So much for taking time off footbag.
Yeah, the plan was to lay off footbag as much as possible after NZ, and then come back in the Spring. But I guess I underestimated my love for the game. I mean,
something has made me keep playing for 7.5 years, and it`s hard to turn off that addiction even when I think it`s good for me.
So instead of dusting off my snowboard, I ended up making a last second decision to hit Tokyo this weekend. What can I say? I love footba(n)g.
One of the main reasons I wanted to go to Tokyo this weekend, was to hang out with the Tokyo crew. Yeah, I wanted to play footbag with them, but even more than that I just wanted to hang out with them. I didn`t go down to Tokyo during December, since I was getting ready for NZ, so the last time I saw most of the Tokyo crew was at Japanese Champs in late November. Thing is, I hadn`t seen my Osaka friends in even longer, so I spent most of Japanese Champs hanging out with my Osaka/Kyoto friends, and only got to chill and shred a little bit with the Tokyo guys. So it really felt like I hadn`t hung out with Kim and the guys since October or so.
On Friday night I get into town and meet up with Kim at Shibuya. We meet up with a non-footbag friend of mine, then go get food and drinks. It`s good to catch up, and for the most part there`s no mention of footbag even. I love talking about footbag with footbag friends, but I think it`s even cooler when you can hang out with a footbagger and have good conversation without even mentioning it. I think the only talk of footbag was when I told Kim about a PM I sent to Andrew Grant. Andrew is coming to Tokyo in May, which I`m real stoked about. I recently read on the internet that he has taken up smoking again, so in an effort to help him quit again, I PMed him telling him Tobacco is illegal in Japan, so he should try and quit before coming over.
We hit a club, and I have a good time dancing, but my legs get pretty tired at the end of the night. I`m always surprised when this happens, because as a footbagger, I`d expect my legs to be invincible.
I think basketball practice the day before was the guilty party though. I sat down next to some random people to rest, and wondered what they would think if they knew the random dude next to them went to world championships of kicking-a-beanbag-sport. I sometimes wonder about things like that... like maybe the guy sitting next to you on the bus is world champion of curling or something, and you just aren`t aware of that. Or when I take a break from dancing at a club and sit down, maybe the girl next to me is a pro-skater or something.
We make it back to Kim`s place around 6 am, and I wake up at 3 pm.
I watch Champion`s League to help me wake up. We slowly head out to Yoyogi park, and on the way bump into Takumi, who`s already going home. He says he has entrance exams for High School coming up, so probably can`t come out to shred until late February. On one hand that sucks, but on the other hand it`s kind of reassuring in that it reminds me how young he is, and how much upside he has. He will become better than me, which is real exciting. The goal now is to teach him as much as possible, just so I can take credit when he becomes one of the best in the world.
We get into the park around 4:30, and most shredders have left or are filing out. They`re all kind of surprised to see us, and I sense they`re also a bit disappointed. My decision to go to Tokyo was real last minute, and I didn`t tell anybody about it, but I think lots of players heard that I was coming, and expected me to make the Saturday session.
Crap. I apologize a bit, and guarantee I will be there the next day. I hear that Takumi hit spinning pdx whirl back to back for the first time that day. He`s also hit spinning pdx whirl to mobius, and blurry whirl to spinning pdx whirl, so it`s just a matter of time before he hits 3 fives in a row. Kid isn`t even in high school yet. Watch your backs...
I hop into a dying circle, and play in lavers and long pants. Pretty challenging, mostly because I`m wearing long johns below them. I manage to start a `string` with WHAT!?!
which I`m happy about. I also hit double over down bsos. With that I`m out, since it`s freezing. I go hang out with a non-footbag friend that night, and vow to come back fresh the next day.
Even though my friend lives right next to Yoyogi park, I still manage to show up a little bit late the next day.
Mario Kart on a plasma TV is fully to blame for that one. When I hit the park Kim, Keita, and Hearts are there. It`s cold, but there`s not much wind so it doesn`t feel that bad. Still, I play in a hat, gloves, and long sleeved shirt, and I pull up my socks for reasons other than style.
Kim brought a portable stereo, and since there was hardly anybody in the park, we could actually hear the music real well, which helped keep us moving in the cold. We actually ended up having a real fun and solid session. Towards the end I kept wanting to take a break, but I knew that once I stopped, it would be really hard to warm up again.
