I've played... uh... most other forms of footbag for 17 years before getting into Net. On Sunday July 14th 2007 I came to a net demo at the Mayors Cup youth soccer tournament. I had played a few pick-up games over the years previous to this but never took it too seriously. I had a good time playing pick-ups and hanging out. Then I went to a net event 2 weeks after and had an absolute blast! After crushing a few big spikes through out the day and getting plenty of encouragement I was completely hooked and there was no turning back.
Now, I'm as determined as ever to get as good as I can even after playing poorly and burning out at Windy City Cup last month. I try to practice solo 2-3 times a week after work and play on the weekends with the newly formed net club. Exactly one year after the demo at the Mayor's cup I finally got some good net shoes with a pair of New Balance 1123's. After one session in these I've already noticed a reduction in shanks. Love these shoes!
So far I feel my sets are improving and not over setting as much. I'm still slowly getting consistent with some basic spikes. My serves are streaky but I can get pretty good power or placement when they're on. I believe strongly in playing good defense. The more I play against someone the better I can anticipate what they might do on a given play. If nothing else, I'm very active on the court and will run down dinks , shanks, try for blocks and even dig a spike or two.
I am still struggling to use my left foot effectively. I can bang with it on rare occasions but not much else. Unless it's an easy lob, I can't return a serve on either side to save my life it seems to get worse the more I play. I'm a pussy when I'm set too close to the net. Since I separated my collar bone a few years ago, I've been reluctant to do really crazy things in the air and it's holding me back with certain spikes. I could probably lose a few pounds to help with my diminishing vertical leap. I could probably use more discipline in my training. I should just train, actually.
I want to get as good as I can just for the satisfaction of being able to do something well that you couldn't do before. At this point in my life I'm not out to prove anything to anyone but myself and am not really interested in traveling to compete. Besides, I hate traveling. It's always a hassle and I like my life simple.
I'll track my progress and post my net related thoughts for the rest of the year. Feel free to leave a comment or give some tips. I appreciate any feedback and help I get.
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Some of my firsts:
Spike: Years ago playing at Olive Park Ted Martin set me up for a sole push past Val Davidson. Impressive, I know...
Spike Photo: Against Steve Smith at MNC 2007. Also hit my first flying toe reverse, scissor sweep and this monster toe spike thingy that landed just out of bounds. Later, Ted would emphatically say that it had some "serious heat!"
Tattoo Given: Sadly, not yet. At WCC I got Scot in the chest with a flying scuff but it hit tape first so I'm not counting it. During warm-ups I've blasted Carrie Cruz right in the sternum with a wicked scuff and damn near knocked the hat and glasses off of Josh Raye with a big sweep.
Tattoo Gottened: Scot H. got me in the chest during pick-ups at the recent Midwest Regionals. No net events, we were just eye candy. I think there were more net players than freestylers that day!
Crashed the Net: At last year's MNC I went foolishly went flying after a set and threw my entire body into the net tearing the whole thing down on top of me. The stakes had to be pushed back into the ground for Christ's sake! Man, Bob Hanon could not stop laughing about it...
Block: First time I played against Greg Grandy at the recent MWR I stuffed his sole push early in the game. That felt FUCKING GREAT!!!! I haven't gotten blocked yet but then again I barely spike.
You know what really frustrates me about net? I've been kicking a bag around for almost 18 years and I'd like to think that I've got great control over the softer types of footbags. Then there are net bags. These fucking things make me feel absolutely stupid! Years of building control thrown right out the window. I guess this is why I take unholy pleasure in kicking them as hard as I can into walls. Still, I feel just as good when I'm able to bump a serve or give my partner a perfect set. I know what the solutions may be but I still needed to rant.
The Wall...
never drops
never gives a bad pass
never gets tired
never makes excuses
is there on time
never cancels last minute
never talks shit
never does stupid dances
never complains about the spot
will play in any weather
never gets injured
won't cry if you kick it
never misses
is reliable
won't waste your minutes
always passes
never talks too much
never takes breaks
never complains about you
always digs your spikes
always returns your serves
is always focused
never rests
never complains about you being late
will always play at your pace
always wants to play
That's fucking poetic, Zeke!
The only time a tattoo doesn't count is if you get a net foul or a contact foul. The bag can brush the tape all day long: it still counts.
Ah, I see. In that case, I'm still waiting for a big nasty ferocious one in a game that will top the few I've hit in practice. Fuck, I need to get consistent soon! Then y'all need to watch out!
For now, I'm still working my game. Played 7 games of singles with Vince Sunday. I'm doing better with resisting the urge to bang at every opportunity and setting myself for a more controlled shot or the occasional spike.
Bumps and sets are still improving but serve returns are still pretty pathetic. My foot is angled wrong and I don't always watch the bag hit my foot. This is hard to solve practicing solo. It gets a little frustrating when all we do is play games. Even if I win 6 of the 7 we play I don't feel like I'm improving much.
Yesterday I thought I would try jumping and getting sideways while I was home alone. Basically I jumped off my left foot as I leaned back and raised my right foot as high as I could then come crashing down on the couch in my living room. It's really hard to say exactly how high my foot got without an actual target but I would say it was at least about 6 1/2 feet up. Normally when I jump (and stay relatively vertical) my foot is barely over the net. I'd like to thank Scot, Cory, Jeremy and PT for this little milestone. It could not have happened without all your help.
Now I need to get on a court...
Power kicked with the twins after work. Not a bad session. I was worried that they would get bored but we ended up just kicking for almost 2 hours. They've been talking about getting a net set of their own. Hopefully they'll stick with it. Got some other people thinking of playing some net, hope they'll come out this weekend.
