There are a lot of things that I would like to talk about, concerning footbag. Not just my personal progress. When I start to write, I can get a little wordy, so I'll try to organize the log neatly for easier skimming. Feel free to comment.
I was originally going to organize the log into separate chapters, but that's dumb. It'll work better if I just write what I feel like. The entries will fit into one of these categories:
Jams and tournaments
My progression, personal goals, and practice methods
The Houston Skyliners Footbag Club
The Texas Footbag League
What I’m doing to try to help promote the sport
And I’ll just write posts about whatever is new with our local meetings, my personal progress, and any other random footbag-related topics I feel like discussing. I like the loose guidelines for the footblogs, because unlike a lot of other people, I'm not hitting huge new moves and crazy new combos every day.
Stoke the FireLog
Stoke the FireLog
Last edited by Stoke on 22 Oct 2004 22:57, edited 1 time in total.
Mike StokelyIntroduction
A brief history on how I got into hacking, and eventually freestyle
The very first time I was really exposed to hacky sack was at a Boy Scout backpacking ranch called Philmont Scout Ranch, near Cimarron, New Mexico. I was 15 years old, and it was the summer between freshman and sophomore year [1994]. They sold Sipa Sipa’s at the trading post, and a lot of the rangers kicked. It made a lot of sense, because there aren’t many things that you can carry on your back that can keep you entertained during the downtime when you’re in the wilderness. Even a book might take up too much space in your pack. [Everything you'd need for 2 weeks had to fit in there. It's the only way to camp.] I remember some huge circles, and being impressed watching some rangers who could keep it up in the air. I bought a bag and joined the circles, but never got that good, until about 6 or 7 months later. For my brother [Frank], who is 3 years older than I am, it was also his first ‘hacky’ exposure.
Frank moved down to Mexico shortly after that to go to school. He didn’t relate very well with the locals there [that’s why he didn’t like living there], but he got along great with a few foreign exchange students from other countries. One of them was a kicker, and so he passed on knowledge of the sport to Frank, and Frank practiced solo and became fairly proficient at basic freestyle – mostly atw’s, legovers, and consecutive unusual stalls.
Let me back up a little bit now. Freshman year. I know most kids are pretty immature at that stage of their life, and they do a lot of stupid things, and learn a lot in the process. But I got into a LOT of trouble. It was the longest year of my life- many unforgettable things happened, which I won’t go into detail about. When Frank came back from Mexico at the end of ’94, he decided he needed to clean up his life. He joined a non-profit city-wide support group [with chapters all over Houston] called Lifeway, which is based on the 12 steps of AA. This group is oriented for young people and isn’t designed specifically to help with alcoholism, but rather with all drugs, and to help with all major problems that people of that age might have. He told me about it, and so I started going to their meetings and functions. I developed deep relationships with a lot of people in the Group. A few of my friends at my high school were already in the Group. So for the rest of my high school years, I spent all of my extracurricular time with the Group, and consequently didn’t make but a few other friends at the school. The kids of the Group were always hangin out with eachother, before and after meetings, and we had a lot of functions, and it was SO much fun hangin out with them. I had the time of my life. They also taught me a lot and made me a much better person.
Anyway.. The point of that was that the Group was where I really got into ‘hacking’. A huge majority of them would kick footbag whenever we hung out. Some were better than others, and some were more hardcore than others, but all of them would join the circles atleast occasionally. My brother was among the best, because of his experience in Mexico. But I don’t think anyone was actually hitting mirages, whirls, butterfly stalls, etc. I was among the most hardcore. This was where I learned atw’s, legovers, and a lot of stalls [with the help of my brother]. Frank and I would sometimes play in our driveway, and try to make up new moves. But having never learned of real freestyle, we didn’t have the creativity to think of much more complex moves, or the motivation to take it much further. [I really wish I had learned of freestyle at that point. I figure I’d be one of the top 10 in the world by now.] But I did ‘hack’ a lot throughout high school. I really miss those people and the good times. I’ll move on before I get too nostalgic.
