The Darkshredder's struggle

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 10 Mar 2005 20:43

Pat's back at the footbagging after about two weeks of no kicking. Didn't do too bad. No strings though. I'm serious. No strings AT ALL. Oh well. Steve, Aric, and Matt were all doing really well and it's always a pleasure footing the bag with them. Here's the highlights:

1) Pixie diving clipper
2) The cleanest paradon, terrage, and datw I've ever done. Not in a row by any means but they were there at their own points. And it was fun.
3) Two spryo clippers back to back first time pretty comfortable.

Got a few pointers on fairy and I'm going to skool pixie a lot more now that I'm back on the footbag level. . . Well. As soon as this weekend is over and next week is over. Then the real playing shall begin. It's just I'm a little bogged down with stuff. But I'll try.

Heh I forgot to try that anti-paradon I thought about. Oh and the four of us played for all these jugglers I've been noticing (it's a class for a gym credit) and they were really really impressed. First time any of them have seen Matt play and they were blown away with his style. One of them is a guy in my Rhetoric class and he was quite interested in playing. I won't see him till next week though but he said he'd definitely try it out. . . Well he's a little late but better late than never. Maybe he can attach to the RFA as I'm leaving. I'll get his screen name and get in contact with him ASAP and then slam him in the face with flipsider and the headquarters of footbag. It'll turn out alright. You can get pretty good in the spring in no time as long as you practice a LOT (a lot more than I did

) .

So that's my long-winded blogging for the day. I'm heading out now to get some essay writting down and then crash in front of the TV for a while. We played for like four hours. I'm thirsty. I need bad television to make my legs forget footbag for the night. Just for the night. wink.

RFA rocks. I love footbag once again. I'm one-sided and a slow learner but HEY I love it. That's all that matters.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 12 Mar 2005 22:35

Well I didn't want to post so soon after the last one but so many things have just struck me about footbag and I wanted to just throw them out:

1) I'm really excited about this idea that I have for a video that I can make for me, a Syracuse player, Greg Pestillo (The Original Illusionist) and my old "hack" buddies who are still in high school. I've got all these nice creative ideas swimming around and now I just have to contain myself so that I can just bust out with the video when I go home in early May.

2) Man it's going to be good to see Greg again. I really hope he's still playing. He's never online and so I've kind of lost track of where he's at. I think he was a little bummed that I was getting better than him. This I feel really bad about since he was my mentor for like three months when I started to play. He taught me soo much and I'd hate to see him just up and go from the footbag scene. He had the enthusiasm. And man did he have style. As far as tiltless players go he was Peter Irish, with such control and innovative and unique combos that would just leave you like, "Wait what? Paradox illusioning inside stall?" (that was his favorite and he could do it EVERY TIME) Greg was the man. He still is actually. I just hope he's stuck with it so I can show you guys something on my video. I'll make him steal the show.

3) I guess I'm just thinking back to my circle kicking days when I would check on Hackrifice.com and watch VOTDS2 before and after school. Erik, Andrew, and Derek were GODS to me (still are). But I just read Erik's blog and it seems almost like the club is breaking up. Andrew might be leaving the forum? Erik's injured and playing Morrowind (a very VERY good game)? No one has heard from Derek? This is very troubling to me. I don't really like change all that much. And especially hearing things die down with them. I never got a chance to meet any of them either. I mean there's time. . but I don't know. With my luck with competitions (or lack thereof) who knows. Not me.

4) On a lighter note, FOOTFIGHTER is coming! Just in time for the Little Piece of Crap is being a little piece of shit and is hiding from me. My roommate isn't helping any with his layers upon layers of brown and light brown clothes (same as the bag) all over the floor. My abshire mini is still very rolly. I guess this is alright. It'll come in time. I'm not giving up on him yet. When it DOES choose to break in, it'll be amazing. Or it'll give me lead poisoning. Whichever.

5) I should probably start eating better too. I just had a thing of reese's pieces and I ate them with speed and precision that amazed me as well as made me sad. They were good though. Over-priced. But good.

6) I want to dye my hair green.

-The End-

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 27 Mar 2005 17:54

aw. I was left to page 2. oh well. we're back at it and the world wide interweb is working. My theory still holds true: "it's no wonder I made NO progress in Syracuse. . . THERE"S NOWHERE TO PLAY! And no ambition." It's like syracuse has some sort of anti-footbag vibe going on. It even has sucked the footbagginess from my two other fella-s I played with, Greg and Paul. Greg fell to the power of xbox (. . . ) and Paul to the power of smoking weed and working for a college. But I did shred with greg and he's still awesome. He enjoys my bothsidedness and my grifter attempts. He also hit legbeater again. . . after two months of not playing he can still hit legbeater with no effort. He didn't know what it was. Awesome.

