Drew ~ Philadelphia

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 19 Oct 2006 08:28

hi!
my name is drew, You can go to the last page for my latest updates!

* I've no become the only active shredder (that I know of) in the immediate Philly area. Every few weeks I make it out to collegeville and kick with Rieferman and sometimes others join in. Tom Stepek, who got me into the game, hasn't played in a while with me, going to have to change that soon.

I've a Mr. Sandbag footbag, modded green lavers size 13, and not too many tricks, been playing for about a month and a half. I try to play for a few hours almost every day.

just a week ago I was working on landing the mirage, but now I can land it about 80% of the time! I can also ATW, xbody rake, clipper with my right foot, heel stall(bout 50% of the time), mirage, walk over, (i feel like i'm forgetting something)

my friends Tom, Carrie and I had a session last night for about 4.5 hours, for the first time I landed a symposium mirage! and then landed about 5 more afterwards. I'm now workin on smoothing out all the above tricks, and pixie, double legover, and osis!

Edit: Anyone in or near the Philly region, feel free to hijack this thread!

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 19 Oct 2006 08:45

Woohoo! Philly shred! I went to college there too, a few years ago. Go Eagles!!!

All those moves that you are hitting, work on being able to hit them BOTH SIDES! That is so important I can't stress it enough. The more you practice the moves the better you'll get at them. Every new move you learn work on learning it both sides. It's like building a strong foundation for a house. Maintain both sidedness now, it will help so much when you really are able to start linking long strings together.

Anyways, rock on, keep shredding. Watch videos and practice, practice, practice! It sounds obvious, but it's so important, practice is the key. Keep us updated.

tstep84 · Post by **tstep84** » 19 Oct 2006 12:48

hey drew,
I never thought of starting one of these, so I guess I will make myself apart of the Philly footblog. Good session last night. I got your text about the symp mirages. I think its almost time I retire those black lavers. I might be around tomorrow, depends on if I go home tonight, it is my moms birthday, so If i am the good son, I will not be able to play, but if I decide not to, I will probably play tomorrow during the day, hope its nice out.

peace

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 19 Oct 2006 13:06

It's awesome out today, hopefully mroe weather like this tomorrow! I wouldn't blame you for going back on your mother's birthday heh, but if you decide to stick around, give one of us a call! we're probably gonna go shred in a lil bit actually

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 19 Oct 2006 17:05

it's thursday night, shredded for about an hour and a half tonight with Carrie! made some progress on the symposium mirage, landed it at least 15 times, strung it together with a >>walk over>mirage>symposium mirage>toe stall>> !! i was so excited haha, can't wait till we play some more, working on Osis and now symposium mirage on left foot!

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 19 Oct 2006 18:30

Not be like all over your blog, but be careful with symposium mirages. As you're learning them they can put a lot of stress on your body. Depending on how you do them the impact can hurt your feet, ankles, knees or quads. Be careful about how you absorb the impact. Also, 15 in one session is a lot. I wouldn't do any more than that. Symposium moves are how most players get injured, so just be sure to be careful with them, especially when you are first starting to hit them. It's tempting to do a ton of them, be sure keep them in moderation.

tstep84 · Post by **tstep84** » 19 Oct 2006 22:47

the way I see it is pain is part of the game, this way you learn what hurts and what doesn't. Try to make sure you are landing on your toe, then arch, then heal. this will help. see you monday

tstep84 · Post by **tstep84** » 20 Oct 2006 18:32

Tonight I played with josh at our community college. GOod time. I felt like such a dork. Friday night, college is empty but josh, myself, and the maintence people. Had a bad session, tried to brake in my new lavers, realized my old ones are almost unplayable. Josh had a very good session hit blury whirl and a bunch of other good stuff from stepping. I didn't hit a damn thing tonight except fairy muted same side blender, but can't hit anything out of it. Hopefully monday is better.

Footbag Forever · Post by **Footbag Forever** » 20 Oct 2006 22:40

tstep84 wrote:Tonight I played with josh at our community college. GOod time. I felt like such a dork. Friday night, college is empty but josh, myself, and the maintence people. Had a bad session, tried to brake in my new lavers, realized my old ones are almost unplayable. Josh had a very good session hit blury whirl and a bunch of other good stuff from stepping. I didn't hit a damn thing tonight except fairy muted same side blender, but can't hit anything out of it. Hopefully monday is better.

yeah I thinks it's about time to retire your black lavers...They've seen better days...but yeah looking forward to Monday. Hopefully we'll all make a little progress!

