The Lord of the Strings: A Footblog of Nathan

[Nathan8]

Recently I was playing too hard and running too much during the track season and started developing shin splints. So I took a week off of everything once track season ended and now I'm back in almost full swing, but with improved practice methods. Now I stretch more, ice, and stay even more on my toes. I even tried playing in the grass, as seen in this video, because it feels much better on my legs than asphalt does.This video is really short , but I still hit some cool things. I did not plan on recording yesterday, but I decided to once I tried a barfly and almost hit it. I was doing some barflies in my imagi-shredding earlier that day in class, so I decided to give it shot just for fun. I got unexpected results and it actually worked! The other two things are just random stuff I plan to hit again in the near future on both sides.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdwKqallcA[/youtube]

[Matt K]

Nice shirt; it's good to see a fellow Relay-er in footbag.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Can't wait to see the last 2 on flipside!

Keep up the progression! It's scary how good you got in just a few months.

[Vraidave]

What nick said. Ill be honest, im more than a little jealous :p keep it up dude, youre well on your way to BAP

[Nathan8]

This was my first year of Relay Matt, I plan to do it again in the future
David, your toe game has always surpassed my own!

And on another not I have hit blink bsos and now I'm back to doing Nick's homework of stepping ss clipper x3 bs. Last night I also hit a cool string; it was a lot harder than it sounded, but maybe it was just challenging to me. ss butterfly>pdx mirage>ss butterfly>ss legover>butterfly>pdx mirage>ss butterfly>ss legover.

I will be away camping this weekend, but I still plan to play as much, if not more, as usual!

[Nathan8]

While camping I gave an intro to footbag to two different people. They both enjoyed it and one I kicked with for an hour or two. He said he used to kick with footbaggers when he lived in Oregon. Which if I'm not mistaking, would make sense, because there are many active players in Oregon. He even knew who that "blond haired guy from Switzerland" was. He meant Vasek, it was so cool that he knew who Vasek was! So even in the middle of no where in a state park you can come across people who appreciate the wonderful sport of footbag!

On a more recent note, I decided to attempt and break a personal record of my own tonight. I hit Infinity x9 back at Jamps and it had stuck since. Tonight I revisited it and hit 13, then 18! I still think I can do more though, so tomorrow's minimum goal is Infinity x20.

[anhkhoashevakt]

Wow dude!

All I can say! You are improving soooo fast. I'm so jealous man! Keep at this and you'll be pulling out crazy combos in no time.

[Nathan8]

Thanks Khoa! I've been following your game as well. I'll trade you some infinities for some pixies

[Nathan8]

Heute Abend: My infinities were strong once again tonight, although I was only hitting them in the teens. My goal of 20 carries over to tommorow. I did hit something unexpected though. I guess that's just how footbag works. I never wake up thinking I'm going to hit something new that day, and I usually don't even get the idea to try something new until halfway through my session. Anyway, I hit my first op drifter (I have hit drifter from toe bs). It was so much easier than I thought it would be. I just made my dexes much smaller and smoother than when I had attempted a few months back and bam. Smooth as butter, and I hit them b2b shortly after. Now if I can get my flip op drifters as majestic, I may just add it to my bag of mid-string tricks.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

When you say "op drifter", do you mean right leg clipper then left leg dex, or right leg clipper then right leg dex?

Sent from my C6916 using Tapatalk

[Nathan8]

When you say "op drifter", do you mean right leg clipper then left leg dex, or right leg clipper then right leg dex?

Sent from my C6916 using Tapatalk

I mean right leg clipper, left leg dex. Wouldn't a clipper ss drifter be a paradox? Or are they both the same...?

[Matt K]

Op and ss refer to opposite and same sides rather than legs.

A drifter starting from right clipper and dexed with the left leg could be referred to as SS Drifter (correct, though not common) because the bag is set on the left side and dexed from the left side.

[Nathan8]

Op and ss refer to opposite and same sides rather than legs.

A drifter starting from right clipper and dexed with the left leg could be referred to as SS Drifter (correct, though not common) because the bag is set on the left side and dexed from the left side.

Ok thanks Matt, that make more sense.

Today was my last day of school, so for the next 3 months, Footbag has my undivided attention! My training has been sloppy ever since Jamps because I've just been so busy, but now I can back into a routine.

