Technology for Footbag: Activity Monitoring

I find real value in monitoring my step count while playing freestyle Footbag!

As a freestyle footbag enthusiast who has been playing every day for 3,169 days in a row, I'm always looking for ways to improve my game.  About a year ago I started to realize the value of counting my steps.  My iPhone 5s does it for me, all I have to do is look.

When I started to pay attention to my step count during my freestyle footbag workouts it was very revealing.  I bought an armband so I could wear my phone during workouts, I found that an hour of good solid solo shredding with a footbag equaled about 2000 steps.    On the other hand, if I walked for an hour I would get about 5000 or more steps.  So I like to think of my workout steps as 'Workout Points', as I work very hard for every recorded step.

Since I have always broken my daily jams into 15 minutes each of 3-add drills (for getting warm), 4-add flow, 5 add tricks and experiments and juggle practice with 5's sprinkled in.  I now have an additional way to gauge my performance!

I now know that when I am indoors playing alone in my living room, it takes me more time to achieve 500 points than when I'm outdoors in public.  Things that slow me down are: Lack of sleep, lack of stretching, dehydration, large circles and distractions like television.  Often I get interrupted by the dog needing to be walked. 

The movement sensors in the iPhone are clearly not giving me credit for all the effort I put in, but by observing how it reads my movement, it gives me powerful insights into how to keep improving as I continue to play freestyle Footbag every day.   

I am hoping to add several additional data points to my arsenal in the form of a new Apple Watch and an iPhone 6s in my future.  Which adds a gyroscope on my wrist, heart monitoring and even elevation.  I'm sure I'll gain additional insights with all this new data. 

I've also been motivated to walk more.  I've been averaging over 15,000 steps a day and for the past 8 weeks, I've hit over 100,000 steps a week!  As long as it doesn't get in the way of my daily shreds.

My conclusion is that by observing how many 'steps' I've taken informs my workout efforts, and helps me to know when to push harder as well as a gauge to measure my sessions against each other.  Today will be my 3188 days in a row shredding every day, and technology is my friend when it comes to my quest for mastery in the most difficult sport on Earth!

This is an instagram video compilation of a bunch of loops I made recently.  

Lifes little interruptions... Yield "Bonus Jam" time

Shredding in the morning is a double edged sword.  It is great to get up and get going early.  Footbag Freestyle in the morning takes a real commitment to get started, but I am so fresh and ready to go, I always have a great jam.  I can also pull off 2 hour workouts in the morning, which was never possible on my lunch hour.  When my dog wakes up during my shreds, sometimes I'll walk him, but I'll always add that time back into my shred.  So if it takes 15 minutes to walk the dog, then I add 'Bonus Jam Time' to my session to make sure I break the 1 hour mark.  Lately, I've been averaging 1.5 hours in the mornings.

The double edged sword comes in at night.  Today's footbag freestyle athletes are half my age, and tend to play in the afternoons and evenings.  Have you ever met another shredder that practices only in the morning?  Maybe... but if they are like me, they find themselves tired at the end of the day, and somewhat unwilling to lace up.  The later in the day it is, the more effort it I need to get motivated to get going, and I feel that I am not at 100%.

I am going to say that the later in the day, the lower likelihood that I will be lacing up.  This is a direct inverse-proportional relationship.  I'd make a chart to illustrate my point, but I'm feeling lazy.

As the weather gets warmer, I'll still play in the AM, and my lunch shreds are my filming sessions.  I need to focus on moving my shred times later in the day as World championships approaches.  Finals is in the evening, and I plan to be on stage that night.  I'll have to make a conscious effort to shred later in the evenings.

So don't cut your workouts short because of life's little interruptions!  Add Bonus Jam Time to make it up!

Shred notes: 2/5/2013 - Hit Swivel both sides, and reverse swivel on the strong side today.  Never hit them before.  Day 2239 in a row today!

