DATE |
RESULT
number successful flights*/
minutes spent on flight attempts |
COMMENTS |
BALL USED
Adidas Replique
unless noted |
INFLATION OF BALL
Hard unless otherwise
noted |
DEFINITIONS ( * **
etc)
See Beneath Table
NOTE most of these runs
go further than 13 yds, and alot of them would go further than 20 but are
stopped by the presence of the wall. 13 yds is 40 feet a 3 story
building, 17 yds is 51 feet a 4 story building.
|
||||||||||||||
5/15/06 |
31/57
extrapolates to 33/60
525-630 PM
Waltham Y |
concentrated decisive alpha
blind
Unbelievable that I would go so long
without practicing.
We have to be on the lookout for people
who sort of drain us of the energy we need, mental and physical to
practice.
The boredom and depression and lack of
enthusiasm for anything that is in some people, the sloth that is in them,
or the excess of some herb or of alcohol, the simple lack of virtuous
content in their lives all this stuff can be as infectious as the common
cold.
One of these types is the type that
never compliments you no matter how spectacular a job you do in
sports.
Also I get to the the point where I become a
computer nurd, who does not feel like exercising; I get absorbed in
studying the program and creating the programs, and the desire to exercise
leaves me. I begin to feel that
exercising would be too boring and
depressing.
Then you have the feeling that now that it
has been a few days you wont be able to equal your previous stellar
performance so it will get depressing.
I decided to apply a fraction of the brain
power I apply to programming to the situation. I came up with the
idea,
that the simpler the schedule, the easier it
will be to remember it implement it and become habituated to it. Lets not
get lost in detail. So roughly speaking, my new schedule is 1 Sports 2
Cooking 3 Eating 4 Programming & Computers 5 recreational alcohol
etc. Lets face it computer work actually gets done better after
exercise, and it can be done after that pearl of civlization the Y closes.
2 cannot be done until 1 is done, 4 cannot be
done until 2 is done etc etc. Thus The important stuff, the stuff that has
to be done early in the day gets done first. There are of course
exceptional priorities such as deadlines for paying bills but an overly
complex schedule is depressing, not easy to get habituated to etc.
I surprised myself today by doing 50 minutes
swimming and 60 minutes soccer without feeling bored and depressed.
Working out a reasonable schedule helped me to get through it without
getting bored or depressed.
The runs today, there were lots of low
quality with the ball not in tight control that still got past the 13 yard
line. I could feel the effects of the layoff, the fatigue from getting out
of shape, the drop off in the skill level. I could feel that for a few
days I had not been getting the natural beta carotene I usually get from
carrot tangerine passion fruit apple juice. I cant even remember the last
time I went so many days without these juices.
Still, there were some stellar runs, and the
basketball father and son playing each oher, the basketball kids, the
volleyball people, none of them seemed to even notice.
33/60 rate has to be the best I have ever
done after a layoff. There is something to be said for how a rest can
limber you up, and make you strong and get rid of stiffness and soreness.
Today the swimming came after the soccer.
Home home on the New
England range,
Where the deer and the antelope play, Where NEVER is heard an ENCOURAGING word, And the skies are not cloudy all day. ng |
Adidas Replique, from here on unless otherwise noted. Adidas Replique is a $25 replica of the $130 match ball which will be used in the 2006 World Cup. |
Hard |
|||||||||||||||
5/18/06 |
29/60 |
Concentrated alpha blind
Started out with only 9 successes in the
first 25 minutes. That comes out to only
22/hour. They were not especially high
quality flights either. For the first time that I can remember, I felt as
if sexual thoughts about beautiful women, was messing up my ability to
perform. I think it was the first time I ever felt this way. It was
because of improvements in my life-style, throwing in swimming, moderating
intake of things that can possibly harm the body. Thus I felt healthy.
This healthy feeling led into sexual thoughts. I really felt upset. Maybe
I was messing up in a way on purpose, because I felt that a person who is
distracted by sexual thoughts SHOULD mess up. So I asked God once to
help me to get rid of sexual thoughts, this did not work. Thereafter I
began to constantly ask God to help me get rid of the sexual thoughts, on
every run, and then I began to think less about sex, and my performance
improved. Asking God just once, with a little five second request, did not
work, but asking God over and over in different words seemed to work. But
I know the proverb about vain repetition in prayer, and I also know the
paradox that one should pray without ceasing, continue instant in
prayer. So the last 35 minutes I scored 20 successes, a 34/60
rate. Alot better than a 20/60 rate.
There was not one person watching me today,
so I feel it is hard to say that people watching me results in me
performing worse, I've done alot better with people around.
I am beginning to think I might be getting
sort of effetely, bridge over the river kwai-ishly obsessed with how many
times I and the ball make it past that 13 yard line with the ball not
touching the ground from the start, and me touching the ball after the 13
yard line. Almost as if I am forgetting about aspects aside from exactly
how many times I make it. If I am feeling especially healthy I go fast,
there are more failures. Today there were several in which the speed was
close to the fastest I can run without the ball, with the ball under the
best control possible given that level of speed, but all I could do was
mourn the fact that sexual thoughts were preventing me from achieving more
successful flights I could chalk up in the stats (these stats ignore how
fast the runs were). I was underappreciating myself, failing to see that
runs on which the ball is kicked every four paces are faster than those
when it is kicked every three paces, the level of control is also
necessarily lower with the every four paces runs because the ball is
kicked every four paces instead of every three; it was as if I was some
brutish coach, failing to see that the run on which the ball was touched
every four paces, featured the ball being kept under the tightest control
possible for an every four paces run, myopically only seeing how the ball
is not under as tight control on the every four paces runs.
ng np 24 hrs |
hard |
||||||||||||||||
5/20/06
Waltham Y gym
656-750 PM |
32/54 =
36/60
|
Looking at it from the depressing point of view of the despised brutish coach within myself, who is a part of myself, and helps to coach myself, this was another mediocrity of a day. Lots of the succesful runs featured the ball being out of tight control, with the thighs and the head coming into play. I did not feel like I was having statistically the second best day I have ever had at all. All I could see was my faults, as if the coach within, was a coach whose standards grew higher and higher every day, as a result of which, there was a lack of a sense of self esteem or acheivement. All I could think of was, how, on April 27, I
made it 34 times in 50 minutes extrapolating to a rate of
41/60.
Yet on the positive side alot of the runs
were very fast, a few weeks or months ago I would think I was a god for
doing what I did several times today. Several of the runs that did not
make it past the 13 yd line with the ball still in my control and having
never touched the ground from the start, were very high speed, culminated
in what would have been a spectacular pass or shot, since the ball was so
far away I could not flick it upwards enough to keep it in control.
Several of the runs almost made it.
Today for the first time, I noticed in
myself, the ability to sprint forward, then backwards, then forwards
again, all the time keeping the ball off the ground and not far from my
body, and covering 15 yds forward in the process.
NOTE most of these runs
go further than 13 yds, and alot of them would go further than 20 but are
stopped by the presence of the wall.
Today I noticed in myself for the first time,
the ability to so to speak pull my plane out of crashes, I could catch
miskicked balls that were hard and awkward to reach and keep the run
alive.
The positive side effect of being a klutz, is
that you develop the ability to recover from being a klutz, out of
practice.
Yet it is funny, that one could excuse every
fault on such a basis, ie, well dad the positive side of getting F's in
school, is that I get practiced at recovering from getting an
F.
The value of runs that do not make it past
the 13 yd line with me and the ball still together the ball never having
touched the ground over the 40 feet (equiv 3 story building), can be
underestimated when it comes to the realities of an actual game.
In a game, a 12 yard flight/run ending in the
ball going straight up, or off to the side, or forwards, in such a manner
that I cannot catch up with it before it hits the ground, can have
devastating effect especially if the "pilot" is surrounded by quality
players. In agame there are times where a shot or a pass is actually
preferable to continuing the flight. In a game, you can get a better
outcome when the ball bounces once on the ground, than you would get
if you caught up with the ball before it hit the ground.
The ball bounces off the pilot, so to speak,
in a flight, at sharper angles, and at higher speeds, and in more
unpredictable ways than it does when the attacking player is dribbling the
ball on the ground. So sometimes the ball bounces off the so to speak
pilot in a way that surprises the pilot and that the pilot cannot predict.
So, so what, what is the big shame in that? The sheer unpredictability of
it, can have dramatic positive consequences. In a sense the ball behaving
in ways the player did not expect is more surprising and more
unpredictable than when a player purposely attempts to surprise. In fact,
the reality of it is that in a game, surprise is achieved better achieved
by accident, it is too hard to be purposely surprising. yet such should
not be a slur on those who do things with the ball that surprise them the
ones who do these things. If a player is wise and deliberate enough
to develop the ability to succeed 80 percent of the time in a move in
which 25% of the time something the player did not expect happens with the
ball, the player still deserves credit for developing this move he has
developed.
There was no lust problem today there was a
fatigue problem. Irregular sleep patterns, insufficient sleep, lack of
attention to diet, can take their toll, result in fatigue.
Nobody was in the gym today so there was
nobody there to pretend nothing was happening when I did spectacular
things.
And there was something I planned on
mentioning today that I forgot. Oh yea, what I forgot, even when hustling,
sometimes when I make a succesful flight on each attempt for a few
attempts in a row, I still find my pace at one per two minutes. Keeping up
with myself, equalling my past performances has become tough.
ng |
|||||||||||||||||
5/22/06
530-625 PM |
41/55 =
45/60
pace
New Personal
Record |
Alpha
blind concentrated
Up all night doing computer work, woke up approx 3 PM,
felt underfed, stiff weak before leaving for the gym, surprised myself.
There is always some amount of error on every kick.
Seemed the level of error has gotten reduced, so that a succesful flight
can be recorded even when there is error; and the ability to recover from
error, save a flight that would have crashed, has improved.
The head and the thighs got into the act but the runs
were fast, many just a shade slower than top speed without juggling a
ball. Noticed that for the first time, the thigh was accurately being used
in combination with a fast pace of movement of body and ball. Usually the
use of the thigh slows down the speed.
I always try to use alternating feet but often there is
no alternative to head or thigh. You become what you value in yourself, I
think the right policy is to attempt to use alternating feet but to count
runs in which the head or the thigh is unavoidably used as successes. When
I used the head or the thigh I made sure to attempt to kick the ball well
on the last kick, beyond the 13 yd line, and usually succeeded in doing
this.
Yesterday and today for the first time I stretched my
legs before the practice, in times past it seemed to me stretching was a
painful thing, a waste of time that did not improve things, something for
old folks. But stretching for a couple of minutes has helped alot, I do
the best I can when stretching even though I cannot even bend over and
reach my toe with my finger with the leg straight.
611 PM young adult white male entered the gym sat there
watching, said nothing. 617 PM a couple of oriental mongoloid looking
young adult males came in to shoot baskets said nothing. Then about 625 PM
the volleyballers came in said nothing. But I am almost certain that the
volleyball referee, a short white red haired short haired overweight lady,
whose face was very pink, looked in my direction and said, "that's God".
When I got near her she was quiet, her arms folded across her chest, she
had a mean look on her face.
These local people, sometimes I wonder whether they are
stunned into silence, or whether they dont want to bother me and drive me
the superstar away from using the gym, or whether they are just parading
themselves, in love with themselves, disrespectful of those who excel in
ways they themselves do not excel in, or maybe just fanatically loyal to
the baseball red sox, the football patriots etc etc.
After the workout I swam 2000 yds in about 60 minutes.
Been swimming about every other day lately. Usually I cant get alot of
swimming done cause I get too bored, but I found today that the swimming,
after the stress and excitement of the soccer juggling/sprinting drill,
was as opposed to boring a refreshingly relaxing change of pace. I
reccommend, the boring relaxing stuff like swimming after the exciting
stressful stuff.
ng |
ball bounces dropped from above head to middle 5
inches above navel
Ball was what I would call medium in hardness, you could
press it in a little without too much difficulty.
|
||||||||||||||||
5/25/06
844-
945 PM
Waltham Y gym |
37/57 = 39/60 |
The whole time I felt that I was screwing up, though
this was probably my third best performance ever statistically. I feel
sure, my standards keep for myself keep rising, I grow ever harsher on
myself.
Today everything was simply not quite as good as the
last time, runs not quite as fast, not quite as many succesful runs, not
quite as much endurance.
The problem this time was the India-Indian chewing
tobacco. I find it works great for suppressing the urge to smoke, but
today, after waking up about 6 PM after being up all night, I
started chewing a wad of it, on an empty stomach, into which went nothing
but a cup of tea w non dairy creamer and sugar before I started
practicing. Thus although I was not chewing any of it when I
practiced, I could feel the effect of it on me while practicing, some of
it was still left inside of me while I was practicing, the effect of it on
a stomach that contained only tea, was to make me feel slightly nauseated
and tired.
There was in the gym while I was practicing a young
adult white male, he was silent.
ng np1 |
|||||||||||||||||
7/16/05 |
NEW DRILL
DRILL WC06
98/37 Attempts
2.64 AVG
50 minutes
outdoors hot sun humidity
baseball turf
|
FROM HERE ON THE DRILL REPORTED ON
HERE IS CHANGED TO DRILL WC06
The Average for the first 25 minutes was 2.4 for the
second 25 minutes it was 2.8. The best performance was a
5. My goal is to have an average for all the attempts that is 7.
Each attempt receives a score that is 0 or greater than 0 the higher the
score the better the quality of the attempt.
Done outdoors at baseball park, 90 degrees, 50 percent
humidity, in the sun. Extremely fatiguing. The uneven ground must have
reduced performance levels significantly. The ground used was the area
between the backstop and home plate on the baseball diamond, so as to
allow easy recovery of overkicked balls.
The new drill is based on conclusions I came to watching
the 2006 World Cup. It develops an ability that is as yet undeveloped that
complements abilities that I have already developed. When the bility it
develops is combined with abilities I have already developed, and this is
combined with several hours of me practicing with balls that are passed in
my direction, I will be an advanced super-hero.
My experience with the drill reported on up to 7/16
today, serves me well for the planning of drill WC06.
|
Adidas Replique |
Hard |
|||||||||||||||
7/17/06 |
score 313
attempts 87
AVG 3.60
Waltham Y gym
430-600 pm
|
DRILL: WC06
First half avg 3.3 second half avg 3.9
This was an improvement of
1.0 compared to yesterday for the avg
score.
This is a great rate of improvement, I'd be an advanced
super-hero after six more hours of practice at this rate.
Today there were
two attempts that resulted in a score of 8, four that
resulted in a score of 7, eight that scored 6, and 10 attempts that were
scored at 5. Yesterday the best score was 5 which I got on just one
attempt.
Indoors it is much cooler than it is outdoors when temps
are around 90s. |
Replique |
med hard |
|||||||||||||||
7/18 |
Waltham Y
412-542 PM
WC06
total attempts/score
75/335
avg 4.5
1st half
37/149
avg 4.0
2nd half
38/186
avg 4.9
|
Unexpectedly the rate of improvement continues at 1.0 per hour. Today score:# attempts resulting in
score:
11:1; 10:1; 9:4; 8:2; 7:4; 6:4; 5:12.
Learned the value of a skipping motion. In the skipping
motion, a given foot say the left foot hits the ground twice before
the right foot hits the ground. Wonder how many World Cup coaches athletes
and fans realize the value of a skipping motion.
Today at certain times the following shared the gym with
me, all playing basketball: a young white adult male shooting baskets, a
grade schoolish 'oriental' girl, a couple of grade school white kids
playing basketball. None of them said anything which does not bother me as
much when I do this particular drill, because the results with this drill
are usually unspectacular. Nevertheless my rate of improvement in
WC06, means I am improving at an impressive warp speed as a
player, improving much faster than players who practice much more
spectacular techniques improve.
It really surprises me that I am improving so fast; WC06
is a drill which improves skills that I have always been weak in. Looks
like if I improve in the future at a quarter the rate I have been
improving so far, In 45 more hours I will be up to an
average of 12 per attempt; if you had told me before I started WC06
that I would be at an average of 12 per attempt doing the WC06 drill, I
would have found it hard to believe.
|
same as above unless noted |
med hard bounce to lower chest from above
head |
|||||||||||||||
7/19 |
WC06
Waltham Y
652-822 PM
attempts/score
1st half
34/181
5.3 avg
35/185
5.3 avg
69/366
5.3 avg |
Improved today by 0.8 avg. This surprised me. I felt the improvement rate would drop off more. After all if I were to continue improving at this rate (increase in average per day), in 80 hours, two average work week, I would be up to an average 64 score on each attempt, meaning I would be thoroughly superhuman, a demigod, more than merely an advanced super-hero. The score given each attempt measures only an aspect of
the attempt's quality. Today there were several attempts of a quality the
score does not measure.
Today the skipping with the feet motion that I
discovered yesterday came more into play, I became more competent with it,
I see its usefulness for the future.
Today, a group composed of three black and one brown boy
who looked like they were in eigth grade was wandering in and out of the
gym; a light brown skin color adult male with a mustache shot baskets in
the gym for some time; and a white young adult shot some baskets, and an
elderly tall white male with glasses came in for five minutes to shoot
baskets, got his basketball stuck in the basketball hoop net, asked me
what to do (I suggested he hit it with another ball), then jumped up and
easily knocked it loose with his hand. As he departed for some reason he
said, "Oooh...no thanks" as he looked in my direction.
I felt like addressing these people, telling them, do
you realize that you are watching an athlete who is practicing a skill as
a result of which he will soon be on top of the world in the world's most
played sport? None of them said anything as they watched, but I admit
right now I am spectacular only a minority of the time. But at least now I
can say that I am sometimes spectacular at this, something I could not say
yesterday.
Every time I did something spectacular today, the
basketball player(s) in the gym had their back turned, was not watching,
or nobody was in the gym with me.
Today I discovered the value of the double skip, wherein
for example the left foot hits the ground, and then the left foot
hits the ground TWO more times before the right foot hits the
ground.
Today there were (score-# attempts):
13:1; 12:1; 11:2; 10:0; 9:4; 8:2;
7:7;
Today in the second half I experienced phases wherein my
attention lagged as I began to feel tired and sleepy and became overly
relaxed. Beware suddenly cool weather (75 degrees 60% humidity) as we had
today! It makes you feel sleepy...alot of people cannot sleep in the
heat.
After doing the drill I went swimming for 35
minutes.
|
replique |
hard ball pumped before practice. |
|||||||||||||||
7/20/06
|
WC06
Waltham Y
452-622 PM
1st half
37/189
avg 5.1
2nd half
37/249
avg 6.7
total
74/438
avg 5.9
|
I surprised myself again by continuing to progress, the
overall average was up from 5.3 yesterday to 5.9 today, and the 2nd half
average was all the way up to 6.7!
I begin to realize that by practicing in the way I do,
every attempt recorded for result, I build up abilities such as: handling
stress, handling the pressure to be even better than you were yesterday,
concentrating, relaxing, being decisive.
Today the second half was far superior to the first
half. All I can say is that in the second half, I became relaxed confident
and skillful--it seemed as if every hour practiced up till then on WC06
had been just warm up, loosening up, stretching, in preparation for what I
did in the second half today.
There were several attempts of high quality today beyond
what the numerical score indicates. At one point there were three attempts
in a row with near perfect form.
Today there were (score/# attempts resulting in
score):
14:1; 13:2; 12:0; 11:2; 10:2; 9:2; 8:7;
7:8.
But I now realize that even when the avg gets to 7.0
there will still be work to do. I want 95% of attempts to result in at
least a 7. But I don't want to discount scores above 7, because I learn
things and become more adept on attempts that score above 7. Thus I want
to continue counting scores above 7, continue recording the average score.
I don't want to just count everything 7 or above as a success, count
everything below 7 as a failure. To do so would render my world boring and
uninspiring. The attempts that result in scores above 7, even if
relatively lacking in practical value in real games, are the attempts that
are exciting, they are the attempts that impress onlookers.
Today in the first half the karate class for what looked
like 2nd graders was in the other side of the gym; this time they decided
to not draw the big blue curtain that separates the half of the gym I am
in from their half.
In the second half I shared the gym with: this oriental
father and son team that was shooting baskets; a white girl, a white
woman, a white young man slash basketball jock; a couple of oriental and
one white girl said basketball jock was teaching. The oriental father and
son team came into the gym and started dribbling the ball in a place such
that my execution of the drill was obstructed. Instead of arguing I simply
moved to the other side of the gym; after this my performance improved
dramatically, while I was in the gym with the father and son team and the
basketball jock and his female pupils.
After doing the drills I went swimming for an hour. This
kind of practicing with every attempt recorded, and constant pressure to
excel yesterday's performance, needs to be balanced with something
relaxing like swimming.
Today I noticed for the first time I was able to
deliberately choose between a style that would produce high scores, and a
style that would produce high quality but lower scores. This could be a
problem with regards to the scoring of this drill.
The better I get at football/soccer, the more depressed
I get, because the better I get, the greater the injustice of and the
misfortune caused by the discrimination that suppresses me in the world.
It depresses me that nobody told me when I was younger that I was a
football (soccer) talent. Everyone thought I was too slow, American boys
would never be as good as foreigners whoze been playin since theyze
babies, If I was not fast enough now I would never be fast enough etc
etc.
Today I used psychological tricks to snap myself out of
ruts: I inspired myself by telling myself I could henceforth over the next
30 or so attempts, not counting the previous attempts, establish a
personal record; I drank some water and popped into mouth another piece of
nicotine gum when my performance became mediocre; I picked up the tempo
the number of attempts per minute; I told myself to concentrate super hard
on a certain beginning segment of each attempt.
Today the ball rolled towards me from in fighter
pilot lingo 1200 from straight in front of me. With ease and quickness, I
flipped it up in the air about a foot high and in the "five o'clock"
direction swiveled clockwise and began an air dribble. This kind of
dealing with incoming balls is something I had felt uncomfortable about
while watching World Cup 2006. I was feeling as if the World Cuppers are
much better than me at this. Then again I have noticed in the past how I
have surprised myself in terms of how doing individual drills alone,
improves me in my ability to handle incoming balls. If I had seen a World
Cupper accomplish this twelve o clock incoming flip to five oclock to
initiate air dribble trick, I would have been extremely impressed and
pleased that this was a welcome sign of the World Cuppers' evolution from
"homo erectus to homo sapiens". The World Cuppers simply were not
that good at handling incoming balls and flipping them up in the air to
initiate air dribbles.
Today the father in the oriental father and son team
kicked me the ball it rolled towards me on the ground from twelve o clock
fighter pilot lingo. With ease and quickness I flipped it up in the air,
and swivelled counter clockwise while air dribbling it a couple of feet
above the ground (height of air-dribbled ball at apex between
kicks)
until I had turned 90 degrees to face at nine o'clock.
Then before the ball touched the ground I blasted a line drive shot that
traveled 20 yds and hit the wall like a rocket (I could have kicked it
even harder, the gym was completely empty in the area I kicked it). If I
had seen a World Cupper execute this swiveling initiation of an air
dribble followed by a shot I would have been beside myself with
admiration, watching the World Cup I felt there were many instances in
which the players had ample opportunities to engage in such antics but did
not.
Watching the 2006 World Cup I felt as if a 20 yd line
drive rocket shot of the type they could shoot was beyond my ability, even
though I should have remembered that sometimes in practice I had been
letting off such shots. I had felt inferior because my mind felt as if
since the World Cuppers practice shooting more they would be better than
me; all the distances looked longer and more difficult on the television
screen.
Then the first day I returned to practice after the
World Cup, I had felt as if I could barely shoot ten yds with power. This
is because my legs had not again built up the kind of shock absorbing
resiliency needed in both legs to kick the ball with a given foot,
and also because as it turns out cross-training shoes are fine for certain
types of soccer drills but not good for kicking balls that are on the
ground because the shoelace area of the shoe is too far above ground.
Before the practice I felt incompetent and decrepit. It
was not until I had been practicing for twenty minutes that I began to
feel you know godly and athletic and healthy.
|
replique |
hard |
|||||||||||||||
7/21/06 |
WC06
Waltham Y
406-625 PM
1st 45 minutes:
37/218
5.9
2nd 45 minutes:
37/231
6.2
1st + 2nd avg:
6.1
overtime
45 mins:
37/240
avg 6.5
1st 2nd 3rd:
111 attempts
avg 6.2
|
Weird how each 45 minute segment produced
37 attempts.
There was a problem with these phases in which I would
become sort of sleepy, seemed the water made me feel sleepy.
In certain ways not covered by the numerical rating of
each attempt, today was clearly superior to yesterday.
As I improve it may be wise to add new ways of
measuring the quality of each attempt, for now the rough measure I am
using serves a useful purpose.
However I deliberately caught myself a few times
purposely lowering the quality level of an attempt so as to get a higher
score.
Problem is that sometimes if the quality of an
attempt becomes too good it becomes impossible to get a very high score on
the attempt.
As usual today a few people were in and out of the gym
while I was practicing: a black boy in about second grade; a young white
adult male basketball jock; a mom and her first grade age boy; big tall
white young man who looked like George Clooney; a couple more white male
young adult basketball jocks; about seven first grade size campers in from
the rain with their white young adult male counselor (the counselors were
wearing superman shirts with the big S on them); some more first grade
type kids. Nobody said anything buy I am sure at least a couple saw me do
something spectaccolo twice, and at least half a dozen saw me do something
spectaccolo once. One of the counselor types was in a hurry talking to
this and that person I thought he looked at me and said "Yea...you're
good..."; but I didn't know if he meant I was a good guy or good at
soccer.
My estimate is that today in total there were 36 high
quality attempts and 26 very high quality attempts out of 111 attempts
total--this is judging attempts in a way other than the numerical scale, a
way that looks at aspects the numerical scale does not.
Looks like re the numerical scale score of the attempts,
I might lower the number that I desire to reach 95 percent of the time
from 7 to 6. But the problem with this is that 6-6-6-6 etc., is a number
sometimes unjustly frowned upon by the superstitious.
Today there was plenty of skipping, double skips, triple
skips, combined with long striding.
Kind of amazing how much ground you can cover at a
surprisingly high rate of speed, by skipping, combined with taking long
strides: in other words, land on left foot, skip with left foot, take long
stride and land on right foot, can get you going surprisingly fast, even
though it is not a running or jogging motion. This kind of skipping motion
has tactical advantages in soccer-football. I wonder if it is a
coincidence that captains in football-soccer are called
"skippers".
Today throughout the practice I was morosely obsessed
with the score on each attempt, obsessed with numerically defeating my
performance of yesterday.
Undoubtedly on several of the attempts I reached a World
Class Plus level of achievement--but I realize a problem remains in that I
need to be able to execute WC06 while paying less attention to the ball
with my eyes. However I feel now is not the time to pressure myself to get
the eyes up and off the ball, as I am making rapid progress with a
difficult new skill. The time for this eye adjustment is
later.
|
Replique |
med hard |
|||||||||||||||
7/22/06
Waltham Y
500 PM-
800 PM |
attempts/total score:
1st half
40/233
avg 5.8
2nd half
40/265
avg 6.6
1st +2nd:
avg 6.2
overtime
40/275
avg 6.9
1st+2nd+overtime avg = 6.4
2nd overtime:
27/226
avg 8.4
Overall
147/999
avg 6.8.
|
Managed to get the average for 1st and 2nd combined 0.1 above yesterday. The averages for all attempts including overtime was the
highest ever,
6.8. The 2nd overtime had by far the highest average of
any segment, 8.4.
Thing about these averages is that I get better and
better the more attempts I have made in a given practice session, so there
could be a problem comparing between practice sessions when one
practice session contained more overtimes than another.
Today it became again quite evident that focusing on
running up a high score conflicts with attempting to achieve not just a
high score but quality. Nevertheless the score criteria I have used this
far has proved useful in helping me to concentrate focus and strive--thing
is I am entering a phase where it would be good to include a new
scoring criteria.
Each attempt can quantitatily not subjectively be
measured by two criteria, the H score and the M score, which can be
actually quantitatively measured for each attempt.
Thus far the scoring criteria used has H, measured for
each attempt. Another measure for each attempt that has been ignored thus
far, is
M. Henceforth I intend to count attempts that exceed 8
on the M count, and that feature a M/H ratio greater than or equal to 4/3,
as "gold" attempts; and I intend to calculate a number, the gold number,
which is the total M on all the gold attempts.
By this new criteria, today the stats were:
1st half:
11 Gold attempts
gold number: 104
2nd half:
17 Gold attempts
gold number: 202
overtime:
7 Gold attempts
gold number: 72
2nd overtime:
6 gold attempts
gold number: 67
You can see how by this new way of scoring the second
half was the superior segment, whereas by the old way of scoring the
second overtime was the superior segment. The new way of scoring more
accurately reflects the practical as applied to games situations quality
of an attempt. But it would have been a mistake to use this new way of
scoring at the beginning because at the beginning I was not as good as I
am now.
In the 2nd overtime in which my average so excelled my
average in all previous segments, I was extremely focused on running up
good numbers and to hell with quality. Conversely in the segments in which
my average was not so high today, I was forgetting about how attempts are
scored, and getting carried away by the spirit of the game, the spirit of
striving for quality not just numbers.
Anyway judging by the "H" scores, today yet again for
the 6th straight day the average on the first and second half was better
than my previous personal record, and today there were also other personal
all-time statistical achievements.
Today yet again the pace for the overtime was exactly
the same as the pace in the 1st/2nd half.
Today I shared the gym with: a bald white
basketball adult; a white basketball adult; a father and son basketball
team; couple of high schoolish oriental basketballers; couple
of white basketball kids; an oriental basketball kid.
I do not mean to offend by the term "oriental" I am
talking about people who are from China Japan etc. Seems as if "oriental"
sounds better than "mongoloid".
I will let you know when these folks sharing the gym
with me behave and render verbal respects. If I don't say they said
anything it means they were as usual quiet.
|
replique |
hard
bounce from above head to chest on bball
court
ball pumped up before practice |
|||||||||||||||
7/23/06 330-700 PM
Waltham Y |
WC06
Using new scoring method explained above:
Number Gold/Attempts:
1st 45 minutes:
18/30
60%
2nd 45 minutes:
16/29
55%
3rd 45 minutes:
14/27
52%
4th 45 minutes:
23/27
85%
TOTAL
71/113 63%
|
The day before all I had to eat all day was a McDonalds Fish Filet. As a result I began to feel tired after the first few attempts and the performance went down radically; so finally after 44 attempts I allowed myself to break for a snack. I ate two dates and drank some spring water. After this I went 11/15 (73%) in terms of golds/attempt for the remainder of the second 45 minutes. Prior to the 3rd 45 minutes, I reviewed my score before
and after the snack. I concluded that I should allow myself three outmeal
cookies from the Victory Supermarket, and some spring water.
I realize that I have discovered that drinking water
makes you clumsy; but the idea of snacking without drinking water struck
me as unbearable.
The mediocre performance in the 3rd 45 minutes would
seem to indicate, that dates and spring water, is a better snack than
oatmeal cookies and spring water.
The 4th 45 minutes, practiced in front of the official
Waltham YMCA Youth Basketball Clinic, which was held a couple of
hours later than it was supposed to be held for some reason, was the crown
jewel of the day.
When the skill I am practicing in WC06 is at a 95% gold
level, then it will be lethally useful in World Class soccer/football,
putting me at a level roughly equal to that of the world's best
players.
Still it can be wearisome and frustrating toiling away,
the rate of improvement can seem unbearably gradual and slow, even when at
the given rate of improvement, you are going to be world class in just one
month.
One of the children being taught by the young black man
at the youth basketball clinic was an Asian Indian type, a girl. What
seemed to be her mother sat on the bleachers watching me for a little
while. Her husband joined her. After running a "gold" I looked at them.
They looked like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary.
I spent time in India as a child prior to 6th grade. I
was reading on the internet yesterday about India's "all-time greatest"
soccer or football player, Neville D'Souza of Goa, the former Portuguese
colony (Ourtuguese like Christiano Ronaldo were a memorable presence at
the 2006 World Cup). Neville scored a hat-trick in a game against
Australia which India won at the 1956 Olympics by a score of 4-2. The
Australians were so outraged that they demanded a rematch in Sydney after
the Olympics India won the rematch. India after beating Australia went on
to lose in the semifinals to some team.
It was terrible to read about how during these times and
afterwards, Indian players played barefoot because they could not afford
the shoes, and the players with shoes would play tough with the players
without shoes, and then pick on the players without shoes who would be
hurt, by injuring them some more!
Still for years and years, Indian soccer players
played without shoes, against people who were wearing shoes--they should
get some kind of medal for gallantry and heroism. Look at these
World Cuppers with shoes, seemingly rolling on the ground in agony because
a feather brushed against them--and then think of those valiant fellows
playing without shoes. Americans are proud of their love of sports and of
their sporting activities; but how many Americans would go out and play
soccer without shoes, against people wearing shoes?
I wonder how an economy cannot allow people to afford
shoes. When people spend money on shoes the shoe-makers get an income, and
then the shoe-makers spend the money they earn, producing income for the
economy again.
Today in total there were 71 gold runs
in 180 minutes. That is one every 2.5 minutes. Half of
these were super-gold runs. I was around alot of people today, both adults
and children. None of them said anything. But one about eigth grade,
overweight, brown skinned East Asian girl did look at me, while I was
doing spectacular things, and said, regarding this official Waltham
YMCA Youth Basketball Clinic that was sharing the gym with me, "they're
good, aren't they?". And I looked at them and thought, they just look like
typical kids.
After practice today I went swimming for 20 minutes,
swimming very slowly.
|
|||||||||||||||||
7/24/06
Waltham YMCA
430-600 pm
905-950 pm
|
WC06
430-600 pm
1st 45 minutes
18/33 55%
2nd 45 minutes:
23/32 72%
905-950 pm
3rd 45 mins:
23/42 55%
TOTAL
64/107 60% over
135 minutes
|
Yesterday the score for the first three segments was
48/86 56%; today for the three segments it was 64/107 or 60%. My goal is
95%. At 4% per day it would take me 9 days to get to
95%.
Yet you could say today was my first defeat competing
against myself. Yesterday I was at 63% for not just the first three
segments but for all four segments; today I was at 60% for all three 45
minute segments.
Yet there were mitigating circumstances re this
difference in total scores. Yesterday there were four segments today only
three, I get better and better with each passing segment. Today there was a long break before the third segment--this allowed
the loosened up warmed up effect to wear off. Today 140 minutes
before starting the third segment, I had a snack wrap and a vanilla cone
from McDonalds. then ten minutes before the third segments two dates, four
dried apricot pieces, some water. Today the third segment was late
at night 9.5 hours after I woke up in the morning. Today I felt woozy in
the third segment, lapses of concentration.
My feeling is that the late time of the third segment
and also perhaps the McDonalds food just 140 minutes before the segment
began, created a woozy lack of concentration in the third segment. I think
this may have been the first time that I was doing this drill this late at
night, with no daylight coming in through the windows to combine with the
indoor lighting.
Today I felt a few of the gold runs were as good as any
yesterday.
Today there were streaks where I would have seven to
nine attempts in a row that were all gold runs.
Today towards the end of the second
segment, this balding white man about average height with a mustache and a
young lady who seemed to be his white dark brown haired daughter (there
are tons with dark brown hair around here) came into the gym. I thinks
this man is a Waltham Cop who in fact gave me a ticket once. After he
entered the gym, I had 9 gold runs in a row, followed by two
"failures", an 9/11 rate.
The third segment was my worst segment, You naturally
expect the first segment to manifest all the follies of warming up. I
count every attempt there are no warm up attempts that are uncounted.
During the third segment the gym was completely empty. I am not the type
who does great with nobody watching me and then chokes under the pressure
of being watched by a dozen people.
My plan for tommorrow is that the first segment I will
force myself to skip all the time on each attempt. I think this might
speed my improvement. The skipping movement is useful, I could make it
even more useful, develop it further, by skipping the decision
re whether to skip or not skip at a given time.
|
|||||||||||||||||
7/25/06
Waltham YMCA
555PM-900 PM
|
WC06 Skips
# gold/attempts
!st Quarter
555 PM-640 PM
19/34
56%
2nd Quarter
640-725 PM
22/29
76%
3rd Quarter
730-815 PM
22/31
71%
4th Quarter
815-900 PM
27/36
75%
TOTAL
90 /130
69%
over 180 minutes
|
FIRST QUARTER
I decided to devote the first quarter to skipping all
the time while executing the WC06 drill. The first two runs were not gold,
but after these first two runs I knew for a fact that the skipping method
was an improvement that would make my future dominance of the
soccer-football world easy for me.
I felt like a Prince who had fallen in love with a new
young wife to add to my collection of wives. The new young wife was this
new skill I would have by utilizing skipping while doing WC06 drill type
stuff.
The third run after the first two failures was an
awesome gold.
With the score 6/17 an east asian boy with brown skin
entered my half of the gym which was divided in two by a blue curtain. He
looked like he was in about 7th grade, he wore a dark green shirt that had
the word "Quiksilver" printed on it, and he wore camouflage shades of
green patterned pants. He was shooting baskets. After he entered, I went 4
gold for 5 attempts. The first run after the boy entered featured lots of
side to side movement with the ball, it was a gold. The fourth was a gold
featuring fast forward pause rewind fast forward, if you know what I mean.
The next one was a spectacular gold featuring perfect form.
At this point the boy began a ritual, wherein As I would
prepare to start a run, he would cease his basketball activity, stand
still, and stare at me, like a soldier at attention. This went on for
about three runs. He stood at attention and watched as I executed a gold
run with perfect form, a gold fast easy run, and then a run that was not a
gold. Then he went back to his basketball.
Towards the end of the first quarter,
A white little girl entered, sat on the bleachers, and
loudly said something in my direction. I asked her what she had said and
she claimed she had not said anything.
SECOND QUARTER
I resolved this would be an all skips quarter
also.
I went 5/6, there was a fast easy gold run and a gold
run with perfect form. At this point I noticed a tall royal-type looking
white East Asian athletic looking man standing in the doorway with what
looked like his grade school age daughter. He was wearing a white shirt
and dark slacks of the business world type. They were on the other side of
the gym but they could see parts of my runs through the gaps in the
blue curtains. Seemed they were watching the three white junior high
school age boys shooting baskets on the side of the gym they were on of
the two sides of the gym divided by the big blue curtain.
But I felt I was having a big impact on them, that what
they were really watching was me, though they did not come over to my side
of the gym. Why would they bother with watching three white european
type junior high boys, with such rapt attention? And all of a sudden
these three junior high boys, had also three high school age boys sitting
in the bleachers pretending to watch them with rapt attention. And there
was this gangsterish looking young black who looked like he dressed in
imitation of a "Ninja Turtle", leaning against the wall in between the two
sides of the gym divided by the big blue curtain, pretending to be
watching these three white junior high boys on the other side of the gym
from me.
