Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[Muffinman]

Is top post painting still a thing?


Wow, 4-5 fearless. Sounds so easy for you! Is that you record?

Khoa is one of the most enthusiastic, upbeat people I've ever met! He reminds me of Tom Mosher. Such a nice guy and so talented too! It's great to see you guys jamming together. Your freestyle football tricks are so good too! You made the clipper look way too easy!

I can't seem to see your embedded Insta clips. They just show as a big grey box with a broken link icon I think I had the same issue when I've tried to post from Instagram before.

[boyle]

Wild painting. Yeah, that grey box is showing up for me too. I'll look into trying to fix that. It wasn't doing that before.

It's too bad Khoa has gone back to Vietnam, it was fun having someone so positive to kick with for a while, though hopefully he will come back, maybe next year.

Yeah, I think my record is still 5, I can't even remember. There's definitely been 6 come of my foot. I think I could get maybe about 8, I will look to try on that. Up until that session on the squash court I hadn't really worked on that for a long time.

I hadn't been working on much with the ball until Khoa was around. I will try and keep working on that too, it's pretty fun. I hit some really good stuff a few years back, some different spinning ducking tricks which probably not many people have hit.

[boyle]

Still figuring out how to fix the Instagram embeds, but I have been able to add in tweets, so that's something.

Got some cool video playing by the harbour in Sydney yesterday, went for an early morning run, it was really nice. No icy cold winds like Canberra.

[boyle]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/capitaleyes/status/ ... 013444608/[/tweet]

Coming to the end of the school holidays. Had a few visits to various beaches. Haven't played great amounts of footbag, but I've had a few sessions here and there. Decent one down in Bega, in the front yard where the kicking all started for me.

Worlds is coming up soon. Too bad I can't go. I was kind of thinking maybe I might get a last minute opportunity to though. Instead, I did my tax return and owe some thousands of dollars to the government. Bad one. Another time.

[boyle]

Worlds are coming up soon, not much discussion anywhere about it happening, as is pretty much the case every year, it's not just that it's in some faraway location.

If you look on the registered players, there's 13 in routines.

Antonio Linero Castro
Brayan Bosa Bedoya
Christopher Schillem
Dominik Simku
Edgar Camargo
Filip Wójcik
Guillermo Ramirez
Matthias Schmidt
Nis Petersen
Scott Davidson
Sebastian Ceballos
Wiktor Debski
Yeison Alzate Marulanda

From 13 I don't know if they would knock it down to 8. But this would be my wild guess for a Top 5.

1. Schillem
2. Simku
3. Sebastian
4. Filip
5. Wiktor

With the small turnout, a good thing is there's opportunity for some of the local players to do well. It's good the field has a bit of international flavour, but it's pretty poort turnout from the North American side of things. Who I am to speak on that though, I'm not going either.

I wrote up a little something about the tournament here - https://sportslashlife.com/world-footba ... g-quickly/

I had a pretty good session yesterday, played for about an hour. I don't get so much time to just play for that amount of time. Going to Worlds or any tournament always takes it out of me because you are playing for hours on end each day and I'm not really used to that. Anyway, I had some decent runs and some good tricks. Butterfly swirl mid string was a highlight and I hit vortex a few times that just felt really in the sweet spot. I played in some Quantum 3s that Ryan gave me some time ago, haven't really used them once. He gave me two pairs but one literally fell apart when I tried to put them on so that gave me some hesitation.

[Tjuggles]

Good run, that first trick was huge!

Yeah I wish I could go to World's too...more generally speaking but also this year as well. As it turns out, I feel like in the near future I won't be able to attend, what with family and jobs and whatnot. Once things get settled down I would like to be able to head to them, see everyone, support the sport, and of course shred.

Also, I emailed you a while ago about a student who is heading your way (kind of; she is going to Sydney). Any chance you will be heading that way in the next little while? It would be great if you two could meet up. I think she would love meeting someone outside of the university context. All good either way, just a thought.

[Muffinman]

The Twitter embeds are nice and seamless. Well done! Great, fun clips as always!
It's too bad about the low turn-out for Worlds. High representation from Europe, though! And also, Mattias Schmidt!

[boyle]

Also, I emailed you a while ago about a student who is heading your way (kind of; she is going to Sydney). Any chance you will be heading that way in the next little while? It would be great if you two could meet up. I think she would love meeting someone outside of the university context. All good either way, just a thought.

I don't think I ever got that. We go to Sydney reasonably regularly. I'd like to try and get to a game in the Women's World Cup. Send me the details again and I'll see if we can arrange something.

I think the turn out would be kind of low regardless of where it is. It's really hard to travel at the moment, those airlines really know how to jack up the prices.

I think the Instagram embed is something from their end, so it might not be possible to do that anymore, which kind of sucks.

Here's a combo from this morning.

Speaking of Twitter this rebrand to "X" is very stupid. Whatever.

Went to the gym and did a few rounds afterwards. I saw Copey at a concert the other night. I said we should have a kick sometime soon. Might try and line something up next weekend.