So yeah I'm back to footbagging (again) and I'm feeling pretty good about my string length after that mall shred with greg. I had some nice stuff. An example? K. . Like this: reverse guay > butterfly > pdx mirage > osis > infinity > infinity > ss mirage > double overdown and maybe one more legover or illusion or something to that nature. Good stuff. I also incorporated my osis-set spinning butterfly (it looks like a frigid osis but it's not. I know. I just can't crank my ankle to freeze the osis just yet.) ah yes. I also showed him a ripwalk. He enjoyed that. My stepping set has vanished again due to my two point five week lack of footbag. All will be well again.

Ah yes and I've had two more exciting arguments with my parents about footbag and I think I've settled them down for good. They just need some good verbal cattle prodding. I like the cattle prods.

K well I've unpacked back at the Nazareth and now I need to figure out my assignment situation for the next few weeks before THE SUMMER. Hurray for warm weather.

watch movies made by Kevin Smith. Later.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 29 Mar 2005 18:54

well I've had a crazy night so far for footbag. Here's how it went:

4:30 - 6:00 - footbag session with Matt and Aric and did poorly compared to my shred with Greg at my mall. Still had fun.

6:00 - 8:00 - go back to Nazareth, realize I don't have my key or card and then find out that my roommate (who frequently locks the door and then leaves for long periods of time) is gone. Not cool. In long shorts and holding onto my video camera case I did a swirl. . So I wanted to play more. So I went into the kitchen area on my floor, peeled off my over-shorts and drilled a little bit, trying to beat my conseq clippers and infinities and so on. Fun. I was tired.

8:00-9:00 - I was thirsty so I decided to walk all the way to the cafeteria to grab something for lunch/dinner. But then I realized I didn't have my card. No deal. So halfway along the way I realized I was in a nice open space (O'Connor Hall Commons) and decided to drop my wallet and shred. Very fun session. Did strings I wish I could have done earlier at the real session. Some new stuff. inspinning clipper bs, ducking clipper bsos, and this thing that's kind of like a half turn. You set it from a clipper, backspin, then clip it with the other foot (not osis though). Not sure what that is. According to my old circle kicking trick sources I seem to remember that being called a probing clipper. Either way I did that both sides. I also thought of a "stylish 3" - infinity > ducking clipper > spinning osis . . . Almost did it. Couldn't hit the spinning osis on command. Wrong side.

9:00 - 9:40 - Went to the securitites office and asked for them to send an RA up to open my door. I didn't know that they could do this. So I was a little upset but a little not since I played more footbag and I didn't get to play enough at the 4:30 session. She came up and unlocked my door and I sit here before you a very weary-legged, yet pleasantly satisfied footbag player. Now I'm going to submit this and eat something. There's still a lot of easter candy I can have for dinner. . . Mmm. Reese's Eggs.

Oh and I suppose I'll do some homework too. Pff. meh

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 30 Mar 2005 18:14

quick shred to get two new moves on video for my old circle kicking friend, Nick. Mission Complete:

1) Merkon (looks really cool on slow mo on the video)

2) Barrage (very clean and deep dex)

oh yeah. Also I broke my infinity record- up to 9 very easy, clean infinities.

mc · Post by mc » 31 Mar 2005 06:47

pat, the half turn clipper you describe is a gyro clipper. Good move, I need to do more or those.

Good kicking story after the session the other day, sorry you were exiled. Did you ever find your stuff? Keys? Card? where were they?

Props on the infinity record. Your playing was looking better the other day, keep up the work.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 31 Mar 2005 12:59

Thanks. Yeah I'm trying to work on string lengths and by doing so I'm trying to clean up some style problems I've got. I think my main problem is that I try to do too many 3's strung to 2's too quickly and I don't take that extra half second of the stall to think about my next move. It's all impulse right now and that means there's less room for error recover. . . So I make many stupid mistakes. Chris Dean first brought this to my attention when he asked me some time ago how many contacts I can get just going almost purely tiltless. I've never done that since I don't do strings just tiltless. Pretty sure I never have since I learned to butterfly before I could clipper well enough (which is still why I like to set from a butterfly for spinning or ducking or other more complicated tricks like that). . Just one of those crazy Pat "what the hell was that about?" things about my game.