Freestyle Footbag and Aging

The subtext of this blog is all about aging. It has been all along. Here is an article that addresses 'Aging' in the context of Freestyle Footbag.

Today is day 2004 of consecutive days shredding/training. I apologize for the long delay (and I always joke that freestylers should never apologize for delays) between posts on this blog. With yesterday's retirement of the great Derrick 'Funky Chicken' Fogle, due to knee injury after 30 years of playing, I am recommitted to revitalizing this blog and continuing to represent Freestyle for the aging set. To boldly go to public places and jam. To go to concerts and immerse my shred strings to the beat of the music. To write about it, film it, and promote the sport to anyone who'll listen.

I was recently asked 'Why do you still do this?' and I didn't have a quick answer. But it got me thinking. Why do I play? What is it that keeps me going? For over 20 years the answer was clear... I was training for the World Footbag Championships. My first year was 1985 in Golden, Co and I went every year for the next 19 years and made lifelong friends with all the competitors of the time.

When I turned 40, I was noticing that if I took 2 days off, it took a day to recover, and at that rate it would hold my game stagnant. So I decided to play everyday. This way I could move forward a bit at a time and never fall back. 2004 days later I am happy to report that my game is better than ever! Along this journey, I have greatly improved all areas of my game. I do tons of integrated frontside tricks, more difficult unusual surfaces, I'm light years ahead in juggling, I've invented a bunch of tricks (even recently), I've defined trick categories and expanded on them, I've published 163 YouTube videos at http://www.YouTube.com/footbagenlightener learned Dragon tricks on both sides, expanded the high add tricks I do and I'm in the best shape of my life!

One thing I have noticed is that endurance is down. This may be due to the 'way' I train, but most people would say it is due to me being 45 and a half years old. I'm not so sure which it is, but I'm going to spend the next few months counteracting it through 'Shred Sprints' three times a week. So the first reason I still play I because what I do is a kind of Athletic Magic, and I don't want to lose the magic!

I see myself as a family man, an athlete and a company man. My inner athlete has always had the credo that second place is the first loser. In fact, today I'm wearing the very shirt that inspired my credo. While my athletic career started in the 70's with the requisite baseball and soccer where I realized that in team sports, I was an epic failure. I went to gymnastics and gained flexibility. I broke my right tibia in an embarrassing skiing incident which led me to swimming as a recovery sport.  That is because when the cast came off, my right leg was half the size of my left. It turned out that I was really good at swimming. Varsity team as a freshman, but no state records or anything monumental. I was a swimmer when I first played Footbag. I got into cycling and idolized Eric Heiden for a while. Did some triathlons, and by 1988 had placed 5th in the World Championships for Footbag freestyle. The video of this I find hilarious and can be seen here.

Why do I still play footbag everyday?   First, I fear that I might lose the magic.  Footbag freestyle is so unique, what I do is a form of magic, and I love it.  Second, playing every day reinforces my self-image as an Athlete, even though my priorities have shifted over time, I'm still an athlete!  Playing everyday is my proof.  It also provides my third reason, healthy results.  Sure, I am a vegetarian and that accounts for the healthy diet side of my life, thanks in great part to my wife Valeria's amazing cooking skills.  Combine healthy eating and daily intense exercise and a healthy result is expected and attained.  I feel I'm in the best shape of my life, and I'm not at all the stereotyped image of a lanky/sickly looking vegetarian.  And lastly, I wanted to prove it can be done!   So many of my friends/competitors from the 80's and 90's have retired and either don't play at all, or have defected to the Net side of the sport.  Net is a whole other set of skills, and I applaud my colleagues for continuing on from great freestyle careers to become some of the best net players around.  I envy them for being able to travel to World Footbag Championships all over Europe, but someday I'll come back to Worlds because footbag is in my heart.

There's four great reasons right there!

