Mathieu

[Tjuggles]

Oh shit! How did that happen?

[acxel22]

I was drilling for alpine nemesis swirl and it happened...


no sadly it's just stupid, kids where in the back throwing water out the bath. I cleaned up all of it, and when I wanted to close the water as I was over the bath, the rug under my feet slipped and thrown me on the edge of the bath, right in my torso, So I got fractured rib(s)

I did x-ray today, but this happened sunday. I didn't do xray since theres nothing to do anyways, but the pain is getting stronger and I see my footbag summer possibly ruined, so I did xray to get better understanding of the injury

I'm also considering going to worlds to run freestyle director, but with injury it's a little concerning, I'll try to decide soon, they did'nt find anyone yet

[Tjuggles]

Yikes, parenting strikes again! That sounds like it was painful friend, sorry to hear that. I hope it heals quickly and you can get back to kicking.

[acxel22]

xray didnt see any fracture and its been over 2 weeks and the pain is mostly gone, I still feel it in some occasions, or if I cough

I was able to test drive a freestyle short sess today and didnt go to bad, i have a new routine song and did some sections and my idea seems pretty good on timing with music, will need work, but seems a good candidate for worlds. I wanted to run 3 songs for 3 routines after last worlds, but after 5 months out for knee, and probably 3-4 weeks now with rib, I think a one hit wonder will do the trick again if I feel good enough (I'm thinking it should be clearly fine in 2 weeks)

Will run freestyle director at worlds too, plane ticket booked, so thats satisfying too to have this cool journey ahead

vasectomy tomorrow, i'm super stressed but I want to do it anyways, good timing as I cannot really play seriously yet, about 3-4 days without playing, but I need to heal my rib correctly anyway

[Sporatical_Distractions]

From snip walk to ripwalk

[acxel22]

Wow, worlds was a-ma-zing

First off, before writing my worlds review from top of my head, important to recap events of past year
1- wife having breast cancer, and healed (still under some preventive treatments tough) This was a very big thing and took a lot of our energy in the past 18 months
2- injuries, I had a bad year, 7 months away from the game, leaving 2 weeks only to prepare for worlds after a long non desired hiatus.

Ok, so less then 2 months ago, I see Nantes have no freestyle director, I am injured, and have no idea time to heal my 'broken rib', but I decide to help them and sign up for the task, great success, I heal 1 month before worlds, but lose my footbags during a 2 week vacation! oh well

The 2 weeks before worlds I played between 1 and 4 times per day, 30 mins each time on average.

Arriving in Nantes

I was so tired and jet lagged, arrived at event site monday at 11AM, but did not sleep during flight, I was completely KO, but to fight the sleepiness, I played footbag for 2 or 3 hours?

I end up getting to my bed around 7PM and sleep for 12 hours, it was highly required rest.

Tuesday: Setting up the freestyle spot for the first time of the week, was not too hard, Nantes crew had everything I asked for, it was easy to setup, especially for the first day, we did tweak some stuff during the day, and the setup was easy to repeat every morning and pack up every evening.

We had routines and circle if I recall, I recall having 1 drop on qualification routine, but many bails and also missed synch for a while, it wasnt near what I wanted to show, but we had soft cuts and I made it through easily. For circle I had a good one, I actually almost beat Pawel Nowak, he ended up winning the circle for a spot to final, I had to play Nis and Sergio in last chance circle on my end, but Nis got injured while warming up, and Ser scratched, so I got finals by default, I was a little sad since I really wanted to play them, but it is what it is

Wednesday, battles, one of the craziest upsets I ever did, I beat Maciej in my first round of battle, he ended up going to losers bracket, I ended up joining loser bracket as well by losing against Jakub, I then beat Tuomas, and that led me to face Maciej again for the finals of battles on saturday

For sick3 nothing was working, I ended up going to finals with blurry whirl- far rev swirl - motion

then last event of the day, last man standing, I survived until Maciej dropped (4th) and dropped shortly after him getting a bronze, pawel and jakub went for a signifiant longer time, i just did not have the juice in me to go for top 2

thursday, the biggest day for me in work time
Got on site early, around 9am, set up, we did shred30 and request, I had last minute video entries arriving for the video contest.
As soon as request ended, I ran to the video contest bar with Sven from Nantes to test the setup, all was good, we ran back to the stadium
Grabbed some food, and we took the city bus that Boris was driving for all the players, it was crazy to be almost 100 footbagers in the same bus!