Keita hit lots of good stuff. I think I was happiest to see him start using his clippers more, as well as his flip atomic. I saw him hit atom smasher back to back, clipper set dlo. Saw him hit predator, which he says is getting easy-ish for him, and also saw him foot bladerunner and toe fog. Pretty close to fairy gdlo. The surprising thing for me isn`t that he can hit such huge tricks, so much as how easily he can hit them. When he hits a big triple like the ones mentioned, it always just seems real effortless. He definitely didn`t pick that up from me.
Kim was probably the most consistent player. His strings were usually high teens, sometimes in the 20s, and even though he tilts, they`re still good strings. He hit his first bubba beater ever. Also hit super clean barrage to phoenix, which I thought was a rad link. Hearts played pretty well, footed mobius, good spins.
In my last session, I hit a bunch of new tricks, but I usually just sealed them with a butterfly or osis, then a short combo. This week I wanted to try hitting them again, to make them better, and see if I could play out of them. Oh yeah, and I also wanted to show them off.
The first flailing trick I hit was frontside eggplant, which got a big reaction from everybody. Kim and Keita thought it looked pretty cool... so they responded by both hitting it for their respective first times. Yeah! I managed to hit frontside eggplant to smog, which I thought was a much more legit seal than just butterfly. I didn`t do much with my flip flailing set, but I did manage to hit alpha smasher bsos for my first time. Started a run with frontside legbeater to pdx torque. Overall I felt like my flailing tricks were getting more consistent, and that soon I will be able to play in and out of them with better stuff.
I also played around with my symposium whirling set. It`s weird... whenever I think of it as a set, it doesn`t work. But if I just think to myself: `hey, do a regular symposium whirl` the bag comes up enough for me to do another component. Real strange... need to work on it. Anyway, I sealed symp blazing infinity with pdlo into a string, which felt a lot more controlled than my symp blazing infinities the week before. I tried symposium blender for Max`s sake, but no luck there. I try to really accentuate the symposium aspect, which makes me lose time. I think I could hit it if I switched feet faster, but it would look more sloppy and not quite symposium, imo.
Towards the end of the session, it began snowing. I`m pretty sure this was my first time playing in the snow. It wasn`t that cold though, since there wasn`t much wind, and it actually lent a real poetic atmosphere to the session. In celebration of the snow, I hit blizzard bsos, and threw a flurry into the same string.
Though there weren`t many people outside, we had a real funny moment occur due to 2 guys who were practicing dancing near us. Right next to our circle, these two guys were practicing dancing some choreographed piece, which was real flamboyant and dramatic. Now, whenever we play footbag, Kim usually has a CD or two with music from footbag videos. As it were, we happened to be listening to the first track from The Champion`s League. So whenever one of us was playing, you could see the 2 guys behind us doing their dance to the Champion`s League music, and it was like: `this is just like Ales` section!`
That had us rolling with laughter. Too good.
At another point in the session, we saw a camera crew and photographers show up with a really cute girl. It was pretty obvious they were doing some outside shoots for a porno mag. You see that fairly often in summertime in Yoyogi. So like, magazines will often do naked shots in a hotel or studio or something, but will compliment those in the magazine by showing pictures of that girl looking cute in everyday outdoor settings. Anyway, so at one point they were filming/shooting her right by our circle, and I was like: `nobody the any of your tricks!` Then I thought, it`d be pretty funny if they put a mosaic over any tricks we did which were `the.` Let me explain. In Japan there is a law which makes it illegal to show genitals. So in mainstream movies, porn, tv, anywhere, there will be a mosaic which blurs out genitals. To this day, most of Japan doesn`t understand the ending of `The Crying Game` because of this.
Anyway, the thought of us appearing playing footbag in a porno cracked us up, as well as the idea of mosaicing out our `the`s. OK, maybe you had to be there. Kim did throw down a good string as they were leaving, and I actually heard the girl comment: `thats really cool.` Nice work Kim!
We played a little bit more... I hit flipside pixie same drifter for the first time, after like 10 turns in a row. I sealed it with a run where I bsosed it. I also hit flip pixie same torque for the first time, but no bsos. So even though I didn`t hit as many tricks as last time, I still managed like 4 new tricks, and had some good links with last week`s tricks, which felt good. Overall, this session was just plain fun. The snow, the Champions League Dancers, good music, pornstars... just a really fun vibe the whole time. We all went out for dinner afterwards and stuffed ourselves, then Keita and I played Street Fighter games before I caught my train home.
So yeah....no footbag for me next weekend. Seriously. Ah, who am I kidding...
<-- thats me wearing sunglasses, because its summer here in NZ. I already sunburnt my neck. Gotta say things have been pretty rocking so far. This was my first warm Christmas ever... I was tossing a frisbee and wearing a t-shirt on Christmas morning. 
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