See ya!
Enlightener
(Scott Davidson)

This posting is in honor of the retirement of one of my oldest footbag freestyle friends, Derrick 'Funky Chicken' Fogle.  I really think he'll get better and play again, but I shed tears when I just think about what 'footbag retirement' would look like.  I can't imagine it.  I have 4 years before I catch up to him in playing time, so Derrick, you have 4 years to recover and stay ahead of me.  I wish there was something more than encouragement in recovery that I can offer.  But I know he'll recover and we'll play together on a day in the not so distant future!


I'm preparing a video from my 2000th day of shredding, but here is one from yesterday, my 2003rd day.  It is shred footage from O'Hare airport while I was at a conference and had a great camera angle until my camera got a heat warning during a publishable string and shut down.  Enjoy!

Footbag Unions - I miss ISUFU

Remember the ISUFU?

It was an official Footbag Club of the Illinois State University.  And it had the best t-shirts ever, because they always emphasize the FU part.

Every college student should create a club at their school called, for instance, MSUFU.  Where the school's call letters are followed by FU which is a double entendre for Footbag Union and/or Fuck You.  Which I think is just edgy and disrespectful enough for todays college footbag enthusiasts.  They don't even have to register their FU with the school, although that gives them some benefits, it also creates some paperwork.  In the case of ISUFU, Scott Cheno the President actually did make it an official club at the school, and he used those privileges to do philanthropic work.  I remember going to an all night kick-a-thon at ISU where we raised money for the AHA.  It was a blast to go to, and I was honored to be a part of it.

This club was active in the late 90's.  Lets get more Footbag Unions at colleges.  It makes for a great t-shirt too!

If anyone knows what happened to Scott Cheno, have him get in touch with me.

-enlightener

Check out my youtube playlists of freestyle footbag videos...

The reason for this post was to let you know that I have reorganized my 100 youtube videos into playlists, located at my channel:

http://www.youtube.com/footbagenlightener

and click on the Playlists option.

See videos in the following categories:

-Competition Videos (23)

-Contest Videos (8)

-Doubles Freestyle

-Footbag in the News 

-Lunch Shred Videos (46)

-Promo Videos (17)

-Youth Outreach

More categories forthcoming...

Happy St. Patricks Day!  I was shredding that day and made a quick little video on my phone, but when I published it to youtube, I selected 'private' and so no one saw my video.   Honestly, the phone app failed 5 times before it published, so I had to retype, on the phone, all of the details each time, even with copy and paste, it took forever.  Frustrating.  Now it is up, and ready to view...

High Impact tricks are always high energy tricks...

I suppose this is pretty basic stuff, but I wanted to make a general rule of toe about this one.

HIGH IMPACT TRICKS ARE ALWAYS HIGH ENERGY TRICKS, but not necessarily the other way around.

When I think about high impact tricks, I go right to Symposium tricks.  These tricks are probably the classic example of high impact, just about every one of them, except the little ones.  They require one leg to be both the dexterity leg and the landing leg.  And honestly, I am still reprogramming my brain to look at atomic and nuclear tricks as medium impact tricks.  Why is this important? When I am training daily, I don't want to do 100% high impact tricks because of, well, the impact factor.  I know better than that.  I want to do plenty of high energy tricks to get the most out of my workouts, and I know that while high energy is a pre-requisite for high impact tricks, I need to keep a balance that keeps me at a high level of mastery of my high impact tricks, while still advancing on the many other high energy tricks.

I have started to notice that when I get to my frontside strings during warmup, that it jumpstarts my warmup period and gets me super warm, super fast.   Also, all this extra training of my frontside tricks has been providing the high energy usually associated with Dexterity tricks, and giving me a better cardio workout.

High energy tricks are not necessarily high impact, and the important thing to remember is to differentiate the tricks appropriately in your minds accounting of the tricks.  For example, in the context of Atomic tricks, it looks high impact, but is really high energy.