Immediately after high school, I joined the Marines. When I graduated from boot camp and the occupational schooling, and finally got to my duty station in Yuma, Arizona, [1998] I got into computer-related stuff in my off-time. Yuma is in the middle of the Mojave Desert- It’s the hottest, dryest place in the continental US. Sand, cacti, tumbleweeds, scorpions, horned toads.. You would probably die if you tried to shred outside in the summer. Anyway, I had the opportunity to immerse myself in footbag there in Yuma, despite the weather, but I felt inclined to stay inside in the comfort of a/c [like most people] when I wasn’t working. I remember a few occasions where I saw other people bust out footbags, so of course I stepped in and impressed the other guys with my modest basic freestyle. But that was it.
It wasn’t until 4 years later, when I was discharged from active duty and moved back to Houston, that I looked online and found footbag.org. I had a lot of hobbies/interests at the time, and I decided [on the long drive back home] that I wanted to really focus on one of them, and get into it hardcore, no bullshit. So I picked ‘Hacky sack’, found footbag.org, and in late August of 2002, I contacted Garry Gaman, who is the founder and coordinator of the local Houston Skyliners Footbag Club. So I figure my freestyle career started when I first looked at footbag.org and read all the information on freestyle. Because soon after that, I was trying to teach myself new moves, like mirage and illusion.
A brief history on how I got into hacking, and eventually freestyle
The very first time I was really exposed to hacky sack was at a Boy Scout backpacking ranch called Philmont Scout Ranch, near Cimarron, New Mexico. I was 15 years old, and it was the summer between freshman and sophomore year [1994]. They sold Sipa Sipa’s at the trading post, and a lot of the rangers kicked. It made a lot of sense, because there aren’t many things that you can carry on your back that can keep you entertained during the downtime when you’re in the wilderness. Even a book might take up too much space in your pack. [Everything you'd need for 2 weeks had to fit in there. It's the only way to camp.] I remember some huge circles, and being impressed watching some rangers who could keep it up in the air. I bought a bag and joined the circles, but never got that good, until about 6 or 7 months later. For my brother [Frank], who is 3 years older than I am, it was also his first ‘hacky’ exposure.
Frank moved down to Mexico shortly after that to go to school. He didn’t relate very well with the locals there [that’s why he didn’t like living there], but he got along great with a few foreign exchange students from other countries. One of them was a kicker, and so he passed on knowledge of the sport to Frank, and Frank practiced solo and became fairly proficient at basic freestyle – mostly atw’s, legovers, and consecutive unusual stalls.
Let me back up a little bit now. Freshman year. I know most kids are pretty immature at that stage of their life, and they do a lot of stupid things, and learn a lot in the process. But I got into a LOT of trouble. It was the longest year of my life- many unforgettable things happened, which I won’t go into detail about. When Frank came back from Mexico at the end of ’94, he decided he needed to clean up his life. He joined a non-profit city-wide support group [with chapters all over Houston] called Lifeway, which is based on the 12 steps of AA. This group is oriented for young people and isn’t designed specifically to help with alcoholism, but rather with all drugs, and to help with all major problems that people of that age might have. He told me about it, and so I started going to their meetings and functions. I developed deep relationships with a lot of people in the Group. A few of my friends at my high school were already in the Group. So for the rest of my high school years, I spent all of my extracurricular time with the Group, and consequently didn’t make but a few other friends at the school. The kids of the Group were always hangin out with eachother, before and after meetings, and we had a lot of functions, and it was SO much fun hangin out with them. I had the time of my life. They also taught me a lot and made me a much better person.
Anyway.. The point of that was that the Group was where I really got into ‘hacking’. A huge majority of them would kick footbag whenever we hung out. Some were better than others, and some were more hardcore than others, but all of them would join the circles atleast occasionally. My brother was among the best, because of his experience in Mexico. But I don’t think anyone was actually hitting mirages, whirls, butterfly stalls, etc. I was among the most hardcore. This was where I learned atw’s, legovers, and a lot of stalls [with the help of my brother]. Frank and I would sometimes play in our driveway, and try to make up new moves. But having never learned of real freestyle, we didn’t have the creativity to think of much more complex moves, or the motivation to take it much further. [I really wish I had learned of freestyle at that point. I figure I’d be one of the top 10 in the world by now.] But I did ‘hack’ a lot throughout high school. I really miss those people and the good times. I’ll move on before I get too nostalgic.