I felt they were all in shock at my
performance, but were pretending such was not the case, this is my
opinion. Even though they could see only portions of a given run of mine,
they could hear the ball hitting my feet on the runs, they could hear my
feet hitting the ground further and further away from me on these runs.
They could hear the difference between a ball hitting my foot and a ball
hitting the wodden floor of the basketball court.
At this point my score was 24/40 60%
As a matter of fact from the beginning today after the
first two or three runs I felt as if those in the gym could like me sense
that I had so to speak turned the corner. At this point the gym
began to empty of spectators.
THIRD QUARTER
Again all skips
The gym was empty no spectators. Whereas as previously
in third quarters I had felt not fatigue but increased competence this
time I was feeling fatigue. Some gold runs excel other gold runs in
quality the quality of these was lower than in the first and second
quarters. But I managed to keep up the
percentage.
FOURTH QUARTER
Again all skips
In this quarter I recovered from a streak of several
attempts in a row all of which were not a gold, by slowing down the tempo
in terms of number of attempts per minute. The gym now was also empty,
again the golds were not stellar golds but the percentage was kept
up.
Today I was up from 60% yesterday to 69% today. My goal
is 95%. At this rate I will be at 95% in just three days.
The snacks in between quarters today were dried apricot
pieces and spring water.
Ended day with 20 minute swim
|
replique |
med hard bounce from top of head to lower chest |
|||||||||||||||
7/26/06
550-900 PM
Waltham Y |
WC06 Skips
2nd 45 MINUTES TODAY DESTINED TO
STAND AS BEST SEGMENT EVER RECORD UNTIL AUGUST 10, and CONTINUES TO STAND
AS BEST SECOND SEGMENT RECORD AS OF AUGUST 11
# gold/attempts
!st Quarter
650 PM-740 PM
17/26
65%
2nd Quarter
740-825 PM
26/30
87%
3rd Quarter
825-905 PM
23/32
71%
4th Quarter
815-900 PM
27/36
72%
TOTAL
66 /88
75%
over 130 minutes
|
Yesterday the first three sets were 63/94 67%; all four sets yesterday was 69%. Today over three sets I was 75%. This is real improvement; at this rate I will be at the target 95% in two to four days. When I am at the target 95% I will have good cause to think of myself on a par with the world's best players, not counting things like endurance conditioning, and the ability to field balls that fly in one's direction from elsewhere, an ability that is best practiced when you are associated with a team. But I know a 60% rate is enough to cause shock in the gym, when it is a well formed skipping fast 60%. So don't cornsider me deceitfully boastful, as I realize that which is good enough to shock the people in the gym, may not put me at a world class level. Maybe shock is the wrong word for it. Anyway there is
something martial and heart-stirring to a saga of someone reaching
the top in the world's most played game. Soccer type football is a game
that a wide variety of body types can excel in.
Today I felt fatigue in all the sets. I have suddenly been doing
these long workouts every day without a day off. Today the percentage of
golds was high, but the golds were not especially well formed fast or
spectacular. Then again gold vs non-gold is a relatively accurate
measurement, for all practical real world game purposes the simple plain
golds are not much worse than the spectacular well formed fast ones. But
the spectacular well formed fast ones impress people, build my morale and
skills.
Today I noted that a few sips of water produces a temporary decline
in competence. Seems the best route, is to wait a while or at least slow
the tempo down in the first few minutes after sipping water. But I am
pressed for time, so I cannot afford the luxury of a four minute
break after sipping water.
There were only a few sharing the gym with me today, the usual crew
of East Asian and White boys and men. Plus today there was a brown
hispanic boy, throwing a rubber ball in the air and hitting it with
his baseball bat.
At most there were two of them in the gym with me at any given
time. They were all absorbed in shooting baskets, they did not seem
to notice me, the way they seemed to notice me yesterday.
After the soccer or football practice I swam for twenty minutes.
There were plenty of well formed attempts that scored
gold today, but the speed was not like yesterday as a result of the
fatigue.
|
replique |
bounces on court from above head to just below chest |
|||||||||||||||
Thursday July 27
|
BREAK AND
REVIEW |
Two scoring methods have been used. It is possible to
estimate what the score by the second scoring method introduced on day 8,
the gold/non-gold scoring method, was on the days that the first scoring
method was used. Thus the progression in terms of estimate or real percent
gold over the ten days has been:
0; 17; 19; 27; 25; 26; 28; 63; 60; 69; 75.
The big break you might say was switching to the new
scoring method, as a result of which my efforts became focused on
producing results with more practical real game applicability. Day 8
I jumped from a 28% estimated gold to 63 gold% actually measured.
Overall indoors from day 2 to day 11 I jumped from estimated 17% gold to
75% gold.
So although on some days the progress has appeared to be
painfully slow, almost not worth the effort involved, the percentage gold
score has increased daily by an average of 6%.
Getting more mathematically sophisticated, the
percentage score has grown by an average 18% compared to what it was on
the previous day.
This is counting the big jump day when I changed to a
policy of deliberately attempting to achieve "gold" on attempts
(previously I had been just attempting to score a lot of H's on each
attempt). If I throw out this score as a freak, the percentage
score has been going up by 3 points on an average day; and, the
percentage on a given day has on average been 11 percent greater than
the previous day.
Why is this important to know? Because to avoid
unnecessary stress, it is good to have a proper understanding of your
achievements, and of what one can reasonably expect from
oneself.
So I figure that on each day in the future, progressing
at the rate I have been progressing from the beginning not counting
the freak day, my percentage gold score should be 11 percent greater than
the previous day's percentage gold score.
Thus I estimate the future should run something like
(percentage gold scores): 83, 92, 100.
Looking at the rate I have been progressing since
instituting the new scoring system, 60 to 75 in three days, on an
average day the percentage has been 8 percent higher than it was the
previous day. Thus along this way of thinking I could expect the future to
run something like: 81, 87, 95.
Thus I have some idea of the ground I have covered and
what I can expect to cover how fast in the future.
When I get to the 95 percentage I will consider myself
at an all-world level, one of the world's best 11 players, not counting
the physical endurance conditioning and the practicing of certain skills
best practiced with a team such as handling incoming passes.
Overall looks like this has been a two week
campaign to march from a zero percent to a 95 percent World Class, in a
crucial skill whereby I do things people have never seen before, and
never thought possible, with the ball.
As for the humility, the idea I have to get up to 85% on
this WC06 drill thing to be world class, some apparently think
that I am already world class--I appreciate their (imagined?)
support--
and I have to admit that what I count as something
"below gold" when scoring this drill (strictly scored to build skill),
could end up on an actual soccer field accomplishing more than the
attempts that I score as "gold". Furthermore, the fact that a certain
percentage of the attempts do not work out exactly as planned, and are not
scored as a "gold", adds a certain level of unpredictability to the
outcome of my adventures with the ball. Nevertheless I can see how with
perfect control with the ball, I could substitute for this kind of
unpredictability by varying what I do deliberately.
DETAILS:
If one fails to keep cognizant regarding how much one
has been improving, one could become demoralized. For example I have been
working really hard the last few days on this drill, tiring myself out
mentally and physically--it is much more tiring, when every attempt is
counted and recorded, you never have the luxury of being lackadaisical
about anything. So getting tired it began to seem to me that for all that
work I had only been improving by a few percentage points per day. Thus in
order to counteract this demoralizing notion that arose within myself, I
decided to review the history of the past ten days, the operation WC06.
Because I realized that the changes in the scoring methods were reducing
my ability to appreciate how far I had progressed and this my
morale.
Day 1-- Sunday July 16, outdoors, first scoring method.
The average was 2.6, the high 7--my estimate is that the gold count going
by the gold/non-gold method of scoring, on this day, was 0 for 37,
0%.
Day 2-- Monday July 17, indoors, first scoring method
used, average 3.6; my estimate is that using the gold/non-gold method of
scoring I now use, 15 of 87 attempts were gold, which would be
17%
Day 3-- Tuesday July 18, indoors, first scoring
method used, avg 4.6. My estimate is that on this day there were 14 golds
out of 75 attempts, 19%.
Day 4-- Wednesday July 19, indoors, first scoring
method. Avg 5.3. Estimate golds 27% 15/69.
Day 5--Thursday July 20, indoors, first scoring method
used, avg 5.9. Estimate golds 18/74 25%
Day 6--Friday July 21, indoors, first scoring method
used, avg 6.2. Estimate golds 26% 29/111.
Day 7--Saturday July 22, indoors, first AND ALSO second
scoring methods used. By the first scoring method, the average was 6.8
over 147 attempts. By the second scoring method, there were 41 golds out
of 147 attempts or 28% gold. Thus, onw way of looking at it is that the
formula for estimating the golds from the first scoring method could be
said to be average by first scoring method times 4.1.
Day 8--Sunday July 23, indoors, 71/113, 63% gold. A BIG
JUMP from the previous day.
Day 9--Monday July 24, indoors, 64/107 60%
gold.
Day 10--Tuesday July 25, indoors, 90/130 67%
gold.
Day 11-Wednesday July 26, indoors, 66/88 75%
gold.
As for the effect of these drills on endurance, doing this drill
every day, executing about 100 attempts a day, eventually becomes tiring
and one needs a break. This drill does indeed build endurance, but what it
builds is anaerobic endurance not aerobic endurance. It consists of five
to ten seconds burst of intense activity separated by a mostly walking
rest of about 1.5 minutes. Nevertheless it is tiring because the movements
of the body in the attempts are very precise and quick, and then there is
the fatigue effect on the mind, of all these quick precise movements with
every result being noted and scored.
The endurance built by this drill may be anaerobic (sprints etc) as
opposed to aerobic (marathon, mile etc); but I now believe that at the
2006 World Cup we saw Italy, a team with anaerobic endurance, defeat teams
like Germany and Australia that had aerobic endurance. I now believe that
the soccer world overemphasizes aerobic endurance at the expense of
anaerobic endurance. The Italians looked like a team living on spaghetti
meat sauce and wine (not a bad choice when there is limited time money and
energy to put into food), they looked as if their aerobic endurance was
not as good as Germany's or Australia's, but in the end nevertheless they
wore down their aerobically conditioned opponents who looked like they had
been dining on broiled fish and tangerine juice, but who
anyway became more tired than the Italians. I believe this is because
these teams overemphasized aerobic conditioning. Alot of what is done in
soccer requires anaerobic not aerobic conditioning. Recently Evander
Holyfield won a boxing championship by adopting the novel approach of
avoiding long distance running and concentrating on aerobic endurance.
|
|||||||||||||||||
7/28/06 |
BREAK |
There could be no soccer practice today. My dad wanted
me to go shopping with him and my brother. This and that was bought for my
brother. He wanted a shirt here, shirt and pants and hat there etc etc.
We were standing in line at the Indian grocery store
"Apna Bazaar". I was telling him about how I was finally becoming
world class in soccer. He was huffing and puffing and saying things like
"you have been saying that for years". Actually I have never said that I
am world class in soccer. I have talked about my interest in soccer, being
able to do cool things with the ball, being good at soccer, the
possibility of becoming excellent at soccer in the future, but I have
never said prior to these days that I was "world class" or near such. The
man who owns operates this Indian shop "Apna Bazaar" heard my dad pooh
poohing what I was saying. He said "you're father is scoffing at you"--I
could see he was empathizing with me not my dad. Then when I told my
stepmother the story of this incident, my father claimed that the people
in the shop were laughing at me--which is false. Nobody laughed, rather,
they thought of my dad as a scoffer. They knew I was the realistic one and
he was the scoffer, I practice at the Y in the same town they are located
in.
Actually going back a few years I had a dream that one
day, people would say of me that I am better than people like Diego
Maradona at soccer. I should have taken this dream seriously and started
practicing seriously. As it turns out there was truth in this dream.
But I had been brainwashed into the idea that dreams are not things to be
taken seriously, that they are just wish fulfillment fantasies--and of
course there were "scoffers" everywhere.
What with the 'scoffers" and all the psychological
stresses in my life it is a wonder I do as well at soccer practice as I
do, practicing these really difficult skills (as you can see from this
diary, before I started the WC06 drill phase, I was already very skilled,
yet on the first day of the WC06 drill I was at 0% gold).
Sometimes I find myself while practicing getting angry
about someone, because I have had some dream about the given person that
gave me cause to get angry. Immediately when this happens my success rate
goes down (the good thing about keeping detailed stats re performance in
practice is that you are for once aware of such things).
For example, there is this woman Linda S who I have both
positive and negative feelings about when I am awake and asleep. I have
been feeling annoyed with her for not giving me a phone call. After I
started WC06 I had a dream in which I had the official, unstoppable
power to inspect the phone records of people like Linda S. I inspected her
phone records. The phone records papers to the best of my recollection,
were on white paper with light blue borders like the Israeli flag. The
phone records showed that Linda had been calling Israel, she had been
calling neo-cons, she had been calling Jews. And I felt angry she had not
called me, but had been calling these other people. Then when I was
practicing I thought about this dream and became angry, and my percentage
success rate immediately plummeted.
Another time after I started WC06, I was remembering a
dream I had in which my brother was literally frying in hell. As I thought
of the dream I became angry at him, and my percentage
plummeted.
Both times I solved the problem by simply saying the
Lord's Prayer once, and asking God that my attitude to thise people should
not be amiss (I realize our prayers should be secret but discussing such
things is sometimes unavoidable). I had felt that I was so mired in sin
that it would require maybe 72 hours non-stop on my knees combined with
self-flagellation with a bullwhip to get anywhere in prayer, yet a
one minute prayer was able to pull my out of the ruts. I believe tge
presence of anger within oneself reduces one's level of
skill
It is really hard to master difficult skills, skills
that require something beyond natural ability, strength, speed, endurance
etc., when there are all these psychological pressures (seems nobody does
anything to relax me while everyone does things that cause stress for
me)--and under the circumstances I feel my mastering these skills despite
all the stress in my life is admirable. I wonder how much better I would
do if I got some luck and people for once did things that relax me instead
of things that cause me stress.
When we went home to my dad's for dinner, there was on
the table a box filled with "dhokla" pieces, "dhoklas" are a vegetarian
thing, little yellow cubes about two inches square. I ate one. My dad told
me not to eat any more of them. The time got to 745 PM, we were supposed
to have eaten at 700 PM. I forgot what my dad had said and ate another
"dhokla". My father became rude and temperamental with me. I told him he
had become rude and temperamental with me. He then ordered me to leave his
house and started making threats about permanently ending his relationship
with me and disinheriting me, all for a piece of "dhokla" worth 30 cents!
But my brother insisted that I be allowed to stay. Maybe I should take
pity on what my dad goes through being old, but I get upset. I never knew
we were supposed to expect and tolerate rudeness and temper from older
persons.
These are the kind of stresses I have to lay aside when
I practice, and I think I do a good job of it, yet I feel I could do an
even better job of laying aside such stresses (I notice that when I am
asleep and dreaming I forgive everyone and am angry with nobody). It is
not unreasonable for me to believe that if only people would reduce the
level of stress they subject me to, I would become even better, improve
even faster, than is now the case.
No matter how good you get, you can always get better.
Even now I am plotting out what will be the next drill after WC06, a drill
even more difficult than WC06.
|
|||||||||||||||||
7/29/06 |
SWIMMING BREAK |
Swam 1300 yds in 55 minutes
taking it easy, alternating 50 breast, 50 crawl.
The thing about these stressful experiences, not only do they take up
time in and of themselves, and cause stress in the time subsequent to the
stressful experience; they also take up time in the sense that time that
could be put into something else, has to be put into recovering from the
stressful experience. They gym was empty today I could have done the
soccer drill but I felt I had to go swimming instead.
But I'm sure I learned alot from swimming along slowly, regarding the
art of swimming; and I believe that the swimming, might well have positive
repercussions on the soccer performance.
WC06 drill etc require extreme precision in the movement of the
entire body. Where the foot ends up, the position the foot ends up
in, has to do with where the body is placed.
Thus all muscles in the body are brought into play, not in the sense
of the moving of heavy weights in a given direction, but rather in the
sense of the exertion of small amounts of force in various directions.
Swimming exercises all the muscles of the body, in movements in various
different directions, in the exercise of moderate as opposed to heavy
amounts of force.
Swimming serves to relax the body in general, especially the parts of
the body that are stressed by soccer in general and WC06 type activities
specifically.
Swimming provides a physiological and psychological counter-balance
to the physical and psychological stresses placed on the body by WC06 type
stuff. When you swim you can relax like a jelly fish, totally different to
what happens in WC06 type stuff. Swimming works the whole body and
develops endurance in ways WC06 type stuff does not.
As for swimming in and of itself, I have been swimming slowly, taking
it easy, using swimming to relax and recuperate from WC06 type stuff. In
the process of swimming slowly, I have learned things about how to
maximize the amount of movement in the water you get out of the
expenditure of a given amount of energy, that I did not learn while
swimming fast.
I have learned: taking a little extra time when you breathe can pay
off, because by holding air in longer you get more oxygen out of the
air you breathe in, though this is compensated for by the fact that it
results in the exhalation-inhalation process taking longer; you can get
forward propulsion ouf of your kick even when the shoelaces area of your
feet are facing towards the sides of the pool; rolling side to side to the
point where such sideways kicking is natural can icrease the
propulsive force per unit energy expended; you can get at least as
much propulsion out of your kick kicking without your feet breaking the
water as they teach you to kick, as you can kicking with your feet
breaking the surface of the water which is the method taught by
instructors; the new way of doing the flip turn, ending up facing straight
up, can be mastered by someone used to ending up facing up and to the side
at a 45 degree angle but this takes time; the straight up flip turn is
quicker than ending up facing at the 45 degree angle; the trick to
mastering the flip turn that ends up straight up is, one foot ends up
higher than the other, and the body twists to the side at the same time
the blast off from the side begins before the feet leave the side of the
pool; the underwater crawl kick for some depths and angles and
individuals off the crawl flip turn could be as good as the dolphin
kick (I saw one female olympic swimmer using this scissors style crawl
style kick on the turn); you can fiddle around with the depth and the
motion of the underwater movements and glides on the breast stroke turn to
get a little more power into the turn.
RE swimming my opinion now, is that it should not be done for long
periods every day because of the effects of substances used to keep the
water clean, such as chlorine. Although there are more natural less
harmful methods available to purify swimming pool water, all the pools in
the Boston area as far a I can tell use chlorine. Not using soap on the
cleaner un-smelly parts of the body probably protects the body from the
chlorine. Rubbing a lemon on the body after swimming in chlorinated water
probably helps the body deal with the chlorine. But none of this deals
with what I dreamt is the problem, which is the effect on the body of the
powerful synthetic deodorants people wear, washing off into the pool water
they swim in. |
|||||||||||||||||
7/30/06 |
BREAK
SWIMMING |
Swam today because in the amount of time available at
the gym, the soccer workout would not have tired me enough.
Expending about 85% max effort, I swam 1600 yds
alternating 50 breast, and 50 crawl, in 45 minutes. That is 2.8 minutes
per 100 yds, a really good time seeing that I have not been swimming
much.
I wonder if surprisingly the soccer drills I have been
doing have some impact that increases my long distance swimming ability.
During the drills what you have is two or three hours of an intense 5
second burst of activity followed with about 1.5 minutes of walking around
and a little standing in between.
Maybe the fact I lost some weight last month is
manifesting in improved swimming activity.
Not only do I think I have a chance to surpass the
world's best soccer player (this is the same as being the best in the
world but for some reason sounds more realistic), I now believe I have a
chance for age group world records in the crawl and the breast. As for the
wild dream of world records for people in general not just the age group,
anything I suppose is possible, but I do not presume to such right now,
though I do not think it impossible. My weakness is slowing down in the
last half of the fifty meter or yard sprints due to fatigue.
It all reminds me of the line in the Bible about the
angel who put one foot on the land and the other on the sea.
Yet it seems I can count on the employers in the area
hiring someone else instead of me whenever there are more job applicants
than there are jobs.
Seems to me that the employers in my area have the
entire world exactly upside down. They seem to have some kind of weird
allergy that makes them allergic to me, when they should be doing the
exact opposite, placing me above other people.
|
|||||||||||||||||
7/31/06
Waltham Y 845 PM-
939 PM
|
BREAK SWIMMING |
The schedule for the gym had been re-written so I went
swimming, because otherwise there would have only been 1 hour of soccer
drills not enough to tire me out enough.
Swam 2000 yds alternating 50 yds breast 50 yds
crawl at approx 90% of max effort, in 54 minutes--2.7 minutes per 100
yds.
Surprises me that I would be able to swim 2000 yds this
fast after having returned to swimming for just a few days.
|
|||||||||||||||||
8/1/06
Waltham Y
815-945
|
WC06
gold/attempts
1st 45 min 22/32
69%
2nd 45 min
29/38
76%
TOTAL
51/70
73%
|
This constitutes a fall of 2% from the 75% of the last practice, July 26. Aside from the score I was pleased with the result. It
went well except for a couple of bad streaks: the first 11 attempts were
4/11, and 1 for 6 on attempts 50-55. Aside from these two bad streaks, the
percentage was 46/53 or 87%.
Thus I felt that I was being clever by inside my head
playing the melody of the English national anthem, "Land of Hope and
Glory", and motivating myself by telling myself that what I was fighting
for was proof that I can take it easy for a few days, swim, without
declining in my rate of improvement per practice session.
I had listened to "Land of Hope and Glory" on the
internet when I was considering making a mini-movie about
the English team at the 2006 World Cup. I felt today
that it helped me to keep my mind off of performance impairing mental
distractions such as some annoying woman or an annoying brother or
father.
What I ended up proving was that I can take five days
off without declining in my skill level, although a decline in the rate of
improvement per practice session did result.
Or you could say that what I showed was that if there
have been five days off, it is necessary to pay special attention to the
warm-up and the first 11 or so attempts. Not counting the first 11
attempts today I was at 47/59 80%, a five percentage point improvement
over the previous practice session despite the five day
layoff.
I felt as if the days spent swimming had improved my
physical ability to excel at this WC06 drill. I felt energetic, bouncy,
limber, relatively calm and relaxed.
I missed between this practice session and the previous
one five practice sessions. So you could say I regressed 0.4%
per missed practice session. So my guess now is that one or two days
skipped between practice sessions when there is fatigue muscle
soreness/stiffness etc., is probably a good idea.
The first 11 attempts the percentage was only 36%. My
take on this, is that I did the traditional muscle stretching exercises I
was taught in high school in Chicago, and these exercises were not
effective enough, in terms of stretching or loosening up the muscles
that are actually used in the WC06 drill.
The stretching exercises that I did that were learned in
high school were: touching the toes with the legs together; touching the
toes with the legs apart; touching the soles of the feet together while
sitting on the ground and wobbling the knees up and down; stretching a leg
backwards to stretch the tendon on the back of the ankle. These are the
ones I did before I started today. I resolve henceforth to stretch in ways
that more closely mimic the actual movements of the body during the WC06
drill.
As for the 1/6 disaster, all of a sudden the first move
on the attempts began to go awry. This resulted in a state of panic and
anxiety. I attributed the failure to things like a lack of water, a lack
of confidence, a lack of relaxation, that infected me as attempts began to
fail. But I was able to correct the situation by making sure that I
concentrated extra hard on the first movement in each attempt. I think
that since attempts 12-49 had gone so well for me, I had hubristically(?)
begun to forget the basics of success on an attempt, one of which is that
you concentrate extra hard on the first move in an attempt. Then I forgot
that usually what is wrong when there is a bad streak is a lack of
concentration on the particular elements of an attempt that are going
wrong; and it seemed impossible to me to simply will myself into being
relaxed and confident in a middle of a bad streak--I felt as if my world
was falling apart and I was despising and hating myself.
I went on a 6/6 streak on attempts 33-38 while the black
guy who is the girls basketball instructor was in the gym with a young
white woman sitting in the bleachers watching him. The 1/6 occurred after
he left when nobody was in the gym. While he was there I felt as if I
could not understand how I could ever miss gold on an attempt, how I could
ever not feel relaxed, confident and godly. Something about his orange
shirt on his stout non-fat body relaxed me--I felt a relaxation and
confidence inspiring kindred spirit inside of him as if he was a fellow
God. I thin k what it was was that looking at him, I saw a calm person who
was not struggling with a strictly scored practice session like I was,
who, looking at me, knew that in a month or so I would be the winner that
I dream to be--and this understanding that I perceived in him, entered
into me, displacing what was inside of me, which was an insane,
despondent, desperate obsession with beating the score that I had achieved
in the previous practice session.
I am not the type as this and other occasions have
shown, who does worse when there are people around to watch him. Perhaps
having people around makes everything seem less lonely and dismal and
vain, and helps to release some kind of helpful hormone into the body such
as adrenaline.
Seems that performance is enhanced by keeping minimal
detail in the notes that I take during the practice session. Seems that
putting alot of detail into the notes decreases performance.
Some might say that I should spend practice time working
on just the first move in an attempt, in isolation. As of now I disagree.
I noted today that I have recently increased rapidly, aside from the
scoring of the practice session, in terms of the ability to recover from a
defective first move on an attempt. This is because I have been forced to
over and over deal with recovery from defective first moves. I have
developed the ability to recover by use of the thighs and the
chest.
In general I noted today significant improvement not
evident in the raw score, in terms of the ability to use the thigh and the
chest executing WC06.
I should remember to take comfort in the fact, that even
when the raw score is not going up, improvements are occurring in various
sub-sets of the WC06 skill.
|
replique |
hard
bounce from above head to below breast
pumped up day before |
|||||||||||||||
8/4/06
Outdoor basketball Courts at High & Lowell
intersection, Waltham MA
728-858 PM
|
WC06 1ST 45 MINS
18/24
75%
2ND 45 MINS
22/28
79%
TOTAL
40/52
77%
NEW PERSONAL
BEST
|
This was a really good effort seeing that I have never done WC06 on an outdoor concrete floored basketball court. The surface is not as flat as an indoor wood floored basketball court. The ball ends up getting dirt and water on it. The first half was lit by the bright athletic field type
lighting and daylight; the second half was lit by the lights alone, both
types of light were new and strange to me.
Before starting I did the Chicago style stretching I
mentioned in the previous post, plus also I added in my own type of
stretching designed to simulate the movements of my body during
WC06.
I succeeded in starting out 6/8, 75%, thus avoiding
falling behind a good percentage at the start. I attribute this to the new
realistic type of stretching I introduced in this practice session, and to
my new way of psychologically dealing with failing to achieve gold on an
attempt.
The entire 90 minutes today, the worst losing streak was
two attempts in a row that both failed to achieve gold.
In this session I implemented the psychological strategy
I figured out in the previous session for dealing with losing streaks.
Essentially just one attempt that fails to get gold is the start of such a
dreaded losing streak.
This psychological strategy, is to: focus on simply
concentrating extra hard on the first or the first and second moves in an
attempt; forget about attempting to artificially induce in oneself the
confidence and calm that is missing when there are one or more misses in a
row.
The result was that there was a lack of panic in me
because: I began to realize that I could stop losing streaks by
concentrating extra hard on the first two moves and playing so to speak
"conservative" ball; and, by focusing my mind on concentrating extra hard
on the first two attempts, I forgot about the crisis of confidence of me
in myself.
What I call conservative ball, is that an attempt is
executed conservatively, that is in a way that minimizes the chance that
there will be a failure to achieve gold on the attempt.
I began to feel like a hardened soldier who has gotten
so used to the stress of a losing streak in the context of having every
attempt scored, that it no longer bothered me or (Clint
Eastwood) "unmade" "my day".
I felt decrepit before heading out to the
outdoor basketball courts, but after 15 minutes out there felt
athletic healthy and capable.
Today on many attempts, I did not bother with turning
the gold into a spectacular super gold but finished off the gold attempt
with a shot at the wire fence surrounding the courts. This finishing off
with a shot was probably almost as spectacular as turning the gold
into a super gold.
I found I could finish off the attempts with shots that
were unpredictable, off the ground, hard and accurate for at least
the ten yards from my foot kicking the ball up to the point the
balls hit the fence.
At one point the ball bounced hard off a fence-pole to
back behind me to this Mexican looking guy with a mustache who was about
six feet two inches tall and thickset, he was the oldest guy out on the
courts aside from me, and the biggest. He kicked me the ball, it flew to
me in the air, a hard line drive from 30 yards away. I was facing towards
him when he kicked it at me thus it flew at me in fighter pilot lingo
from twelve o'clock. I let it fly a little past me, stuck my left
foot out at the seven o clock angle caught it with my left foot so
that it bounced a foot above the catching left foot, swiveled counter
clockwise and fired it hard and accurate into the fence with my right
foot, the ball all the while having never touched the ground.
I felt totally in control of the ball and confident
while I did this. The ball came in from twelve o clock, I stuck my
left foot out towards seven o clock, caught it perfectly with my left
foot, then swivelled towards seven o clock and fired it hard and accurate
into the fence with my right foot, keeping it off the ground the entire
time.
THAT WAS INDEED SEVEN O CLOCK NOT FIVE EASY TO GET
THESE TWO DIRECTIONAL ANGLES MIXED UP
Doing this, I in relaxed manner very competently
handled the kind of line drive flying at me in the air that I had
been afraid I would not be able to handle as well as the World Cuppers
when I was watching the World Cup.
Thus I conclude that I have radically underestimated the
power this WC06 drill has to improve a player's or my ability to
handle incoming balls that are flying in the air as opposed to rolling on
the ground or bouncing.
If I had seen a World Cupper handle a line drive
air pass in to him the way I handled this line drive pass from the
Mexicano, I would have been extremely impressed, it would have been one of
the highlights of the World Cup for me.
There were twenty to thirty black and hispanic grade
school boys playing basketball or soccer on the basketball courts. None of
them said anything, but this black kid amongst them began skipping and
running here and there imitating my motions when I do the
drill.
A few white high school age boys leaned against their
car parked just outside the wire fence I was firing the ball at during the
attempts, they just sat in their car or leaned on the car staring straight
at me for about fifteen twenty minutes. But this did not result in me
choking or panicking and messing up.
There was a white college age adult male shooting
baskets at the basketball hoop nearest me for quite a while he was the
only white adult male on the basketball courts. He started shooting
at this closest hoop after I had started practicing near it. it was
almost all black or hispanic grade school kids. There were three big
concrete floored basketball courts, and I was on one of them.
The musical score I kept in my head today was the
electric bass from "Keep on Using Me Until You Use Me Up" by Bill
Withers
|
|||||||||||||||||
8/5/06
Saturday
910-945 PM
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA |
19/25
76%
35 mins
Best first segment
ever
|
I did not feel like I was going to have a good day, I
had just had to talk for 40 minutes on the phone with this man we shall
call "Mister Schnapps". Mr. Schnapps gave me long speeches about manners
and my lack of manners, the problem being that I have dared express to him
the fact that he is rude and temperamental with me.
Mr. Schnapps feels he has the right to be rude and
temperamental with me because he is older than me.
Whereas from my point of view, there exist men, whom
nobody has the right to be rude to, no matter how much older than them
they the rude ones are.
I guess what annoys, even angers me is Schnapps'
& others' presumption that there is no such thing as a man whom one
should not be rude to despite being older than this man one is rude to. It
seems to me like sacrilege. I believe we should behave as if there did
indeed exist men whom we should not be rude to even though we are older
than them.
Mr. Schnapps claimed I had gotten drunk at my cousin's
house and railed at the wife of Mr. Schnapps.
This I do not remember, I remember some small incident
that was a misunderstanding in a weekend Schnapps was otherwise pleased
with.
This always happens with Schnapps, I will do work for
him or have dinner with him and he will be pleased, then with the passage
of time some inconsequential incident in the dinner or work he was pleased
with gets blown into a major incident.
And Schnapps does not allow me to defend myself re these
minor incidents that with the passage of time get blown all out of
proportion.
Problem is that if I do not discuss how the given
incident was minor, it gradually explodes in his mind into a major matter.
Thus I was in a grim and pessimistic frame of mind as I
started the practice, I knew it would be cut short because of the long
speeches given by Mr. Schnapps. The sun had already set when I was out on
the court. There was nothing but bright light and the reflected remnants
of daylight.
The score today was 4%
better than the score for the first half yesterday. It was my best first
45 minutes ever except I had to cut it 10 minutes short
because the lights on 2 out of 3 of the courts went out at 945
PM.
Today there was no music playing in my head, it just
didn't naturally come into my head, the shouting and clapping of the boys
on the court sort of displaced any music that could come into my
head.
Today I used the Chicago style and the mimic style of
stretching before starting.
I realized that the kind of practice I am doing
contradicts my own natural inclination if I were out to just have a good
time, which would be to not count the result of each attempt, but just
keep long notes regarding the attempts that came out spectacular, and
glory in the spectacular.
It was a grim business focusing simply on consistency on
attempt after attempt, consistently doing things I do not find so
spectacular myself though others might--can't say I was enjoying or
relaxing myself.
The truth of the situation lay heavy on my mind, which
was, that the first dozen or so attempts exceed all that comes afterwards
in importance, because in a game I may only touch the ball in a position
to execute WC06, eight or so times.
It was really depressing to think, that I could do great
tonight, but if the first eight attempts were messed up, the whole evening
would be a failure.
When I am out there, every attempt is counted in the
percentage, there are no uncounted warm up attempts, because I know that
in a game I could suddenly touch the ball after not having touched it for
twenty minutes, and have to then execute a WC06 type maneuver. I know that
when I out there jogging around on the field not touching the ball, I am
not allowed to have a ball with me to keep myself warmed up at WC06 type
skills with. And it at least seems that in the top levels of soccer or
football, The substitutes do not play with balls before going into the
game.
At the beginning I simply concentrated extra hard on
each attempt, ran conservative attempts avoiding cool-but-risky moves, did
not attempt to install any special emotion in myself, just put up with the
fact that this was not fun.
I went 7/8 87% on the first eight attempts.
The worst losing streak was three straight failed to
attain gold.
I just concentrated extra hard, played conservative
ball, and forgot about my own emotional state, and pulled back on course
every time there was an attempt that failed to attain gold.
This achieving a high state of consistency on something
that for me is relatively basic, seemed stressful and boring but it seemed
I was improving in terms of dealing with the stress and the boredom of it.
It would be more fun when in front of people to drill at something easier
but more spectacular than WC06.
I minimized today the detail in the notes I
took.
I also mimimized the extra flourishes I can add on to an
attempt, that make it look really cool but that expend mental and physical
energy on things other than having a very high percentage of attempts at
at least a given level of excellence.
There were about twenty black and hispanic boys average
age about 14, playing a basketball game on one of the courts, ten played
and about ten watched.
About 935 PM they ended their game and they all sat
down on the long concrete bench beyond the endline of the court they were
playing on, about a dozen of them. All their eyes were on me. But it did
not effect me much.
I achieved 6 gold out of 7 attempts during this closely
watched time. I just employed my usual formula of forgetting about my
mental state and concentrating on the first two moves of each attempt.
On at least one of the attempts while the boys were
watching (there is usually about one female amongst them) the boys cheered
during the attempt and then shouted "goal!" when I
finished the attempt off with a shot into the fence surrounding the
basketball courts.
The cheering noise reminded me of sort of a low level of
cheering preceding the baseball pitch, or preceding the free throw
attempt. But this was soccer. One day if they don't discriminate you'll
hear this kind of cheering simply due to me getting the ball.
Today during the three attempts in a row that failed to
achieve gold, I noticed that the problem seemed to be concentration during
the first 1.5 parts of the attempts, but a lack of concentration on the
second half of the second part of the attempt.
I plan to test out a remedy wherein I start doing the
mimicking type of stretching that I can do standing up without looking too
weird while out on the field or pitch, when things go bad or maybe at
regular intervals between attempts.
|
Replique |
medium hard
bounce from bottom of ball at top of head level to just
below chest. |
|||||||||||||||
8/6/06
Sunday
834-945 PM
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA |
WC06
1st 45 mins
21/33
64%
2nd 45
12/14
86%
TOTAL
33/47
70%
|
25/33 would have been 75% I was down to 21/33 64% in the
first 45 minutes.
Total was 33/47 70%; 36/47 would have been
77% not a big deal.
I started off only 3/8 on the first 8 attempts; but of
the 5 non gold I counted 3 as attempts that in a game would have been no
worse than a gold. Seemed this new thing of keeping track of whether a non
gold would be practically speaking significantly worse in a game
distracted my mind.
The mind got distracted by thoughts of how to make sure
a non gold was an acceptable non gold, this combined with the mind
focusing on getting golds, was too much for the mind, seeing that trying
to get gold could interfere with achieving an acceptable as opposed to
unacceptable non-gold; and trying to acheive a acceptable non gold as
opposed to an unacceptable non gold could get in the way of getting gold.
I find with the passage of time such mental disturbance
fade away. When I first started WC06 I could not keep count of certain
things while doing the drill now I can easily keep count of such things.
I started out with the Chicago stretches and the mimic
stretches these were done for 19 minutes. I tried to concentrate and be
conservative on the first attempts. Still from the strict score point of
view it started out badly.
I think the problem was that I left my hot stuffy
apartment, and suddenly I was in this idyllic paradisical weather
situation, the outdoor air was great to breathe, the weather was cool, the
night sky looked pretty, there was a fine mild breeze (the state govt must
at least me doing certain things right). The idyllic weather put me to
sleep, relaxed me too much.
I resolve that when I can, I should try to get used to
the weather wherever I will be playing before I start playing in it,
especially if it is relaxing weather.
Seemed to me after the practice, that I started out
attempting to be concentrate on the beginning part of each attempt,
and to be conservative at first until I had gotten warmed up more, but
that nevertheless on the first few attempts, my concentration consisted
merely in staring very hard at the ball, waiting a long time between
attempts, and a tense facial expression; and my "conservativism"
merely consisted of a mental focus on the word
"conservative" combined with a generalized mental discomfiture
re the awkward movements I associated in my mind with attempts to play in
a "consevative" style that avoids mistakes.
However in reality concentration consists of focusing
the mind on kicking the ball to a certain spot; and conservativism
consists of basically slowing down the pace of an attempt, a concept which
can actually be grasped and implemented.
When I finally realized the difference between
pseudo-concentration (facial expressions, staring at the ball, long waits
between attempts) and real concentration (focusing the mind on kicking the
ball to a certain spot), I ended the day with 10 attempts in a row that
were all golds.
I had been wondering why on the first kick of an
attempt, I was going haywire so often, while doing so well on subsequent
kicks in a given attempt. I think I now understand. Having time to think
before the first move on an attempt, my concentration became
pseudo-concentration; but on the subsequent split-second moves
on the attempts I would have no time to think so my concentration would be
real concentration.
Overall today there were 7 attempts that were not
golds that I felt in a game situation would not be worse than a gold.
Counting these as successes my percentage today was 40/47, 85%. These
attempts are not counted as gold because the gold standard is set so as to
build skill through high standards.