See ya!
-enlightener

Some High Impact examples:






Shred notes: First half of Feb. 2011... I'm at 1528 days in a row today.  Already shredded, but plan a 2nd session later.  I have hit Gyro Zulu Butterfly on both sides on film, and Gyro Zulu Whirl on both sides but try as I might, I haven't hit it on film yet.  I have gotten way more comfortable with Symposium (no plant) Blurry Torques.  Also Shooting DaDa's and Symposium Blurry Drifters.  Lots of film to go through.  I have been trying to film in vertical frame because it shows the whole body in the frame from closer up, yet I still struggle with framing and lighting.  It is weird, but when I stand in front of the camera when it is on its side, I have a harder time predicting the right place to stand.  The double secret location hallway has fluorescent lighting and I don't have the cash for the proper portable lighting system.  The Kodak ZX1 does great in good light, so I really should focus on getting some good lights to offset the fluorescents and see if that works.

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.

NYJ 2010 Thank You's!

Freestyle Footbag enthusiasts from around the world gathered from December 18-20 at the Hyatt McCormick Place to jam until their legs couldn't take it anymore!  We played all day and night for 3 days, and I met many new faces, and got to catch up with some old friends in the process.

This event could not have happened without the support of many people.  I wanted to put out thank you's to everyone and I hope I didn't leave anyone out...

Thanks to the players that showed up at 10am at the site so we could start teaching and make the site look alive.

Thanks to Chicago's Mayors Office of Special Events for providing the site, fencing, electricity, tables and chairs... and for the whole assemblage of excellent mini-events that make up this amazing event!  AWESOME!

Thanks to Kevin Cronk for coming down from Petosky Michigan with his family to join us, just like old times when I met Kevin back in 1990.  Two old skoolers, still playing.  Time flies when you're having fun.

Thanks to our new friends John and Sarah from Dragonfly Footbags who sponsored our event not only with enough footbags to give out to passersby who tried to play footbag, and for the great prizes... but also contributed cash prizes of $450 to make our players really go for it to win the cash!

We only handed out about 75 footbags this year to kids who took the time to try our sport.  Compared to 450 two years ago.  But the footbags were MUCH higher quality then the cheapo chinese footbags we were giving away, so that should be a better experience for all these kids who received a footbag from us.

Thanks to our players who jumped in and helped teach kids who wandered by, when I was busy doing other stuff.  Even when played casually, our sport offers a great opportunity for kids to socialize with their friends while they get their 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day.

Thanks to our past sponsors such as World Footbag Association and Freedom Footbags who would have sponsored us if I had asked.  Sorry I was lazy this year and didn't even ask for their support.

Thanks to Steve (Brat) Goldberg for hosting the Hospitality Suite again!  He sacrificed his room so we would all have a place to hang out together and enjoy the times between our shreds.  Brat also sponsored the Shred Room, and made that possible!  I apologize for leaving on Sunday without specifically thanking Steve for coming out again!  I had a great time getting to spend time around the Brat.  Always a pleasure, and Thanks again!

Thanks to CIC for drumming up interest, for housing our players from out of town, for raising money to have the extra room the extra Monday to continue to play at the Hyatt Site for a third day!  Specifically Tom Kotsakos, job well done.

Thanks to Modern Music of Lisle for providing affordable rental of sound systems.  I wish Cory Current would have been at the event, he is the one who told us about Modern Music.

Some missing faces: Scot Hansen, Eric Cokee, Ted Martin, Steve Smith, Jay Claffey, PJ Lareau, Hacky Sack Jack, Larry Doyle (well, he died, but we still miss him terribly)...

Thanks to Valeria and Alex who put up with my obsessive behavior when it comes to the sport of footbag.

Thanks to all the players who took their valuable vacation time and spent it with us in Chicago.  You are the reason these events are worth hosting year after year.  It is a treat for me to have all these shredders in-town, as it is extremely difficult for me to travel to events these days.  I hope I got to shred with everyone who was there, but I doubt it.  I had a blast and thanks for coming to Chicago for the 2010 New Years Jam.

