Tag Archives: tricking

Gathering

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Friends and family. Boys and girls. Peanut butter and jelly. Thank you for your support. My name is Dogentricks.com and this is my life.

3 days ago a man by the name of DK privileged me with a visit to Seattle. If you don’t know much about DK, allow me to make a short introduction.

As you can see, he’s a gorilla. Luckily he’s a gorilla who’s great at writing. Here’s my take on the past two days, written through DK’s words.

I was a little nervous before i met Dan. I mean, this is the first guy that has come to meet ME from this awesome sport and community. In my forums, he is an icon, and meeting any icon is a bit nerve racking.

Another thought was agitating me also: We’ve all seen the pics, we’ve all read the posts; we think we know what the man Dan is like in person, but truthfully, personality cannot be accurately measured by what we see in 10 minute video blogs. What if Dan is everything we hope he isn’t?

Let me set the record straight right now:

Dan is one of the nicest, coolest, most interesting, inspirational people I have EVER met. EVER. In my short 20 years I have never met anyone who could inspire as much confidence at such a young age. I’ll get more into why i think so later, but for now settle for the statement that Dan reaks of awesomeness.

I picked up Dan and we drove to a park with purrrrrrrfect grass. You couldn’t find nicer grass on a World Cup soccer pitch. There, we met Rizzice (yes, THE Rizzice) and another tricker named Zack. And then the fun began.

Watching Dan trick is like watching a new artist paint. I know this is sounds a bit cliche, but i picked this simile for a reason. Artists paint and draw for a variety of reasons, but new artists paint for one reason alone: they love painting and they want to try new things. Thats it. Im sure they would like some recognition for their good work, but it is not an increadable misfortune if that doesnt happen immediately. Like the artist, Dan tricks because he loves tricking, regardless of experience.

Dan loves tricking and is dedicated to improvement. You cant really grasp the scope of that statement until you actually meet, talk to, and trick with him, but when you do, you realize that Dan loves tricking more than he loves air to breath. Even though Dogentricks.com can through some tricks that Dan cant do yet, I couldn’t stop watching Dan because he put so much heart into every single kick and twist; Dan commits mind, body, and soul to tricking. It was phenomenal. It was inspirational. And it was very intimidating. Coming from a guy who only picked up the sport 4 years ago and really hasn’t trained or improved a great deal in that time period, i kinda feel like a poser. I like tricking, I think tricking is a ton of fun and i want to get better at it.

Is this going to stop me from training? Two words: HELL NO. If anything, this trip has affirmed every reason why I trick and totally strengthened my resolve to continue. The fire has been lit under my ass, and I am now super motivated to kick my training into high gear and start down this road in earnest.

Dan, I told you the next time we tricked, i would be better. I meant it.

Until we meet again.

Dogentricks.com

New Sampler

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Hello friends. My name is Dogentricks.com, and this is my new tricking sampler. Summary post tomorrow.

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Homesick?

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Here is a full translation of the blog below:

Homesick

10 months have passed since I came to Japan. In that period, I never once was homesick. But, in the past few weeks, I have become extremely anxious to return to the States.

If you ask why, it’s because my lifestyle is different. Of course I love studying Japanese, I have a great group of wonderful friends, and my girlfriend is perfect. Moreover, I’m not troubled towards money and am basically free to do the things I want. So, why is it that I suddenly became so homesick?

It is because my lifestyle is different. To be more specific, I’m dying to train. Before coming to Japan, for a period of 4 years i thought of one thing and one thing only – Tricking. Everyday I woke up thinking about tricking. All throughout class I thought about tricking. And I trained my ass off everyday, training and tricking every free minute I had. I religiously followed an absurdly strict diet. That was my lifestyle and I loved it. I felt strong, I felt like the things I did carried meaning, and I felt like everyday I was become a little bit better as a person. The thing that made me happiest is that I inspired those around me to exercise and could see the change in not only myself, but others as well. I pushed myself to ridiculously heights, so much that I couldn’t move my body. I can easily say that I worked much harder than I do now, and that I loved it.

But, that can’t be helped. Before coming to Japan I decided that I was going to spend my time in Japan studying Japanese. Coming all the way to Japan and spending my free time tricking instead of practicing Japanese with my friends is not only a waste of a once in a lifetime opportunity, but a waste of money as well. Furthermore, I had a ton of injuries when I first came to Japan and doubt that I could have tricked well anyway. So, I worked my ass off and studied Japanese for 10 months.

Studying was pretty rough at first. More than rough I would say it just wasn’t too much fun. Of course I had come to Japan, but I had very few Japanese friends and thus very few chances to actively practice Japanese. When speaking with my dorm friends I’d switch into Japanese to save the atmosphere and only speak with my girlfriend in Japanese out of nervousness. This left me with one way to study – watching dramas. Though I came all the way to Japan, I ended up sitting in my room in front of my computer and repeated what I heard in Orange Days.

But because it’s Japan, even that was fun. I often went on dates with my girlfriend, and hung out with my dorms friends, exploring the unseen corners of Tokyo. I never really felt like I was good at Japanese, but I continued to study while having fun. Then I went to Osaka and hung out with a ton of people that could speak no English, and finally found confidence in my speaking abilities. I can back to Tokyo and started a completely different lifestyle.

A new quarter at school started and I made a ton of great Japanese friends. I became close with the fans of my favorite band and went to a ton of incredible shows. I spoke more and more Japanese every time that i met my girlfriend. Lastly, I moved into a home of Japanese people who can’t speak English. In my current lifestyle, I hardly ever use English. I’ve become much better at Japanese that I had previously predicted and am satisfied with my progress as an exchange student. Of course I want to become much more fluent, but I never thought I’d be able to write a blog like this in Japanese before coming to Japan.

Huh? Tricking..? The light inside of me that is tricking slowly faded and faded as I become more used to Japan and Japanese. I never thought I’d be able to forget, even momentarily about tricking, the thing that literally made me a new person. Honestly, it makes my chest hurt to think about. I noticed my declining passion two weeks ago while I was walking home from work. Akaiyami by THE BACK HORN came on my iPod – for the first time since coming to Japan.

Roughly one year ago, every morning I rode my bike to gym in Seattle’s light rain. The trip takes about 10 minutes, and during that I time I always listened to THE BACK HORN’s Akaiyami. 2 weeks ago that song came on my iPod and a carpet of goosebumps covered my arms as I suddenly remembered the fierce passion that I pulsed in me every second, everyday. I looked down at the ice cream I was holding by my thinned arm and nearly started to cry. “”What’s happened to me?”" I thought to myself. “”This is not the person I want to be, this is not Dogen.”" I know that if I could see myself now through the eyes of myself one year ago, I would be very, very disappointed. From that moment, I went tricking.

As I imagined, my body had become very weak and I couldn’t trick very well. Nonetheless, it was the best I felt in months. I honestly think if the only thing I ever did was train and trick I’d be more than happy for the rest of my life. “This is IT!” I thought to myself. “This is what it means to LIVE, to MOVE, to BREATH!” and since that day, the old fire that used to glow inside me has once again been ignited in a passionate glow.

Unfortunately, I need to wait until I go home before I really start my training. I’ve got finals all this week, no money, more Akiakane shows I want to go to, more people I want to meet, chilling out with my girlfriend, and a bunch of personal things I need to take care of before I go home. Joining a gym with 3 weeks to go would be foolish, to say the least.

But, I want to trick.

For the time being, I’ll poke around at that fire. Once I get home I’ll light my lifestyle back into a blazing flame and train my heart out. This time around, I’m not letting it go out.