Ivan I's Footblog

[C-Fan]

Concur. Being able to show people high quality edits of HD video helps the entire sport. I feel like you've really taken over the role of master editor over the past year, which is good because it had kind of gone vacant for a while. I look forward to seeing your creations in 2015.

[Derek]

Thanks for the wicked video, man. Woulda been more wicked if it was footage of you Heart sank a bit when I found out you weren't going to be at NYJ, but it's very understandable. I JUST WANT TO SHRED WITH YOU. Aiming for Jamps, but my hopes aren't too high. Much love, homeslice.

[isirc10]

Thanks for the comments gents.

Derek, you don't want to see me play right now, it's pretty messy

Nothing to report in terms of footbag, have been wholly committed to robotics mentoring and the final week of work. Just figured I'd post the first footbag video I ever edited, if anyone wants to see some slow-mo ducking clippers
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALWS_O8XLyM[/youtube]
I find the effects and the edit pretty funny now, but it's still a very accessible video for those who are new to footbag - because it was edited by a newb. I slowed down stuff that I thought was cool, without knowing what it was or how hard it was considered.

I think I've gotten significantly better at editing and filming in the past 3 years - Hopefully I can continue to improve at a similar rate in the next 3 years.

Maybe next week I'll have something more substantial to report.

[isirc10]

Finished up a little something footbag related so I figured I'd post it here. A full set of stamps, made out of oak and rubber sheet, for 14s, 32s, and 92s. Then I made a box out masonite and sheeted it with some cherry and did a marquetry of a footbag on the lid. Rubbed on a few layers of shellac and then sealed it all with 3 coats of rustoleum clear gloss enamel. This set is going to April and Ben, because they are cool (and gave me a birthday present last year and I gave nothing in return)

[janis]

I'm sure a lot of people who are reading your blog are thinking this but I have to say it, that's rediculously awesome! Love these posts, keep being awesome!

[isirc10]

Thanks man! I'm glad people are interested in the stuff I make - to me it's all pretty ordinary (because I do it as a hobby.) That box is the equivalent of me hitting a clipper. Thankfully people like clippers, in box form.

Had a session with Ben, Khoa, April, Ryan, Aidan and Andrew today. It was fun being back with the club. After enjoying two outdoor sessions over break (read: grippy tennis courts), I really had to get my form up to snuff with the squash court floors as I was all over the place for the first hour of the session. Still I had fun, even though my strings were like 5 contacts deep. During the second half of the session I switched my focus to bigger tricks and repeating drills, which allowed me to still have fun even though I sucked. I'm glad to have found a way to enjoy relatively poor sessions.

easiest grifter I've ever hit
legbeater > ss mirage rpt
drifter> pdx mirage rpt bs

I had some decent atomic sets today, even midstring, which is new for me. I find that I'm using less energy on them and when I do drop, it isn't because the set was bad, but because I had too much time and rushed the downtime component. Who knows, maybe I'll duck a few before this year is over.

TLDR;
I need to slow my game down, it's way too jumpy. Atomic sets are fun and so is kicking with others. Clipper boxes.

[AlekseyV]

For me it is not the best way to mix 2&4 add tricks in one repeat, can u hit pdx mirage - legbeater - infinity rpt? It will be much better I think, I know that it's just a hobby for you, but try to make your runs without 2 add tricks if it possible , if you can do any 3 add tricks. Just my thoughts, peace

[boyle]

Can't wait to see the nemesis of boxes, I really enjoy reading your blog, you are always up to interesting projects. Can´t wait to see what you get up to this year.

[isirc10]

Can't wait to see the nemesis of boxes

I made these two jewelry boxes a year ago as gifts to my family. They aren't "nemesis" level, but probably "tripless" at least.







Gonna go have a session later today with April. Will post if anything is hit, but my legs feel tired today so probably not...

[brianbear]

+1 for easiest grifter. this is a underused awesome trick that makes people like "what!?"
beautiful stitching box with template stamps, so professional.
happy to hear you are on board the shred train again

[isirc10]

Thanks Brian! Hope to see more of your game soon.

