Begin Phase 1 again

Rieferman · Post by **Rieferman** » 13 Apr 2009 11:58

edit.. here's what I was replying to. Ben wrote:

And now, I'm going to tell you a story.

I've spent the whole week writing down everything funny I think of. I use a program called list.it to keep notes of all these funny things. I have some pretty funny jokes written, at least they're funny to me. I stay up late at night in my room, rehearsing them, telling them to myself over and over again. I imagine I'm a famous comedian on a big stage telling people these jokes. They are laughing. I'm so funny. As I'm telling these jokes I ad-lib. I find little things to add to punch them up, and make them funnier. In reality, I'm really just in my bedroom. I've never told jokes on stage before. I'm just practicing trying to tell these jokes from memory rather than cheating by reading them off the screen on my laptop. I don't want to talk too loud and disturb my roommate. I go through my routine completely by rote. How long was that? I have four funny bits, each is probably a minute which is about right.

It's Friday. I have my first ever open mic performance tonight. I signed up for it, and the day is finally here? Am I ready? I've been practicing. Am I funny? The jokes are funny to me. My imaginary audience is laughing. I haven't told any friends my jokes. I want to save it for the stage. The night is here. My girlfriend, my roommate and I drive up to the venue. We stop at a gas station to get some drinks since the venue is BYOB. I get a 24 oz Lone Star beer. I've been doing NLP exercises to calm myself. I close my eyes and imagine a deep sensory experience where I'm up on stage relaxed and in the zone. I feel like it doesn't work. I'm still nervous. I constantly feel like I have to pee. I go the bathroom and can't get a drop out. I look at the list. Of ten people going on tonight I'm 3rd. THIRD!?!? That's scary. Still, I suppose I could me more nervous. I talk to one of the guys who is the host. I tell him his bit I saw a couple weeks ago about working in a shoe store is hilarious. He is taken aback "really, you thought that was funny? I didn't think it was any good". I introduce myself to some of the other open mic'ers. I mention it's my first time and they wish me luck. My biggest worry is that I'll get up there and forget my jokes.

People laugh at the first two guys. The host introduces me and says it's my first time. Thanks buddy I step up on stage. My hands are shaking. Who was the guy who said "feel the fear and do it anyway"? I look out in the audience, it's so dark I can't really see any faces. I start telling my first joke. "So I got this new job..." Something magical happens. Suddenly, all my fear and nervousness melts. I feel comfortable. I feel excited to tell my jokes that I've been working hard on. The NLP stuff worked! My first joke is going great. People are laughing so much I have to pause to let it die out before I can keep going. I ad-lib some more stuff I didn't even think of before. I have command of the audience. People are digging it. I go into my second bit. I'm on a roll. I feel great. I don't want this to stop. I begin my third bit. People laugh really hard about my "Handy Andy" joke. I didn't think it was THAT funny. I'm ready to go into my 4th bit. Suddenly they shine a flashlight at me. My time is up. I thank the audience but forget to say my name. People clap. I'm elated. Not because they loved me, but because I had such a great time doing it. I could have totally bombed but it beat my expectations by a longshot.

7 other people do their routines. Some are really funny, some are OK, some only get sympathy laughs. A black guy goes last, he is HILARIOUS. One girl in the audience must be rolling on E, because she is laughing at EVERYTHING. The show ends. Several other comedians congratulate me on a great first performance. Amber and Stephanie say they had no idea I was that funny and tell me I did great. Really? The black guy, the funniest guy there tells me he liked my routine. I'm amazed, I tell him his stuff was great too.

I ride home feeling like a million bucks. I have to do that again. I didn't even get to tell my 4th bit, which is better than the other 3 IMO. I come up with more joke ideas and write them down.

So it begins.

I enjoyed read that, I felt like I could sense the anxiety. And props on the successful showing!

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 13 Apr 2009 12:23

Yeah, good write up. Thanks for sharing, and congrats on it going well too.

Zac Jackson · Post by **Zac Jackson** » 13 Apr 2009 14:59

hey man Im really glad you did so good on your performance

keep it up!