Solo wall banging at Welles today. Rally with basics to warm up, left bump drills then bump & kill. Practiced pulldowns with a minor tweak in technique that I got playing with the twins yesterday. I'm making contact more often and the power is a bit better but it's not quite scary yet. Speaking of scary, I'm really liking sunbacks. That snap from the quads with last second flick of the toe... mmmmmmmm, gooood. Anygay, on to sweep practice. I used to set up with my shoulders in a line that was perpendicular to the wall for this spike. Now I'm turned even farther away so that my back is more towards the wall. This gives me more room to swing and the added momentum adds quite a bit of power to the spike. Slowly getting more consistent with this. The real highlight of the session was hitting about 15 or so scissor sweeps of the 20-25 I set to myself. The motion felt slightly awkward but the power pas pretty good. Good solo session.
More wall practice yesterday, this time at Warren Park. All the usual kicking drills then some spike practice working on sweeps, scissor sweeps, sunbacks and pulldowns. I don't know if it was the soreness or fatigue from Wednesdays' session but I was very sluggish the whole time. I'll take the next few days off to recover. Hopefully I'll be ready for Sunday's session.
8 people on the curt today!!! Sweet.
Got up and ate breakfast. Watched a shitload of net videos. Warmed up by just throwing some basic kicks around before a long stretching session. I was a little sore at the beginning but a couple days rest and the long gradual warm-up was the best thing I could do to get ready for today. I felt strong and was moving fluidly throughout. Even got a chance to eat another meal before leaving LaRAZA.
The twins picked me up and we met Tommy and Vince at Union. Tommy's net had a huge gash in it from one of his friends trying a spike and his foot got caught as it swung down. We found some rope and managed to stitch the gash together. Ugly, but effective. BTW, the park was still trashed after Pitchfork. There was garbage everywhere. Fucking park. Anyways, we warmed up for about 20 minutes before Scot arrived with Cory and Brian Nelson.
Vince, the twins and I started doing spike drills once the second court was set up. This was so much fun, I wish we had six bags to work with all the time! Despite all the sweep practice against the wall early in the week, I barely managed to get any over the net. Scuffs on the other hand are much better. I hit every set I got and most of them landed in. I contacted about half of the tosses while practicing scissor sweeps but only two managed to "score". I'm really liking this spike. All 4 of us took 3 turns a piece before breaking up into teams and playing games.
We all took a break after a couple games and I went onto the empty court to practice side axes. Ever since I fucked up my shoulder a few years back, I've been very tentative about doing crazy things in the air. As you can imagine, it's a big problem for a short net player who wants to get up and spike. After about 5 pathetic attempts Cory came over to offer some help. After applying his advice my foot was able to get just under 6 feet in the air and even cross the net on a few occasions... I got sideways in the air bitches!!!! Eventually, Tommy offered to toss up some sets and I missed just about all of them. The two of them suggest that I keep an eye on the bag just a little longer to make sure my foot made contact. I think I was worried about landing on my face so I looked down as early as possible. After their tip I was able to crush a few! Landings were taking their toll, though. Despite landing on all fours my weak (girly) arms felt like they were going to give in and both knees were starting to ache. My left hand is still a little numb and somewhat unresponsive. Still though, I think I got past a major obstacle today and I'm extremely happy with the progress.
Overall, I think I played well today. I was a little more aggressive at the net and got a few spikes but nothing with any heat on it. My sets were a little off and my serve returns are still abysmal. I got a wear on Vince late in the day that Brian gave me props for. It's funny because I think I was the only one that didn't see it hit him. The one real highlight that stuck out was near the end of the session where I hit a side ax during hand toss rallies . The bag was dropping right over the net and I ran up jumped, got sideways and just went for it. I didn't know I hit it until I got up and asked! They all gave me props for it. Man, that felt so good.
There's just something endlessly cool about a great partner. Like when two players do more than merely coexist, they connect. They become more than the sum of their parts. They compliment each other so well that each persons strengths cover the others' weaknesses. There's no longer much need to communicate verbally and it's replaced with this deep trust in the others ability to finish off what you have started. It's like intuition, you just know where they're going to be right when they need to be there. Two people functioning as one cohesive unit; adapting, hustling and executing seamlessly towards the same goal.
I'll get tiny flashes of this on the net court when that near impossible dig turns into the perfect set for a monster spike that ends a long rally. Afterwards you can't help but pump your fists wildly in the air, jump up screaming at the top of your lungs and give the worlds biggest high-five to your partner because simply telling him he did a good job wouldn't do what you two just accomplished together any justice. God forbid it stops there. Rub in your opponents' faces while your at it. I'm just talking about single plays. I can only imagine what it's going to be like to string a bunch of plays to win games and matches consistently.
8-2-08
Kicked with Jake late Thursday afternoon we did serve/return drills, monster, dig drills and hand toss rallies. It was a fairly productive session. I was particularly thankful to drill serve returns as it's got to be the weakest part of my game right now.
Today I warmed up and stretched at home before biking out to Roosevelt Park to meet with Cory and Vince. I passed by Union Park just to see if they cleaned up all that garbage. It looked like they got most of it off the field but there was still some trash near the ends of the park. Vince and I took our time warming up. He was doing a good job of setting himself up and killing with his sole pushes when we were doing hand toss rallies. We were in a middle of game by the time Cory showed up. Hit my first sunback in a game. The form was a bit ugly but it had some good power on it. Vince ended up winning the game though. Oddly enough he wasn't setting himself or spiking at all while we played.