We are planning to make it an even bigger event next year, so start planning now!

See ya next year!
-enlightener
Scott Davidson

Lighting the fire inside...

My footbag career has spanned several decades, and I'm working on several more.  I went to world footbag championships for 20 years consecutively starting in 1985, took 2nd many times, finally won it in 1999 and had a blast in the process.  I have had many players who have inspired me to turn up level of my game which takes me in a new direction.  Starting with Andy Linder, Kenny Shults and Rippin' Rick Reese who got me truly addicted to freestyle and got my game going, then later there was Ryan Mulroney and Vasek who made me light that internal fire and step it up to the next level.  Watching Ryan come up and dominate the shred game, it really made me train hard and took me to the world title.  In the past 10 years, after Ryan disappeared and Vasek took over.  I have learned different lessons from all of them, and little lessons on the side from my other competitors like Eric Wulff (ducking), Jonathan Schneider (dragons) and too many others to mention.  They all had these things in common: They innovated because they could see the possibilities beyond the current reality.  They pushed themselves to attain great things and focused on their strengths.

Thanks to all the greats, and to all my friends who make this sport what it is!

Here is a movie I just made with the new movie software on a mac, and even though I didn't spend more than 20 minutes making this one, I think it is one of my better ones.  Enjoy!




Shred notes: 10/22/10
I've crossed the 1400 day mark.  Looking at end of January for 1500 days, but first it will be December 19th as my 4 year mark.  I've been interspersing long strings in with new trick development.  In small spaces it is easy to go to new tricks.  Gotta consciously work on long strings. I've been filming with a new Kodak Zx1 but not happy with the quality.  Been publishing crazy videos very frequently.  Using my phone and computer alternatively to publish.  Getting confused on which footage is published and what is not.  Sooooo much footage.  Gotta go through and keyword it.

World Championships 1999 Freestyle Results

No doubt that 1999 was a great year for me!  My son was 1 year old, the economy was great and I was literally peaking in career, my footbag 'game', and my life in general.

I have prepared a YouTube video that contains the performances of the top 4 finishers of the 1999 World Footbag Championships Singles Freestyle competition.  With great respect for all my competitors in this video (Ryan Mulroney, Rick Reese and Peter Irish), please enjoy...



I have to credit Ryan Mulroney for lighting a fire under my ass and making me want to win the World Title that much more.  And I have to thank Rich Abshire for supplying me with the footbag I used to win the title!  Sure I have used, and I still currently use ">Freedom Footbags on a daily basis (1396 today), but in 1999 I was using an Abshire footbag!

Shred notes: October 1-15 2010
Have been stumbling upon some great moves.  See: Phobic Da Da, Fairy same Drifter, Pixie opp Drifter [HD] and Phobic Vortex and Spyro para Drifter [HD] .  I love the creative process and now that i play indoors more, I am trying to focus on longer strings, ionically.

Andy Linder's approach to freestyle training helped!

There is a lot to learn from the great players who preceded us in the sport of Footbag. I was lucky to have seen Andy Linder's performances during the early days of my Footbag development, they inspired me to get better, and to strive for the kind of precision that I knew was possible because he had achieved it.  After traveling to many tournaments together, we teamed up to win the Team Footbag Freestyle in 1991 World Championships, and reflecting on the training we committed to is how I came to this particular conclusion...

In a word, it's methodical. 
I'm talking about the way he approaches practicing a performance, and how helpful I am finding it to be. Once we had our routine mapped out, we not only did complete run thrus, but broke it down into segments. We would go through each segment perfectly 3 times in a row before moving to the next segment. If we got 2 good runs and dropped on 3rd, we start the count over. 

