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.  

How exercising every day positively effects my work...

When I think about the many benefits that I receive by exercising everyday, I mostly think in terms of improved health and fitness.  And while doing research about daily exercise and the physical benefits, I realized that there are many great reasons to exercise, that are specifically related to improving my work performance.

Exercise has many positive mental benefits: reducing stress and anxiety, improved focus, better mood, increased energy, and better sleep quality!

Every one of these mental benefits translates to better performance at work.  When exercise reduces my stress and anxiety, I go to work more relaxed and calm, and enjoy my interactions with co-workers and clients even more than usual!  When exercise improves my focus, I'm better able to efficiently complete the tasks at hand and helps me to innovate effectively!  And when exercise improves my sleep quality, I arrive at work more alert and feel rested throughout the day!

I exercise everyday, and I have since I turned 40, over 8 years ago.  It has had a positive effect on my work and my family life.  Consider pushing yourself to break a sweat every day!  It is amazing what you might accomplish!

Here is a video showing off what I have accomplished over the last 3000 days of exercising everyday.

Even the US Government has done research to prove the benefits of exercise in the workplace.  Read more about it here.

Thanks for watching!

Find more at www.earlyworkingretirement.com
My youtube channel is /footbagenlightener
Follow me on Twitter: @enlightener1
Friend me on Facebook: /enlightener

New iPhone 6 vs. GoPro Hero3+ Slow Motion Side by Side Comparison

This is the best head-to-head comparison of the new iPhone 6 and the GoPro Hero3+ slow motion cameras.  

It puts an amazing world champion athlete in front of both cameras at sunset facing south toward the City of Chicago from Montrose Harbor.  

If you are wondering, should I buy an iPhone 6 or a GoPro Hero 3+, watch this video (and be sure to change the sprocket setting to 1080p quality) and make up your own mind!

A worthy example of the slow motion capabilities of the 60 frames per second (60 fps) of the new iPhone in comparison with the Hero 3+.

Enjoy!

Save my Sole! Why I am switching to asphalt and wood surfaces for Footbag Hacky Sack Freestyle

I am now forgoing the would-be ideal grippy surface of concrete, for the less ideal, dirty asphalt or slippery wood for my shredding needs. This is primarily to save my Adidas Rod Laver shoes from wearing out too soon. 

Everyone has their own favorite surface for shredding freestyle Footbag, and mine has always been white concrete.  My second favorite surface is the standard tennis courts. However, due to the unfortunate demise of the lightweight poly-sole Adidas Rod Laver in 2012 our poly-soled lavers are now unavailable and the pairs that we are lucky enough to possess have become prized possessions!  White concrete is ideally grippy so initiating a spin and controlling my spin is more predictable and I feel I perform best on this type if surface. 

The problem with concrete is that it eats Rod Laver shoes alive!  The very grippy-ness it provides also rips away at the poly soles, eventually wearing them through.  It has happened to every pair I've ever had, and it is the primary reason why any of my Lavers are forced into retirement.  

Another reason concrete is now a bad surface for me is that recently I've had two instances where I was rotating my upper body and my support leg normally rotates with me to get in position for the catch and the sole was so attached to the grippy concrete that I tweaked my knee by over rotating, and I've been babying it ever since, even though the pain has gone away. 

I'm going to take a cue from the Hip Hop Dancers who also treasure the poly-soled Adidas Rod Laver shoes, and I'm going to switch to smooth surfaces whenever possible.  Those guys probably don't have the wear-and-tear problem on the soles because they require smooth surfaces to dance on, due to the way they spin by pivoting on an amazingly wide array of body parts. The dancers have found a way to deal with the slipperiness of smooth flooring, and I'll need to make my peace with it too. 

But what surfaces are best?  Polished wood gymnasium floors?  The wood floor in my living room?  Tile or marble?  The problem with shiny and smooth surfaces when dust is present. Even the best wood floors need regular clearing of dust to stay grippy. 

One thing the european Footbag players and dancers have been doing for some time, is to roll out a thin floor over the concrete which modifies whatever surface they are on, into an ideal one.  I've tried athletic flooring in the past and my conclusion was that the plastic ones that used tongue and groove were too bulky to transport and the rubber ones sucked the energy from my legs and reduced my leaping ability.  I never before saw the wisdom of thin supplemental flooring, but I'm all over it now!   I will find the perfect surface that is a single lightweight portable piece, that is the right grippy-ness for freestyle Footbag and I will report back with my results.  For now I'm trying to play on wood floors with a damp rag nearby to step on and remove dust from my shoes.  Save our soles!