Immediately after high school, I joined the Marines. When I graduated from boot camp and the occupational schooling, and finally got to my duty station in Yuma, Arizona, [1998] I got into computer-related stuff in my off-time. Yuma is in the middle of the Mojave Desert- It’s the hottest, dryest place in the continental US. Sand, cacti, tumbleweeds, scorpions, horned toads.. You would probably die if you tried to shred outside in the summer. Anyway, I had the opportunity to immerse myself in footbag there in Yuma, despite the weather, but I felt inclined to stay inside in the comfort of a/c [like most people] when I wasn’t working. I remember a few occasions where I saw other people bust out footbags, so of course I stepped in and impressed the other guys with my modest basic freestyle. But that was it.
It wasn’t until 4 years later, when I was discharged from active duty and moved back to Houston, that I looked online and found footbag.org. I had a lot of hobbies/interests at the time, and I decided [on the long drive back home] that I wanted to really focus on one of them, and get into it hardcore, no bullshit. So I picked ‘Hacky sack’, found footbag.org, and in late August of 2002, I contacted Garry Gaman, who is the founder and coordinator of the local Houston Skyliners Footbag Club. So I figure my freestyle career started when I first looked at footbag.org and read all the information on freestyle. Because soon after that, I was trying to teach myself new moves, like mirage and illusion.
Chapter1: Worlds ‘04 Memories
I’ve been to several jams, tournaments, and demos and the two years that I’ve been an active freestyler. But Worlds 2004 was a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I’d ever set foot in Canada. It was the first time I’d been to a tournament outside of Texas, so obviously it was my first Worlds. I had so much fun, it was unreal. I met a lot of really cool people, enjoyed the city of Montreal, shredded hard, and learned things about freestyle from some of the best in the world that I would not have learned from watching videos or reading online forums. I want to do my best to record some of the memories here so that they don’t fade from memory. I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I wanted to, and the pictures that I took were crap. I bought a disposable camera there, and the picture quality [esp in low light, like at the Rialto Theatre] was horrible. I got a lot of souvenirs, though.
My favorite souvenir wasn’t the t-shirts, the poster, the stickers, the flyers, or even the pictures. It was the official program. On a suggestion from Heather Thomas, I asked everyone to sign it. The coolest thing about a World Footbag Tournament is that you meet people from all over the world, and get acquainted with all the big names and small names alike. There are not very many footbaggers out there, so the community is small, tight, and friendly. Great people, friendly competition, hard shredding, wild parties.. It’s an awesome crowd to hang out with. Those people are what really make the events fun and hold the community together. So the program is a great reminder of all the people I met. It’s filled with signatures, and many of them are intricately personalized, which is great. But it’s always nice if you can actually read the signature. This is the back of my program:
The inside of it had a lot of signatures too- Rick Reese, Kenny Shults, Carol W, Kendall and Jasper, Tuan Vu, Verena Lenneis, Chad D, Johnny Murphy, Sunny Genz, Dan Ednie, Jim Penske, Ryan Thomas, Ellis Piltz, Peter Irish, Daryl Genz, and lots more.
Ken Somolinos is doing a great job in his blog of recounting memories from Worlds. Hopefully I'll be able to relate some as colorfully as he has. More on Worlds '04 later..
I’ve been to several jams, tournaments, and demos and the two years that I’ve been an active freestyler. But Worlds 2004 was a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I’d ever set foot in Canada. It was the first time I’d been to a tournament outside of Texas, so obviously it was my first Worlds. I had so much fun, it was unreal. I met a lot of really cool people, enjoyed the city of Montreal, shredded hard, and learned things about freestyle from some of the best in the world that I would not have learned from watching videos or reading online forums. I want to do my best to record some of the memories here so that they don’t fade from memory. I didn’t take nearly as many pictures as I wanted to, and the pictures that I took were crap. I bought a disposable camera there, and the picture quality [esp in low light, like at the Rialto Theatre] was horrible. I got a lot of souvenirs, though.
