Nick "Houdini" Polini

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Just had a pretty cool sesh with Drew Krause. He's been infected by the drill fever too. I suggested to him to drill symp legover and he said he plans on that tomorrow. About an hour long tonight.

Highlight:

Flip Vortex (first time)
Pretty damn stoked on these links: Blur> DLO> Toe Whirl bs. I want to turn this into a repeat combo soon. I'm still super amped that DLO is now a bailey trick for me that is hard to miss.
Toe DLO x3 bs (What I mean is DLO> DLO> DLO... Is this the correct way to say I hit 3 in a row? I still haven't completely mastered the notation )
Spinning Osis x4 (Again, b2b)

Drew thinks my Shredinator Pack makes me look dumb... MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. So happy I bought that thing.

I'm gonna go wash my Quantums. If a child smelled them, he would go stupid for a minute. It's pretty disturbing...

GOOD THING I OWN ANOTHER PAIR OF QUANTUMS! HUAHUAHUAHUA!!!! So I plan on drilling more after I rest my legs for a bit and do some things around the house.

[Drew]

WHOA! I never said it looked dumb! It's cool actually, I'm just preferable to vertical bags with fewer straps. Actually, first impression of that bag is that it would be perfect for carrying around discs for golfing

Props btw on tonight, I'll hit you up n see if you want to kick tomorrow for a bit

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Haha It's all good dude. Speaking of disc golf, we need to do that sometime. I've still never tried it. Also, you def gotta come kayaking with me sometime soon. And thanks for kicking with me tonight. Was a downright fun sesh. Gotta do those more often. It's great that we live like 2 minutes away from each other. You should come drill with Bob and I tomorrow night. We make it fun, so it's not boring repetition and hardcore as hell. You're a great shred partner, man. I really enjoy our duo sessions. They've all been a lot of fun. But yeah, hit me up after you get off work tomorrow and let me know if you're down for drilling with Bob and I.

[RipWalker]

If you do get a chance to play disc golf with Drew, make sure that you throw one of his discs into a deep, muddy river. I heard that Doug Tank did that one time at the jam that you hosted... that kid's such a miscreant.

P.S. - Props on the highlights in your recent post (and on the shred pack)!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yo thanks Mark! Much appreciation, home slice!

Today, I was helping my grandparents out and I was washing their windows for them. While, in the middle of window washing, a Daddy Longleg crawled by me. I looked left... I looked right... No one was watching me...

Legover> Legover

Shut up, he ran away after I hit it. He was fine. I think he actually enjoyed it.

Anyway, that was my first footbag experience of the day...

Tonight, I drilled with Bob again. We took the grunge-ass carpet off of the concrete where we kick and it was so much nicer of a playing surface. We vacuumed up all of the dirt underneath, then Bob told me to sweep up the rest of it. I swept it up, but Bob didn't feel like getting a dustpan out, so he just kicked it right back into the corner where I swept it from lol We always have a fun time at the shred barn. Anyway, once that was settled, we drilled the entire session, aside from a bit of freestyle near the end.

Highlights:

Best guiltless run of my entire life. Dense, 15 or so contacts, about an even number of 3's and 4's. For the first time in footag, I felt control of the bag. My game feels like it's in slow motion, as of recently, in the best way possible. Rather than me having to exert energy and reach out for another trick, it usually just falls where it needs to be. Exciting.

Pretty deeply dexed eggbeaters bs within a few tries. I don't usually hit eggbeaters, because I usually exert so much energy while dexing, but now, it's a pretty effortless trick... Kinda like DLO.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I asked Bob to give me something to end the session on, and he said "Drifter> Whirl> Torque" Got it BS

I might be having a lunch-time drill sesh with Bob tomorrow.

I like where this drilling is taking Bob and I.

[sen]

Drilling seems to be really paying off! I'm going to start drilling more. You inspire me dude.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Hey Tony, thanks man. I really smiled when I read that I inspire you. That's one of my biggest footbag goals. I wrote it on a piece of paper I hang on my wall. "Inspire Many", along with "BAP", "Have as much fun as humanly possible", and "Be as creative and weird as you can with strings". It's great I'm getting a head-start on the inspiration part. Inspiration is the key to footbag, in my opinion. I've been inspired by SO MANY players, and I've always wanted to return the favor. You just made my night by saying that. Thanks again man.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Today, I had a lunchtime drill sesh with Bob. He's almost through with his 1 adds 10 more on each side to go and he'll have done 100 bs of every 1 add on the list. I've been cruisin through my 2 adds. Can't wait til Bob is on 2's with me... actually tomorrow. Nothing really to write up about, except that we drilled and had a smashing time doing it. Oh and Bob finally got those new mats for the barn he was talking about. They weigh 100 lbs each and they're super grippy. Perfect for footbag. They're horse mats actually. We kicked in the barn while his kids played on a slip'n'slide in the yard... Later when we finished the session, Bob joined his kids and he slipped and slid. It was funny watching him do that because he slammed into the tide pool at the end of the slide lol The Riefers have their yard HOOKED UP. It's like an amusement park for the kids. Moon Bounce, Slip'n'slide, jungle gym. I was telling him that he could open his yard up to the neighborhood kids and have his own amusement park... But then I realized this would be a bad idea when I thought of what it would be called... "Riefer Park". Teenagers would soon start to show up on Bob's porch with lit spliffs.

