That's a good point Daniel. I will come up with something like that to honor Alex. Maybe AFCs will be a good event to do something.
shred:
On Thursday we met a young Player who's living a little outside of vienna on a hill. He uses to kick in school and sometimes alone at home. He was a nice guy but we don't have any expectations that he begins to shred because of the distance he has to overcome to shred with us and because his close friends are more into soccer and he wants to stick with them. But at least some new young player show up and buy bags, it's something.
I struggling with some pain in my left foot (close to my hip) which makes it painfull to raise it even for a legover so that means pause at least 2 days (I'll try to shred tomorrow again). Overall I can see much improvment this week. Longer runs, harder tricks less bails, less toe fillers between hard tricks. But I can also see that when the summer is gone in one or two weeks maybe thats the perfect time to start intensive, focused drilling (now I just shred which is realy good for motivation). Also I want to hit a new trick within the next sessions I guess it will be Stepping DLO, Ducking DLO, Blender or Double Down (in Anssis Footbag App I read a tip to Double Down and I guess when I think it like the way Anssi describes, Illusion + Butterfly and not like ATW+Clipper, I can hit it.
Austrian Champs:
I already mentioned them, they will be from 22nd to 23rd of October. We're going to try something new, besides Battle we're doing now for 3 years. It's inspired by Evans moaning over the last years about that you get Champ by winning routines. In Austria none of the active player is motivated to prepare a routine so we skip routines anyway. So we will decide the champ by the average ranking of his results in defined competitions. At least Circle and Battle will be in it, maybe also shred30,big 1, sick 3 (depends on what we conduct and the outcome of some theoretical testing. The good thing if you have an uneven amount of comps you take the average it shouldn't be possible that 2 competitors got the same value. But for this problem we also came up that than the ranking of one competion (maybe circle or battle) is worth more. Or we also can weight the competions in percentage so that Austrian Champ is decided by the average ranking which than also every competion has his own weight in percentage to contribute to this like: Circle 35%, Battle 35%, Sick 3 Big 1 & Shred30 each 10%. So there are many options and we have to think it through theoretical in the next weeks. Also this would mean if you scratch a competion or just don't hit a sick 3 or big 1 you will got ranked on the last place. This could mean that you prepare your Sick3 and Big 1 so that you will hit at least something and not maybe going all in. This could also have a positive effect for showing such competions on stage. I think Big 1 & Sick 3 are great for the audience because it's easier to follow than a 30 sec shred or Circle densitity round. Also in Big 1 and Sick 3 Players show cooler and more unusal tricks, a difference the audince also can recognize. And and small stages that are the two best competions because you won't move to much. Circle on a small stage (smaller than the stage at worlds 2015) isn't circle and looks weird. On small stages Battle is the better alternative to circle in my opinion. Skipping Routines completly from the event doesn't mean we don't want Routines, thinking it's boring or what ever. I think for Players like the average in Austria there are two important points why routine isn't a good format: Preparing a routine needs time, dedication and knowledge. Also you need to have some skill, stability in your tricks that the routine isn't an orgy of drops. So skipping it is better for us and the audience. Also if you compare battle with routines, battle is easier to judge which is also an important point in austria because we're lacking of expierienced judges.
Also if you include the point stamina in your calculation skipping routines and circle from the stage is more comfortable for players because you don't need the "routine warm up routine" and the exhausting circle (6 rounds) isn't there. For sick 3 big 1 and battle you don't need that focused warmup and even if you have 7 trys for big 1 and sick 3 you have some time in between to rest and overall it isn't realy exhausting. But if you do this 2 competitions on stage you maybe have to set an overall time limit so the pauses between the trys don't take to long. Like in Chess: You have like 1:30 Minutes for 7 trys after the 1,5 minutes passed you can't go for another try even I you have some still left. This is because the audience isn't interessted to wait 20 seconds for every new try. (it's just to prevent something not good in advance, overall most of the players are quick enough between there trys that it's not getting boring for the audience).
I realy like to try out some new stuff, make some minor adjustmens to established things, on such events. When we came up with battle (after we saw it at red bull freestyle football) a few years ago we where realy exited about the outcome. But also we are suprised that battle didn't make it to other events so far or got more recognition (which means that it becomes and competion at euros or worlds). Also if you think what you can to as a club, for footbag, I like to see footbag-vienna as a club which stands for progress, innovation, evolution. Going new ways, which if they're successful, have influence to the whole scene.