After the game all three of us power kicked for a good half hour before moving on to had toss rallies. Then Vince and I played against Cory. Jeezus. It was a sobering reminder of how ineffective our skills are at this point. Cory was killing us with incredibly precise shots. He wasn't even spiking very hard but they were landing in places we were nowhere near. I did manage to get a couple of good digs but was unable to bump them for a set. There was a slight improvement on serve returns but still pretty bad overall. Hit my first side ax in a game. It's a shame I never get to see where it goes after the contact. There's a great deal of satisfaction to see where or who it hit. I'm always so concerned about the landing that I almost always take my eyes off the bag too soon. My serves are getting much more consistent as long as I'm not trying to dink.
8-3-08
So on to today's session. Fucking great!. My serves were on target and this was the best I've ever played defensively!. No blocks, but I was able to return more serves than usual giving some decent bumps. I was digging and running down lobs and shanks all day.
Tommy picked me up on the way to get his net set back from the twins. Thank god he felt like driving, don't know how well my knees wold have held up if I biked. We get to the park a little late where Scott Vince and Cory are setting up 2 courts. Tommy's friend Zach was there warming up. We rushed through the usual warm-ups since we wanted to get some games in with him before he would have to leave soon for his soccer league. He seemed very friendly and very active on the court. I'm not sure how long he and Tommy had been playing together. I ended up partnering with Zach for the first game against Tommy and Vince. We were down 10-2 before we got into sync and made an incredible comeback to get the win. It was a lot of fun playing with him since our styles seemed very similar and covered the court well despite being the two shortest players. He ended up getting another come-from-behind win against Vince and I. Tommy and I managed to stop a third such win before Zach had to leave.
We played a bunch of games using a 5 man rotation the rest of the day. I'll just list highlights to keep this post from getting too long and boring
-Cory and I stomping the shit out of Tommy/Scot 15-3
--I got an insane 11 point run with more than half of those points on serves alone. I was serving well all day.
--Cory can crush just about any slop I put up. Fortunately I was setting the bag well and putting it right at the net where he's practically impossible to stop.
--Being in the perfect spot as he missed the block attempt on Tommy. I managed to get the dig and turned it into a set and screamed at him repeatedly to get up. He managed to get it over to keep the rally going. I got another dig soon enough and Cory managed to get the kill to finally end the play. We all laughed afterwards about my screaming
-hit 2 more side axes and a greasy sunback
-shanked 2 spike attempts that ended up lobbing over the defenders into the back court. Also shanked a sweep into a bitch slap.
-Calling out a dink and 2 back corners on serves then dropping them right where I said the would go... pure evil
-Tommy and I playing well together even in loss
-Scot smashing 9 points in a row with his sweep serve
-Stayed aggressive at the net and bumped serve returns
-I dug a what would have been one nasty back corner lob with a left back kick. I was back pedaling from the net when the bang came flying over my left side. I shifted my weight turned my shoulders and swung my leg up just as I would on my right side. I even managed to keep it on our side of the court, that felt so fucking great!
Most of my sweeps hit the net low and I blasted a few spikes (including a scissor sweep) out of bounds just from bad positioning. But overall I think I made some fairly good decisions on what to crush what to set and what to just send over. I think my defense was really what kept me and my partners in the game. Being able to bump/set a serve or spike feels so awesome considering they're such major holes in my game. It was a great boost when everyone was commenting on how well I was playing.
Vince still doesn't set me (which really annoys the piss outta me since he tries to set everyone else) but he is fun to have on the court. Despite how intense some of the games got, there was still a lot of hilarious shit talking going on all day. What a great session.
8-11-08
Had the most lethargic singles net session with Vince on Saturday. I finished 3-0 but energy and effort were lacking from both sides. Despite having to do quite a few push-ups for not going after a bunch of shots, I did manage to get a few bump> scuffs early in the day. No net scheduled for Sunday so I rode out to Welles to play with Tony and wait for the others to show up. During the ride up there, I was in a deep lean into a tight turn when I hit some gravel and completely wiped out. Worst wipe out ever. Oddly enough, the first thing I did was check to see if my bike was ok. It wasn't until I finished that I noticed that I had road rash on both elbows, I had bitten deeply into my upper lip and got a good sized chunk of my left knee scraped off. I got to the park and cleaned up as best I could and even managed to score some tape & bandages from the park staff. I took some painkillers and forced myself to hack with Tony for a bit. Eventually I left (just as Nathan showed up) to ride to a nearby Walgreens to buy some antibiotic ointment and new bandages.
After redressing the scrape I hung a target from a low tree branch in order to practice some spikes while Nathan and Tom shred. Tony had to leave early due to some nagging back problems but he did mention that he was interested in making it out on Sundays to kick again. It was good to play with him after so long. I started by practicing a bunch of standing spikes but quickly grew bored of that. I switched to scissor sweeps and found it to be infinitely more fun than standing spikes. After a dozen attempts I was able to make a sloppy contact with the target hanging just over 6.5 feet. I'm thinking that 5.5ft-6ft will be much more practical/realistic in a game, though. I then moved on to side axes and shtatafs but had to quit early when the landings were just too much for my aching knee to handle. Inspired by Gilles Demers, a dynamic and explosive player from Montreal, I decided to try some flying pulldowns. After just a few successful contacts I had already grown to like this spike over the standing version. I don't quite have Gilles' perfect form but hopefully it will become just as effective for me on the court.