[Tjuggles]

Another beauty combo! Can you do either of those tricks on your other side?

I'm indifferent about the X rebrand. I'm not on Twitter so don't really care. To be honest though, I do admire Elon for spending his time doing the things he loves most. At least I think he loves everything he is doing...

EDIT: I will email you again about that student. Is it ok if I give her your email address? I'll ask her if I can give you hers, too. Thanks.

[boyle]

I don't think I could do them in a combo, come to think of it I don't think I can duck or dive fairy set on the other side. Tomahawk I can do but much less reliably.

[boyle]

I wasn't too far off with my predictions

[tweet]https://twitter.com/footbag/status/1684 ... 98/photo/1[/tweet]

From 13 I don't know if they would knock it down to 8. But this would be my wild guess for a Top 5.

1. Schillem
2. Simku
3. Sebastian
4. Filip
5. Wiktor

Not much chatter on any of the websites about Worlds and not much live action. I've come across a few stories here and there - but we've had these qualifying routines I haven't seen any, we've had Request contest, I don't even know what the combos were.

Live stream looks to be Saturday 5pm Medellin time, on the IFPA youtube. I think that's about 9am on Sunday for me, so that should be easy to tune in to.

[boyle]

Some thoughts on Worlds. Obviously this is from an outside perspective, and my first thought is that I wish I could have been there.

Just watched the routines on the live stream.

You can see all the different streams here - https://www.youtube.com/@internationalf ... 88/streams

Is having multiple different streams better than just having the one long stream? For coming back and watching it later - absolutely. For people keeping engaged and staying on and having a chat - maybe not so much.

So this was the first Worlds in South America - first outside of USA and North America. Interesting that the last big step change was 20 years ago (Worlds in Prague was first in Europe and we had a huge new wave - that had already been present in a few tournaments before but they really kicked things off).

Lots of South American players did well in both net (Venezuelan players reaching the finals) and freestyle - great play from Sebastian and Brayan.

I hope to see some tales of those that went to see how things went on the ground.

Looks like Christopher Schillem had a great tournament - he'll be going back with a bag of medals, though maybe not from routines, he had quite a few drops. The one minute format is aimed to have a greater show, but I'm pretty sure every player dropped it. Brayan and Sebastian both did great for the home nation - but with the focus on artistic, have we gone too far to skipping rope/juggling? Both of these guys did two bag juggling while skipping, which is pretty crazy, and they both did it effortlessly.

Circle - circle is boring. I hadn't really thought that up until now, but if you're looking back on the recording, the event goes for over 20 minutes, makes absolutely no sense to the people watching (especially if they are from a non-footbag audience) and most people don't follow the rules around passbacks properly. Cool to see some veteran players in action though - Scott Davidson and Tuan Vu had a really cool doubles routine, Yves Kriel was in the circle comp.

It seems Dominik got injured at some point before the final day - that's a pity because it was great having that high level of Chinsen and him - especially battling it out on Request Contest. Really though, the top players should be competing at every Worlds.

Just came across this video of Edgar Camargo and Nis - https://www.instagram.com/p/CvS8NSqpMqa/ (too bad about the Instagram embeds not working). I didn't know this - but apparently Edgar was the first person that Nis ever saw play footbag - in Demark in 2000 (!). Looks like Nis had a pretty good tournament too.

While it was a fairly small turnout, it was a good variety of countries represented.

In terms of media coverage - absolutely amazing job. Probably one of the best I have seen of any Worlds actually. Unfortunately that doesn't really translate to numbers on the ground, but that's nothing new in footbag.

I'm watching the medal ceremony now - looks like it's a pretty good time.

[Asmus]

I agree with all of your observations. I am surprised so few of the good players from USA and Canada came. I guess Colombia is as far as way as Europe.

I am 90% sure I also saw Edgar in 2000. He came to my local soccer club. I was 10. I won a bag from being able to do most kicks of all the kids there. I think it planted some kind of root that made me start playing 4 years later.
I know at least one other Dane who first saw footbag from him. He must have done so many shows in Denmark around that time.
I think it planted some kind of root that made me start playing 4 years later.

[Muffinman]

Is having multiple different streams better than just having the one long stream? For coming back and watching it later - absolutely. For people keeping engaged and staying on and having a chat - maybe not so much.

Totally agree with this!

Completely disagree about circles though. Sure it's less interesting for non-footbaggers, but it and request are literally the only events that I have any interest in. I didn't even watch routines because to me they are boring. There are a handful of routines I've ever watched that entertained me.

It would've been amazing to go to Columbia, but, yeah, it's far and expensive, but also I'm not an active player anyway, so not much motivation to make such a financial and time investment for it.

Also, I totally only just noticed, but in the recent clips you've posted, you seem to have a number of different shoes you're playing in and none look familiar to me. What are you using? I saw a blue shoe, a grey-ish one, and a black one?

[boyle]

Shoes

I've been playing a few times recently in the new Quantums. I got them a while back and at first I thought they were too small. I was also worried that they would just break easily, so I was a bit hesitant to play with them. I've had a few session recently and of course, as you wear them more, they feel more comfortable.

