Inspired by a woman nearly twice my age whom I have never met...

One of my clients was telling me this story about a woman who he would see playing tennis every day. When he finally asked her why she plays tennis so much, she said "I play every day because I'm 86 and if I don't play today, I'm not sure Ill be able to play tomorrow."

She has it right!  We all need to embrace the mobility we have, and not take it for granted. Someday it might not be there.  

"Use it or Lose it!"   This has been a theme of the videos I publish and a core part of my message to others. I could let myself go and play a couple of times a week... but if I do, I'll spend two days catching up for every day I take off.  So I choose to play every day, and to allow NO EXCUSES to get out of it.  

Everyone needs 30 minutes of vigorous exercise daily, but for athletes and especially Footbag freestylers, muscle memory has a short term memory loss problem.  If I take a day off I'm afraid I'll lose my edge. That's why I play everyday.  Join me!

I love to hear these stories about other people who are also exercising every day... it keeps me motivated.

Here is what the Mayo Clinic says about exercising every day...
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20048389

Today is 2822 days in a row shredding for me.  And I know I'm not the only one!

Practice update: Today I hit some unique seamless tricks, like Fairy (phobic) Gyro Miraging Seamless Juggle and Legbeater Seamless Juggle.  Also Spinning Symposium Butterfly seamless Juggle both sides too.  BSOS.  Still getting better every day.  Thanks for all your support!

Here is what the Mayo Clinic says about exercising every day...
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20048389

Closing one door opens another!

I was skooling my Quantums during a recent session.  I found a great tutorial by Matt Cross on youtube and was able to really get an understanding of it.  But after two days of intense skool, I ended up tweaking my knee in a weird way.  Today I noticed that when I turn into a spin with my right leg as the plant, I felt a shooting pain from the knee.

In order to still complete my 1773rd day in a row of shredding, I needed to divert the focus of the playtime to something that wasn't painful, and wouldn't jeopardize my knee in the long term.  I decided to 'close the door' on spinning for a day.  Which actually turned out to be a little more of a challenge than was apparent at the moment.  If you've seen my videos, spinning is a big part of my game.

As it turns out, when I close the door to one thing, it often opens the door to another.  It was a bigger challenge than I thought to 'not' spin in my play-time.  For a while, I flailed miserably.  I would do a big string of tricks without spinning, then inevitably, I would spin.  And I would feel a slight pain in my right knee.  After a while I got frustrated with all the spinning just happening, seemingly on its own, certainly without my conscious intent.  So I put the clamps on.  Every time a spin almost happened, I caught the footbag.  It was creating shorter strings, but forced me to NOT spin.

And so it went.  I worked on some specific mini-strings.  Blur to LegBeater (atomic butterfly), and I eventually hit two continuous cycles on both sides, but not in the same string.  I did a lot of blurry whirl and paradox whirl and tomahawk sequences.  I hit Tomahawk to Blurry Whirl on both sides too.  The biggest thing I hit was Nuclear paradox reverse drifter on my left side (nuclear implies 'reverse drifter' to the initiated).

All in all, I was able to pull off a high-quality training session, hit some long-lost tricks.  I really sharpened my blades on LegBeater - Blur sequence on both sides and that felt great.  As usual, I had a blast playing today, as I do every day.

Thanks for all your support!

-Enlightener

Playing everyday is something everyone can do!

Whatever your favorite sports are, it is important to exercise every day.  There is a public awareness of the childhood obesity epidemic in America.  We are all responsible for our own health, yet so many are eating unhealthy diets with sedentary habits like TV and video games.

The CDC says: "Childhood Obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years."  They go on to say that Obese youth are more likely to have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, at greater risk to bone and joint problems, sleep apnea, low self esteem and as adults are more at risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer and osteoarthritis.  They conclude with, "Healthy lifestyle habits, including healthy eating and physical activity can lower the risk of becoming obese and developing related diseases."

Maybe playing 'everyday' is overkill, but it has worked for me.  Please watch and comment on my new video, "No Excuses" on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/footbagenlightener#p/u/1/glzd8shVkJo.  It is about my past 4 years (1500 days) of playing footbag freestyle every day in an effort to improve my skills in my 40's, which turns out to be a pretty healthy habit.

Thanks for all your support so far, the movie has had great reviews.  Please share the link on you facebook page if you like it.

