“Dear Kevin,

After reading the email you sent to the lead singer of SOFTBALL, I decided that I should finally write to you. This will be quite a long email, and I know you must get a lot of mail like this, but I hope you’ll read with patience and without any reservations. Just for the sake of making a baseline for this letter, my major interests are Tricking and Japan. I’ll start by explaining how I discovered both. I’ll start with Japan.

I remember my first real contact with japanese culture. I had just started 7th grade, and one day when I got home from school, I saw my big brother and his friend watching Naruto. Ofcourse at the time I was oblivious as to what it was. They explained it was an ANIME, a japanese animation. Just from hearing “”Haruka Kanata”" from Asian Kung-Fu Generation got me instantly intriqued. So I pulled up a chair and watched. Even though I didnt know it then, but that was the most life changing event in my life, because from that spawned things that make up a big part of me today. After seeing my first episode of naruto I was instantly hooked. From that point on watching anime became a part of my daily life. Ofcourse from that came also my love for the language and music. About the same time I got into Anime I discovered a show called “”Madventures”". It’s about 2 guys going around the world and filming a sort of documentary style series. It remains my favourite show even today. After that I decided: “”This is what I want to do when I ‘grow up’, I want to travel, I want to go to Japan, This is my dream”".

If I remember correctly It was around March 2006, nearing the end of 8th grade. Just another guy night, playing poker, watching movies etc. Me and a friend of mine were bored and we were watching random videos on Youtube. He told me he had found a cool website and started typing, www.bilang.com. In the end, that event was also a lifechanging event. The first trick I had ever see nwas probably one of Hans Wikkeling’s Double Legs. I just watched with my jaw open for atleast 2 hours. Something like I had never seen before. “”I wanna be able to do that”", I though to myself. I started stretching and working out, but not for long…

…Enter 9th grade. During that one school year my life completely changed, partly due to own actions, partly not. I hit rock bottom, and completely forgot any dreams about going to Japan and about Tricking. During 9th grade, picking on me got from something I could have lived with to something that made me want to disappear from the face of the earth. I was sorta fat, had long black hair, watched anime, doenst go hand in hand with being popular. It was considered weird not doing what everyone else did. Being different was hard. I barely finished school. After the sommer break, I began to further continue my studies, unwillingly though. I have never liked studying, I even lied to my parents I was going to Lukio(something like high school, the system here is a bit different), when in fact I was Spending my day walking around in malls, wasting my life. But the the best thing happened to me last christmas. I accidentally stumbled across dogentricks.com. Suddenly, both things I used to be so passionate about, Tricking and Japan, they came back to me. I instantly told my parents of the situation that I had been skipping, and I quit school. I’m currently working in a storage (not as bad as it sounds, well maybe paywise), small bit by bit saving money, maybe one day I’ll be ready and live my dream and go to Japan. And what comes Trickingwise, I’m training, strecthing, watching what I eat. The first time ever in my life when I take of my shirt and pump my muscles in front of the mirror I see pecks and a six-pack, instead of sellulite and spare tires. I just want to say, Thank You So Much Kevin. Your site gave me my life back, my dreams, my passion. It has bben such an inspiration to me, thank you. For you, Softball might be the most influential thing in your life, but when it comes to me, you are. Once more, arigatou gozaimasu.

Best of wishes to both you and Risa,

*******”