As for my daily shred update... Today is 2806 days in a row.  I'm still loving every minute of it!  Looking forward to tomorrow's jam session already and I haven't even gotten to werk yet.   I've been kayaking a lot lately, but I'm paying the price in the form of back pain.  First, lower and now upper.   But the pain did not slow me down a bit. Thanks for all your support!  

Now producing a footbag video for the GoPro website, at their request!

As usual, by perseverance and dumb luck, I have been contacted by GoPro to put some of my footage onto their website!  While I prepare that storyboard and get ready to film at the next break in the weather... I wanted to share my "Most Watched YouTube Videos of Scott 'Enlightener' Davidson" playlist from my YouTube Channel.

One of my videos has over 99,000 views, another is at 42,000.  Many more of my videos have over 2000 views!  Please enjoy these.  Hopefully I'll have a runaway hit with the GoPro video I'm making and I can break my own personal record!

Here is my most viewed YouTube video, my 7th place finish at the World Footbag Championships 2003 in Prague...

The Journey and the People are really the reasons I love to go to Footbag tournaments...

Certainly World Footbag Championships is the father of all Footbag tournaments, and that means many of my old friends are traveling there too. This post is to summarize our Journey to Montreal. 

Starting in Oak Park, IL which is a suburb of Chicago, we began packing on Thursday, the day after my wife's moms funeral.  It was a tough week. I am traveling with my wife Valeria, my son Alex and my niece Juliana (both 14) and our dog Harley.  We each get a bin and packed it into our station wagon with a car topper that has our camping gear, chairs, xootr, etc...  

We got our usual late start and didn't get to the Windsor Canada crossing until midnight.  We had to reserve a room in Canada to prove we needed our passports expedited, but it took until 4:00am to find the hotel near Toronto. We slept until 10:30 and had to check out at 11.  

Another constant challenge is finding Internet and using it wisely. I rely heavily on iPhone maps, but without a data plan here, we have been successfully zenning our way around. We sat in the hotel parking lot and used their wifi to figure out our next moves. 

We found the Toronto lakefront, and went to this new park but $10 parking and mostly not dog friendly we backtracked to the old Toronto lakefront parks and found a $1.50 parking spot.  Here are some Toronto pictures: 

 A drive by picture

Met this kid and his sister, taught them some kicks and gave them a dragonfly Footbag from our sponsor www.footbagshop.com 

If you look carefully in the background you can see the spire in that last photo. 

The weather looked bad at this point, so camping that night was off.  We went to Gananoque CA which is billed as the 'Gateway to 1000 Islands' and found a hotel.  We watched a heavy rainstorm come thru and got up the next day to go see 1000 Islands. 

We zenned our way to the highway and headed for Montreal. We have a condo rented and we needed to dump all our stuff and get checked in for the tournament.  Here is our condo...

Pretty sweet!  About $100/night.  You see Valeria in the kitchen then the dining room and family room space, a bedroom beyond the TV and a sitting room to the right with Juliana on the barkolounger. 

We got checked in at the event site... Saw old friends like Tuan Vu and Lisa Monte-Vu, Kenny and Kendall Shults and family, and many others!  It was great!

Valeria made a great pasta dinner in our full kitchen and we felt right at home. 

On Monday, we skipped the tournament and went to Six Flags LaRonde and used our season passes to get in free.  They even let us use the parking for free!  

Julie and Alex at the site where I took 4th in the world in 1996. In the back of LaRonde.  After Worlds is over, we are going to 4 more six flags along the east coast.  Stay tuned. 

Back in 1996, a random jam happened on Isle St. Helene at this very location. Peter Irish, Tuan Vu, Eric Wullfe and I shredded epically here.  It is where I did my 2413th jam in a row and my last practice before round 1 at worlds. 

So at 12:30 today EST Worlds freestyle begins and at 1:20 my pool goes on.  So wish me luck.  It's breakfast time here.  And that is the story of how we got here!

See ya!

-Enlightener

Vote daily for Scott 'Enlightener' Davidson in Dr. Pepper video contest!

I need your votes!  Each day, starting July 10th thru July 24th you can vote once at http://www.drpepper.com/oneofakind/ and a second time by tweeting my custom hash tag #ScottForTheNextOne to your Twitter account.  

I know it will be difficult to remember to vote everyday, so I am putting a calendar event that repeats daily for the next two weeks to remind me. 

