as at Worlds, and the Open category will also be nowhere near as big and deep as the Open category at Worlds, or even nearly as elite as the Open category at Funtastiks 1998... (Peter had already won Worlds 5 times, Greg Nelson had finished 2nd at Worlds, and was multi-time champ in Doubles, Eric Wulff HAD JUST WON WORLDS about 1 month earlier, and Carol, back then, was in a class all her own... Ah, good times...)

[RipWalker]

Thanks for all of the advice Jon, Nick, and Kevin! I decided to go intermediate and I'm happy with that decision.

In short, East Coasts 2011 was awesome -- I'm so glad that I was able to make the trip out to this one.

Highlights:

Seeing familiar faces and reconnecting with good friends from previous jams/tournies
Meeting new people including Nick's prodigies (no, not proteges) and lots of others whose names escape me
Meeting, competing against, and shredding with Jordan in intermediates
Meeting, learning from, hanging out with (and thankfully not competing against) Mark Monistere
Ripping on Doug S. Tank
Giving Jon his iPod back
Hitting first zooming sets... zooming clipper and zooming osis and footing zooming ducking osis
Winning 1st in intermediate routines and 2nd in intermediate circles
2-square at the hotel workout room
Smoked hefeweizen
Having a drink with Drew, Tristan, and Will and witnessing beer come out of the wall
Wicked good buffalo chicken pizza

I may edit this post with more as it comes to me. Thanks to everyone who put the tourney together including Jon and Ted (and the other guy whose name I can't recall)!

Looking forward to playing as much as my body will allow. For now I'll to take a few days off to let that after-tourney soreness die down. Peace.

[RipWalker]

Haven't posted here in a little while. I haven't been playing as frequently as I'd like but I decided to have a session the other day and I'm glad I did:

Three firsts:

Terrage
Pixie Drifter
Spinning Butterfly

Session felt good overall -- definitely ready to get back to a schedule.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

SMOKE?!?! Sick man. I've never even seen you hit Drifter! haha Props on this! And the others are great too. Glad you're gonna start playing again I intend on keeping up with your future game. (Remember... BOPBOPBOP)