Integrating fliers into strings, and warming up my fliers… Is the most tiring thing I do all day.

I have to say, by adding flyers to my warm-up strings, I get sweatier faster than ever before. I'm also more tired than ever before. I no longer believe I need to include fliers in my warm-up regimen. I can get warm using the normal warm-up strings, and expend the additional energy needed for linking fliers into strings later in the session. In other words, because fliers drain energy there is no need to warm them up, it just expends needed energy.

The trick to doing big tricks out of flyers, is controlling their sets. As with any trick. I have been integrating fliers into my strings for a long time, but I've been treating them like something I need to recover from, rather than something that I need to control. For instance, I already do spinning fliers mid-string, but almost always followed by a recovery osis and butterfly to get 'reset' and continue to the next more difficult strings. What is different here is that in order to do a difficult trick directly from a flier, the set needs to be perfectly placed at mid-chest height and straight up and down, and the body has to be ready to land and snap into the next trick. I am out of film, so I can't video this yet, but I will soon.

So far, I have gotten control of spinning flying butterfly, and phairy flying butterfly so that I can go directly to tricks like Whirl, Torque, Blender and DLO, and it looks unexpected and awesome!

In summary, I plan to be able to pull a flier in mid-string and continue seamlessly onto another difficult trick. If you ever see me do an osis out of a flier, it is unplanned and essentially a bail/recovery maneuver. Combine this with my Seamless Juggling and my strings are going to continue to impress. I can't wait to play today!


Shred notes: I have been breaking the new shoes in. The top of my left foot hurts from practicing those Forklift tricks http://youtu.be/Wvg8qPXKwHE that I re-introduced a few weeks ago, the pain is from the movement, not the new shoes. Day 2080 is today. This type of pain feels like a bruise, broken vessels, and causes me to not be able to crank the left ankle. So I'll only work on those in small bursts, see if I can't build up the strength in my feet to be able to do those cool tricks without penalty of pain.

1 Minute "Sample Platter" Performance (Call for Music)

I need your help!  I need a 1 minute original piece of music that I can develop a performance that I will post on youtube and not get flagged by them for illegal use of tunes.  I want to post this performance frequently to YouTube and get feedback on its development.  It will be, in some sense, a crowd-sourced performance.  The piece will ideally be approximately 110 beats per minute an have a stop or two in it, and no lyrics.  I can extract a portion of a longer song if I can get your permission to use it.  I promise to ALWAYS give you credit for the music in every posting of the video that I make.

When I was competing regularly, I would have bursts of 1-3 months of creating performances for tournaments.  Since I have been unable to travel to tournaments for over a year now, I am bored.  Playing everyday, now at 2072 days in a row, without a clear goal is more difficult than when I have something I am working on.  Lately, I have been warming up, then just flowing through the jam without direction.  I want direction.  

I am going to make a series of 1-minute performances, starting with the "Sample Platter." These will be designed around the tricks that I do best, organized in a way that it is pleasing for the viewer, set to original music, and the "Sample Platter" will be a 1-minute performance I can use for the rest of my life! 

I'm hoping to get 5 or 6 tracks into a playlist and then jamming to those songs for a week until one of them jives with me.  Then I'll design a performance based on that song and post its first iteration to my YouTube channel.

I have so many friends that are musicians, I thought I'd see if any of you could donate a track or two for my use, and maybe one of the videos will be seen by many, and we can both get some great exposure.

Now over 12% of my life has been spent shredding Footbag freestyle everyday!

I started this blog when I was at 1000 days into my ongoing commitment to shred Footbag freestyle every single day, I am now at 2071 days in a row. When I look at that in context with my life, where I'm 16,681 days old, it means that for the most recent 12% of my life, I've been playing Footbag every day! That is 12.41% to be exact. Find what you love to do and play everyday!

I believe I have proven my hypothesis that as we 'age', we need to continue using our physical assets on a daily basis to keep the mind fresh and the body young. Use it or lose it! I have been fortunate to keep this going for a long time, and I am in the best shape of my life and I have all the energy I need to fully enjoy my life.

I start my jams with a set of 'warm-ups' which are getting a bit repetitive, so I've been mixing them up a bit lately. I feel the need for some direction, as I've been hooked on 'new-trick development' for a while.    Then I tend to get stuck working on a trick category, and new versions of tricks because I've also proven that old dogs can learn new tricks!  I look forward to more structure, so this is what I've come up with...

I've decided to create 1-minute and 2-minute performances set to music, and I want to find the perfect music for each. I'm calling out for song suggestions. If you've always wanted to do a performance to a certain song, but never got it done, let me know what song that is.

I miss the process of Performance Development. I miss 'song selection,' I miss the creative process of finding the right tricks to fit with the song. I miss making playlists of my music segments, and I miss practicing them. It really gives me direction. What is great about this time around is that I don't have to do it in secrecy!

My next blog post will be the official call for music. Please visit my youtube channel to see any of the 170+ footbag videos there, http://www.youtube.com/footbagenlightener.

Shred notes: I've been working alot on juggling. Seamless juggle, from clippers, butterflies, spinning butterflies, working on flipside, also Vortex squared on both sides, and blurry drifters and paradox torques both sides. 2070 days in a row today.