If you could share the link to my Dr. Pepper video on your Facebook and Twitter, I would greatly appreciate it. 

The video was submitted over a month ago, and would not have been possible without the help of my son Alex Davidson, my wife Valeria Davidson and my friend Steve Richardson.  It is in the style of the Dr Pepper /1 of a Kind as campaign and tells the story of how Over 1 million Footbag's are sold each year, and how hundreds of thousands of college students move on and never play Footbag again.  It also talks about how I am a world champion, how I am over 46 years old, and how I play every day, And that's what makes me one-of-a-kind!   When we were filming it, at Rosary College in River Forest, Illinois, As an afterthought, we got shot in front of the doorway at the college. It turned out that this was the best shot of the day.   A rather long string, captured with the iPhone in vertical mode, featured prominently in the second half of the video.

I apologize in advance for being annoying  this week. I will be making several Facebook posts a day to garner as many votes as possible. 

As of This writing, the video is not yet viewable. I hope there will be a share button for Facebook and Twitter, and even LinkedIn. I hope they publish it at 1080p. 

Even if you aren't quite as excited about this as I am, I truly appreciate your support in voting and getting the word out to vote!

If I win, the prize is that they will produce a professional quality video along the same lines of the one I made. And they will Eric on television and on the web.  I'll get flown to location, and per diem's. But no cash prize this time.

Just making the finals, feels like winning to me! But it sure would be nice to get some great positive exposure for the sport of Footbag, and Footbag Freestyle specifically.

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.

Why Seamless juggling tricks should get an extra add

Catching a single Footbag on 1 foot equals one add. Juggling 2 footbags at once, even though you're really only touching one at a time, gets two ads. The second add is a Body add and is awarded for having two objects in play simultaneously.

Most people start their juggling tricks after a pause. Seamless juggling is done without a pause. There is Seamless-In, and Seamless-Out. That is to say, that a seamless trick happens as you enter a juggling sequence and/or as you exit a juggling sequence.

The most basic example, is the two bag toe juggle. Starting the traditional way requires a 1 add toe delay and a pause in the action. Seamless tricks still start mostly with toe delays but have the 'added element of difficulty' of throwing a second Footbag into play without any pause in the action. The most basic example of this is starting into a juggle from a kicking sequence.

When teaching Seamless juggle, I start with teaching the timing and accuracy of the hand toss by having students kick insides and go to opp toe delay and start to juggle from kicks, not from toe delay. Once the timing and hand toss are more familiar, then we start integrating more difficult first tricks as the start tricks. The Add should be awarded as a Body Add for the integrated hand toss, and should be applied to the first trick leading into the juggle. That is Seamless-In.

Seamless-Out Happens as the player transitions back to 1 bag shredding. For instance, I'm 2-bag juggling on left toe and I grab Footbag from the air while doing a Phairy infinity with the bag in play (as opposed to another toe delay), is there an extra add there? I don't see it.

The really fun thing about Seamless-Out tricks is how confusing it looks when I integrate directly back to Seamless-In tricks. You will see examples in the links below.

I have been a bit obsessed about developing my Seamless skills lately. I've kept up with my high end game the whole time and Seamless tricks are part of most of my strings. They are more natural than ever before. Here are some of the recent Seamless Juggle videos I've published so far...

Starting from almost two years ago, here are the vids I've published featuring juggling...

August 2010 I published this test of the new camera I had gotten, and below is the result... I've been doing Seamless Juggling for at least 2 years now and I've brought all those videos together here:




















That was the most recent Juggling related video I've made.  Now that Seamless Juggling is a reality, I am working to include Seamless tricks in almost every string.  I always carry a 2nd bag with me, as I can do seamless whenever I want.  I propose Seamless-In tricks should get another ad because it requires an additional element of difficulty in getting the timing right for the release of the 2nd footbag while the first footbag is still in play.

Please comment.  Tell your friends.

-Enlightener!

Shred Lessons from 2011

Looking back over 2011, we travelled to Florida for vacation, my son is now a teenager, my wife and I have been married for 20 years and life is great. I have been playing freestyle everyday for 5 years and about a dozen days, and I've learned a lot about my game.

After shredding with the Finns, Jay Boychuck and Evan Gatesman at the 2011 NYJ, I realize that while my level of play has increased, my string length has decreased. It has also become apparent that there are some elements of the game that have developed over the past few years that I won't ever accomplish, at least in the context of a string.