-enlightener

Shred notes: 2/4/2011
This week I worked on longer strings, alternating with frontside moves.  Then on strings that contain frontside midstring.  Also tons of Atomic stuff.  Gotta get atom smasher to the point where I don't 'rake' it out, but freeze it in a toe delay which will make it easier to get to legbeater, which is necessary for my long term goal of rubberman.  I think I hit 'Inspinning Swivel' yesterday... haven't seen the tape yet.  I love this sport!  Never a dull session.

Low light shredding ain't so bad...

I got used to it.  I just came to the realization that I am thankful for the great lighting I usually have available to me for shredding.  I pretty much don't worry about it.  Ever.  Well that's not true, it factors into my 'perception' of what is possible, so in a sense my perceptions are limiting me here.

Today, Valeria fell asleep on the couch right next to my living room shred zone, so I had to keep the lights low, and I tweaked my workout towards the quieter tricks today.  Lots of juggling and unusual surfaces and short fun stuff.  After about 10 minutes, the low light scenario didn't factor into my decisions at all.  I got through my warm-ups, and I immediately ran into a personal innovation... Fairy same blender.  Probably because yesterday I obsessed on double dyno style moves.  So I pulled a fairy set and thought, why not go for a whirl or a blender with the same leg as the fairy dex, of which I hit both on both sides, within minutes of stumbling upon it..  What is the name of Fairy same-leg same-side Blender?  And Fairy same-leg same-side Whirl?  I'll film them tomorrow.  I've hit Fairy-Phobic-(other leg) Blender and posted it to youtube recently, but this easier stuff is new to me.  

I also skooled a pattern that is juggle-juggle-juggle, seamless (out) Fairy DLO, to seamless (in) pixie DLO, juggle-juggle-juggle, repeat... I'll also film this tomorrow.

The moral of this story?  "Beware of perceptions, particularly those that limit belief.  Possibility is still unlimited, it is my mind that stops me most of the time."

Best regards,
-enlightener

Shred notes: See above.

I'm a human Rube Goldberg machine...

The similarities between footbag freestyle and a Rube Goldberg machine (a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion...) are chilling on many levels.  In Freestyle Footbag, a single trick is defined by transferring the footbag from one surface to another surface, with as many elements of difficulty in between.  Which is in line with the Rube Goldberg Machine (RGM) concept, but one trick does not a RGM make.  When we perform multiple tricks together, back to back, we call that a String of tricks.  When we combine the difficulty of performing a single trick, with the added difficulty of stringing them together, this very much resembles a RBM.  The big difference is that with RBM's the physics are pre-calculated and the variables are removed through clever engineering, and with Footbag Freestyle strings, our brains are perceiving the next trick and making minor adjustments in order to compete it, but assuming at the end of the individual trick, we are able to set properly for the next trick, an RGM is born.

Footbag freestyle practitioners are human Rube Goldberg Machines!  I am a human RGM!
What is more unnecessarily difficult than a well performed footbag freestyle string?  I can't think of many things... perhaps Rythmic Gymnastics, that is even close to the self-imposed difficulty thresholds that we place upon ourselves.  For us, the more difficult the trick and the longer the strings the better... classic RGM's.

As Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine)...

"A Rube Goldberg machine is a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction. The expression is named after American cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg.

Since then, the expression has expanded to denote any form of overly confusing or complicated system."

Here are some links to my recent videos from Facebook and Youtube:




There's more, I just don't have time right now.  More later!!!

See ya!
-enlightener.

Inspired by Tricks of the Trade II

EVERYONE in Chicago area should be at Windy City Cup at Navy Pier north entrance today, Sunday, June 20 whether you freestyle or play net, this is the place to be!  10-5... this is possibly the best location for a footbag tournament that footbag net has ever seen in Chicago!  Be there!

A huge storm came through, 100's of thousands of people without power, but our Comcast went out so we had power, but no internet or cable TV.  Why did the storm come through during World Cup?  Anyway, I was looking through my DVD collection, it was early in the morning, and I threw in the Tricks of the Trade II video (if you have VHS, you can get a copy for $5) from World Footbag Association and Kenny Shults.