My favorite souvenir wasn’t the t-shirts, the poster, the stickers, the flyers, or even the pictures. It was the official program. On a suggestion from Heather Thomas, I asked everyone to sign it. The coolest thing about a World Footbag Tournament is that you meet people from all over the world, and get acquainted with all the big names and small names alike. There are not very many footbaggers out there, so the community is small, tight, and friendly. Great people, friendly competition, hard shredding, wild parties.. It’s an awesome crowd to hang out with. Those people are what really make the events fun and hold the community together. So the program is a great reminder of all the people I met. It’s filled with signatures, and many of them are intricately personalized, which is great. But it’s always nice if you can actually read the signature. This is the back of my program:
The inside of it had a lot of signatures too- Rick Reese, Kenny Shults, Carol W, Kendall and Jasper, Tuan Vu, Verena Lenneis, Chad D, Johnny Murphy, Sunny Genz, Dan Ednie, Jim Penske, Ryan Thomas, Ellis Piltz, Peter Irish, Daryl Genz, and lots more.
Ken Somolinos is doing a great job in his blog of recounting memories from Worlds. Hopefully I'll be able to relate some as colorfully as he has. More on Worlds '04 later..
The Houston Skyliners, Part A
The Houston Skyliners, Part A
If you look on footbag.org and find the listing for the clubs in Texas, you’ll see that the Houston Skyliners Footbag Club has 37 members, which makes it the biggest club in Texas. But how many of those members do you think are really active?
I may seem a little bitter about the subject, because I’ve basically taken over leadership of the club. I call myself the coordinator, because I’m the one who sends out weekly emails to the rest of the club telling them when and where the next meeting will be, among other pertinent footbag info [like a newsletter]. I consult the other active members about the meeting time and place, of course. [There are 50 people on the email list] But I’ve also started what I hope will be a Houston footbag annual tradition- The Space City Freestyle Jam [which I’ll get more into later], and the Houston Footbag Net Jam [the net jam hasn’t been done yet, but we’re planning on it. I figure if we have a freestyle-only tournament, we need a net-only tournament also.].
But lately, there doesn’t seem to be any other active members except myself and James Leberknight [I’ll refer to him as Jim]. And he’s forty-something and has kids.. I’m sorry, Jim, but I don’t think you’ll be making a whole lot of progress in your freestyle skillz over the rest of your career. Right now he can hit datw [one side], butterfly, pdx mirage, symp mirage, legover, flyers, etc. So anyway, I shred solo a lot, and that’s mainly how I’m progressing. You would think that in a city of over 6 million people [greater Houston area], I’d be able to find more people to shred with and we’d have huge meetings with hardcore shred and net action every single weekend. The problem is that Houston is so spread out. Area-wise, it’s the biggest city in the country. Also, I’m so damn broke. I don’t have a cell phone, so I’m hard to get a hold of [not good for a ‘coordinator’], and don’t have the money to maintain my car. [I’d rather not get into my personal problems in this thread. I’ve already spilled some embarrassing personal information in the second post.]
Curtis Taylor is a hardcore sumbitch if I’ve ever met one.. He’s 18 and he’s been in the club almost a year longer that I have, but wasn’t very active before I joined, because at that time, the club was comprised of only net players. Anyway, he’s the most skilled player in Houston, and he got there by 99% solo shred. He just plays in his room all the time. He taught himself everything he knows from the internet. All I have to say is “Wow.” Watching him shred might make you think of a little bit of Jim Penske’s style, mixed with the move variety of someone like Lon Smith. The problem is that his runs aren’t very long. I keep tellin him “Drills! Drills! Drills!” but he doesn’t like to be told what to do. Anyway, he tells me about some really sick 3-4 contact fearless combos that he hits. I’d list them here, but I don’t have permission. See- I want him to be more well known, but he just wants to go to Worlds and really surprise everyone, so he’d rather not have me talk about his awesomeness too much. His winning Sick3 combo at Space City was barrage > legbeater > barroque, and that was five and a half months ago. Anyway, he lives in Dickinson, which is like 45 min south of Houston. That’s why I don’t see him very often. We’re talking about making a day trip somewhere like College Station, or maybe Austin, and having a good shred..
Windsen Pan is a great shredder, and a lotta fun to kick with. But he’s going to Rice University [the Harvard of the South], and studying takes up most of his time. If it’s not that, it’s family or some other engagement. [He’s from San Antonio, so that’s where his family is.] I got to kick with him last weekend, but he said that he hadn’t really shredded in about 5 months [probably Southern Regionals, which was the last tournament in Texas], and it was obvious that he was a little rusty. I kinda felt guilty.. I know it sounds weird, but it’s kinda established that he’s way better than me, but I made a shitload of progress in those 5 months, whereas he didn’t seem to make any.. [Sorry for the brutal honesty] And I might be starting to catch up with him.. But not quite.