I felt at the start today what was especially lacking
was actual conservativism as opposed to pseudo- conservativism. Real
conservativism is slowing down the speed of an attempt, this in and of
itself reduces error; pseudo-conservatisim is merely thinking about the
word "conservative", or trying to deliberately avoid mistakes as opposed
to--real conservativism--simply slowing things down thereby naturally
reducing mistakes.
Today when I started out there were just two or three
people out on the courts, it was like the good old days. But by the
time I started practicing the courts filled up with about 20
people.
|
Replique |
med hard bounces from above head to below breast. |
|||||||||||||||
8/7/06
Monday
835-1005 PM
John J Larosa Outdoor Tennis Courts
corner of Willow and Grove
Waltham MA |
WC06
SLEEP
DEPRIVED
BUT equal to PERSONAL BEST
FOR 1ST 45 MINS
1st 45 mins
22/29
76%
2nd 45 mins
13/25
52%
TOTAL
35/54
65%
|
I got two hours of sleep prior to the workout whereas the normal amount of sleep would have been 8 hours. Did the Chicago and mimic stretches. Did the mimic
'stretches' in between most attempts. At least such simulates the running
around in a game that occurs between attempts. Such is not really
stretching it looks exactly like an American Indian skipping type war
dance.
The first three attempts of the day were all perfect
golds. This does not show up in the stats in the adjacent stats
column, but it meant alot to me. I tried to engage in actual concentration
as opposed to pseudo concentration.
For the first time today I proved that I can go out
there completely cold, not having touched the soccer ball in 24
hours, and then as soon as I touch the ball for the first time in 24
hours, score three high quality golds in a row, with no fiddling around
with the ball in between the attempts.
After the first three seemed I reverted back to
pseudo-concentration as opposed to actual real concentration.
Some excellence was shown in the first 45
minutes today in terms of the use of the thigh, and in terms of
recovering from slight miskicks without slowing the pace of an attempt or
failing to achieve gold and while at the same time maintaining tight
control. It is a real accomplishment if you think about it to recover
from a miskick without a loosening of control, or a reduction in
speed, or a failure to achieve gold.
It has not really excited me or even sunk in to me but
today's first half was equal to my best first half ever, even though I was
sleep deprived and even though I have never done the WC06 drill at these
Larosa tennis courts. Plus the entire time the lighting was artificial
outdoor lights that shone like bright silver moons, which is a new
thing for me. The floor and the low horizon form the backdrop for
the ball, thus everything looks different in new places.
The second half, seems fatigue kicked in, and it was not
until the second half of these second 45 minutes that I learned to deal
with the fatigue that had kicked in.
I started out the second 45 minutes, at 4/12 only 33%!
After this it was 9/13 69%.
There were Africans playing soccer on the adjoining
grass field, using trash can type things as goals, there were some people
playing tennis on the adjoining courts, there were some people playing
basketball on an adjoining lighted basketball court. Man, this place
has it all.
Luckily as if by instinct, the Africans left before the
debacle of the second 45 minutes.
Usually when I don't get enough sleep for some reason, I
go swimming instead of practicing the football or soccer.
I think today that a problem was that I got mentally
angry at a certain woman because I was thinking of how she had never
invited me to a party, and that she seemed to be trying to coerce me into
marriage, by ruining me socially and financially. Seemed to me that she
was a spoiled feminist, for whom a man who was not the father of her child
was nothing, and for whom a man who was foolish enough to father a child
with her was less than nothing, something to be exploited in behalf of her
fantasy baby she is so passionate about. But I was too tired to note when
the angry thoughts came into my head and what the count was during this
time. There was a combo this time of fatigue and mental anger. Simply
saying the Lord's prayer did not seem to handle this lethal combo too
well.
|
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8/8/06
Tuesday
808-1005 PM
John J Larosa Outdoor Tennis Courts
corner of Willow and Grove
Waltham MA |
WC06
gold attempts/attempts
1st 45 mins
18/27
67%
2nd 45 mins
19/27
70%
overtime 24 mins
8/10
80%
TOTAL
45/64
70%
|
War
dance between attempts
The first eight it was 4 for 8, 5/8 counting a
non-gold which was for all practical purposes in a game situation as good
as a gold (SILVER). But the first two were golds. then I went 9-golds/10-
attempts before moving to the adjoining basketball court to make way
for an East Asian guy who wanted to play tennis. On the basketball court I
went 5 for 9. End First Half.
Second half was on the basketball court; some white
grade school kids set up their skateboard set-up complete with a wooden
foot high four feet long and three feet wide box; they would slide their
skateboard through a tunnel in the wide thing while jumping up on top of
the wood thing, and then jumping back on to the skateboard. They set up
their line of skating right in front of me but we managed to not bump into
each other.
I was wondering, are these boys being social/human
(getting to the point you do not expect such in our video-audio
entertainment culture), or are they just oblivious to getting in the way
of other persons?
Overtime was on the basketball court, a short hispanic
lady (not ugly in face or body) with dyed(?) brown hair was
playing basketball with some young men, she kept wandering in front
of me.
Half of me thought she was a brat oblivious to getting
in the way of others, a quarter of me thought she was being social, and a
quarter of me didn't have a clue.
Too bad at the beginning I screwed up after the
first two. I guess I just felt sick of the stress
cubed of the first eight attempts (IMPORTANT!!!), out on strange tennis
courts several miles from home day after day. After the first two I just
let the concentration slip.
Also and this is relevant to the entire evening, seemed
that at the beginning of the evening's practice, I had slipped into the
delusion that the absence of the outwards signs of concentration such as
the furrowed eyebrows and the staring at the ball and the pursed lips, in
and of itself constitutes inner concentration.
False. Inner concentration is independent of outer
concentration, and can co-exist with or without the the outer signs of
concentration. Suppression of the outer signs of concentration could just
make things worse.
A little muscle tension in the body, I found, can be an
improvement. A lack of muscle tension does not in and of itself indicate
the presence of psychological relaxation or the presence of real inner
concentration. You could feel the most relaxed you have ever felt in your
life, and still be able to physically tense up your muscles.
The first half was 18/27, 67%. 21/27 would have been 78%
a new personal best for a first 45 minutes.
For the second half and the overtime, I used a specific
foot placement for the take-off or initial move in an attempt, foot
placement A. During this time the percentage was 27/37 73% an improvement,
despite having shifted over from the tennis court to a totally new
environment the basketball court at this Larosa playground. 29/37 would
have been 78% superior to my personal best for an entire practice session.
Weird how I get dark and gloomy, feeling as if the end
of the world has arrived in the person of my poor performance, when the
difference between my current performance and a personal best, is just
five percent of the attempts ending up as non-golds instead of golds. What
is happening is that when I am just a shade away from a personal best,
what I am gloomily melodramatically feeling is, "Things fall
apart...the center cannot hold...mere anarchy is loosed upon the world..."
(Chinua Achebe).
The take-off in an attempt, is the least spectacular
part of an attempt. Thus it is easy to assume that the reason the mundane
take-off goes wrong has to do with psychology as opposed to physical
technique.
Henceforth I intend to standardize the take-off, so that
the foot placement is always for a given time period the same, be it foot
placement A, B, C, or D. It is time to ignore psychology and devote some
hard headed technical analysis to what is the best foot placement position
at point of take-off. I find that when the foot placement is always the
same for attempt after attempt this produces improvement at least when the
foot position is foot position type A. No need to burden myself with
panicky doubts regarding what foot positioning to use at the starts of
attempts.
Henceforth I intend to obsess less over details of these
practices and pay more attention to the non-soccer-practice aspects of
life, which in the end redound in effect on the soccer
practices.
There were two soccer games on the adjoining
field,
both about eleven on eleven games. One game the
one nearby was Africans the other was mostly whites. By
the time the stretching was over it was so dark I could not see the far
away players out on the unlit grass field and so I felt as if they
could not see me; but this actually did not mean they could not see
me out on the brightly lit tennis court. On the tennis court I was
9/10 after the rocky start.
Then when I moved to the basketball court I was again
right near the African game on the field. Right before the end of the
first 45 minutes, their game ended and the basketball court I was on
filled with them, this continued into the beginning of the second 45
minutes.
For about a minute three of these Africans sat down
side by side on a bench and stared at me, one with his eyes wide open, as
if he was exaggerating the facial expression of someone staring at
someone. At this point after a gold I failed to achieve gold three times
in a row, and their attention wandered, they became absorbed in
basketball. One of them wanted to stuff my soccer ball into the
basketball hoop I let him do it.
This is the first instance I can record wherein people
playing close attention seemed to impair my performance; I guess those of
us who grew up as little white boys in white enclaves in the black
neighborhoods in Chicago, by nature think of blacks as potential muggers,
however much we appreciate the ways in which they can improve the
atmosphere in a community.
|
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8/9/06
Wednesday
830-945 PM
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA |
WCO6
SLEEP DEPRIVED
gold/attempts,
gold+silver/attempts for each segment
1st 45 mins
Slant-12-6-forwardfoot-slant (S126FS) start
16/22 73%
19/22 86%
2nd 45 mins
Slant-12-6-outfoot-slant (S126OS) start
15/22 68%
19/22 86%
TOTAL
31/44 70%
38/44 86%
1ST 8 of practice:
5/8 68%
6/8 75%
|
Had only two hours of sleep when I should have had eight
prior to the practice.
War dance between attempts
34/44 77% golds would have been a personal best this was 31/44 70% golds total. I felt quite significantly inferior to my best days today, even though the difference was only 3 golds out of 44 attempts. Alot of this was my mind exaggerating the inferiority of my performance. On the first eight attempts the first time I touched the
ball in 24 hours, after missing the first two I hit five golds in a row,
before hitting a silver. This showed I can keep my cool when I start
out missing even though these first 8 attempts are so
important.
The S126FS start used in the first 45 minutes, was
a new start. The 73% results will have to be compared to the results on
other starts.
The S126OS start for the second 45 minutes produced 68%
but this is good for the second 45 mins after two hours of sleep instead
of the usual eight hours of sleep.
There was a streak in the second 45 where I failed to
get gold on four attempts in a row. At this point I was ready to dismiss
the S126OS start I was using but I finished the evening with ten golds in
a row, upholding the finest traditions of the (football) regiment,
bouncing back despite the stress of being at a low percentage score
to finish up with an acceptable percentage score.
S126OF is another possible start.
All I want to say now re starts, is that it reminds of
fencing--fencers have their back foot pointing a little to the side while
their front foot points straight forward this helps them to balance
themselves.
Today I felt like I was screwing up in front of 60
mostly black and hispanic junior high age boys; I mourned having to try
out what seemed at first to be a clumsy new start while sleep deprived in
front of so many people, but the performance was not so bad.
I would guess there were 8 spectacular attempts in the
first 45 mins and 5 in the second, one spectacular one every 7
minutes, but what I felt was pity for myself that I had to do WC06 a
difficult drill that is not as spectacular as what I was doing before but
harder to do, while sleep deprived, while trying out new starts, in front
of so many boys.
At the beginning 4 hispanic boys about 9 years old
gathered around me to ask me lots of questions re what I was doing when I
was playing with the ball measuring distances from it, trying to
categorize various types of possible starts. I explained it to
them.
A black guy about 15 years old wanted to know if I
was a player or a coach, I explained to him I was just someone trying to
excel the World Cup players who were on TV.
One of the blacks protested to me that it was not the
"brothers" (blacks) who were getting in my way, but that it was the
"Ricans" (hispanics) who were getting in my way. I felt the "Ricans" and
"Brothers" were both well behaved.
The three basketball courts were packed
with 60 boys--two half court basketball games on the court I was on, a
full court basketball game, and a 8 on 8 soccer game; plus the two long
concrete benches were both filled with about ten solemn monkish boys on
each bench, sitting there, solemnly watching. I'd say there were at most a
half dozen whites and a half dozen females around at any one
time.
Someone left his car keys on the ground right near me
while I was practicing for about an hour. An astonished black boy
wanted to know if they were my car keys. I told him they were
not.
I had explained to the black 15 yr old that I was
getting myself used to the hell of the stress of everything being
counted--he was curious re my clipboard and paper. I wear ear plugs when I
practice but I am pretty sure that while he was playing basketball, he
looked over at me and gave me the thumbs up and shouted "stress!!!"
approvingly.
I could feel myself getting used to the mental attitudes
that bring success, such as not allowing the mind to wander to the subject
of annoying persons, not feeling angry with annoying persons,
concentrating, playing conservative.
I could feel myself improving in my ability to relax and
enjoy myself despite the constant scorekeeping and
the consistency-oriented humdrum nature of what is required to get a
high score using the scoring methods I am using.
I may have not attained new heights of percentage gold
this evening, but I was glad to notice that the proper attitude and
relaxed enjoyment were beginning to become second nature to
me.
I could feel in the voices of the boys on the court, the
reflection of these two poems, one on virtue and the other on sin, that I
had written that I have been emailing out to people like famous athletes
who play a big role in the lives of such boys. The boys out on the courts
this summer evening sounded well educated, gentlemanly,
virtuous.
And I was thinking, we teach these boys virtue, we
improve them as human beings, and at the same time these "powers that be"
work to deprive such boys of their food supply. I say let us not screw
things up so bad that these boys end up not having enough to eat.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Or one might say, Man shall not live by the world of God alone, but
by bread also.
You can check out my page on current and all-time all-world soccer or
football teams at:
|
replique |
bounce top of head to a couple inches below breast |
|||||||||||||||
8/10/06
Thursday
830-945 PM
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA |
WCO6
SLEEP DEPRIVED
JULY 26 BEST SEGMENT EVER 87%
(INDOORS)
AUGUST 10, NEW BEST SEGMENT EVER 89% AUGUST 5, BEST FIRST SEGMENT
76%
AUGUST 10 NEW BEST FIRS SEGEMENT 89% AUGUST 4, BEST TOTAL PERCENTAGE
77%
AUGUST 10, NEW BEST TOTAL PERCENTAGE 82% gold/attempts,
gold+silver/attempts for each segment
1st 45 mins
Slant-12-6-forwardfoot-straight(S126FF)
start
17/19 89%
18/19 95%
2nd 45 mins
Slant-12-6-outfoot-forward (S126OF) start
14/19 74%
16/19 84%
TOTAL
31/38 82%
34/38 89%
1ST 8 of practice:
7/8 87%
8/8 100% |
I slept only three hours instead of eight the night before, and the night before that it was two hours instead of eight. War dance between attempts
Prior to the workout instead of the usual 1-2 cups
coffee it was 1/2 cup coffee and 1/2 cup tea, plus tangerine juice and
fish oil pills, and a McDonald's hamburger.
No toons were playing in my head today, I did not drink
water or snack during the practice.
I started out not having played with the ball, basically
not having touched the ball (touching it to move it somewhere or simply to
mark of some theoretical distance does not count) in 24 hours, and hit the
first five attempts as golds.
About this time I heard a voice from this group of
hispanic teenagers who were watching me, sitting on a concrete bench on
the inner side of the fence surrounding the basketball courts. The male
young-adult voice said: "Ehhh...Maradona". His tone of voice was one
of scorn and contempt for Maradona. Most of the soccer world thinks
Maradona is one of the eleven best players of all time, one of the three
best forwards of all-time!
There I was, being spoken of as excelling Maradona, I
had hit the first five in a row as golds, I felt tired, it was hard to
resist the temptation to just relax too much while making the attempts
with the result of errors. But I only missed twice from them on in
this first 45 minutes.
Thus I concluded with by far the
best percentage ever on a first half, 89% gold.
The second half percentage was 74%, this was a good
percentage looking at my personal history, for a sleep deprived
state second 45 minutes. It got really hard to keep concentrating on each
attempt, I would relax too much things would go wrong...the outdoor air
blowing through the trees, the pleasant temperature and humidity, the
Garden of Eden like basketball court surrounded by trees and lawn, in a
neighborhood I spent years in, a neighborhood where I've heard a few
beautiful women "do", a neighborhood that reminded me of past years that
were more innocent than the present time seeing that for the past twenty
years things keep getting worse--a neighborhood where I was blissfully
ignorant compared to the way I am now--it was all too beautiful and
relaxing, there were some attempts that did not get gold, but still no
long losing streaks, the longest losing streak in the second 45 minutes
was two silvers in a row that did not attain to gold.
About half way through this second half I was watching
these dark skinned black teenage basketball players who spoke with
American accents but looked African who were playing a game next to me.
One of them looked at the others and said with a
judge-rejecting-the-plaintiff demeanour, "Diego..." as he scornfully shook
his head. I knew what he was saying is that Diego is not in the same class
I am in.
I suppose if they think of me as excellling
"Maradona...Diego", the reason the boys at the court often almost
behave as if I was not there, is that they figure superstars like me are
easily annoyed and will desert the playground if given too much
attention.
Incidentally a few years back I had a dream that one day
people would be saying of me that I am a better player than Diego
Maradona. But I did not take the dream seriously. I had been trained to
think of dreams as merely wish fulfillment, and I was already at an age
that would be held against me in the youth-crazed world of pro
soccer.
I enjoy playing on this tree lined outdoor basketball
court in the cool air of night. These paradisical little basketball courts
oases are one of the successes of society and it is a disaster when
they become unuseable due to the presence of delinquents and
gangsters.
Going back to the old neighborhood, Moody &
High, in south Waltham (South of Main St) makes me more aware of
how the landlords out on the other side of Waltham I now am on, in North
Waltham (north of Main St) , are more demanding, and of how the people at
the YMCA out in north Waltham are more aloof than the south Waltham
playground people, differences like that. In North Waltham the distances
are greater, the architecture is more modern, the population density
lesser, the people more aloof and formal etc etc.
I feel like a fool for not having spent more time in my
old neighborhood simply because I had to move to the other side of town.
I love breathing in the cool outdoors night air as it
blows through the trees. Too bad there are these jerks who pollute
the air and then hide inside air filtered habitats and laugh at the
outdoors loving people getting sick.
Looks like the total percentage is moving at an
improvement of about
0.7% per day meaning I can expect to get from 82 to 95
in 19 more days. This does not take into account that I expect improvement
to accelerate as the start is decided upon and standardized.
The numbers show that me having become alarmed and
concerned about the percentage on the very first attempts has paid off
with dramatic improvement in the percentage on the first few
attempts.
Weird in my mind, that I should be thought of as
outshining Maradona, and at the same time the only jobs I can land, are
jobs that exhaust me physically and mentally to the point where I have no
time and energy and money for things in which people think I can excel
such as sports, poetry, essays, audio, video, and web programming to name
a few.
Today again somehow the inner thoughts inside of me,
exaggerated in my mind, the extent to which I was failing to impress while
performing. Today in the first half, there were 8 impressive golds and in
the second half also 8 impressive golds. Impressive is less than
spectacular; I was conserving my energies for consistency as opposed to
expending them on spectacularity. The onlookers nevertheless were
impressed. Today there were only 8 attempts that ended up as spectacular.
If I count an attempt as spectacular I count it as impressive
also.
HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN
The beauty is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty
fallen!
Tell it not, publish it not in the streets; lest the daughters of
the foolish rejoice, lest the daughters of the profane
triumph.
Ye mountains, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain,
upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is
vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed
with oil.
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow
of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in
their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they
were stronger than lions.
Ye daughters, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with
other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel.
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle! O Jonathan,
thou wast slain in thine high places.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast
thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of
women.
How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!
|
Replique |
Bounce from about head to two inches below
breast |
|||||||||||||||
8/11/06
Friday
9-945 PM
Waltham Y Pool |
SWIMMING BREAK
AND REVIEW
SLEEP DEPRIVED
3 HRS SLEEP NIGHT BEFORE
|
Swam 1200 yds in 44.5 minutes, alternating 50 breast and
50 crawl.
After 3 nights in a row in which I got only 2, then 3, then again only 3 hours of sleep, I decided to go swimming. Seemed I was sleeping better when I would sometimes go swimming, seemed such did not interfere with performance, but rather it seemed swimming breaks taken at the right time can lead to improvements in soccer or football performance. If you like swimming breaks and reward yourself with swimming breaks for good performances, this is a way of psychologically conditioning yourself to succeed. I would guess that the sleep deprivation problem is
overall inhibiting rather than enhancing my soccer performance, though I
suppose at certain stages it could have had an enhancing effect on the
learning curve. Seems sleep deprivation might actually help first
half performance, but coincident with the sleep deprivation I have
carefully studied concentrated on and solved certain first 45
minutes related problems.
Second halfs are low in a sleep deprived state. I
realize the mortals of the type I am surrounded with will be quick to
seize upon my sleep deprived tired demeanor as proof of their superiority
as an employee--the fact remains that even when sleep deprived I excel
most mortals in this WC06 exercise which is a combination of body and
mind, without being focused on strength, aerobic endurance, or sprinting
without the ball running speed.
It coes take a certain kind of endurance to stand or run
out on the court for 90 minutes, making 45 attempts at doing something
which requires alot of mental concentration/attention, and extreme
quickness and precision physically using a body that is in the end
controlled by a mind.
I believe the slow rise in the total for day percentages
is deceptive because insomnia has been reducing the second half
scores. My personal best for a first half jumped from 76% August 5 to 89%
on sleep-deprived August 10. That is 2.6% per per day by
simple math.
At the same time the sleep deprived second half
percentages of 52, 68 and 74 on August 7, 9 and 10, were
way below my personal best for a second 45 minutes, 86% July 26 indoors.
These three days the average percentage second half was 65 only due to the
sleep deprivation but I gradually improved in my ability to handle the
sleep deprivation.
When well rested the second half is usually at least as
good as the first half.
So if when well rested I can manage 90% for 1st
and 2nd, at 2.6% a day I would only have to go on another couple of days
to get to 95% average, when this is consistent I can go on to the next
drill.
But 82% total is good enough to get the teenage boys
thinking of me as better than Maradona--this is a variable value for the
soccer playing computer program that I have sort of become. Could be, we
understimate these Wiley-Coyote-like teenage boys. The African and Latin
ones know alot about soccer. Boys pay alot of attention to spectator
sports.
95 is 16 percent greater than 82 my total percentage
August 10, the day I received the Acclamation of the Troops as a
greater-than-Maradona value for the glorious variable in the program that
I am. Suppose the average soccer/football player when mounting an
individual offensive effort, succeeds in that the effort results in his
team scoring a goal, four percent of the time. Suppose the 'god'
that I will be when I am at a consistent 95% in WC06, produces a goal for
his team on ten percent of his individual offensive efforts (these efforts
could culminate in a team-mate scoring a goal). If at 95% rate
on WC06 I am a ten percenter, then at 80% WC06 I would be an eight
percenter, still twice as good as the average player.
The fact of the matter is that both the average world
class player in world class competition and also myself when I attain so
to speak 'god-hood' in soccer, have this in common: we both usually fail
to get a goal for our team with our attempts. By the sheer force of
probability both me and them will get our share of lucky situations when
it is easier to score a goal than it is using the WC06 type of
maneuver.
Next I plan to test out a couple of starts as yet
officially untested:
F126FF
F1260F |
|||||||||||||||||
8/13/06
Sunday
830-945 PM
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA |
WC06
gold/attempts,
gold+silver/attempts for each segment
NEW PERSONAL BEST FOR TOTAL
PERCENTAGE FOR DAY 85%
1st 45 mins
Forward-12-6-forwardfoot-forward(F126FF)
start
17/20 85%
18/20 90%
2nd 45 mins
Forward-12-6-outfoot-forward (F126OF) start
12/14 86%
13/14 93%
TOTAL
29/34 85%
31/34 91%
1ST 8 of practice:
7/8 87%
7/8 87% |
Yesterday I did nothing, no swimming, no soccer, and
finally got about 7 hours of sleep. Day before after the swimming, it was
yet again only about 3 hours of sleep.Seems I have to work out very hard,
or not work out at all, if I want to be able to sleep well. Then maybe I
just naturally now sleep more than four hours once every three of four
days. No use convincing myself that I am disabled by fatigue if I
have just entered a stage in life in which I just sleep less.
Things turned out as I had predicted on August 10. The
first half was a high percentage, and then the second half also was a high
percentage because I was not so sleep deprived.
Thus today was a new record for total percentage for the
day, 85%.
Today I again noticed that some muscular tension in the
body at the start of an attempt is useful--the presence of muscular
tension does not necessarily coincide with an excess of mental tension.
Today I noticed that getting the body into the first movement of an
attempt, crouching down a little on the first kick of an attempt, appears
to improve things. Such is by no means necessary for the first move, yet
the fact such is not necessary does not mean it is not an improvement. One
of these days I'll have a chance to officially statistically test this
official crouch type start vs a standing straight up type start, until
then seems a good idea.
Today I noticed that I have this mental attitude
problem, in that once I get a high percentage going, I begin to fail to
enjoy the practice, because I just wish that it would be over, so that I
can go home and boast about my high percentage. Thus there are too few
attempts, too little joy.
But part of the reason there were so few attempts in the
second half was that I had to take off my socks and rub some lotion on my
feet because they itched.
Today again I did this skipping dance in between
attempts. It looks like an American Indian War dance, it mimics my
movements with the ball. I have been doing this war dance in between
attempts ever since August 7.
Today from 820 PM to 847 PM, 27 minutes, these four
black and/or hispanic young adults(I could not see their faces clearly in
the darkness of the car they were in) stared intently at me the whole
time in complete silence. They were in a car, a blue sedan, parked on
the street outside the fence of the basketball court, I'd end my attempts
about 8 yards away from them.
The four black and or hispanic adults in the car,
had their faces pointing directly at me the entire time they were
parked there, even though the car seats were pointing off to my right.
They had one of the car doors open. It was as if they were looking at a
ghost or a god. They made no noise, their their eyes were wide open
and big.
While they watched I scored 10 golds out of 10 attempts.
Seems I only choke when watched when there is some fear of being mugged.
Seems I actually do better when watched--the more watchers and the more
closely watched the better.
They the four people in the car, sat there
transfixed the entire time, but only two of the golds that they watched
were spectacular, and none of these golds met my criteria for what I call
'impressive' (but not spectacular) when I score how many are
'impressive'.
See, it is a semantic matter, and a matter of high
standards, alot of the attempts are in the eyes of spectators fascinating
and impressive though I do not call them 'impressive' in the scoring
lingo I use here. That does not mean the attempts are literally not
impressive just that I do not score them as in the "impressive" category.
What I mean by "impressive" as I use the word is especially
impressive from my own jaded point of view.
Today there were approx 10 spectacular golds and 11
impressive golds (a spectacular gold is a cut above an impressive one but
a spectacular one also counts as an impressive one.
Today After practice I was at the Exxon on Main St. in
Waltham, run by the greek guy George. I was telling him about how I
impress people so much in soccer, he was amiably scoffing about my age
which he estimated to be 40. He said that it was simply a matter of
"physics" that older people cannot compete with younger ones in soccer. I
tried to explain to him that despite my age I had speed, quickness, a
strong shot, skill, that soccer was not as aerobic as people think, that
players like Cruyff considered one of the best three forwards ever, and
others, smoked one or more packs of cigarettes a day. George
encouraged me to keep practicing. When I told him what I do when I
practice his eyes got wide, he got an astonished look on his
face.
|
Replique |
med soft,
ball bounced when dropped from right above head, to four
inches below chest(measured from top most part of ball touching body when
ball pressed to body after being caught at apex of
bounce) |
|||||||||||||||
8/14/06
Waltham Y Pool
845 PM-945 PM |
SWIMMING BREAK
2000 yds swum in 60 minutes.
Alternating 50 yds crawl 50 yds breast
|
This swimming performance would have been faster were it not for the fact that the water in the pool was so hot. In the morning I had Hannaford Supermarkets brand
multi-grain or 12 grain bread with Bread & Circus slash
Whole Foods Markets peanut butter and the Durkee-mower Marshmallow Fluff
spread on the bread. I had two of these. I was impressed with how
much energy these two "fluffernutter" open sandwiches gave me.
The peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwich is an
old staple, what we have here is the most advanced, organic purest
version of an old staple.
Implication: inexpensive and simple shortcut to health:
simple old staples but using the newer purer more "organic" more
expensive ingredients.
There is a water fountain by the pool side where I swam
tonight, next to the water fountain, there is a thing that looks just like
a water fountain, but is not, which is called a "spittoon".
I spat in the spittoon box in the wall instead of
into the box in the wall next to it where the water fountain is , and
instead of into the pool, which is what a man is supposed to do--and the
lifeguard, a young white female of medium build and height with straight
brown hair, criticized me for doing this!
This lifeguard, was under the impression that the
spittoon, is some kind of open air plumbing device where the water for the
water fountain is processed an recycled! I explained to her that the whole
purpose of the spittoon, which was in the wall next to the water fountain
which was a metal box in the wall, and which looked like a twin
of the box with the water fountain, was that people should spit into a box
different than the box the water fountain was in.
She insisted that the spittoon, which actually in
reality was made specifically for the purpose of spitting into, was
an open to the air and visible device used to recycle the water that
came out of the water fountain! She had large bird like eyes that
resembled Linda Skinner's eyes.
This really struck me as incredibly weird and strange,
because there is no reason that the plumbing devices that reprocess and
recycle and clean the water, should be open to the air and open to the
eye, and situated in a metal box in the wall that looks just like the
water fountain metal box in the wall next to it.
She muttered under her breath with a knowing look, "this
is not good". Seemed to me that she was one of millions that Linda Skinner
has infected with ideas such as people should be evil because the world is
not good. Seemed as if the problem was that Linda Skinner was too
effective at indoctrinating people with wrong
doctrines.
Fact of the matter is, that when all the scriptures
advising people to be "good" were written, even then, the world was not a
good place. So then how can these wise-in-their-own-eyes people, blythely
assume that the scriptures that advise us to be good, should now in this
present world be disregarded or reversed, simply because the
world is not good?
My personal opinion now also is, (these are personal
opinions not facts) that this Linda Skinner (adie from her admirable
qualities) has been spreading the notion that the proper
interpretation of scripture is that the main thing is that people should
love themselves.
False. The command love thy neighbor as thyself is a
17th century english translation of an ancient Hebrew colloquiallism.
The love thy neighbor as thyself command is not advising
emotional self love or behavioral selfish self-centeredness. It is
advising that we should seek for our neighbor, the things that we seek for
ourselves.
The words in the scriptures that are translated as
"love", according to scholars often in their original sense actually
meant behavioral helpfulness more than they meant emotion of
some kind.
The whole incident reminded me of the time that I spit
into the spittoon outside of the gym, that also was situated next to its
twin water fountain. The black guy at the desk down the hall, thought that
I had spit into the metal box in the wall that the water fountain was in.
He expressed his indignation albeit politely and mildly. I explained to
him that I had spat into the spittoon not the water fountain. This
satisfied him. He was smart enough to realize that the purpose of the
spittoon box in the wall was so that people would spit into it and not pit
somewhere else.
These are tough times for me. I wonder, am I doing
too well at soccer?
Last night I had a dream, that: I was out on some road
where there were bikes and pedestrians but no cars during daylight
hours; there was a tall blond young man on a bicycle riding around;
the word was that I was supposed to let some guy named "Mister
Gardner" assassinate me, and that I would be misbehaving if I did not
meekly allow him to assassinate me. I was sitting on the sidewalk leaning
against a wall, I did not know what to do.
In real life "Mister Gardner" is this man who works for
the landlord and who gave me real harsh reports on the cleanliness of
my apartment; he was real offended by stuff like papers in the wastebasket
where they belong, empty coffee bag wrappers on the desk (there are few
things cleaner than empty coffee bag wrappers).
I visited the Baptist church this Mr.
Garnder goes to once.
These baptists should learn to take wise criticism like
a man, and admit that alot of them are wrong to say, that it does not matter what a man does so long as he has faith.
They should take it like a man, and admit that the truth
is that alot of them foolishly have made a God out of their own personal
interpretation of some hard to understand scripture.
As for me, what is important to me, is this: what is in
God's mind regarding what this scripture should mean to modern
man?
Once I emailed some Gardner museum or something in honor
of the fact that my apartment was being inspected by a "Mr. Gardner", I
sent them a couple of poems I had written.
|
|||||||||||||||||
8/15/06
Waltham Y Pool
845 PM-945 PM |
SWIMMING BREAK
2000 yds swum in 55:55, alternating 50 yds crawl 50 yds breast
|
Decided to go
swimming again, sleep has been about 60% of what it should be last couple
nights.
Swam 2000 yds alternating 50 breast and 50 crawl in
55:55. This was 4:05 better than yesterday's time. Best as I can
recall, I would have to get down to about 26:40 to be at world record
pace. The water was 85 degrees according to the Y, but it seemed
hotter than 85 degrees to me and I'm sure I would have gone significantly
faster if the water had been cooler. It get's to the point where you feel
like you are running a marathon in humid 90 degree heat and gasping for
breath.
For about half an hour while I was in the pool, this
young white adult male who works at the pool and one or two other people
were standing by the edge of the pool where the lane I was swimming ends,
watching me; and the female white teenager lifeguard with black hair and
glasses with thick black rims, was sitting in a chair right by where the
lane I was swimming in hits the edge of the pool, as opposed to the normal
place for a lifeguard on a chair.
I think I heard the white guy who works at the pool say,
"that's a good swimmer". After the workout I was thinking to myself, that
watching me swim must be as exciting as watching a special new paint dry,
that dries at twice the speed of normal paint...I thought of the boring
sporting events that I suspect are watched by people because these people
who watch these events are themselves boring people, and so boring people
end up getting glorified by advertisers TV stations etc. as something
really exciting.
Then again I suppose that people who are into swimming
can get something out of watching a good swimmer swimming slowly. I figure
with time I will be at age group world record speed in at least one
event.
It just gets to the point, where I dread the stress of
soccer practice. You think it is easy to get to the point where people
think of you as better than say the third best forward of all
time, and stare at you for half an hour as if they were looking at a
ghost? Lots of men have what it takes physically to be as good
as me at soccer. It's to a large extent mental. It's
developing extreme quickness combined with extreme precision combined with
extreme consistency--it is not speed or brute strength, the quick precise
movements of the body are controlled by the mind, and by the eye feeding
information to the mind.
It gets to the point where my mind feels like the
drugged mind in the anti-drug commercial, which showed an egg frying,
while the macho goody goody teenager male voice said, "this is your mind
on drugs".
I think as opposed to days without soccer, maybe what I
need is days on which I do not count meaning keep score of the results of
the attempts. I think I need to put some time and effort into making some
improvements in my non-soccer non-sports life, which I feel will result in
the soccer practices being less stressful for me.
But I realize how an hour of stressful scored practice
can be worth more than four hours of relaxed unscored practice, and I
realize how an hour of the stressful practice may be more
fatiguing for the mind and body than three hours of relaxed
unstressful practice.
|
|||||||||||||||||
8/30/06
Basketball courts at Moody & Underwood Waltham
MA
355-555 PM |
NOT SCORED
WC06 |
Lost 15 days of practice. Funny how a couple of days off
turns into five days off which turn into 8 days off which turn into 12
days off before you even know what happened.
Problem was that in the heat of August, attempting to
scrimp and save on my electricity bill, I could not sleep at night because
of the heat. The brilliant state of Massachusetts electricity comes from,
believe it or not, oil, and oil has been expensive.
Then it took me a while to get my schedule straight,
waking and going to sleep at the right time, and while I was straightening
out the schedule I felt tired.
All I can say is that a little knowledge regarding how
to maintain a steady sleep wake circadian rhythm routine, would well be
worth the time energy and money invested in acquiring such
knowledge.
Today I was working on testing out my theory that
crouching a little at the start would improve things. After today's
practice my feeling is that a slight crouch at the start might produce
improvement, once I get used to the new method of crouching slightly at
the start. Too much of a crouch is unworkably akward.
Not keeping score I was up to about 45 attempts per 45
minutes instead of 20 attempts per 45 minutes. This because there no time
spent keeping score, no time spent concentrating between attempts, no time
spent doing the war dance to keep myself loosened up between attempts.
Just off to the races.
By the end of today's two hour practice I felt I had
improved more from the practice than I do when I keep score.Right now I
think that some pf the practices should be scored and some unscored. When
the practices are scored: there is more time lapsed between attempts which
more approximates actual game conditions; the ability to handle game type
stress is developed.
But when the practices are not scored, I find after a
while I begin to develop that god-like ability (I have always desired to
have) to blythely sail along accomplishing great things with
ease without having to bother with concentrating hard or getting
un-relaxed. By the end of the practice today I was achieving spectacular
results on attempts without concentrating hard, or getting stressed
out.
The first 20 minutes today a couple of hispanic
guys on a park bench stared at me intently. This sort of surprised me
because to my jaded way of thinking, my performance was rusty, sub-par,
seeing I had not practiced for two weeks.
Then this elderly guy walked out on to the court
inquiring if I was Spanish. He began talking about Pele's bicycle kick
shots (maybe I reminded him of Pele), the great stamina of soccer players,
how big the soccer field is. I told him that I saw no bicycle kicks in the
world cup, probably because players have decided that the time and energy
it takes to develop proficiency n the bicycle kick is better invested in
other pursuits.
Towards the end of practice this hispanic guy who bore a
faint resemblance to the Satanist mass murderer Ramirez walked up to me to
invite me to shoot baskets with him. I told him the truth, I had to go to
meet my father for dinner. But hey, this friendly hispanic guy reminded me
of normal people, the white "massholes" do not remind of me normal people,
they are never friendly or sociable.
|
Replique |
Inflated to 11.0 psi |
|||||||||||||||
8/31/06
315-600 PM
Waltham YMCA
Indoor gym |
WC06
UNSCORED |
The first move in a run has three components. I started
out today with my body in a slight crouch as opposed to straight upright
on all three components of this first move. I wasn't keeping score but I
got the feeling that such is superior to being straight upright on all
three components as I was prior to August 30.
Then I tried: upright on the first
two components but crouched on the third; upright on the first component
but slightly crouched on the last two components of the first move; and
upright on all three components which is the approach I have the most
experience with.
Thus the possible combinations on the first move, with
U=upright and C=crouched, are:
(already tried out)
CCC
UUU
UUC UCC
(not already tried out)
CUC
CCU
CUU
UCU
Hard to tell until a new method is gotten used to, which
is the best.
Right now I feel the most comfortable with the CCC. But
this might have to do with the fact that today the first method I tried,
while I felt the freshest, was the CCC.
It would be wise to figure out which method works the
best and to standardize, try to use this super-method as much as possible
in games.
However, my feeling now is that anyway in practice it
builds up ability to spend some time using every method. Also in a
game you are not always in a position to use your pet method.
Today there were plenty of excellent impressive runs,
more than yesterday. Today I could tell returning to indoor practice
comparing my performance to the way I was yesterday, that I have
significantly improved compared to how I was last time I was indoors at
the Y.
Seems that practicing without keeping score helps to
develop a natural, effiicient, relaxed, physical-and-mental-energy
efficient style.
