Begin Phase 1 again

[Iron Clad Ben]

Editing this stupid first page down to what you need to know. My name is Ben. I am originally from the east coast (USA) now I live in Awesome Austin, Texas USA. I'm now 31. I started hacking when I was 10 and did so in ignorant bliss for 13 years. I found freestyle footbag when I was 23. I've been playing seriously since December 2005. I love footbag!

I am trying to revive the Austin Style Footbag club. I have created a MySpace group page here:
http://groups.myspace.com/atxfootbag/
EDIT: We now have
http://www.austinhack.com

Crap I can hit consistently
Mirage / pdx / symp
Legovers / Pickups
Illusion / pdx
Clipper / Butters
Osis
DLOs
Eggbeaters
Spinning
Ducking
DATW-in

Inconsistent:
-Flails
-Pixie set (one side only really)
-Atomic (one side only)
-Quantum
-Stepping (flip sux)
-Torque
-Drifters
-PDX DLOs/Eggs

Old crap from real first blog post:

We had our weekly shred session this past Saturday. I started to hit the following tricks consistently this weekend:
Clipper set Mirage, Pixie, Fairy. Very close to hitting Pixie BSOS and Fairy BSOS!

Going in for toe surgery on my ingrown toenail tomorrow. It will take me out of the game for a few days but I think I should be able to absorb a lot more impact and can seriously take stabs at hitting Symposium Mirage and DLOs. I'm pumped!

**Note it took me another few good months to hit Symp Mirage

[Iron Clad Ben]

Surgery on my ingrown toenail today. Doctor says no footbag for 3 days. 1 day down, 2 to go.

http://www.modified.ca/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=12033

[Iron Clad Ben]

First day back to the bag! Didn't have much time to shred, but I did hit these today which are fairly good for me:

-Mirage BSOS
-Left clipper into right osis

Tomorrow is the weekly ATX Footbag club shred! Expecting a good turnout!

[Iron Clad Ben]

We had a good session today! Jesse who is a high school kid showed up and busted out some $#@& that just brought people's jaws to the ground. This won't sound most impressive to the folks here but he hit ATW>Buttefly>Osis and we loved it. He gave me some good pointers on butterfly and osis, I almost hit butterfly! 3 1/2 hours of circle shred and my legs are like two sticks of butter.

Also we found a new spot to shred near the river, it's very flat and the view is great! We are filming Monday for News 8 Austin. BOOYAH!!

[Iron Clad Ben]

We shot with News 8 Austin this week! Check it out!

http://modified.ca/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=12145

Since last post I've hit the following new tricks
-PDX Mirage, BS
-Ducking clipper

That's two new 3-ADDs! WOOT!

Also, I registered atxfootbag.org and the group will have a webpage soon! RAWR! Austin Rules!

[Iron Clad Ben]

I bought ten Mr.'s with the intent of some of the members of the Austin club buying them from me. I got home from work today and started IMing with Jesse. I asked if he wanted me to drop his Mr.'s off and he suggested we could shred for a little while. So I strapped on my lavers and headed over. It turned out to be a GREAT session.

I hit Pickup > Mirage which Jesse thought looked way cool. I helped him a little bit with legovers and he is starting to learn. He then hit Inside > Clipper > rpt BSOS and said I should try it. I hit it first try! Fun string We screwed around for a while, and really started to get in the zone.

Then his mom called and said he had to head home in 15 minutes because it was getting late. That's when we went into full scale experimental mode, and WOW.

I showed off my newest 3-ADD, ducking clipper and he got really jealous. "Ducking looks impossible!" he said. I told him that it was actually fundamentally quite simple. All you need to do is set the bag at your head, then duck out of the way! Then just trust your set to know where the bag will go. Magic! He tried and hit ducking toe with relative ease and was floored!

Suddenly we were experimenting with ducking and diving set trying to hit ducking and diving toe and inside, both sides. I hit ducking clipper a few more times, and he just had to try it. He started hitting it! Then I went for ducking mirage and hit first try!! It was crazy.

Finally, Jesse got the bright idea to go for DUCKING OSIS. After about 20 or 30 tries, he was hitting it 2 out of 3 times! CRAZY. Not to be outdone, I tried it a bunch of times and finally sealed it. That was my first 4-ADD!!

Our 15 minutes had run out. I said "dude you have to try ducking butterfly". Kid gave it about 15 tries and hit it! That was 2 new 4's for Jesse in one night. UNREAL SESSION! It was just one of those times when you make significant progress and a whole new world of tricks open up to you. Also we were feeding off each other strengths and helping each other with tricks, the synergy was incredible! Made me want to shred all night until dawn. GREAT NIGHT

[Tjuggles]

wow!