Highlights:

Zooming Osis x13 Strongside / x6 Flipside
Legbeater> Barrage

After Bob's I came home a kicked with Jackson. We just freestyled and experimented with stuff. His knee is getting a lot better. I just told him to hold off on whirls and other whirling tricks for a while. No real highlights for this session except I hit Godzilla again and I footed Witch Doctor like 4 effing times.

Drill session with Bob tomorrow morning at 10. Dag.

EDIT: Blah blah blah, I'm a ding-dong and will be continuing my blog.

[g00d33]

Just so you know, I enjoyed reading regardless of what you blogged about! Good luck with drilling! You got this!

[The Rhino]

and I read your posts. maybe I just don't reply a whole lot. I just watched lake Ontario Shred. pretty dope.

[sen]

Hey dude,

If you think your blog is boring, what is mine? "I did power 90 today." >rpt x 80.
I vote you should keep recording because a few of us enjoy reading it and one day you'll enjoy reading it too.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

So after all that talk of putting my blog on pause for a while, I've decided against it for a few reasons. Some of you guys pm'ed me and said you really enjoyed reading my blog and that I shouldn't stop. Some of you guys who posted above, said flat out in my blog that you enjoy reading it. And a few of you guys even said that I was an inspiration to you. I thought about these things for a while and I put myself in someone else's shoes. If someone I look up to, like Schneider had a blog, and I loved reading it, then he stopped one day, I'd be pretty upset. Now, I'm no Schneider and definitely no one special in footbag, but I feel like this might be the same or similar feeling some of you guys must have gotten when I said I was going to stop blogging. Bob, John, Tony and Paul, thanks for talking some sense into me.

So anyway, I'M BACK! WOO! ALRIGHT!... Now what? Guess I should blog, huh?

TODAY... I DRILLED (Boy, that'll never get old )

Bob FINALLY finished his 1 adds and is now on 2 adds with me!!!! 100 times bs for every 1 add! Eff yeah, Bob! You da man! After Bob finished off his last 10 of every trick, he'd say something like "Fuck you, 100!", "Eat it, 100!" or even just "WHORE." His first one really took me by surprise though. "Boom! Take that, 100!" It was good enough to make me spit the Cheerios that I was eating into my hand and hold it over my mouth for a solid 20 seconds, in order not to choke on them or puke.

Bob hit his first Cloud Delays, Dragons, Double Spins, and Inspins today. So awesome, I was madd hyped for him. Doesn't sound like the Bob you know, does it? Yeah, he's not gonna be the same Bob you used to know when we finish these drills either. Bob's game is looking better and better every day.

Bob's wife is really freakin awesome for letting him play as much as he's been. I think she understands how determined we both are.

In other news, my illusions and bubbas are finally getting cleaner. Bob helped me realize that you don't want to circle the bag, you just want to get in front of it and hook the heel underneath. Along with this tip, Bob and I realized with each new day of drilling, we're figuring out different trick tips and helpful analogies for every trick we do. As of today, I started to keep a log book of these and when we finish drilling, we plan on releasing them as a whole. We named it "Bob & Nick's Get Sick Quick Tips". Rolls nicely off the tongue like a wet jellybean coated with KY Jelly. Ew. Surgeon General's Warning: Coating your jellybeans in KY Jelly is gross, kids. Just don't do it... That really would be a good way to get sick quick... Anyway, we've been coming up with these tips for a while now, but just thought of logging them today.

Another cool thing that made me feel like I was improving... When Bob got to Double spinning and Inspinning, he asked me to coach him. It's great, Bob and I coach each other now, rather than him coaching me 100% of the time, like when I first started. Once I gave him a good idea of how it should be done, he picked both up relatively quickly. It was fun seeing Bob hit hit first double spins and inspins. A few more tries of both of them and he'll have the technique down to a science. He's been a good spinner for a while now, and I had a feeling he'd be decent at both of those.

Ok, my blogger is all blogged out. I could talk about footbag all day and that's one reason that I'm so glad Jackson lives right next door to me I'm gonna see if he's down to watch some shred videos now. I might go kayaking later today too.

Oh yeah, that's one more thing... John Goode just bought a kayak and I'm driving up to Jersey with my kayak and my shred gear and we're gonna do some kicking, then go kayaking in the river next to his house. Should be happening sometime this week. Super stoked on it. Should be a lot of fun.

K, well, it's good to be back

Shred away, bishes.

[The Rhino]

Now that you've posted, I'll drill till I'm not Ill.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Just had another experimental/drill session a little bit ago. Pretty stoked...