James Gilbert was sick to watch. He had so much variety, and such large moves mid-run, that if he were still shredding, he’d be a force to be reckoned with. I use the past tense because I believe he’s retired. He developed some sort of chronic tendonitis in the knees that wouldn’t go away, despite every effort to treat it, or dull the pain atleast. It’s really sad for the rest of the Skyliners, because he was one of the best shredders in Texas, and was a lotta fun to hang out with.. He lives in Clear Lake, which is much closer to Curtis than to me. He was really hardcore, so I know it sucks for him way more than for the rest of the club.
Shardul Sarhad is a wonderful addition to our club. He’s an engineer working for Schlumberger, which moved him from Dallas to Houston. I gather that he makes a very decent salary for a single guy, but the work doesn’t leave much time for footbag. He’s a very busy man, always with something to do. I got to shred with him last weekend also, but just like Windsen, it was apparent that Shardul was a bit rusty. [Btw, I kicked with Windsen on Saturday, and Shardul on Sunday, cuz that’s the way it had to be.] Windsen and Shardul just need to get back into it, and the blades will be razor-sharp again in no time. Shardul has been in the scene for a long time- He was one of the first shredders I met, back in October 2002, and he was solid guiltless even back then.
Ashley Vitek is a relatively new addition to the club. It’s just a coincidence that I first met her in middle school- she was 3 or 4 years behind me. I can’t remember. Anyway, she found the club on footbag.org and contacted me because she was into hacky sack and wanted to learn more. She’s so easy to talk to and hang out with, so it didn’t take long for us to become friends. She lives in a great location- Montrose, which is the hip, artsy, high real-estate value, and kinda historical part of town. Nothing is weird in Montrose, because the people are very tolerant, open-minded, and accepting. Anyway, it’s also centrally located, which makes it a great place to hold meetings. Ashley lives about 1 minute from one of our favorite meeting places, the West Alabama IceHouse, which I’ll talk about later. She’s got great bag control with kicks, but she’s just starting to learn toe stalls. She’s flexible like a contortionist. She’s been busy with a lot of different things lately, [school, work, X b/f] but I did get to kick with her a little bit today.
I’ll list more of our most significant members later.. [No one is insignificant, but you know what I mean. I won’t list everyone.] I just wanted to convey the point that our club is in a little slump right now, and I can’t help but feel very responsible. Soon after I joined, I took it upon myself to actively seek out and recruit new members, encourage people to come to meetings and other functions. I wanted to organize fun meetings every weekend, and have a different plan every time, and different locations. It actually started off great- we had meetings in different locations a lot of times, and had after-meeting parties and stuff. We’d have barbeques and go swimming or something.. I’m trying to organize demos, but we haven’t done one here in Houston yet. I just need to get off my butt. I’d like to make personalized team t-shirts, flyers just for the club, business cards, a better website [The one we have sucks a huge donkey scrotum. No offense to Tim.
], stickers, etc. But none of this has happened, and if it happens, it’ll be because I initiated it. When summer came around, I figured it would be the most active part of the year [because it usually is], but everyone started to get deeper into other activities. I saw this and started slacking off on the emails… Or did the club become less active when I started slacking off…? No I don’t think so. I would skip a week or two because all of the most active members had so much other stuff going on.
Which brings me to my next entry..
If you look on footbag.org and find the listing for the clubs in Texas, you’ll see that the Houston Skyliners Footbag Club has 37 members, which makes it the biggest club in Texas. But how many of those members do you think are really active?
I may seem a little bitter about the subject, because I’ve basically taken over leadership of the club. I call myself the coordinator, because I’m the one who sends out weekly emails to the rest of the club telling them when and where the next meeting will be, among other pertinent footbag info [like a newsletter]. I consult the other active members about the meeting time and place, of course. [There are 50 people on the email list] But I’ve also started what I hope will be a Houston footbag annual tradition- The Space City Freestyle Jam [which I’ll get more into later], and the Houston Footbag Net Jam [the net jam hasn’t been done yet, but we’re planning on it. I figure if we have a freestyle-only tournament, we need a net-only tournament also.].
