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.
Footbag Summer Camp Programs Now Available for Summer of 2014
Footbag is a fun and addictive form of exercise. A simple, inexpensive footbag is just one of the tools we can use to help in the fight against the epidemics of Childhood Obesity and Type 2 Diabetes!
Footbag provides constant challenges for individuals and groups, and a fun activity that gets them off their video games and into their driveways and living rooms to practice and get better. The first challenge is learning the basic kicks and aiming for ever increasing consecutive kick goals of 5, 10 or 50 in a row... and there is something about it that makes people want to keep trying. If consecutive kicking isn't challenging enough, doing tricks with a footbag is the next set of challenges, and there is no end to it!
Scott Davidson, Education Director for International Footbag Players Association, Certified Instructor and Footbag Freestyle World Champion, has been practicing and competing for 30 years and continues to improve and innovate new tricks. Additionally, he has also been exercising with footbag freestyle for the past 2675+ days in a row.
Scott is now offering summer camp demonstrations and instruction on a limited availability basis for the summer of 2014! While we are very flexible in our presentation, our typical workshop format includes a dynamic demonstration and introduction footbag, followed by an instructional opportunity for the summer camp participants. We recommend that you opt to include one of our affordable starter footbags for every participant to take home with them, which can be included in the cost of the program. Please contact me immediately, as I am only available on Mondays this summer, unless I have at least 4 weeks notice.
Please watch my new video which summarizes my 2,500 day journey of exercising every day. Specifically, exercising in Footbag Freestyle, a high-impact aerobic sport that requires focus and dexterity, and provides a constantly challenging, constantly unique athletic experience.
None of this would be possible without the constant support and understanding of my wife and son, who give me the time it takes to play everyday, they tolerate me dominating the computer to do the video editing and publish videos, blog and maintain my website: EarlyWorkingRetirement.com, they help me with laundry and they feed me. I could not have maintained this kind of focus over this long of a period of time without their help. THANKS!
This is Part 2 of my series of articles on "How to create a 2 minute Footbag Freestyle routine."
The Music Map:
A Music Map expresses the chosen song in relation to where the 'sections' of music start based on their relationship to the beginning of the song. This is necessary for designing a routine, as it allows me to break the song into several pieces so I can create sections of the song in my mind. It will also be necessary for training, as I will break the song down into these sections so I can train the different sections separately.
This years song is a compilation of two tracks from the Monsters, Inc. soundtrack which I spliced together using GarageBand on a mac as referenced in the previous article Part 1 - Picking your music.
For the past few days I've been listening to the music and watching the clock. I have broken it into 6 uneven sections, for the purpose of mapping each group of tricks and the transitions between sections.
From this map, I went back into Garageband on my mac and split the song up along these lines. I had to use multiple tracks, lots of splitting tracks and copying and pasting to get it done. But my goal of creating musical sections of my song selection is complete. Specifically, using the time codes and listening, I made 6 separate songs that each have a bit of the 'before' and 'after' of each section so I can also practice the 'bridges' between the sections.
After exporting each song to iTunes and creating some new playlists, I have my song pieces available. The playlists I will ultimately do my training to will include these specifics...
1) A Playlist that has each section in order, with gaps to create a pause. So I can hit pause after I do a section, and hit play when ready to go again. I could also have itunes 'loop' each individual section.
2) A Playlist that has each section in order, but with 1 minute song segments in between, so I can do my 'endurance training' jams with each segment. Those are so tiring.
3) A Playlist with the first half of the song repeating 5 times with 1 minute 'other songs' interspersed. I start it and keep going until done.
4) A playlist with the second half of the song repeating 5 times with 1 minute 'other songs' interspersed. I start it and keep going until done.
5) A playlist with the entire song repeating 5 times with 1 minute 'other songs' interspersed. I start it and keep going until done. Very tiring.
So join me in this journey. My next article will be about my Trick Hit List. These are the tricks that I would like to incorporate into my routine.
Shred notes from this week:
Published some advanced Eclipse combos to youtube. Broke 100 youtube subscribers this week. Had a blast toying with my routine. Today was day 2298 in a row. Doing at least 2 run-thru's of my routine for worlds every day. Looking forward to actual spring temperatures.