I spent an hour on two separate days getting thru my funtastik routine in this fashion. Today, I had a chance to run thru this performance and I averaged 2.5 drops in 5 attempts. I wasn't averaging quite that high before this training goal, so I think this triggered an improvement in my game. 


Now that Funtastik is over, my performances were both mired with 3 drops in different places.  You can review my performances at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkUtDTZIGQo  
I did like how it turned out overall, and it is still nice to be in the top group of shredders, able to compete with people literally less than half my age!  I'm 43-3/4, I've been skooling hard every day for 1362 days in a row, plus about 24 years before that!


Thank you Andy Linder for sharing your training techniques with me, I'm glad I can still use them to better my game!


Shred notes 9/12/10:
-I've been on vacation at New Jersey's Six Flags Great Adventures, Harrisburg's last running of the Funtastik Summer Classic, the US Open Tennis Championships and got to shred in Times Square NY!  Today I refined another type of seamless juggle that I'll videotape and post soon.  It is juggle integrated with fairy-mirage and seamless back into juggle.  Also video to come of our Times Square shred!

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.

Mammoth Springs Training Center is open!

Of course, shredding footbag freestyle requires flat, level surfaces.  Ideally concrete, asphalt or hardwood but not slippery like marble or some polished hardwoods.  In the winter I frequently comment on how shredding in a back hallway of polished concrete with a half inch layer of dust, and I whine about it because I know that there is a parking lot nearby that is calling my name.

I call it Mammoth Springs Training Center!  Featuring plenty of sun and real-world wind conditions.  An asphalt surface that doesn't transfer black to your Rod Lavers.  A view of the river, and plenty of privacy to crank up the tunes and shred up a storm.  In reality, it is the back parking lot of the Doubletree hotel here in Oak Brook, but there is a rock with a historic plaque out front that commemorates the rich history that this site contains.  Mammoth Springs is where the people who settled this area got all their ice from.  Before electric refrigeration, they needed ice in the summer, so they build giant insulated ice houses and froze water all winter and distributed it all summer using the river channel that still runs through today.

I look forward to playing everyday, and when I am stuck at work and playing at my "Lunch", usually at the 11:00am hour, this is where you'll find me.

Shred on brothers and sisters!

-enlightener

Shred notes: 5/29/10
Working on routine every day, at least one run-through on tape.  Cool new 'heel' moves leg overs and DLO's ending in Heel.  Cool sole stuff too.  Video being prepped on Spring update with all this fun stuff I've been doing.

11 years late, but never too soon!

I won the 1999 World Footbag Championships, Footbag Freestyle Singles event.   I have only seen my performance twice since then, it is as if no one recorded it.

We did have a great recording done with professional cameras, but that footage got lost immediately after the event, during a move, and I have never seen it.  So I got in touch with our videographer by chance through facebook, and he finally tracked down the footage and is putting it in the mail so I can get it up on YouTube.  I can't wait.  I really can't wait.  

Shred notes: 5/11/10 - Skooled routines today.  Really got into it after about a half hour warmup.  The past few days have been productive... Nuclear Paradox Twirl and Fairy Symposium Mirage.  The first is a new trick as far as I can tell, and the 2nd is new to me.

Peripheral Vision... Nature or Nurture?

It is so important to have good peripheral vision when playing footbag freestyle. It reduces the need to turn your body and neck as much, and increases the chance you will see the footbag out of the corner of your eye enough so that you can complete the trick.

Is good peripheral vision something that people are born with, or is it something that can be improved upon with practice. When I googled it, I got a wikipedia article that has a great quote...

"Peripheral vision can be practiced, jugglers that regularly locate and catch objects in their peripheral vision do have improved abilities. Jugglers do not follow the paths of individual objects with their eyes, instead they focus on a defined point in mid-air, so almost all of the information necessary for successful catches is perceived in the near-peripheral region. Some juggling patterns and disciplines require extraordinary peripheral vision." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_vision

"...and disciplines." We are foot jugglers, and in that sense we are another discipline that fits into this model. I really had a gut feeling that it was something that is improved upon with practice, and now I am wiki-sure about it.