The rest of practice was spent learning toe flips with the target initially set at about 5.5 feet. My first 2 attempts, as you would expect were ugly and awkward. Surprisingly my 3rd try had a good swing that carried my kicking leg back towards the ground for a respectable landing. I totally whiffed but the form clicked for me at that moment and I never had problems with it for the rest of the day! After dozens of attempts I was able to make contact with the target at about 6.5ft in the air but getting viscous kills at 6 ft and lower... I can't wait to unleash this on some poor fool next session.
My knee didn't bother me much during the bike ride home but it seemed like the painkillers wore out just as I took that first step on the back stairs with my bike over my shoulder... the agony! I sat for hours in my room uploading photos and watching video of my practice before finally finding enough of my testicles to shower and thoroughly clean up my nasty, pus-oozing crater of a kneecap. I've never known water to be so painful.
I called to take today off work. I woke up sore as hell from practice and my knee aching like crazy. This thing needs to scab up already. I'm going to have to go to work tomorrow no matter what, though. Ugh...
Today was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
I asked Scot, who lives all the way out in the west suburbs, to pick me up at the end of the Blue line in Forest Park @ 6:30am Sunday so we could drive down to Salem, the designated town between our two clubs. But to get there I would have had leave my house around 4:15am to take a cab to the Redline station, go south towards downtown, switch to Blueline train then head west to the Forest Park Station and hopefully get there around 6:30. It was enough to make me not want to go at all, sleep in and kick with the locals. Thankfully, Rob Creel called and said he wanted to drive down with us. We planned it so that I left my house at 5am instead, took a cab to the Humbolt Park neighborhood where he was staying, hook up with him then get on the Blueline towards the west side. I got to sleep in later and bypass the shitty Redline train altogether. Sweet. It worked out so well we arrived at our destination 15 minutes early. It was a little chilly in the morning so we decided to play some 2-square while we waited fro Scot & Cory to pick us up. It took a little while to get used to his kicking style but once I became more familiar to it I was able to show him some of the finer points of Chicago 2-square, hehe. I was up 2 games and in the middle of a pretty good match by the time our ride picked us up. Pretty good start to the day.
Rob is a Renaissance man in that he shreds, plays net and squares. On top of that he's pretty cool and easy to talk to. That's important when on a 4 hour road trip with someone you've never met before. The drive was fairly uneventful. If the passengers weren't passed out we were treated to Scots many "old" footbag stories. The one about "The Animal" was probably my favorite... mostly because it's the only one I can recall at the moment. You know you're in for a good story when Scot starts out with, "You guys ever hear of..." or "Back in nineteen ninety-... "
We finally hit Salem and took a piss-stop in a Macdonald's. After my business I placed my hands underneath one of those fancy paper towel dispensers with a motion detector. Nothing. "It's cuz I'm black, right?" Cory got a pretty good chuckle out of it while he washed his hands. I started to leave when he said, "Hey dude, look..." he proceeded to wave his pink little hands in front of the dispenser and was given a paper towel.
"Sonovabitch!"
Fuck that racist paper towel dispenser! It evened out when it took Cory 10 minutes to get his food - with no one ahead of him. Fucking McDonald's!
We found the park without too much trouble and pull up to a sweet little spot where Tommy and Mikey were already warming up. We greeted each other, unloaded the car and started setting up. Memphis signaled their arrival when Ben had announced that he had sensed something a bit queer with his olfactory organ. We had 8 players, 3 courts, great weather and 4 hours to kill. Warm ups started out with power kicking and hand toss rallies over the net. Rallies quickly became games. After being on the road for 4 hours I guess we just wanted to play as soon as possible.
We played doubles for the majority of the afternoon, changing partners just about every game so that everyone got a chance to team up with everyone else. I think I played well for the most part. My serves were 'on' again. I started serving deep then dropped a dink just past the net whenever I saw the opportunity. I felt I did a decent job of setting but it's impossible to truly know when you have such good players that can crush just about anything in sight. My spikes are still fairly inconsistent. Got a few scuffs and sole pushes but hit the net with every sweep I tried. Hit a toe jam during warm ups from one of Hammer's sets that got Scot's attention. I can still see the expression on his face after I blasted a sunback later on. I turned around and Scot was frozen with the bag rolling behind him, his arms out, palms up, shoulders shrugged and a look on his face like some just took a long nutty shit on his food. He was wondering out loud how someone my height could hit a (standing) sunback from the middle of the court. Late in the day I hit a more conventional sunback while playing with Ben. It felt great to kill with the only two that I tried.
Rob and I played some singles and did some practice in between doubles games. He was trying a new serve and I got to practice returning them. That worked out so well. I was having so much fun but I eventually had to give my knee a brake. The bandage I wore to cover the road rash just kept getting loose from the sweat and rubbing against the abrasion. This gave me a chance to take some good pictures though. Looking back, I wish I had taken more pics of the site, Mikey and Rob. Almost half of the images I captured were of Ben's monster spikes! He takes big scary swings at just about everything so it's hard not to shoot him. What surprises me more than his power is his freakish agility. Unfortunately, I only managed to play one game with him but thankfully only one game against him.
I only played with Hammer once throughout the day. Near the end I overheard Rob thanking him for being such a patient and encouraging teacher. It made me wish I had more court time with the Memphis crew. Hm, maybe I should have played better and earned it. Speaking of which, Tommy was absolutely on fire Sunday. I watched him hold his own against Ken in a singles match, he was brutally connecting with just about every swing and was jumping and reaching higher than he normally does. On the final play of the day he just flew up and crushed the bag with a pulldown from about 7ft up taking game point for his team with authority! It was the perfect way to end such a great day.