Yeah I got back my card and key. I knew where they were. Behind the locked door on my desk. Everything was all good. It just took two hours to do something that could've been done in 10 minutes. These things happen. To me.

I've got a whole bunch of work to do that I've got to start as soon as I submit this but I'm going to kick after that so I may come back for a post if anything cool happens. Like merkon or paralax bs or something. Maybe I can skool double dexing with the right leg. Flip paradon? Hmm. Ah yes and I'm going to work on some stepping too. I keep forgeting that I can do it now.

. l8r
---
K well I don't want to start a new post so I'll just say I didn't do anything. I went outside, hit another barrage, realized my right leg is 56% good at double dexing. Then I played with the local stoner hippy guys who don't kick with me. Fun times. They're good. Too bad I'm transfering or I'd force them into footbag. C'est la vie. C'est le petit chien qui est dans ma bouche. Mmm.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 03 Apr 2005 19:27

Nothing new. Had a really fun lone shred session at a mall where I entranced a small child and he cried and pounded the ground when his mother tried to pry him off his sitting position. But I didn't play today because I was thrown off by this Spring Forward time change. So I woke up and had to deal with Knights of the Old Republic II-not-working. Then I did homework. Then I returned KOTOR2 and got another star wars game so I could quench my desire to slice open people with a lightsaber. I like lightsabers. So yeah. No footbag today.

I also bought the album from Propellorheads, whose music I've been saying forever is ideal for footbag. So now all I have to do is buy new D batteries for my stereo and then I can let the beats flow. For all those who are looking for new music to play to, I whole-heartedly recommend Propellorheads.

short highlights of the past three days:
1) reverse guay > ducking butterfly > pdx illusion > tiltless string.
2) terrage > butterfly > far osis > infinity > tiltless string.
3) far refraction > far osis > zooming clipper(it's zooming, right? osis straight into something inspinning?) > drop. aww.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 05 Apr 2005 20:13

Nice session today. Worked on some inside kicks and toe kicks. It was just such a nice day but I had no shredding shorts on and no sandman so I pulled out my really tight and filled mini and decided I should make it all nice and broken in. It'll be a long process I have a feeling but this one won't be tampered with like my last one, which is still in the process of breaking in after about two months. . . After these past two days of good light rolling in the hands and two hack sessions with some fellows I know my bag is starting to act weird. Some panels are getting bigger while others are staying very small. Same deal with my "good" mini except the panels are more sparatic in this one. So I have decided to call it Lazy Eyes due to its abnormality and because I'm fond of that name as a nickname.

Ah yes and I also threw it at a squirrel (I'm in a neverending war with the hundreds of squirrels on the Nazareth campus) and almost hit it. Then after it was shocked, it ran after the bag and picked it up, thinking it was food (mini). In a mixture of amusement and hate, I chased the rodent a few feet before the burden of the abshire was too much for its little head to carry so it dropped ol' Lazy Eyes on the ground and "scampered merrily" up the tree. And that, my friends, is my squirrel story of the day. And however unbelievable and random it may seem. . believe me. These little punks run this town. They think their squirrel chatter is gospel and that the slightest little swipe of their tiny arms will change the world.

Aric has given me a challenge: simple butterfly back to back and I have given myself two challenges: to hit flail and to hit a flipside whirl and then bsos it ONCE AND FOR ALL. More to come as events unfold.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 07 Apr 2005 16:56

Poor session - came sooo close to gyro illusion and I have something in the works for Aric. He'll hopefully be very impressed. I also tried to work on style a little bit with my little bag that doesn't get played with nearly enough (it's a cycle. it's panels aren't stretched so I don't play with it but they don't stretch because I don't play with it). I tried to osis > opp butterfly bsos a lot and did a few times tried not to bail too often. I bail way too much.

I'm entering the intermediate online April Sick 3 I think. Been thinking of some fascinating combos. 3.3.4's , 4.4.3's , 3.3.3's. That kind of stuff. Should be interesting. Hopefully I can choose one that'll best suit "my style". . . yeah . . right.
I ordered a footfighter express. Should be there by the time I go home.
Nice weather. huzzah.

If anyone has any suggestions as to what I can work on PLEASE! post on my blog. This is a rather bleek little blog. Comments? Concerns? Random smiley faces? Anything will do.

crazydwarf · Post by **crazydwarf** » 07 Apr 2005 17:02

Deffenatly try and make a video for the April sick 3, then you can beat me! Oh and the foofighter should be really good...I love mine.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 08 Apr 2005 07:55

Perhaps, Dustin. But we shall see on the field of battle. Your pixie sets are better and I can't touch your alternating clipper record. And you can freeze dimwalks

.