[Nathan8]

My summer has been off to a busy start, but it's still better than the school year. My practice hasn't been as structured as I had hoped, but I'm getting there. Nick P gave me homework of hitting stepping ss clipper x3 bs, and until I did it, I wasn't allowed to do any other stepping. He must have assigned it a month or two ago and I just haven't gotten around to doing it. I would work on it occasionally, but I wasn't getting anywhere. I did refrain from doing any other stepping though. When looking back on it, I think it was helpful because it forced me to practice more tiltless stuff, making my tiltless feel more and more stronger. Recently I sat down and watched some videos in slow motion and did some reading from Vasek's manual. I wouldn't say anything clicked, but there was a lot of progress made afterward with what I had learned. One of my problems was I kept catching the bag behind my knee, and after reading what Vasek had to say, I realized I didn't turn my knee out enough. So last night I hit my homework on strongside, and now I'm hoping flipside isn't too far in the future. On another note I've been improving my pixies by doing them plain out of magic hop and and sometimes Magellans. I also hit my first atomsmasher out of no where while giving a footbag demonstration to some guys I met on vacation.

[Nathan8]

Well it's been a while since updated this footblog... and that unfortunately reflects my game. I've been somewhat limited over the past month due to shin splints, but I think I'm slowly figuring out how to fix them and avoid them. In the past month I haven't really done anything revolutionary in my game. But what I have done is become more consistent with the basics. My tiltless game feels stronger everyday. Osis comes so much easier than a month ago, I've been working on my illusions, I rarely miss anything with a legover or mirage now and my game just feels... stronger would be a good way to put it. I can drop into infinities so much more relaxed and everything has been getting easier. So although I haven't been hitting as many new things, I have been improving my game a a whole. Some new things I have hit though : atomsmasher, lots of magellans, blink bsos (multiple times), yesterday I played with twirl for the first time and footed it a few times, stepping clipper x3 strongside (working on flip(still)). And that's all I have to update about. Last night I lied in bed and set some goals for this time next year.

[Nathan8]

Aaaaand I just had thee best futebag session in 2-3 months. It was Nick P and I today and I get the sense that it was an awesome day for both of us. I've really been itching for a new trick. Today that itch was scratched with a golden back scratcher. Nick taught me a lot again and I hit for the first time :

revup bsod
twirl bsod
Atomic ss mirage
I learned the "zoom" concept
stepping clipper>blur (should have hit it bsod, but not yet)
stepping ss mirage bs

But beyond cool tricks, I had some long tiltless and pushing guiltless strings. It was a good day. it was a great day. And then I was also trying to comprehend what Nick was hitting. I must have heard him say "that's the first time I hit that!" 5 or 6 times today. Things like spender>blur, janiwalker, gyro symp revup (that was cooooool), and then fusion twice. It was an exciting day all around!

ps - pptt does magic. I just have to learn to totally embrace it.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

PPTT is magical. If PPTT was brought to life, it would be a little pixie of fairy with magical powers to turn everything into spiked footbags. Oh what a wonderful world…

Your game was off the hook tonight. You thoroughly amazed me with literally every thing you did and everything you BSOD'ed lol Great term btw. Have fun at the beach, practice a lot and can't wait to shred again.

Later buddy

[Nathan8]

I had a pretty good time kicking at the Arts Fest Jam today with the PSU crew and some others. Nothing revolutionary went down by me, but I witnessed some awesome stuff from everyone! I think next year we should have our own stand though, footbag is one of the many arts presented that weekend. I walked away from there thinking that it may be time to give one one my 2014 goals, 50 tiltless contacts, a try or at least see where I am compared to where I need to be. Things are becoming more stringier for me and I sometimes hit some long stringy things. Some fun things I hit anyway:

ducking pdx mirage, but Marc did hit it both sides, so he wins.
double over down bs
Ryan Thomas taught me symple legover, bs

[Nathan8]

Today I hit that goal I set a few weeks back of infinity x20, I hit 21! I decided to focus less on where the bag was landing, and more on where I was setting it. It helped my problem of the bag flying out somewhere where I couldn't get to it in time. So that goal now switches to 30.
After that, I decided to do a few strings to see how close I was to my 2014 goal of 50 tiltless contacts. I only hit 26, but afterward I felt like I had definitely hit longer tiltless strings before without counting. So I'm pretty excited to hit 50 sometime relatively soon. When I do strings for sun in circles or in public, I like to throw in nice variety and maybe something cool occasionally because I'm not as concerned with counting my contacts. But when I do strings just to count the contacts, I feel like they are awfully repetitive. And I often through in trick repitions b2b and some drills I do. I guess my question is: Is there a proper way to do these 50 tiltless contacts? Here is a list of tricks I throw in my strings when counting the contacts:
atw
orbit
clipper
all butterflies
infinity
far legover
near legover
near pickup
legover
mirage
pdx mirage

Sometimes:
near mirage
osis

Is this a good way to get to 50 tiltless contacts?

[Nathan8]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8p7QOQ2_uo[/youtube]

My osis comp submission. The music was necessary.

On another note, i drilled zooming today. I made progress with it and I think it will help me out with spinning in general if I continue to learn it (which I plan on). I've been working on some new practice methods recently... as my summer schedule is much different from my winter routine.