Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[boyle]

What's it called?

[boyle]

Too bad, my one line question came over to the new page. Might try to find a top post painting later on.

[instagram]http://www.instagram.com/p/BX6ZpnGFpvs[/instagram]

I played last night. I started after midnight as I was teaching all day and then working at the hostel in the evening. At first I thought I wouldn't bother, too cold, not in the mood but I decided to get into it and it proved to be a good idea. We did a little tidying up in the garage in the past week so there was a bit more room to move, though it is still full of junk. My first run was just under 30 contacts so just starting with that had me feeling positive about the sessions. I had some tricks bs that I sometimes struggle with on the flipside, but I couldn't get them bsos. Blurry whirl, tomahawk, matador.

I came very close to hitting alpine food processor, which is something I've been trying most of the year but haven't quite got there yet. It's not too far off though.

So I was reading up on some of these major events like the Asian Games (next year in Indonesia), South East Asian Games (this weekend), Kings Cup (Worlds for Takraw) and I noticed they are bringing back the Arafura Games in Darwin, I think in 2019. Often when I show people footbag, people will comment about seeing the Sepak Takraw events there. A few years back they stopped doing the Games, but the current Territory government up there has promised to bring it back, so that is something to watch.

I had a much better day on the teaching front yesterday, actually I had a very easy day, which was relaxing after a pretty full on day the day before. I think I've taken a good path to ease myself into things, I'm just continuing to work fulltime at the hostel and pick up the shifts at the schools on my days off. There is a really high burnout rate among early teachers so I don't want that to be me. The question will be about timing the transition to go into a school fulltime. I was thinking next year, but I'm getting the feeling that sticking on the casual for next year while maybe slightly dropping down the hostel hours could be the way to go - then if I want to go to Worlds, it could work with the leave from there. The timing is pretty much always in school term so if I have a full time school job Worlds will be a no.

I have also been thinking a lot about different footbag stuff in Asia and that could be the time to get moving on that, so if I have a more flexible employment situation then I can be involved in it.

[boyle]

Here's a pretty long run I had today. Can't remember how many contacts, about 45.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BX6p1EsF1HI

I know I already posted today but I'm going to have another go because I had another session. I was already feeling quite sore from the late night kicking so I didn't really think I was up to it, but it was crazy windy today so anything I was doing needed to be indoor, so into the garage I went.

In the end I came out with a new tricks

spinning butterfly swirl.

That's something I've been trying for quite a long time and getting closer to it lately, so I was pretty happy about that. Had some good runs as well. A couple of 5>5>5 combos like fairy ducking osis>pdx blender>tomahawk I think from the top of my head. I did motion sickness>motion and dropped going for a second motion. That wasn't actually what I was hoping to hit out of it, but could have been cool.

I got in touch with the guy who ran that takraw tournament I mentioned a couple of posts back. He said they will do another tournament next year. I asked if we could do a footbag event as part of it. I also asked about information about just getting to go to their casual kicks. It seems where they play is reasonably close to my house, so I'm surprised I've never seen them around.

I was riding past that oval today and it was crazy windy. Later I saw a photo from a park, where we have gone a few times with Nico, the tree had fallen right over the equipment. Seems nobody was there at the time but wasn't a great thing to see. Hopefully no tree blows onto my head on the ride home.

A few years ago I ordered a bunch of bags from Flying Clipper. I had a couple of hundred, some I have sold but most I've given away over time. My stock is now down to less than 10, so I'm considering getting more. I'm not sure if I will get that many. They gave me a good deal last time for ordering more than 200, so if they can do that again, it might work out. I would look to be doing more selling though and less giving away this time, as it would be own investment and not using the money that came from a government grant.

In my email I also just dropped a line with a bit of food for thought, mentioning there's talk of doing something in Asia and do they have any plans to build on that interest. I'm working all this weekend so probably not too much interesting coming up. A good friend of Francisca is coming to visit so we might go to a few places along the way.

Francisca mentioned an idea for an app which is actually quite a good idea. I don't think I really bought into it enough at the time she said it, but it's building on the stuff I was doing when I was checking off all the places around Canberra with the red dog, a kind of challenge thing that also includes information about the different museums and galleries. I had actually started with some ideas for building something that was probably less app and maybe even more paper based a few weeks ago.