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 15 Apr 2009 19:15

Thanks everybody for the props! Glad you enjoyed reading it. I hope to make some videos of my standup soon. BTW Randizz, if you're reading this I have a whole 3 minute bit about Toebius the Topaz (it's the joke I didn't have time to tell in my debut)

According to Stephen R. Covey the 8th habit (of highly effective people) is finding your voice and inspiring others to find theirs. I'm kind of doing that with comedy. My brother and one of my future-brother-in-laws both have talked about wanting to tell jokes as well. Now that I actually jumped off the diving board and did it, they are inspired to do it as well. If I can inspire other people to pursue and develop their passions, that means more to me than any amount of laughs or other accomplishments I can get in comedy or elsewhere. Plus, I'm really happy because in all honesty I think they'll be even funnier than me. I'm going to do stand up again next Friday 4/24 and I'll be bringing Spencer along with me to perform as well. He's really funny

Well I'm on a roll with footbag as well. To cut to the chase I hit these new tricks today:

Symple Swirl BS

Far Swirl BS

MOBIUS!!!

I am so dead on stoked about that last one. It's been a dream move for so long. On saturday I was working on flip torques and Cody gave me the advice to really 'torque' harder and throw myself into it. I decided to try that with mobius today and sure enough... ss butter > ducking clipper > MOBIUS > handcatch. It felt like butter. I was in a public park and shouted "MOBIUS!" at the top of my lungs and raised both fists to the sky. I felt fantastic.

Also, the video from Brenham Jam is finally done! I'll post this in the videos section later, right now there are too many awesome vids out to compete for people's attention.

http://www.footbag.org/gallery/show/16518
http://www.footbag.org/gallery/show/-16518

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

Rieferman · Post by **Rieferman** » 16 Apr 2009 06:20

I was in a public park and shouted "MOBIUS!" at the top of my lungs and raised both fists to the sky. I felt fantastic.

I can picture such a cool tournament t-shirt with an abstract player enacting this exact emotion. props on the mobius, I want that trick. I'm inspired to give it some reps tonight (8th habit!)

DTank126 · Post by **DTank126** » 20 Apr 2009 20:13

Fun video! That dude Curtis has a freakin ill style. So smooth. Nice highlights lately, it's funny how we seem to maintain a similar trick selection.

Peace

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 01 May 2009 11:39

Real quick update since I'm at work.

2 solid festival weekends in a row. Met a lot of cool peeps in the hack circles, handed out flyers for austinhack.com. The turnout from that has been minimal. I really should have done the Evan Lovely thing and gotten people signed up for our twitter updates on their phones

Oh well.

Good news got a few new guys from south of Austin who are starting to really get into footbag. You know that phase when you first get really into it and you're just completely obsessed with it? Ahhh to be a n00b again... When you see 'em on modified causing a ruckus, just go easy on em OK?

Anyway, I recorded some of my standup from this past weekend, check it out and shoot me a comment on YouTube if you want

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alVF1MR3hPE[/youtube]

Also, I filmed a little bit shred on Wednesday night. I plan on capturing it and putting together a small solo video. It's been way too long since I've done a solo video.

Recent hits:

Zulu Clipper x 4 > run

Pixie Osis > Spinning butterfly > run

Torque getting kinda consistent

Paste Double BSOS

Run w/Smear>PLO BSOS and dimwalk in the seal

PLO x 4

Pixie diving clipper

Mobius must have been a fluke, haven't gotten it again since the 1st time.

Rieferman · Post by **Rieferman** » 01 May 2009 12:43

that was funny stuff, i think you could go a little slower (like they always teach you for presentations, slow in your own head is fast out loud) but your delivery was comfortable and like a lot of commedians that I like, the joke after the joke was often the funniest part. so i liked it and think that as you do more, it'll just get better and better.

btw.. at the very end, one of your biggest laughs came from a comment that you were at a hacky sack tournament.. that's what the world thinks about our hobby

Darkshredder · Post by **Darkshredder** » 01 May 2009 18:12

I think using footbag for standup material would be a blast. That's rad you got that gig, Ben. Standup is probably one of the hardest professions to get good at. Friend of my brother's tried it and said it was a lot fun after the first couple gigs where you can start to ignore the feeling your stomach feels like a plastic bag full of sand.

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 02 May 2009 01:12

props on the standup

duttonwebb · Post by **duttonwebb** » 04 May 2009 05:34

I don't think us guys down south are causing too much strife around here

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 04 May 2009 19:15

duttonwebb wrote:I don't think us guys down south are causing too much strife around here

It was all Aaron actually

Man oh man what a footbag weekend! Played for a total of 5 hours. It was crazy. I don't even remember most of the stuff I hit, I was mainly just having a good time, enjoying the beautiful weather and busting out what I could.

One highlight that I am super stoked about though:

Smear > PLO > RPT!!!!
and I wasn't even really trying, just warming up and didn't realize what I was hitting till I was on the last contact.