The first three components of the first move are worthy
of the attention I am giving them, because: a run or attempt is like a
tree, when the first move on a run/attempt is off this effects every
subsequent move; and because the first move is part of every attempt while
for example the seventh move plays a role in only a fraction of attempts
and such seventh moves are usually there for show to impress people and
would not actually be performed in a game.
I confess I have been giving insufficient attention to
detailed analysis of the first move because: the first move is relatively
unglamorous and boring; mistakes on the first move seem to be merely
psychological as opposed to technical and methodological since
theoretically the first move is the easiest part of a
run/attempt.
Today there were plenty of persons sharing the gym with
me, the usual mix of East Asian adults and their children, and white
adults and their children. "It was the night before Christmas and all
through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse". I
executed plenty of impressive runs but none of the people in the gym with
me let on that they noticed me.
If I had been doing what I did today outdoors at one of
the playground basketball or tennis courts, there probably would have been
verbal compliments, people in cars staring for a half hour, that kind of
thing. It is a different kind of person out there as compared to at the
YMCA.
I take refuge in the Lotus feet of the notion that the
folks in the gym are secretly impressed but don't want to drive me away by
"annoying" me with comments and stares.
|
Replique |
10.6 psi, measured before practice. |
|||||||||||||||
9/1/06
335-600 PM
Waltham Y gym |
WCO6
UNSCORED |
There are 9 horizontal take-off variations, and the 8
crouch/upright variations.
Today I did:
UUU, using the BCDE with right out horizontal
placements. The runs were good, the starts not as good as CCC
CUU, using ABCD and E w/ right out horizontal
placements. This worked out surprisingly well, right now it seems to be a
shade worse than CCC, better than UUU
CCU, using ABCD and E w/ right out horizontal
placements. This now seems to be at the bottom amongst the vertical
variation possibilities, a shade better than UUU. But it was working out
pretty well towards the end of the 55 minutes I devoted to learning
it.
Today there were lots and lots of spectacular
technically almost perfect runs. There were alot more of these super-runs
today than there were yesterday and there were more yesterday than the day
before. Today it seemed I showed more improvement compared to the previous
day than I ever have.
There is something to be said for the mode of practice I
have been using, which has been 50 minutes using certain vertical pattern
on the first move (UUU CCC etc), with 10 of these 50 minutes going to five
different horizontal start possibilities in conjuction with the given
vertical setup.
If I keep improving at this rate there will be no hope
for the entire world, in terms of competing with me. And I know that when
I know exactly which combination of vertical specs and horizontal specs
works the best on the first move, my improvement will
accelerate.
Problem was, today the gym was absolutely empty the
entire time, except for about five or ten minutes during which three or
four females passed through. Nobody saw the god that I was
today.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi, measured before practice. |
|||||||||||||||
9/2/06
Peter Gilmore Playground basketball courts
corner of Lowell and High
425-655
150 minutes |
WC06 unscored |
Weather was 63 degrees, winds 17 mph gusting to 23
mph.
Suddenly the melancholia of fall upon us, just a few
days ago it was too hot. It's always too hot or too cold around
here.
Today seemed I did not do as well as yesterday but such
is to a large extent the way things seem because: performance is impaired
by the uneven concrete surface, the strong winds, the sweatpants and
sweatshirt (not used to such) worn due to the cold. In the wide open
spaces of the outdoors 15 yds seems a shorter distance than it does
indoors, thus accomplishments seem lesser. The wind was so strong that the
ball kept getting blown away preventing me from initiating runs. I had to
start the runs with the ball in a shallow depression in the concrete
surface of the basketball court.
The first segment today: 50 minutes using the UCU
vertical set up, this 50 minutes broken up into 10 minutes each for
horizontal setups A-E with right foot out. My conclusion was that as of
now, I consider the UCU vertical pattern at the start to be awkward, maybe
even worse than UUU. This is because going from upright to a crouch to
upright again, up down up, is clumsy, it is annoying the way having to sit
down and get up and sit down again in church is annoying.
The second segment today: 50 minutes using the
CUC vertical set up, this 50 minutes broken up into 10 minutes each
for horizontal setups A-E with right foot out. My conclusion again was
that as of now, I consider the CUC vertical pattern at the start to
be awkward, again maybe even worse than UUU. This is because
going from a crouch to upright to a
crouch again, down up down, is like UCU clumsy, again it is
annoying the way having to sit down and get up and sit down again in
church is annoying.
The third segment today: 50 minutes using the
CCC vertical set up, this 50 minutes broken up into 10 minutes each
for horizontal setups A-E with right foot out in combination with the
vertical CCC. My conclusion again was that as of now, I consider
this CCC vertical pattern to be far superior to the CUC and the
UCU.
Today there was nobody out on the courts but me. Massachusetts is
that kind of place, a storm less than half as severe as the kind of storm
Chicago keeps on running in, shuts everything down here. I was glad
actually that there was nobody there to watch, because I was using these
clumsy awkward vertical setups in the three phases of the first move. But
one guy across the street stared for a while anyway.
Funny how on the days when it is too cool/windy (wind chill) for the
boys to play basketball, there is also missing the people in the cars who
park to stare at me.
But at least progress is being made to getting to the point where I
will know exactly which horizontal and vertical setups work the best on
the opening three components of the crucial first move.
But even after I know which vertical setup works the best, and which
horizontal setup works the best, I will split my practice time between
concentrating on what works the best and dabbling in the various other
approaches. Practicing the inferior approaches has value the
same way free-weights, with every lift done slightly differently, excels a
machine where everything is done exactly the same all the time. In the
real world, due to various factors, you end up having to deal with diverse
situations and practicing all the different vertical/horizontal combos
prepares you for this. Once you become competent using an awkward clumsy
method, it gets hard to screw up using the best method. |
Replique |
10.1 psi measured. Ball pressure went down from 10.1 before yesterday's
practice to 9.4 before todays practice so I had to inflate the ball
somewhat prior to starting. |
|||||||||||||||
9/3/06
Waltham Y Gym
325-555 PM |
WC06
unscored |
First, did 50 minutes using UUC vert setup, horiz setups 10 min each in combo with UUC, for A-E (R). This was awkward. The sudden shift from U or upright on the second component of the first move, to C or crouched on the crucial third component of the first move, resulted in too much inaccuracy on the third component of the first move. Second, did 50 minutes using UCC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UUC, for A-E (R). This was definitely
better than UUC/A-E(R) the first segment done today. It was also
significantly worse than my favorite at this point, CCC/A-E(R).
The D (R) horiz setup worked best with this vert
setup.
The next eight 50 minute segments will be using
the horiz setups A-E (S) as opposed to A-E (R).
Third, did 50 minutes using UUU vert setup, horiz setups
10 min each in combo with UUU, for A-E (S). This turned out alot better
than the last time I did UUU, which was with horizontal setups A-E(R). I
rate this UUU/A-E (S) I did today as coming in at at least a tie for
second place amongst all the vertical setups, second to the CCC/R
series. The question remains, why today's UUU/S series so excelled
the previous UUU/R series. Was it because this used the S type horiz
setups, or was it a general improvement in my UUU ability? UUU with S type
horizontal sets, is what I am most used to out of all the possibilities,
what I have always prior to time immemorial, before I started
experimenting with different vertical start sets.
It felt good to be back doing it. I felt relaxed and
confident doing it. Using this UUU vert S horiz, I found myself to be slow
but reliable, this relates to the fact that while using the UUU with S I
was scoring myself and pushing myself to extreme levels of
consistency.
I felt my performance had been impaired due to: drinking
40 oz of beer last night before dinner; spending time with my nutty
brother, who got me into the beer drinking
mentality;being called on the phone by
my nutty brother.
I felt I underestimated today's performance, because:
runs that in the past I would think of as above average, I now think of as
average, due to continual improvement.
Today I felt that my endurance had advanced a stage; for
the first time I had the energy to put in moves simulating actual-game
type moves tacked on at the end of alot of the WC06 runs I was making
today. The practicing 2.5 hours, unscored, produces approximately 150
runs in total; practicing 1.5 hours scored, produces 40 runs
total.
Today there was a young East Asian male shooting baskets
as I was getting ready to start my drills. He threw the basketball
baseball style from half court, the ball went in on a swoosh. I told him I
saw it. He was silent. As I began practicing he left. He had blue and red
shorts.
Then there were about four parent(s) child combos
featuring white families in the gym at various times while I was doing the
drills, plus a white boy about twelve shooting his orange and white soccer
ball against the wall; and there was this bespectacled bald dark South
Asian guy wearing a white T-Shirt who had his arms folded across his chest
the whole time as he watched his I guess daughter practice basketball. He
would unfold his arms whenever he had to retrieve the ball for his
daughter and then fold them again. None of these folks who shared the gym
with me said anything to me. It was depressing, there I was, being a
soccer god, a tiring trick to perform, and these people watching me said
nothing; plus they seemed absorbed in their own activities the whole
time.
I could tell today that my abilities in terms of the
drill I was working on before WC06, have improved dramatically from doing
WC06.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi measured. Ball was at 9.7 psi had to be
inflated. |
|||||||||||||||
9/4/06
Waltham Y gym
225-555 PM |
WC06
Unscored |
First, 50 minutes using CUU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CUU, for A-E (S). This was slightly
awkward. The shift from C or crouched on the first
component of the first move, to U or upright on the second
component of the first move produced a certain level of awkwardness, and
the second and third components of the first move being U or upright also
added a certain level of awkwardness. Overall this setup was at
about the 60th percentile amongst the various vertical setups, better than
about 60% of them. The D (S) horizontal setup worked well with
this vertical setup.
Second, 50 minutes using CCU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CCU, for A-E (S). This was worse than CUU
the first one done today, the sudden shift from C on the second component
to U on the crucial third component was awkward.
Third, 50 minutes using UCU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UCU, for A-E (S). This was approx
speaking, equal to the CUU done first today, and better than the CCU done
second today. It is a surprise that this kind of up and down yo yo like
motion should produce results better than CCU; but such rocking back and
forth motions are a natural part of human nature. The D (S) and E
(S) horizontal setups worked well with this vertical
setup.
Overall, the performance was similar to yesterday; what
I used to consider above average I now consider average, what I used to
consider spectacular I now consider merely good.
Remembering how people in their cars would stop and
stare for a half an hour the way I was a few days ago, I figure if they
saw me as I was today there would be a busload stopped for an hour. Part
of this is that it just seems harder to get spectacular outdoors. On
the other hand seems that since distances look smaller outdoors, you
accomplish great things over long distances because such does not seem
intimidatingly impossible.
Today at the end of a WC006 run, the ball was in the air
and I shot it at the wall ten yards away, using about two thirds of my
full strength, the ball hit the wall, bounced back about eight yards, and
then rolled another twelve yards into the metal bleachers where it got
wedged between the front row seat and the second row footrest. I tried to
pull the ball out from where it had gotten wedged and could not. I had to
hit it with my fist from the other direction to dislodge it. These shots I
take at the end of the WC06 runs are real rockets without any effort put
into them.
The whole gym was empty today, except for a tall guy
with a gray beard and glasses there for five minutes at the beginning, and
the South Asian basketball girl this time with her mother for ten minutes
at the end. Rate 1.2 attempts per minute.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi measured.
Had only lost 0.1 psi since yesterday.
|
|||||||||||||||
9/5/06
Waltham YMCA Gym
315-545
|
WC06 unscored
|
First, 50 minutes using CUC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CUC, for A-E (S). This rated as in
the bottom third amongst the verts. Especially good with E (S)
horiz setup.
Second, 50 minutes using CCC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CCC, for A-E (S). This rated as in
the top third of the verts. Not as good as CCC with A-E (R).
Especially good with A, E (S) horiz setups.
Third, 50 minutes using UUC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UUC, for A-E (S). This was above
average amongst verts not at the top. A nice upright euro-schoolboy style,
with a C for Crouch thrown in on the third component to add a touch of
soul. This one good on A (S) horiz setup.
Today again I experienced beer fatigue from approx 50 oz
of King Cobra (high alcohol content beer) yesterday. My nutty brother
informs me this is because King Cobra is a high alcohol content beer, a
couple of days ago he enthused about it now he is down on it.
Today I was at 1.0 attempts per minute yesterday it was
1.2 attempts per minute.
The gym was practically empty most of time.
The East Asian approx 10 year old boy, the one who had
stood at attention when I was running WC06 runs far inferior to what I did
today, carefull drue the huge blue plastic curtain that divides the two
sides of the gym, to the center point exactly on the basketball court, so
on one half there was nothing between the two sides of the gym and on the
other half, the side where I started my WC06 runs, the two sides were
divided by the huge blue curtain.
The Indian basketball girl and her mom showed up again
as in the previous couple of days, to use the side the E.Asian boy had
partially separated with the huge blue curtain.
Then on the other side of the gym, there was a bald
white man about in his thirties, playing basketball, listening to music
through these big head-sets. He could not see most of what I did because
the huge blue curtain marked off half of the line demarcating
the two halves of they gym he was on the other side.
He showed off the trick where you roll the ball up
behind your thigh and then heel it up over your head. I discussed with him
how none of the players actually use this trick in games. He said all
players have juggling tricks they use in games he was enthusing about
Ronaldinho's juggling tricks.
I was thinking to myself, that the juggling tricks I do
in practice, can be easily be done in games, they are designed to be
do-able in games, yet the other players never do the tricks I do in
practice in games. Why? Because they can't.
After this there were a couple of white females with white children,
playing on the other side with the huge inflatable toy palace. I exiting
the part of the gym blocked from their view by the huge blue curtain the E
Asian boy had half drawn out, performed a perfect run stretching out to 17
yds from the start. I looked at the white female adult near the toy
palace. I am sure she saw me perform my trick and she smiled at me. She
was a tad overweight. |
Replique |
10.1 psi measured
was down to 10.0 |
|||||||||||||||
9/6/06
Waltham Y Gym
735-945
|
WC06
unscored
|
First, 50 minutes using UCC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UCC, for A-E (S). This rated as at
the 60th percentile, better than 60% of the verts, worse than 40 percent
of the verts. Especially good with B (S) horiz
setup.
The next 8 sets will be using the (R) series
horizontal sets, with the order of the horizontal sets reversed from
A, B, C, D, E to E, D, C, B, A.
Second, 50 minutes using UUU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UUU, for E-A (R). This rated as at
the 40th percentile amongst the verts, better than 40 percent, worse than
60 percent.
Third, 30 minutes using CUU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CUU, for E-A (R). This rated
as approx the 90th percentile amonst verts, around second or third place.
Especially good with D and C (R) horiz
setup. The B and A remain to be done on this
vert. I felt more tired than I have at any time in the past
seven or so days. The temperature was 63 degrees, 93 percent humidity,
hotter in the gym than outdoors, humid in the gym.
Due to their last minute schedule changes, the practice
started 9 hours after I woke up instead of 4.5 hours after I woke up, this
significantly increased the fatigue level. I spent the afternoon freaking
out about a lost credit card that was actually hid in my wallet this tired
me. I've been drinking lemonade the past two or three days, lemonade is
sugar water and lemon basically it is not the same thing as fruit juice.
Yesterday I had 12 oz beer, and 6 oz wine, and a light rice and yogurt
veggie dinner. Whenever I drink in the evening my sleep is disrupted.
Donating social time to my garrulous sociable beer drinking brother seems
to tire me out I did this yesterday.
The fatigue actually helped in the sense that I wanted
to tack on some free form loosely structured stuff on to the end of the
WC06 runs, the fatigue actually helped me to break out of the pattern of
strictly adhering to the WC06 pattern the whole time.
Today I could not start practice until 730 PM because
some girls cheerleading group had rented the gym. There they were, must
have been a hundred twelve year old girl cheerleaders most of them were
white. They were all lined up in a long row stretching the length of the
gym in their crimson cheerleading bikini bottom outfits. Them in the line
seemed to symbolize a WC06 run, what I sensed in the air was that they
were aware of these WC06 runs. They reminded me of a bunch of chicks,
young female chickens...the gym was filled with the sound of their chirpy
good natured small talk.
I entered the gym at 730 PM the gym was still filled for
them, but there was empty space at one end enough for me to do my drill.
Seemed they expected me to do this drill in front of them. But I did not
want to get in trouble for disrupting their meeting that had now taken up
5 extra minutes of gym time. The teachers gave their final speeches, the
girls were officially dismissed, as they started leaving the gym I started
doing the runs. There were still plenty of them in the gym, seemed they
expected me to perform for them. The first couple of run attempts were
somewhat messed up, I had forgot the tricks that produce consistent
performance right from the beginning since I hadnt been keeping score for
a while. One of them said "He hasn't warmed up yet". Then the runs began
to become good and spectacular and I heard words like "There...he can do
that". I felt bad that I had to do the UCC vert format, not one of the
best and awkward at the beginning on the first few attempts, in front of
all those girls. But I have the policy of not allowing people being around
to disrupt my schedule of experiments.
Later this older tall white guy, balding, gray hair,
glasses, wearing a gray T shirt with the word "Yosemite" written on
it, was shooting baskets. I accomplished some spectacular WC06 runs while
he was there, he did not let on that he saw anything except he smiled at
me on the way out.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi measured
Was at 10.0 psi
|
|||||||||||||||
9/7/06
Waltham Y Gym
315-605 PM
|
WC06
Unscored
|
First, 20 minutes using CUU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CUU, for B and A (S). Comments for
this vert set are in yesterday's post.
The next sets will use the E-A (R) horiz setups,
this time the A (R) will actually use the R on the right foot previously
due to awkwardness the A in the (R) series was done with a (S) straight
right foot.
Second, 50 minutes using CCU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CCU, for E-A (R). This rated as at
the 65th percentile amongst the verts, better than 65 percent, worse
than 35 percent. Takes a little while to get used to this vert setup.
The movement on the first move with this vert setup is similar to the body
movement on the moves that come after move 1. Worked well with the
C and B (R) horiz setup.
Third, 50 minutes using UCU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UCU, for E-A (R). This rated as at
the 50th percentile amongst the verts, better than 50 percent, worse than
50 percent. It did not seem as good as UCU with the (S) series of
horizontals.
Fourth, 50 minutes using CUC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CUC, for E-A (R). This rated as at
the 60th percentile amongst the verts, better than 60 percent, worse than
40 percent. This worked very well when it was working well, is hard to get
used to. The C on the third component of the move is an advantage, I am
getting much better at this vert setup. Works especially well with
B (R) horiz set.
There is a problem with the percentage level estimates;
this has to do with the fact that I am constantly improving, there are 16
different vertical setups, I am always roughly speaking comparing the
current set being tested to the previous 16 I did, the current set has me
usually at a higher skill level than at any previous time.
Today there were about a dozen white kids and their I
suppose parents in and out of the gym. There was a stocky short white guy
with a beard, with his tall thin blonde I guess wife, and their I guess
kids. I was the only other guy in gym aside from this I guess family. The
stocky white bearded guy loudly said, after watching me, "You're a King".
I'm sure he was talking about me. The only other male in the gym was this
little boy off in the distance playing somewhere, the tone of voice was of
the type used to address a distant adult stranger. When he said "You're a
King", I heard the gloominess of a dark rainy day in his voice. It was as
if what he was feeling was "How depressing...He's a King and I am just a
commoner". Then again, the time during which a king rules is called a
"reign", which sounds the same as "rain" but is spelled
differently.
I was thinking, if I am a king, then the social and
economic conduct of the people around me with regards to me is tantamount
to regicide. Seems I only get jobs when the number of jobs open is not
less than the number of applicants. I keep trying to tell myself that I am
not living in an anti-christian homosexual environment that neglects and
persecutes me, but I can't get over the feeling that maybe the environment
I am in really is an antichristian homosexual
environment. |
Replique |
10.1 psi measured was down to 9.4. |
|||||||||||||||
9/8/06
Waltham Y gym
430-610 PM
| WC06 unscored |
First, 50 minutes using CCC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CCC, for E-A (R). This vert
performed the first ten attempts of the day very well on the difficult E
(R) horiz setup. Most of the first twenty attempts were good
despite the complete absence of warm-up playing with the ball. Did some
war dance pseudo-runs before first attempt. This vaunted CCC vert style
only seemed to be at 70% today, maybe because today it was the first set
of the day.
All except four of the 16 verts I have been cycling
through, have been verts involving changing from U to C or C to U during
the vert. I have gotten used to the changing when starting a WC06 run. The
CCC featuring no variation between upright and crouch on the first three
components in the first move, now seems to me to lack rhythm and
liveliness.
Second, 50 minutes using UUC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UUC, for E-A (R). This felt
rhythmic and lively compared to the previous set featuring the CCC vert
with everything crouched, all three components of the first move crouched,
and no variation. This vert setup involves being Upright on the first and
second components of the first move and crouched on the third. It
performed especially well with horiz setups B and C. The UUC this
time seemed to me to be at about 80%, better than 80% of the 16 possible
verts.
Today there were about half a dozen white adults and children in and
out of the gym while I was there. There were a couple of shirtless white
approx twelve year old boys playing basketball, I had the feeling they
were aware of my excellence but hiding said awareness.
|
|||||||||||||||||
9/9/06
Waltham Y gym
530-740 PM
|
WC06
unscored
|
First, 50 minutes using UCC vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UCC, for E-A (R). This vert
also like CCC yesterday performed the first ten attempts of the day very
well on the difficult E (R) horiz setup. It also did A
(R) well. I rated this vert at the 80th percentile amongst verts
this time.
The Waltham teen basketball league (blacks, a brown,
East Asians, Whites teenage boys) featured two teams involved in an
intense contest up to 530 PM on the gym floor. I had to get started at 530
PM to keep to schedule at this time there were still about a dozen coaches
and players from the teen basketball league hanging around on the court. I
feel lucky that this vert setup performed well on the first ten attempts,
with zero warm up attempts, in front of these stragglers from the Waltham
teen basketball league.
But I did do the war dance a few times before doing the
first WC06+ Runs.
None of these Waltham teen basketball
people said anything but the runs were consistently spectacular, 18
yds flying with the ball in the air keeping it close to the body with the
ball never touching the ground or the hands or the arm, with the first 10
or so yds done WC06 style and then some improvisation tagged on at the
end.
The next 8 vert sets will be done using the S
style of horiz setups.
Second, 50 minutes using UUU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with UUU, for E-A (S). This
vert performed well with the E, C, and B (S) horizontal
setups. I rated this vert at the 85th percentile amongst verts
this time. This time this vert was slow, slightly off from time to time,
but very consistent in terms of avoiding serious error.
Third, 30 minutes using CUU vert setup, horiz
setups 10 min each in combo with CUU, for E-C (S). This
vert performed well with the C, (S) horizontal
setup. I rated this vert at the 85th percentile amongst verts
this time. It takes time to get used to this vert, but when it works it
works well it works VERY WELL it produces perfect starts; and it is
consistent.
I am getting to the point where with every type of vert
start, there is almost never serious error, even on the first runs without
any warmup prior to the runs. This is a milestone for me that in the
past seemed an impossible dream.
The two previous days and today I have been working with
balls that bounce on the ground previously I would just abort the run when
a ball bounce conserving my energy for not allowing the ball to bounce in
the first place. I find so far regarding one bounce bounced balls: you can
kick the ball and then get it with the head or thigh; moving the ball from
whatever side of the body you are on to the other side of the body brings
the ball under control and off the ground well; sometimes the best you can
hope for is to kick the ball a couple of yds forward and then before it
hits the ground kick it again if you want to bring it under control while
keeping it in the air.
Yesterday I wanted to start chipping the ball up in the
air after I went ten yds forward with it after ending the WC06 pattern
part of the run. I kept telling myself mentally, to chip the ball up in
the air at the end of the run, but on every run I would forget to chip the
ball up in the air at the end of the run.
See, for the first at least 8 yds of the run, a WC06
pattern is adhered to, featuring the ball staying at a height somewhere
between the knee and the hip. What I was trying to tell my mind to do was
get the ball up to at least eight feet off the ground between kicks after
the first 8 yds. But it was as if my mind was a computer program too
absorbed in other things to remember to chip the ball up in the air after
I got 10 yds down the line.
I resolved the problem by telling my mind to chip the
ball up in the air on the 5th kick of the run (a run is running along
keeping the ball close to the body but off the ground, sometimes a WC06
pattern is adhered to during a run). For some reason it was much easier
for my brain to remember to chip up on the 5th kick of the run, than it
was to tell my mind to remember to chip up after 10 yds of the
run.
There were three white teenage males, all wearing either
red shirts or red shorts with the word Waltham in some context written on
it in the gym playing with a volleyball while I was doing the first
segment. They came back during the third segment today to play with a
basketball. They gave no indication that they noticed any excellence in
me. But one of them, this white kid around five feet seven not fully grown
yet wearing glasses and a baseball cap, lounging in the bleachers, looked
in my direction and said in a oud lazy way, "Yea...pop it up..." He was
noticing how I chipped the ball up after the first few yards of a run to
get it up to above head height between contacts with it.
The turning the flight into the high altitude for ball
pattern, is working well already, in terms of accuracy and in terms of
re-establishing control over the ball when it returns from the high
altitude.
There was also about a half dozen East Asians in the gym
in the third segment.
The way I felt about the silence from the people in the
gym while I was doing great things, reminded me of the way these people
who sympathize with Lebanon feel regarding what they consider to be too
much silence in the USA and in the world regarding what Israel did to
Lebanon militarily in the recent conflict.
My plan henceforth is to put some time into ground
dribbling. I thought I heard some voices of radio announcers saying I
should get into ground dribbling and how great I am at it.
But the world out there is sceptical and jealous, it is
easy for the world to dismiss my assertions re my ground dribbling skills
as merely hollow boasting. I feel I have to do the aerial acrobatics
to get it into the world's thick sceptical skull that I really am, the
greatest.
|
Replique |
10.1 measured
was down to 9.7 |
|||||||||||||||
9/11/06
Outdoor Basketball Courts,
Corner of Lowell and High,
Waltham MA
625 PM - 930 PM
| GROUND DRIBBLING DRILLS |
First, 20 mins G1 footwork pattern ground dribbling drill, steps not skips. Directional pattern variants a b c and d. Second, 20 mins G1 ground dribbling drill, skips not
steps. Directional pattern variants a b c and d.
Third, 15 mins G2 ground dribbling drill, steps not
skips. Directional pattern variants a b and c.
Fourth 15 mins G2 ground dribbling drill, skips not
steps. Directional pattern variants a b and c.
Fifth, 30 minutes left-footed attack on cones
representing feet of defender, attacking from left middle and right, using
random, G1, and G2 footwork pattern on approach, steps not skips. Attack
Options A B C and D.
Sixth, 30 minutes left-footed attack on cones
representing feet of defender, attacking from left middle and right, using
random, G1, and G2 footwork pattern on approach, skips not steps. Attack
Options A B C and D.
Seventh, 30 minutes right-footed attack on cones
representing feet of defender, attacking from left middle and right, using
random, G1, and G2 footwork pattern on approach, skips not steps. Attack
Options A B C and D.
Some extra time was spent on some of these segments
beyond what is listed above.
I have been imagining people saying I should keep the
ball on the ground, how good I am with the ball on the ground. So today I
returned to the ground game.
Temperature conditions were:
10:31 PM 9/11/2006
43 °F / 6 °C Clear Humidity: 93% Dew Point: 41 °F / 5 °C Wind: Calm Pressure: 30.35 in / 1028 hPa Visibility: 10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers UV: 0 out of 16 Clouds: Clear - (Above Ground Level) I felt under the weather, slight body ache, slight
cough, slight fever, slight fatigue. Why? My guess is that yesterday I
went to eat dinner with Mr. Schnapps, Mr. Schnapps and his wife offered me
a couple of glasses of wine at dinner time, but for me since I woke up
late, around 1 PM, I had not been awake long enough when I drank the
wine at 6 PM. So when I returned first I fell asleep for an hour and then
I could not sleep at night and felt fatigued, because I had not been awake
long enough before I drank the wine.
Today, I noticed how the outdoor basketball court is
inferior to an indoor basketball court or grass for playing soccer games
on. The outdoor basketball court surface concrete is not level, this
irregularity is compounded by the fact that the flat concrete surface
exaggerates the effects of level irregularities, effects that the slowing
inhibiting effect of grass helps to minimize.
It was apparent today that the lesson I learned doing
the WC06 air dribble drill, that skips can work better than steps when
keeping the ball under especially tight control, applies also to the groun
dribble.
G1 and G2 with skips excelled G1 and G2 with steps. With
the skips, there was better speed (tight ball control condition) sharper
side to side cuts, more liveliness, more fun, more style, more class, less
fatigue-ennui.
I never thought anyone would be fascinated by watching
my practice ground dribbling. But:
Tonight there was a pizza delivery guy from Moody St.
Pizza, a tall thin white clean shaven black haired Eastern European
looking guy, talking on a cell phone, staring at me for about five minutes
while I did the G1 using skips not steps, the cool way of doing it. I
think he would have watched longer than five minutes but I had to go take
a piss. Having to go take a piss was an unusually big problem today I had
to do it like three times, I think again because of the two to three
glasses wine yesterday. A real problem at the outdoors court at Lowell and
High where there is no public restroom and I don't want to get into
disrepute with the local bars.
This Pizza delivery guy watched me to do the G1 with
steps, He said, "that's good". It might have been my imagination but I
thought I also heard him say, disdainfully, "air...", expressing his
disdain for air-dribbling.
I can see how balance between ground and air is good,
but the air-scorners do not understand the value of the air attack I have
developed because it is new, less than 1/10,000 college or higher level
players are even near capable of it.
Fact is I have gotten to the point where I can use the
WC06 pattern to zoom in on a defender eight yards in front of me, on the
run, keeping the ball off the ground but close to my body, the ball
altitude being between ankle and knee, the ball always being close to my
left or right shoelaces, as if it was tied to my shoelaces. Then after
going eight yards this way like an attack helicopter, I can suddenly
transform into a faster fighter jet by shifting the ball altitude to six
feet or higher at the apex between times I kick the ball, to get the ball
above and over the defender. While I am the approach helicopter and
also after when I turn into the faster higher altitude jet, I keep the
ball close to my body and off the ground as I move forward with it at high
speed.
Another piece of wisdom I applied from the air dribbling
runs practices to the ground dribbling today, was to limit each practice
run to approx 15 yds. Alot of times even at "smart" high schools and
colleges what you will see is players practicing dribbling by dribbling
the ball sixty yards in a straight line. This is non-sense because in a
game, most of the dribbling runs will be far less than sixty yards in
length. The reality of it is that on a dribbling run or sprint, the
movements of the body are completely different on the first five yards, as
compared to the second five yards, or the third five yards or the fourth
15-20 yards segment. The way the body moves when you are coasting along
during yards 40-60 of a run or sprint is completely different from the way
the body moves during the the first five or ten yards of a dribbling run
or sprint.
Today I noticed that certain footwork patterns,
naturally lend themselves to certain directional movement patterns, and
that this can be taken advantage of, if the mind firmly understand what
kind of directional pattern a given footwork pattern will
produce.
For instance here is a diagram of a progression moving
from the start at the left to the end at the right of the page. First the
ball is kicked with the left foot to the right at an angle, then the ball
is kicked with the right foot continuing the same right-wards movement,
then it is kicked in a forward direction as opposed to continuing the
right-wards movement with the left foot, then it is kicked in a left
direction by the right foot, then it is kicked in a right direction by the
left foot. The ball is kicked every time the foot hits the ground on the
run. Since when moving to one's right and hitting the ball with one's left
foot it is hard to move the ball to one's left at this point the movement
is forward as opposed to to the left. The first position in Red leads to
the second red position by swing to the right of the end position and then
slightly to the left:
Left
O
Right
O Left O
Left O Right
O Right
O
Today I noticed that there is cause for hope regarding
learning how to execute the difficult ground dribble by the defender
maneuvers I use using my right foot instead of my left. The air dribbling
drills have resulted in me being much more ambidextrous than I used to be,
and in general I am quicker and more lithe and agile than I used to
be.
Today I noticed how the fund and glamor and glory of
air-dribbling drills allow you to expend more energy than you otherwise
would, help you to forget your fatigue, and the aches and pains in your
body, while you do the practice. By way of comparison when doing the
ground dribbling drill, you have nothing glamorous going on to take your
body and your mind off of the fatigue and the sore muscles.
But there is something fun about practicing ground
dribbling, because ground dribbling is something that all the fans and
coaches and gurus expect and look for as a part of a top-notch player's
repertoire, something they can all understand and relate to and
identify with.
Generally I noticed today that with the passage of time,
with the skill that comes with practice thinking about things like air
dribble drills, using the internet for doing programming, reading, and
writing, my general analytical ability when it comes to things like
footwork and direction in ground dribbling is stronger than it was a
few years ago.
For instance I never understood that when you touch the
ball with each step and zig zag every two steps, you can end up using
either just the left foot or just the right foot every time you change
direction.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi measured, was down to 9.4 psi before
inflation.
Just pressing your fingers on the ball you cannot tell
the difference between 9.4 psi and 10.1 psi. Both levels are what people
would call a "hard ball".
|
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9/12/06
Waltham Y Gym
515-850 PM
|
GROUND DRIBBLE
|
1. I used two red cones as markers representing a defenders right and left feet. The marker cones were set as if the defender's feet were fairly far apart. Starting from eight yards away from this mock defender, I moved towards him kicking the ball with both left and right feet or with just the LEFT foot, and then using the LEFT foot executed the a or the c variants of the four variants used when the ball is dribbled by a defender. Spent 15 minuted attacking cones from middle, 10 minutes from the left, and 10 minutes from the right. 2. I used two red cones as markers representing a
defenders right and left feet. The marker cones were set as if the
defender's feet were fairly far apart.
Starting from eight yards away from this mock defender, I moved
towards him kicking the ball with both left and right feet or with
just the RIGHT foot, and then using
the RIGHT foot executed the a or
the c variants of the four variants used when the ball is
dribbled by a defender. Spent 15 minuted attacking cones from middle,
10 minutes from the left, and 10 minutes from the right.
3. I used two red cones as markers representing a
defenders right and left feet. The marker cones were set as if the
defender's feet were close to each other. Starting
from eight yards away from this mock defender, I moved towards him kicking
the ball with both left and right feet or with just the
LEFT foot, and then using the LEFT
foot executed the b or the d variants of
the four variants used when the ball is dribbled by a defender. Spent 15
minuted attacking cones from middle, 10 minutes from the left, and 10
minutes from the right.
4. I used two red cones as markers representing a
defenders right and left feet. The marker cones were set as if the
defender's feet were close to each other. Starting from
eight yards away from this mock defender, I moved towards him kicking the
ball with both left and right feet or with
just the RIGHT foot, and then using
the RIGHT foot executed the b or
the d variants of the four variants used when the ball is
dribbled by a defender. Spent 15 minuted attacking cones from middle,
10 minutes from the left, and 10 minutes from the right.
While doing these four segments for a total of 140
minutes, I continually cycled through the following 9 variations of the 8
yd approach to the defender slash victim (the two red marker cones
symbolizing the defender slash victim's left and right feet): 1--free form
no requirement of foot-work or ball-work pattern; 2-free form only
requirement that there be no skipping of the feet (ie left foot hitting
ground twice before right foot hits ground); 3--free from only
requirement being that there be skipping involved; 4--touch ball on every
step, no skipping; 5--touch ball on every step, skipping on every step;
6--touch ball on every step, skipping on steps using the foot that will be
used to dribble past the defender; 7--touch ball on every step, skipping
on steps that do not use the foot that will be used to dribble past the
defender; 8--touch ball on every other step with the foot that will be
used to dribble past the defender, no skipping; 9--touch ball on every
other step with the foot that will be used to dribble past the defender,
skipping on every step; 10--touch ball on every other step with the foot
that will be used to dribble past the defender, skipping on the steps
using the foot that will be used to dribble past the defender; 11-touch
ball on every other step with the foot that will be used to dribble past
the defender, skipping on the steps using the foot that will not be used
to dribble past the defender.
After 140 minutes of this I felt really really tired.
Air dribbling acts like an anaesthetic and a stimulant. This was ground
dribbling. Plus I was constantly keeping track of not just what time it
was in a given segment, but also of cycling through the eleven variants in
the eight yard approach to the target.
This was mentally tiring. Yet they claim there is no
such thing as mental overwork causing mental or physical fatigue.
Maybe it's the still feeling slightly under the weather from the untimely
glasses of wine.
My conclusion from the above four segments was that the
best eight yard approach is 11-touch ball on every other step with
the foot that will be used to dribble past the defender, skipping on the
steps using the foot that will not be used to dribble past the
defender.
After the above work, I spent 40 minutes doing 20 yard
runs, in which I would touch the ball on every other step always touching
the ball with my left foot never my right foot. I did these runs in three
different ways: a--touching the ball with the outside shoelace side of the
foot only; b--touching the ball with the inside of the foot only;
c--touching the ball alternately with the outside and then the inside of
the foot.
I concluded that the best way to implement the #11 eight yd approach
to the defender, is using the outside of the foot, which I now think would
be better than using the inside of the foot or alternating between
the outside and the inside.
So the total was 140+40 180 minutes 3 hrs working out. This was more
tiring and hard on the body than 3 hrs doing air dribbling drills, even
though the air dribbling drills involve more work for the body, hard shots
against the wall when there are no kidz around. Then again the reason it
seemed so tough might be that I am still a bit under the weather from the
two glasses of wine drunk too early.
I got the feeling that folks for some reason find ground dribbling
exercises interesting and exciting. For me they are nostalgia producing. I
guess people figure that a air dribbling is never really done in games, or
is against the rules, or that there exist these flaky people who are great
indvidual practice time air-dribblers but incompetent in an actual soccer
games. So for people the player doing things that he will actually do alot
in games if games were played today, is more fun than the player doing
things they think the player will never do during a game.
I must admit that it would improve me if I were to start
doing the air dribble drills running against cones symbolizing people and
then running against sparring partner types who sometimes do not try
hard and sometimes try really hard to stop me.
I have very little experience using the air dribble in games. I have
lots of experience in my life dribbling the ball on the ground in games,
be it as a sissy eager to pass the ball away as I was before I turned
myself into an enlightened player, or as the macho wise guy I turned
myself into eager to attempt to dribble right by a defender.
But let's face it the skilled aerial ball players in real life as at
the 06 World Cup, effectively used the air dribble going no further than
five yds, in situations that are rarely rehearsed in practice.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi measured, was down to 10.0 psi
The air dribbling causes psi losses of up to 0.7 psi.