I am so proud and motivated by the achievements of others.  I am grateful to have been around for many of these milestones.  Not many people watch old footbag videos from past World Championships performances and are brought to tears, but I'm one of them.  Watching the greats like Sam Conlon, Peter Irish and Rippin Rick Reese do the routines that I was busy judging is inspiring to say the least.  Watching Carol Weidemier (sp?) do effortless Blurry Drifters, just amazing.  I took 2nd place behind Rippin' in that Montreal dropless routine he did, and I'm pretty sure I took 2nd behind Peter Irish in that Satellite routine too.  I love this sport!

Watching all my friends do their tricks and having Kenny Shults describe the details is especially helpful to people like me who struggle to grasp the names of some advanced tricks.  It is like having Kenny Shults as my personal coach!  Also, with advanced tricks I can pick apart the technical sequence, but I always forget the street-names of tricks and this video helps me to get the names right.

I saw a bunch more tricks that I would like to perfect, it is such a great video that every mid level player should have it, and every advanced player should study it!  Get your copy of Tricks of the Trade II video today (if you have VHS, you can get a copy for $5) from World Footbag Association and Kenny Shults.  Novice and intermediates should be careful not to try to get to these tricks too quickly.  I firmly believe that part of my longevity has to do with the amount of time I spent on each component of the more advanced tricks and my organic approach toward bettering my game.

Side note: Hey WFA!  How hard would it be to get this video available for digital purchase through iTunes Movie store?  Could be a new revenue stream for you.

To wrap this up, I want to thank all my footbag friends for continuing on this journey of athletic challenges with me!

Shred hard and prosper!

-enlightener

Shred notes: June 19, 2010
It is frustrating to spend 15 minutes on a trick and not hit it.  Quantum is my 'nemesis' (excuse the freestyler pun) these days.  I can't seem to get close.  I need to watch that frame by frame because I am missing something.  I can't skool it too hard because I don't want to cause stress injuries from new movements, so I'll keep working on it periodically.  Been skooling routines and long strings lately, mostly at Mammoth Springs Training Center.

Being 'in the Zone' is really mastering the moment!

Today is 1276 days in a row shredding.

In my most recent post, I focused on being 'in' the moment.  Mostly because upon further analysis, the moment is all we have.  In life and in footbag, being focused on the moment, while having an outline for the future and a fond recollection of the past is what makes a good person great!

When I can complete a trick that has 5 or 6 elements and follow it immediately with a series of other tricks that are similarly difficult, I know that I have mastered that moment, that I was in 'the Zone.'

To reiterate my recent postulation, I feel that my experience with footbag where I am constantly challenging myself to focus as many elements of difficulty into each moment, has helped me to realize that some of my greatest moments are when I'm just enjoying the beach with my family, eating dinner with my parents.  Different situations require varying types of mastery, but recognizing that it is the moment I am in, rather than the moment that is (in theory) coming up, which is truly valuable.

I ask myself as often as possible, how can I master 'this' moment?  I find myself going through this mental exercise more frequently during my conscious hours... In the morning, how can I be more efficient in getting things done around the kitchen while still preparing for work and enjoying it?  How do I get to work?  How can I out-perform at work?  How do I get the most value from my play time (shred sessions)?  What is the implications of my commuting decisions?  How can I be the best dad when I'm around the house in the evenings and weekends?

I think living in the moment, allows me to live without regrets.  So I find myself asking myself, "Self? How can I be 'in the Zone' in every aspect of my life?"

-enlightener

Shred notes: from Thurs, June 17th
Kicked at Mammoth Springs Training Center and worked mostly on routines for the past 2 days.  It has been fun.  Nothing new, but still hitting the barfly ending in cross body rake in many iterations daily.  Skool it baby!

1200 Days in a row shredding...

Today, coinciding with the release of a new touch screen device from a major electronics company, is my 1200th day in a row skooling footbag freestyle. There is some kind of holiday tomorrow too.

Have I gotten better? Yes, absolutely. Firstly, at my physical age, just a slight daily improvement without losing any ground is the minimum I could ask for... but I frequently hit new tricks, new for me and some of them for the first time ever. I really like being the first human being in the history of mankind to achieve something, I even like being among a small group of people who can do the same. Some days I shine, some days I struggle, but every day that I play keeps my body fine tuned and my mind energized. I love this sport. What more can I say?