[Muffinman]

Oh, the app is called "Footbag", by suvaliv.
Whoa -- ducking motion is huge! Congrats!
Motion is a trick that's super foreign to me, but I want to get better at!

[boyle]

When we were in Chile I really worked on them a lot, hit a bunch of bigger tricks with them (stepping ducking, pixie ducking, pixie diving, fairy ducking, spinning ducking). I haven't been as consistent with them lately but I'm also improving a bit on the flipside for that trick. It's a handy trick to have in the range.

[boyle]

I've been working a bit on this project gathering newspaper articles about footbag in the one place.

https://modified.in/footbagnews/

I haven't done anything on the look of thing, so it still has a pineapple or whatever it is as the main picture. I have come across some interesting articles on my travels so far. There's lots more to do. I felt like I was making pretty good progress, but I've got 20 articles up there so far. I've got into a fairly good system now though.

I take a snippet of the article, copy it over, put that in italics. I give a short intro before doing that, then I plug in a video which just automatically goes in.

So my current goal is to get to 100 articles on there by the end of next month. It's something I'm starting to work on during quiet times at work, though I really thought I had more.

Anyway, it's an interesting little project, I'm trying to pick up whatever I can, which will range from articles about hack circles on college campuses, to promos for competitions from long ago. I've also seen one or two Business articles about the Hacky Sack brand and hopefully will come across some more of them over time.

So you can see what I've done by clicking that link. I think this could be a really valuable resource over time. Obviously needs more work but it's also kind of a fun project for me as I have an interest in the journalism side of things and not just the footbag ideas. Didn't play today. Did a few kicks around and actually I was kicking with a jianzi I have though actually it broke apart so that wasn't really a success. It's also much too light, I don't think it is near the weight that someone like Bruce Li would kick with.

I bought a skipping rope a few days back and have been doing a bit of that. I'm also just trying to get my head around how to do footbag with skipping rope and it's not in my zone at the moment, I'm just completely confused. I will have to watch a few videos of people doing it.

[Tjuggles]

Bruce Li used a jump rope and shuttlecock at worlds. Look at his video if you haven't already!

[boyle]

Yes I saw a bit of that - there's a few players who have used it in routines over the years, though I don't think it often goes down so well in the eyes of the judges. I think though I think to look at how to do it for complete idiots, and not seeing the finished product because I am a long way off that!

[boyle]

I have been getting back in to play in my lunch break or dinner break, depending on the shift. We've had some really good weather in recent days as well, so I might try and get in a session once I go home as well. In yesterday's lunch break session I hit a 35 contact run to finish off. The problem with these sessions is I only get a little bit of time, say 15 minutes and these last couple of days I feel I've got into a good point only to have to come back to work.

In a follow up from a few posts up, I put in an order for a whole bunch of footbags. About 200. My hope is to go to a couple of school fetes. We got to a lot of them already just to buy cheap toys and things, but I think if I had a stall I could probably sell quite a few. So that's something I want to look into for the upcoming months. It's getting quite into the fete season, I saw a sign at one of the schools I did a prac at last year that they are having their fete in a few weeks.

It might take a while for the bags to be shipped over so I won't organise anything until I have them, otherwise that would make me look a little foolish.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this previously, but my sister has this grand plan to live in a bus - we went and checked out the bus today. At first I was thinking - that's the stupidest idea I've every heard, but on looking at it, there's space but it would be a bit cramped for my liking. They still need to do a lot of work to get it ready, but they have a place to park it and then a place to live in it so it should be an interesting experience and it would be all well and good to go and visit but I don't think living in a bus in this part of the world in winter would do me very well.

My Dad is in town and he asked if I wanted to have a game of golf tomorrow. I'm not very good at golf so we'll see how that all goes. He is a member of the club down the coast and I have been looking into some of the clubs here and it seems they have some sort of reciprocal arrangement so maybe we can even get a free game. Whatever happens I'm sure I will hit a few into creeks, lakes and whatever other water challenges they have on offer.

It will be nice to have a day off anyway, I've been filling my days off from the hostel with teaching and then today was meant to be a day off, but I switched it for a day off on the weekend, which will work better in the end, but it's time for a rest day, though we will probably do plenty. Also some days off going to Melbourne next week so that should be quite fun as well.

[Muffinman]

Love the idea of that news project!
100 articles is ambitious!!