We cooled down, cleaned up and chatted about how incredibly great the day had turned out. There was talk about doing this again in a couple of weeks in Mikey's town after his wedding. If it's going to be as much fun as this past jam then I can't wait for it to happen.
The ride home, as always, seemed to go much quicker than the ride to Salem. Rob and I jumped into Tommy's car since he was driving into the city anyway. We stopped at a Subway to pick up a quick dinner for the road. As much as I dislike that place it was still better than eating at a McDonald's then being in a car for 4 hours after. Back on the road, we witnessed the end of a sundown and the start of a moonrise simultaneously... SSSSOOOOOOOOOOOO COOL!
Previous post was written 8-17-08
8-24-08
No net for the first part of the week so I could let my knee heal. I've taken to calling it Scabzilla. Thursday was a light session at Welles with Vince, Carrie and Tommy. Scabzilla was irritating me and really kept me from playing well. I was giving good sets off of hand-tosses the whole session. Hit a strong sunback and a good sweep. Nice to see Carrie come out and kick again.
Saturday I was biking towards the lake front on my way to kick with Vince at Roosevelt Park. I was on some tight side street when a car door opened up just as I was passing by. My bar end got caught and I flipped over onto the friggin' street. I swear to god as I was starting to fall I was thinking, "Muthafuck, not again!" I hit the ground pretty hard but I managed to roll back towards the parked cars to avoid getting run over. Thankfully, cars were pretty much stopped to see what had happened. Before I could really take in all that was going on, I was soon surrounded by all these people asking if I was ok. I didn't know which one of them was the one that opened the door until some lady with the most fearful look on her face came up and apologized then asked if I needed an ambulance. "At least your bike is still ok, I think..." I took the bike from her and practically threw it over the trunk of a car and into the grass. I hobbled over next to it so I could get my head together and check myself out. It seemed like a small crowd was gathering and asking questions. I was actually very surprised how genuinely worried most of them were. Some other lady gave back my water bottle that flew down the street. Another woman gave me some wipes to clean up the cuts and a third helped check my back for anything I might have missed. It all helped to calm me down and start telling everyone that I was ok. At this point all I really wanted was to for all of them to go the hell away. The door-er kept asking if there was anything she could do. I said I was ok and she should not worry about anything. She practically vanished ninja style after hearing that. I thanked everyone else for their kindness and they went back to their business soon after.
I called Vince ant told him what happened. I was going to bail on him, ride my sorry ass back home and lock myself in my room for 3 months. Somehow, he convinced me to play anyway and that he would just drive to Welles instead of me going to Roosevelt. I'm such a dumb-ass. So I biked to Welles, cleaned my new cuts and just lay in the shade in the middle of the park until Vince showed up. The outside of my right calf had a good sized bruise and was swelling a little but I managed to play on it anyway. We split 2 boring games. I was surprised that I was able to play at all, let alone win a game. My serves are what killed him. I practiced sweeps over the net before finally calling it quits. Vince took off and I stayed at Welles for another half hour or so. Part of it was me not wanting to go home early on such a nice day and the other was me being paranoid of falling off my bike into traffic. I finally work up the nerve to slowly cruise back home to shower, clean up my new cuts and ice my swollen calf. Between Scabzilla and the new injuries I found that falling asleep and staying comfortable enough to stay asleep was incredibly difficult.
Woke up early to find the swelling had gone down significantly but my calf was still feeling very tight. Ate breakfast, got my stuff ready to go and watched a bunch of net videos to get me motivated. Tommy picked me up. We drove back to his place to pick up his finance and his net court then drove to union. They insisted I stay in the front seat while she sat in back. For whatever reason I felt weird about it. Kate seemed very cool. There were some amusing moments where she and Tommy were already acting like a married couple. Scot and Vince were the only other CLCK members to come out. Al and his friend John from Santa Cruz came later in the day. I was really disappointed that Alan and Ronny didn't make it. It was still a good session. The mood was more laid back than usual and everyone played well.
My serves are still the most solid aspect of my game at this point. My sets were off at first but eventually got them to where they needed to be later in the day. Spikes are still few and far between but I did manage to tattoo Tommy at the end of a good rally. It was payback since he tagged me earlier with a pulldown that hit my right shoulder. While playing together, I set him for another big pulldown to win game point. Scot had turned one of my sloppy sets into a half spinning toe reverse. Play of the day came when Tommy asked if Al wanted a tattoo. Sure enough, the next play Tommy crushes a big spike into Al who tried to get a block over the net. I literally jumped out of my seat hysterically when it happened! It was so great!.
8-25-08
I rushed through my warm ups since I was running late. I wonder now if I had taken my time to loosen up if I would have had better results. Took me a while to get the net set up at Warren. I planned to set it up close to the wall I practice against so I could drill spikes without the excessive walking to retrieve the footbags. I could not get the stakes far enough into the ground and close to enough to the wall as I would have liked. The net ended up being about 15ft or so away. Not too bad but not as convenient as it could have been.
It's finally sinking in that I really need to jump to execute most, if not all, of my spikes. Early standing sweep and scuff attempts kept hitting the net. So I tried and hit a couple scissor sweeps. I've noticed that it takes a lot of effort and energy to perform this. I was hitting standing sunbacks and toe reverses consistently and did more reps of these than any other spikes just because it felt good to get lots of contacts. Standing pulldowns should be completely abandoned in favor a flying pulldown. I'll need to work on this more to be confident enough to use it though. I practiced side axes and hit a couple good ones. I really should use this more during games. Overall, I missed more attempts than I hit. As frustrating as todays practice over the net was, it seems like the most practical way to learn spikes. As solo practice goes, it's definitely closest to a real game. You know immediately if it's going over the net of if it lands in for a kill. I'm gonna hate giving Scot's court back.