In this series of articles, I plan to publicly create my freestyle routine for World Footbag Championships 2013 in Montreal.
Usually, I train in private and come out of nowhere to surprise my competition. This time, I am publicly sharing my progress through this blog, and occasionally through Vimeo.
Today's lesson:
Picking your Music...
I am always keeping my ears open for good music, but because my library is limited and my taste in music is poor, I rarely come across new music that I like. Whatever I choose, I will have to listen to it thousands of times, practice to it hundreds of times and perform to it at least 3 times (assuming I make it to Finals). It has to be near my Beats per Minute speed of about 110bpm, it should not have any lyrics.
One of my favorite performances was the year I emerged victorious against the great Peter "Executioner" Irish. At East Coast Footbag Championships 2003, Here is that performance...
The other day, I heard a commercial for Monsters, Inc on TV and the music spoke to me. I have always liked shredding to swing and jazz music and this is great. I listened to a few songs and I settled on the beginning of one and the end of another. I used Garageband on a Mac to splice them together the way I need them and I included the track here:
The next thing to do is a Music Map... that will be for tomorrow's lesson.
Shred notes: Day 2260 in a row.
Today, I worked through my routine music a few times to get a feel for it. Wow, what a great time I had. It has been a while. This music really moves me. Let me know what you think.
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!
I play every day. Today was 2234 in a row. This morning, I was shredding in my living room and I noticed that I was breathing only through my nose when I shred. And once I got a little winded, I asked myself... "Would I be able to maintain longer strings if I were getting more oxygen, by breathing through my mouth rather than my nose?"
I know that one challenge that Josh 'Chizzler' Casey had back when he was shredding was that he would take a deep breath as he started a string, and he would hold it. He wasn't breathing when he was shredding. This made his string lengths shorter, and he had a hard time getting past 10 tricks in a row.
When I am in the zone, I don't have time to think about breathing, all my processing power is being used. When I was trying to discover if I have been breathing properly, it took several strings of drills until I was sure I am breathing when I'm shredding. As it turns out, I breathe fine, but only through my nose. Something happens when I start to shred where my throat closes up, and only the nose can be used. It is natural.
So while trying to stay focused on new tricks like Atomic same Eclipse, which I first did yesterday, and others like Atomic Clipper Seamless juggle which I came across last week... I was trying to focus on breathing through my mouth.
The Verdict:
When I'm shredding, I am perfectly fine sticking with my nose-breathing, it provides plenty of oxygen. When I did long strings and breathed through my mouth, I sometimes almost felt dizzy from, is it possible... too much oxygen? Now that I know I breathe fine, I'll stick with breathing through my nose when I shred. One less thing to think about.
Don't forget to breathe!
The bottom line:
It doesn't matter how you breathe, just be thankful you are breathing!
Please enjoy my Atomic Clipper Seamless Juggle video below:
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.
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.
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.
"Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is physical."
-Attributed to Yogi Berra
I have written about this before, but I feel the need to repeat it from my experience today. We all know that the mental game is important. Personally, I need to periodically step back from my day-to-day routine and look at my game from the perspective of 'what might be', as opposed to 'what I believe I'm capable of.'
Today I was challenged by my facebook friends to work on Rubberman, along with some strings I would not have probably thought to attempt on my own. All these tricks are based on Atomic sets, which have always been challenging for me, even though I have spent the past several years actively working on them. So in my mind, I have built up an aura of difficulty in my mind around the notion of Atomic tricks. I have physically worked them to the point that I can hit them 70% of the time, but I was finding myself only working them once a week due to my 'perception' that they were high impact. I was recently skooling Paradox Symp Whirls (rainbows) and caused a compression related impact pain in my right lower back. In my mind, the Atomic tricks were as high-impact as the PSWhirls. In retrospect, after careful physical analysis, I have to say that while Atomic tricks are more taxing on the hamstrings and hip related dexterity, that the impact is minimal because the set foot touches down almost immediately.