The ground dribbling causes a loss of 0.1 psi. Alot of energy is being put
into the shots that I take at the wall during air dribbling practices such
as WC06.
|
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9/13/06
Wednesday
615-835 PM
Park adjacent to
John J Larosa Outdoor Tennis Courts
corner of Willow and Grove
Waltham MA |
Ground Dribble and Ground Shots |
1 Dribbled at cones marking defender's two feet (wide apart) eight yards in front of me. Dribbled using only left foot, touching the ball every other step (#11 approach), skipping on every step with right foot (right foot hits ground twice before left foot hits ground), experimenting with outside of foot only, inside of foot only, and outside inside alteration. Upon dribbling past cones, shot ball at goal 15 yds behind cones. 30 minutes. 2 Dribbled at cones marking defender's two feet (close to each
other) eight yards in front of me. Dribbled using only left foot,
touching the ball every other step (#11 approach), skipping on every step
with right foot (right foot hits ground twice before left foot hits
ground), experimenting with outside of foot only, inside of foot
only, and outside inside alteration. Upon dribbling past cones, shot ball
at goal 15 yds behind cones. 30 minutes.
3 Dribbled at cones marking defender's two feet (wide
apart) eight yards in front of me. Dribbled using only left foot,
touching the ball every other step (#11 approach), skipping on every step
with right foot (right foot hits ground twice before left foot hits
ground), experimenting with inside of foot only, and outside inside
alteration. Upon dribbling past cones, shot ball at goal 20 yds
behind cones. 30 minutes.
4 Dribbled at cones marking defender's two feet (close to each
other) eight yards in front of me. Dribbled using only left foot,
touching the ball every other step (#11 approach), skipping on every step
with right foot (right foot hits ground twice before left foot hits
ground), experimenting inside of foot only, and outside inside
alteration. Upon dribbling past cones, shot ball at goal 20 yds
behind cones. 30 minutes.
The ground on this field often used for soccer games, had grass about
five inches high, mixed up with clumps of weeds, the ground was uneven,
everywhere 2 inches above or 2 inches below the average
elevation.
I concluded that on this kind of uneven, high-grassed field, the best
approach towards the defender is #11, alternating between outside and
inside of foot, using only left foot on approach touching the ball every
other step, skipping on every step with the right foot. By way of contrast
the best approach on an indoor basketball court seemed yesterday to be
#11, using outside of the foot only when hitting the ball as opposed to
outside inside alteration.
I noticed today that I am off of a slow dribble forward, able to
shoot hard accurate shots with either foot, at least 20 yards.
This was the first time in years I had practiced shooting balls
that were rolling on the ground as opposed to suspended in the air when
shot.
Up until today I did not think I could shoot rolling balls this well.
I felt that a lack of practice doing such combined with a general
weakening of the body had caused this. I was deceived into under-rating
myself because: the cross training shoes I have been wearing have heels
and soles about 1.5 inches high, and this makes it difficult to kick
a ball resting on a smooth flat surface like concrete or wood; what I have
been used to when it comes to shooting a grounded ball is a grass surface,
and grass surfaces give the advantage of holding up the ball off the
ground that concrete and wood surfaces do not give.
I noted today that simply through practicing kicking a ball
suspended in air, that is off the ground, with my right foot at the
end of an air dribble, towards a target, I have become at least as
good at shooting a ball rolling on the ground with my right foot as I am
with my left.
Previously this was not the case, my left foot was far superior for
shots. The right footed shots even seemed better than the left footed
shots today. Seems that learning to shoot balls that are rolling on the
ground, by first learning to kick balls that are in the air and off
the ground at the goal, is paradoxically superior to learning to shoot by
kicking balls rolling on the ground.
I estimate in total I dribbled past the cones and shot hard accurate
approx 15-20 yd shots today 100 times. This tired me out. It was the first
time in years that I had been practicing shooting balls rolling on the
ground. I took all the shots using at least 90 percent of max effort. A
new kind of activity not trained for equals fatigue, which shall be
overcome by training, and the training should increase the range of my
shot.
The balls shot from 15 yds were hitting the goalposts/crossbar, and
the metal poles on the fence behind the goal, and bouncing back 15
yds before hitting the ground, after hitting the posts and
crossbars, this is how hard they were shot. And the goal was a
miniature portable goal that gave way somewhat when a ball hit the posts
or the crossbar. One shot done with less than max effort with the right
foot, sailed at least 35 yds befor hitting the elevated tennis
court ground hard and rolling into the tennis net.
Smart to find things to remember in this kind of "boring" practice,
it makes this kind of "boring" practice less boring.
the sunset approx was 7 PM, there was sufficient daylight to play
until "civil twilight" at approx 730 PM.
About twenty teenage boys, mostly blacks and hispanics I guess, who
were on a full length field on the same rough grassy surface I was
practicing on today, saw me practicing and invited me to play with them. I
said the truth, which was that I had not been out on this kind of grass
field in years and had to practice by myself today. These boys saw me play
until they quit about 715 PM. Their ball rolled my way, I flicked it up in
the air and air-volleyed it right to one of them 15 yds away hard with
little effort, he was impressed.
I noticed that little subtleties that have come in to my kick, from
hours spent practicing shooting balls that are in the air not on the
ground at the goal, have improved my kick. For example, the better kick
involves not just body and hip and knee but also a flicking
movement with the foot, a movement of the type used to flick a ball up off
the ground or upwards.
There were some guys playing tennis they must have noticed my
competence. The light lighting up the tennis courts gives some light to
play under on the grass field near the tennis courts until 10
PM.
This pretty teen-age blonde white girl and her more typical looking
white female friend kept coming up to me and asking me to kick them the
ball, the taller more typical looking dark haired one even shot the ball
at the goal fifteen yards away from me and then I had to go retrieve it. I
told her I was not going to fetch balls for her.
I think they could tell that getting the drill done according to a
time schedule was a big thing for me. For them grabbing 20 minutes
of my time for silliness was nothing, for me it meant that an entire
segment of practice would not get done, meaning that in return for all the
time I had invested getting ready for practice and out on this field two
miles away from home, I would be getting less actual practice time out of
this investment. I think like a time-hungry crab they think like girls of
the "endless summer".
20 minutes got wasted driving to the supermarket (they have public
restrooms) to take a piss and driving back again.
I noted that the right foot shot improvement is especially important
seeing that using the four options I now use for dribbling by a defender,
when I am using my left foot to dribble by the defender, with the majority
of the attack options if I beat the defender and want to then
shoot/pass the shots/passes have to be with my right foot.
Since the left footed attack I use naturally sweeps inwards from the
left side of the field, (my left), and since the defender's main interest
is in keeping me to the outside of the field, you could say it is good
that the majority of the options involve me sweeping with my left foot
towards the center of the field.
Remember the French defender retreating 20 yds while Portugal's
Ronaldo dribbled forward, obsessed with denying Ronaldo a move to the
center at the 06 World Cup.
The end result of this kind of sweep often involves me having to
shoot/pass with my right foot if I want to shoot/pass as soon as I
beat the defender, and now I have become good at shooting or
passing with my right foot due to the air-dribbling drills.
I was blasting powerful shots today off of a grass field
without using cleats. It has to do with the fact that although now I weigh
only approx 170 lbs at 5 10 inches, I have the agility to get my body into
each shot.
Oh yea and the pretty blonde teenage girl who "pestered"
me, she looked at me and said, "God is love", in this flower child type of
way.
|
Replique |
inflated to 10.1 psi measured had fallen to 9.5 psi.
Hard to believe yesterday's practice knocked so much wind out of the
ball. |
|||||||||||||||
9/14/06
Thursday
Waltham Y Pool
910-940 PM
|
SWIMMING BREAK
Swam 1000 yds alternating 50 breast 50 crawl in
32 minutes. |
It was raining outside, the gym was unavailable, so I
went swimming.
Does doing the kind of soccer practices I have been
doing day after day without a break tire me out? Yes. Do these practices
get me in shape for swimming? No. Does the swimming get me in shape for
soccer? Who knows.
|
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9/15/06 |
SUMMARY REPORT ON BEST START FOR WC06 PATTERN AIR
DRIBBLE |
The Best horiz and vertical setups for initiating an air
dribble attack as of now
Fall is upon us and now is the time to wander around
getting into actual soccer games, so as to test out the old skills
featuring dribbling by defenders with the ball on the ground, and also the
new skills featuring the air-dribble attack, moving at and past the
defender while keeping the ball off the ground but close to the
body.
Thus although there has not been alot of time to test
out the 16 different vertical setup possibilities for the WC06 start,
(only about two thirds of the sixteen different possibilities have been
tested in two 50 minute sessions) choices have to be made, now is the time
to guess at which of all the tested vertical and horizontal possibilities
will work the best.
As of 12:25 AM 9/15/2006 my conclusion ( see https://www.angelfire.com/ma/vincemoon/wc06starts.htm ) is that the best "vert" forthe start of the WC06 air dribble approach to the defender, is CUU using the R series of horizontals. This CUU works especially well with the D and C horizontal setups. The C horizontal setup is closer to the setup I use when dribbling the ball on the ground. Thus as of now until I know better, I plan to use the CUU vertical setup combined with the C horizontal setup when taking off with the ball starting an air dribble approaching a defender in a game. This means that: on the first component of the first move of the air
dribble I will crouch slightly, and on the second and third
components I will be upright; I will start out with my right foot
pointed slightly to the right as opposed to pointed straight at the
defender; I will start out behind the ball with my body on the line drawn
between the ball and the defender; I will start out by moving the ball
slightly to my right with my left foot on the first move.
Henceforth I will devote half my air dribble practice time to starts
using the CUU-R vertical start with the C-type horizontal setup. The other
half of my aerial dribble practice will be devoted to continuing to cycle
through all the different vertical and horizontal possibilities for the
start of the WC06 pattern air-dribble approach to the defender.
I am confident that I will be able to if given a chance, successfully
execute in games the following air dribble maneuver: Approach defender
eight yds away while air dribbling the ball, keeping the
ball under especially tight control, low and close to the body; then
upon getting near the defender pop the ball up so that at its apex between
the times it touches me it rises to a height of 9 feet; then speed up with
the ball under looser control while continuing the air dribble keeping the
ball off the ground but under control.
Sometimes when I make a new entry in this log I notice typos in
previous entries and correct them. With a little thought you can tell what
was meant to be typed but was mistakenly not typed when you encounter such
typos.
|
|||||||||||||||||
9/15/06 Friday
620-920 PM
Park adjacent to
John J Larosa Outdoor Tennis Courts
corner of Willow and Grove
Waltham MA |
UNSCORED AIR DRIBBLE VS CONES
|
For 3 hours did the following drill: worked with two red cones eight yards in front of point
where I started each run, each cone symbolizing the feet of a defender.
Air dribbled towards cone, and then popped ball up, as if to pop the ball
up over the defender's head, and then continued air dribble run or shot
the ball.
The beginning was tough, all of a sudden I realized,
that a bumpy out doors field with five inch tall grass and weeds, is a
really difficult place to execute the air dribble. The nature of the
surface of the field results in failure to get the ball up off the ground
at the start of the run, and even when there is not failure it results in
the ball on the first kick being placed much more imprecisely,
unpredictably, and awkwardly then is the case on an indoors or outdoors
basketball court. This clumsiness produced by the uneven grassy
field, results in a degree of clumsiness on every kick that comes after
the first kick of the air dribble run, so that even say the sixth or the
seventh kick of the air dribble run is infected with
clumsiness.
The first move on the drills I did today, consisted of
the three components of the first move of the WC06 drill: 1-put the sole
of my left foot on the ball and roll it backwards; 2-flip the ball up with
the top of the left foot; 3-kick the ball forward with the left foot.
Due to the nature of the field, 1 and 2 resulted in
imprecise ball placement leading to imprecision on 3.
Not only that, aside from the effect of the imprecise
start, when you run on this bumpy green field, every step you take
your body unpredictably ends up a little low or a little high or a little
to the left or a little to the right. This throws something as precise as
an air dribble run off.
Weird thing is that ground dribbling on the grassy bumpy
field, is alot easier than air dribbling on the grassy bumpy field.
Undoubtedly the development of soccer in the US is
retarded by the lack of fields that are flat and smooth.
I got so frustrated by the uneven field that I felt like
grabbing ahold of the feminine Massachusetts bureaucrat I imagine
responsible and shaking him giving him a bad case of
shaken-baby-bureaucrat syndrome.
I now realize I need for air dribbling on this kind of
bumpy outdoors grassy field a shoe that is: made for outdoors grass; has a
narrow toe; and has thin as opposed to thick sole and heel.
Right now I use the Adidas cross trainer, it is colored
black gray orange and silver, it has a thick toe sole and heel. I can
function well with it on an outdoors or indoors basketball court but not
on a bumpy grassy field, when it comes to the first move of an air
dribble.
Due to the uneven grassy field I had to abandon my plan
to use the CUU-R vert and the C horizontal on the start. The grassy bumpy
field just made everything too unpredictable. I ended up using the UUU-S
start, modified so that my right foot was further back before the first
part of the first move.
By experimentation I determined that on this kind of
uneven grassy field, attempting to stick to a pattern such as kicking the
ball with the left foot on kick 1 of the air dribble run and the right
foot on kick 2 of the air dribble run, does not work as well as allowing
oneself freedom in terms of which foot the ball will be kicked with on
kick 2 of the air dribble run (I always kick the ball with the left foot
nowadays on kick 1 of the air dribble run.
Judging from the expermentation I have done so far, I
still am not sure if it would be a good idea to stick to a predetermined
pattern such as the WC06 pattern on the slow tight ball-altitude-low eight
yard approach to the defender. But I do now feel that it is a mistake to
bother with sticking to a predetermined plan re which foot the ball will
be kicked with on kick 2 of the run.
Civil twilight again about 730 PM today. I found that
after 730 PM I had to depend upon the lights used to light up the adjacent
tennis court to do the drill. I could clearly see the ball, but my
performance decreased significantly the tennis court's lights do not emit
that much light out on to the adjacent grass field. For precise stuff like
air dribble you need bright light for optimum performance, that is what I
now think.
After 730 PM the grass and the ball became wet
though it did not rain. I guess this was the phenom popularly known as
"dew". The dew made the ball even harder to control.
Tonight I was able to get the ball up from the low
approach altitude of under waist high, to an altitude of over six feet,
upon approaching the cones, based upon my eye discerning the proximity of
the cone as opposed to based on what number kick in the air dribble it
was.
I would guess that today I did the drill run I did today
about 250 times. There must have been at least 50 "high
quality" runs, ball under control and off ground over 25 yds,
ball kept low on approach and then popped up after eight yards. Compared
to the last time I tried this drill on a grass field more than a couple of
years ago, I did great, but I felt like a clumsy fool because of the field
conditions.
I could tell from comparing the way I ran today on the
grassy field, to the way I ran on a grassy field the last time I did
sprinting on a grassy field a few years ago, that I have really gotten
significantly faster as a sprinter, as a result of these air dribble runs
that I have been doing on basketball courts. I am sure that when it comes
to sprinting 15 yds from a jogging start I am much faster now than I was a
year ago.
There is something about chasing a ball that is in the
air trying to catch it before it hits the ground, that brings out the
natural sprinter in a person.
today I shot about half a dozen balls into the tennis
courts by mistake, these balls travelled at least 35 yds in the air before
hitting the ground, I was not even kicking them hard I was kicking them
with about 60 percent of max effort.
Bummer as it was due to the nature of the field, air
dribbling outdoors on a grassy field, seemed good for my spirit; I did it
for three hours without tiring or feeling any pain in my body, the
temperature at 60 degrees 94% humidity was pleasantly cool, there was
something spiritual and energizing about being in the
outdoors.
Once when the ball sailed into the tennis court this
short clean shaven light brown skinned young man, did a little air dribble
with it before returning it to me. He advanced about five yards very
slowly, sometimes touching the ball more than once with a given foot
before making the next step. He showed fine control, but he was moving
forward at about a fifth of the speed I move forward for the first eight
yards of an air dribble, and I call the speed I do this at "slow", because
it is slow compared to how fast I am able to air dribble when I want to go
fast. The common slickster thinks that the glory lies in how many
times you can kick the ball before it hits the ground, whereas for me the
glory lies in keeping the ball close to my body while I move forward
at a relatively high rate of speed.
From 620 PM to 730 PM there were about twenty young
adult males playing soccer on a field adjacent to where I was practicing.
I'm sure they could see me. Lucky for me the next time out when they see
me, I will have the advantage of knowing all the things I learned today. I
would guess while they were there I executed at least ten good
runs,
cruising at the cones representing the defender at a
"slow" speed with the ball under tight control and low, then upon reaching
the defender popping the ball up, and then continuing the air dribble
another fifteen yards at a faster speed with the ball higher and less
tightly controlled and then shooting the ball.
After the practice at the KFC nearby, this young black
guy was talking to the older black guy with the mustache working at the
KFC, telling him in an urgent Dan Ratherish this is important tone of
voice of the play by play of some sports contest; and I was daydreaming(?)
that the unsaid message of what this young black was saying was that this
guy in the KFC with us was doing this kind of important sports deeds on
the field near here tonight.
Note: the starting point on the field for most of the
runs today, was a point chosen at random by me kicking the ball in the
general direction of the start and then starting wherever the ball came to
rest. I did not today attempt to start from especially smooth areas of the
field. The ball probably comes to rest in craters as a result of which the
spot it naturally comes to rest in is not optimal for starting an air
dribble run.
So in summary next thing on grass with air is
the same drill, using UUU-S, sometimes trying to adhere to a pattern on
the air dribble sometimes going freestyle, and not trying to stick to a
predetermined plan re which foot the ball will be kicked with on kick no 2
of the air dribble run. And looking for some shoes that will work out
there on the bumpy grassy field.
|
replique |
10.1 psi measured |
|||||||||||||||
9/16/06
Saturday
550-750 PM
Park adjacent to
John J Larosa Outdoor Tennis Courts
corner of Willow and Grove
Waltham MA |
OUTDOORS AERIAL DRIBBLE ON BUMPY GRASS FIELD
DRILLS
|
All the runs today featured the usual setup with the two red cones each representing a defender's feet eight yards in front of me at the start, with me mounting slow low tight air dribble towards the cones and then upon reaching the cones, moving the ball up to an altitude between kicks of over six feet and continuing the aerial dribble forward at a faster speed for up to another twenty yards for a total of 28 yds. 1 550-610 PM. Used no footwork pattern for the
eight yard approach to the cones. Only one run was an ultra-cool run. I
had scheduled this experiment. a dozen young white adults
(co-ed) were playing soccer on the field next to me, the
experiment was not going well, but I stuck to my experimental guns for the
whole twenty minutes feeling clumsy and embarrassed. I now believe that
following no footwork pattern at all is significantly worse than
attempting to adhere to the WC06 pattern on the eight yard approach to the
red cones.
2 610-630 PM. Used the WC06 footwork pattern
for a seven yard approach to the cones. There were four ultra-cool runs.
Superior to freestyle no pattern approach. I started from about seven yds
away from the cones not the usual eight, this produced a kind of
constriction I was unused to.
3 630-650 PM. Used the WC06 footwork pattern
for the eight yard approach to the cones. There were NINE
ultra-cool runs. Superior to freestyle no pattern approach. This
was the best segment of the day. There was a weird coincidence far as I
could tell. At the exact moment that I completed a 28 yd ultra-cool run,
the players on the field next to me all threw their hands up in the air
and shouted, "goal"! I think this was because someone on their field
scored a goal at the exact same second that I completed my ultra cool run,
possibly they were cheering for me. A hispanic looking guy from the twenty
guys playing on the full length field came over and asked me if I wanted
to play with them. I told him I had to do my drills. I guess this was a
good segment because the yardage approach to the cones was eight not by
accident seven, I had gotten warmed up, I was using the WC06 flight
pattern approach to the cones.
At 640 PM, suddenly the ground became wet (official
sunset time today 653 PM). This was the dew, it was as if one minute the
field was dry, and the next minute, the field was wet. This resulted in
subequent performance being cut to about 50% of what it was when the
ground was dry. This was primarily because component one of the first move
involves placing the sole of the foot on the top of the ball and rolling
the ball backwards towards oneself, and when the ball and the ground are
wet, it becomes difficult to do this at the speed requisite in order to be
able to accomplish component two of move one, flipping the ball in the air
with the top of the foot.
Woe unto me due to the existence of outdoor night time
games, featuring much of the game being played after sunset, after the
ball and the ground have become wet with dew! But methinks the engineering
geniuses producing those tremendous modern sports shoes we wear today, are
able to come up with a shoe that counteracts the slippery effects of the
dew.
4 650-710 PM. Used the WC06 footwork pattern
for the eight yard approach to the cones. There were four ultra-cool runs.
The slipperiness of the dew impaired component one of move one, which
in turn impaired all the subsequent moves.
5 710-730 PM. Used the LO footwork pattern
for the eight yard approach to the cones. There were three ultra-cool
runs. The combined effects of low visibility, and dew were beginning to
tell.
6 730-750 PM. Used the RO footwork pattern for the
eight yard approach to the cones. There were zero ultra-cool runs.
The combined effects of low visibility, and dew caused havoc.
This evening I deliberately chose the starting point of each run in
relatively flat spots on the field. Thus when it became too dark to choose
such spots a disadvantage developed.
Today during the first hour of the practice there must have
been
10 whites watching soccer + 10 hispanics watching soccer + 12 whites
playing soccer + 20 hispanics/africans playing soccer + 8 people playing
tennis out there at this park. That is a total of 60 52 of which were
soccer connected.
I guess there were 21 ultracool runs one every six minutes, about one
ultracool run every four minutes in the first hour when conditions were
good. to imagine what it was like for motivational purposes. But it did
not feel like an ultra cool run every four minutes even during the good
hour. It felt clumsy, because of the field conditions and the sticking to
an experiment schedule. An ultra cool run every four minutes is pretty
damned cool but I felt like a dork.
So I did not feel good about having to stick to a schedule that tests
out different methods, as opposed to using which method was working for me
best at the given time, because of all the people out there who could and
were seeing what I did. So I stuck to the experimentation schedule for 20
minutes and then stuck with WC06 for an hour. I figure that a couple of
hours of embarrassment experimenting will be compensated for by knowledge
and the certainty that the optimum method is being used that comes with
experimentation.
I have come to realize that aerial dribble practice outdoors on a
bumpy grass field, in a sense excels aerial dribble practice on a flat
surface, because the aerial dribble practice outdoors on grass, prepares
one for aerial dribble on a flat surface also, more than aerial
dribble practice on a flat surface prepares one for aerial dribble
on grass. The disadvantages of the bumpy grassy field act to build
the skill the way wearing wristweights act to build strength in the
arms.
Today I noticed how when the red cones representing the defenders
feet are attacked after the eight yard air dribble approach to them, there
is a certain kind of advantage when the ball goes from air to ground as it
is pushed past the defender. Such an air to ground move combines the best
characteristics of the air and also of the ground. Since the ball is in
the air when it is hit, it is sent off in this or that direction with
little movement of the body or leg that would telegraph what is about to
happen to the defense, and at the same time it moves off more quickly than
it does when it is hit on the ground. Since the ball hits the ground soon
after it passes the defender it is a high percentage of the time within
reach, if it bounces it can be played on the bounce or brought to the
ground.
What I noticed yesterday but failed to mention, the air dribbled ball
when it hits the grassy ground on the spin, can bounce at a severe angle
compared to how the ball bounces after a normal pass or or rebound. The
combination of the slow forward movement of the ball combined with the
high level of sideways spin, can produce unbelievable bounces. I saw a
ball that I kicked about five yards forward in the air, which never was
above thigh height, hit the ground and bounce off to the side four yards
in the air, low, at about a seventy degree, two o'clock angle. This
effect of balls bouncing at astounding angles is greater on the grassy
field than it is on the indoor or outdoor basketball court or on the
outdoor tennis court. I am reminded of the discussions regarding how the
field conditions would favor this or that bowler in cricket. In cricket,
the bowler bowls the ball at the batter on one bounce. When the grass is
long this is considered to favor the bowler because the spun balls bounce
at a more extreme angle compared to straight forward.
the people out at this field have been quiet; but I think yesterday,
if it was on a day I was doing ground dribbling alarm bells would have
gone off on my head, this tall light brown colored East Asian man who I've
seen more than one evening on the tennis courts, looked at me, and said,
"he's brilliant". I think this was wednesday the day I was doing air
dribbling On the internet I did a google search combining the phrase
"brilliant player" and the word soccer. Looking through the first
ten results the following players were players people called "brilliant
players": Zidane (France), Ronaldo (forward Brazil); Tevez
(striker Argentina); Ronaldinho (midfielder Brazil); Beckham (midfielder
England) Cole "best left back in world" (England).
Then one time I was wearing my red head band doing 15 yd air dribble
runs at the YMCA earlier this month, a couple of these white colored East
Asian guys were playing basketball, and one of them with his face down and
his body in my direction loudly said, "he's a brave". I think he was
talking about me. "Brave" is the term for a North American native male. I
suppose it is true that in certain ways I physically resemble the East
Asians and The North American Indian natives. I've heard that going back
150 years there was perhaps some mixing between the American Indians and
my white european ancestors in the midwest.
Somehow when I see these tall East Asians I think of them as royal
aristocratic dignified. So there.
Main conclusion today WC06 > freestyle on 8 yd approach.
Next up:
Experiments with:
LO(L) approach
LO(R) approach
RO approach
E3 approach
continued specialization in:
WC06 approach the current leader
Be at outdoors grass field by 330 PM latest
Everything has to be on same field for comparison purposes.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi measured had fallen to 9.7 psi. |
|||||||||||||||
9/17/06
OLeary Field
Bacon St
Waltham MA
540-840 PM |
AIR DRIBBLE AT MR. POSTMAN
TARGET UNSCORED ON RUBBER SURFACE |
At Oleary Field, there is a flat area with a pebbled
rubber outdoor track surface, about twenty yards square, adjacent to one
of the American tackle football type goals on the main field.
This goal is held up by a single central goalpost that up to six feet
three inches above the adjacent rubber surface, is wrapped in a
mattress like covering that is soft and about eight inches thick. Thus
what you have in the bottom six feet three inches of this goalpost, in the
part of the goalpost with the protective covering around it, something
resembling a man, a BIG man, a man six feet three inches tall, two and a
half soccer balls wide, and two and a half soccer balls
thick.
I call this man like thing Mr. POSTMAN.
Today I resolved to drill by starting eight yards from
Mr. Postman, on the rubber outdoor track covered surface side of Mr.
Postman, air dribble at Mr. Postman, and then flip the ball up over Mr.
Postman and continue the air dribble.
I went to OLeary and decided to scout out the entire
park, all the field in it, and I noticed Mr. Postman. I had undoubtedly
seen Mr. Postman many times before when at the Oleary Field but somehow I
had forgotten about Mr. Postman.
It was like an opportunity sent from God, to have
available this setup featuring Mr. Postman, and the large surface covered
with the pebbly rubberish outdoor track adjacent to Mr. Postman. On the
other side of Mr. Postman, was the grass covered end zone and the rest of
the football field.
Mr. Postman presented a few obstacles not found on an
actual soccer field: the curved pole leading to the cross bar and the
crossbar of the american style tackle football goal that Mr. Postman
supported, that sort of grew out of his head and loomed above him; and
also the grass that was one one side of Mr. Postman was a foot lower than
the rubber slightly pebbly surface on the other side of Mr. Postman--for a
yard the grass surface sloped up a foot to where Mr. Postman
was.
Air dribbling by Mr. Postman was more difficult than air
dribbling by the two red cones each six inches high symbolizing a
defender's two feet. Mr. Postman kept blocking balls with the curved post
that grew out of his head leading to the crossbar and with the
crossbar. The whole situation was new I was not used to it. There were
only a few ultracool long runs, the air dribble continuing uninterrupted
25 yds from the start to the low tightly controlled slow flight to
Mr. Postman to the flip up move past Mr. Postman and then the fast
speed on past Mr. Postman all keeping the ball off the ground and under
control.
I remember there was one run in which I went 40 yards at
the sprint after going by Mr. Postman, while never letting the ball hit
the ground more than once before I kicked it again, kicking it about four
times once every ten yards once I went by Mr. Postman.
This Mr. Postman setup is good for exploring the
possibilities of the one bounce dribble, meaning the ball bounces once in
between each time it is kicked.
Last couple of nights I only had about four hours of
sleep each night. After about 45 minutes of this running against Mr.
Postman I began to feel fatigued. There was no fence at the end of my runs
like at the more bumpy grass field at Willow and Grove, that I could fire
long shots at and that forced my runs to come to a halt and stopped the
ball reducing distances walked fetching the ball. There was alot of
chasing down and succesfully reaching over long distances at high speeds
these balls that I would get to after they bounced once after U had gotten
by Mr. Postman.
One of the high points today was this high speed one
bounce dribble once past Mr. Postman. My control of the ball was good
enough that the ball would rarely bounce more than once before I reached
it once I beat Mr. Postman, and I would reach the ball and kick it after
it bounced once, while running forward at a high speed without
slowing down--in this manner I would get to points 20 to 40 yards behind
Mr. Postman.
To my jaded sense of glamor this once bounce air dribble
was a dissapointment what I would have preferred is that the ball should
never touch the ground between kicks, but in retrospect and future-spect,
the ability to move 30 yards fast, on a one bounce air dribble the ball
bouncing every 10 yards, is an ability with actual practical game
significance--there are situations where for all practical purposes, the
spectacular sprinting air dribble with the ball never touching the ground
between kicks, is as good as the relatively mundane kicking the ball on
one bounce.
From 540-740 PM I did the WC06 eight yd approach to Mr.
Postman. Before the combination of the dew, reduced visibility, and
fatigue exerted their effects, the CUU (R) / C start worked very reliably.
Problem was getting the ball up and over and past the formidable Mr.
Postman.
I noticed that in some ways my right foot is not the
equal of my left foot, one of these being the actual flip of the ball up
and over and past Mr. Postman.
I tried shifting to pre-programming myself to flip the
ball up high on say kick number 5 or kick number 3 of the
approach to Mr. Postman, as opposed to doing this whenever I felt the time
was right. I was suprised to note that the preprogrammed numerical did not
today excel the impromptu un-numerically-programmed approach: the
preprogrammed approach resulted in exceceedingly rigid adherence to the
WC06 footwork/ballwork pattern--every run is different, for example kick
number 5 is not always the best number kick to flip up on.
Numerically speaking if the flip up to beat Mr. Postman
comes on kick number 5 this is getting a little close to Mr. Postman. Kick
number 4 is just right but this involves using the right foot to flip up
and over Mr. Postman. Kick number 3 uses the left but this involves
shooting the ball up and over Mr. Postman when I am too far away from Mr.
Postman.
740-840 PM I experimented with wet ball in low light, on
the LO, RLO, RO, and E3 alternatives to the WC06 pattern eight yard
approach to Mr. Postman.
WC06 is the ideal, it is a great drill for developing
skill, but when it comes to an actual game, what with a wet ball, a bumpy
grassy field, human defenders, I wonder whether there might be patterns
that for now are better. Ultimately WC06 pattern is the best, but it is a
difficult footwork/ballwork pattern to perfect.
I rate the alternatives in the following order, from
most useable now to least useable now:
1 LO
2 E3
3 RLO
4 RO
These alternatives all have advantages and
disadvantages.
The dew wets the ball and the field and a few minutes
later the light begins to become dimmer and dimmer. I
should not forget to take a sponge and a water bottle and wet up
the ball while it is still brightly lit outdoors, to get an
understanding into what it is like to play with a wet ball on a well lit
field.
My plan for next practice:
1 have sponge water bottle
2 get to field before 330 PM
3 use WC06 LO and E3 flight approaches to target, but
use what is working the best if there are lots of people
around.
Today there must have been 40-50 adults and children out
at Oleary field, they were mostly White and a half dozen South Asians. I
resolved that while the visibility was good and there were lots of people
out there I would stick with WC06. Sure 'nuff I noticed a half dozen
white people, mostly adults, about 150 yds away staring at me
for at least 15 minutes. One of them was this athletic looking white guy
wearing sunglasses and a white short sleeved shirt
Then about 630 PM, a brown haired white boy who told me
his name was Joseph and that he was eight years old, walked up to near
where I was to watch me. He then climbed up on top of Mr. Postman, so that
he was as it were sitting on top of Mr. Postman's head. From this vantage
point he watched me. Over about twenty minutes about three different
times, he climbed up on top of Mr. Postman and from his perch for a few
minutes watched me drill, and then climbed down again. Then he noticed his
family was getting ready to leave the park and ran off to join them.
When Joseph came by to visit he brought with him a few
yellow and brown haired white girls who looked like siblings. I asked them
to let me have enough space to practice without bumping into them. Then a
couple of South Asian kids, a boy and a girl ran up to me and I had to
request them to let me have a little space.
Today I noticed that even when you shift from a low
quality uneven surface to a high quality smooth surface like the rubberish
pebblish crimsonish outdoor track surface I was on when on the near side
of Mr. Postman today, the new high quality surface can take some time to
get used to.
It is not as if the new thing doesn't take getting used
to simply because it is a better quality. The kind of movements used to
adapt to long grass, an uneven field, are not optimum movements for a
rubberish pebblish flat outdoor track surface.
|
Replique |
Inflated from 9.6 to 10.1 psi |
|||||||||||||||
9/18/06
Outdoor basketball courts
Lowell and High
Waltham MA 830-945 PM |
AIR DRIBBLE AT TARGET
WC06
LO
E3 |
Each run involved: air dribbling at two red cones
symbolizing a defender's feet, eight yards away from where I would start
by flipping the stationary ball up off the ground; then air dribbling the
ball by the imaginary defender by flipping the ball over and or to the
side of the imaginare defender Mr. Cone; and then
continuing the air dribble.
I rotated between WC06, LO, and E3 patterns in the eight
yard flight towards the target. For example fourth attempt, WC06, fifth
attempt LO, sixth attempt E3, seventh attempt, WC06 etc. If a given run
using a given style was not technically perfect there would be a repeat
with that style.
I concluded that as of now the order from most
practically effective in a game to least practically effective in a game
is:
1 LO
2 E3
3 WC06
WC06 pattern, will after God knows how many more hours
of practice on it, be the best flight pattern, a superstar flight
pattern for approaches of up to eight yards towards defenders. But as
of right now there are problems with it: it is still relatively imperfect
when it comes to the crucial move when the ball is kicked past the
defender; it involves a relatively high amount of taking the eye off of
the defenders and the players, and keeping the eye on the ball; even when
it succeeds in getting the ball the eight yds from the start to the
target, the flight is a relatively high percentage of the time slow and
clumsy to the point where in a game, the danger of having the ball taken
control of by the defense becomes excessive.
Yet the LO in general and the E3
recently have received less practice time than the WC06.
Thus my plan is to use my practice time as follows:
Approach Pattern / percent of total time
allotted
LO Air 25% 2/8
E3 Air 12.5% 1/8
WC06 Air 12.5% 1/8
#11 I/O Ground 25% 2/8
#11 O Ground 12.5% 1/8
#11 I Ground 12.5%
1/8
The practice routine if you are faced with a few games
right this week, is different than the practice routine if you do not have
any games to play for a few weeks or a few months, if you are interested
in playing as well as possible in those games coming up in just a few
days.
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! --Kipling, Recessional
Today I felt depressed during the practice and
afterwards for possibly the following reasons: it was sad to think that
after all that time put into WC06, WC06 was not combat-ready enough
to be the primary flight approach pattern, and that now I would have to
put time into another flight approach pattern, the LO; I'm not used
to reading novels but I've been reading "A Distinguished Guest" by Sue
Miller because Mr. Schnapps wanted me to; my brother pestered me again
with a message on the answering machine begging me for social time; the
alternating first attempt one style second attempt another style third
attempt yet another style type of practice was new and impaired
performance with every style used especially with the WC06 style; I was
only able to get 75 minutes of practice time in.
My guess is that the performance impairment caused by
the constant rotation of style of approach, is a mental
impairment--similar to the not being able to flip the ball up to a higher
altitude upon reaching the target symbolizing the defender unless a
preprogrammed step number is used--that will be overcome after a couple of
hours of practice using such rotation.
But more of what I figure is proof that even when I feel
like a dork people are impressed: after I finished this black teenager
asked me, "are you a player?"
The weird thing today was that about a dozen noisy
hispanic grade school kids were playing soccer on one of the
basketball courts, using a ball a little smaller than and softer than a
soccer ball that still maintained its bounciness when soft, I guess a
"foosball". I finished my stretches and lined up the ball and the red
cones in the narrow alley between two of the courts, and just when I was
getting ready to use this narrow alley I looked and presto magico, all of
a sudden all the children on the neighboring court had disappeared, it was
empty, I could use the space I usually use at these courts, there would be
a much better practice than if I had to use the narrow alley like space.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi
was down to 10.0 psi. |
|||||||||||||||
9/19/06
Tuesday
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA
800-940 PM |
AIR DRIBBLE
LO VARIATIONS |
I gout out there and it was drizzling, seemed the God
had favored me with rain to test wet ball conditions under bright
lighting, I had forgotten the sponge to put water on the ball.
The LO air-dribble
footwork/ballwork pattern was able to get me eight yards and
then past the mock defender keeping the ball still under control on 80%
attempts in the rain on a concrete outdoor basketball court.
But what about rain and wetness under good lighting
outdoors? My guess is if the conditions are such that I am able
to get the ball up off the ground and kick it accurately to start the air
dribble, then I will be able to air dribble using the LO pattern towards
the defender and beat him.
Problem is that on the field at Willow and Grove,
getting the ball up is tough when there even just dew on the ground. Do'nt
know what would happen on O'leary field, which is superior to the Willow
and Grove one.
Today on the concrete, both when it was raining
hard and when it was wet, I had no problem getting the ball up off the
ground and air dribbling the eight yards towards the two red cones
symbolizing the defenders feet, and then chipping the ball past the
mock defender and continuing the air dribble, all the while the ball being
kept in control and off the ground.
Thus the LO pattern appears to be a sturdy
pattern that holds up well under wet conditions. I believe that to some
extent the wetness and the rain, impair performance on the air dribble
even on a level smooth flat surface. Since the LO flight
pattern holds up well in the rain and or wetness, it probably
holds up well under other impairments such as bumpy grass and low
light.
I estimate today I did 120 runs in total. Today all I
did was eight yard runs at the two red cones each symbolizing the feet of
a defender facing me, each run involved chipping the ball past the mock
defender and continuing the forward air dribble:
1 30 minutes LO flight pattern, no skipping (one foot
hits ground twice before other foot hits ground)
2 20 minutes LO flight pattern, skipping (one foot
hits ground twice before other foot hits ground) on every step with the
right foot. For about 5 minutes, this seemed to be an impossible thing to
do. Then several times I was able to make it eight yds to the
target.
3 15 minutes LO flight pattern, skipping (one foot
hits ground twice before other foot hits ground) on every step with the
left foot. For about 10 minutes, this seemed to be an
impossible thing to do. Then several times I was able to make it eight yds
to the target.