Shred Notes: March 2010
I didn't post much during March, but a lot was happening. I have had these strange leg pains, seem to be finally going away. I sought out music that I can use for Worlds 2010 in August, and I found it. Thanks to Marcus from work, an accomplished break dancer, for introducing me to some of his favorites. I did not choose one of his songs for this routine, but it will get used. I have already listened to my the song I picked hundreds of times and have developed a rough outline of how I want the routine to flow. I have hit several new tricks this month too, Phobic DLO, Phobic spinning paradox whirl (in the sense that I set under left leg and dex with left leg after spinning, not set from a clipper) and Double spinning butterfly (almost on both sides, twice to left side).

I notice that I was making more blog entries in the winter, and now that I ride my xootr at breaks, I have to find another part of my day to do my blog entries. I have updated the look of the blog.

I also went through my old footbag t-shirt archive. I'm going to give away most of them to other players who might appreciate them, I've taken photos of all of them and I'm going to add the photos to a web gallery and add my notes to them.

Family, Footbag and Earning Power

Introspection can produce clarity. In my case I have recently thought a lot about how what is important to me in life. The result is, in this order...
1) Family (My wife and son are the apples of my eye)
2) Footbag (My sport provides me the health, meditation and infamy I need to thrive)
3) 'Work' (My job provides me the earning power to keep it all going)

I put 'work' in quotes because I truly work for a great company that I look forward to going to every day, almost as much as I look forward to going home every night to my family. The cliche 'If you find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life' is true for me.

I am passionate about all three of these areas of my life and I am proud to say it. Another cliche come true for me is 'Playing at 100%'. I am committed to playing at 100% in each of these areas of my life. When I am with my family, I am present and attentive to their needs. I do everything I can to make our time together memorable and high-value. When I play footbag freestyle, I approach it with the attitude that I can always be better than I currently am. I can continue to achieve excellence in my sport, and in the process it keeps my mind fresh and my body young. And at 43 years old, that is saying something. Today will be 1171 days in a row of shredding, plus 24 years before that. When I go to 'work', I look forward to being the best I can be, contributing to every area of the business in whatever roles are necessary at the time. It is a very rewarding job and I frequently have to 'pinch' myself because it sometimes feels like a dream.

Sure our family has issues that we are working on, but looking around, we have it pretty good. Certainly, I can improve my footbag game and do more, and I am always working on that. And while I could stand to make more money, life is not all about money... at least I do what I love! Thanks to all the people in my life! I am always playing at 100% and I'm proud to say it!

-enlightener

Shred Notes: 3/4/2010
Yesterday I was trying to hit fairy set barfly (triple dex) and I pulled a muscle in the groinal area on the left side. Me thinks I wasn't quite as warmed up as I thought. This morning, thanks to my 'buffy-like' healing powers, I feel much better. It is an Injury with Honor, but I am glad it is not bothering me as much today.

Settled: Old dogs can learn new tricks (and combos)

I'm not old, I'm just aging. I hit another pretty unique trick today, I call it 'Storque', it is a torque ending in x-body sole. Proving once again, that aging dogs can not only learn new tricks, but invent them too!

Over the past 1143 days, and the 23 years before that, I have learned from so many great players, taken that physical ability and built upon it. By working on soliosis, and in the same jam, skooling my pixie and fairy sets, my mind put together pixie-soliosis (which might be new too). From there it occurred to me that it should be possible from a clipper set, and Storque was born. Now Storque might not be new, but it is new to me. I have never seen anyone do it, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been done. BTW, I hit it on both sides many times and once on both sides in the same string.

I believe I can achieve, and therefore I do achieve!
And I never know what I will get, but it just comes to me when I'm in the zone. I love this sport!

Thanks to all the great players who have inspired me over the years, and to all the current players who continue to amaze! Keep it up!

See ya!
-enlightener

I've forgotten more tricks than I know...

"I've forgotten more tricks than I know!"
While this statement is not entirely true, I often struggle with keeping up with myself. I innovate all the time, and part of my process is to blog about it here. It makes my progress somehow seem more concrete and traceable. I can search to find all the instances of a certain trick, people can keep up with my progress even though I basically shred in seclusion, and I can get feedback from my peers. It is pretentious of me to think anyone would want to keep up with me, so my blogging has a dual purpose... I know there are people who do get inspired, and it is always a nice bonus to know I've inspired someone but mostly it is a 'concrete' summary of my accomplishments and failures, which is fully searchable in a way that I very much desire. It is really my diary. A review of my progress. What a great thing. Thank you google for this platform.