Some sort of image per article, even if just a screengrab from the accompanying video would be super rad. I know you said you're working on that at some point, but that would be cool. Also neat that it's on Modified. Incentive to get others checking up on here again!

[boyle]

That's a good reminder that I've done very little since the last post about it. I think it's going to be a slow day today so should get some time to work on it. I have only mentioned it here on my blog because it's not really ready to "present" - but I think maybe once it's got about 50 articles I might share it a bit wider with the footbag community.

This is an interesting article I just came across about Wham-O trying to make a bit of a resurgence. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-w ... story.html I know Evan Gatesman was doing stuff a while back with the Hacky Sack brand but not sure if anything ever came out of it.

Also, the current head of Wham-O is currently based in Hong Kong. The vibe from the promotions panel was we need to go to China, that could be a way in...

On the picture stuff - pictures are a bit of a pain in comparison to video to put in (video you just post the link and it goes straight in, always at the same size). To say the least, images are not as simple, particularly on the size factor, but I will probably add some in the future.

Might as well report that I have been kicking. I had a good little kick this morning in the garage, I was playing around with Nico and having a kick at the same time. I hit spinning swirl, which was probably the highlight of the morning. Some good runs of 20-30 contacts or so. I also played a bit later out in the sunshine. It's coming into spring so the weather is really improving a lot. I'm sure it will drop off to cold again before Spring starts off, but good news is on the way.

[boyle]

Erik's little exercise of a 20 x 20 guiltless is a great indicator of consistency, but I'm not quite getting there. It's interesting, most sessions I will get a few 20-30 contact runs and maybe once in a while pop past 50 and feel like I'm doing well, but when you're going for 20 consistently and not getting there, it is a bit of an eye opener on where you are at.

So on my last post I said I thought it would drop back to cold, today it snowed. Not really here at our place, but we weren't for a drive a little way out of town and it was snowing as we were driving. We could also see little dustings of snow around on some of the hills, though it was really foggy so you couldn't see too much.

I came close today to pixie paradon>mobius. I think that would be a cool combo. Maybe next time. I've got a few days off work next week so we are going to head down to Melbourne. I haven't been down for over a year, so it should be fun to catch up with some friends. None of the footbag players really play anymore and I think most of my freestyle football friends from there are over at Superball, so I'm not really planning any particular kicking related activities, but I'm sure I'll do a few tricks along the way.

[boyle]

I had a good session today down at the tennis courts. Haven't played there much lately, but after it was snowing a couple of days ago, it was a bright Spring style day. Who knows what's going on with the weather at the moment.

Anyway, a couple of combos I did during the session that were something a little different to my normal go.

spinning diving inside kick>whirl
spinning mirage>atomsmasher

Most of the session I was doing some competition style practice, which is kind of off timing because I'm not going to any competitions any time soon. Anyhow, the session was mainly spent doing routines practice. I started working on a song probably about this time last year, and actually presented maybe a 30 second routine during an assembly while I was doing prac, which went pretty well (dropless from memory, but it was only quite short). So I had a bit of a base but I didn't really remember any particular choreography so I was more of less starting from scratch. I had one go of it with two drops which I was really happy with, including finishing with a final trick of motion sickness. Probably a bit risky to put a 6 at the end of a routine, but even when I was doing plenty of drops, I was hitting that most times.

I also tried out a shred 30 a few times. Nothing really special there, but good to practice that. Of course it would be good to practice for something though. I don't think there's any point in trying to line up any competition here in Australia, there is very little activity at the moment. Last year there was a major freestyle football event in Melbourne (F3 World Tour) but things have gone very quiet about that lately, and there hasn't been any news about state or national competitions either.

Anyway, happy with today's kicking and was just happy to play in the sun, and then I got a call from Caroline. Hadn't talked to her in a long while so it was good to catch up for a while, though sounds like she'll go over to Europe in the near future. I asked her if she had any building purchases in mind. Hostels and the like. She said not this time...I was looking on footbag.org and it looks like a kind of nice time to go to Europe in terms of competition. There are comps every two or so weeks and you could go to the Polish, Bulgarian, Austrian, Swiss and German championships. Just talking about that had me thinking, but there's not the money for it at this time. Would be fun to do at sometime though.

[boyle]

We have arrived down to Melbourne. It was a bit of a journey, started last night and drove for a few hours. Most of today was driving though we had a few solid stops and then spent ages looking for parking.