4 15 minutes LO flight pattern, skipping (one foot
hits ground twice before other foot hits ground) on every step. Since I
had already done to the two prior segments, this only seemed impossible
for a minute.
5 10 minutes LO no skips. Returning to no skips I noticed how doing
the skipping variants improved my performance on the non-skipping variant.
6 10 minutes LO skips on every right step this requires the ball to
be kicked higher.
As of now I rate these variants from best to worst: 1 no skips; 2
skips on right steps; 3 skips on both steps; 4 skips on left steps.
I noted today that comparing the eight yd approach to the target on
the ground to the approach in the air, the air approach seems relatively
surprisingly fast and quick in terms of acceleration, forward speed, and
change of direction.
In the air dribble the ball follows an up and down curved trajectory,
thus, it seems, it can be kicked forward on the dribble at a higher
velocity, without loss of control, compared to the ground dribble
featuring the ball moving in a straight line (the forward movement of the
body is slowed by the concern for kicking the ball very gently); on a well
executed air dribble the movements of the body can approximate teh
beginning of a sprint without any ball involved, more than is the case on
the ground dribble.
Some time in the future one of the skipping variants might become the
best variant but as of now the best variant is the no skipping variant.
Still I believe that these skipping variants when practiced produce
improvement in the non-skipping variant.
Doing something using an extraordinarily difficult method that is not
yet game-worthy (we'll diplomatically and peacefully skip the euphemism
'combat ready' this time) can produce improvement in the leading method
that is actually used in games. It can result in the inferior method for
games becoming the superior method for games. It is relaxing because the
pressure is off, you have an excuse to give yourself for screwing up. Thus
I question the wisdom of avoiding these "inferior" methods out of a desire
to impress onlookers.
My plan for next practice (hey kids this is a cool way to think in
terms of planning the usage of time keeping proportions in mind!):
Total Time units: 10
1 LO skip L 3/10 time unit (TU)
2 LO skip R 1/10 TU
3 LO skip LR 1/10 TU
4 LO no skip 1/10 TU 5 E3 3/10 TU
6 Ground 1/10 TU
Example: with TU at 10 minutes practice would be 100 minutes.
Next practical number for TU, is 15, because keeping track of for example
13 minute segments on a watch is a pain in the ass. At a 15 minute TU the
total practice time would be 10X15=150 minutes, 2.5 hours.
I was the only one out there in the rain, temp 68 humidity 100%. It
got too hot for a long sleeved sweatshirt.
At the end a tall heavy man in a raincoat with a blond mustache
strode across the court, he said, "nobody came out to play with ya?", I
told him of course not it's raining. What I was thinking was how the
Boston area folks seem to let weather pressure them into canceling events
relatively easily, so what do you expect in this kind of
rain? I finished up this log report, got on the internet, read
about Deval Patrick winning the democratic primary for governor election.
I read about all the ways in which me and Deval Patrick are similar, I
sent Patrick an email mentioning the similarities, and giving links to my
blog post about the dream about me and Reggie Bush being twins, and to
this hyar soccer log page.
Deval Patrick, Reggie Bush, and me, Hobbs, to me this
all meant America. I walked outside in the cool fall night air, to take a
look at the flagpole flying the flag outside the apartment where I
live, because the flag on the pole reminded me of these others and myself
and of my soccer achievements, in terms of the height of the flagpole
being similar to the distance I air dribble without letting the ball
touch the ground.
I measured the flagpole using my body, and then stepping
away using my hands held in front of my eye, to count off how many body
lengths tall the flagpole is. The flagpole I calculated as being seven
feet tall from the ground to the handle connected to the rope that lowers
and raises the flag; and stepping away I counted the flagpole from top to
bottom as being four of these seven feet lengths, 28 feet, nine yards,
with the flag occupying vertically the top yard and a half.
I looked at height the flag was flying at, it was a
lofty significant magnificent royal height; the distance I dribble
horizontally when air dribbling, flying along keeping the ball off the
ground but under control, is usually at minimum the same as this
height.
The flag at the top yard and a half of the flagpole, to
me, symbolized the yard of my air dribble runs that involves chipping
the ball past the red cones or the padded football goal-post that I use to
symbolize a defender; and I was thinking, could that be mere coincidence,
this stately flag-pole height of nine yards, compared to me flying at a
target eight yards away and then continuing the air-dribble while flipping
the ball up past the target and moving further on?
Looking at that imposing height of nine yards of the
flagpole, for the first time in a while, I sensed within me something
like...inspired spirit--inspired spirit that radio and TV and people were
not producing in me--but that meditating on the noble dignified height of
the flagpole was.
O say, can you see, by the dawn's early
light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there. |
Replique |
10.1 psi |
|||||||||||||||
9/20/06
Wednesday
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA
815-1000 PM |
LO, E3 EIGHT YARD AIR DRIBBLE APPROACH TO TARGET
DRILLS
|
1 30 minutes LO pattern flight air dribble approach to
target eight yards from starting point no skipping
2 10 minutes LO pattern flight air dribble approach
to target eight yards from starting point, skipping on steps with right
foot.
3 10 minutes LO pattern flight air dribble approach
to target eight yards from starting point, skipping on steps with left
foot.
410 minutes LO pattern flight air dribble approach to
target eight yards from starting pointm skipping with both left and right
feet
5 45 minutes E3 pattern flight air dribble
approach to target eight yards from starting point, skipping on every step
both left and right.
For some reason, I felt no better than an equal today in
dry conditions today, compared to what I was yesterday in the rain,
at least until I started using start setups
different from CUU on the first move. I had been using CUU on move 1 of
the LO and E3 air dribbles because CUU worked the best with WC06 pattern
air dribble approach.
Then it dawned on me, that since LO and E3 are different
than WC06 flight pattern for eight yd approach to target, maybe I should
try different starts on move 1 with LO and E3 compared to the start that
works best with WC06.
I found that both CCC and UCC work better
than CUU when it comes to the vertical pattern for the start of OL
and E3.
This despite the fact that vertical pattern CUU is best
for move 1 with the WC06 pattern eight yard approach to target.
This because LO involves the left foot being used two yards from the start
point, E3 involves the right foot being used on move 1
approx three yards from the start point, whereas WC06 involves
the right foot being used one yard from the start point. I hope to more
diligently investigate various alternatives to CUU on the start for E3 and
LO approach patterns.
Today I dropped by to see my brother ("Shank")
before I practiced. Shank wanted me to drive him all the way to Main
Street and back to get some special type of tobacco from the store.
He was constantly talking in this lazy undisciplined uncivilized
tone of voice. I had to take him home where I picked up my soccer
ball and stuff for practice before dropping him off at his house near the
practice area.
Maybe the Shank interaction prior to the practice is to
blame for the fact that today, although there was no rain or wetness, I
felt like I was performing worse than I did yesterday in the
pouring rain, until I figured out that the vertical pattern that works the
best for a WC06 start, does not work the best for a LO or E3 start.
Today the LO variants involving skipping with left or
right or both feet were both still inferior to the LO variant involving no
skips; but today there was not time span during which skipping with LO
with left or right or both feet seemd impossible.
There were a couple of young white adults playing
basketball out on the courts today with me.
|
Replique |
Was down to 9.0, pumped up to 10.1 psi. |
|||||||||||||||
9/21/06
Thursday
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA
800-1000 PM |
LO6 E3 |
All I did today was the eight yard air dribble flight
runs at the target, the chip over the target, and then the continuation of
the flight/run/air-dribble. The target today was this circle painted in
white on the basketball court at center, diameter approx 1 yd; it was
inside a second circle, diameter approx 3 yds. On at least two thirds of
the runs I was able to comfortably with sufficient speed and control get
to the target, chip the ball over the target ( kicking it from a spot
about a yard from the target), and then continue the run for at least
another five yards, the ball all the while being kept off the ground but
under control, the ball being touched only with the feet prior to reaching
the target.
I remember a few years ago I was able to consistently
sprint 15 yards keeping the ball off the ground but close to the body,
using only my head. Today I was wondering during practice, what exactly
the advantages of using the feet to do this instead of using the head are.
The answers my mind produced for myself: when using the head like that you
set yourself up for a nasty headbutt from the likes of Zidane or the
Portuguese; you have more directional flexibility and range when kicking
the ball; in the real world you would end up in situation where the only
way to reach the ball was with your feet.
Still I am tempted to experiment with approaches that
combine the head and the feet...but I doubt whether such would be an
improvement over LO or E3. I feel like I have enough options on my hands
already...but then again one can in "Bridge Over the River Kwai" get
obsessed with a drill, in the process losing sight of the sport as a
whole and what actual games are like.
Today I did:
1 60 minutes using the LO footwork-ballwork pattern
eight yd approach to the target, followed by the chip of the ball over and
or to the side of the target, followed by the continuation of the run.
Used feet only as usual on approach to target.
2 60 minutes using the E3 footwork-ballwork
pattern eight yd approach to the target, followed by the chip of the ball
over and or to the side of the target, followed by the continuation of the
run. Used feet only on approach to target.
Comments re LO segment
For the first time since I started practicing the LO on
9/19, I noticed significant dramatic improvement. During the 145
minutes spend practicing LO the previous two days I did not notice this
kind of improvement. Today and the previous two days are the first time
in years I have practiced the LO. I remember last time I was into
something similar to LO, a few years ago, I was extremely incompetent
compared to the way I am now; in those days it seemed impossible to go
even ten yards using the LO type approach I was using. This was
before I thoughtfully scientifically dissected the problem and came
up with the idea of footwork/ballwork patterns that are adhered to the way
musicians adhere to a musical notational
score.
I wore my sweatpants and sweatshirt the first 40 minutes
(46 degrees, humidity 87%, wind 4 mph). The first 40 minutes performance
was much better than yesterday. Then though I began to feel hot, I
continued wearing the sweatshirt for another ten minutes during which
performance declined. 50 minutes from the start I took off my sweatshirt
so I was wearing just a short sleeved shirt, but I did not feel too cold,
and then performance came back up for the rest of the
evening.
From the beginning I used the CCC type vertical setup
for the starts on LO, amd instiinctively I used the A type horizontal
approaching the ball on the start from an angle, from the right.
From the very first attempt onwards, I consistently, the
majority of the time, got to the target, chipped the ball over the
target and continued the run at least another five yards, keeping the
ball under control but off the ground the whole time.
I felt confident and relaxed, I felt like an American
tackle football player holding the ball in his arm as I air dribbled the
ball towards the target...the chipping the ball past the target and
continuing the flight were also easy. Except for the ten minutes when I
was overly heated in the sweatshirt I would say on 75% of the runs I got
to the target, chipped the ball over the target, and then continued the
air dribble with the ball under control for at least another five yards
fro a total of thirteen yards.
I noticed that if you look at the ground as a graph
with an X and a Y axis, the act of approaching the target and chipping the
ball over the target, requires that the ball be kicked from a precise X
and Y coordinate spot right in front of the target; and it requires
the ball to be kicked to a precise XY spot behind the target.
The ball can be kicked when it is chipped past the
target, too soon, or too late. Getting the ball to a point that is off
target by being to one or the other side of the target, is also an
unacceptable level of error.
The WC06 method has been deprecated in part because it
is currently lacking in precision in terms of this kind of X coordinate
slash Y coordinate placement.
With the LO on the majority of the attempts I was able
to: kick the ball, when chipping the ball past the target, from a
point outside the yard wide circle marking the target but inside the
three yard wide circle the little target circle was the center of; and
then, continue the air dribble without the ball touching the ground on
past the target.
However I noticed there is still a certain level of
roughness re the spot the ball is kicked from when chipped past the target
and the spot the ball is contacted at before it hits the
ground (often with the head) once past the target.
Comments re the E3
approach
The E3 is not as tightly controlled an approach as the
LO, but aside from that disadvantage today it showed itself more reliable
than the LO, again further complicating matters ( reason for this may be
the E3 was run in the second 60 minutes today).
For the first time since I started practicing the E3
approach again--it was the approach used prior to the WC06 practice
sessions--there was significant dramatic improvement. The first 45 minutes
of practice with E3 yesterday there was not much improvement between the
beginning of the 45 minutes and the end.
The CCC vertical setup was used on the start, with the A
type horizontal on the start the ball approached from the right side
at an angle. On at least three fourths of the attempts, I was able to
comfortable and quickly get the ball to the target, and then
chip it from a spot inside the three yard circle but outside the one yard
wide target circle, past the target, and then continue the air dribble run
for at least another five yards.
Without a doubt, the WC06 pattern practice
sessions have resulted in enormous improvement in the E3, which I
would say is now at least twice as good as it was before I started the
WC06 practices. As of now aside from being less tightly controlled than
the LO, the E3 is more reliable in terms of getting the ball to the
target. But I did not notice this vast level of
improvement during the first 45 minutes of returning to E3
yesterday.
In general today I felt highly skilled but underfed and
fatigued. Yesterday I had seen Shank and I drank about a six pack of
beer; today there was no Shank and no beer. I have been paying very little
attention to what I eat, putting very little time and energy and money
into the food area of life.
I started my drills at 8 PM. At almost exactly 8 PM, the
dozen or so hispanic looking grade school age boys who were playing soccer
on one of the courts ended their game, the climax of the game consisting
of a couple of them rolling around on the ground and hitting each other it
was kind of half serious half in jest fighting.
Just my luck, on the day the skills are good, nobody is
on the court to get impressed. There were just two or three black
guys, teenager-types, walking across the court as a way of
cutting corners getting from here to there. One of them was talking on a
cell phone and wore a crimson and white jersey with the number 58 on it;
the other was wearing a gaudy, some would call it "garish" shirt patterned
like the flag of Niger or India, without the insignia in the middle of the
white stripe which is in between the orange stripe on top and the
green stripe on the bottom in both the Niger and India flags.
|
Replique |
was down to 9.0 inflated to 10.1 psi. Seems ball hitting
metal poles in fences, knocks alot of psi out of the ball. |
|||||||||||||||
9/22/06
Friday
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA
830-1000 PM
minus 20 mins to urinate in appropriate
place |
E3
LO air dribble vs target |
Today same as yesterday I did the same eight yard
air dribble at the target, keeping the ball off the ground but under
control, followed by the chip over the imaginary target, followed by the
continuation of the air dribble run. the majority of these were well
executed with the ball under control and kept off the ground for at least
fifteen yards.
This practice started out like a bummer. I got to the
courts, then before I used the ball after stretching, I realized that if I
did not find a place where I could respectably defecate, I would
shit in my pants. I found a mens room in a restaurant, the "Hungry Coyote
(netzahualcoyotl)" Mexican restaurant.
I went back to the courts. By now it was already 830 PM.
I practiced for 12 minutes and then I realized I had to take a piss. I
drove to the Burger King to take a piss, because I had already used the
"Hungry Coyote" men's room, and the Tempo restaurant seemed like, too
upscale to walk into holding a gym bag, wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and
shorts. I drove to the Burger King to take a piss in their men's room. By
the time I got back to the outdoor basketball courts I had lost
approx another 20 minutes of practice time.
I wonder whether the reason there were these bathroom
problems today, that usually almost never occur, is that I had to
discuss a financial transaction with this man who helps me handle these
transactions and he was being somewhat cranky. Maybe two cups of coffee,
the second one guzzled down right before I head to the practice, will
cause bathroom problems; I'm not sure if I usually have one or two cups of
coffee before I head out.
By the time I got back to the courts, my peace of mind
was shattered. What a disaster, this idiotic running looking for a
bathroom. I continued with the E3 which went first this time. I felt like
a dork. I felt I was playing clumsily.
Also on the court was a brown skinned American black
type teenage male, practicing soccer with a dark brown
almost African teenage male whose skin was almst black. They
were using a ball that was undersized and soft. I asked them about the
ball.
The lighter colored one said his name was Giscard, he
was on the track team at Waltham High School. The darker one he was with
played soccer at Newton North High School. Giscard asked me what college
team I had played for, his tone of voice was that he was convinced I had
played for a significant respectable college team. He also asked, "did you
play professionally?"
I told him that I played college soccer at Harvard.
Little did he know that I was for much of the one short
fall season my freshman year at Harvard, the only year I played on
the Harvard team, a pathetic scrub--until after a few weeks I
got used to Harvard and started dominating playing defense in scrimmages;
little did he know that the only reason I made the freshman team is that
they decided not to cut any of the players who tried out. I do not
remember why I did not play after my freshman year don't remember if
I tried out and did not make it or did not even bother trying out. To
me after University High School, the Harvard
players seemed big, skilled, fast, and, especially, well
conditioned. If what happened was that sophomore year I tried out and did
not make it all I have to say is that it takes time for people like me to
get used to the peculiarities of places like Harvard especially after
being away for the summer vacation.
I told Giscard that one day we should do drills
together.
I realized that I was not doing too well as I resumed
the drill, and tried a change in attitude. I decided henceforth to
try to approach each run with "panache" and "joie de vivre". I remembered
how my father had told me when I was younger that Pakistan plays cricket
with "panache". I remembered how Matt Leinart of the USC Trojans had
said that we often forget the importance of enjoying playing games like
football. I tried to take pleasure in visualizing what a successful run
would look and feel like. I tried to adopt the personality of a hale and
hearty star player who enjoys every practice run.
Heretofore I had been my usual glum self, thinking
technically, thinking about concentrating on getting certain technical
things done, always feeling down about my mistakes.
Subsequent to the change in attitude my performance
improved. It became the equal of what my performance had been when I was
being my usual glum concentrating-hard technical self yesterday.
My thesis now is that there is the glum-concentrated-technical
attitude and there is the joyous-super-hero attitude, these attitudes are
equals, but when one of these attitudes is not working it is time to
switch to the other attitude and vice versa.
I got better at E3 as I changed attitude and then I
switched to LO which worked better than E3 today. Seems of these two
whichever one is done second seems better and whichever is done first
seems worse. My thesis now is that these two air dribble approach
patterns are still at a point where they are a little clumsy until I have
warmed up.
As my performance picked up about 910 PM, the other guys
on the court, I noticed, were now just standing there, right next to
the point from where I was starting all my runs, and now there were about
half a dozen of them, all of them Africans or African-American teenage
males. For about 20 minutes I guess, they just stood there, having
stopped their ball games; and one of them put his brown jacket and
his cell phone right next to my gym bag. Then they went back to playing
ball but now it was basketball not soccer with an under-inflated
under-sized ball. My performance stayed hot until 1000 PM when the half
the lights at the courts went out and I called it quits.
The dark African guy who played soccer on the Newton
North team, was a good juggler with the soft little ball, but his juggling
as is typical did not involve moving from here to there horizontally while
juggling. He and Giscard dribbled the soft little ball at each other; this
African from Newton North High, was using those moves where the feet in
feint shoot forward and to the side of the ball as it rolls forward.
I remembered how during the World Cup such looked flashy indeed, but
usually resulted in the defending team seizing control of the ball.
Psa 46:6-11 The heathen raged, the kingdoms
were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The LORD of hosts is
with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, behold the works of
the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to
cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the
spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be
still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the
heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.The LORD of hosts is with us; the
God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
|
Replique |
inflated to 10.1 psi. |
|||||||||||||||
9/23 Saturday
BREAK |
|||||||||||||||||||
9/24/06
Sunday
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA
845-1000 PM |
LO
E3
AIR DRIBBLE RUNS AT TARGET 9 YDS AWAY FROM
START
|
Drank 8 oz tangerine juice and 12 oz coffee w non dairy creamer and cane sugar before the practice. There was a need to urinate before starting which is unusual. I think usually I skip the tangerine juice before the practice. Tangerine juice and coffee together produces this need to piss, the pants and the underpants and the stresses of the workout exacerbate the piss-urge. Today I did:
1 LO 40 mins using the super-hero
personality
2 E3 33 mins using relaxed personality
Seems for the past two or three days the distance from
the start to the center of the target has grown to nine yards.
Today on at least a quarter of the runs, I got to the
target, chipped the ball over the target, and then continued the air
dribble run with the ball not having touched the ground and still under
control, for another eleven yds for a total of 20 yds, ending the run by
touching the ball right before it hit the fence, which was 20 yds from the start.
Beyond this quarter of the runs a certain amount would
have gone on for longer than 20 yds, but I did not kick
the ball in a ball-controlled way right before I hit the fence--thus
technically I cannot say with certainty that the air dribble run would
have continued beyond a distance of 20 yds from the start, the ball having
been kept under control and off the ground the whole time.
These distances have gotten longer recently. I can
remember when I would be impressed by myself for traveling 13
yds keeping the ball under control and off the ground, without
the complication of having to chip the ball past an imaginary defender.
Up until I reach the target I move at a run, not a
sprint, but it becomes a sprint air dribble flight once the ball is
chipped over the target after the first 9 yds.
Today the first segment the LO using the "super hero
personality" (Leinart have fun type) as a frame of mind, was no
better than the glum or grim personality. Henceforth the glum
personality will be called the "grim" personality because this sounds more
respectable.
As usual the star of the show was the pattern run in the
second half, which was today the E3. In
the second segment today, I used a personality to serve as my mental
attitude that I have not used yet, which I call the relaxed personality.
When I move into relaxed personality mode, I breathe
deeply alot, the basic point of the personality is that it is relaxed,
relaxed similarly to how you feel when jogging or swimming slowly.
The relaxed personality did not produce performance
superior to that produced by Captain Grim or Captain Super-hero. In some
ways it seemed to produce better performance in other ways it seemed to
produce worse performance.
For the first time since I started doing the drills,
while using the Relaxed personality, I slipped and fell to the
ground, a hard concrete outdoor basketball court ground. But it did not
put me out of action for a minute. After I tripped over the ball I
hit the ground with my body in the position used to do pushups, I
cushioned my fall with my hands and rolled to the side as I hit the
ground. My knee and my hands were slightly scraped.
Captain Relaxo so to speak, seems to perform well when
it comes to the first kick of a run and trying out new improved
methods for kicking the ball.
My guess is that the relaxed, the grim, and the
super-hero enjoy-the-game type personalities all have their strengths and
weaknesses when it comes to performance, and that I might end up with a
better game personality if I spend a little time in each frame of mind.
Today Giscard was out on the court, I waved at him and
he waved back--his face lit up with a bashful smile. A half dozen
teenagers half of whom were Black were out on the court playing
basketball. After I was out there for 20 minutes I guess, they began to
sit down on the benches by the courts, they sat on those benches for about
20 minutes and then moseyed on home. I saw them staring in my
direction a couple of times, but it seemed they wanted to look as if they
were not paying me too much attention.
Plan for tomorrow:
1/2 E3, split between grim, superhero, relaxed,
and undetermined 'personalities'
1/2 LO, split between grim, superhero, relaxed,
and undetermined 'personalities'
Day after this the order of the personalities will be
reversed. |
Replique |
inlated to 10.1 psi |
|||||||||||||||
9/25/06
Monday
Outdoor Basketball Courts
corner of Lowell and High
Waltham MA
820-1000 PM |
AIR DRIBBLE AT TARGET
E3
LO |
1208 1232,
This evening I skipped taking any vitamin pill before
practice, had just one glass of tea with non dairy creamer and sugar, and
there was no problem with having to piss during practice. I think the
problem is vitamin pills end up making you feel like pissing.
Nigh before I got a good night's sleep which is rare for
me, and felt relaxed after I woke up from my night's sleep. I suspect the
reason is that I drank the following concoction before sleeping: 12 oz
organic whole milk + vanilla liquid + kewra water + cane sugar.
This evening the entire evening was done using the
Captain "Relaxo" personality. Meaning the focus of my mind this evening
was relaxation:
1 60 minutes alternating between E3 and LO
2 20 minutes E3
3 20 minutes LO
Captain Relaxo showed himself, so to speak, to be
superior to the other personalities when it comes to the first 15 minutes
which have been a problem so far.
The first run of the day, these kids were standing
around me asking questions, including black haired little Jorge who is
always getting into half-serious fights with his fellow boys, and it
was time for me to execute my first run. It was the first time
I had touched the ball in 24 hours, all these boys were standing around
watching, but there you have it, ce la guerre.
I activated the Captain Relaxo personality in my
mind, and the first run was a perfect LO, the approach flight
to the target, the chip over the target, the sprint flight another 12
yards, 20 yards covered fast with the ball under control, the ball
never touching the ground.
The Captain Relaxo personality seems by a slight margin
to be the best personality for LO after the first 20 minutes also. But for
E3 it does not seem a better than average personality to use.
LO is compared to E3 a new flight pattern which there
has been little practice on. LO is also a more natural flight pattern for
one such as myself, compared to E3.
This evening, LO showed itself to be
currently definitely the superior flight pattern compared to E3, as
of now. Since E3 and LO were alternating, they both shared the
disadvantage of being run early in the practice.
I estimate in total I executed 100 of these air dribble
runs in 100 minutes today.
The overall performance was a little better than
yesterday because Captain Relaxo performed well in the first 15 minutes
and throughout the evening performed well with LO.
At the beginning of the practice some time around run
number 1, this brown skinned boy on the playground--you could see the
brown on him was different than the tan on a white--engaged me in a
conversation. I found out his name was Jorge, that he was thirteen years
old and Mexican, and that he attended the McDevitt Middle School (http://www.city.waltham.ma.us/SCHOOL/Webpage/so.htm).
He bombarded me with questions: "what team did you play
for?...what team do you play for?...what team are you going to play
for?...". He tried to guess what my nationality was. His first
guess was Brazil. I shook my head, no, I was not a Brazilian. His second
guess was that I was from Argentina.
The only thing I could come up with in response to his
queries re what team did I, or do I, or will I play for, was that I once
played on the Harvard team. He looked at me, a wide eyed expression on his
face, wearing a slight smile.
He looked as if he was thinking, regarding me, that I
was: a pro; hiding the fact that I was on some bigshot team and pretending
to have just Harvard on my resume as a player; a player much greater than
a mere Harvard player.
He looked at me as if he was vicariously sharing in all
the pleasures that awaited me as a glamorous pro, the pretty women, the
fast cars, the money. He told me that he sees me play on the playground
every day. And I was thinking, I have never noticed him watching
me.
I asked them where I sounded as if I came from. Pedro's
friend from Guatemela, a slight black haired boy with a mustache, said he
thought that I sounded as if I came from New York, that I had a New York
accent. I remembered how others have said I sound as if I was from
New York, though I have never lived there only visited for a few days. I
was thinking that by now I must have developed a Boston accent but I guess
maybe not
At the end of the practice, on my last run, I executed a
perfect LO, nine yds run to the target using the LO flight pattern, a chip
over the target, another eleven yards unpatterned and sprinted, total
twenty yards on the run or sprint the ball under control never touching
the ground. Little Jorge, who is much shorter than Pedro, saw this run, I
feel sure. Then he recovered the ball after it bounced off the fence and
began dribbling it, daring me to steal it from him, talking trash about
how he was going to whup some move on me.
I did not feel like investing energy in stealing the
ball from him. I said to him, something like, "you just saw me fly twenty
yards with the ball, and now you're talking trash".
Plan for tomorrow: LO goes first when done by itself,
use un-predetermined freestyle personality.
|
Replique |
inflated to 10.1 psi had fallen to 9.4 psi. |
|||||||||||||||
9/27/06
Tuesday
|
BREAK
SAMBA MUSIC TALK AS IN BRAZILIAN SAMBA STYLE SOCCER
SICK STOMACH ACHE |
About 1 AM today I developed a painful stomach ache; betel nut did
not solve the problem, drinking water did not solve the problem, vomiting
and then drinking water did not solve the problem--finally vomiting and
then not drinking water solved the painful problem but slowly--I must have
been in severe pain for 13 hours. So I missed practice today.
The Brazilian style of soccer is called the "Samba" style it is
supposed to be like a sibling of the "Samba" style of music. The Mexican boy yesterday thought I was from Brazil.
I found the most incredible thing on the internet at http://www.rhapsody.com/album/sambagoalpoweredbyr10.
This page has a compilation of Brazil soccer star Ronaldinho's
favorite Samba songs, twelve of them, you can listen to them all
for free, hearing the entire length of each song. Incredible. My favorites
were: festa, (http://play.rhapsody.com/album/sambagoalpoweredbyr10/track-1),
and, the "Brazil soccer anthem", "Na Cadencia Do Samba" (http://play.rhapsody.com/album/sambagoalpoweredbyr10/track-9).
You can listen to "Samba Pa Ti" (1970) by Carlos Santana
at
The whole song for free, incredibly.
At http://music.download.com/3608-5-0-1.html?tag=MDL_pageRow&searchType=3608&orderby=-totalLeadCount&tg=&qt=samba (first
page of results of music.download.com search for Samba, results ordered by
"total listens") and, http://music.download.com/3608-5-0-2.html?tag=MDL_pageRow&searchType=3608&tg=&orderby=-totalLeadCount&qt=samba (second
page of search results), you can find a list of 26 Samba songs, ranked by
total number of listens. You can listen to all of these songs in their
entirety.
My take on these 26 songs at music.download.com (I
listened to samples of all of them)--the songs I liked the best out of
these 26:
Ranked #1 by total number of listens, you can listen to
all of "Samba Batacuda" by Sambaholics. Captures the spirit of one
of my playground air dribble practice session or Samba-style soccer in a
game to some extent.
Ranked #13 in "total listens": "La Samba" by
ScanVoice Fun Factory--This Samba has a sophisticated movie-sound-track
like quality to it. You can hear the whole song for free.
Ranked #20 in "total listens": "Electric Samba" by
Penrique. This one also has that competent sophisticated movie-sound-track
like quality to it, whole song for free.
Ranked #26 in "total listens": "Poolside Samba" by David
Delaney, comes in dead last in terms of total number of listens. But again
I like that dignified intelligent sounding movie-sound-track like quality.
Whole song for free.
Looking at these results I liked the most popular and
also high rated "Batacuda Samba", but the other three I liked had not been
rated by anyone and were not highly ranked in terms of number of listens
in total or this week. I would guess a song that ranks number one in
total listens or in a tie or close to a tie for first place in terms of
user ratings, will be good, but then also there will a few songs not
ranked highly that are especially good.
From what I have heard of Ronaldinho's Sambas and other
Sambas, I guess my thing in Sambas is that I get tired of what seem to be
deliberately tacky amateurish sounding Sambas produced to appeal to the
self-love of the audience, which were they attempt to produce a Samba
would end up probably producing something tacky and amateurish
sounding.
|
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Sunday
10/8/06
Willow & Grove
Waltham MA
440-640 PM |
LO E3 AIR APPROACH TO TARGET
|
Tragically missed 10 days practice. First I ate this
vegetable stew at Shank's house which resulted in a terrible stomach ache,
upset stomach and fatigue for about four days. Then I came down with a
cold and a sore throat. Then I got so discombobulated by the pressure of
having to deal with temperamental Mr. Schnapps trustee of my little trust
fund, that I felt too tired to practice soccer.
It was sunny 60 degrees 60 percent
humidity when I started, rapidly got too hot for anything but shorts
and t-shirt. It seemed incredible to me that the lazy person I had become
was the same person who in September was carrying out such energetic
zealous practices.
The first 75 minutes I devoted to the LO flight approach
to the target 8 yds in front of my starting point, which in turn was 25
yds in front of the goal. The whole evening my object was to air dribble
to the target, chip it past the target pick up speed continue the air
dribble and shoot.
The first 20 minutes, I had zero of the successes I was
having 4 times every 5 minutes last time out, on the smooth outdoor
basketball court surface. The second 20 minutes, about 1 'success' (making
it at least past the target 8 yds away from me with the ball kept off
the ground and under control) per 5 minutes, the third 20 minutes
about 2 'successes' per 5 minutes, the last 15 minutes about 3 'successes'
per 5 minutes.
xxx
It seemed incredible that the incompetent I was at this
time, and the demigod I was ten days ago, were one and the same person.
Seemed like the combo of the uneven grass surface and the skill and
conditioning effect of having been away from the game for ten days
had knocked me out, turned me into trash for the first 45 minutes of the
workout.
Reminds me that it seems it takes about three hours
to get back to being as good as you were before the break, after a break
of longer than five days.
At 555 PM I switched to the E3 pattern. The E3
pattern worked surprisingly well right from the start of doing the
E3 until about 625 PM. Then about 15 minutes before the 642 PM Civil
Twilight, the ball began to get damp with dew and performance began to get
impaired due to the difficulty of rolling the ball back and flipping it up
off the ground in damp conditions when on bumpy grass.
At this point I remembered that I had so far been using
the CCC crouched type of start, out of habit because such is the start I
had been using on the concrete surface outdoors basketball court, even
though I had earlier determined that the upright UUU type start worked
better outdoors on grass.
I tried the UUU type start before the dew-damp came
on with the E3, it did not seem superior to the CCC which worked well
with the E3 before the ball began to get damp.
Then I realized that I had also forgotten that the
distance between the feet should be extended at the start when outdoors on
bumpy grass. I tried the CCC with the extended distance between feet, it
seemed to work the best amongst all the possible starts for the E3 after
the ball got damp.
I
I Did not get a chance to try out the UUU with extended
distance between feet which I had earlier concluded was the best start for
grass.
Fact is that although a couple of weeks ago UUU worked
best on bumpy grass, that does not mean such will still be the case
today.
After the first 60 minutes or so the performance ceased
to be feel embarrassing. The E3s were good runs 3
times out of every 5 minutes for 30 minutes until the ball began to get
damp.
There were a few 20 yard runs and a few 30 yd runs, the
ball air dribbled without touching the ground for 30 yds at a sprint or
fast run.
I noted improvement in the shooting bouncing balls. I
had observed the need for more skill amongst World Cup players, with
regard to playing balls that have bounced once or twice. I have begun to
figure out how on a bumpy grass field, when you are chasing the ball you
need to slow down, not approach it as fast as you approach it on a smooth
flat surface, because the ball is bound to bounce in a somewhat
erratic, unpredictable way.
Today at the beginning as I screwed up, two senior
citizens came out in front of the convenience store across the street and
sat down on chairs and stared in my direction, they looked like something
out of a Norman Rockwell painting, and there I was, screwing up, due to
ten days off and the bumpy grass surface (come to think of it the fact
that LO has been practiced by me on the grass surface less than E3
might have had something to do with the slow start). And there was a
guy talking on a pay phone outside the store while he was watching me
screw up. If he was talking to the wrong person my reputation world wide
could be ruined now.
Then three cop cars stopped this brown skinned wavy
black haired tall woman in a gray car, arrested her, and had her car towed
away by a huge flatbed truck. These cop cars were there for about 20
minutes towards the end of the 75 minutes I devoted to the LO
pattern, I had some spectacular runs and shots while they were
there.
As things got good with the E3, these grade school age
boys stood in a circle right next to the spot I start from when I do a
run. Seems this is characteristic of grade school and high school age boys
around me, they form a circle and stand next to the spot I start from.
Then a short thick African and his little boy started
playing at the miniature goal I was shooting at. The boy parked his
yellow bicycle directly in front of the goal, right on the field. I
asked him to move it. These two played right in front of me as if it did
not even occur to them that they might get im my way, and I was there
before they were. I thought maybe they wanted people to think they were my
buddies.
There were not too many tennis players on the tennis
court, but plenty of people around the convenience store, sitting in the
bleachers, playing soccer, walking around.
Today I was so to speak 'using' the happy super-hero
type personality, trying to feel like a happy successful pro who was
enjoying myself. This personality did not seem to work as well as Captain
Relaxo for the tough beginning first few attempts of the practice
session.
It was not until 60 minutes into the practice that I
began to flip my foot as I kicked the ball; until then due to the break, I
was keeping the angle between my foot and my knee rigid as I kicked the
ball. This flipping the foot as the ball is kicked is crucial for the high
level of air dribbling I have attained to.
Civil twilight was 642 PM, I expected that there would
be enough light to play in until nauticul twilight at 715 PM, but such was
not the case this evening, this evening it became too dark to continue
with air dribbling at the Civil Twilight time.
I am tempted to lay a rug or a towel down on the grass
at the starting point to smooth things out for the flip of the ball off
the ground, such would prepare me better for good fields, but it would
prepare me worse for the typical field.
Today: I was choosing smooth spots on the ground
to take off from; the right foot was slanted outwards on the
starts.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi measured these balls lose lots of pressure even
when they are not used over a few days. |
|||||||||||||||
Columbus Day
Monday 10/9
park at corner of Willow & grove
Waltham MA
230-400 PM |
E3, LO AIR APPROACH TO TARGET |
Order of events was:
1 E3
a 10 min CCC regular -- very good 3 good runs per 5
min
b 10 min CCC extended--better than a, approx 3 good/5
min
c 10 min UUU extended--good 3/5 rate worse than
a
d 15 min UUU regular-- as good as c
2 LO
a 11 min CCC close--good 3/5 rate not as good as E3 past
target
b 11 min CCC extended--good slightly better than
a
c 11 min UUU extended--good 3/5 rate not as good as a or
b
d 12 min UUU close--better than c approx equal to
a
Above, good for E3 was typically an 8 yd run to the
target followed by 12 more yds for a total of 20 with ball under control
off ground. good for LO was on average about a 14 yd run with ball off
ground in control in total.
There were plenty of fast long 25-30 yd runs today with
ball under control and off ground the whole time, especially with the E3.
With the LO I got to the target as often as with the E3 but the control
was not as good so the flight once past the target was not as
good.
The E3 was clearly better than the LO for bumpy grass
surface. The LO is the preferred pattern on the smooth surfaces. Maybe if
I stick with the LO it will catch up to E3 in terms of outdoors
performance.
Once the ball touched the ground rarely did it bounce
more than once before I touched it again.
Being outdoors I was not bumping into a wall at the 20
yd point thus certain spectacularities could be seen that are not seen
indoors or when I start closer to the fence outdoors.
tenp 79 degrees humidity 42% sunny.
I felt physically and mentally mediocre, but the
performance was not mediocre it was very good. To be able to get up to 3
good runs per 5 attempts outdoors in the third and fourth hours after a
ten day layoff was an accomplishment. About 4 runs reaching the target per
5 attempts was my rate outdoors on the smooth flat outdoors basketball
court concrete surface when I was impressing people including
myself.
There were about a dozen basketball players, a guy
sitting in a chair in front of the convenience store across the street who
looked like he was watching me, a few soccer players.
The personality I used was the Captain Relaxo
personality it performed well...especially, today I did really well
on the E3 right from the beginning, without goofing around with the ball
to warm up first. The first five minutes there were three good runs this
held up for the entire 1.5 hours.
Today I was not choosing smooth spots on the
ground to take off from. Rather, I without looking rolled the ball to the
takeoff area and then took off from whatever spot the ball came to
rest. Still it was much better than yesterday. Today right foot slanted
outwards on start.