But lately, there doesn’t seem to be any other active members except myself and James Leberknight [I’ll refer to him as Jim]. And he’s forty-something and has kids.. I’m sorry, Jim, but I don’t think you’ll be making a whole lot of progress in your freestyle skillz over the rest of your career. Right now he can hit datw [one side], butterfly, pdx mirage, symp mirage, legover, flyers, etc. So anyway, I shred solo a lot, and that’s mainly how I’m progressing. You would think that in a city of over 6 million people [greater Houston area], I’d be able to find more people to shred with and we’d have huge meetings with hardcore shred and net action every single weekend. The problem is that Houston is so spread out. Area-wise, it’s the biggest city in the country. Also, I’m so damn broke. I don’t have a cell phone, so I’m hard to get a hold of [not good for a ‘coordinator’], and don’t have the money to maintain my car. [I’d rather not get into my personal problems in this thread. I’ve already spilled some embarrassing personal information in the second post.]
Curtis Taylor is a hardcore sumbitch if I’ve ever met one.. He’s 18 and he’s been in the club almost a year longer that I have, but wasn’t very active before I joined, because at that time, the club was comprised of only net players. Anyway, he’s the most skilled player in Houston, and he got there by 99% solo shred. He just plays in his room all the time. He taught himself everything he knows from the internet. All I have to say is “Wow.” Watching him shred might make you think of a little bit of Jim Penske’s style, mixed with the move variety of someone like Lon Smith. The problem is that his runs aren’t very long. I keep tellin him “Drills! Drills! Drills!” but he doesn’t like to be told what to do. Anyway, he tells me about some really sick 3-4 contact fearless combos that he hits. I’d list them here, but I don’t have permission. See- I want him to be more well known, but he just wants to go to Worlds and really surprise everyone, so he’d rather not have me talk about his awesomeness too much. His winning Sick3 combo at Space City was barrage > legbeater > barroque, and that was five and a half months ago. Anyway, he lives in Dickinson, which is like 45 min south of Houston. That’s why I don’t see him very often. We’re talking about making a day trip somewhere like College Station, or maybe Austin, and having a good shred..
Windsen Pan is a great shredder, and a lotta fun to kick with. But he’s going to Rice University [the Harvard of the South], and studying takes up most of his time. If it’s not that, it’s family or some other engagement. [He’s from San Antonio, so that’s where his family is.] I got to kick with him last weekend, but he said that he hadn’t really shredded in about 5 months [probably Southern Regionals, which was the last tournament in Texas], and it was obvious that he was a little rusty. I kinda felt guilty.. I know it sounds weird, but it’s kinda established that he’s way better than me, but I made a shitload of progress in those 5 months, whereas he didn’t seem to make any.. [Sorry for the brutal honesty] And I might be starting to catch up with him.. But not quite.
James Gilbert was sick to watch. He had so much variety, and such large moves mid-run, that if he were still shredding, he’d be a force to be reckoned with. I use the past tense because I believe he’s retired. He developed some sort of chronic tendonitis in the knees that wouldn’t go away, despite every effort to treat it, or dull the pain atleast. It’s really sad for the rest of the Skyliners, because he was one of the best shredders in Texas, and was a lotta fun to hang out with.. He lives in Clear Lake, which is much closer to Curtis than to me. He was really hardcore, so I know it sucks for him way more than for the rest of the club.
Shardul Sarhad is a wonderful addition to our club. He’s an engineer working for Schlumberger, which moved him from Dallas to Houston. I gather that he makes a very decent salary for a single guy, but the work doesn’t leave much time for footbag. He’s a very busy man, always with something to do. I got to shred with him last weekend also, but just like Windsen, it was apparent that Shardul was a bit rusty. [Btw, I kicked with Windsen on Saturday, and Shardul on Sunday, cuz that’s the way it had to be.] Windsen and Shardul just need to get back into it, and the blades will be razor-sharp again in no time. Shardul has been in the scene for a long time- He was one of the first shredders I met, back in October 2002, and he was solid guiltless even back then.