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 21 Oct 2006 14:15

so Carrie and I had a 2 hour session, BTW Tom, we found out we can probably play inside the Pavilion if we need somewhere inside next time, lots of space, nearby water, etc.

Landed some symposiums again, worked on the left side mirage and symposium, osis a bit, and almost landed a butterfly! we also played around a lil bit with ducking, toe stalls into ducking clipper, meh. it was fun though! no Tom around to motivate/inspire us!

hopefully more productive session sometime tomorrow.

tstep84 wrote:Tonight I played with josh at our community college. GOod time. I felt like such a dork. Friday night, college is empty but josh, myself, and the maintence people. Had a bad session, tried to brake in my new lavers, realized my old ones are almost unplayable. Josh had a very good session hit blury whirl and a bunch of other good stuff from stepping. I didn't hit a damn thing tonight except fairy muted same side blender, but can't hit anything out of it. Hopefully monday is better.

I can't wait to see both of you playing side by side, should be intense! Just break your Laver's in, your old pair had to be like that at one time or another!

Footbag Forever · Post by **Footbag Forever** » 22 Oct 2006 22:09

ya I'm really looking forward to playing with Josh! Hopefully it'll be sooner than later!

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 23 Oct 2006 22:16

Carrie and I had a 2 hour session tonight, kinda unproductive

worked on flipside mirage, symposium, and clippers.

messed around with the whirl for a little while, and soon realized it's out of our league for the time being! we both landed flipside xbody rakes though!

All in all just drilling and messing around with moves. Did a surprising amount of work on the rakes though, was losing the touch for a bit

Carrie danced with a creepy-ass cockroach too!

Footbag Forever · Post by **Footbag Forever** » 24 Oct 2006 07:12

duffelbag wrote:Carrie danced with a creepy-ass cockroach too!

I was stomping on front of it to get it away from you, you girl! haha. Either was it was dumb and starting running toward my foot rather than away...but in the end it worked out.

tstep84 · Post by **tstep84** » 24 Oct 2006 20:45

I guess, I will be the first one to write about tonights session. I alright posted in carries blog. Tonight Carrie and Drew played well. Drew while learning to hit clipper > same side pickup, was managing to come very close to whirl. I showed carrie butterfly and she managed to hit it with very good form in like two tries. I am breaking in new shoes. I would have loved to play in my old shoes, but I am forcing myself to break in my new ones. Anyone have any tips on breaking in shoes fast, I think I am gonna belt sand the soles a little, cause there is no grip at all, and now that its cold we have been playing inside on like a slippy tile floor. Tonight I hit clipper set ducking cross body rake. I have hit it before, but I felt like the duck was real deep and the rake was real smooth, had a very good feeling after I hit it, probably how vasek felt when he hit blurry flurry... or who knows how that kid feels. Oh yea, I forget his name, but i met him at somerville. He has a nasty neo set, and I hit a couple things out of that. Hope to be able to play outside soon. I hate indoor shred

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 24 Oct 2006 21:14

haha looks like Tom beat me to it, oh well.

Tonight was pretty good, started off working on clippers and symposiums. I now know to start the symposium mirage off from my toes, instead of the entire ball of my foot. I didn't really come close to landing it, it's alot mroe difficult, or seems so.

So when we were messing around with clippers, I pulled a clipper into legover, and attempted clipper>rake, to no avail. After the clipper legover, Tom thought it'd be possible for me to pull off a whirl. I came pretty damn close a few times, I think I just need to work on a faster dex and placing my feet faster.

Haha the best part was how Carrie managed to pull off a butterfly on her second try! that's so sick! I tried it and after a few tries managed to pull off a 'refraction'(?), which was kinda cool.

I'd say it was successful/productive, we tend to learn new moves when with Tom, and just drill on off days when we play.

sayanora!