Bad news on my end about GRASS. Greg P. and Paul may not be able to make it. If they can they'll only be able to make it for one day. I'll just see if I can pursuade them to um. . take an unexcused day of work off. But my friend Andrew Vackle is surprisingly excited to join me. He's one of my circle kicking buds who was one of the first people to

upon the toe stall and even the dragonfly kick. But he's looking forward to meeting some actual footbaggers. And I tried to explain to him the concept of the BAP and that a few members will be there. He laughed and said he's accepting anything at this point. If he didn't weight like 230 pounds and have a few inches on me, I would've smacked him at that response. Alas he is Andrew, the Jolly Giant and no one can hurt him. He's just so friendly. So yeah he'll come and kick the ol' hack around and watch the festivities.

I'm going to play today since the sun and heat is out and I'll hopefully get my goals hit. Then perhaps this weekend I can see about getting something on video.

Well I'm past 1000 views. Hurray.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 10 Apr 2005 19:05

I've got a sick3 all set up and I hit it today even though I'm pretty sure the last trick was the. Oh well. Should be fun. I'll get it on camera ASAP.

My abshire (Crazy Eyes) is coming along well. I'm not tampering with it like I've done with all of my previous bags and I think that's the key. Just patience. AND if all goes according to plan my footfighter and a new sandman will come at some point this week. It'll be close. I want to get a good bag so I can easily hit my sick3. My sandbag isn't cutting it at the moment and it has three descent sized holes. The Little Piece of Crap is slowly bleeding to death. I'm fine with that. I'll probably only cry for a little bit. My new one shall be a savior and the footfighter is needed so badly. My old mini isn't doing anything for me, the crap is dying, and my newold mini is still breaking in. It's a race.

Some fascinating things were hit today. Ducking osis and a very stylee run that started with parkwalk > whirl > spinning clipper. I still bend over too much when I get into my strings and I think that puts me off balance so I tend to screw up soon after. Hmm. I'll see about fixing that soon. Seriously though I doubt I'll be doing anything new until I get my new bags. So up till that happens I won't post anything important.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 14 Apr 2005 12:35

Got a case of the shin splints. So I'm not shredding. I'll hit the sick 3 and send it to mosher but I'm out till I get good bags. Legs hurt but I'm also just pissed off that I can't shred normally because I haven't a tool with which to play. Crazy Eyes is still breaking in. Doing fine, though. Should be a good bag. . . in like a month.

Now I'm off to read about stretches to do and how to heal. I'll get the string on video saturday afternoon.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 16 Apr 2005 13:08

Footfighter! I feel like I'm going to break this thing, it's so thin and putty-ish. FINALLY I can get back to some major shredding. As a celebration in getting it, I played for a bit just now but was interupted by a friend of mine who wanted to kick. So I stopped freestyling and was trying to teach him how to hit a flying clipper. I did a spinning flying clipper which I thought was cool. Crazy Eyes is starting to clip for me. And after the hack session with die-hard circle kickers with skater shoes it's really starting to break in. It just needs to be shown a lesson. I think I'll go back out today and skool some more. I didn't get to play nearly enough. Edit may come later after the extension to the session.

With the footfighter, I was able to break my infinity and clipping record to 15 alt. clippers and 10 infinities. I almost hit back to back whirls but since I don't have a flipside whirl still I wasn't expecting much. I also hit bubbas in a string like mad. I figured out my flipside bubba-ing problem. Soo that's good.

I was unable to pixie which was unfortunate and was unable to duck so I think I'm going to have to revamp my sick 3 so that I can hit it more than once in every 20 tries. ducking osis > bubba > paradon isn't going to cut it. It's a shame because I really like that string. It's pretty smooth.
-------------------------------
alright well I went back to shred some more. Did some cool stuff. Hit flipside whirl second try as well as hit frigid osis bs (sealed with a catch

) for the first time. Footed both paradox whirl and a flipside paradon

. I also made up a really cool string which was something like dimwalk > osis > infinity > pdx mirage > illusion. It felt really cool.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 21 Apr 2005 15:24

A mr. sandman should be coming. I'm pleased that I have a shredding system of bags: I've got the new sandman for simple, stylee shreds and fun sessions with Greg P from syracuse (he likes sand-filled and very rarely plays with abshires. . thinks they're too rolly). I've got the abshire mini for shuffling (when I finally am able to). And I've got the fabulous footfighter for everything solo or with the RFA members who know how to treat good bags. . They haven't actually played with it yet. I haven't played in a few days due to my remain pieces of projects and papers for the year.