Ashley Vitek is a relatively new addition to the club. It’s just a coincidence that I first met her in middle school- she was 3 or 4 years behind me. I can’t remember. Anyway, she found the club on footbag.org and contacted me because she was into hacky sack and wanted to learn more. She’s so easy to talk to and hang out with, so it didn’t take long for us to become friends. She lives in a great location- Montrose, which is the hip, artsy, high real-estate value, and kinda historical part of town. Nothing is weird in Montrose, because the people are very tolerant, open-minded, and accepting. Anyway, it’s also centrally located, which makes it a great place to hold meetings. Ashley lives about 1 minute from one of our favorite meeting places, the West Alabama IceHouse, which I’ll talk about later. She’s got great bag control with kicks, but she’s just starting to learn toe stalls. She’s flexible like a contortionist. She’s been busy with a lot of different things lately, [school, work, X b/f] but I did get to kick with her a little bit today.
I’ll list more of our most significant members later.. [No one is insignificant, but you know what I mean. I won’t list everyone.] I just wanted to convey the point that our club is in a little slump right now, and I can’t help but feel very responsible. Soon after I joined, I took it upon myself to actively seek out and recruit new members, encourage people to come to meetings and other functions. I wanted to organize fun meetings every weekend, and have a different plan every time, and different locations. It actually started off great- we had meetings in different locations a lot of times, and had after-meeting parties and stuff. We’d have barbeques and go swimming or something.. I’m trying to organize demos, but we haven’t done one here in Houston yet. I just need to get off my butt. I’d like to make personalized team t-shirts, flyers just for the club, business cards, a better website [The one we have sucks a huge donkey scrotum. No offense to Tim.
], stickers, etc. But none of this has happened, and if it happens, it’ll be because I initiated it. When summer came around, I figured it would be the most active part of the year [because it usually is], but everyone started to get deeper into other activities. I saw this and started slacking off on the emails… Or did the club become less active when I started slacking off…? No I don’t think so. I would skip a week or two because all of the most active members had so much other stuff going on.Which brings me to my next entry..
Last edited by Stoke on 22 Oct 2004 22:59, edited 2 times in total.
Local footbag current events
Local footbag current events
The Westheimer Street Festival was held this weekend. It’s semi-annual, and it’s the coolest festival in Houston [or was], but it's getting smaller and crappier every time.. There's a long story to that, which I'm quite familiar with. Lots of reasons why it has declined. So anyway, the festival pretty much sucked this year, so I just spent my time right in front of this DJ booth [where different DJ's played throughout the day] and shredded. Hard. All day. It was great. I played very well, and since I was right in front of the DJ, I got shitloads of attention and talked to a lot of people about it. Maybe we'll get new members soon, because I got a couple of numbers of the guys who joined us. The shred was awesome. I just kept going and going like the Energizer bunny.. And had soo many people checkin me out. And OMG the festival didn't disappoint with the sheer amount of drop-dead gorgious women, and some of them had their eyes glued to me. Wow. This one chick in particular [super sexy] was always in her b/f's arms, but every time I looked up, she made eye contact with me. If it weren't for the guy, I woulda gotten her number for sure..
In the last entry, I talked about how our club is in a slump, and why I feel responsible. We’ve been having meetings like once every two or three weeks. But it was over two weeks ago that I sent an email out to the club saying that I realized that they have busy lives, and they can’t plan to meet us every weekend. The only way they would want to meet is if they knew everyone else was coming, of course. So you gotta plan a ‘super meeting’. The WestFest was ideal. I sent the email about two and a half weeks ahead of time, so people could plan for it. It’s the absolute perfect venue to shred at. Just the type of crowd we’re looking for and everything-- young, energetic, open-minded, alternative seekers. And it was the last chance for us to practice and prepare for the Texas State Championships as a club [TX State is next weekend]. Guess how many people showed up… Three, including myself, Jim, and Ashley. And Ashley hadn’t even read the email. It was pure coincidence that she met us there.
We had a couple of guys join us who were pretty good for hackers. I’ll be contacting them later, but the one I got acquainted with has a little daughter, so he probably won’t have a lot of time for shred. After a while, Ashley said she wanted to go back to her place to get some stuff. I went with her because I wanted a break from the loud music and noise, and because I needed to refill my water bottle. She called a friend and convinced him to hang out and kick with us, and we went to pick him up, but she dropped me off at the festival on the way to his place. I met up with Jim again, but Ashley never came back. I saw Liz, who is a friend I met through Ashley. She called her to see what’s up and Ashley said she was hangin out with Daryl [the friend who said he was coming] and that she wasn’t coming back. I kinda felt betrayed, because she had just finished telling me how sorry she was that she never returned my calls, but things should be different now, blah blah.. I’m thinkin it was probably because Daryl was so reluctant to come to the festival and meet new people, but I can’t be sure. Ashley was pretty high. This paragraph isn’t really necessary. Oh well. I don’t want this to turn into a girly diary, but this paragraph was just to further describe how alone I am in the shred scene here.
