Double AA's Footblog - Feeling Lost!!!

[akprice]

whadup footbaggers! my name's aaron price from wake forest, nc. i started bagging in january 2014. i used to hack way back in the day and then stopped playing for some reason. my wife bought me a bag for xmas and i started doing research (like i always do) and found freestyle videos. holy fucking shit!!! i had no idea this is where the game had gone to. needless to say i am seriously addicted!

i have been lurking around here for a couple of months. i told myself i wouldn't start a blog until i could hit clipper. well this week i've finally been hitting it. i can hit a few in a row on strongside. flipside is still a work in progress.

here's an updated list of where i'm at right now...

kicks (toe, inside, outside, knee)
toe stall bs (204 is currently my record)
inside stall bs
outside stall bs (honestly don't do them that much)
atw meh
orbit meh
legover bs (still can't hit this consistently)
mirage bs
pickup bs
clipper bs
osis (working on)

i also got jumpers knee a few weeks ago from drilling flipside inside stall. had to stop doing those and quite a bit else. that gave me time to work on my kicks, especially toe kicks. knees are getting better. for some reason clipper doesn't bother my knee but flipside inside stall does.

anyhoo, can't wait for jamps in april. it will be awesome to meet all of these great people that i have met on the facebook page. also stoked to see some real bagging in person. i hope my game approves tremendously after that weekend.

goals - by the end of the summer i want to be tiltless with at least 20 contacts. i think i've made quite a bit of progression in just 3 months, so that may not be a lofty enough goal. i'll revisit at the beginning of summer.

-kish

[MetZelRio]

Alright Bro! Let's have a sesh or two at Jamps, looking forward to meeting you there. Cool origin story too!

[akprice]

hell yeah, def! can't wait to meet you as well. cya in a few weeks!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Wow! A Blog! Cool! I'm gonna read it!





That was cool! ..except I already knew all of that I guess that comes with the territory of following someone's game by watching all their videos and keeping up with all their Facebook posts


Glad you made a blog dude! It'll be easier to keep track of your game now, instead of following through Assbook.com.

So stoked to meet you at Jamps! You too, Paul! lol

[akprice]

thx nick! you have been a great inspiration and mentor. i can't wait to meet you in person and see you rip it up. MOTHER FUCKIN JAMPS BABY!!!

[isirc10]

I expect and event write up on this blog No pressure.

[akprice]

Oh you know I will!

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yeah man! Can't wait to meet you either, boss!

[akprice]

So i finally did toe mods on both pairs of lavers. I was freaked out by doing it earlier. Now my toe stalls are so much different. I think my fucking monkey toes are getting in the way. The bag isn't going where I want it. Gonna have to get used to this before. jamps. Wtf.

[akprice]

so i had a pretty decent session this weekend. worked on a little of everything but really drilled clipper. i thought i was finally getting the hang of it. i posted a vid on the facebook page and got quite a bit of feedback from it. looks like i'm still not doing it right...back to the drawing board!

worked a little bit on legovers and mirage and those are frustrating me. i just think my form isn't quite right. i watch videos of both and it seems like there is hardly any effort in doing them. mine looked rushed as shit trying to dex my leg around the bag and even if it does land on my toe, i haven't really been able to set back up again for another one. oh well, keep practicing.

on a good note, my knee didn't bother me at all. not sure if it was because of the chopat or not. i don't want to get dependent on it but for now i'll keep wearing it.

here's the vid on my clippers that i posted on facebook. i also got a ton of shit from my wife's friends thinking it was funny that i was bagging while my wife was doing the yard work. she rocks!!!

-kish

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FbjDZNAkug[/youtube]

[isirc10]

Don't worry that your dexing tricks feel rushed when everyone else looks like they are taking a nap when they do theirs. Every trick you learn will be like that - it will be rushed at first, and then the trick will "slow down" as you figure out the timing of the set, dex, magic hop, and stall. I have a feeling that you are still getting in the hang of the quick switch between the set and the dex when you do mirages and legovers. Keep kicking, you are at the perfect stage in your game to go to your first jam!

[akprice]

Thx Ivan! Can't wait to meet you at Jamps!

[MetZelRio]

Bro, I must apologize to you. I am not going to be able to make Jamps this year, at least not unless I come into some obscene amount of bling or something. I am looking forward to meeting you, and I think after Jamps happens, you're going to be more stoked on footbag (if you can imagine that) and you'll be on your way to being so much better that... I would GUESS you will be there next year, or at another jam/comp that I can meet you at. So I apologize that I will not be able to meet you at Jamps 2014. Maybe you and Sabastian can have a friendly competition to see who can get mirage first, or first on both sides? He might not be as close as it may have appeared on my video, and I don't know where yours are either. wanna do that? (you've got clippers and he aint got diddly there!) Let me know, this could be fun.

[akprice]

damn that sucks but i understand about the cache! def up for a competition. game on! hopefully i'll meet you at another event. might be a while, but i will def come back to jamps next year.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yeah, sorry to hear the news Paul. Hopefully next year. As for you, Aaron… I've got some clipper tutorials for you in your near future!

Stoked!!!!!

[akprice]

Fuckin eh! Can't wait for my clipper lessons!