Now that I have reset my perception of Atomic tricks, I have allowed myself to obsess on them. I can't stop doing them. I'm hitting Leg Beaters, EggPlant, and Atom Smashers. I'm hitting Atomic tricks from all kinds of sets, and I'm hitting all kinds of tricks out of Leg Beaters now, thanks to my facebook friends challenging me. It has caused some stress on other parts of my legs, but as long as I don't over do it, I should be okay. I'll always rely on my cross body tricks to some extent, but it is nice to escape that. I want to be able to throw atomic tricks in mid string confidently and from unexpected places.
Shred notes: 1/23/2011
I also skooled juggles, particularly Seamless-Legbeaters-out of juggles. I'll keep skooling it and I'll publish a juggling video again soon. Imagine juggle-juggle-juggle-legbeater-blur-juggle-juggle-juggle-legbeater-blur. Working on that kind of stuff. Seamless-in juggle, seamless-out juggle.
This is the best tip ever. Thanks to Steve Goldberg, Brat, the greatest benefactor to the sport of footbag.
This has come full circle. I started by skooling the basics. As I got better, I learned the "Economy of Motion" and got better at trimming time off of movement by finding and training more efficient paths. Spending less effort to get more done. Particularly when ending a trick, I have learned over time to catch the footbag with the minimum downward motion possible, which is one of many 'economy of motions.' To make matters worse, I spent about week this summer focusing on 'rooted' tricks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmRXODg6Bzg which are distinguished because the catching foot is the plant.
This reduction of downward motion in catching the footbag in order to complete my most difficult tricks is causing my form to suffer when doing the most basic versions of the tricks. For instance, it is generally more efficient to complete a Paradox Torque by expending as little effort as possible on the catch, and doing it at the last moment. On the other hand, the trick is more 'solid' when I am able to utilize 'economy of motion' during the dexterity part of the trick and spend more time on the 'catching' part of the trick.
One of the side effects of spending years of training to reduce the distance needed to catch a footbag at the end of advanced tricks, is when you do the basic component, it looks rushed and unpolished.
As a part of my daily training (1493 in a row today), I warm up using my 'basic' staple tricks. For instance I don't want to spend too much time training tricks I have mastered, I use those to warm up with. I do 10 osis, 10 infinity's, 10 ripwalks, I do 10 reps of my whirl/osis combo, ripwalks, blurs/blizzards and paradox whirls. I am getting into the zone at this time and generally just gaining the proper focus I need for the rest of my jam session. Thanks to this new tip, I am really gaining better basic form.
In the past few weeks focusing on the depth of my clipper catches and I can really feel a difference in my control and general ability to maintain long strings. I am really happy that a friend like Steve took the time to mention this very basic observation to me at the New Years Jam this past December. I have been working on it every day since then and am really feeling the difference!
Shred Notes: Jan 2011
In addition to working the solidness of my clipper tricks, I have spent a lot of time working on front side tricks. I have particularly been recategorizing Atomic tricks into low-impact. I have always thought of Atomic tricks as high-impact, but have recently discovered that they really aren't. I hit both Atom Smashers in a single string, which was a big barrier for me, but might seem basic for you. I also realized that I have been hitting LegBeaters on both sides (I've been calling them atomic butterflies), and then was challenged by Tuukka to do blur, LegBeater, Blurry Whirl, Blur, LegBeater Blurry whirl and hit all those components with an extra spinning butterfly before the 2nd blur. Very happy.
I learn little things about my game just about every day. You might think that doing something every day might get boring, but it never does because I am always achieving little goals, stumbling upon new (new to me, and sometimes actually new) tricks and generally keeping me interested. Playing freestyle footbag everyday gives me a clear baseline on the condition of my body, and allows me to push 'initiatives' like increasing the amount of frontside tricks that I perform.
During the week of Xmas I found my daily shreds of footbag freestyle to be a great diversion from the hectic pace at my place of work. Peace of mind. Really. I also developed a little showcase trick into a legitimate set... Fairy X-body sole (same) is now being worked into being a set from just about any toe, and it flows like an osis but looks crazzzzzzy! I have been skooling the hell out of X-Body Rake moves, and after watching Evan Gatesman, I realized that indeed Rakes don't 'need' to end in a scooping toe dex, they can end more directly underneath the balance center, and do dex tricks out of them. Thanks Evan for that insight. I suppose I 'knew' that already, but seeing someone do it effectively and mid-string even... very nice. Now I can do it too.
