greg raymond

[abstract]

last night's session was great. played with dante & chase.

drifter > near down rpt > torque > far down rpt

drifter > torque bsos

6 torques in a string

footed far torque bsos twice, each starting on a different far torque.

sealed my first clean mobius! that trick feels as amazing as it looks.

day 1 fruitarianism:

4 kilograms of red seedless grapes
3 bananas

= approx 3,000 calories.

today so far i've eaten 5 bananas & am currently working through a watermelon. that'll be just under 2,000 calories. i've got another 2 kilos of grapes to eat tonight.

i will be taking a week off from footbag. i'll still be doing other cardio work. mathieu will be coming some time around the weekend of the 22nd. i can play every other day these days, but i want to be ready to play solid all weekend.

i haven't played with mathieu since kickass, i hear he's been shredding hard! can't wait to do battle with him & dante!

a couple of my requests last night for dante ( that he completed ):

atomic drifter > blurriest
vortex > far whirling swirl

chase hit smear > torque! he was drilling switches like a champ as well. his flip is coming along well.

[Dio]

1 week off? Ok well I'm back on Tuesday so let's shred then! Great job on those torques man, they look totally awesome - the cross-training from drifter probably helps!

[abstract]

thanks dante )

i've been organizing all the kickass footage & it's pretty crazy how much better you've gotten since then.

day 4, feeling strong. last night, i had my first fruit craving--honeydew melon. lo & behold, jumbo honeydew was on sale at the closest grocery!

i have changed how i work my cardio over the past 2 days. i was reading some tips from a raw vegan athlete that trains with some of the top endurance athletes on the planet ( he has trained with lance armstrong & co ). he said that your heart rate should only reach peak about once per week, & lower intensity cardio will make you much stronger in the long run.

so now when i'm riding, i try to pedal at a rate that puts barely any stress on my legs. there are 2 hill climbs on the way to work & 1 hill climb on the way back & usually i push hard up the climbs, with noticeable shortness of breath & elevated heartrate at the top.

now, i drop to the lowest gear & try to maintain low stress for the duration of the climb. my legs feel warmer now when i get to work, without feeling burned out like i sometimes do. my heartrate has been stable for the duration of the rides over the past 2 days.

this is the kind of riding i need to enforce for myself if i ever want to do any kind of long distance travel.

looking forward to footbag on tuesday!! so...many...torques...incoming...!

[abstract]

i started basic yoga this weekend, just teaching myself poses from the internet. i have enough economic drainage that affording yoga classes on top of everything is not feasible at the moment.

now i run through a 20 minute warmup every day as soon as i step out of bed. it will grow longer as i learn more poses.

i went on a 2 hour ride yesterday. it's so amazing outside these past few days, i can't believe it's october. i explored some local trails i had never been on before & rode some running trails down by the water.

i found this little trail that ran literally right against the edge of a precipice overlooking the water. there were some folks fishing along this trail, was an awesome find. it's exhilarating to ride that close to the edge with no guard rails or anything.

sadly, i'm not sure if my ankle is ready for footbag today. it might need an additional week. regardless, i will hang out with dante & chase tonight & throw some requests their way.

[abstract]

a daily routine is starting to form. dinner is still a disaster zone, i have not eaten fruit for dinner all week long, but up until that time things are feeling quite solid.

wake up
half hour of yoga
30 push ups
eat an entire watermelon
half hour bike ride to work
eat 1 kilo of grapes
snack on iceberg lettuce while working ( 1 entire head of lettuce )
half hour bike ride home
eat 5 bananas

after this point, things are shaky. i have eaten out most nights this week, which definitely feels heavy on my digestion. some things feel worse than others. poutine is the absolute worst so far, haha. starch, cheese & fat. mmmmmm.

a part of this is because i have been taking time off from footbag, so my evening regimen is not very structured. but it's nice to know that i can easily work in about 2,500 calories from fruit & greens by the end of my work day.

i am used to reloading on fruit sugar after a workout now, so once i start training footbag again ( aiming for monday ), dinner will take care of itself. i will probably need to hit 5,000 calories a day if i want to have regular sessions that are 2 hours long.

one day at a time.