I am pretty sure I have hit Phobic Twirl before, and now I can search my blog to see that it has not been mentioned since I started this on my 1000th day of shred. But I am pretty sure I have hit it, now I have to search my YouTube videos because I might have posted it there. This blog lets me tie the information together so I can retrieve it.

Shred notes: 2/1/10
Using new warm-up strings to get warm fast, and really energized from it. Lots of frontside stuff.

Training with mixed sets...

I have a new theory that I'll test on myself over the next several months. I'm going to step up my warm-up strings by mixing them up.

For the past 3 years I have been getting warm the same way, consistently doing 10 infinities, 10 osis, 10 whirl/osis combos in sequence, blurs, ripwalks, paradox whirls, at least 10 in a row and then I knew I was warm. Kind of boring, but it was a reliable way to quickly warm up. It also helps me when competing to know exactly what sequences I need to do to warm up properly.

My intention is to make my warm-up combos more challenging. Osis-Whirl and Barfly to Barfly are in. Newer combos haven't all been worked out, but I'll be experimenting with these and I'll let you know...

Whirl - blender - whirl - blender
Spinning BTR - Ripwalk - Spinning BTR - Ripwalk
Ducking BTR - PWRL - Ducking BTR - PWRL
Gyro Mirage - Fairy/Pixie BTR - repeat
Barrage - BTR - Barrage - BTR
Pixie Mirage - DLO - Pixie Mirage - DLO
Gotta think about these... Try them out on the 27th. I'll let you know.

I am thinking that by stepping up the difficulty and variety of my warm-up strings that I will then be stepping my game up to the next level, and improve my overall string length and variety.

Shred Notes: 1/26/10
I hit Diving (same) Blender. Still skooling opp pixie/fairy moves, atomic sets, still struggling with Quantum. Getting closer.
See ya!

I can't get enough of this sport!

Is there such a thing as 'too much' freestyle? If you ask me, no. You might get a different answer from those around me, depending on when you ask the question. I think everyone would agree that my seemingly obsessive behavior surrounding Footbag ultimately has provided nothing but positive results in all areas of my life, with the possible exception of the financial area.

After a busy holiday week and a major Footbag tournament, my legs are surprisingly NOT sore. It may be partially because I gave been skooling hard every day for the past 1105 days in a row, but I think it is because I didn't get 'enough' play time at New Years Jam. As event director, getting to the site early each day and setting up, staying late to clean up is a small price to pay to bring an event like this to life. This event provides a place where other obsessed individuals such as myself can unite in our unique commonality to play together, learn from each other, reach out and teach kids, and even compete with each other. I personally believe every club should host a footbag event at least once a year! Get on it !

I'm going to do a double jam session today, lunch AND evening. Gotta return the sound system too.

Shred notes: 12/29/09 and 12/30/09
Day after a big event is usually hard to play. Not this time. Noticed a recent deficiency in barrages, skooled them. Hit Gyro Barrage. Is that called 'Garage'?


- enlightener

Three years of playing every day!

So todays playtime concludes 3 years of footbag shredding on a daily basis. I have many insights from this experience which I won't go into right now, as I have little time at this writing. I wanted to thank my wife Valeria for allowing me the time to do this, and for doing the laundry. By my estimates, over 400 extra loads of laundry were caused by my daily obsession, and this is no small task. The only environmental impact that shredding has is all the extra laundry, but that is another topic.

3 years, yay! Now on to 4!

Shred notes: 12/19/09
Worked on routine for NYJ.

Economy of motion

When I visualize atomic sets, I start to think about economy of motion and timing. Doing tricks that require two and three dexterity elements requires finding the most efficient path. In the case of atomic and nuclear tricks the challenge for me was to learn the 'hippy' method of reverse mirage. From there I could apply it to many tricks.

Atomic sets require throwing the first dex over the upward moving Footbag, so a traditional reverse mirage motion that happens at the apex isn't fast enough. To achieve atomic, the set and leaping hippy dex happen simultaneously.

Economy of motion is the key to refining 'tough' moves and developing new ones. Well, that is the physical challenge. Sometimes the mental block of dismissing something as 'impossible' is a larger obsticle, because if you never try something due to it's percieved impossibility, then how could you get to the part where you would refine the motion to make it possible. Believe!

Shred notes: 12/4/09
Just a typical day. Some good strings at the end. Indoors.


- enlightener