Did a little bit of kicking on the way down but nothing spectacular. What might work though is me kicking in front of a huge waterfall.

Our room is right in the city, up on the roof of the building which is kind of cool. A bit noisy with trains and that kind if stuff.

There's a bit of space to kick though the floor is a bit slippery. I had a few 20 or so contact runs. One trick I hit recently, which I haven't done in years was gyro rev swirl. Pretty pleased with that one.

I have to get up early to move the car around and take advantage of some parking deals so I will go to bed shortly.

[boyle]

I went to Melbourne for the weekend with the family, we had a lot of fun. I will put some photos and videos up later, but for now I will just put a story about going for a kick.

So nobody is really doing footbag regularly anymore in Melbourne. I lived there about 10 years ago, and there was on session, that was just a regular session with about 12 people kicking (although it was not so regular as some of the older guys like Lynton and Brendan came out, which was a little out of the ordinary).

Anyway, most times I go I will meet up with some freestyle football guys and have a kick with them. So I had arranged with a guy Albert to meet up with him, I never met him before but we had talked a little on Facebook to organise the place to kick. So I rock up and I'm ready for the usual footbag/football jam...

And he brings out a footbag - I was amazed, I didn't even know he played. I asked how long he had been playing, he said he was just beginning, then proceeded to pull out stuff like whirl, osis, quite a few clippers in a row, some other good stuff. I was really impressed. So he is from Vietnam and is studying in Australia. Before he left Vietnam he met Koah, who gave him a bag, and rather than having it sit in a cupboard and say - oh that's nice, he is actually using it and quickly improving.

I was playing pretty well, I hit mindbender. My Quantums, the ones that were sold as damaged, and now they are really damaged. The sole was already coming off at the back but now it's coming off at the front. So that might not last too much longer, though I might ask if I can get them fixed up, not sure it's worthwhile as it's a fault from the factory. Which is why they stopped making them in the first place. I had a few good runs. On Facebook Albert was saying he couldn't do anything, though I didn't think that was the case at all.

Hope to go back to Melbourne again, I have fingers crossed there will be a freestyle football competition down there, though I haven't heard anything about that at all and the year is drawing to a close.

It's my birthday this week, 33. Another year ticking by. Going to have some friends over for some drinks on that afternoon. Don't have to work, so that should be good.

[boyle]

I played today, but the first stop was to the post office to pick up my order from Flying Clipper. A whole bunch of new footbags, and I gave one of the "Phat Tyre" bags a go.

I have used this before and they work pretty well for me, but I wasn't expecting things to work so well for me on the very first run..

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYo4h4Knaru

(30 contact run ending with spender if you couldn't be bothered to watch). The framing is not very good as I just put the camera down in the garage and went for it.

I also played around a bit with Chungi, that rubber band ball game from Nepal.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYo5W9ynqSb

I had much better runs than that, but a couple of tricks there. Before I started doing that, I was working on my tiltless. I had a whiteboard, it's actually Nico's (Finding Nemo brand), and I marked down how many tiltless contacts I did, over 25 runs. There were I believe 3 over 50, there was one of 111 which was my best, and then there were some that were down below 10, which were not so good. The average was just over 22 over the 25 runs, which worked out reasonably well, or course runs of 100+ help a lot and runs of 1 don't help so much. I think that's something I will continue to do.

I also did a few tricks with the ball, couldn't do much but I came close to hitting ripwalk with the ball. I have done it a couple of times before but not very often.

Some other thoughts.

Polish championships sounds like a great event. I would like to go to some of these European national competitions some day, I mentioned in a previous post that over the next couple of months there's a comp around about every 2 weeks. Which is more than I can say for here, maybe one per 5 years.

Ken is great at doing the Worlds writeups. Always look forward to reading them, and of course it's even better when you are there. I saw a comment today about people claiming it was the best Worlds ever. I'm a bit doubtful of that, and haven't heard anybody claiming that myself. Though of course I wasn't there.

That video from Honza in the Maldives is awesome. I have always wanted to go there. It's also the kind of stuff I want to do in general - doing tricks in front of cool backgrounds. Of course I don't have quite the same skill level or consistency, or a drone - but I can hit most of the tricks in that video.