I was at the Erie Canal the other day shredding in long shorts in front of an ice cream store. Hit DOD > whirl > pdx illusion as well as a few more gryo clippers. My friend I was with called me her "footbag bitch" because we were sitting around not doing anything and she goes, "Do you have a footbag on you?" "Of course," I reply. "Play footbag." she says. How could I turn down an offer like that?

Also I've decided a trick I should try to hit is paradox illusioning (very leggy) refraction. What is that? It's good, that's what it is. Flux can wait. And in fact I think this will build my illusioning leg up to the speed and accuracy it needs to be for a flux. I can feel hitting flail soon. Not too sure though. It's harder than I thought.

So this is some stuff I will be shredding hard to hit as soon as summer officially begins for me:
1. Get my sick 3 on video and send to Mosher. ***
2. Flip pixie ****
3. Drifter bs and flip toe drifter. It's high time. *
4. whirl bsos ***
5. flail *
6. 20 or 25 tiltless contact string with no freezes **
7. Fairy set. Furocious is pretty close. *
8. Ducking and diving bsos ***

oh! I think I'm going to post a picture I took the other day of a very aggressive little squirrel going after my footfighter. We wanted to take pictures of him because he's our hero and throwing my footbag at him is the only way to get him to come up to our feet and pose merrily.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 27 Apr 2005 12:14

Another low point? Yes and no.
Yes - Literally? I'm shredding less right now because of finals and I doubt very much that I can send in something to the April online comp. Meh. Hopefully my parents will get a cable modem and I can still submit videos and post on modified.
No - With summer 6 days away, it's only a matter of time before I can start playing a lot. I also have good bags now and maybe I can score another one at GRASS.

And a brief warning, as soon as I go home I won't be posting any more due to my home computer hating modifified and its inability to submit posts. So unless I can use friends' computers or maybe a library or something ridiculous like that, yeah no struggle posts any more. . Aww. So as possibly one of my last posts for a very very long time, I'd like to just thank this forum community for being all warm and fuzzy. I'll be in and out of the real-time community every now and then as someone who follows Matt Cross around; a shadowy, silent figure who no one really knows too much about. Yeah that's me. I'm quiet and submissive to a fault unless directed to do otherwise.

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 09 Jun 2005 14:33

Well alright. . I'm back online. Got high speed online and I'm using a computer that will allow me to post on modified.

way too little is happening in the footbag world for me. I'm desperately trying to keep up. torque should've already been hit already. I can step pretty well though so that's very cool. Jorden Moir gave me some excellent tips at GRASS and now I can ripwalk bsos now and blur is fun. Don't know if symposium bubba is new for my blog since it's not new anymore. . But I like that. It's a fun move. Flip pixie is coming along well. . dimwalk bsos and smear bsos and maverik bsos.

Right now I"m working on flip whirl and still continuing my infinities. Ducking. Yes.

Alright well I'm going to go now.

FAIRYOIJF:OIWJG:OIWE

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 10 Jun 2005 16:41

Shred that could've been bigger but few could come. So Greg P and I twist the legs at a Greek Festival in town. I'm going to force him onto modified once he gets his house all repaired but until then I'll post here with all the syracuse footbagger's new tricks and so on.

With Greek beats, we were able to hit some pretty big things, Greg and I :

Me - Torque and Pdx Drifter and I footed delusion on my flipside. Didn't try it on my strong side. I also did a trial down a curb and hit a terrage down and a DOD down it. Fun. I also did an atomic set the came way above my waist. If I had known I would set it up that high I very possibly could've smashed an atom.

Greg - Ferocious and Flagellan. He's all about the fairy set. Fine by me. He's got the set alright. Random, yes. But fun to watch. He also very surprisingly footed a double over down.

Barrett - Few days ago when we played he hit clipper > clipper and legover. I'm going to sell him my old lavers for a few bucks so that he can step up his game. Sandals? pff. Getcho self sum LAVERS.

Paul - His leg is apparently injured but very close to being healed. I'm guessing he'll be up and kicking again in a weekend or so.

crazydwarf · Post by **crazydwarf** » 10 Jun 2005 16:43

Me - Torque and Pdx Drifter and I footed delusion on my flipside. Didn't try it on my strong side. I also did a trial down a curb and hit a terrage down and a DOD down it. Fun. I also did an atomic set the came way above my waist. If I had known I would set it up that high I very possibly could've smashed an atom.

That's awsome man, I'll deffenatly have to try some of those moves.