That last post was really cool to read
It made me remember back to when I first started kicking...

Also, good work on the new 4's. I personally like ducking and diving tricks. Keep up the good work
If you can find any footage of Greg Nelson, watch it. I got my ducks from him, I hope.

[Iron Clad Ben]

Good session tonight. Jesse had his new JL mod shoes

http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=12379

They were phat! I had a revelation with pixies today and now I'm hitting them BSOS without too much trouble. I hit mirage > pixie a few times which was fun. I want to do a string with all the basic 2-adds, mirage, legover, pixie and ATW BSOS, but that will be a while.

Jesse was trying to go for inside > clipper > ss clipper rpt/BSOS. We ended up both sealing it at the same time. Then he went for inside > clipper > SS clipper > SS clipper rpt/BSOS and eventually hit it. We screwed around with some more ducking set stuff. I came very close to hitting ducking far osis, that would be another 4-add to add to the list. Jesse had just gotten his pengbag, it is sweet! It sets like a dream. I've decided I am getting one.

After a lot of experimenting, we went for drilling. We tried to see how many SS clippers we could hit both strong and flipside. I broke my old records on both. I hit 9 strong side and 4 flipside. Jesse hit 21 strongside and I forget how many flipside, but less than 8. Crazy. My legs hurt like a mofo. Tomorrow is FRANKENBIKE and I think I'm just gonna guzzle some advil, put on my gameface and show up and shred.

[Iron Clad Ben]

It's been an OK week. I didn't get a lot of footbagging in but enough to keep me sane. I went down to the river to shred today and found a really great spot. It has like this 10' x 10' square that like soft cover, probably intended for runners to stretch. There's also a water fountain and a doggie shower which you can stick your head under, which was really nice in the heat today to soak my head.

I did a lot of drilling and worked on tiltless strings. I didn't hit any new moves but I did hit some new PRs.
Strongside clipper x 12 (prev record 9)
Strongside mirage x 6 (prev record 2)
Flipside mirage x 5 (prev record 1)

I've been trying to put together a 3>3>3 for my sick 3. So far I've got 2/3 of it. I can fairly consintently hit ducking clipper > pdx mirage. I need something to put either in front of that or behind that. I have some ideas but I don't want to give anything away. I'd like to be able to hit a 4 for a sick 1 but I just can't really seal ducking osis.

Modified comp videos are due in just a couple weeks! The pressure is on. I can't wait, I'm sure a lot of guys (and gals) are training even harder than I am.

[brinard]

do you have a challenge area?

if not, or if so, i see you didnt have any illusion stuff in your blog. try those. theyre neat. paradox illusion is way cool.

also try pixie and fairy stuff. i like dimwalk (pixie butterflu), and im working on fairy dragon. an pixie dragonfly.

drop me a challenge brosef!

[Iron Clad Ben]

do you have a challenge area? if not, or if so, i see you didnt have any illusion stuff in your blog. try those. theyre neat. paradox illusion is way cool. also try pixie and fairy stuff. i like dimwalk (pixie butterflu), and im working on fairy dragon. an pixie dragonfly. drop me a challenge brosef!

No challenge thread yet, homes. I still feel like I have more foundation stuff to work on, yes Illusions! I can't seem to hit those fuckers. They seem infinitely harder than mirages for some reason. I try and try and try and maybe hit one out of 20, although I did hit PDX illusion the first time I tried it, but I consider that a fluke since I haven't been able to hit it since. Maybe I could try thinking of it as legover and bail to a catch on the other foot?

As for pixie, I have that trick dialed downtime, but I cannot for the life of me uptime the shit to combo it with other moves. Every time I try to get the dex in up time my set goes flying off sideways my leg whips out like a rabid snake. I would love to hit smear, I'm thinking that will be my first pixie uptime set move once I can pixie uptime.

Butterflies also. I have been attempting that trick. for months and I cannot even come close. It's like everyone's first 3 but man, WTF I can't even come close. Jesse has tried to help me repeatedly to no avail (and he has a fairly decent infinity). I'm not one to give up, but I feel like it's going to be forever until I can even foot this trick!

[/frustration]

Any pointers on the above 3 tricks would be most appreciated. Thank you.

