Starting over

[cammel]

EDIT: first top post painting attempt! Yellow River by Xu Huijun (徐惠君)

One of my best friends is Chinese, and I was a groomsman for his wedding in China a few years ago. One day I was looking through some art books in a hotel lobby and saw a painting by Xu Huijun (徐惠君) and was really blown away. Most of his work seems to be water. I just think its some of the best work that captures crashing flowing water that I've ever seen.

Well today my parking spot wasn't available for footbag so I decided to try a session in my bedroom. Started with shoes on, but then thought it was too noisy clomping around with the lavers so I just switched to socks and did toe stuff. Have mixed feelings about barefoot. Seems like cheating because I think I can move my legs faster without the super heavy shoes on, and dexes can be tighter. Maybe it teaches bad form that wont work with shoes on

Tried some drills, the highlight was pixie legover x 12 which felt good because my flip pixies aren't great. Then I just tried to hit as many triple dex moves as I could, which was fun. Got 18 unique ones, which I feel pretty good about, five of those were on my weak side. Weak side is always the right leg doing a dex set. Downtime double dexes with one leg like double switchovers and double pickups are also hard with my right, but did at least hit pixie double switchover on my weak side. My fairy sets are really bad weakside, really need to work on that..

pixie op eggbeater BS
pixie ss eggbeater BS
pixie op DLO BS
pixie ss DLO BS
pixie double switchover BS
pixie ss double switchover
pixie ss double pickup
fairy op DLO
fairy ss DLO
fairy op eggbeater
fairy ss eggbeater
fairy ss double switchover
fairy ss double pickup

[C-Fan]

First off, pretty epic TPP! Are you familiar with the artist Ivan Aivazosky? He's also famous for doing really epic waves and water paintings. You might like his stuff too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Aivazovsky

The toe triples looked great to me. Sometimes playing barefoot lets you get away with some bad habits like sneaking in stalls that you wouldn't have time/space for in shoes, but your barefoot stuff doesn't look that way. The form looks fine; I'd expect you can probably do all of that in shoes without much problem.

[Muffinman]

Great painting!
Also, love the toe tricks -- incredibly smooth form on everything! You make it look way too easy

[Tjuggles]

Also, love the toe tricks -- incredibly smooth form on everything! You make it look way too easy

I agree with this. All of a sudden you are hitting three dexes?! Great stuff.

[cammel]

Also, love the toe tricks -- incredibly smooth form on everything! You make it look way too easy

I agree with this. All of a sudden you are hitting three dexes?! Great stuff.

Thanks! Yea, that was a fun session, but I think I should keep those to a minimum or else I'll end up really frustrated when I put on my lavers and actually try to do dexes

First off, pretty epic TPP! Are you familiar with the artist Ivan Aivazosky? He's also famous for doing really epic waves and water paintings. You might like his stuff too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Aivazovsky

The toe triples looked great to me.

Thanks! Didn't know about Aivazovsky, definitely like it, thanks for the recommendation!

Its been a while since I've had time to think about footbag for better or for worse. Moved out of the LA area for the first time in 13 years. Kinda funny that that is also the time that I stopped doing any footbag. LA is like a footbag black hole for me

I moved up to the bay area to start a postdoc at Berkeley. Its a very weird time to be starting in a new place, and on top of COVID we had some really bad wildfires kicked off by lightning strikes that made being outside terrible. The nicest part about it is that I have access to a fairly private backyard with a spot that I can footbag. No one else really uses the space, so I needed to do some weeding and sweeping, ultimately I might try and level the bricks a bit because some of them are a little uneven. But now that that the smoke is starting to go away I had my first real footbag session in a few weeks, felt good. Newest thing for me was working on atomic sets. Funny I have trouble planting when tapping, easier for me to do muted. Not sure why. Hit atom smasher on both sides, not sure if I ever actually hit that before my decade+ hiatus, so thats cool. They are some of the most awkward atom smashers I've ever seen though room for improvement for sure. I also worked some on an uptime set from inside stall, the goal being to try and have uptime sets out of guays. I went into it thinking it would be more of a stepping set with my foot in front, but ended up a bit more leggy so it looked like a quantum from inside. Either way, hopefully I can get more comfortable with that.

Anyway, unhappy I took so much time off, but I'm happy about my new space outdoors to practice in, and hopefully I'll be posting more frequently!