[abstract]

first session back last night. took about 2 weeks off. yesterday was also my first day back on 100% raw vegan.

torque progress:

far torque bsos
mobius bs

legs felt pretty good. going to play in quantums tonight, now that i've had a month or so of lavers experience.

[abstract]

torque progress:

torquescrew
footed mobius bsos

[abstract]

open near torque bs
shut far torque

[abstract]

good session last night with bagi.

highlight was a new link for me, mindbender > tomahawk. i also had a really long ducking / weaving / diving / spinning / gyro osis string.

playing again tomorrow. might play tonight as well!

finished editing second track of kickass video. hoping to have it finished early in the new year.

[abstract]

wicked session yesterday, first of the new year. played with dante & john.

i am feeling in a good place these days, definitely a strong point to move forward from. i am hitting a lot of things i hadn't really touched since worlds 2010. i think my form is improving, because 6s are coming a lot easier now.

i hit mindbender on my 2nd try, then followed that with several footed attempts at gangsta party ( closest i've come so far ). after that, i hit maelstrom bsos on my 2nd try ( landed the 2nd clean, but didn't seal ).

i also had a far blender drill string, far blender -> osis -> repeat x 8.

a few really long strings in there as well ( 30 to 40 contacts ) rounded out the day, feeling great. considering i've only been able to play about once every 2 weeks, i'm happy with where my game is right now.

dante hit crazy stuff, as per usual ( although there's nothing usual about it, really ). one combo that stuck out was pheonix -> barrage -> terrage -> repeat. john also hit ripped warrior -> ps whirl. good session for all of us.

we started talking about kick4ss as well, i think we have some really good stuff lined up this time around.

[C-Fan]

Good stuff. You guys ever film sessions?

[abstract]

we are trying to get a tripod setup for iPhones, as they actually take pretty good footage. we want to start posting more stuff from our sessions for sure, monthly update styles like the edmonton crew used to do. i think matGM may visit from montreal this month as well, we will try to film that.

tonight's session started with a bang, mindbender bsos 1st try. then hit spinning blender. worked on my flip spinning whirl & made progress on blurry whirls. overall was a tired session. first 20 minutes were solid, then energy really went down. it was a stark contrast to the session 2 days prior, when i went solid for 2 hours.

i got home, made a green smoothie & ate some bananas, feeling much better.

playing again on thursday.

[abstract]

been a while since posting, was feeling kind of listless for the past 6 or 7 months. my job evaporated in december which caused a lot of changes & also impacted motivations.

in july i finally found new work, which has been great. so i am using this to build momentum to get things back on track.

yesterday was day 1 of restarting 811lfrv again ( 80% carb 10% protein 10% fat, low fat raw vegan, basically fruit & greens ) so i will have the energy to train every day. i ate 1 watermelon, 10 bananas & 3 pints of blueberries. this kind of diet is very difficult when living on a budget, since you need access to organic produce, especially greens since conventional farming douses them in chemicals & they don't have protective skins like many fruits do.

dante & i had our first "basics" training session yesterday, taking a cue from jay & erik to shore up the fundamentals. i didn't take things quite all the way back to kicks, i worked a lot on clipper placement ( my crank allows me to catch clipper almost anywhere, which is a curse more than a blessing with respect to links & consistency ), which led into working a lot on clip set near symple switches. i found that the switches came much easier when i kept the sole of my clipper foot parallel with the outer edge of my support foot, square with my hip. i worked a lot of other tiltless combos, but the symple switches were the biggest step forward. hopefully this will build up to dlos & eggs in the not too distant future, 2 tricks that i have never been good at.

towards the end of the session i played around with some 3s to break things up & have fun ( not that the basics aren't fun to me ) & noticed that better clipper placement was causing a lot of tricks to make more "sense" to my body, notably spinning & swirls.

playing later today, will post more as it comes.