I've seen a lot of posts of people really demanding that things be done in a certain way. I thought it was called FREEstyle footbag. Interesting to look at that big divide from the old school over self serving, but I think that really shows how removed from the hack circle the freestyle competition scene is. However from time to time I see stuff about training a certain way, doing this, doing that, etc.

Maybe that's part of my personality, that I don't really like to be coached, I don't like being told what to do, even if it's going to help, but I have come across a few comments lately that just don't really sit with my the right way, as people should be able to make their own mistakes and if they can only hit some big tricks on one side, it doesn't really matter at all.

I'm going to make a couple of vlogs from my trip to Melbourne. Should be a bit of footbag in there. Didn't get a whole lot of kicking in over the trip, but did have that session at Federation Square with Albert. Also kicked in front of a waterfall on the way down and that turned out pretty well.

[isirc10]

Had a fun time catching up and reading your blog.

I have mixed opinions on the whole "circle etiquette" and "this is how things used to be done" thing that you mentioned popping up on FB. I didn't want to post in there and cause a shitstorm as that topic was developing, and I think I'm glad I stayed out of it. My experience with these strict freestyle rules began with the Worlds Legends panel, which I thought was a cool glimpse into the past of a sport that I have only been a part of for 6 years. Sure, there was a bit of harping on how routines haven't evolved or how circle etiquette is being ignored, but overall I thought it was a constructive panel.

After that panel, I made sure to limit myself from self serves in circles at worlds - I liked how it kept the circle going, and forced you into a bit of a different mindset when you only have one or two shots at a string. However, I think the attitude with how the *suggested circle etiquette* was presented needs to change. It's all a bit militant for a sport that prides itself in creativity and breaking away from a mold. It also seems a bit hypocritical for people like Kenny and Rippin, who were criticized from breaking the "hack circle flow" and shredding, to be criticizing people for breaking the "shred circle flow" and lamenting the downfall of ideals they helped establish. Sounds like the sport has evolved into more of an individual show, and they aren't happy with it... sound familiar? As a millennial, I've heard my fair share of older people complaining about how kids these days are doing it wrong and have no respect for customs/tradition/rules, and this sure seems like the case here.

With that said, it was incredibly inspiring to meet all of the more experienced players I've only ever seen in videos at Worlds. I have a great amount of respect for them and their contributions to the sport.

Look forward to seeing more of your videos. Your Instagram presence is a nice reminder for me to get out and kick.

[boyle]

From some of Kenny's post further in that particular thread, I have a feeling he's kind of disappointed (not sure if that's the right word, but it's along the path of what you're saying, that he feels responsible that the style he pioneered the Shred Til You Drop).

I remember enjoying meeting a lot of those people who were there on the videos when I was first looking at footbag.org when I went to Worlds in Oakland.

Personally for me, I think it's more important for the circle to be more equitable - eg everyone should be getting around about the same amount of time with the bag - so if you get a pretty good player, and they do a 30-50 contact run, then the next guy drops like 5 tricks in, I think they should get another go, though I guess that's the whole point of the passback.

It's hard for me to comment on that really as it's so rare for me to even be in a circle and I'm usually a bit self conscious at things like Worlds to be trying to pass it on, give passbacks etc, as it's not something I have to be concerned with too often.

Are you in Germany already? Good luck with the Masters program. Hope to see some shred from there, and try and make it out to some of the competitions coming up - Swiss, Austrian and German championships are all in the next couple of months.

[isirc10]

I also tend to be more self conscious when I play in circles at events vs playing in casual sessions.

As for Germany, I'm flying over the 16th of September. That means no East Coasts coverage from me, but I hope others will film and post stuff. I'm still digging out from all of the Worlds footage, so maybe it's a good thing. I am hoping to make it to Swiss, Austrian and German champs, as well as the Spanish Jam happening between Swiss and Austrian events. I would also like to hit Prague and other areas of Czechia, maybe film some players we don't get to see as often. We'll see how comfortable I am in my new country of residence and what my financial situation is.

[boyle]

The times I have visited Germany, I found it fairly cheap, especially in Berlin, though that's not where you'll be. Switzerland is quite expensive, Austria middle of the road I think, can't really remember but I had such a great time with the crew over there.

Post some stuff about it on here, I would love to do it myself, so if we can live it vicariously that's something! Caroline is going to fly to Europe in the next couple of weeks, so you will probably run into her at some/all of those events.

In terms of comfort - how is your German? That may/may not make much difference.