Played for 1.5 hours today, had fun, legs probably will not work tomorrow but that's okay.
Highlights:
grifter BS
torque BS (not very good though)
paradon > pdx illusion rpt

Also had a few decent tiltless runs that I ended in hand catch. Still going a bit too fast for my taste, but I'll get there.

Next session scheduled for Friday, we'll see how quickly my body can recover.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

I like how Grifter & Torques are both working their way into your game. Two awesome tricks.. both on two awesome sides. Even better. Are you doing Grifter from Toe op? If so, I challenge you to hit it Clipper Near. Way harder, but I think you have the muscle memory to do them soon. Would love to see you throwing Near Grifters in your runs. I agree with Brian. That trick looks so surprising midrun.

[isirc10]

Played for 2 hours today, which means I've played 3 times this week - looking to play on Sunday to make it 4. This will be the first time I've gotten so much footbag in a week since my injury, which is exciting. Today I felt surprisingly good. Some sort of rhythm is starting to come back into my strings and I find myself worrying about my left foot less and less (especially on the little hop back your support foot does on a pdx-anything set). I'm finally starting to be ahead of my strings, as opposed to just catching up the tricks as they come.

I hit a bunch of stuff I've been listing as highlights recently, so this will get a bit repetitive, but I'm still happy that I hit it. Got sumo 3rd try, with people actually watching this time. Footed flip fusion a few times, trying to get used to the faster timing on the DD on that side. Sauced paradon on a few runs, as well as ducking clipper. Even got a few midstring zooms that were so decent they surprised me. Also got a few pdx whirls on bs, but my knees were starting to get tired...

Played around with drifter, as I've been thinking of how to improve it to give me more time. Setting higher certainly helps a LOT. Focusing on the clipper stall also seemed to give me more confidence to play out of the trick. Overall pretty happy with my progress on that trick today.

Yeah, walls of text are boring, so have this picture I photoshopped - it's from our model railroad layout, the only thing I changed was the sky.

[isirc10]

So I was sick all week. I tried playing a bit on Monday(?) I think but I ended up giving up after 30 minutes or so. I sweat a lot and just couldn't track or focus on the bag so I figured I'd stop before I did something stupid. Missed two sessions last week after that, and finally kicked on Friday.

Friday I still felt pretty tired from whatever bug I had, but I made an effort to play through the fatigue, and was rewarded with a productive session. The first 30 minutes had some solid strings with plenty of Bops, infinities, and atomic stuff. Then I lost focus a bit and had some shorter, but more interesting runs. After an hour and a half, the session turned into Ben, April and I drilling stuff, and ended with a solid dose of nuke sets from everyone.

I finally got my flip Nuke to clear, and it feels just as good as my strong did a few sessions ago. Granted, my strong set feels even better now, I'm just messing around with stuff to hit after it. I've also made progress on making the set smoother and there is very little, if any twist in my lower back when I do it. I know i need to minimize that sort of stuff if I want to keep my back healthy. Highlights:
Sumo BS
Nuclear far legover BS
Nuclear ss muted pickup BS
Ripwalk>Ripwalk (welcome back, stepping set. I've missed you more than you can imagine)
Atomic ss Symp butterfly BS
Tap > Atomic ss muted pickup BS

So stepping is starting to make a comeback, and so is string length. Still working on controlling my tempo and rhythm during runs, but for now the progress I'm making is enough to keep me satisfied at the end of sessions. I don't know if I've said this before, but I missed playing footbag so much when I was injured.

Oh, I took some pictures of the recent snow we got at PSU, and also helped Ryan with his snow-ball-obelisk-penis. We had about 7 drunk people helping us build the balls at around 4am in the morning. Man, there is so much potential in drunk college kids that is going to waste. If everyone got drunk, and instead of passing out went out and did something useful... I'm not gonna finish that thought. Maybe it's only applicable to making snow balls. Hehe.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Oh, so you think you can just... DO Nuke sets now? And on both sides? Well, let me tell you something... Yeah, you can do those. I'll allow it.