Highlights:

I KINDA hit Blurriest. It was really thin. I'm not actually counting it though. In other words... I didn't hit Blurriest. Sick...
Pdx Mirage> Dimwalk rpt x5 !!! And I was like "Fuck yeah".
My greatest accomplishment of the session: Gyro Butterfly b2b no plant. Felt like Lon for a second! This was Bob's challenge for me so long ago and I finally got dat ass!
Symple Dustpan I have a feeling no one has ever done this, because Jon Schneider and James Roberts are really the only person who mess with dustpans a lot... oh and me. I do them exactly like Jon now, it feels great... and really weird. There are probably more... This trick has probably been hit lol

Well, Jackson just came over my house with a beer, singing the "fat people eat broccoli song". That usually means he wants to play footbag, so I'm gonna do that now... again... for the 3rd time today. And he's just given me a beer too. Word.

[landon palmer]

Whats a dustpan? if its what im thinking of you should see if you can get your hands on some james roberts footage he dose these HUGE dustpans (if its the trick im thinking of :p)

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yo Landon, A dustpan is when the bag is on your toe then it goes behind your other leg and transfers to the other toe. Check out this VIDEO. Jon S does like 3 in a row at 00:30. Do you have any footage of James Roberts? i'd like to check it out.

Anyway, just had one last session of the night with Jackson... Only one highlight, but the highlight is the highlight of my day!

Highlights:

Blur> Dimwalk rpt x3 !!!!!!!!! I yelled really loud when I hit it and my neighbors looked at me funny. Fuck them! I hit Blur> Dimwalk rpt x3!!! I was stoked that rpt x2 was just about every other try too.

Oh yeah, while I was kicking solo earlier, these gangsta-ass 13 year olds walked by me and were like "OH SHIT, NIGGA! You're like the Last Zohan!" I got a kick out of that. They were pretty amused by the freestyle for a hot minute, then they went off to do some gangsta-ass 13 year old shit. While I'm on the topic of remembering stuff that already happened, Jackson hit his first Pixie ss Clipper yesterday and got SO close to Blur today.

I gave Jackson a lot of good chunks of scrap fabric so he can start stitching his own bags now, since I rarely stitch and have a good excess of fabric that I doubt I'll ever use. He's pretty stoked on that. He hugged me... Twice. No homo. Now he and I are gonna chill at my place and watch footbag videos like we do pretty much every night!

BYE!

[landon palmer]

yeah that's the move I was thinking of. I cant find any vids for James but it sooooo sweet when he dose it his body's nearly parallel to the ground I will have to get a clip next time we have a jam down here in TX.

[DTank126]

Hey so I'm curious, in your quest to conquer the basics and hit everything x100, is it all consecutive? Like, say you hit 97 mirages then drop, do you start back at 1 until you get all 100?

Or is it more marathon style where you hit at many mirages as you can until you drop and then immediately pick up where you left off until you get to 100? Like, mirage x15>drop>mirage x17>drop>etc. up to 100 contacts.

Anyway props on the new tricks and drills. I'd love to see a video of symple dustpan. Sounds dirty.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Landon: Can't wait to see his footage. Sounds weird as hell... I like weird as hell.

Doog: Sorta like marathon, but not quite. What we're doing is going through a huge list 1's, 2's, and eventually 3's, 4's, 5's and so on and hitting ten of them a day. so for instance, tonight will most likely be 10 mirages bs, 10 illusions bs, 10 legovers bs, 10 pickups bs, etc... until we get to 100 on both sides. We can already feel the benefits!!! My post tonight will be proof And thanks for the props on my shtuff. I'm about to shuffle on over to your blog in a minute, for I saw it has been molested by a new post of your's.

So, today I helping my grandparents out and while I was working, I saw half of a hummingbird laying on the ground... It was so beautiful, yet so grotesque at the same time. It really made me think... Dead stuff is gross.

Anyway, that was the highlight of my day, non-footbag related...

I had some awesome highlights of today that WERE footbag relatated!

Highlights:

Spinning Ducking Osis> Spinning Ducking Osis from strong side!!! My 3rd 5> 5 link!!!
Spinning Ducking Osis> Spinning Ducking Osis from flipside!!! My 4th 5> 5 link!!!
Spinning Ducking Osis> Spinning Ducking Butterfly from strongside!!! My 5th 5> 5 link!!!
Spinning Ducking Osis> Spinning Ducking Butterfly from flipside!!! My 6th 5> 5 link!!!

Also hit another symple dustpan, so I'll try to tape that for you sometime, Doog.

So I pretty much just knocked out 4 new fearless links in about 45 minutes. That was so exhilarating. Can't wait to start linking more up!

So far the fearless links I've hit are:

1 & 2: Mobius> Mobius bs
3 & 4: Spinning Ducking Osis> Spinning Ducking Osis bs
5 & 6: Spinning Ducking Osis> Spinning Ducking Butterfly bs

I've done them all on both sides. I think I want to keep this going. I won't try a fearless link, unless I know I can hit it starting from each side. I just feel like this would be a good way to go about fearless.

Anyway, going to Bob's in a little bit to drill. Jackson's joining us. HYPE!

[Corey]

Your fearless links are retarded. There are so many easier fives than spinning ducking butter and mobius! Can you hit gyro diving? It is just as easy as spinning ducking if not easier. Cant wait to see this symple dustpan. I can only picture a "flying dustpan" type move.