I am so glad that I am continuing to keep my streak of number of days in a row skooling footbag freestyle going... 1182 today. A little pain is still there in the back of the upper right leg.

Shred notes: 2/15/10
I am trying to get my music together for world championships this year. I have a really good option that I have to go put into my iphone so I can work on it tomorrow at skool.

Clearly focused on ambiguous goals!

I've established that I get more from a jam session when I have a clear goal. But that is not always the case, sometimes I just flow with the music, get warm and see what happens. Kinda like the funky chicken method... just get into the music and it will be good.

For example, today I am still sore from a past injury, not sure where I'd be able to get to today. I got warm and worked on a few phobic sets and two innovations came to me. Phobic spinning cross body rake, and Phobic spinning paradox whirl (same). I have now hit both of them, AND both sides "Fairy Reverse swirl." As I shred every day, I've noticed that I approach every jam differently. Sometimes based on my mood, and attitude. While I'd love to have a specific goal to work on each day, I'm just not that structured of a person. I'd rather jam, let it flow and see what happens when I don't have specific goals. So while I love the experience of shredding, sometimes just playing is the reward, and some of those times lead to the greatest moments of innovation. Today is 1,182 in a row of serious shredding. Happy for every moment.

On another note:
A funny thing happened a few weeks ago, I kicked my most recent freedom footbag (orange and blue) onto a light fixture out of reach of my shortness. So today, after my jam session, I went on a break and ducked into my double secret shred spot to make a call and eat some grub. I knew if I waited long enough, it would still be there, and I had clearly waited long enough. There was a leak in the ceiling and a worker left a ladder just 20 feet from where I needed it. So I got my footbag back, just had to be patient.

Footbag Freestyle - This is not your father's hacky sack!

Shred notes:
Fairy (same) Whirling X-body rake, both sides! Plus everything mentioned above happened in the past few days. Also wore a pedometer for 3 days, had 4000 steps on day 1, but on day 2 I xooted to work and wore it while I worked out and hit 6000. On day 3, I xooted to and from work, and wore the damn thing during my jam and still only hit 6600.

Why footbag doesn't have sponsors...

As an athlete, I focus on improving my game. Longer string lengths, better tricks, and integrating new more difficult tricks into my longer strings. In any other sport, or dare I say in 'every' other sport, elite athletes attain sponsorship from companies looking to associate with these athletes. Not in footbag though.

Sports like Snow Boarding and BMX for instance, have industries built around them. Most sports have tons of accessories that the participants need to invest in, companies create these items and sell them to the public. These companies sponsor the best athletes in the hope that the new learners will see their logos on these people, and go buy their stuff. A great win-win situation for the elite athletes in the sport and the industries that supply the products.

One of the greatest things about the sport of footbag is that it is such a low-investment sport, all you need is a footbag that probably costs less than $10 to purchase, and the shoes you already have. This is also our 'sponsorship' downfall. The small companies that make footbags have little budget for sponsorship, as they are barely turning a profit. The large companies that make footbags like Wham-O™ (makers of the Hacky Sack® brand footbag), treat our sport like a game, and they gave up on sponsoring the players back in the early 90's. They rely on their existing distribution channels for their other products to get their products placed on shelves of their vendors, and since they don't support the sport of footbag, they simply don't sponsor events OR athletes.