[akprice]

first off, happy first birthday to my baby girl today! you are truly a blessing!

i talked to nick tonight and he asked if i was getting excited about jamps. i told him yes but i was also nervous. i said i liken it to being a starting musician and getting invited to jam with others and you only know one chord. i know this trip is going to be learning experience for me. i just wish that i had more to offer at this point in my game. i can't string together anything and have probably neglected some basic stuff in my game.

i turn 42 on april the 7th and feel like i started too late. i wish i would have picked this up a lot earlier in my life. the problem i have is that i don't have a lot of time to drill. having a one year old takes a lot of time out of the day. i kick every day at work when i go out to have a smoke (yea i know, i need to quit). so that leaves about an hour or so on saturday to really drill. i get a lot accomplished on those days so hopefully when the weather gets better i will have more time to jam.

my jumpers knee has flared up again. i have abused my knees over the years doing skiing, snow boarding and extreme roller blading (i'm talking about 360s off of 10 feet of stairs). we used to sneak into parking lot garages in downtown denver and ride all the way down, jumping over every 2 ft cement wall on the corners. one time a cop drove up to the top where we were drinking 40s of old english and smoking joints. we quickly put that away and the cop was like, you guys are really going to ride down this thing? my buddy john said, you wanna watch? they said, yea. so those fuckers followed us all the way down that parking lot garage while we were tearing it up. awesome!!!!

anyway, i'm very excited for jamps! i am looking forward to meeting some new friends and hopefully expanding my game. i just have to keep looking at this like a learning experience. it's hard for me to compete in something like this and not be at the top of my game. i am a very competitive person and usually pick things up very quickly. fuck old age!

side note: the other thing i noticed with the bag community is that quite a few know how to juggle. i think this is a strange correlation. i can juggle somewhat with 3 balls. i look forward to learning some more about juggling as well next weekend.

i'll leave this post with a quote from a video i saw tonight that i thought was hysterical:

footbag is like the river dance meets david beckham.

-kish

[akprice]

well, five days til jamps and body is not cooperating. my jumpers knee has flared back up and last night i did something to my lower back. it's killing me today. i have actually been taking it easy (especially flipside). this really sucks! i wanted to drill a ton before i went up there so i could have something to contribute. now it looks like i won't be any closer to nailing down clipper, legovers or mirages. i just hope my back gets better before the weekend. as far as the jumpers knee, i will be bringing my chopat to wear and also a compression sock for the other knee just to be safe. i hate being fucking old!

-kish

[akprice]

well, jamps was last weekend and i had a lot of fun. it was great to meet so many cool cats. as far as the kicking goes though, not sure how i feel about it. i've waited this long to type on my blog cause i had to collect my thoughts.

first off, i didn't kick very well when i was there. jumpers knee was still bothering me and then we smoked some seriously good pot friday night before kicking and it fucked me up pretty good. don't smoke that much anymore and plus i was nervous as shit. so needless to say i sucked ass friday night.

sat tourney was cool. it was awesome to see shit live. there were so many good kickers there. again, i was extremely nervous since everyone had some sort of game and i have none. that's really hard for me. i am extremely competitive and am good at anything i try. i also expected my game to go up a notch from being there and it really hasn't. i mean, i did hit legover and mirage a couple times but clipper still isn't where i want it. i do have to thank ianek so much though. during the comps, i was kicking by myself (which i did a lot of cause i just felt weird drilling my shit in a circle when they are all doing strings). ianek came up to me and asked if i needed some help. i said please!!! he spent a good 30 minutes with me going over my clippers, toe stalls, mirage and legovers. i have never met him in my life and he spent that much time with me. thx dude!

speaking of the canadians, they fucking rocked!!! i think they were a little older than most of the players, so i related to them much better. got to finally meet erik chan which was cool as shit. his videos were some of the first ones i found on the web after getting my first bag in jan. we had a great chat sat night at ben's house. think i talked to him the most out of anyone else at the party. again felt weird hanging with college kids. i'm so fucking old now. then my rides left me there which kinda sucked. noticed they were gone and asked ben if they had left and he said yes. ben was cool and gave me money for the bus (since i didn't have my wallet) and gave me instructions on how to get back to the house. after i got back though, i found out they all had walked about 2.5 miles to get home. so now in hindsight i'm glad they left me because i would've been bitching the whole time carrying my cooler.

i'm not sure how to feel about footbag at this point. to be honest, i am really discouraged with my game since jamps. i really thought that going would inspire me but instead it did the opposite. i know that most of these players have been kicking for years and years and i only started a few months ago. i have just noticed since being back that i don't have the drive that i once had for the sport. i don't constantly check the facebook page or read through all the blogs. hoping this is just a little hump that i need to get through.

i also realized that i really need to slow down and keep drilling the basics. i noticed that everyone could kick the bag extremely easy (especially insides and toe kicks). i mean, i still can't kick 20 consecutive insides yet. i need to remember the reason that i got into this sport and that was for exercise. i think along the way i have been obsessed with trying to improve and get some moves down quickly and that's not working.

i also quit smoking yesterday. i am on day 2 and today is much easier than yesterday. one of the main reasons i quit was footbag. didn't have the endurance that i needed to drill. hopefully my wife and i will be able to kick this nasty habit. one day at a time!

don't think i'll be going to other competitions any time soon. i need to see where i'm heading with this sport and see if i can honestly put in some drilling time and see if i improve or not. i would like to be able to string some moves together before attending another comp.

we shall see where this goes...

-kish

[isirc10]

Chin up man, I saw really good improvements in your game this weekend - if you stick with it, I think you will surprise yourself how quickly you will catch up to the people you are comparing yourself to. I felt really shitty about leaving you behind, no excuses from my part. It was one of the things that I felt went wrong that day and I have been kicking myself for it ever since.

Keep with the basics - with your age comes patience and determination, as well as the common sense to kick smart. That is something that a lot of us could really use when we started out. I honestly think you can improve to a competitive level within the next few years.

Everyone has periods when they don't want to play or are down about their game. Take some time off, try something else, or just kick harder, we all have different ways of dealing with it. Best of luck with quitting smoking. It was great meeting you and having you stay at our place, and hopefully I will see you at another tournament in the future!