Footbag Forever · Post by **Footbag Forever** » 24 Oct 2006 22:46

Looks like I was beat to it twice lol...All in all I felt pretty good about tonight's session. As said in the above 2 posts I hit butterfly...second try (Apparently with pretty decent form). That was Really exciting for me...was relieved to finally hit something new. I even managed to hit mirage out of it a few times. All of us did pretty well Drew almost hit whirl which is really sick! I bet he'll have it by next week. Honestly I don't really remember some of the sets Tom was trying to hit but he had some impressive runs.

tstep84 wrote:now that its cold we have been playing inside on like a slippy tile floor. Tonight I hit clipper set ducking cross body rake. I have hit it before, but I felt like the duck was real deep and the rake was real smooth, had a very good feeling after I hit it, probably how vasek felt when he hit blurry flurry... or who knows how that kid feels. Oh yea, I forget his name, but i met him at somerville. He has a nasty neo set, and I hit a couple things out of that. Hope to be able to play outside soon. I hate indoor shred

Playing inside has been quite the bummer...slippy tile floor+inside=sad shredders. Anyways that clipper set ducking crossbody rake looked really nice, very clean! Props for that! You even did it in ur new lavers....don't worry they'll be broken in b4 you know it... >_<

duffelbag wrote:After the clipper legover, Tom thought it'd be possible for me to pull off a whirl. I came pretty damn close a few times, I think I just need to work on a faster dex and placing my feet faster.

Haha the best part was how Carrie managed to pull off a butterfly on her second try! that's so sick! I tried it and after a few tries managed to pull off a 'refraction'(?), which was kinda cool.

I'd say it was successful/productive, we tend to learn new moves when with Tom, and just drill on off days when we play.

Learning new tricks when we play with Tom then practicing during the week seems to be a pretty effective way to learn for now. Seems to be working. Anyways Keep working on that whirl I want to see you hit that by next week!
Alright so sry for this ridiculously long post. I'm off to bed now. Gotta wake up early to study for mid-terms!
ciao

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 26 Oct 2006 07:19

had a 2 hour seesion with Carrie last night, was too tired to post it then.

Worked a bit on symposium mirages, but jumping from the toe instead of the heel. also did alot of attempts on whirl, came kinda close a couple times

mainly worked on clippers, just getting them down and hitting them in a row. also did some rakes, just mainly getting rhythm down.

Carrie worked on the butterfly, and whirl, I don't think it'll be too long til one of us lands a clean whirl

it was pretty good except for the fact that my knees and hip were kilin me by the end of the session, probably doing symposium or whirl wrong

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 15 Nov 2006 13:08

so yea, i haven't been posting in this thing much... but i just figured I'd mark it that last night carrie and i had about a 3.5 hour session, consisting of us stringing tricks together.

Tom showed me how to do a drifter, which i spent about an hour and a half on before I landed it once! IT LOOKS SO COOOL! ah man it felt so good to hit that! i was like... BYAAAHHHHHH!!!!1! haha i might have been luck, doesn't matter to me! i landed it! wonder how long before i land it again lol

tstep84 · Post by **tstep84** » 15 Nov 2006 20:33

Tonight I had a ground breaking session. I have footbagged for like 3 years on and off. I have a really weak left side due to knee problems. Even though I was in the library today for 6 hours, where I consumed about 6 cups of coffee, I played really well. Had about a 2 and a half hour session. By the end there was no dry spot on the shirt I was wearing. Near the end I started playing with this mini that I didn't like at first but now I do... very much. After a few trys I managed to hit fear. This is the first time I have hit an uptime dex on my left leg. I got that ecstatic feeling you get when you hit something new. I now have a whole bunch of new tricks I can hit know and will be drilling that fairy till I hurt something.

Drew · Post by **Drew** » 06 Dec 2006 09:28

Saturday was a sick session, carrie, tom, hobbes, jon schneider, chris miller and myself played for like 5 hours!

Jon schnieder, chris miller, and Tom all played really well! i was amazed at some of the stuff jon was doing, his style is so cool, and he has such complete control over the bag. chris miller is great too, tom showed him his wonton set, so next time we shred with chris he better have it mastered

the atomsmasher too!

carrie and hobbes did great too. the first time we played with hobbes was like 4 days beforehand, the progress he made was insane! carrie was just hitting ridiculous strings that i havent seen her hit before, so it was a good session for everone.

i tried to hit drifters too often. i realized i'm not at a stage yet where i should be trying them in strings or anything, so ima work on mastering the foundations, both clippers, osis, etc. like i should have been doing

as for last night, played for like an hour and half with carrie at our new shred spot in the SAC. i think it was my most productive session yet, going into it i had never really drilled left clippers or osis, and by the end of the session i was MUCH more comfortable with them. i also think just by messing around with the left clipper my entire footwork is smoother

hopefully more shred tonight