I'm committed to working on my string length, starting tomorrow. While it may slow down the progression towards new tricks, I need to work on my endurance. I'm going to shift my training towards 'wind sprint' style. I do a 2 minute jam session followed by 1-2 minutes of kicking... repeat for 30 minutes and complete exhaustion. These jam sessions will produce the stamina I need to get to longer strings. The I'll alternate my trainings with regular jam sessions of whatever I want.

Once I get my endurance back, I'll work on the new concepts that blow my mind like Quantum, Blazing (which I've had some recent success with), Whirring and more! Currently taking suggestions (challenges).

Of course, I'm committed to continuing to play everyday. In early May, I should reach 2000 days in a row playing, I haven't figured out the day yet.

I really wish I could have played with everyone during the afternoon sessions at NYJ, but playing through Midnight on New Years Eve was awesome.

I look forward to shredding with as many others as possible this year, it really pushes my game to a new level each time.

Best regards,
Scott Davidson
-enlightener

Transitioning to indoor jam sessions, EARLY AM and daily.

The fall weather inspired me to lower my outdoor temperature threshold to 45f degrees. That is assuming low wind and lots of sun. Even with the lower threshold, the temperatures are frequently forcing me indoors. The problem is that my normal double-secret shred site is occupied by a bunch of burly construction workers building-out a new store in the mall. Tons of dust and not a friendly space. Since my workplace switched to a later schedule, I had to find a way to make all this work, and continue to shred everyday. Here is a recent video called PhobicFly, an innovative and tiny flier... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMXZc3riAsk&sns=em (you may have to copy and paste that link in a browser, as I can't seem to figure out how to make it into a link)

I now get up at 4am, and by 5am I am shredding. The problem with early shreds are that A) they take place in my living room so there can be no filming, B) my living room is small so my string length is shortened and C) shredding early in the morning makes it more difficult to shred later in the evening, when most people play. So in addition to doing an hour and a half every morning, which is a 50% increase in time from my 'recess' shreds at skool, I now do a light jam session when possible at recess during the early afternoon, where I can film. On days where I do a double shred session, it will be over 2 hours of jam time those days, and helps me to stay used to kicking later in the day, so when people come to town I can jam in the evenings with them.

Whatever you do, play everyday!

See ya!
Scott.


Shred notes: I've been innovating while moving indoors and early. I've hit Spinning Ducking X-Body Pincher many times. Also, Phobic Vortex on film and publishing today. And Nuclear Paradox Drifter and Nuclear DaDa. Still playing everyday, 2148 days in a row today.

Playing at a Handicap

Given ideal circumstances, I can expect a certain level of play from myself on any given day. So when all the elements of a training session come together, and they usually do, I will generally achieve my goals, and when the stars are aligned, I'll hit new tricks and even innovate newer ones.

There are a lot of elements to a great session, so missing one or two of them isn't a critical fail, but can serve to throw my focus off. The most satisfying sessions have a time and a location, having a set of shred clothes (shorts, shirt, socks, shoes, Spenco insoles, unmentionables and a towel), a few good Footbags, music, speaker, batteries, water, lighting, weather, and a heaping helping of motivation.

When I play, I'll start with warm ups, then work on my personal goals. So if any of the physical aspects of the session are missing, they could have a negative effect on my outcome from that day, but I don't allow that to happen.

Today I forgot a few critical elements of my shred session, namely my Footbags and my kicking shorts. Luckily I carry around a few giveaway Footbags in case I run into kids who play, so I repurposed two of those Footbags into 'demo' Footbags. As for the missing shorts, it just so happens that I wear biz-casual shorts at work, which are longer, have pockets but are not an athletic cut. So I used some new Footbags and a non-athletic cut pair of shorts, and did I mention that Paul Blartt at my mall just told me NOT to kick in my standard double-secret location? So i was worried that I would be asked to leave at any moment. All kinds of things that I could have used as excuses... But I didn't.

Today, even though I was playing at a handicap, I hit all kinds of tight window tricks, like loco (like blurry drifter but the first dex is symposium) paradox drifter on both sides. also tons of eclipses including my first gyro eclipses on my flip side.

So don't get discouraged if things don't go just right. Stay focused and you'll have a great training session.

-enlightener
1799 days in a row shredding. So far.

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

Athlete first, Street Performer second...