I am fairly pleased at how my serves, sets and defense have been progressing but lately, I have felt like my spike practice against the wall or with the hanging target hasn't been showing on the court. Is my training ineffective? Am I still too tentative on the court? Am I expecting too much out of myself after only a year of playing? I'll get a few good spikes during games and maybe a handful of weak but effective contacts. Most of the time I kick the bag into the net, blast it out of bounds or just flat out whiff. I need to kick the living shit out of the bag every chance I get but it just doesn't happen. What the fuck?
The next next game I play I just need to swing hard at anything that comes near me. Fuck sets. Fuck banging. Fuck placement. Fuck winning on serves up its asspipe. I want kills.
originally written 4-10-05
A typical sunday with me and my cell phone:
me: Gonna kick?
CIC1: I dunno, I'm at the girlfriends house. Probably. I don't have my gear with me, though. I need to go back to my house blah blah blah... Whose coming out?
me: Dunno, still got to talk to everyone else. I guess we'll go to the beach. Call me back when you get home.
me: Gonna kick?
CIC2: Uhhm... possibly. I might have to spend some time with blah blah blah...
me: Ok, well give me a call if you decide to go. BTW, what time is it?
CIC2: Fuck you, Zeke.
me: Gonna kick?
CIC3: Fucking... blah blah fucking blah... fucking....
me: uhyeeeaaaaaaah, well, I've still got a few calls to make, I'll call back and let you know.
me: Gonna kick?
CIC4: Huyeyeah!
me: I guess we'll go to the beach.
CIC4 Huwhat?
me: Oak Street.
CIC4: Huwhat?
me: Oak Street Beach
CIC4: Y'okay!
me: we're hooking up at 4
CIC4: Huyeyeah!
me: Gonna kick?
CIC5: (mumbling quietly)
me: Ya gotta speak up, I can barely hear you.
CIC5: (mumbling less quietly but still inaudible)
me: Speak louder or stick your arms out higher to get a better signal, I can't hear shit!
CIC5: (yep, more of the same)
me: I have no idea what in the hell you just said but we're kickng at the beach at 4.
CIC5: (mumble mumble mumble)
me: WHAT? Man, just text me... Jeezus H. Christ!"
me: Gonna kick?
CIC6: Kick? Like you kicked me in the face you asshole?
me: That was an accident. Get over it. You coming out or what?
CIC6: No, you asshole, I don't want to get kicked in the face again, asshole.
me: Fine, you spaz. Can you at least call and ask if Lane1 is going?
CIC6: Yeah asshole, I'll call him and tell him to watch out for you cuz you're an asshole who kicks people in the face, you asshole.
me:CIC1, It's Zeke. I thought you would be back since it's been like 4 friggin hours since I talked to you at your g/f's. Give me a call back when when you get this message and let me know if you're kicking or not.
me: Hello?
CIC1: Yeah, I don't think I'll go. I'm still at the g/f's blah blah blah. I fell asleep blah blah blah. I didn't sleep at all last night blah blah. Blah sleep blah blah. Sleep blah sleep blah. Sleep. Blah. Sleep. B.L.A.H.
me: Hello?
CIC4, 35 minutes after the jam was supposed to start: Okay, I'm leaving.
me: ...
me: I don't think we'll be kicking afterall, I'll just call you next weekend.
CIC3: Fucking... fucking... fucking shit!
me: Exactly.
Originally written 9-1-08
Today I got a late call from Vince to play some Net at Welles. It never ceases to amaze me how kids just happen to spring up near us whenever we set up a court in that damned park. I finished 3-1 but all the games were pretty close which made them more fun to play.
9-12-08
On Saturday I biked up to Roosevelt Park to play some singles against Vince. We played 9 games. I won the fist 4, coming from behind on 3 of the games. Then, astonishingly, he takes the next 4 games in a row!. I won the last one to break the tie. I felt I was playing well. I was able to set myself after receiving 5 successive serves but was never able to capitalize with a spike.
10-10-08
September 21 was the Second City Cup. Basically a bare bones, locals only (IFPA sanctioned) "tournament". We did pick ups on Saturday then singles and doubles on Sunday.
Singles Net:
1. Cory Current
2. Steve Smith
3. Ted Martin
4. Scot Hansen
5-7. Zeke, Bryan, and Vince, who all decided to scratch from the consolation games in favor of playing more doubles.
Doubles Net:
1. Cory Current/ Scot Hansen
2. Ted Martin/ Steve Smith
3. Greg Grandy/ Bryan Nelson
4. Zeke Ibardaloza/ Vince Pontarelli
It took me almost 2 hours to get to Union Park because of the fucked up rail system construction/repair downtown. It didn't help I had to lug around Scot's court half way across the loop just to transfer trains. Then the staff in the station told me to go to the wrong platform. I finally get to Union where Mike Bellman, Vince and Cory were warming up. Cory had somehow strained his neck and wasn't playing very hard. Mike was only in town that day. I was doing ok, hit 2 side axes while playing with Mikey. I also hit Cory in the calf with a sunback.
Sunday started with another public transportation SNAFU. It only took me an hour and a half this time. Eight players total showed up for the comp! I changed quickly and immediately jumped on to the court for my singles match with Steve Smith. He took the victory easily 15-4. I tried to poach as he served game point since he had been dinking them just over the net. I ran up but he lobbed the serve over and behind me!