The hall of fame and raffle went well, video contest had many laughs, my favorite video is hands down Pawel's, it was just a perfect mix of telling a story, having jokes, good editing, even cool shred and cool angles. Judges voted it 3rd tied with me, but for me it was a clear winner, it even as replay value IMO.

I got home around midnight ish, had to count shred 30, collapsed at 2:30 AM to wake up at 8AM again for another day

friday: Circle final and sick 3 final, I did bad in sick 3 not hitting anything I hoped for, at least I had 3 safe combos, I finished last in finals. For circle I started with a very long run, then I did average, Pawel beat me for #3 by a small margin but significant enough that it was clear, I had to do a bit more but I was just exhausted and he is much better then me anyways

We went out for food at an afghan restaurant with Tuan, it was delicious, I had the best meal of the week that evening, hanging out with Tom, Drew, and some germans.

Chilled at the party a bit like every day, and went back home around midnight again

Saturday, the finals
Got there early enough to give some help to the net crew, but they had everything well under control. Last minute we decided to have freestyle on the net court since the asphalt had some slippy spots. It was not 100% perfect surface on court, but it is what it is.

I ended up last minute taking care of the live stream via the IFPA youtube page that I have access to for years, thank god. Had to find solutions for phone not being under the sun to prevent overheat, it was a battle across the whole day trying to create shade for the phone.

Also as I was playing in every event, it was a race between warming up, preparing judges, managing the stream (yes at one point the phone fell and I realised 10 mins later), managing music, and a bunch of things. We were about to start battle and I had to leave the court to start music and ask someone to run the timer for player switch!)

In the end all went great, I did not need to clone myself, and everyone had a great time.

My routine started well, but lost some confidence after a silly drop, after 2 mistakes I recovered my confidence and went on with the plan, just toned down the difficulty a bit, from what I understood from judge sheets, it was between me and seb for top artistic (I guess Sebastian plays on the beat a lot without actual clear sections in the routine), but for technical he was way down in the ranks due to mostly doing legovers and clippers. He did have some rope skip and 3 bag juggling, wich is not easy tough. I think if he adds some density or difficulty and has more clear sections on is routines he would be really hard to beat.

Not taking away from getting first, but I did not do a flawless performance, but most players had 3-4 drops and that helped out a lot, Jakub's routine was packed and dense, but he messed up the ending pretty bad, if he was dropless I think he would have easily been champion in routines as well!

Anyways, this motivates me to train harder this year, and smarter, and be there next year to defend with honor. I had very little time to prepare myself and it worked out very well under the circonstances. If I put energy doing some side exercices to work out, run, and shred, I think I can do much better, even if I will be 44 years young next year

Japan seems like a possibility for worlds 2026, and I will give all I can to perform even better there.

I will remember many things from this worlds, but having the chance to hang out with Tom K, Drew M, Sergio G, Santeri, Tuomas, Tuan, Christopher, Dominik, Pawl, Jakub and many others. Being in the saturday late evening lunch with Kenny and having Drew talk him about doing a message to invite Jakub for bap, leading to Jakub being Bap as he wanted the invite from Kenny himself. Seeing the venezuela team being doubles champion, being part of an incredible organising crew, just being with the footbag family, memories that will live on, forever

Thanks for being there footbag, it was a legendary time

[Jorden]

Congratulations Mathieu! You've worked very hard for many years.

[boyle]

It looked to be a good time over there - like Jorden said, good payoff for long time efforts. Good to see 40+ age bracket is not slowing anybody down! That bus trip looked like a lot of fun. I hope Worlds is in Japan next year. If not, I hope to go at all. You did a great job playing and organising and glad to hear the injuries are on the improve.

[acxel22]

Thanks all for the support, it was an honor. I have not played as mucb as I hoped since my return but the desire is there and I needed some timenoff for body to recover such a week

On vacation now for 3 more days, once i get home ill get back on a regular shred schedule

[acxel22]

so my knee fucked up again in the last 2 months, I did play a bit over it, but past around december 11 I stopped playing.

I'm not doing terrible, but until healed footbag will be either very light sessions, or no session

2026 started, and I already started doing more upper body exercice and intend to find a better overall shape before japan!

see you there

[Tjuggles]

I also am dealing with a knee issue. Hopefully it heals soon so I can get working on worlds prep!

Hopefully that group of girls will be a Yoyogi park again and we can get some more footage.

See you in summer!