I have always struggled with the 'freestyle footbag as street performance' aspect of the game. I love playing in front of crowds, it somehow improves my string length, and it is a great experience to even be able to draw a crowd. But when people say, "You should put out a hat...!" I never had a great response until now.

I'm an Athlete first, and a Street performer second!  So in that sense I do not rely on income from footbag endeavors, and when I play in front of crowds, I usually play in a casual circle. So looking in from the outside, we are a group of people who each take successive turns and we always pass in the same direction. If you watch carefully, we give each other props for good strings, and there is a fairness to it all, in that we each get equal opportunity to do our best tricks. We play like athletes.  When we play in public, we organically draw crowds, people watch us play, but we are playing because we are all athletes trying to improve ourselves, not because we are asking for money.  There is an element of 'showing off', but from my personal standpoint, I am really just trying to put together long strings of guiltless tricks while jamming to the music.  I'm trying to better my overall game, while maybe getting some of the best of it on video.  It's always a great feeling when people give us money when we are not asking for it, they can see the value of passive entertainment.

I've seen my share of effective street performers, and they all have a process. They rile up a crowd. They build up the excitement by engaging passersby to stay for a few minutes for a big performance.  With street dancers, jugglers, gymnasts and musicians, they all draw a crowd and build up suspense for an upcoming show.  Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.  The whole point of getting people riled up is to get them to open up their wallets and give you money after your performance.  The Street Performers have a 'schtick', a short performance, planned which all builds up to a climactic ending and then they ask for money.  The street performers day is cyclical because they repeat this process for the next group of passersby.  They are organized around the goal of raising money.

I have great respect for Jugglers, Breakers and Gymnasts who can pull off these kind of shows.  They not only have the athletic talent it takes to pull off dynamic tricks, but the performance awareness to monetize on it.  I really wish I had 1/10th the natural performance ability of someone like Peter Irish or Tim Kelly.  They can pull off the hard tricks, with the music and smile looking good the whole time.

So when you see me shredding with my friends next time, please join our circle or watch us try our best tricks, but don't expect too much of an organized show, we're purely shredding for the enjoyment of it!  Not to mention that if we put a hat out, the police in Chicago would either give us a hella-expensive violation or they would kick us out, and we don't want either of those!

I'm an Athlete first, and a Street performer second!

Best regards,
-Enlightener

Shred Notes: 7/31/11  - 1684 Days in a row shredding today.  Been skoolin' tons of juggles, seamless in and out.  osis, spinning osis and twirls into Stepping tricks like blurs, blizzards, blurry whirls and stepping same osis.  Still playing at Mammoth Springs Training Center in Oak Brook, IL mostly.  Vacation coming up.  Keep playing!

Stimpy Concept - Freestyle Footbag evolves steadily...

Stimpy Concept.  New from Enlightener.

A Concept is something that applies to many possible tricks, making them unique.  Symposium, Paradox, Atomic and Nuclear are all Concepts.  The Stimpy Concept applies when the following conditions are met... When you Leap, Dex, Land AND Catch the footbag with the same foot.  So far I have hit 4 tricks that are Stimpy.  They are in the video below.  Mostly variations on Double Leg Over.



Enjoy!
-Enlightener

Shred Notes:  Have had a burst of creativity lately.  Hit what I think is Spinning Symposium Swiveling Osis?  I have near-hits on film.  Other strange tricks like: Nuclear inspinning mirage/torque, I have scratched the back of my leg up pretty good trying this one.  Took today off.  Gotta look at my camera and see if any of this stuff is worth publishing.  cant wait until spring weather, getting outdoors and in the sun and really start back into long strings.  Hallway shredding on polished concrete is getting old.

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.

1500 Days of Shred, 1.5 Million Tricks and Playing everyday!

Ever since I turned 40, I've been skooling my footbag freestyle game every single day!  It keeps the mind fresh and the body young.

This video features highlights with some of my thoughts as voiceovers.

Thanks to Theo 'DaMadGreek' Demeris for letting me use his audio tracks for background music!  Check his channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/DemadGreek


"No excuses."




The dialog from the movie is posted below:

At this point, ive been playing footbag for over 27 years, but when I turned 40 in 2006, which at this point is1500 days ago,   I decided to start playing every day, this short film is really just a compilation of  clips from practic sessions that we call shreds, with voice overs that reflect my thoughts.  I hope you have as much fun viewing it as I had making it.

I'd like to thank the mad greek for providing the background music.

During this time I've been on such shows as America's got talent and local news like wgntv in chicago.