Not only does the guy do Nuke sets on both sides... but apparently you're getting way more consistent with it. I'm really stoked you're Nuking now. I think that will be a phenomenal addition to your game. and No matter what trick you do after it, it will be sick, because Nuke sets are big, even if you just end in a Clipper or Pickup... In fact, challenge... Nuke op muted Clipper.. Like Crispy Pdx Grifter. Get that soon. One of my favorite Nuke tricks.

Great snow pics and snow dicks.

[isirc10]

Played footbag Wednesday, had a pretty average session. Double downs sucked, but stepping really picked up. Hopefully starting to get that aspect of my game back. Messed around with Nukes some more, still trying to break the mental block of what trick to do after it.
Blizzard > SS Butterfly > Ripwalk rpt

Played again today, started off slowly but improved steadily. Legs were pretty tired from Wednesday's session. Didn't focus on anything in particular, although I did a few things worth noting:
half decent Blurriest (I'm back!)
Paradon BSOS for a good number of strings, that trick is starting to stick
some decent zooms
Osis > ripwalk BS

I know these highlights aren't anything new or big, but I was happy with them during the sessions and I guess that's all that matters. Yeah, I'm still not as good at stringing as I was before the injury, but I'm having more fun.

[isirc10]

Went to Timmonium, Maryland last weekend for a model railroad show, had a fun time and took some pictures of actual trains afterwards. One of my favorite pics from the day:


Played again on Wednesday, had a bit of a drill session with April. Ended up bringing back the basics, didn't hit a single 4 add the entire session (well, I guess I hit a few paradons, but that seems like a cheap 4). Started off drilling consecutive mirages - my flip side suffered a lot after the Achilles injury and it was impacting every miraging trick I did which was worrying.
40 consecutive mirages strong side
21 consecutive mirages weak side
Consecutive mirages are tiring, especially if you suck at them. A few more sessions to push the numbers up a bit ought to fix my set out of mirage, and then it will be illusions. I expect these to be harder, but more enjoyable. After mirages, I did consecutive SS butterflies. Even before the injury, flip side sucked - I think my record was 4.
24 consecutive SS Butterflies strong side
17 consecutive SS Butterflies weak side
After those two goals, I was pretty tired, so I decided to warm down with some osis>osis attempts. These were pretty decent, and I actually relaxed a bit and really enjoyed the trick.
48 Osis
Finished with a few Nuke sets on both sides. Did some stepping but cut it short because I felt my hamstrings getting tight. No need to kill myself drilling. Next session will be on Friday.

[isirc10]

Friday session was shorter than usual, everyone was tired. Doing mirages last session really paid off, got a few easy bop drill reps, and this:
Atomsmasher> Atomsmasher
Yeah, I've hit 5 before, but it's nice to be able to hit that trick back to back again. Also, legbeaters were pretty chill, and I even got a few ducking butterflies, which I generally suck at. Fun.

[isirc10]

Well, one week went by and I kicked - once. Yeah, this was a bad week for me in terms of school work and free time. But hey, that's school. Priorities, and other grownup stuff.

Had a session earlier today with BenJamin. I ended up getting there a half hour before him and was able to shake off the rust before he showed up. The first 15 minutes of my warmup consisted of me dropping toe stalls and clippers, and I was almost ready to write off the session as a complete failure but once I warmed up things started coming back. Atomics were dope today.
Atom>Atom with full control, could have easily done more
Atomic legover BSOS (believe it or not, I've never sauced this until today)
Tap> Atomic SS Pickup > Tap > dropped on Atomic SS Pickup
Backside muted legbeater (Crispy Mama?)
Ducking out of osis like a fool (the good kind of fool)
Also had some fun strings with weird stuff and silly bails, which helped break up the monotony of atomic sessions. Also got Butter>PDX Mirage>Atomsmasher BS and Butter>PDX Illusion>Atomsmasher BS, although some of the Atoms were a bit rushed and the dex was tiny. Still gotta work on those links.

Oh, here's a picture of what I've been working on at train club recently. The truck was a kit I got, modified the cab to match that of a Mac truck and scratch built the dump bed. The lights are tiny leds. Pretty happy with how it turned out.

[krustykrakk]

Friday's session was a flock of fungulls . Sorry again for my tardiness. Sweet Mac truck! Way to keep it local.