I got used to it. I just came to the realization that I am thankful for the great lighting I usually have available to me for shredding. I pretty much don't worry about it. Ever. Well that's not true, it factors into my 'perception' of what is possible, so in a sense my perceptions are limiting me here.
Today, Valeria fell asleep on the couch right next to my living room shred zone, so I had to keep the lights low, and I tweaked my workout towards the quieter tricks today. Lots of juggling and unusual surfaces and short fun stuff. After about 10 minutes, the low light scenario didn't factor into my decisions at all. I got through my warm-ups, and I immediately ran into a personal innovation... Fairy same blender. Probably because yesterday I obsessed on double dyno style moves. So I pulled a fairy set and thought, why not go for a whirl or a blender with the same leg as the fairy dex, of which I hit both on both sides, within minutes of stumbling upon it.. What is the name of Fairy same-leg same-side Blender? And Fairy same-leg same-side Whirl? I'll film them tomorrow. I've hit Fairy-Phobic-(other leg) Blender and posted it to youtube recently, but this easier stuff is new to me.
I also skooled a pattern that is juggle-juggle-juggle, seamless (out) Fairy DLO, to seamless (in) pixie DLO, juggle-juggle-juggle, repeat... I'll also film this tomorrow.
The moral of this story? "Beware of perceptions, particularly those that limit belief. Possibility is still unlimited, it is my mind that stops me most of the time."
The similarities between footbag freestyle and a Rube Goldberg machine (a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion...) are chilling on many levels. In Freestyle Footbag, a single trick is defined by transferring the footbag from one surface to another surface, with as many elements of difficulty in between. Which is in line with the Rube Goldberg Machine (RGM) concept, but one trick does not a RGM make. When we perform multiple tricks together, back to back, we call that a String of tricks. When we combine the difficulty of performing a single trick, with the added difficulty of stringing them together, this very much resembles a RBM. The big difference is that with RBM's the physics are pre-calculated and the variables are removed through clever engineering, and with Footbag Freestyle strings, our brains are perceiving the next trick and making minor adjustments in order to compete it, but assuming at the end of the individual trick, we are able to set properly for the next trick, an RGM is born.
Footbag freestyle practitioners are human Rube Goldberg Machines! I am a human RGM!
What is more unnecessarily difficult than a well performed footbag freestyle string? I can't think of many things... perhaps Rythmic Gymnastics, that is even close to the self-imposed difficulty thresholds that we place upon ourselves. For us, the more difficult the trick and the longer the strings the better... classic RGM's.
As Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine)...
"A Rube Goldberg machine is a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction. The expression is named after Americancartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg.
Since then, the expression has expanded to denote any form of overly confusing or complicated system."
Here are some links to my recent videos from Facebook and Youtube:
There's more, I just don't have time right now. More later!!!
If there is something to be said about 'frontside' tricks, it is that I don't think I'll ever stop actively training them. I need to push my game more to the front side, and in that effort, I have been training front side tricks about every other day. Yesterday I worked almost exclusively on my flipside fairy sets and feel the burn from it today. Nuclear, atomic, rakes and pendulums are trained almost daily. Can't over do it on the Nukes or atomics because I have gotten minor injuries from too much of that good thing.
On day 1383 in a row shredding, I hit Pogo Symposium Mirage & Fairy Miraging Symposium Mirage, along with some other stuff, but I published those from my iphone.
Shred notes: 10/4/2010
I have been skooling frontside on alternating days, trying to stay focused on long strings rather than 'new trick development' (which tends to be very short attempts at very had tricks). I have been playing to Talking Heads and find their music very motivating. Especially 'And she was.' Many new juggling tricks and still improving Seamless.
We couldn't make it to Worlds 2010. We went to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to have a mini-vacation. I got injured on the last Saturday of July and have still played everyday. This video is my recovery video, it shows how the range of motion improved over the week of recovery.