This is my son Alex in a consecutives contest at NYJ at holiday sports festival an annual event that we host.

This is just days after my 40th biryhday when I started playing every day.

My sessions last typically about an hour, sometimes I do 2 sessions a day... but not more than 2x a week.  But at a 1000 kicks per session, comes to about 1.5 million tricks over the past 4 years or so.

When I turned 40 back in 2006, I became obsessed with the concept of "Use it or Lose it," and looked at my errratic shred session schedule, and decided to put my obsession  where my mouth is, and play every day.  So while I have been practicing the craft for the past  23 years, I had undertaken a commitment that was a great personal challenge that would lead to introspecition and some basic truths.

I've come to some conclusions, things like those little pains that never go away, you've got to play through them.   They are just a trick that the body plays on the mind as it tries to get out of work.  Little pains go away a little after starting.  Injuries are different, but I'm fortunate not to suffer from any serious ones.

Sometimes just getting started was the hardest part.  The mental game was strong here.  I found that after I made it through my warm ups, that I no longer wanted to blow off my session.  What I gained from this is an ability to recognize and overcome the mental chatter that might otherwise  supply me with excuses to skip my session.  

I also couldn't let the lack of a location become an excuse.  I boldly walk into hotels and find a spot to play at, sometimes in a forgotten stairwell.  Mainly I play at Mammoth Springs with seclusion and wind protection, at the service entrance at my workplace, or in my living room.  Whenever possible I play at festivals, concerts and promote the sport.  

When I worked downtown, I'd go out in front of my store in full body running thermals, put chemical  hand warmers under my toes just to stay warm.   And when I'd end, I'd literally have steam coming off of me.  

Whenever possible have music to kick to , it really makes it better when kicking with music.

I pretty much always warm up with the same tricks every day, I call them "Warm up strings".  10 in a row, infinity osis, ripwalk, paradox whirl, spinning butterflies and blurs and blizzards. 

I always end with a worthy "Out" string, thats utilizes the things that I had been working on that day, along with my other tricks in a really long string that would be worthwhile to publish on like say, the internet.  

Speaking to the mental part of the game, I try to think of it as play time, or recess... not really a workout.  Work is hard, it's not work, it's fun, it's play, I have a great time doing it.  

Early on, back in 2007, my hip started to hurt.  But it was a blessing in disguise as it changed my focus in a new direction... I started working on my flipside which improved my game and gave my right hip the time it needed to heal. 

I also find, that when I have a goal, something to focus on, when I get into my workout, I get warm faster, it's a strong motivator for me, and when I achieve those goals, I feel a sense of success.

In order to get the most shred time out of a single recess , which most people call lunch... I wear my kicking shorts and shirt under my work clothes, and just shed layers to get started. 

I think an hour long lunch is better spent shredding, because a 15 minute break is really twice as long as it takes to eat.

We've kicked at theme parks, like disney world, at parades in Oak park, at the Daley Center and many venues.  We'be been kicked out of many places  too, by the security there.  We call it the 'Security Test" when the Security guard passes us up and keeps walking then we've passed the security test, if not then we have to deal with security and hope we don't get kicked out.

This is footage from Lollapalloza in 2009.  

Rob McCloskey inspired me back in the day, when I lost 50 lbs. playing footbag, that was back in 1992.  He said 'Kick 1000 Kicks a Day' and I said 'How about a 1000 Tricks a Day."  And I carried a counter with me, and after I did my strings, I clicked off how many tricks I did.  And I wouldn't stop until I reached a 1000 tricks, which took a little over a half hour to complete.   

I did have a lot of accomplishments in the past 4 years or so.  Including 2nd in the World with Keaton Halley in Doubles Footbag Team Freestyle.  And while we were training for that, we went to California and filmed for Americas Got Talent, but we didn't get on the air.

Here is some rare footage of me kicking in a field

And for the first time, in 2010, I got see the footage of me winning the World Championships in 1999.  Thanks to John Hentges for that.

During this time, we attended events such as New Years Jam,  Midwest Regional Championships, Windy City Open, several Funtastik events, Taste of Chicago, Blues Fest, USOpen Tennis Championships, several apperances on WGN-TV, WGN Health fairs, jockey underwear contest, America's Got Talent, Snicker kicker, mountain dew spec ads,  won a camera from a Cheerios contest and I plan to enter more contests!

It's sometimes hard to get started, always hard to stop.

++++++++++++++

Thanks for checking it out!

See ya!

-enlightener