As an Event Director, I focus on three types of promotion. We need to get the event located into a place that has 'built-in' spectators. We need to get the players to the event, and we need to get sponsors to help pay for the event. Over the years I have been able to get our events located into some great venues like McCormick Place alongside a 50,000 spectator a day sports festival, Taste of Chicago (the worlds largest free admission food festival) with hundreds of thousands of spectators daily and Scot Hansen has been able to run an annual event at Navy Pier. Even though we have placed our events into great venues, we still struggle to get non-footbag related companies to sponsor us. Partially because we don't spend enough of our resources, but mostly because we have given up. The catch-22 is that we have great events with guaranteed spectators, but we have been rejected so many times that we have all but given up on sponsors. We are always looking for companies that would be interested, but because our event directors have had such limited success in attaining sponsors, we just decided that it wasn't worth our time. This of course is an untruth, and we do need to pursue sponsors. I suppose we just have to get 100 NO's for every yes!

I am making a more concerted effort this year to get sponsors for my big event next year, New Years Jam 2010 right after xmas. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

Special thanks to Freedom Footbags (freedomfootbags.com) and World Footbag Association (worldfootbag.com) for all their support over the years. At least they have been able to supply prizes that the players really appreciate. We, the sport of footbag and our athletes, are worthy of major sponsorship, just seemingly incapable of attracting them. I promise to get more aggressive on this and I'll let you know how it goes!

Shred notes: 3/4 to 3/9 2010:
I have been nursing my hammy back to full strength, still shredding hard, just not working so much on symposiums and nuclear stuff. I have been waking up after 5-6 hours sleep with back pain. Solution: Sleep only 6 hrs. max.

Freestyle Routines: A Music Map is a guide for development

I like to use different music for each event I perform at. It has been a personal challenge that I could easily wimp out on, but it keeps things fresh and provides a constant challenge for each event.

When I prepare for a footbag event, I first have to decide on the music. I match the average Beats Per Minute that I shred at, with the pace of the music BPM, and find a piece of music that I can hear over and over and over and over again. I prefer music that has at least a few freezes in it, fast paced but a short slow section is okay.

The Music Map comes in when I am ready to figure out the flow of the routine. The Music Map contains a timeline from 0:00 to the end, and tells me which sections of the music are which. For instance:

0:00 - Open with ...
0:26 -Freeze on Xbody Sole
0:54 - Start fliers string
1:21 - Ripwalks / Blur combo
etcetera.

They help me to visualize the music. I even name the sections so I can visualize them by group, and train the groups independently of each other. When doing a routine, if you should malfunction, get off beat or out of sync with the music, it is very helpful to be able to 'get right back into it' at any point in the music, and I think this helps me to recover from potential disasters.

Shred notes: 2/2/10 - 2/3/10
Spinning Symposium Twirl... I got my foot on it twice, more like a slap than a delay. Redirected the footbag but not in a controlled fashion. It is doable though, so close. Getting warmer faster by mixing up my warmup strings. Also more 'interesting' and satisfying jam sessions too.

Ted Martin - Guinness World Record Holder

Ted Martin gives me a call last night out of the blue. Small world alert because his name came up in conversation at work, as one of my clients had been contacted by someone unknown about his agent services... anyway that very night, Ted gives me a call. What's up with that?

Ted Martin is the Guinness World Record Holder in the prestigious and coveted event of Singles Footbag Consecutives. Set at an event I organized back in 1997, the record still stands at 63,326 as the most number of kicks of a footbag that any human being has ever completed in a row. Ted has been featured in a special publication by Guinness called "The Top 100 Most Asked About Records" (paraphrased), and he still plays footbag net on a regular basis, along with many other sports. Ted is a true craftsman, and I consider it an honor to have been a part of his domination of the sport back in the day.

A major Trading Card manufacturer, Upper Deck, has created a card to celebrate Ted's accomplishment, and Ted is signing one for me, Valeria and Alex. We will for sure be framing that and adding it over my desk. I can't wait to see them, so I searched their site and found the image above! Awesome!

I am psyched to start shredding today, right now as I post, for the 1136th day in a row! Still, I don't think I would ever try to attempt a single string of over 63,326 kicks in a row... Ted kicks VERY fast compared to me, what took him just over 8.5 hours, would take me at least 12. That's a long session. Thanks Ted for continuing to inspire!

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!