Video Contest
After my critique of the winning video of the video contest at worlds this year some people critized me for beeing realy harsh. I want to appologize for this. I didn't want to put somebody down. It's also not that fullfilling moment for me to be that direct and honest but I felt that it was necessary. After the video contest in copenhagen last year a lot of people laughed about creative inputs from people who showed not the highest footbag skills in there video but a lot of creativity and I didn't raise my voice against it. After this year I felt that this was a failur. I talked to some people after the contest and they told me that the video contest was realy boring this year. This has for sure various reasons but I think one thing is how the video contest is judged and therefor who wins it. When I talked to Steve after the judging workshop at worlds this year, he shared some thoughts to judging with me. One of his points was that you define the judging system, the criteria for a good routine and the players will prepare the routine according to it. So in video contest it's the same I think. In routines we have 2 mayor categories for judging: technics and artistic. When you apply these to the video contest you have the technical side like the equipment and the editing and the creativity which from my point of view makes the video interesting (also to non baggers). So the winning video from creativity wasn't realy a big deal from my point of view. Why? Overall it was a great video from the technical side but there wasn't anything special in it besides a BAP member (which also shouldn't be key to win the video contest). The location the video was set appeared in some videos before, like the video Aleksi did or the promotion video for worlds 2009 in Berlin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui3qiH7fAEI . If you comapre those two videos I see that Pawels video has a higher technical skill (maybe this comes from improved technology in this sector) and a better camera handling. In kinds of editing the Berlin video has a cgi Bee in it which for me has impact in technical but also in creativity. The bee and Mathias reaction to it is also something "unexpected", an element of fun, something you recognize and will remeber forever. In Pawels video there wasn't such a moment. So if I rank these both videos against each other I would overall say the Berlin video is "better" (if they both were sent to the same video contest). And that even if Mathias isn't a BAP Player like Olaf. I didn't mean to put Pawels work down but i feared that we will have more videos like this and less creative videos like we had the years before and I felt that I have to stand up against this because this would lead in the wrong direction from my subjectiv point of view. I think it also won't encourage more people to send something in when they think the winning stanard is BAP Player and super fancy equipment and professional editing skills. Also there should be the chance to compete with these things (which are also important, don't get me wrong) by bringing in your realy own kind of creativity, which comes from your "footbag soul" (sorry for this hippy term). And I think that creativity should be more recognized at it was the last years. I don't think that mikkos video from 2016 should have won the contest because there was no shred in it, which should be in a footbag video.
So I already mentioned the conversation I had with Steve: What are the judging criterias of the video contest and whos eligible to judge such a video? I think this topic needs an discussion (which I also tried to start). I think not everybody has the "skill" to judge video contest, as not everybody has the skill to judge Finals at worlds. Also they criterias and there weight have an impact on the results so we should think about what do we want to see (subjective) and adjust the juding criterias according to it (more objective) to get the results we want. And as I interpreted the reactions to the this years video contest I think there's need for discussion and adjustments.
BAP Discussion
After Hogans legendary "... or am I late to the party" Thread on facebook I also want to have a summed up statement from me to this here:
I think BAP is fine. No new BAP Players doesn't mean BAP has a problem, but footbag in general has. Better adjust/improve the situation of footbag than to "fix" something to dead like BAP which isn't the source of the problem.
So what is the reward of getting BAP besides the recognition ? A Nickname, not more. You even don't get a lousy T-Shirt (according to Ken). So recognition is what is important for many players pushing it hard. As a Footbagger you don't get much recognition from the society (compared to pop stars or high skilled soccer players) so this makes such things even more important. So it's also more the recognition inside the community/family. So what can we do to give people a type of recognition even if they will never get into BAP or win a medal of worlds because of players like Vasek? And there the "badges" came to my mind. While BAP criterias are more subjective the badges criteria are realy objective. Also they are requesting that you master the main concepts which everybody can if he is into it. To be a BAP Member you have to be more than just following the drilling rules, you have to be something special. In terms of footbag as a BAP Member you got recognized for beeing something not everybody can be. Uniqueness. And I'm sorry but not every body with a decent level of shred has it. Uniquness is maybe something you can train, but most of the time I think it comes naturally with the high " footbag mindset" the certain footbager has.
That beeing said I think Junior BAP isn't a good answer to the urge which was brought up to discussion by some players. There are already honorable mentions which do the job from my point of view.
So lets push the badges system: If you earned every bronze badge you have "bronze feet" (this idea Lauri came up with last night). So you can call yourself for example: Julian "bronze feet" Sinnl and maybe get also a lousy t-shirt for it. Maybe also another gadget or a badge you can use in your facebook profile picture or somewhere else. If you mastered every gold badge you can call yourself Julian "golden feet" Sinnl and so on. So whats the main difference to BAP? It's realy objective, nearly everbody can reach at least "bronze" status and get a title. This is not a unique title as the BAP nickname you get. But I think thats important because as I already statetd a BAP Member is a realy special player and should always be recognized as this. So you can get a golden or platinum status without beeing into BAP or ever get invited there. But you got your recognition. Also it's good for players who are not this competion type players. You don't have to travel to events (and win medals as a recognition). I think when you push it the same way as BAP was and is pushed people will accept it as a "measurement" and will "feel" the recognition they crave for.
Acoording to this post I want to use this footblog to share some thinkings, inspections/observations, reflexions about general footbag topics not only myself or footbag-vienna/footbag in austria. I hope it will set a stimulus for some productive discussion and progess/improvements.
). And Artwork has to provoke, irritate, beeing controversial. I also can't identify one member of footbag-vienna who wouldn't agree with the "deeper message", as we're all more or less lefties. If you want to identify your club, sport or event to the outside with this is another question. But as I stated it wasn't planed I just tought that it's cool during the work and afterwards I reflected that with out this I couldn't tag it as art.