Congratulations to Milan and Clavens and everyone who succeeded at Worlds 2010 this year! Wish we could have been there. This is what I was up to... This video includes the new trick concept outline for "Spotted Tricks"... I've been doing Spotted Osis on both sides for years, but never saw the potential... check out Spotted Mirage and Spotted Torque, both feel like Gyro versions of their tricks and involve lots of twisting. Please ignore the music.
Life is teaching me a lesson about pain. How serious it is when someone is in constant pain, please take them seriously and try to make them comfortable. It is mentally debilitating. It effects my every moment. I work hard, I play hard and I love every minute of it. My intention is to perform my best at every moment, in every aspect of my life. To lead by example. Even in the best of situations, it is difficult to stay in the moment. When pain like this is present, it makes its way to the foreground and hampers my best efforts at excellent performance. It distracts me from my focus on performing well in the moment, and makes me just try to survive it.
I tried to take a short nap before the Argentina vs. Mexico world cup game today, and I thought about how the pain is amplified by landing on my right foot. Really, it was the shoe constricting against the swollen toe that causes the pain. I was in so much pain when I was at work this week, standing all day in tight fitting shoes. I would wear sandals to work, but the new rules there technically keep me from that and I think it is unsafe to wear open toe shoes when riding a xootr anyway. It occurred to me that regardless of how it looks, I need to relieve my pain at work so just standing there doesn't make me cringe in pain, I need to convert a pair of old Rod Laver shoes into Genzu modified Rod Lavers. I looked up Daryl's blog and found the picture that changed my day.
Today I modified a pair of old blue Rod Laver's so the right toe is open like Daryl 'Genzu' Genz's. It worked, an orthopedic success! Especially since the only shoes I ever wear are Rod Laver tennis shoes. I did a footbag demo at Taste of Chicago with Alex and Valeria, and I made it through the two hours with the microphone, and another hour kicking with the CIC guys by Buckingham Fountain. I got some good footage and will publish a movie soon. It was hard to set the footbag off of my right toe because of the intensity of effect caused by my toe curl, but I could figure that out if I had to. My infection did get worse and the swelling went up, but I was able to bear it. I hope this infection passes, because living with pain like this is unfathomable. I can't imagine what it must be like for someone with real problems like Cancer, Diabetes or heart disease. Ouch.
-enlightener
Shred notes: 6/27/10
Just glad to be shredding. Infection still getting worse. Little white dot showed up in the middle of the swollen part. Playing on grass sucks, but when doing youth outreach, you can't be picky. Not ideal, but probably less impact on my toe too.
I have had a videocamera since 1988, thanks to being inspired by Jay Moldenhauer, Greg Nelson, then later Steve Kremer and Josh Casey... also Dennis Jones. I was at the beginning of my footbag career and I saw how Jay was videotaping the finals of events and the sideline shredding as well. They were using it as an effective learning tool and accelerating their footbag game exponentially. It was amazing. I purchased the exact same camera that Jay had, it was a sony hi-8 camera (and I have TONS of footage to convert from the old days, just not enough room to store it, time to do it, or money to buy the thingy that converts it to digital) that served me well for many years. I never get credited with this, but I MADE THE FIRST SHRED VIDEO EVER! I put together the best footage I had of routines and side-shreds and made about fifty copies onto videotapes and I gave them away for free with labels on them that encouraged the recipients to make more copies and give them to their friends. No copyrights, free distribution. I was spreading the word. I still am.
Videotaping has evolved since those days, youtube has made free distribution into a fun pastime. Footbag has gotten more complicated, even faster action and still uses a very small ball that is sometimes hard to see. Here are some tips for making videos of footbag:
1. Get a good camera. HD quality and a wide angle lens is helpful. See comparison of footage between a point and shoot and my new Smartest Phone from a built-in HD video camera (starts with an "i") below, just released into the wild 2 days ago.