I don't even want to say "I'm finally making some headway on pixie" because that always freakin' jinxes it. But I am finding that the less I "try" with pixie the easier it is. The harder I try, the more effort I put in, the more difficult it becomes. It's very Tao Te Ching... or something... I haven't actually read that book.

Also, I am super stoked on this video I just made:
http://modified.in/footbag/viewtopic.php?t=20238

Check it out and leave me a comment. It really makes me want to do more psychedelic / "welcome to the future" style shred videos. I already have another song in mind, hopefully I'll put something out eventually.

I get the feeling a lot of people I don't know, or at least don't know very well read my blog, which is really cool. I try to make it something that other people would enjoy reading, not just to post my own ramblings. I'm certainly not a bigtime shredder, but I like to think I play alright. People must read for other reasons. So to the people that read it regularly, thank you. Glad that you enjoy it.

P.S. did standup on Friday. Told 5 jokes. 1 was a re-hash of my best joke from my first act (which of course went over well) and 4 were new. Of those 4, three got laughs. I need to write some new material now...

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 07 May 2009 18:14

Thanks for posting the stand-up. I think it's super cool you're doing that. One constructive criticism: saying "ah" during standup is like doing BOP in a freestyle string. A few times is OK to get your balance, but if there's too much of it it's distracting.

vettehunter123 · Post by **vettehunter123** » 12 May 2009 21:06

Hey dude its been a while but Im going to UT this fall so we gotta hack sometime!

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 01 Jun 2009 14:15

vettehunter123 wrote:Hey dude its been a while but Im going to UT this fall so we gotta hack sometime!

Awesome! Looking forward to it dude.

Well unfortunately, I am injured. I've had a knee injury that's slowly been getting worse that I ignored. Stupid. After 3 days of footbag the weekend of Southern Regionals it's really shot, and now it hurts after playing on it for more than 5 minutes.

Why don't I follow my own damn advice? If it hurts, STOP playing. It sounds so fundamental and easy to follow, yet many of us, me included have a hard time with that. I definitely pushed it way too long. I potentially threatened my freestyle career here, I really don't know if I'll be back. I'm giving it a month to heal up, we'll see how that goes. Some days my knee hurts just walking up stairs. It's so hard to stop playing for me. I miss footbag so much every day. I'm resorting to riding my bike every day to get my exercise, but damn, it's just not the same. I practice consecutives (I beat 1000 last week) and do net bag kicks sometimes, but again, it's just not the same.

If you are somewhat injured and thinking it will just go away eventually, PLEASE take time to sit and really think about it. It's ok to STOP. Don't do what I did. I may end up OK, I may not, but if had stopped a lot earlier I'd be doing a lot better.

One thing, I am really happy about is that I'll always have this video. It captures me at the top of my game (so far at least). Plus the music and editing just make it awesome. I still watch it every day. It reminds me of so many good memories playing footbag Wednesday nights in Austin. Check it out if you haven't seen it yet.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Vy4pWD5TY[/youtube]

See ya later modified! Hopefully I'll have good news in July.

P.S. No US Open for me, it just doesn't make sense to go at this point. Even if I have recovered by then, I'll be so rusty, I could injure myself again. I just can't see a way it would be good.[/youtube]

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 22 Jun 2009 13:37

Played footbag for the first time in about 3 or 4 weeks. It was good. My knee felt a little funny, but no pain. So I'm not fully healed yet... holding my breath till next time.

Highlights:
-I still have all my new concepts I started hitting before I got injured! (spinning ducking, atomic, zooming, torque

)

Couple of new guys made it out which was great. DAMN I wish I could play more, these guys are super stoked on footbag and I hate to leave them hangin'.

It's been hard. I am not getting enough exercise, and as a result, I have been moody. I have had insomnia. It sucks. I've been riding my bike and lifting weights a few times a week, but it's not enough. I've had a few days where I feel really depressed. I miss the hell out of footbag.

In good news, the comedy thing has been loads of fun. I've been rocking the open mics, cranking out new jokes all the time. Some do well, some don't. I've got some pretty well tested material now. But open mics are always a chance to try out new jokes and see how they do. Then it's fun to repeat the good ones from time to time and know I'll get a laugh. But it's so much damn fun. I'm doing 3 open mics this week! One tonight, one Wednesday and one on Friday.

Since I can't footbag right now, comedy is what keeps me going and gives me something to look forward to each week. I'm glad I found this new hobby. Don't get me wrong, as soon as I am 100% healed up, I am BACK to footbag. You better believe it.

