presence of mind

[abstract]

what goes through your mind while you string?

are most of your strings filled with pre-planned combinations?

do you count contacts? focus on breathing?

have you ever hit a trick for the first time midstring? did you plan it before the string began, or did it come to you on the fly?

do you feel you have time to think several tricks ahead, or are you in a state of no-mind, where the tricks just happen?

how do you bring back the energy midstring that the first few contacts always receive?

[Jeremy]

I don't think I have much conscious thought while I'm shredding. Perhaps thinking a little about moves I'm about to hit, but pretty focused and not planning at all. I do sometimes count contacts, but pretty rarely. I can only recall hitting a new trick midstring once, which was just diving whirl, and I'd hit lots of harder similar variations before I hit that so not great achievement for me - wasn't pre planned either, just happened and then I was like "I don't think I've hit that before." Energy for me is not much of a problem.

[abstract]

maybe i posted this in the wrong section, since this has nothing to do with any trick components, per se.

should this be moved to general?

i get the feeling that it is mostly stream of consciousness based on prior training, but i feel one's trick selection also gets impacted by other players in the circle, re: regulating & the like.

with the development of events like circle comp, i'd be interested to hear whether players have set strings they try to hit for variety round vs density round & whether their strings change based on what other players in the circle are hitting.

also, what methods do you use to set up midstring links? anything besides bops / bails / reset moves?

i know jorden ran a "creativity in strings" workshop at Wakahakee 1 that probably included some of these things.