Other shoes

- Blue - Adidas Runfalcon - https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/adidas-men ... ctivated=t - these are pretty good for footbag. Quite light. I hadn't a different pair of blue Adidas shoes that did me well some years ago.

Black - Seems they're actually the same model but I think they're more for trail running - https://www.kogan.com/au/buy/adidas-men ... ctivated=t

The links are to buy in Australia so that's not much good to anyone, but gives you a picture and an idea.

Grey - can't think of any grey shoes I've been using recently, but I did do one session in some of the older quantums which are kind of off white.

Here's a combo I hit yesterday. Funnily enough, it would have actually won Request at Worlds.

Few little problems though

- I would have had to be in attendance
- I would have had to hit the combination in three turns
- I would have had to have hit all the prior combinations
- I had to not drunkenly injure myself doing something stupid on the previous nights
- I would have had to luck out for Dominik Simku and Christopher Schillem to not hit their combos.

Anyway. Happy to hit that combo. Had a bit of a play today as well, didn't film anything, but hit a couple of cool things. Pixie ducking illusion on both sides. Very close to ripped warrior>tomahawk. Spinning ducking motion. A few quite long strings (30+).

[boyle]

I agree with all of your observations. I am surprised so few of the good players from USA and Canada came. I guess Colombia is as far as way as Europe.

I am 90% sure I also saw Edgar in 2000. He came to my local soccer club. I was 10. I won a bag from being able to do most kicks of all the kids there. I think it planted some kind of root that made me start playing 4 years later.
I know at least one other Dane who first saw footbag from him. He must have done so many shows in Denmark around that time.
I think it planted some kind of root that made me start playing 4 years later.

The Danish scene has such a reputation for longevity, but it's cool that it was some guy from Colombia that seems to have inspired many people - that's really cool.

Do people ever go and play at Roskilde anymore?

[Asmus]

Loved that spinny combo!

history lesson on footbag in Denmark\

Ryan Mulroney was in Denmark every year from 2001, so he needs some credit as well.
He just moved to Denmark permanently actually.
Most credit should go to Mads and Mads that's for sure.

We used to get tickets to Roskilde and some money from the festival. One of Lises friends was also the festivals main architect. But then big HUMMEL moved in and wanted to focus on freestyle/street soccer. I have only been there a couple of times since 2010 and only for a day each time. Lise is there very year for the past 25 years I think. Kim something like that as well. My fiancée was there for the entire festival this year, and she didn't even see anybody hack. The three years I was there with the footbag club was so much fun.

Here is a two part video I did from one those years:



And some big tricks from myself:

So happy Lise almost caught the last one film

There have been active footbaggers / footbag clubs in Denmark since the early eighties I think. There was also an Euros in Denmark in 1995.
We also have some very old timey Hall of Famers in Torben Wigger and Allan Petersen.

/history lesson on footbag in Denmark is over

[boyle]

I thought he had been there a long while already. I remember you saying you just bumped into the street some time.

I actually think going back to that sort of thing is the ultimate footbag promotion.

Have someone that is a good filmer make a series of videos that look "cool". And just travel through Europe going to the festivals and playing hack. Maybe I will try and do something like that in coming years when I have a bit of spare money. Could work anywhere really, there's lots of festivals.

I went to a festival a few years ago (don't really go to many these days), and I just started kicking by myself (kicking only, not really tricks) - after not long there was a big hack circle of about 20 people involved.



Start at about 3:35 if you want to see the action for that.

When I first went to the Big Day Out (2003) there were actually two different stalls that were selling footbags, had footbag players promoting and you could go and have a kick. Those were good times for footbag.

[Asmus]

I thought he had been there a long while already. I remember you saying you just bumped into the street some time.

His wife is Danish, so he has been here from time to time. But now they have settled here.

And I agree that hack circles at festivals is one of the best ways to promote footbag. If you have money for a camera guy let me know.

[boyle]

You would be really good for something like that. I'll let you know if I fall into a pot of gold or similar.

Actually, speaking of that, a little while ago my Paypal got hacked. One day I got an email saying the main email address had changed to .... so I had to call them and then they did an "investigation" and claimed that nothing untoward had happen. I had to actually call them up quite a few times to sort it out in the end.

So whoever was doing this hacking, was using the account and had some payments put into it. Once I had the control back over my account, that money was still there, and I had enough of chasing them, so I've just kept the couple of hundred bucks as a little something for the stuff around.

I also got a bonus of $2000 the other day. I probably should have received a payrise, but that bonus is better than a kick in the teeth. I also got a small payment for having a prac student with me, so things are improving on the financial front - however none of that adds up to my $5000 bill for my tax return, but it will help.

I'm getting a bit off topic.

Here's a previously mentioned combo that I was trying to hit, that I did hit.

Here's a pretty good run from the same session. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cvg0Df5AkOo/

It was good to get in a decent amount of time kicking. I don't seem to be getting the chance to have so many sessions, but I had a couple this week, so that was good. Actually at least three so I'll try to keep doing similar.