[brinard]

hmmm.... for butterflies, i started doing them off the right toe, then fairy clipper... thats a start, to get you to learn the motion. then i moved on to left toe , to left foot clipper. then learn yo infinities.

illusions were tough to me at first too. last 2 add i learned. dont know what advice to give, since i didnt get any myself.

for pixie... hmm... maybe you arent setting straight. try just ATWing the shit out of them, then try pixie to diff. delays. like toe, or ouside, or clip (always op to start w/)
pixies are my newest thing. im getting way lucky with some of my tricks. i hit pix butter, and i think dadacurve? very recently. like less than a week. now theyre about a 2 in 5 chance ill hit them.

keep shreddin, and drill hard

brian

[Iron Clad Ben]

Well here we are it's another Sunday time to write another blog entry.

I'll come right out and say it. This week has sucked. Like, I can't remember a shittier week in a long time. It's second to last week of the quarter at work so that been a bitch on its own... this coming week will be hell, can you feel my enthusiasm? I've been depressed and had serious insomnia, probably only slept 20 hours all week. I haven't had any motivation to shred. I've been pissing away the days and nights doing nothing. The weather has been overcast and that's just made me feel like shit.

I skipped our weekly session altogether this week because I was feeling depressed. Two vets of the old Austin club were supposed to show and I was really looking forward to it. But when the day came I just didn't want to get out of bed.

I shredded a little bit tonight. I schooled pdx mirage and I'm almost at the point where I feel like I really own it. I haven't hit anything new in probably 2-3 weeks. I also broke my previous op clipper record of 4 when I hit 5 tonight. Whoop de doo.

I'm so unprepared for the online comps. I'm really frustrated. I've been doing freestyle seriously now for about 5 months and I feel like I'm way behind people who have been doing it even less than that. Last time my entry was shit and I have a feeling this one ain't gonna be much better.

I guess the silver lining is that I don't want to give up. I am going to keep going with footbag. I don't know why. I just don't want to give up. No matter how badly I suck or how few people I have to do this with, I just can't give it up. Hopefully next entry in here will be a little more upbeat.

[JoFa]

So dude, this is weird. I feel the same. This last week has been crap for footbag. The only thing I have progressed with is my weak clipper as well. I also missed last practice, I still have no idea what to do for competitions, and whenever I go to shred I'm sore like a mofo. And I haven't been getting good sleep either.

Crazy-go-nuts. Well dude good luck with the shred, at least you're schooling pdx mirage

Hopefully the vets will show next week. I need sleep.

[mc]

hey, let me know when you get that footbag. I'm excited to find out what you think of it. Props on some of these session posts, sounds inspirational! can't wait to kick this spring...

[Iron Clad Ben]

OK this week...

It was quarter end for my company, so I was doing all kinds of crazy shit. On 11pm conference calls with Singapore and Hong Kong trying to push product through customs and other wacky stuff. I didn't get much time to shred. I DID however, get my Matt Cross #16 bag in the mail on thursday. It is a GOOD bag. Almost no gather so this thing sets like a dream. It needs to break in a little bit because it tends to roll some times, but when it breaks in... oh man.

Today's shred session... didn't hit anything new, but drilled and worked on strings:

-9 tiltless contacts! RAWR!
-Weak side mirage x 6
-Strong side mirage x 9
-Weak side clipper x 6
-Clipper set mirage BSOS several times
-PDX mirage BSOS several times

EDIT: Almost forgot: Far Legover BSOS, BOOYAH!

Also hit:
Legover > Ducking clipper > PDX mirage

Plus working on a new 4 that I will hopefully be able to seal for my sick 1.

I came home and threw up. Yikes! I feel fine now though.

[Iron Clad Ben]

2006 Wk14

Last week was pretty jam packed with shit to do. I saw Lions and Amplified Heat on Thursday which was kickass. Work is still ridiculous, my boss' boss is leaving and shit is all mixed up.

I filmed my combo's in time for the comps. I'm fairly pleased with them, I think I could have done slightly better, but the main thing is they are a huge improvement from how I was shredding 2 months ago.

Sick 1
reverse swirl

This move took me forever to finally seal! I would say 300 tries before I footed it and another 200 before I could seal it.

Sick 3
legover > ducking clipper > pdx mirage

I would have like to do 3 3's in a combo, but just couldn't hit anything solid. I'm happy with this combo though. I can't focus too much on sick 3 and lose sight of general progress.