[cammel]

Messed around with barrages in the last session, but was only able to hit a near barrage from clipper set. Had a session today in socks and hit:
pixie op barrage BS
pixie ss barrage BS
fairy op barrage
fairy ss barrage
weak fairy is still garbage, and some of these are a little thin, but some felt really good. Pixie ss barrage on my strong side felt the best. Was working on other variants like tapping and then my footbag sprung a leak. Arg! Should be mendable, but I should probably start thinking about getting a couple replacement bags. Anyone know the easiest way to get a quality lead or tungsten shot bag these days?

[C-Fan]

Thought the barrages looked great! I personally find barrage from toe a lot easier than clipper. Maybe it's the foot switching timing, or the placement.

As for bags, is there any reason you prefer lead? I know a lot of stitchers avoid lead these days. My personal favorite bags are Ivan Iakimenko bags. Brian Bear also makes very nice bags. I think they're both on Facebook still.

[cammel]

Thanks for the recommendation! No, definitely not attached to lead, prefer not having it. I'll try to reach out to him. Maybe I should just try my hand at making some too, have a decent amount of time on my hands with everything still shutdown..

I've been thinking about moves that end with a gyro inside stall instead of gyro clipper. Sorta like a front osis. The first trick I've been trying is CLIP > SAME OUT [DEX] > BACK SPIN [BOD] > SAME INSIDE [DEL]. Feels like a weird reverse drifter or torque or something. Not the easiest 3 add hahah. Anyone know if anyone has done this before? Can you guys do it? Here's my closest attempt:

[C-Fan]

Looks a bit like rotor without the dex?

[cammel]

Looks a bit like rotor without the dex?

Woah, cool, never seen that. Hmm, well, they both have a dex, rotor looks swirling gyro inside stall, what I was trying to do was a butterfly dex but instead of clipper you do a gyro inside. So the dex and the inside stall are the same foot. Still havent got it.

I moved again, now living in Berkeley. The smoke has been pretty bad on and off, and I didn't have a great place to practice. Finally found a nearby park I can walk to, and there are a few places there that are relatively secluded that seem like good spots. Its been about 3 weeks without footbag or really any exercise to speak of, so it was not a great session, but filmed a bit.

Highlights:
PS illusion BSOS was maybe the highlight, but they were pretty thin.
Almost barfly BSOS
pdx mirage > butterfly > whirl > rpt
double pickup BSOS and strong reaper in a string

Footbagging with a mask is hard once you start sweating..

[cammel]

Kicked a bit yesterday, only tried filming for a bit of it, but was happy with getting these on film:

pdx mirage -> op whirl BSOS
pdx mirage -> paradon BSOS
whirl from toe is hard for me, was pleased with that progress

I also did some drills building off of:
gyro toe > ss clipper > rpt

only got:
gyro pickup > ss clipper > rpt
gyro pickup > ss butterfly > rpt
gyro toe > ss butterfly >rpt

I think thats a good drill for me because my spinning game is really poor right now. Would like to try the gyro pickup > ss whirl >rpt next session. I think gyro double pickup > DOD >rpt would be cool as hell. Long term goals Also tried throwing in some ducking stuff.

[cammel]

I'm fairly proficient at sewing, so I've just decided to try and learn to make my own footbags. Read up a bit on the old posts on here to get a pattern that seemed good. Got a sample pack of ultrasuede from fields fabric, upholstery thread, and some tungsten shot. Here's the first attempt, its not too bad, but there were some issues. I think I made the stitches a little too far in, so overall the bag is smaller than I would like. The hexagons are normally not stitched together, but I think because of the stitch placement they were too far apart, so there was too big of a hole where two hexagons touched and shot could fall out. So I just opened it back up and put a single stitch between each hex. Overall, if it gets broken in it might be a half decent bag, but could be better. Hopefully on the next iteration the hexagon connections will be tighter so I don't have to put in all those extra stitches, and maybe the bag itself will be a bit larger. Maybe I should just make the pattern a bit larger.

fabric from the random sample pack


some cut panels


intermediates




final product

[cammel]

Had a bit of time after work today to kick some. Wasn't really much time, tried to film a bit. Barrage bsos, double pickup bsos. Almost got atomic butterfly bsos. Getting a bit more consistent with atomic sets. Tried a few links that didn't come off like guay > ss whirl or op whirl. Got some half decent attempts at flurry and blurry barrage. Not really succeeding in my goal of really drilling basics, but having some fun.

[C-Fan]

Barrages look great!