Needles to say Vince and I lost every game in doubles. The best we could manage was 7 points against both games vs Greg/Bryan. We got shut out in our second game vs Scot/Cory and our first game against Steve/Ted. I committed mental errors all throughout the day and Vince played like it was his God given right take a bad swing at every pass that comes to him. It's hard to get him to change because he can't take any constructive criticism without getting defensive. Well, I'm just glad it wasn't a real comp.
A new guy named Jason, Carrie Cruz and Steve Richardson showed up later and played some pick ups. This was the most fun part of the day. I tried poaching Ted this time and I would have gotten one of I hadn't comitted a net foul. I partnered with Ted when Steve R. tweaked something in his knee. We lost against Cory and Jason. Ted and I took the rematch when I was the main offense. I got more sets in that one game than I did the whole time I was playing with Vince. It felt so good to finally crush a few.
We then played a third game to see who would win the match. Ted was giving me great sets again and I just attacked everything as hard as I could. In one play I ran cross court to the left and managed to side axe one of Teds digs. I barely reached it and made contact with the bag. I immediately spun left as I landed to see what had happened and to my surprise, I saw that bag ride the tape a few inches near center court then drop into our side! WTF? At first I though I kicked that damned thing sideways and it did a tightrope act across the top of the net. Then I realized that Jason had dug my spike and dinked us to add insult to injury!
Ted kept delivering these sweet sets and I was connecting with my sunbacks and toe reverses. We would have been annihilating them if not for Cory's incredible defense. Another set went wide left, about a foot out of our left line. I sprinted after it and went for a flying sunback. I nailed it with a solid contact and turned my head to track the bag as it rocketed behind me. I got this great view of it blasting Jason right in the chest! I heard the other players resting in the shade as they reacted to it, what a fucking rush! Finally, I've now given a wicked tattoo during a game. Welcome to net, new guy, hehehe! Come to think of it, if Jason wasn't standing there, the spike would have landed out. The rest of the game was just as exciting as there was plenty of hustle by both teams. Ted and I managed to pull off the victory in the end.
It felt great to be able to end the day on a positive note. I must have been smirking the whole train ride home. My serve returns are finally showing improvement. I was even able to bump Ted's line drive serve more often than not. Sets from my right outside are getting more consistent and my left leg is still slowly coming along. I'm way more active at the net now and my serves are still very solid. I still have a bad habit of not setting digs, though.
Vince and I played at Roosevelt last weekend. Our quiet secret little park was no longer a secret. There must have been 4 different (and big) groups using the park by the time we set up. I finished 5-1 No spikes but my sweep serves were on.
10-11-08
Biked to Jane Addams Memorial Park (east of LSD and north of Lake Point Tower) today to play net with Vince. I probably should have packed a few things for next week's move but I've been wound real tight lately and needed to get out and blow off some steam. I think I finished 5-2 today. Most of the games were fun to play. I fucked up a half dozen side axe attempts but hit one nasty scuff to open one of the last games. I also sunbacked my left eye later in the day. Dear god did that hurt.
I've been fairly successful with my sweep serve lately. It's not as accurate as my normal serve (yet) but I can dink occasional, lob to the back line or just spike it.
I've pretty much stopped doing push ups to punish myself. But then again, I've gotten significantly better at all the things I was punishing myself for. Still, I should get back to it, I'm not that good yet. I've also stopped stretching altogether. That's definitely not good.
I can't wait to play again tomorrow. Hope we get a decent turnout. I want to focus on bumping or setting digs on defense and being extra aggressive at the net. Need to stretch and warmup properly too.
10-12-08
Great day today! Left at about 10 this morning just in time for the 11:30 session at Union. It was just Scot, Cory, Vince and myself. Power kicked, stretched just a little and drilled serve returns. We started out playing 3 games rotating partners every time then we finished them out as matches (if that makes any kind of sense). I played fairly solid most of the day. I had a good day defensively. I got my foot on a lot of spikes and was able to bump/set a few of them back into play. I even got a partial block that Scot managed to clean up after me. My serve returns could have been better. But then again, I was up against Scot and Cory's sweep serves.
Offensively, I hit 4 big spikes. Four may be worthless in the grand scheme of things but when you're still learning and developing each one means a lot. The first one was a toe jam off a set from Scot that almost hit Vince and the second was set from Vince (yeah, I was just as shocked) that blasted right past Scot's left shoulder and into the back line. I was really surprised to hit these because I rarely practice them. I even hit an ugly toe flip that hit 2 inches below the tape. Vince managed to get me another set that I crushed with a side axe. I hit another while taking advantage of an overset and smashed it right back at the other team. They were extra satisfying because I kept shanking them back to myself on Saturday. I nailed one sunback that caught the tape but still managed to fly at Cory with decent velocity. He got a foot on it but shanked it out of play.
I was a little tentative at first and kept passing up good bumps near the net in favor of setting my partner. As the day progressed I became more relaxed and made better decisions with what to spike and what to set. I almost completely unraveled during the last game and committed numerous errors. Despite ending on on a bad note it wasn't enough to ruin the whole day for me. I'm getting good power on my spikes but right now I'm just taking big swings and hoping it lands in play. I can't wait to merge a little accuracy with that power and actively start targeting open court or defenders.
10-20-08
I woke up Saturday and was again greeted by the dog and the smell of fresh coffee. Great fucking start. I walk to the Brown line train station on Rockwell and it took only 35 minutes to get downtown. It would have taken almost twice that time from LaRAZA taking the Redline. Anyways, I hook up with Vince at his place and we drive out to Busse Woods for the start of Ted Martin's Spike 'n Shoot Saturday Shindig. Basically he planned to play Net in the morning, shooting range + food in his back yard in the afternoon and hot tub + movie at night! What more could you ask for?