2. Pay attention to lighting. When shooting outdoors in direct sunlight, try to keep the sun behind you. It is better to film on a cloudy day than in direct sunlight because the diffused light that the clouds let through is more evenly distributed across your subjects. If you are shooting indoors there can be many shadows depending on your lighting style. In a conference room, the fluorescent lights provide a good diffused light experience, but sometimes causes a kind of harmonic resonance when the frame rate of the camera exactly matches the flashing-cycle rates of the fluorescent lights, plus for reasons of cleanliness, conference rooms tend to have very busy patterns in the carpeting which make it bad for playing and filming. In a garage, you are going to need lights coming from as many angles as possible to reduce the shadowing, but it can get pretty bad if you only have a few lights. If you have a shadowing problem indoors, try to stay with your back to the best light.
3. Learn to stabilize your shots, limit movement if you don't have a self-stabilizing camera or use a tripod.
4. Get the right angle for the right shot. Best is a straight on shot from just below hip level with the sun behind you, or good ambient diffused light indoors. I use a lot of upward angles because I don't have a tripod with me most of the time and I balance the camera on the ground. Angles from above are a nice novelty, but really don't give a good idea of what is going on.
5. Don't shoot from too far away. If you use the optical zoom to 'get closer', be aware it will amplify any movements you make, so if I had to use optical zoom, I would always recommend a tripod.
6. Turn OFF digital zoom, it is useless. Seriously, turn it off! Now!
7. When I am taping, I keep recording until I get something worth keeping, then I stop and restart the recording. This makes reviewing the footage go MUCH faster because rather than reviewing every second of footage, I go to the end of each clip and trim away everything before it to save space and get rid of unusable footage ASAP.
8. When using a tripod, I find that the mini ones are easy to carry around, but are hard to set up to get the right angle, only because I have to pretty much lay on the ground to see what my image frame is capturing. So for the mini tripods, I prefer to set them up on a pedestal to make it easy to check the frame field. Ideally, a medium size tripod puts the camera at the right height to get a good shot and be easy to set-up. I prefer to set my tripod at about 2 feet high.
9. If you are putting your camera on the ground to film, I suggest a slight upward angle. On my Canon point-and-shoot camera, I use the hand strap under the front of the camera which props it up at the right angle so I don't see a lot of ground in front of my feet. On my new Phone4, I had to rest it in my extra shirt to angle it back, but I could not see through the viewing side, I had to guess at what my camera was capturing, but it turned out to be useable.
10. Get the right distance from the player. All cameras are different. Think about how you are going to use your footage. If you are doing a static tripod shot, the closer you are to the players the less range the players have to move around in, and you risk losing good footage when players drift out of frame. On the other hand, if you put it too far away, you lose the necessary detail and sometimes can't see the footbag because it is so small.
11. Choose a solid backdrop when possible. If you have trees, or random objects in the background, the viewers may not be able to see the footbag as it travels across the foreground. So if you are videotaping, and you have any 'say' in the process of picking a location, try to find something as close to a solid color for your background.
Comparison of video camera footage for your review:
Canon Powershot SD630 (about 4 years old) with 640x480 frame size 24fps:
Video from my new phone camera which is HD 720p at 30fps (this popular camera phone was released on June 24, 2010):
(make sure to click on the HD version at bottom right) It seems that youtube knocks my videos down to half quality. Not sure why.
Footbag Net match - Finals from last weekends Windy City Cup 2010 on old Canon camera:
For videotaping footbag net, you really need two cameras that are timestamped together. I would generally like to keep the camera from moving left to right, so a long shot from either end of the court would be great for most of the match, but use the camera that is along the net line to do close ups of the arial dog fights that are the 'meat' of the matches.
Shred notes: Week of June 25th, 2010
I have had a hangnail for the past week that is killing me. Hurts like hell every time I step down on my right foot, but it hasn't stopped me from shredding every day. It seems to be getting worse, which means that on Monday if it hasn't gotten better, I'll be going to the doctor, which are words rarely uttered from my mouth. Either way, we have a Kick for Health youth outreach today and tomorrow at Taste of Chicago from 4-6 and plenty of time to shred then. Been skooling routines a lot. Jay Claffey and his daughter came by the other day to visit me during my lunch shred, that was awesome too.
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.
