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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Picking the Perfect Boots!



Picking out the perfect pair of football boots is essential to a players performance on the pitch. Depending on the position, surface or comfort is that you may make your decision. Typically when playing on artificial surfaces or turf you want to make sure that you pick a cleat with round studs or an AG pair which stands for artificial ground. If you play on more natural grass surfaces or wet ground you want to make sure that you pick up boots with good traction or the SG variant which stands for Soft Ground. Picking the perfect football boot is very crucial since it can be the difference between a great or a bad performance. If you use the incorrect type of boots then it can affect your gameplay a lot, you might find yourself slipping or your studs getting caught on the turf.


The book titled "Soccer for Dummies" by Thomas Dunmore he talks about this and the importance of picking out the perfect boots. He states "If you’ll be playing on a natural grass pitch where it doesn’t rain too regularly, you should use a pair of firm ground shoes. Firm ground shoes usually have ten or more long studs that are distributed evenly throughout the bottom rim of the shoe. They provide a sufficient amount of traction for normal playing conditions. The studs can either be conical or blade shaped" (Dunmore105) If you don't know what boots to pick up then just get a pair of firm ground boots since they'll be acceptable in mostly any condition but wont provide the "Best" traction for this reason. My preference of boots are the Nike Hypervenom in the FG or Firm Ground variant just because I mostly play in turf, and this boot has round studs giving me loose traction so that the studs won't get stuck to the turf.


Why is it important to know what football boot to purchase?

   

Python: Modules and TurtleWorld

 Most programming languages include modules in them, like Python. “Modules [are] a file that contains a collection of related functions” (Downey 24). For example, there is already a built-in module in Python called “math”. The math module imports lots of functions into the program so that you can reference them in your code. An example of this would be when you import the math function, you can access difference new functions such as square roots, pi, and logarithms.



In the book “Think Python, Chapter 4” it tells to download a package called “Swampy”. Packages are just a collection of modules that you can install, since modules are collections of new functions, packages are in essence adds lots of new functions into the programming language (Downey 37). In Swampy there is a module that is called TurtleWorld. Using this you can create a “TurtleWorld” which is a window where a “Turtle” will draw what you tell it to draw. For example in the code below, the first line imports all the functions from the TurtleWorld module from the Swampy package. Then the next lines in the script make a TurtleWorld called world, and a Turtle called bob. Using this we can use bob and the TurtleWorld to draw a square and other shapes as we want. The “fd” function moves the Turtle “bob” forward 100, and the “lt” function turns him to the left. Repeat this 3 more times and we have a square.




From this experience, I was surprised the capabilities of Python and what it can accomplish, specifically with the TurtleWorld modules.
 Question: What are some things that you were surprised you can accomplish?
Downey, Allen B. Think Python: How to Think like a Computer Scientist. Sebastopol: O'Reilly Media, 2015. Print

The Torso

The final piece of the series before I finally draw the whole body: the torso. The base of the body, where everything comes back to. Though not the most acknowledged region of the body, it's the most vital one.

Torsos are perhaps the most diverse region of the body among humans, coming in all shapes, sizes, and variations. The general torso for a male is built and muscular, yet not overly buff, and the general torso for a female is slim but curvy. Though these are not the builds most typical people possess, they're most commonly seen in drawings, which is what I'll be using.

I'll be drawing both a female torso, from the shoulders to the pelvis. The main reason I'm drawing a female torso is because the end product, a whole-body sketch, will be of a female, as I just personally find females easier to draw.


Here I'm just starting with a basic outline, specifically the shoulders and general torso area, as well as marking out where the chest ends in order to accurately shade it. Bridgman explains how "the masses of the torse are the chest, the abdomen or pelvis, and between them the epigastrium" (Bridgman 111). These are the three areas that will be concentrated on in the drawing!

I didn't use construction lines in this drawing, as I was rather scatterbrained and just started sketching from the photo. However, if I were to redo this drawing, I'd most definitely try to use construction lines, as I'm sure it would've given me and easier time proportioning the torso.


I added some slight alterations, but you can clearly see how this looks more realistic than just leaving lines on it. The drawing seems simple, but when just sketching (especially when you're learning how to sketch something), Bridgman strongly recommends that it's best to not overcomplicate it, and to gain a strong understanding of the basics before proceeding to add the microscopic details (Bridgman 65).

I didn't pay too much attention to the arms since that isn't our focus, and just tried to get the arms to look vaguely proportional to the torso. Another important tip is that the elbow generally will line up with the belly button, which will be helpful in my next blog post!

Have you ever had a situation where you overcomplicated something? Is it better to start out in slow steps or just dive right in?

Bridgman, George. Constructive Anatomy. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 2016. Print.