Today when I went to retrieve a ball on the basketball
court, I was wondering if the sun was at that unflattering angle that
makes my acne scars visible. there was a pretty,
sharp-military-pretty-look type blonde teenage female with a nice
body on the basketball court; she was with this white clean shaven
muscular guy with glasses, I guess her father, who was about six foot five
inches tall, about 40 (I suppose people who are with people who look like
their kids always look older than they would otherwise) about 270 pounds
muscle not, who was not fat, he wore a dark blue t shirt with "Waltham" in
white on it. He looked like a pro football offensive lineman. Our eyes met
as I was about ten yds away and he shouted,
"Yea!...Waltham!...".
|
Replique |
10.1 psi |
|||||||||||||||
Tuesday 10/10
park at corner of Willow & grove
Waltham MA
440-640 PM |
E3, LO AIR APPROACH TO TARGET |
Order of events was:
Reverse of order yesterday
A 20 yd run ball off ground kept under control
means the last time the ball was touched before it hit the ground was 20
yds from the start. So when I say the flight/run was a 30 yd flight/run
that means I last touched the ball (with a soccer-legal part of my
body) before it hit the ground 30 yds from the start.
Numbers given approximate did not keep track but
reported after every 15 minutes, approximations.
Personality used today: captain Grim, my usual self,
grim, concentrating hard, aware of my failures and faults.
Approx 1 run/flight per minute today
Used right foot out at slant on start today
1 LO APPROACH TO TARGET FLIGHT PATTERN-- Used start
from behind ball approach today not start at angle on right as with
previous two days
a 15 min UUU regular -- More than 80 percent got to
target eight yards from start with ball under control not having touched
ground. A Great segment. Most of the runs were 25 yds flights w
ball under control off ground; first ten attempts were all almost perfect,
at least 20 yds flights; first three were long 35 yd flights! Captain Grim
did a great job using the LO, so that right from the start, basically the
first time I touched the ball with my foot in 26 hours, things were
spectacular. I did the usual stretches and a little bit of the war dance
before starting.
b 15 min UUU ext extended--More than 75
percent got to the target 8 yds from the start with ball under control not
having touched the ground. Not as goor as 1-a. Avg flight length 18 yds.
Not as well controlled on meeting target as 1-a.
c 15 min CCC ext--More than 80% got to target 8 yds away
with ball not having touched ground and under control. Felt competent,
confident, using the CCC ext start with LO flight approach pattern. Avg
run/flights 20 yds ball under control off ground. Not as good as 1-a
on length of run with ball off ground, but better on approach to target,
approx equal today to 1-a.
d 15 min CCC close-- not as good as 1-c, equal approx to
1-b; 75% got to target 8 yds from start with ball under control not having
touched ground; 17 avg run/flight distance before ball hit ground; did not
feel as competent and confident and relaxed as with 1-c.
2 E3
a 15 min UUU close--as good as the worst of the LOs
done today. 2/3 reached target 8 yds away ball under control not having
touched ground. 18 yds avg length of run up to last kick before ball hits
ground.
b 15 min UUU extended--Better than 2-a; approx
equal to 1-a; 18 yds avg length of run up to last kick before ball hits
ground; worse after target than 1-a.
c 15 min CCC extended--Surprise! did not
feel especially confident; worst segment of night; 60 percent got to
target 8 yds away with ball not having touched ground and under control;
20 yds avg length of run up to last kick before ball hits
ground.
d 15 min CCC close--Best of night, more than 80
percent reached target ball not having touched ground under control; 20
yds avg length of run up to last kick before ball hits ground. The
distance of the flights not extreme but the quality up to the target and
the chip past target superior. Last 10 minutes impaired due to poor
visibility.
The LO was superior today even though it went first
before the E3. Today I was up to about 80% success reaching target at 8
yds with ball under control not having touched ground, a real achievement
for a bumpy grass field. The day before I was at about 60% on this and the
day before that at about 40%. Seems if I put my mind to it carefully, I
can get up to a performance on a bumpy grassy field that is almost as good
as if the surface was smooth.
As usual once the ball touched the ground rarely
did it bounce more than once before I touched it again; but it was
bouncing weird as hell due to the bumpy grassy field.
Again being outdoors I was not bumping into a wall at
the 20 yd point thus certain spectacularities could be seen that are not
seen indoors or when I start closer to the fence outdoors.
temp today was 54 degrees humidity 77% cloudy;
played comfortably in sleeveless t-shirt + lonng sleeved shirt + shorts +
sweatpants.
civil twilight 639 PM got too dark 630 PM.
When it comes to sorting out exactly which pattern is
best and which start to use and which personality to use things have
gotten fluid and complex. All I can do is use in a game what is working
best at the given time.
There were about half a dozen American looking
basketball players, about half a dozen soccer players this increased
to two dozen hispanic soccer players about half way through the
practice. They were using this weird green and blue ball, that was heavy
and that seemed like it had a soft thick skin and was also somewhat
underinflated.
Captain Grim did a great job with the LO today.
The last 15 minutes I was coughing up phlegm, feeling
fevered and fatigued, upset stomach. Outdoors on grass in the fall might
be some kind of problem.
Today again I was not choosing smooth spots on the
ground to take off from. Rather, I without looking rolled the ball to the
takeoff area and then took off from whatever spot the ball came to
rest. Still it was much better than day before yesterday when I chose the
takeoff spots.
In summary about 75% made it to the 8 yd target ball
controlled not having touched ground; 20 yd average length of run up to
last kick before ball hits ground; there were about 90 of these successes
that averaged out to 20 yd flights; there must have been 30
spectacular runs one every 4 minutes on average going 25 yds up to the
last kick before the ball hit the ground.
Retrospectively during the workout all I could see were
my failures and faults and imperfections, looking at how I felt during the
workout it seems incredible that I accomplished as much, at as high a
level, in ust two hours, as I did. I guess I get down on myself too much
when people do not compliment ,e and do not seem to be staring at me.
Today there was a five foot tall hispanic dad with his
boy, playing soccer, I saw the dad go eight yds using the LO pattern a
couple of times; he was the closest thing to me I have ever seen; but his
speed going the eight yards was about a third of my average speed going
the eight yds to the target. In a real game you cannot be a turtle like
that someone will steal the ball.
At end of previous entry added para re the Incredible
white Hulk from Waltham.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi
had declined to 9.5 psi. |
|||||||||||||||
Wednesday 10/11
Lowell Field Playground
corner of Willow & grove
Waltham MA
440-640 PM |
E3, LO AIR APPROACH TO TARGE |
Order of events was:
Reverse of order yesterday
A 20 yd run ball off ground kept under control
means the last time the ball was touched before it hit the ground was 20
yds from the start. So when I say the flight/run was a 30 yd flight/run
that means I last touched the ball (with a soccer-legal part of my
body) before it hit the ground 30 yds from the start.
Numbers given approximate did not keep track but
reported after every 15 minutes, approximations.
Personality used today: Captain Funn, the emphasis on
trying to enjoy: the practice, the times between the runs, and the
runs.
Approx 1 run/flight per minute today
Used right foot out at slant on start today
1 E3 APPROACH TO TARGET FLIGHT
PATTERN--
a 15 min CCC regular -- More than 90 percent got to
target eight yards from start with ball under control not having touched
ground. Slight, almost unnoticeable drizzle, ball was definitely wet after
the first five minutes. Avg length of flights 17 yds. Captain Funn, did a
great job of getting to the target consistently, despite the wetness of
the ball, from the very start, from basically the first time I had touched
the ball in 24 hours. Used stretching and war dance before start of
segment.
b 15 min CCC extended--More than 85 percent got to
the target 8 yds from the start with ball under control not having touched
the ground. Not as good as 1-a. Avg flight length 20 yds. Problem was
the ball was wet for more of the segment in this segment and everything
was wetter. About a quarter of the starts had to be aborted, because the
ball didnt get flipped up due to the wetness and the bumpy grassy field.
c 15 min UUU ext--More than 85% got to target 8 yds
away with ball not having touched ground and under control. . Avg
run/flights 18 yds ball under control off ground. About a quarter of
the starts were aborted starts due to wetness and field Not as good
as 1-a approx equal to 1b.
d 15 min UUU regular-- the best of the E3s today. Less
aborts than the others; more than 90% got to target 8 yds from start with
ball under control not having touched ground; 21 yd avg
run/flight distance before ball hit ground; runs were of high
quality.
2 LO APPROACH FLIGHT PATTERN
a 15 min CCC regular--90% reached target 8 yds away
ball under control not having touched ground. 18 yds avg length of run up
to last kick before ball hits ground. Few aborts. Approx equal to average
E3 today.
b 15 min CCC extended--85% reached target ball
under control not having touched ground; average runs went 15 yds before
last kick before ball hit ground. Worst segment of the evening. The ball
was carried to the target, but ball was not in optimum position on
reaching target, as a result, the flight once past the target was not
impressive compared to the other segments.
c 15 min UUU extended--90 percent got to target 8
yds away with ball not having touched ground and under control; 18
yds avg length of run up to last kick before ball hits ground. Approx
equal today of 2a, better than 2b.
d 15 min UUU close-- 85 percent reached target
with ball not having touched ground under control; 16 yds avg length
of run up to last kick before ball hits ground. Last 10 minutes
impaired due to poor visibility. Better than 2b, worse than 2a..
Rain picked up this segment.
The E3 was superior today even though it went first
before the LO.
Today I was up to about 90% success reaching target at 8
yds with ball under control not having touched ground, a very
significant achievement for a wet bumpy grass field. I can
remember when very recently getting anywhere air dribbling on a bumpy
grass field seemed almost impossible due to the starts being so screwy. Up
till now the best I was doing on the smooth surfaces with the E3 and LO
was 80% approx getting there.
Today although Captain Funn did an excellent job of
getting the plane so to speak to the target despite the wet grassy bumpy
field impairing the take-off, once the target was reached the ball due to
the impaired take-off was in less than optimum position so that the flight
subsequent to the reaching the target was not as impressive as yesterday
on the dry field.
Yesterday I was at about 80% success reaching the target
on a dry field; The day before that I was at about 60% on said
statistic and three days ago at about 40%. Today I was at 90% on a
wet field, which for me is a new height of skill.
Noticed improvement in ability to shoot airborne balls
after they have bounced once. The field is so bumpy and grassy that the
balls almost always bounce unpredictably.
Since I was outdoors I was running more than indoors,
the air breathed was different, like yesterday in the last 20 minutes I
felt body ache fever cough as if I had a cold. Looks like I have again a
long lasting condition of sort of half having a cold, which can only be
cured by significant doses of real Mezcal plant produced
Tequila.
Temp today was 55 degrees humidity 88% cloudy;
played comfortably in sleeveless t-shirt + long sleeved shirt + shorts +
sweatpants.
civil twilight 637 PM sunset 609 PM got too dark 610 PM.
I guess practice should end at sunset in fall.
There were about a dozen white
toddlers with yellow or brown or black hair running around playing soccer
on the field next to where I was, watched by their parents and I suppose
teachers, a picturesque sight, pretty the way leaves of all different
colors are pretty in the fall.
A half dozen teenage hispanic looking males were
practicing soccer 10 yds from me. They began attempting to imitate me.
They found out what a hell it is to get the ball up off the wet bumpy
grassy ground using the feet. They picked the ball up dropped it with
their hands starting the air dribble that way. They had trouble doing it
with their feet. One of them got five yds slowly using his thighs, then
shot. Another one got seven yds using just his good foot, he was left
footed, then shot. They went at about a third of my average approach speed
to the target 8 yds away (my approach speed is about half my speed once
past the target).
Today's teenage male guy who went seven yds
using his good foot slowly, is the new King of the World Out There when it
comes to air dribbling--he said he was from Guatemala. He
displaces the five foot tall hispanic guy of yesterday. But this new
Guatemalan world champ moves slowly, at about a third of my average speed
for the first eight yds, and he has no ability to use his clumsy right
foot when air dribbling whereas I am almost ambidextrous.
Guatemelan Teen-prince was about five foot eight inches,
a couple of inches shorter than me, thinner, slower. He went
through trial and error before producing his championship winning seven yd
slow flight. He quit attempting the air dribble as soon as he finished his
slow seven yd flight. The boys made a good effort imitating me but
Guateenprince quit while he was ahead.
A long time ago I found out that the problem is
consistency, you can be able to do something on a quarter of your
attempts, you could be a god a quarter of the time, but at that level of
consistency you would be unjustified to attempt that one quarter of
attempts level of success method in an actual game.
Takeoff spots randomly chosen today.
There must have been 60 very respectable flights
reaching 20 yds today, one every two minutes. But I did not feel as
if I was being so respectable.
It is really tough to attain the consistency I attained
today on the wet grassy bumpy field, and to keep up that kind of
consistency for 120 minutes without drifting off into inconsistency due to
boredom, fatigue, stress. Captain Funn, today's pilot, seems to have the
kind of character it takes to keep consistent for 120 minutes doing
something very difficult.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi |
|||||||||||||||
Thursday 10/12
Lowell Field Playground
corner of Willow & grove
Waltham MA
410-610 PM |
LO, E3 AIR APPROACH TO TARGE |
Order of events was:
Reverse of order yesterday
A 20 yd run ball off ground kept under control
means the last time the ball was touched before it hit the ground was 20
yds from the start. So when I say the flight/run was a 30 yd flight/run
that means I last touched the ball (with a soccer-legal part of my
body) before it hit the ground 30 yds from the start.
Numbers given approximate did not keep track but
reported after every 15 minutes, approximations.
Personality used today: captain Relaxo, emphasis in
relaxing
Approx 1 run/flight per minute today
Used right foot STRAIGHT on start
today
1 LO APPROACH TO TARGET FLIGHT PATTERN-- Used start
from behind ball approach today not start at angle on right as with
previous two days
a 15 min UUU regular -- 80 percent got to target
eight yards from start with ball under control not having touched ground.
20 yd average. Not as good as Capt Grim of a couple of dayts ago.
Inconsistent first five or so attempts. 3 spectacular runs.
b 15 min UUU ext extended--90 percent got to
the target 8 yds from the start with ball under control not having touched
the ground. Better than 1-a today. Avg flight length 22 yds. 3
spectacular runs
c 15 min CCC extended-- 90% got to target 8 yds away
with ball not having touched ground and under control. Avg
run/flights 25 yds ball under control off ground. Better than 1b
except for 2-3 aborts, but aborts can be blamed on bad luck when the
starting spot is randomly chosen. 3 spectaculars.
d 15 min CCC close-- 90% got to target 8 yds from start
with ball under control not having touched ground; 25 yd avg
run/flight distance before ball hit ground; 5 spectaculars.
2 E3
a 15 min UUU close--85% reached target 8 yds away
ball under control not having touched ground. 25 yds avg length of
run up to last kick before ball hits ground. Approx equal to 1a. 2-3
aborts.
b 15 min UUU extended--90% reached target 8 yds
from start with ball under control not having touched
ground. 20 yds avg length of run up to last kick before ball
hits ground;4 spectaccolos; 2b>2s; both 2b and 2a not as good as avg LO
today on quality of approach to target.
c 15 min CCC extended--90% reached target 8 yds
away with ball kept off ground, 2c>2b; approx equal to avg LO today; 4
spectaculars
d 15 min CCC close-- 85 percent reached target ball
not having touched ground under control; 16 yds avg length of run up
to last kick before ball hits ground. At this point I was surrounded by 40
shouting boys of various ages and types, right next to me, one playing on
one side the other on the other a little distracting. An unusually high
number of runs featured the last kick before ball hit the ground being at
point only about 10 yds from start. About 2-3 aborts.
The LO was superior today even though it went first
before the E3. The ball was under better control upon reaching the target
with the LO, there were less runs featuring slow speed of approach to
target or meandering course to target.
.
temp today was 66 degrees humidity 83% cloudy;
played comfortably in sleeveless t-shirt + shorts.
Sunset 607 PM sufficient light till end
practice.
There were about 20 Latin teenagers playing on one side
of me, about 30 8 yr old boys with their coaches on the other, and then a
few playing with the american type football a few parents watching etc
etc. They did not bother me or effect me until I found myself with one
game with 20 of them five yds to my right and another with 20 of them 5
yds to my left, with lots of shouting. One of the Latin teenagers invited
me to play with them in Spanish. I did not understand him. He was shocked,
that I did not speak Spanish. They play at 555 PM. I told them I would
start playing with them tommorrow. The practice schedule has to be
adjusted so I am not tired out when I play with them; I have to sort out
what the leading method is as of now, I do not like to cut a practice
short for a little pickup game screws up the record keeping and analysis.
Today again I was not choosing smooth spots on the
ground to take off from. Rather, I without looking rolled the ball to the
takeoff area and then took off from whatever spot the ball came to
rest. Still it was much better than day before yesterday when I chose the
takeoff spots.
SO today there must have been about 30 spectacular runs,
about 60 very respectable ones, again it did not feel like such is what
had happened my mind was focusing on my mistakes, how the glass was half
empty as opposed to how it was half full.
Captain Relaxo seemed to produce a performance that was
not a decline from the continuing improvement, but also not more than what
one would expect if one was expecting a certain level of continual daily
improvement.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi had declined to 9.5 psi. |
|||||||||||||||
10/13/06 |
BUMPY GRASS FIELD
REVIEW |
Bumpy grass field summary
The time to enter a game on the bumpy grass field draws nigh, thus it
is decision-time re method to be used in the game.
My estimate as of now for both wet and dry days: the LO and the E3
are approx equal; the ground method should be the #11, ball touched with
left foot alternating inside outside of foot skips with right foot; the
prime air method should be LO/CCC close; the secondary air method
should be E3/ccc close; the right foot should be slanted outwards on
start; the Captain Funn personality should be used; 'war dance' should be
used during lulls in game.
My review of the bumpy grass field experiences: 9/13
I concluded that on this kind of uneven, high-grassed field, the best approach towards the defender is #11, alternating between outside and inside of foot, using only left foot on approach touching the ball every other step, skipping on every step with the right foot. 9/15
Thus as of now until I know better, I plan to use the CUU vertical setup combined with the C horizontal setup when taking off with the ball starting an air dribble approaching a defender in a game. ...I mean with right foot slanted outwards indoors for WC06 9/15
Due to the uneven grassy field I had to abandon my plan to use the CUU-R vert and the C horizontal on the start. The grassy bumpy field just made everything too unpredictable. I ended up using the UUU-S start, modified so that my right foot was further back before the first part of the first move. 10/8 I remembered that I had so far been using the CCC crouched type of start, out of habit because such is the start I had been using on the concrete surface outdoors basketball court, even though I had earlier determined that the upright UUU type start worked better outdoors on grass. (I mean here, UUU-S right foot straight on start); On this day with the E3, the CCC extended was better than the CCC
close or the UUU close for the E3; no conclusion re LO vs E3
10/9
E3 first, LO second, E3 better. At 4 points for best of four starts used for each down to one point for worst of four starts used for each, with ties given the same score the score (current, cumulative) was: 1 E3 WINNER WENT FIRST RELAXO
CCC regular -- 3,3 CCC extended-- 4,4 UUU extended--2,2 UUU regular-- 2,2 2 LO CCC close--3,3 CCC extended--4,4 UUU extended--2,2 UUU close--3,3 10/10 R series GRIM
1 E3
CCC regular -- 4,7 CCC extended-- 4,4 UUU extended--3,5 UUU regular-- 3,5 2 LO WINNER WENT FIRST
CCC close--3,6 CCC extended--4,8 UUU extended--3,5 UUU close--4,7 10/11 R series WET FUNN 1 E3 WINNER WENT FIRST
CCC regular -- 3,10 CCC extended-- 2,6 UUU extended--2,7 UUU regular-- 4,9 2 LO
CCC close--4,10 CCC extended--2,10 UUU extended--4,9 UUU close--3,10 10/12 S series RELAXO
1 E3
CCC regular -- 1,11 CCC extended-- 4,10 UUU extended--3,10 UUU regular-- 2,11 2 LO WINNER WENT FIRST
CCC close--4,14 CCC extended--3,13 UUU extended--2,11 UUU close--1,11 |
|||||||||||||||||
Friday
10/13/06
400-530 PM
6-635 PM |
GROUND DRIBBLING DRILLS
GAME |
4-530 pm, ground dribbled at target, using #11 pattern; then shot
from approx 22 yds. Shots were hard, fast with both left and right
feet. Succeeded in getting off hard shots with 80% effort through flipping
the foot and body positioning. I think they were hard enough
for actual game conditions. The flick of the foot produces the
effect of the ball on takeoff being dragged against the surface less on
its way off the ground, and added some extra punch to the kick.
Then I drove to Shaw's Supermarket to take a piss in their men's
room. I looked good in the men's room mirror; flat embedded fluorescent
ceiling lights behind me and to the left of me. I also looked handsome
despite contrast exaggeration in the Shaw's surveillance camera, sort of
like (what I fancy would be?) the classic Primordial Aryan, like a
handsome mix of Russian and Indian.
Yet these inexpensive digital still cameras can be hell for me,
making me look like a different person in every shot, uglifying me. I
figure I've been getting better looking due to getting some sun and
the exercise.
About 16 South Americans played a game on an approx 60 yd length
field with makeshift goals 3 yds in width; I joined them before they
started at 600 PM and played with them till 635 PM. They were South
American men in their teens and twenties. When I asked them if I could
play a couple of them just sort of looked at me in silence with a bemused
look on their face, a slight Mona-Lisa like smile. I
could'nt figure out what the look on their face meant; I was
thinking, they had probably seen me doing spectacular things during
drills. One of them, a guy from Peru said I could play with them. There
was at least one Peruvian amongst them.
Watching them before the game, I saw how three of them stood in a
circle, each about four yds away from each other, and the ball went around
the circle three times before it hit the ground!
This was my first game in years; I had become preoccupied
with drills practicing air dribbling the ball or simply
disinterested in soccer. Right away I could tell this was different from
the drills I have been doing in terms of the kind of endurance required.
In these games there is alot of sudden change of direction when
running; and between fast runs there is jogging not walking. This requires
a certain type of endurance, and also simply a certain type of strength,
the change of direction while running type of strength (such utilizes
a certain set of muscles in a certain way).
I knew right away these Latin American guys had an endurance
advantage over me. Because of this and because of the fact this was
my first game in years and these were strangers, I dropped back to
play defense; and whenever I got the ball I passed it right away to a
team-mate.
The first touch of the ball for me, a ball rolled at me on the
ground, and then because of the bumpy field when it hit my foot it
amazingly bounced up over my head, and a defender headed it away! I have
had for years very little practice trapping balls rolling towards me on a
bumpy grass field. I suppose the foot should be placed above the ball or
slightly above the ground when the ball is trapped to guard against weird
bump induced behavior. Need a wall or stiff fence adjacent to a grass
field to practice such.
Out of about six long passes I made, a couple went to players on the
other team. It was confusing, keeping track of who was on my team, they
wore no jerseys to differentiate themselves, it was in between Sunset and
Civil Twilight time. Plus I was over-eager to not screw up and to pass
off, this led to passing in too much of a hurry.
A team-mate noticed I was getting winded, he said he was getting
tired too it was his first game also.
These guys were in good shape for this kind of game, they were quick,
agile, able to suddenly change direction with the ball well, good at
feinting when dribbling, good at shielding the ball when dribbling with
it, good at trapping a pass, good at all the things you are good at when
you play and practice soccer alot and most of your time on soccer is
spent playing in such small field small goal bumpy grass field games.
As dribblers compared to me they emphasize feinting shielding
and radical change of direction more than I do (all my soccer playing has
been in Chicago, Boston area, & India).
There were guys on the other team that to me seemed as good as pros,
even as good as World Cuppers representing so called "Banana
Republic" nations, when it came to the skill of the small bumpy grass
field offensive ground dribbling game. The ball seemed to be tied to their
feet when they dribbled.
The best dribblers on the field tested me six times, attempting
to dribble the ball past me. Every time they attempted this I knocked
the ball away from them--but once when I blocked the dribble, the ball
bounced back to the dribbler, and after this he thought the better of
attempting to dribble past me again. But I still felt
embarrassed.
Once as I kicked the ball away from one of
them who tried to dribble past me, a team-mate shouted "good!". For
the evening I got away with one "good!" and a caution for being out of
shape.
It reminded me of Harvard freshman team days except these guys were
much better offensive dribblers than the Harvard freshman team guys of
long ago. The best players of the field, tried to dribble past me and
repeatedly failed.
I'm too smart now to make that mistake a second time, the
mistake of trying to play forward at the beginning, when I should start
off as a defender and then gradually move up the chain on up to forward.
As a forward I am dependent on strangers passing me the ball, as a
defender I will almost always get a few balls coming my way.
Forwards have to run harder in these games.
On the plus side, I still have that quickness. the quick reactions,
the agility and the instincts that make me good on defense, even against
excellent Latin players in the prime of life. Having played in America
(where the coaches and players are relatively un-advanced) from
the time I was 7 years old, I may not have early on developed great
offensive skills but I had the chance to develop defensive
instincts.
My feeling now is that the conditioning problem is best solved by
jogging as much as possible between air dribble and ground dribble
practice runs; incorporating change of direction and reverse of direction
into ground and air dribble runs; doing conditioning work involving short
change of direction and reverse direction sprints interspersed with
jogging. I consider myself smarter and more up to date than those who
would reccommend that I set myself to running two miles in twelve minutes,
which appears to be what they consider the conditioning standard for
soccer players--I figure I could run two miles in 25 minutes!
|
Replique for drill
Their ball for |
10.1 psi |
|||||||||||||||
Saturday
10/14/06
Lowell Field Playground
555-640 PM
Oleary Field
7-715 PM |
ZIG ZAG REVERSE DIRECTION
GROUND DRIBBLE
DRILLS--60 minutes |
Yesterday I noticed that it was not just getting winded,
it was also the pain and fatigue produced in my calves, feet and thighs
through changes of direction, that impaired my performance in the game
with Peru & Co.
When I try to run a mile again I have this problem of
pain, cramps, in my calves and the soles of my feet.
When playing on the Harvard team or trying out for it I
vaguely remember pain in the ankles.
This might be the condition they call 'Plantar
Fasciitis', according to this lady Mary Kay, the I guess wife of Mr. Bose.
But I am not sure that is what I have. The great mystery is whether cold
should be applied first and then heat or vice versa I suspect it is
cold then heat.
The getting winded due to lack of aerobic conditioning
and the muscular fatigue or cramps or pain in the soles of the feet,
calves and thighs due to lack of anaerobic conditioning seem to exacerbate
each other's effects.
So it would be simple minded to assert that this is
simply a matter of aerobic lack of fitness to be corrected by running two
mile runs.
The world record speed for swimming about a
mile--I swim a mile at about half the world record speed for swimming a
mile. But my speed in the running the two mile run, is about only
one third of the world record speed for running two miles.
You get winded fast when your calves and feet are cramped and in pain and
tired.
I am flat-footed, I have known that for a long
time.
So my solution today was to do the #11 with my left
foot, alternating between runs in which I would do a zig zag pattern 5
dribbles on each slant, and runs in which I would go for five dribbles in
one direction, and then do a 180 degree turn and go for five dribbles in
the other direction, on and on like that. I would do both until the cramp
and the pain in my right thigh calf and sole of foot became too much and
then briefly break.
The other half of the time I did the #11 with my right
foot doing the zig zag and the reverses. This caused pain and cramps in my
LEFT calf sole of foot and thigh.
But I was definitely satisfied that I was exercising
those muscles that deal with changes of direction and and reversing
direction and that are in my body, under-developed for soccer games as in
two teams trying to score goals on each other, as opposed to the
kind of individual drills I have been doing.
I could tell the zig zag and the reverses were rapidly
turning me into a better dribbler. I was impressed by how well I did the
#11 zig zag and the #11 reverses using my right foot. The air dribble
drills have I think improved not only the right footed shot of the
grounded ball, but also the right footed ground dribble, both to the point
where they now seem at least as good as the left footed versions although
previous to the air dribble drills the right footed versions definitely
seemed only about half as good as the left footed ones.
I was hoping to join a game of Latin Americans at the
Lowell Field; I was surprised there was no such game. There was just three
of them passing the ball to each other.
I checked the Warren Field in W Newton and the Newton
North field, they are nearby two teams in organized leagues have their
home fields there but there was nobody playing there. There was also
nobody at the Halloran field in Newton. Lowell Field in Waltham is the hot
spot for soccer around here.
My plan is to combine:
1 LO CCC close air dribble at target
2 E3 CCC close air dribble at target
3 #11 Ground dribbles at target followed by 20 yd
shots
4 #11 Ground dribbles in Zig Zag and Reverse Direction
patterns
When I get to the point where I can jog instead of walk
between the zig- zag/reverse-direction #11 pattern ground runs, I will be
developing not just anaerobic endurance but also aerobic
endurance.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi |
|||||||||||||||
Sunday
10/15/06
Lowell Field Playground
430-520 PM drills
520-640 PM game
|
GROUND DRIBBLE CONDITIONING DRILLS - 50 minutes GAME--80 minutes |
The Ground dribble conditioning drill done
today:
1 Left footed #11 pattern
a 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree turns,
forward dribble
b 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, sideways dribble
c 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, backwards dribble
2 Right footed #11 pattern
a 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree turns,
forward dribble
b 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, sideways dribble
c 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, backwards dribble
3 Left footed #11 pattern
a 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree turns,
forward dribble
b 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, sideways dribble
c 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, backwards dribble By sideways pattern I mean that I moved with my body
facing in a direction perpendicular to, at right angles to, the
direction my body moved. Moving left on this the left foot would be used;
moving right the right foot would be used.
Moving backwards the #11 style skip with the foot was
not used, but a pattern did develop, hard to describe what this pattern
was. Moving backward my back faced in the direction I
dribbled.
Each ground dribble run in these drills lasted
about 30 seconds, until the pain began to build in the calves, the soles
of the feet, and the thigh. After each run the pain in the thighs and the
calves would subside first, then more slowly the pain/cramp in the soles
of the feet. Then I would go on with the next run till the calves and feet
hurt too much, stop until the pain went away, and so on and so
forth.
I felt doing these drills that I was developing the
strength/endurance I have been lacking for change of direction and reverse
direction in runs; I felt my level of speed quickness ball control
improving.
In the game I felt as if my level of endurance was fifty
percent better at least than it was in the game on Friday. The entire game
I did not get pain in the calves or the feet once, although I often felt
such pain in the first game.
This game was played using wooden goals complete with
crossbar and goalposts and net, that were miniature. The goal was
approx 4 yds wide and 8 feet high. The game was a five on five with no
goalies. The field was about 60 yds long and 40 yds wide.
The short brown Guatemalan guy, who looked like an
amiable Chinese with somewhat of a beard and mustache, and who was wearing
a blue and white Guatemala uniform, complete with high red soccer socks
and shin pads and soccer shoes, invited me over to play with them. He
wanted me on his team. He had seen my practicing ground dribbling that
day. During the game he said most of the players were from
Guatemala.
I started out playing defense with him. Then I was the
guy furthest back on defense. The score got to be 12-4 our favor. Then
they began to score some goals. Then this guy on my team wanted me to go
up to play halfback or forward while he dropped back--I suppose he thought
this would reduce the level of goals the other team was scoring but it did
not. Then the guy sent me back to play defense again. We ended up winning
20-10. I did not score a goal, I was not focused on scoring a
goal.
About five times, the other team got the ball past me
and into the goal. It was a weird situation, attempting to guard this big
goal without using the hands, without any goalie in the goal. You could
not just stand in the goal and wait. Yet charging the player dribbling the
ball towards you was risky too he just had to shoot it by you and there
would be a goal.
I reduced the number of goals scored on me after I
realized that when you are the main defender and there is no goalie and
the goal is big, you have to charge the offensive player who has the
ball, and take the ball away from him or force him to pass the ball into
an inferior position on the field or force him to flub a shot or get his
shot blocked.
I flubbed a few long chip passes that I attempted. It
really shocked me. The ball we were using was typical of the kind of balls
these Latin Americans out at Lowell Field Park and elswhere use. It was so
underinflated that I would guess it would not be a legal ball in
competition; it had a soft cushiony sponge like skin like you find on
furniture and in car interiors. It was smaller than the Adidas Replique
(replica of official 2006 World Cup ball) perhaps at least in part because
of the underinflation.
I was amazed at how when I kicked their
ball it did not travel nearly as far as the Replique. With my Adidas
Powerline All-purpose shoes with the 1.5" thick soles, I was shocking
myself at my inability to chip this ball. I would aim for a point 30 yds
away in fighter pilot lingo at eleven o'clock; the ball would end up at
twelve oclock 20 yards away, and vertically about 10 feet lower than I
intended. Seemed I was giving the ball a glancing blow hitting it on its
left side spinning and curving it, when I would produce these inaccurate
attempted chips.
I wanted to give up on chipping the ball but I could not
resist the temptation to keep attempting the chip and finally got a chip
where I intended it--I take this as an indication the spirit of the game
is coming back to me, the stubbornly persisting in a failed maneuver and
finally succeeding. Overall about only a third of my attempted long
distance chip passes went where I wanted them to.
On the positive side:
I blocked several of their attempts to score
goals, like a goalie who is not allowed to use his hands. This was
difficult, it required quick reflexes, quick movement of the body,
intelligent positioning of the body on the field.
The Guatemalans on the other team did not
have success that I can recall, in attempting to dribble the ball by
me. Their successes were in scoring goals, when I was the only thing
between them and the goal, by shooting the ball by me, this mostly before
I realized that you have to charge these guys when they have the ball and
you are the only thing between them and the goal there being no
goalie.
I kicked several long passes of 25-30 yds that were
intelligent, accurate, and well placed, on some of these I even managed to
chip the ball up to altitude despite the Adidas Powerpoint shoe
incompatibility with the Latin American style ball they were using. I got
off a long high perfectly placed 35 yd chip pass utilizing the momentum of
the ball rolling towards me to chip it up.
I showed poise when in possession of the ball; froze
defenders by moving AT them, dribbled through a couple of the defenders
once; I felt very competent, confident, and un-fatigued when
dribbling the ball at 60 minutes into the 80 minute game we
played. I'm sure if I continue to improve via my new anaerobic
conditioning for games program that I have devised, and continue to
get to play in games, the offensive fireworks will start to manifest in my
play. I am just beginning to get the feel of the game back, beginning to
re-learn the spirit and the instincts of the game, not to mention the
endurance and strength of the type required for playing in games as
opposed to doing individual drills.
I was beginning to get a feel for the fact that although
these Latin Americans, one of them said they were mostly Guatemalans, were
compared to me cunning and instinctive about dribbling the ball, I was
compared to them, quick, fast, big, strong, and would be able to take
advantage of such advantages eventually as I got used to playing--it's
like getting used to the cold water of a pool when you go swimming.
You get used to the cold water of a pool in five or ten
minutes; but as for me I am still gradually getting to the point that is
analagous to being comfortable in a cool pool when swimming, after
35+80=115 minutes of game time. But I can feel myself gradually getting to
that point where I feel something analagous to having gotten used to the
cool water in the pool.
Several times I charged the Latin Guatemalans and
knocked the ball away from them or took control of it. Some of them wore
shin pads, I did not, but I did not show any hesitancy or fear charging
them. I noticed that I was able to take advantage of my advantage in terms
of quickness in moving the torso and the legs, and in terms of the general
strength and size of my body, to take possession of the ball, take it away
from Latins who were dribbling it.
The Guatemalan Latins do not seem to rest as heavily on
the ground as I do so I can overpower them when taking the ball away from
them when they are dribbling it. The short, light body in a player
provides certain advantages when it comes to dribbling the ball,
but such has its disadvantages also. Likewise the relatively tall
heavy body has its advantages it would be wise to understand how to take
advantage of such advantage-disadvantages. I suppose the idea is that one
with a weight and height and reach advantage should not be scared to mix
it up at close range, despite the apparent instinctive cunning of the
lighter shorter Latins.
The kind of drills I have done have failed to improve
strength in certain ways in me, but in other ways they have undoubtedly
made me physically stronger. I found I was able to using my torso and my
legs to overpower the Guatemalan Latins when contesting balls
with them. I expect I shall be able to take advantage of this ability to
overpower them on offense when I start going on the offensive.
About 70 minutes into the game I fell as I passed the
ball to a team-mate, after I charged and stole the ball from one of the
Guatins. I was hobbled for 10 minutes and in some pain but after ten
minutes I was back to normal.
So far I feel vindicated that the new anaerobic
conditioning program that I did 60 minutes of yesterday and 50 minutes of
today, is building endurance in me better than jogging two miles would.
Maybe part of what the new anaerobic conditioning program is doing, is
stretching and relaxing the muscles that end up getting cramped and
painful through the constant changes of direction that you have in games
but not in certain drills.
The whole thing feels like being on the Harvard freshman
soccer team, gradually getting used to the game, gradually getting
stronger and more competent. It takes a while for me to get used to
playing a game that I have not played in 9 months, which is what can
happen when you play soccer only in the fall. It takes even longer to get
used to a game when you have not played it in years.
The game today reminded me more of Harvard College than
of high school in Chicago. In high school in Chicago I did not have that
feeling of improving during a given fall season in skill and in
strength like I did at Harvard; there was a big change in me in terms of
speed and strength between high school and college.
At college, you got all you can eat meals three times a
day, so you built up strength in muscles that you exercised more than you
might depending on a morose, nagging mother.
One of the guys on my team thought I was tired today. He
said he himself was not tired.
These Guatemalans were very quiet during the game.
Rarely did they make any excuses, or criticize or complement anyone.
Occasionally they would fire off rapidly spoken low volume sentences of
words to each other.
|
Replique |
10.1 psi |
|||||||||||||||
Monday
10/16/06
Lowell Field Playground
515- 555 PM drills
600-640 PM game
OLeary Field
Ground conditioning drills
810-935 PM |
GROUND DRIBBLING CONDITIONING DRILLS GAME AS GOALIE |
I was doing some ground conditioning drills, the Latin
Americans had a game one of them invited me over to play with them.
Then one of them, a short slightly fat older clean shave
guy, relegated me to play goalie, he told me to play goalie and
I did. Only today he, this guy I had not seen before, said
to play goalie with my hands like a normal goalie.
Thus it was not like a fullback defender workout, it was
a goalie workout, I was dissappointed, I will never be a good goalie. The
furthest back defender on the other team did not play using his hands he
played like a defender. Henceforth I will simply not use my hands and play
like a defender if they put me back at goalie.
The other team won today scoring at least half a dozen
goals. Seemed I was more effective preventing goals the other day
playing without hands as a defender as opposed to today with hands as a
goalie. I have never played goalie in a formal game, rarely in informal
ones.
I skipped running at the opposing players and
diving on the ball like a red blooded goalie. I blocked some shots, dived
to the left or right sometimes succesfully, but I found that the reflexes
and the strategy needed to play goalie are not developed in 15 minutes
even if you are quick with your feet. T
This guy who played yesterday who never dribbled by
me-none of them ever has--was today a dominant force, dribbling by the
defenders firing on me from 10 yds, he was much more effective today than
he was when I was out playing without using hands like a fullback. I made
the mistake today of asking a team-mate if I should use my hands he said
yes. I general the players on the other team seemed significantly less
disrupted, more cocky and confident, with me playing as a goalie using his
hands as opposed to as a sweeper type defender.