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 09 Jul 2009 00:27

Man not being to shred SUCKS. I feel like a part of me is in prison. I just don't feel like ME right now. I have insomnia, I'm anxious all the time, and I have barely any appetite. I feel incomplete.

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 27 Jul 2009 13:52

I figured out the root cause of my injury. I've been doing flip clippers WRONG all this time and never realized it. Since I can't regular shred I air shred pretty much every day. I hit blender>torque rpt the other day which felt great... air shredding of course. I noticed that on my flip clippers my toes point parallel instead of perpendicular! I point my right toe OUT instead of IN. Shit!! This causes extra stress on my shin and knee. DUH. Now when I actually try to clipper the right way with my toe pointed in, my stabilizer muscles aren't strong enough to hold the position. It's fine on my other side. Looks like when I come back I'll have to completely relearn flip clipper. Faaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhq!!!!!!

Not being able to shred has left a lot of passion on the table and I've been pouring it into stand up comedy. Here's a video of some of my best material, check it out if you're so inclined.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYnEw4tcxY0[/youtube]

In other life I've also been working on doing the 2 following things EVERY DAY:
-Waking up at 7:00:00AM
-Exercising (not right afterwards, but some time during the day)

Sounds painfully simple, but it's tough to be that consistent. So far I'm doing pretty well. It's done wonders for my mood and productivity. I've NEVER been a morning person and I've always SUCKED at waking up in the morning. I think I finally found a technique that works for me.

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 10 Aug 2009 10:56

Session yesterday with Dutton and Cody! First time I've shredded probably all summer.

Flip PDX egg > run first try, haven't hit that in 2 years

Smear > Egg > run (on flipside, booyah!)

Ducking clip x 6> osis > zooming clip > ducking clip > drop on osis

DLO BSOS in a run

Run with Ducking Butterfly BSOS and 1 legbeater

No pain in my knee! Still gonna take it sloooooowwwwwwwwwww

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 04 Sep 2009 12:44

New month, new update, I guess.

4 things I wanna let you know

1) I got married! It was actually 2 weeks ago and I meant to post sooner, but I still don't have pictures yet. Amber and I have been together almost 5 years now, it's been fantastic. Pictures coming soon.
2) It was actually in San Diego, so while I was out there I had a shred session with Richard Abshire. Aside from the shred it was really great just to talk Footbag with the guy. His determination, dedication and motivation with the sport is incredible. It really made me want to get healthy and start playing again regularly.
3) Richie keeps a hand written journal and does a really good job of charting his progress and keeping himself accountable at working on big tricks and combos. I think I'm going to do the same. I've got a footbag notebook now and I'm keeping track of what I'm hitting and what I want to work on. My game has SERIOUSLY REGRESSED but I'm excited to get back into the swing of things. I'm still only playing once a week but it's enough for now. I won't post anything into my actual footblog unless it's really noteworthy. I like writing by hand a lot. I rarely ever do it. It's really fun and I like my own handwriting a lot (dork).
4) Travis (vettehunter123) has moved to Austin to go to school at the University of Texas. He had his first non-solo shred session EVER last week. It was a good time. It's good to have a new shredder in town.

Other than that, stand up comedy is still my main passion right now while my knee heals up. I'm writing tons of jokes (many which are terrible, but hey, failing my way to the top) and doing lots of open mics to get experience. There was a talent show where I did half stand up comedy (a two minute bit about I still play "hackeysack") and half footbag. My comedy killed but I totally blew it on the footbag portion. Blech

Peace out y'all.

EDIT: HOLY SMOKES!~!! That talent contest I did, I just found out I DID MAKE THE FINAL ROUND!!!

This email is to confirm that you've been selected to compete in The A.V. Club's Fame Whores grand finale this Saturday, Sept. 5. Many of you placed in the qualifying rounds, so hopefully this isn't news to you. Some of you have been brought back because we agreed you deserved a second shot--or that your act was so unusual, we simply had to share it with everyone else. Please reply to this email ASAP confirming your availability and interest in competing this weekend, and we will add you to the final lineup.

Again, this Saturday is the *final round.* You'll be competing in front of a much larger crowd plus our panel of judges, and the winner will take it all: the spot on the Fun Fun Fun stage, two VIP passes to the festival, and a profile in The Onion. "Stakes is high," like De La Soul says. Get your game together and start inviting as many people as you can to support you. We'll send out an email with more details about Saturday once we hear back from you.