What is freestyle?

TwistedTorque · Post by **TwistedTorque** » 12 Feb 2008 14:15

What is freestyle? Not freestyle footbag, freestyle juggling (tricks as opposed to numbers juggling), freestyle skiing & snowboarding (grabs, spins, rails, & other tricks), freestyle skateboarding, or freestyle frisbee.
What is the common denominator? What is the similar element that they all have. Sure, everybody's doing "tricks". Hell, most everybody's linking strings of tricks together. Nobody is following a set routine of tricks that they repeat. Most tricks can be combined and altered to make an endless list of possibilities. And then of course everybody has their own style.

What do you think? What's your definition of freestyle?

mc · Post by mc » 12 Feb 2008 14:32

freestyle is the act of taking your body, mind, and / or chosen object and using them to make your imagination into reality.

Zeke · Post by **Zeke** » 12 Feb 2008 15:02

Perfect

dblthnk84 · Post by **dblthnk84** » 12 Feb 2008 19:48

Shortest thread ever?

mc · Post by mc » 12 Feb 2008 19:50

I love that rare post that has a total Brick Wall effect.

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 12 Feb 2008 22:51

So like at first, there was slave style, and it sucked. Everyone would line up and do like, the same tricks, at the same time, and the crowd would wander away . . .

Then there was the jim crow style and everyone would do the same tricks, but at different times. Sometimes the crowd would cheer, but mostly they just through trash at you. Crowd reaction became time and location dependent.

Then there was the end of segregation style, and suddenly everyone was rodeo flippin, and dunking, and so on with an ambidextrous flair

Some sports have progressed into the 'fuck you, we takin yo money' style, where the athletes command millions of dollars for every day they spend breathing.

Footbag is amongst the sports stuck in freestyle. In freestyle sports, the time invested is as great as in the 'fuck you, we taking yo money' sports, but he reward is less. Often times there is no net profit to be made from winning, and thus, these are freestyle sports.

February is black history month

Colin · Post by **Colin** » 14 Feb 2008 11:22

So that it doesn't go unsaid, that was really damn funny.

Blue_turnip · Post by **Blue_turnip** » 14 Feb 2008 21:34

Matt Cross wrote:freestyle is the act of taking your body, mind, and / or chosen object and using them to make your imagination into reality.

Well then virtually everything we do is 'freestyle'. This doesn't really explain why freestyle footbag is freestyle and footbag net isn't freestyle.

In footbag net you also take your body, mind and chosen object and use them to make your imagination into a reality.

That statement didn't really answer the question IMO.

mc · Post by mc » 15 Feb 2008 00:14

I mean imagination more selectively than you did.

I mean imagination, as in, we can think of something that hasn't ever been done before with a particular object, and with enough work, we can make some of those things happen.

or one could imagine a particular combo, and with enough practice, you can realize it pretty much at will.

by the way, I would say that footbag net is, in it's own way, a free style. The flips and contortions that the players do in the air to achieve a particular kick requires incredible freedom with their movements.

The main difference I see is that the ball is very goal-oriented in net; give your opponent a valid pass that s/he is forced or tricked into dropping. with freestyle footbag, just keeping the thing up is the goal, and then, what we do while we keep it up is quantified and judged, but we don't keep it up to make the bag go through a ring (basketball) or fly a particular distance after we kick it (baseball).

freestyle is being creative and adaptive at will in real time.

real-time evolution of the self, if you will.

... and I KNOW you will...

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 15 Feb 2008 06:01

Yeah the distinction between net and freestyle is quite clear. Net is clearly a competition and your style doesn't matter, how fancy or hard your kicks are don't matter, all that matters is you beat your opponent. It's pragmatic. Whereas freestyle.... is exactly that description. A world of very few limitations.