[cammel]

Haven't had too much time for footbag in the last little while, but I've now got an apartment where I have room (sort of) to practice. Made a video of a couple sessions I had in there, one of which was today. Can't go to work because of covid and I was just watching scenes from the capitol. Figured I might as well do a little footbag. Nothing too special, feels like I've lost a little ground actually, but I got some fun things.
Pdx DLO BSOS
Pdx Eggbeater BSOS
almost DATW the world both directions BSOS (arggg)
scorpion's tail strong side
been trying to work on spins and ducks which are both hard concepts for me, so in both sessions I got four contacts of spinning clipper -> ducking clipper -> rpt which I'm pretty happy about. Took so many tries, but looks so outrageously simple on video! Spinning pdx mirage BSOS too.

[boyle]

NIce to see you posting - good work on the spins. I liked some of those longer runs in the middle too. Toe blurs looking pretty good too.

[cammel]

NIce to see you posting - good work on the spins. I liked some of those longer runs in the middle too. Toe blurs looking pretty good too.

Thanks! Yea, I don't think I've ever hit a quantum set mid string, but have been trying to get more comfortable with them.

Had a short session working on stepping sets. Best thing was stepping clipper > whirl > stepping muted op clipper BSOS. Gyro guay BSOS in a run that ends with a demonstration of the dangers of living in a studio apartment where your kitchen is the same room as your bed/shredroom

[mtoolan]

Great blog! I remember seeing your posts way back when i was still active on modified. Glad to see you're playing.

I really loved that trick you were trying a few posts up (butterfly gyro inside). It reminds me of jughandle and similar tricks. Have you gotten any closer? I might add it to my list of things to try.

I also started stitching this year (maybe around April?). That first bag you made looks AMAZING. Probably the best first attempt I've ever seen. Stitching has been a great past time for me this year and I'm glad to see other people trying it out.

Lastly, I noticed above that you mentioned you started a postdoc within the last few months out at Berkeley. Definitely a strange time to be starting anything right now. I just started my masters in the fall and it's been weird. I've only met one person from my cohort so far and it's because she works in my wife's lab. Strange times.

Thanks for posting!

[boyle]

I imagine you guys in the USA would have to be doing everything online and it would be dangerous to go into the campus. Sounds like definitely a weird time to get started on things, but maybe also good to have a project to focus on.

[cammel]

Great blog! I remember seeing your posts way back when i was still active on modified. Glad to see you're playing.

I really loved that trick you were trying a few posts up (butterfly gyro inside). It reminds me of jughandle and similar tricks. Have you gotten any closer? I might add it to my list of things to try.

Thanks! I haven't been able to get that move yet, one of the problems with playing on carpet now is that my lavers stick to it really well, so unfortunately I can't really spin on one foot (if that makes sense). Would definitely be helpful with that move to have a little less friction. But the main problem is probably that I really need to work on my flexibility, and my spinning is weak. But I practiced downtime spinning inside without the dex, so I'm starting to get the movement down.

I also started stitching this year (maybe around April?). That first bag you made looks AMAZING. Probably the best first attempt I've ever seen. Stitching has been a great past time for me this year and I'm glad to see other people trying it out.

Thanks again! Yea, it was fun, I think that I wasn't knotting it very well, so my knots keep coming untied, and the seams aren't tight enough, so sometimes the filler can sneak out. I'd like to get back into that, haven't stitched for a couple months.

Lastly, I noticed above that you mentioned you started a postdoc within the last few months out at Berkeley. Definitely a strange time to be starting anything right now. I just started my masters in the fall and it's been weird. I've only met one person from my cohort so far and it's because she works in my wife's lab. Strange times.

I imagine you guys in the USA would have to be doing everything online and it would be dangerous to go into the campus. Sounds like definitely a weird time to get started on things, but maybe also good to have a project to focus on.

Yea, its a real mess here in the USA. The undergraduates at my institution are not doing in person instruction, so the campus is pretty deserted. I work in a molecular biology department, and labs here have been open since I arrived in August, with restrictions on the number of people allowed in at one time, masks at all times, etc. There are only 5 people that work on my lab, and we get tested for covid once a week, so it seems fairly safe. But yea, its pretty hard to get started in a new lab with new people without being able to be within 6 feet of them or make facial expressions. Definitely still lucky as far as things go..


Did a little more footbag today. My flip drifters are so bad, I really should just practice the movement without the footbag. Got drifter BSOS in a string with almost pdx egg BSOS as well, spinning legover BSOS, spinning clipper > spinning legover BSOS, almost got both directions of DATW BSOS in the same string, argg.