I had another solid net session. Scott, Greg, Cory, Vince and I were the first to show up. Ted arrived after he had finished most of his party preparations. Then Tommy made a surprise visit (he thought he cracked a rib a month back but it turned out to be just bruised) just as Scot was leaving for his daughter's soccer game. Power kicking to start the warm-ups then serve drill just before games started. I need to get back to stretching before I play. Here are some highlights:
-big side axe in Ted's face but no tattoo
-my first 2 (standing) pulldowns in a game. Tommy managed to dig the first one stealing part of my thunder.
-Jonny Leys-esque toe reverse that I had to cross the net to nail
-shanked a scissor sweep just below my calf but still managed a kill. I don't think I've hit one of these since last years midwest net event.
-half-assed scissoring toe jam thingy that got a kill.
-good close game against Tommy/Vince. I drilled a serve past Vince for game point just as Tommy finished taunting us for not wanting the win with some sloppy play earlier. I screamed, "Give it to me!" as I smashed a sweep just past Vince's non existent left side. They claimed we got lucky and demanded a rematch.
-I tore them new jail- sized assholes by scoring 15 points in a row. Most of it on my serves. Cory's defense helped prevent any side outs and Tommy's whiffs late in the game sealed the shut out victory READ: 15-0. Cory never got to serve for our team!
-finally served out in the next game to end a personal best of 18 points in a row
-Cory and I working our asses of for a come from behind win against Tommy/Vince in a sympathy rematch.
My left knee was acting up during the move on Thusday but it felt fine on Saturday. I bought 2 new straps just for Saturday. On the second to last play of the day, Tommy and I both went up on opposite sides of the net to go after an overset. He strained his hamstring and I hurt my knee. We both yelled and hobbled off the court after landing. We limped around as we cleaned up the site and headed off to Ted's party.
If you already didn't know, Ted Martin (world record holder for most consecutive kicks) hosts one of the best parties around. A very gracious host with an incredible house that's made to entertain. Two hot tubs, multiple tv's, fire pit, dart board, pool table and a new target range he set up in a small creek behind his property. It should go without saying that a man with such a place would also serve plenty of great food but I'm going to say it anyway. I had 2 humongous juicy burgers, an Italian sausage, some egg salad and 3 brownies during my stay! I wish I had more room for the Italian beef. The smell of it filled his house and it made you want to eat the walls. Yeah. The shooting practice was more fun than I expected it to be. Ted had all kinds of targets set up in the back. He had 2 air rifles, one scoped. There were also slingshots, crossbows, bow & arrow and an air pistol. I mingled just a bit but spent most of the time eating or chilling with Vince and Cory. Vince and I decided not to stick around for the hot tubs and Dark Knight and left around 6pm. We hit some traffic early on so we listened to some Lounge Against the Machine to pass the time.
I helped Vince unload his car then headed home. I was once again greeted by little mister happy dog as I stepped into the door.
After a long hot shower, puppy head was more than happy to keep me company as I iced my knee and just marveled at the fabulous day I just had. Then I slept like a baby.
11-03-08
4 people on the court yesterday. I was the last to show up at Union where Tommy, Scot and Brian were already warmed up. As usual Embarassed I rushed through warm-ups with a few serve returns and hand toss rallies and went straight into games. We did best of 3 matches for each partner then single games with a different partner at the end. Scot and I won our series and our single. Tommy and I lost our series and our single. Then Brian and I won our series but lost our single. I believe I finished 6-6.
I started off strong considering I didn't loosen up properly and rushed to play. Within the first few games I had hit a spinning toe reverse, jumping toe reverse and a few sole pushes. I also hit 2 monster sunbacks and a decent scuff. I was doing an ok job setting my partners but I was getting more than a few strays than usual. My bumps and serve returns could have been better too, I just shanked/whiffed too many.
I played well defensively. I felt I challenged most of the dinks at the net, bumped or set easy shots/weak spikes and kept several big spikes in play with my digs. I'm getting my foot on a lot of hard shots. Some of it is getting a good read on more familiar opponents and some is just flat out hustle. I think I'm keeping 1-4 digs in play but I would like it closer to 1 in 2 (far more realistic). I attempted to block Tommy on a spike but I was not over the net so the bag landed on our side of the court Rolling Eyes
I started to poop out and lose focus near the end and my knee was starting to ache. I am still serving consistently. I had a couple 6-8 point runs using my reliable inside serve. I served deep pretty much all day but never took advantage of any dink possibilities. I brought out the sweep serve every so often, mostly when we were at the beginning of a game of ahead on points.
Having Brian on the court was fun because this is only the 3rd or 4th time we've played and he brings new challenges. He's pretty flexible for his size. He has a strong sweep (sometimes he hits them like Ben Alston-toe flip style) and his pulldowns are great. Not because he hits them hard, it's that they drop damn near straight down. I joked that he could probably Ayatollah with it (an Ayatollah is where you cross the net and toe spike into your opponents side of the court). Most of the time I fade back and he lands them 2 feet past the net. But if he see's me playing up close he can change up and lob over me and attack the back. He's only got one serve but he can dink or hit the back line at will. It was a little odd being partners with him, he seemed to get upset, mostly at himself, easily.
I did some pulldown practice a week ago, might make another boring vid about it. Gotta ice up my knee when I get home...
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