The Right Monologue

To find the right monologue there are notes about stage directions and terminology:


Step 6: The stage direction (Beat.) or the start of a new paragraph indicates another character is speaking or a new idea is coming up. Stage directions like (Shocked.) are suggestions, but do not need to be observed absolutely.

Pretty much means don't read them out loud when you are doing your monologue.



Question: have you ever seen one of those in your monologue and wondered what they meant?

Behavior Modifying

Each time you work with a horse, it is beneficial to use vocal cues to reward a horse or teach a horse. In How to Think Like a Horse by Cherry Hill, she writes about horses behavioral corrections. Horses are very vocal and action oriented creatures, and learn from that easily. Responses to horse behavior need to be immediate, consistent, appropriate, and concise (Hill 134). Horses minds don't stay set on one thing, you must react within 3 or so seconds of the horses action for your reward or discipline to really matter to the horse. If I were to take Leo and run him in a circle and he were to misbehave, I would yell something or pull on the lead as a punishment. Horses are animals that generally want to please humans, and will learn after a few times of doing something wrong.

Negative and positive reinforcement can be used, not to punish a horse, but to get a desired response. For example, "When a horse does something that you life, if you immediately give him something good or make him feel good, it will encourage him to repeat that behavior in the future...If as soon as a horse does what we want, we remove a negative or unpleasant stimulus, we have used negative reinforcement to strengthen the desired behavior" (Hill 138-139). If you put pressed against the horses face, it is unpleasant, and they will move away from it. The desired reaction was for the horse to move, so you release the pressure against their face. That is good negative reinforcement. Not hurting the horse, or using positive reinforcement are both great ways to teach a horse. With Leo I use both positive and negative reinforcement. Generally I use negative reinforcement, like the picture above. But sometimes I use positive reinforcement. After reading the book I think I will use more positive reinforcement because it is more rewarding.

Hill, Cherry. "Bucking." How to Think like a Horse: The Essential Handbook for Understanding                   Why Horses Do What They Do. North Adams, MA: Storey Pub., 2006. 134+. Print.


Would you use negative or positive reinforcement? What would you do if your horse misbehaved? Do you think this is better than punishing an animal for misbehaving?

F2 World of Football

Advanced step over



Simple moves work, but advanced ones look better, especially if you're successful. Never complicate the game where you do not need to, but sometimes you need to hype things up. This move will build your confidence on the field and intimidate your opponents. 



Begin with warming up, briefly jog for a few minutes squeeze in a few stretches if your body is warm enough even a few sprints will help. Always make sure to be warmed up before messing with a ball so you don't inflict any harm to yourself. 



Step one:
"Begin with a roll over make sure the ball is fairly 5 inches away as you never want to be an uncontrolled dribbler as it's the most common way players lose there balls to defenders" (F2 157). As you roll the ball add in a body feint in the direction.




Step two:
"After the body feint move towards the ball and proceed with a step over"(F2 158).  Now you have completed the advanced step over, some tips in improving this is wait for the defender to step in then move the ball around the defender.


Once you become very good at this try it out on cones then when confident try it during a game, you probably will not succeed the first few times but don't let it bring you down instead use it as positive energy to work harder individually. 



What else besides dribbling makes a successful attacker?
Freestylers, F2. F2 World of Football: How to Play like a Pro. London: Blink, 2016. Print.

Art Applies: Fundamentals

The inclusion of complex techniques has been the overall message of "The Usborne Complete Book of Drawing" by Usborne. This time, the book is revisiting the basics regarding the placement of art when considering perspective. I feel like this late into the book, it's a great refresher to make sure the artist implement these crucial fundamentals to make the most of their skills.
In this update, the overall message is to apply perspective and vanishing points into the image. Basically, the goal is to fully understand the simple concept of vanishing points. In the book it states, "Scenes such as the one on the right can be constructed using imaginary points, called vanishing points, called disappearing lines"(Usborn 120). The focus on this message shows the importance of this technique. The quote shows how drawing scenes in perspective means drawing them the way your eyes see them. To simplify, a vanishing point is the point where parallel lines appear to meet if the continued into the distance from where they are seen. By including this technique, it makes the image look a lot more realistic and something that a person would actually see and experience in real life. There are two parts, the viewpoint which is where the person is looking from and the vanishing point which is the point where the image is no longer visible. Once the art gets more elaborate you can have more than one vanishing depending directly on the placement of the viewpoint. To conclude, this short revisit helped me reestablish such foundation techniques as they help the image be more realistic.
Question: Is relearning and establishing basic techniques in anything needed? Does it help you?


Usborne, Reece, Smith, and Brown. The Usborne Complete Book of Drawing. Usborne House, 83-85 Saffron Hill, London, EC1N 8RT, England. 1993, Print.