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

Single tricks from recent days... freestyle footbag...

I have been focusing recently on single tricks.  Actually more like obsessing.  I am transitioning to long string training starting today.  Here are my recent results.  I'd like to hear feedback on the Pixie (same) Twirl...

Pixie Same Twirl & Stepping Same Twirl

Atomic same Whirl

Zen and the art of Balance

Sometimes I have to watch how things are flowing around me to determine how I am going to get through with the least waves.

For instance, I am shredding in my living room which is a very small area bordered by a life-sized 65" TV, a china cabinet, a couch and the xmas tree, just feeling good about rake and front-side progress I have been making lately. I stumble upon a new version of a trick for me, a toe-set whirling swirl on the same side. I hit it a couple of times, then this last time I hit it, I set it up as I was turning my head away, and I haven't seen that footbag since. Its like it went up, but didn't come down.

In this case, I feel the zen 'gods' of footbag are saying, enough for today. Something is telling me, it's time to stop for today and move on to the other great things in life, like family. I'm taking their advice, and I'm gonna blog for a minute, look for the footbag, go pick at the adhesive stuck to the in-soles of my new Lavers and get ready to go see Avatar again, this time taking public transit to Navy Pier to see it in 3D IMAX.

And the next adventure begins!

Shred notes: Jan 27-28, 09

I juggled a lot yesterday, and did a bunch of the sets that 'stream' fluidly. I came up with a name for the concept of setting into juggle fluidly, and now I have to go search for what it was... there, I found it... I called it "iJuggle", but now I realize how much I don't like that. I'm thinking of calling it 'Streaming Juggle' or 'Seamless'. I like Seamless now.
Today, I hit Phobic (fairy behind the back) (gyro) Blender. Yesterday I hit pixie same reverse swirl on both sides. Fairy twirl on both sides.

Shred notes: 1/31/10
Hit a few variants of xbody rake. Set from opp clipper, under support leg with a switch of support leg and xbody rake with original set foot. Hit toe set whirling swirl. Skooled tons of frontside stuff.

A quote from Kenny Shults...

Kenny Shults was a huge influence on my game as well. I copied his tricks, much as I did Andys'. Of course, the sport would not be where it is now without Kenny. Inspiring.

So back in the late '80's, I had an opportunity to ask Kenny his advice, and in a single quote, he changed the way I approach the design of a Footbag routine (performance). When I asked what would make my routines better, Kenny said "focus on your strengths."

I designed my winning routine (World Footbag Championships 1999) on that theory, and it worked. Not to mention all the 2nd place finishes I had. There are so many reasons why Kenny has influenced the sport, on that day in just a few words, he changed the way I play!

Shred notes: 11/12/09
Hit a new trick today, well new for me. Nuclear same xbody rake. L clip set on rt side of body, nuclear with L leg and then xbody rake with same leg. Also almost hit Shooting version of same.



- enlightener