The other team was getting in repreatedly to less than
12 yds away, 10 yds away, six yds away etc and shooting it was hard to
stop their shots. Their shots hurt when they hit the hands. The fact is
these shots from 12 yds as in the penalty shootouts rarely fail to result
in a score.
I repeatedly had trouble chipping their ball what with
my high soled Adidas Powerpoint cross-trainer shoes, though I have no
trouble chipping the Replique ball. After the game I found at home a
ball resembling the type they Latin Ams use and underinflated it getting
it to the level of softness the Latin Ams have their balls at, and used it
to do 85 more minutes of ground drills. The inflation of this
ball, which I carefullyt inflated to the level approximately the Latin Ams
seem to inflate their balls to, is at only 5.0 psi! That is less
than the psi range legally allowed in games I think it is a minimum 8.7
psi for official games according to FIFA rules. I inflate the Replique to
10.1 psi I think this is the psi level that is an average between that
recommended for the Replique and the average between the low and the high
in the officially FIFA tolerated psi range.
The more I watch these guys the less they intimidate me
as I get used to them and to the playing in a game. At first, to someone
who has been out of actual games and doing only individual drills, the way
people used to playing in games function in games compared to the self,
seems kind of magical and wizard-like.
The Latin Ams really got a kick out of firing away at a
goalie who played like a goalie, using his hands. None of the Latin Ams
like to play goalie the most they will do is play as a fullback who is
furthest back and does not use his hands. Me playing goalie of the normal
type made them look like St Jorge vanquishing the dragon, but
it was not fun or useful for me.
The ground dribbling conditioning drills today
were: 'Ball lead' means the ball is in between the body and
the direction the body is moving during the dribble
Body lead means the body is kept in between the ball and
the direction the ball is moving.
Sideways dribble means I move without the left foot
crossing over in front of the right foot or the right foot crossing over
in front of the left foot
'180 degree turns' means I dribble 10 yds, make 180
degree turn, dribble ten yds, make another 180 turn e tc.
Alternate left and right attack sets means first I face
a towel on the ground symbolizing a defender with the ball to the
defender's right, dance around the ball without moving it as if intending
to go in this or that direction. Then I move the ball to the defender's
left and do the same thing, and so on and forth.
#11 pattern used unless noted
1 15 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, forward dribble, ball lead, left footed
2 15 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, forward dribble, body lead, left and right footed
3 15 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, sideways dribble, (both left and right foot used), ball
lead
4 15 mins -- alternating zig zag and
180 degree turns, sideways dribble, (both left and right foot used), body
lead
5 15 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, backwards dribble, left footed, ball lead, #11 not
used
6 5 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, backwards dribble, left footed, body lead, #11 not
used
7 10 mins -- alternating left and right
attack sets, #11 not used
8 10 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180 degree
turns, forward dribble, ball lead, right footed
9 10 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180
degree turns, backwards dribble, right footed, body lead
#11 not used
10 10 mins -- alternating zig zag and 180
degree turns, backwards dribble, right footed, ball lead #11 not
used Today of the ten above #5, and #7 were really tough, I think they
were new ones not done before. My endurance in these drills is rapidly
improving I can keep going for a much longer time before the pain in the
calves feet etc becomes too great, compared to one or two days ago.
Today I did a couple minutes of stretching the soles of the feet
placing the front of the sole on a ledge not sure how much this
helped.
I think the improvement in terms of ability to continue a
reversing directions or zig zag run longer without pain in the calves/feet
is due to a combo of increased strength, a loosening stretching
effect, and improvement in the anaerobic system's ability to support the
use of the muscles in question. I doubt two days is enough to actually
increase the physical strength of the heretofore little used muscles that
these drills are exercising.
I did the last 85 mins of the conditioning drills using a Latin
American style ball that I underinflated I want to use this ball to
practice chips so I can chip in the Latin games, I also want to look
around see if I have better shoes to
use. There was an attractive looking team of teenage white
females out there playing while I was doing the drills before the game.
But they were just ground conditioning drills not air dribble
drills.
Weird how these Latin Am players seem to act as if they
had never seen me do anything spectacular though I have this month done
spectacular things hundreds of times on the aerial dribble at this Lowell
field where they play.
|
Replique
Nike T-90 Radiant
|
10.1 psi
5 psi |
|||||||||||||||
Tuesday
10/17/06
Lowell Field Playground
455-655 PM chip drills
|
CHIP PASS/SHOT DRILLS ADIDAS POWERPOINT SHOE REPLACED WITH PUMA CAPTAIN NEMO INDOOR SOCCER
SHOE
|
I decided to practice chips using a Latin Am
style ball, and my indoor soccer shoes instead of the thick toed thick
soled cross-trainers. From the very first chip I noticed a radical
improvement in my ability to chip the ball, even though the Latin Am
style thick spongy skinned ball at 6.5 psi is not as
good for chipping as the Replique at 10.1 psi.
It was drizzling the entire time, in the last 45 minutes of the
practice the darkness got greater and greater.
I started off testing my ability to chip to various
heights/distances.
I found that at distances from 2 to 11 yards I can chip
the ball as it sits stationary on the ground, over the seven foot
high crossbar of the miniature goal; at 1 yd I can flip it
over the seven foot high crossbar this is not the same as kicking it
over.
I found that at distances of 4 to 13 yds, I can
chip the stationary ball over the 12 foot high fence behind the
goal.
Next I decided to practice by attempting to chip the ball at the
fence, aiming for one of the 3 inch wide vertical posts in the fence,
aiming to hit the vertical post I chose for a target at a point above the
six foot high horizontal pole in the fence.
I would attempt this, let the ball roll to wherever it would become
still on the rebound, attempt again, and so forth. The ground was bumpy
and grassy but I felt I should just let the ball roll to wherever it would
roll, so long as this was to a spot at least four yards from the fence.
I recorded the number of times I hit the vertical 3 inch wide post I
was aiming for (there were several of them about 10 feet from each other),
at a height of greater than six feet, and the distance the ball traveled
before it hit the post. The results were as follows, each number
represents a successful hit on the three inch wide post and the distance
in yds from which it was hit:
6, 4, 4, 4, 14, 4, 6, 5, 7, 4, 4, 7, 7, 4, 8, 6, 6,
Total 17 hits in 55 minutes, one every 3.2 minutes; average
hit, 5.9 yds; 4 yds 7 hits; 5 yds 1 hit; 6 yds 4 hits; 7 yds 3 hits; 8 yds
1 hit; 14 yds 1 hit. 55 miinutes includes time kept keeping track
of the stats. It was common that the ball would miss the vertical post by
no more than the width of a ball.
Some of these chip passes aimed at these posts, traveled like
powerful shots on goal. I expect that practicing chips will improve my
shot.
Compared to the way I was when I had been embarrassing myself amongst
the Latin Ams, I was 1000% improved today when it comes to chips. But it
was all the problem of the Adidas Powerpoint shoes--which are useful in
that they keep the feet from hurting when air dribble runs are practiced
on hard surfaces--were too thick toed and thick soled to allow quality
chipping with the Latin Am style ball.
It would be interesting to see what a math whiz would make of these
chip at the pole results. To me the results mean I can chip the ball over a defender who is from 3
to 14 yds away with accuracy. Since the ball was not coming
downwards vertically at the point of the hits on the poles, assuming the
distance the ball travels on its way down is 2/3 of the distance
it travels on its way up, the results tell me I can
chip accurately to team-mates who are 3 to 20 yds away from me,
getting the ball over anyone who is in the way. This is
what these results tell me, but I know that I can chip accurately to
farther than 20 yds.
Retrospectively I regret not switching balls and shoes earlier to
improve performance when playing with the Latin Ams. I was a left wing in
high school, I have always had a very good chip pass capability;
it seems hard to describe to a non-athlete, what it feels like when
your bread and butter skill in your favorite sport the sport you play
better than the other sports, suddenly evaporates. I feel like often in my
life people have been impatient and critical with me when the problem has
been things like a certain shoe not combining with a certain ball
well.
I suppose the last few evenings I did not want to change from
the Adidas Powerpoint shoes I had done air dribbling miracles in, and kept
telling myself that the chips being off had to do with doing something
new, chipping in a game, as opposed to equipment.
This leads to the soccer shoe purchase problem, I do not even have
any 'cleats', that is how long I have been away from the grass outdoor
fields in terms of practicing and playing soccer.
In a right triangle, the length of the side opposite the angle in
question, divided by the length of the side adjacent to the angle in
question, is equal to the tangent of the angle in question, when the side
opposite the angle in question and the side adjacent the angle in
question, are perpendicular. The degrees of the angle in question, is
equal to the inverse tangent, which is also called the arctangent, arc
tangent, and arctan. The inverse tangent is determined via calculators
online calculators do not seem to determine inverse tangents.
Amazing how using the internet it seems the most simple math
explanations are obfuscated due to failure to define terms, lack of
agreement re what a term means, multiple terms used to describe the same
thing. You can see how confused even Mt Holyoke College ("As the first of the
Seven Sisters—the female equivalent of the once predominantly male Ivy
League—Mount Holyoke established higher education for women as a serious
endeavor") students get at http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~mpeterso/classes/math101/jitt10ans.html.
Thus since I got the ball to a height of 7 feet from 6 feet away, the
inverse tangent of the tangent which is 7/6=1.17, is 49.5 degrees as
you can see in the following link:
For a height of 12 feet at a length of 12 feet the tangent is 1.0
which is 45 degrees of course.
Best math review I could find:
In the photo below you can see how my highest angle on chips today compares with Ronaldinho in the photo below: |
Nike T90 Radiant |
6.5 psi |
|||||||||||||||
10/18/06
130-630 PM |
BREAK
BUYING SOCCER SHOES |
ANNOYING UNNECESSARY
AGGRAVATIONS ENDURED WHILE BUYING A PAIR OF SOCCER SHOES
I checked the internet for soccer shoes. Did not have
time to have them mailed to me. Olympia Sports in Cambridge said
they had three different indoor soccer shoes in stock.
I was thinking of getting indoor shoes because then I
could use the indoor shoe outdoors and also indoors and have the advantage
of one pair of shoes being used all the time. My idea was that I would for
example then be able to practice the chip shot on indoor shoe type
surfaces, as well as on outdoors field surfaces.
But later I got to thinking: all the techniques I use in
outdoors grass field games, can also be practiced on outdoors grass
fields; and there is less need for the chip pass (chip passes are
performed better with soccer shoes as opposed to the Adidas Powerpoint
Cross-trainers I have been using on concrete and wood basketball surfaces)
in the games played on the hard concrete or wood surfaces.
I got to Olympia Sports in Cambridge, there I decided to
get the Adidas Bracara indoor shoes--Adidas produces an Adidas Bracara
outdoors cleats shoe that is like an identical twin of the indoors
version, which is an advantage when practicing on both natural grass and
also wood or concrete surfaces, because then you wear basically the same
shoe on both grass and on wood basketball courts, when you have both
versions.
Turned out they did not have it in my
size. AGGRAVATION
#1 I guess I should have asked them if they had it in my
size. The nearest place which had the Bracara indoors version in my size
was a long way away. AGGRAVATION
#2
I then decided to settle on $20 outdoors cleats named
Danora or something like that, to start with in the emergency that
this has become, idea being go on and get the carefully chosen more
expensive shoes later. The store did not have these in my size
either. AGGRAVATION
#3
Then I decided to get the Adidas Bracara outdoors
cleated shoe. The store did not have these in my size either, this is
the middle of the soccer season in the US. AGGRAVATION #4 I was thinking they should have told me about
them not having the shoes in the common size of ten and a
half.
The people working at the store were, two short thin
black guys, and a short heavier guy who looked like a white skinned
black type who was the manager trainee. They all looked like teenagers. I
was thinking, I have a few times applied for jobs at these kinds of stores
when I was in my twenties and afterwards, and not gotten a
job. AGGRAVATION
#5
I had to drive on to Mystic Valley Pkwy. Got to a big
important rotary and the signs were insufficient. AGGRAVATION #6 Got on to something called
Fresh Pond Parkway. Did not know if I was on the correct street. Had
to stop to find out that Fresh Pond Parkway turns into Mystic Valley
Parkway. AGGRAVATION
#7
In general seemed they always have the signs up at the
unimportant intersections, they never have enough signs at the important
intersections and roads. AGGRAVATION #8
There was a sign on Mystic Valley Pkwy saying this
direction for Mystic Ave. Of course I figured to stay on the Mystic Valley
Pkwy I should take this exit to Mystic Ave. I guessed wrong as it turned
out. Mystic Ave and Mystic Valley Pkwy are two different things. AGGRAVATION #9
I asked a white normal-length -black-haired clean shaven
young man, who ws about five feet eigh inches tall, a couple of inches
shorter than me, who was of average build, and who worked at the gas
station as I could tell from his blue and white gas station uniform shirt,
where Mystic Valley Pkwy was. In a deep tone of voice he said "No!" It was
unbelievable. He worked at a gas station on Mystic Ave., about 100 yds
from Mystic Valley Pkwy, he did not know where Mystic Valley Pkwy was.
AGGRAVATION #1 0
In his tone of voice he reminded me of
the Spanish national team pro Fernando Torres, when Torres said,
"Mo...we're not good", when he was interviewed on TV during the 2006 World
Cup. AGGRAVATION #11 Mo is
this radio announcer who has been muttering, giving me a hard time about
my choices in women (I used to have a habit of reading speeches into the
Media telephone answering machines).
This reminded me of how day before yesterday when I was
playing with the Latin Ams, embarrassing myself through my crosstrainer
shoe produced inability to chip the ball, when I asked this white Latin Am
black hair in a pony tail clean shaven pretty boy of about five feet seven
inches in height, and moderate build if he was from Guatemala, in a deep
loud tone of voice resembling Fernando's famous "Mo!...", he said
"No!". AGGRAVATION #1
2
It also reminded me of how the same evening when I asked
the white normal-length-brown-hair Latin Am clean shaven handsome upper
class looking Latin Am guy who as about five ten inches tall and of
average build, if the ball he had after the game was the ball that had
been used in the game, he said, "No!", again it sounded just like
Fernando saying "Mo!...". AGGRAVATION #1 3
I got back on Mystic Valley Pkwy and got to the shopping
mall. There was no sign up saying the address of the shopping mall was the
address given me by the store. AGGRAVATION #1 4
There was no sign on the shopping mall
building saying what damned stores were in the damned building. AGGRAVATION #1 5
I finally found the store and bought the shoes. It
seemed it took an eternity for the short brown saleswoman to find the ones
in my size. I was freaking out, thinking that they had flubbed up, sent me
through an hour of driving torture to get to a store that again did not
have the shoes in my size. AGGRAVATION #1 6
Looking at her I was thinking of the times I had as a
college grad applied to the kinds of stores she was working in. AGGRAVATION #1 7
On the way back I made a wrong turn, because there were
insufficient signs at the big gigantic rotary. AGGRAVATION #1 8
Then I found Rte 60 which I wanted to take to get home.
On Rte 60 there was a sign pointing away from Rte 60 saying due to
construction this is the detour. I was going to follow the detour sign
when I saw another car plow ahead on Rte 60 ignoring the detour sign and
followed it. Turns out I did not need to take the lengthy time consuming,
mental-driving-energy-consuming detour. AGGRAVATION #1 9
Further on down Rte 60, there were three more of these
big detour signs that made it seemed I needed to follow a detour, as it
turned out I did not need to follow the detour. AGGRAVATION #20 AGGRAVATION #21 AGGRAVATION
#22
The entire time I had to deal with a few overly timid
drivers. AGGRAVATION #23
AGGRAVATION #24 AGGRAVATION #25
I also encountered a few reckless drivers. Seems there
are too many reckless drivers, and also too many timid drivers. AGGRAVATION #26 AGGRAVATION #27
AGGRAVATION #28
The whole project of buying the shoes took about four
hours when it should have taken one hour. AGGRAVATION #29
I was appalled at all the aggravations I had to endure
while buying the shoes. AGGRAVATION
#30
I kept imagining these nice white feminine Massachusetts
bureaucrats who I imagined responsible for many of these aggravations, as
well as the aggravation of having to play on a bumpy field; AGGRAVATION #31 I could not help
imagining taking them by throat and strangling them.
The whole traffic system seemed crazy, incredibly
congested roads and intersections. AGGRAVATION #32 AGGRAVATION #33 AGGRAVATION #34
|
Honda Element |
||||||||||||||||
Thursday
10/19/06
Lowell Field Playground
525-545 PM chip drills
545-640 PM game |
CHIPPING PRACTICE GAME
FIRST DAY WITH THE NEW ADIDAS BRACARA
CLEATS
UP TILL NOW FLAT SOLED SHOES HAVE BEEN
USED |
I got to the field wearing the Adidas Bracara cleats and started chipping the ball against the fence as I had day before yesterday. I was not counting, but the accuracy was not as good as with the Puma Captain Nemo indoor soccer shoes that I used Oct 17 for the scored chip practice. The Captain Nemos were not made for outdoors use, they were falling apart before the Oct 17 practice which killed them (the cobbler said they are not worth repairing), but I had practiced many times using them. An "improvement" in equipment, does not always produce immediate improvement in play, when you are used to the old 'inferior' equipment. Compared to the Puma Captain Nemo indoors shoes and the
Adidas powerpoint cross-trainers, the Adidas Bracara cleated soccer shoes
are narrower in the area where the right toe and the base of the right toe
is; and the soles of the Bracara cleats have much stiffer soles, plastic
soles as opposed to rubber.
As soon as I began chipping the ball with the Bracara
cleats I realized that: you can get more power into your shot for a given
amount of effort with the cleats compared to flat soled shoes when
outdoors; you begin to kick more like a typical soccer player when you
wear cleats; you approach the ball more from the side when you wear
cleats.
The game with the Latin Ams started, I joined it. This
time there was a white North european type guy playing with us. Right
away, I felt like half the progress I had made in terms of developing
endurance which reduced the pains I would feel in my calves and in my
feet, had disappeared--I think this is because I was not used to the new
shoes.
In the first five minutes of the game, this Latin Am guy
ran my direction chasing a ball that was rolling in front of him.
I kicked the ball to his right, ran forward to his left, joined up with
the ball again in so doing beating him, and chipped the ball at
least 25 yds downfield accurately to an open team-mate. This is the second
time I have beaten one of them on the dribble.
Generally speaking I was today able to chip the ball
much better than I was using the Adidas Cross training Powerpoints, but
not as well as I did using the indoors Puma Capt Nemo shoes out on the
grass a couple of days ago.
The worst embarrasment of the evening came as I kicked a
ball an opponent was dribbling, but it bounced right back to him and he
shot and scored. They never get by me, but sometimes when I kick the ball
as they are dribbling it, the ball luckily bounces back to
them.
The entire game, it was like 3 on 2, 4 on 2, 5 on 2, the
opposing team on offense coming at us always had us outnumbered. Latin Ams
hate playing defense almost as much as they hate playing
goalie.
Early on my fellow defender said to me, "Ya, you're
good!". And he said, "Ya, I'm defense", in a macho deep decisive tone of
voice, as if he was noting that I had settled into developing an identity,
playing defense. And the goalie of our team, who was short but white in
the face with a black beard and who looked like a classic Spanish
Conquistador--I think he said, "I like you".
Relatively speaking, my
good-play/mistake-failure ratio is higher than most anyone out there, even
if the folks out there score more goals, do more flashy things.
As soon as the game started my team sort of allowed me
the left fullback position--maybe they saw me practicing chips with my
left foot before the game. Throughout the game, the area where I was
playing was sort of empty of players; seems a good fullback, which I
already am, sort of acts as a kind of insect repellant, the insects being
the players on the other team. Such good fullbacks also act as in insect
disturber so to speak, they have a psychologically disruptive impact
beyond the radius in which they are physically effective.
Throughout the game I kicked the ball away innumerable
times, blocked many shots, intercepted many passes. Many times I hit
team-mates with accurate long passes. Never did I attempt to take someone
on the dribble and fail. As a matter of fact throughout all the games I
have never failed attempting to dribble by someone. Score on
dribbling by so far this season: me 2, Latin Ams 0.
Seemed that wearing the soccer shoes with the cleats,
somehow helped nrutre the process whereinmy soccer
instincts that I developed through years of playing in my youth return to
me. Significantly more than 50 percent of the time, when I kicked
away the ball without having any chance to assess where my team-mates
were, or having had only a tiny fraction of a second to look and see where
the team-mates were, when I kicked the ball, the ball went to a
team-mate as opposed to a defender. That is instinct.
I was moving more like a soccer player this evening,
kicking more like a soccer player, falling and sliding more like a soccer
player--I think it had to do with wearing cleats, which I wore when
playing in high school and college--the cleats seemed to help revive the
spirit of the game in me, they seemed to help my body and my mind to
remember all the soccer lessons I had learned when I played the game alot
more than I did for years after those soccer-filled days.
Several times I intercepted the ball, and then
immediately executed an accurate long pass to a team-mate. Today I stole
the ball less from offensive players than is usual though.
In the end the score of the game was 3-3, a tie.
One of the two or three best guys out on the field,
the "Guateenprince", must have had the ball stolen from him a
dozen times, 90 percent of his attempts to dribble by the defense
failed today. But he just kept on trying to beat the defenders on the
dribble--and nobody criticized him. Guateenprince is one of the
tallest of the Latin Ams at five feet nine inches. He is athletic and
young and wears a baseball cap backwards. He is the
guy who is the world champ around where I play aside from me when it comes
to air dribbling the ball; I mentioned him in an earlier post on this
page.
I was positioning myself well--the Latin Ams, as
unpredictable as they can be when they are individual attacking offensive
dribblers, are quite predictable when it comes to their
teamwork.
The weakness I noted in myself, was that the Latin Ams
are ahead of me when it comes to shielding the ball from the defense when
they dribble it. See, throughout high school and college nobody every
taught me how to shield the ball. This produces a certain lack of
confidence in me, when I am in possession of the ball--I can appear to be
trigger happy re passing off or shooting.
When the Latin Ams shield the ball from the
defender, they do alot of: changes of direction; fake changes of direction
involving stepping over the ball, stop and goes involving stopping the
ball and then proceeding on in the direction they were going to begin
with.
I hit a ball that had traveled high and far as it came
in my direction before it hit the ground, air-volleyed it, it was a
reasonably accurate volley, better than when I did this once approx three
days ago.
I am still getting somewhat winded by these
games.
Getting better at taking into account that balls that
bounce or roll at you on these bumpy grass fields, have to be treated with
special care because of the eccentric nature of the movement of the
ball.
About 635 PM it was so dark I was the first one to
leave. Then when I drove around the field after leaving, I noticed that
all of a sudden they had left too. It made me feel like a
leader.
Seems getting some of the long socks with shin pads,
would help me to win some of the scuffles for the ball--because, the
entire area of the leg from the ankle on up to the knee, becomes a much
thicker cylinder when the long socks and the shin pads they contain are
worn. This results in victories in stealing the ball.
Actually today it did seem this evening that the
guys who wore the long socks with the shin pads had an advantage, and the
guys like me with must normal basketball socks no shin-pads a
disadvantage, in situations such as: scuffles for the ball, one
player attempting to dribble by another player.
I believe this socks and shin pads advantage was
not due the wearers of the socks/shin-pads being braver in the game, but
rather to the enhanced diameter of the cylinder constituting the area
between the ankle and the knee.
Guateenprince was not wearing long-socks/shin-pads and
he repeatedly had the ball taken from him when attempting to dribble by a
shorter Latin Am who wore long soccer-socks containing shin
pads.
I think I have to get better at preventing the stresses
of life such as cantankerous trust fund trustees, from tiring me out so
that I practice less. Seems athletes underestimate the effect such
non-sports abilities have on their performance in
sports. |
Nike T90 Radiant in practice ??? in game |
6.5 psi |
|||||||||||||||
Friday
10/20/06
Lowell Field Playground
440-615 PM shielding, chip drills
|
SHIELDING BALL-CHIP DRILLS |
Last night I had this dream in which I faked kicking the
ball, then pushed the ball outwards in the direction opposite from which
my foot would swing to when I kicked it. I read about this move studying
soccer moves on the internet. The point of it is, I suppose, that if for
example I am kicking the ball with my left foot to my right, then when I
kick the ball the ball will go to my right and if I use the same motion to
dribble instead the ball will go to my right so after faking such a kick I
should push the ball out to my left.
This dream influenced my choice of drill today.
Today the drill was to dribble as if shielding the ball from
the defense 4 dribbles to the left, then 4 dribbles to the right,
then 4 dribbles to the left, then 4 dribbles to the right, then fake a
shot, then push the ball outwards to the side opposite to the side my foot
would follow through to if I shot the ball, and then after one dribble
immediately, quickly, shoot with my right foot at a pole chosen for a
target on the fence. I reversed this half the time to end up shooting at
the fence pole with my left. This was on bumpy ground. I varied between
shooting at the fence from approx 5 yds, shooting at the fence from approx
10 yds, shooting at the fence from approx 15 yds. I would aim to shoot
from 5 10 or 15 but sometimes the shot would get off from a little closer
to the fence.
I have come to realize that one must never cease
to be inventive thoughtful and clever when it comes to devising
drills. Seems part of this war on drugs thing, which involves somewhat of
a battle against marijuana, is that people become weak in the areas they
are strong in when they consume marijuana--people become sort of stupidly
thoughtless.
I call this drill the S-FC-C for shield-fake chip-chip;
in the following notation, L5 means I would end up chipping at the pole on
the fence from 5 yds after doing the zig zag dribble shileding the ball,
R10 means I would end up shooting from 10 yds with my right after doing
the zig zag. When trying to chip at the pole on the fence from 5 yds I
would start 20 yds from the fence, when trying to chip from 10 I would
start 25 yds from the fence.
I kept track of how many times I hit the fence pole I
was aiming for at a heioght higher than six feet.
The results were (drill and yds from which fence pole
was hit, for every time fence pole was hit):
Drill 20 minutes each segment unless
noted
S-FC-C L5 -- no hits
S-FC-C R5 -- no hits
S-FC-C L10 -- 9
S-FC-C R10 -- 9, 8
S-FC-C L15 -- (15 minutes only)
S-FC-C R15 -- not done The entire time it was raining hard, windy, and cold. I
had to call it quits before doing the chips from 15 yds with my right,
seemed I might damage my health if I kept going. After the workout I went
home and, even though this was not a workout involving much running, felt
more exhausted than I have ever felt in years, I think because of the
rain, the cold, the wind. I went home, lied down in bed for 2.5 hours,
utterly exhausted. I think it was about 50 degrees
outside--frustrating how a few hours after practice it is so hard to find
out what the weather was during practice.
I hit the fence pole I targeted alot less this time
than I did in the previous
chipping drill. The weather was much worse today, the shoes were
the new cleats, there were less attempts per hour because the dribbling
preceded each chip attempt, there was today a rush about chipping at the
fence as opposed to taking my time, today the balls that were chipped were
rolling not stationary, which is especially a problem on bumpy ground like
the ground practiced on today.
I noted today, that when it comes to changing direction
while shielding the ball, for various reasons, when changing direction the
best move seems to be to move the dribbling foot towards the ball but not
completely over it; then retreat the dribbling foot behind the ball (in
between body and ball); then cut in the opposite direction with the other
foot. When dribbling the ball, seems the non-dribbling foot should
hit the ground the way it hits the ground when there is a change of
direction so as to confuse the defense. I realize the move involving the
dribbling foot going over the ball and landing on the other side of the
ball as a fake is a hip thing these days but such when shielding the ball,
momentarily leaves the ball open to be stolen.
As for further thoughts re yesterday: I hit my
team-mates as opposed to the other team with passes more often after
everyone on our team took off their shirts. I was whiter than 90 percent
of the Latin Ams out there. I am a shade browner than lily-white. The
locals have punished me enormously for this sin of being a shade darker
than lily-white, though they seem to enjoy coddling blacks, who the
apparently look on as icons of nationalism. Those who revel in coddling
the townies probably dismiss such as nationalism, as they tolerate townies
being abusive the way some tolerate the weirdness in finger-paintings
produced by monkeys, but, I aver, nationalism, patriotism, should have
nothing to do with color of skin in a multi-ethnic nation such as
ours.
The nation should face reality, without punishing
innocent blacks. The percentage of blacks who vote is low. Black crime
results in public transportation being avoided which means large
expenditures on imported gasoline. Black crime in white urban
neighborhoods has resulted in "white flight", whites fleeing to the
suburbs, where the quality of community life is lower than in their former
splendid urban neighborhoods, with the result of whites spending lots of
time on commuting, spending lots of money on imported gasoline commuting.
There has been an evil de-emphasis of criteria whites score relatively
high in. Whites of worth and quality have been denied jobs due to quotas.
Society, pre-occupied with coddling blacks, has forgotten about the
importance of giving talented whites, convenient access to higher
education.
Once I saw these two whites playing on the field, they
were doing a pathetic job of attempting to kick the ball at the goal. When
the Latin Ams showed up they hanged their heads and left. Another time
there was this black bald guy on the field, all dressed up in matching
slick sweatshirt and sweatpants, when the Latin Ams showed up, he
left.
Idiotas, there are 555 million people in Latin America,
and 222 million of them are white!
As for the Latin Am guy who looked like a Spanish Conquistador
who said he liked me, he reminded me of the Roualt painting of "the Old
King". Such is sort of what he looked like, although
his nose was less hawkish looking than in the Roualt painting of "the
old king", his face was less bony, and he was whiter. But he reminded
me of the Roualt painting because his beard was the same as in this Roualt
painting:
As for the new soccer shoes, they are narrow not just on
the big toe side, but also on the little toe side, compared to the Puma
Capt Nemo indoor shoes; they are less flat on the top of the front of the
shoe; the shoe-lace holes in then curve off to the outside of the foot;
and they have these flaps to go over the shoe-laces. I do not know how
much such will effect the air-dribbling. They have cleats on the bottom
which changes the way the ball is flipped up when it is rolled back with
the sole of the foot and then flipped up.
Getting used to strange new shoes is a real problem. How
is the mind/body trained to forget the old shoes? My idea is to take a lot
of shots at a fence pole 5 yds away, as a way of training my mind/body to
get used to the new shoes.
Lately my peace of mind has been returning to me. It is
hard to describe, but it is like the peace of mind you get when you are a
white in India, and you are at some modern white looking place with a
modern white looking culture, where you can buy pastries or hamburgers. I
think the peace of mind has to do with a combination of: getting up at
approx the same time every day; exercising but not overexercising; and
playing soccer with the Latin Ams, nice Christian humble folks. The white
homosexualist American obsessed with his anti-immigrant sentiments
and his distaste for Christianity clashing with homosexuality--such
persons are not too Christian in reality, though they might profess to a
pollster that they are a "Christian".
|
Nike T90 Radiant |
6.5 psi |
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10/23/06
Lowell Field Playground
Willow & Grove
Waltham MA
501-640 PM
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CHIP DRILLS,
GAME
ADIDAS BRACARA CLEATS USED
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Dream I had about soccer night before last:
There was a white circle, the line that formed the
circle was somewhat irregular. This circle represented certain of my
interactions with the ball on a soccer field. The circle was about the
width of a standing human body. It represented things like the ball coming
in to me and being trapped by me when passed to me or intercepted by
me. I suppose you could say the circle represented what happens to
the ball when I am in control of the ball or taking control of the ball
and the ball is near me and I am basically stationary.
The irregularity of the line that formed the circle
represented a certain roughness in my play when it comes to the stationary
ball close to the body aspects of play the circle represented, a roughness
that is due to a lack of practice playing with other people.
Nevertheless society for once was not foolish, and I made the pros in
soccer. About three quarters of the pros were worse than me, and about one
quarter of the pros were better than me, as I started out my pro career.
Somehow society despite its stupidity realized that: how
a person handles the ball when he is stationary and it is right near him,
as in trapping and dribbling, is only part of the game; players improve
their ball handling/trapping as they get experience with such in
game/scrimmage situations; there is more to a game than the stationary
ball handling/trapping--there is defense, there is passing, there is
shooting, there is chasing down balls that are far away from you, there is
moving the ball a long distance on the dribble.
What I did today:
501-511: chips with left foot at 3 inch
wide pole on fence, aiming for six feet or higher vertically, from
five yds away from pole: 2 hits
511-521: chips with right foot at 3 inch wide pole
on fence, aiming for six feet or higher vertically, from five yds away
from pole: 2 hits
525-555 PM: drill wherein ball is aimed using left foot
(my natural foot) to hit 3 inch wide pole on fence at point six feet above
ground or higher, with stationary ball shot from wherever it rebounds to
and comes to rest, ball moved back to four yds from fence if it bounces
less than four yds from fence. This drill was done on 10/17/06 with the
Puma Captain Nemo Indoor soccer shoes. Each of the following numbers
indicates a hit on the pole at a point six feet above ground, the number
indicates from how far away in yards the pole was hit:
9, 4, 8, 11, 7, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7, 8
total 11 hits
11/89, 8.1 yds avg, 1 hit per 2.72
minutes.
Such is an improvement over the performance of October
17 using the Puma Captain Nemo Indoor soccer shoes, so I guess I have
gotten to the point where I have overcome the newness of the Adidas
Bracara cleats, as long as I have 20 minutes to warm up with them.
But I did not feel while doing the drill that I had improved. All I was
aware of was my defects, my failures, this feeling of not being as good as
last time.
Today during the chip at fence from where ball rebounds
to drill: approx 3 times the ball was horizontally speaking placed to hit
the pole, but went over the fence by a few inches, these were
not counted as hits; about six times the ball missed the pole by less than
four inches; due to the better ability to gain elevation with the Bracara
cleats as opposed to the Puma Capt nemo indoor shoes, the ball sailed over
the fence and I had to waste more time retrieving it from the tennis court
compared to Oct 17. Time spent retrieving the ball from the tennis courts
is counted as part of the total time when I do this drill.
about 555 PM the Latin Ams started their game. It was
about 45 degrees fahrenheit outside; so now I know that the Latin Ams will
play in weather down to 45 degrees. I was thinking maybe these Latin Ams
from the warm weather countries will just quit when the temperature gets
below 50 degreees.
On the negative side today in the game:
-- I headed the other team's passes away a couple of
times, but when I headed the ball the headers did not go where I wanted
them to go they went too high--and I am someone who is expert at sprinting
while keeping the ball off the ground and under control while heading
it.
-- twice, this guy on the other team who was about five
feet six inches tall and stocky, who was a tremendous dribbler, who I
consider and call a 'Diego (Maradona) shot the ball by me, the fullback,
and also by the goalie, into the goal.
-- once one of the guys on the other team, shot the ball
through my legs, and past the goalie into the goal. I had been
spreading my legs while defending, daring them to try to put it through my
legs; they did not dribble through my legs, but they shot it through my
legs. The classic doctrine is not to spread your legs while facing the
forward when defending but I have been ignoring classic doctrine, feeling
quick enough to cut off any ball they attempt to put through my
legs.
-- for the first time in these Lowell Field Latin
Am games one of their guys dribbled by me. He was a white clean
shaven Latin Am with longish black hair who was about five feet eight
inches tall. As I approached him he reversed direction at a 45 degree
angle for about five feet, I followed him, then he cut forward and by
me!
-- I tried to dribble past this guy, he was facing
towards the sideline and I was between him and the sideline with the ball,
I turned to face him with the ball, and then pushed the ball towards their
end-line; it was too predictable, he ran the ball down. When I did this I
was feeling tired and the soles of my feet were hurting. Today I was
not as winded as in previous games, the calves of the feet did not
hurt much, but the soles of the feet hurt. The winded feeling and the pain
in the soles of the feet make it hard to be a good dribbler.
On the positive side:
-- As usual I blocked a few of their shots, stole
the ball a few times; intercepted a few of their passes; on
intercepting their passes, without first stopping the ball I fired off
long accurate passes. I remember one of these instances involved me me
making an accurate 25 yd pass forward off a bouncer (my goalie said,
'good!'); another instance involved me intercepting a ground ball and
hitting it accurately forward without first stopping it to a
team-mate 40 yds away (nobody said anything).
-- my goalie said to me, 'you're a pro at that' (by
'that' he meant the defender (fullback) I was playing). I
remember after I switched from the left wing forward I played in high
school to fullback in the Harvard freshman team scrimmages, I had a dream
that I played fullback for the Dallas Texas pro team, but being taught
(Freudian) that such dreams are merely wish fulfillment I paid the dream
no attention.
Latin Ams remind me of the 'inscrutable' orientals. You
make your best play of the night and there is silence. You make a
relatively average play and they say, 'good!'. You suffer your worst
evening of the night in terms of being beaten by forwards, and they say,
'you're a pro at that (defense)'.
I guess the thing was that today I was facing two
excellent dribblers. One of them was especially good, a short white black
haired clean shaven stocky Latin Am, who reminded me of Diego Maradona. he
repeatedly dribbled through two or three or four Latin Am defenders. He
would catch passes that came in the air at him and bring them under
control like a baseball player catching a baseball with his glove. Still,
he never dribbled by me, in fact at least once I stole the ball from him.
He used alot of stepover moves, stepping over the ball with one or both
feet, leaning over the ball, keeping his body low.
Lessons of the day: I need to continue working
at the endurance drills, get rid of the pain in the soles of the feet, get
rid of that winded feeling--it is hard to dribble by people even if you
are a good dribbler, when the sole of your feet hurt and you feel winded;
I need to when on defense pay more careful attention to where I am
situated relative to my goal, otherwise, the other team will manage to
fire on my goal, shooting the ball right past me; I need to be less
cavalier about spreading my legs they can shoot the ball through my legs;
I have the feeling that these Latin Am super-dribblers can be shut down
even more if I am willing to slide-tackle; as opposed to obsessing over
stopping them from dribbling by me, I need to pay some attention to the
problem of blocking their shots on goal.
These Latin Ams might get beat by a good US college team
on a full length full width field because of their lack of height,
strength, and speed; but on a crowded miniature field they are like
World-Cuppers representing entire nations, better than US college teams.
They are great individual dribblers.
Weird how these Latin Ams talk and act as if they have
been reading this hyar soccer blog.
No matter how good I do I am always down on myself. I
hve to come to realize, that when they stop attempting to dribble by me
because they respect my defensive ability, this means there will be less
instances of me stealing the ball from them to feed my ego.
I do not know who won today. I could not see in the
darkness if there was a goal when our team would shoot. The Latin Ams,
rarely celebrate when a goal is scored by their team, they seem to be
unaware of what the score is.
|
Nike T90 Radiant |
6.5 psi |