HOUSTON TRIP

The trip was bad ass. It was about a 3-hour drive to Mike's house from Austin. Didn't hit any traffic, it was pretty smooth sailing. Mike put us which was way cool. Jesse and I shredded with Cameron and Mike the first night. It was awesome just to see the big moves being hit, they are both really good. Mike taught us a whole ton of stuff. I learned illusions and sealed my first DLO! We got back around 12:30 spent the rest of the night talking footbag and watching videos until about 3:30AM.

It was PERFECT weather for shred. Bright and sunny. The spot was great! We shredded for 6.5 HOURS

Mike - What can I say he's the Sensei. At one point his shredding drew a crowd of about 30 8-year olds who clapped after every run. One kid even asked Mike to sign his shirt! Mike hit some sick shit, including Mobius, BSOS Barflies and Blurriest for the first time. Plus a whole bunch of other shit.

Cameron - This guy was in town from Cali and shredded with. He's been a freestyler for 11 years. Sick long runs with lots of ripwalks and fancy shmancy-ness. Don't remember stuff he hit specifically but the guy could guiltless/tripless forever.

Thomas - Put up some sick shit including some PS whirls and about six far osises in a row. Didn't talk much, but a good shredder.

Ryan - Maybe I'm no judge of expert ability yet but I really think this guy should be in BAP. His style and skill are just jaw dropping. Every move he was doing had a duck or a spin, a lot of them had both! His runs were insanely long too. Really nice guy too, gave me some help with Pixie set and DLO.

Curtis - This guy was bad ass. He was like "ya wanna see a 7, I'll hit a 7, ready?" and proceeded to bust surging pdx blender like it was nothing. He had really bad ass uptime sets and could really bust some good looking moves. He hit "your mom", not sure exactly what the trick is but it looked cool as hell. He helped me with pixie sets (still working 'em) and really pushed me to keep shredding well after my legs wanted to give up.

Shorty - This guy was going thru some shit and hadn't shredded in several months. He was way pumped to get to shred again. At first he was only hitting toes and clippers, not much shred but them BAM, busted out Dada Curve, completely skipping 3-add tricks and hitting a 4. PROPS.

Heather - Soccer mom net player who surpisingly had some freestyle skills! She was hitting consecutive legovers, pincher, whirl and some other stuff.

Jesse - The Austin wonderkid. He got some help with Torque and footed it a few times. I hope he's not pissed that I can't remember anything new that he hit, but he shredded the whole 6.5 hours.

Plus some other people, sorry tried to remember everyone's name, but met so many new people.

ME - I hit DLO! RAWR! I had gone for it a jillion times and one time it just ended up on my toe at the end. I really didn't think I hit it, but there it was! I also learned illusions. I had been trying to do them hip-y and it really wasn't working. Mike taught me leggy illusions and it was much easier. Now to work on atomic!! I also hit tiltless x 13 and another long tiltless run (~11) on camera.

Now it's daylight savings! I came home from work today, had a short sesh. I hit:

legover > mirage RPT x 7!!

That's 14 tiltless contacts! Woohoo! I love footbag!

[dp]

Hey, just the other day I hit mirage>legover>rpt 7x... it's like we're twins or something!

[Stoke]

Yeah I know what it feels like to have a shitty week. Sometimes I just get down and frustrated, and I just want another shredder to lean on and vent my frustrations to.. That's why I'm SO glad you guys came down for the weekend- I don't want you to give up either. You've got everything you need to go as far as you want with it.

Mike - ... hit some sick shit, including Mobius, BSOS Barflies and Blurriest for the first time. Plus a whole bunch of other shit.

I would love to tell everyone that I hit mobius over the weekend, but honestly I can't claim credit for that. I did get very close to some spinning moves like scorpion's tail and mobius, but I woulda put that on the 'new moves' thread for sure.
I am very happy with how I played that day though. The kids were great. I love having an applauding audience, no matter the age. I was thinking that that stuff shoulda been on tape, cuz it was cool.

Now it's daylight savings! I came home from work today, had a short sesh. I hit:

legover > mirage RPT x 7!!

That's 14 tiltless contacts! Woohoo! I love footbag!

That's fucking AWESOME!!! I told you-- Tiltless drills, man. Now you got 14 contacts! I bet the legovers were of the non-symple variety too..

I have a challenge for you, Ben. Actually, two- a move and a drill.
Whirl. Or flip DLO.
ducking clipper > pdx illusion > repeat. I know- that's 3>3>3>3, but I think you can do it.

[Kljopa]

Sound's like you a really good time Ben! You are so lucky you have people to shred with,most of my session's are with myself.
Props on the tiltles string's! Keep drilling them!