Like I said, my personal shred day was awesome. I was linking a lot of 4’s, and I’m starting to have more variety and length in my runs. I HIT PDX TORQUE!! Hooray for new moves! A lotta times, I’d just mess around and perfectly sync my contacts with the beat of the DJ’s tracks. It’s a great crowd-pleaser.
Shardul said this morning that he was coming to the festival. Heather said two weeks ago that she’d definitely be there. Curtis told me he wouldn’t be able to make it because of work. Michael Sprung said he’d be there. Steven Sevilla said he’d be there. And what about the other 40 inactive hacker/freestyler newbies on the email distribution list?? I feel confident that if any of those people were at the festival, they would have seen us. We were shredding hard the whole time, and it’s not like there were thick crowds of people, like in the past. Nah, there were much fewer people than I expected, and we were right in the middle of the coolest spot in the area. The ideal spot in the ideal venue. It would be the first place a footbagger would go. So I’m pretty sure that the three of us were the only Skyliners present. I’m deeply disappointed.
So next weekend is the 2004 Texas State Footbag Championships. I hope the rest of the club is ready. And I hope they don’t all renege on their solemn oaths to grace us with their presence. That would be shitty if I was the only footbagger to show up to the tournament. I feel like I’m in a nightmare, so in that sense, I wouldn’t be surprised. “I will definitely be there” doesn’t always mean what you think it does.
Gosh I still sound really bitter, but I’m really looking forward to the tournament. It’s been way too long since us Texas shredders have gotten together. I plan to enter pro in both freestyle and net, and golf too, if they twist my arm enough. [You have to wake up too early for golf.] We’ll get to see who’s been making progress, and who only shreds when they come to events. I don’t mean to stab at anyone in particular. Hell, maybe I have a shot at winning this year....
Naaah. That’s a joke. HAHAHA!
This entry should lead nicely into an entry about my progress and practice schedule, OR about the Texas Footbag League.
The Westheimer Street Festival was held this weekend. It’s semi-annual, and it’s the coolest festival in Houston [or was], but it's getting smaller and crappier every time.. There's a long story to that, which I'm quite familiar with. Lots of reasons why it has declined. So anyway, the festival pretty much sucked this year, so I just spent my time right in front of this DJ booth [where different DJ's played throughout the day] and shredded. Hard. All day. It was great. I played very well, and since I was right in front of the DJ, I got shitloads of attention and talked to a lot of people about it. Maybe we'll get new members soon, because I got a couple of numbers of the guys who joined us. The shred was awesome. I just kept going and going like the Energizer bunny.. And had soo many people checkin me out. And OMG the festival didn't disappoint with the sheer amount of drop-dead gorgious women, and some of them had their eyes glued to me. Wow. This one chick in particular [super sexy] was always in her b/f's arms, but every time I looked up, she made eye contact with me. If it weren't for the guy, I woulda gotten her number for sure..
In the last entry, I talked about how our club is in a slump, and why I feel responsible. We’ve been having meetings like once every two or three weeks. But it was over two weeks ago that I sent an email out to the club saying that I realized that they have busy lives, and they can’t plan to meet us every weekend. The only way they would want to meet is if they knew everyone else was coming, of course. So you gotta plan a ‘super meeting’. The WestFest was ideal. I sent the email about two and a half weeks ahead of time, so people could plan for it. It’s the absolute perfect venue to shred at. Just the type of crowd we’re looking for and everything-- young, energetic, open-minded, alternative seekers. And it was the last chance for us to practice and prepare for the Texas State Championships as a club [TX State is next weekend]. Guess how many people showed up… Three, including myself, Jim, and Ashley. And Ashley hadn’t even read the email. It was pure coincidence that she met us there.
We had a couple of guys join us who were pretty good for hackers. I’ll be contacting them later, but the one I got acquainted with has a little daughter, so he probably won’t have a lot of time for shred. After a while, Ashley said she wanted to go back to her place to get some stuff. I went with her because I wanted a break from the loud music and noise, and because I needed to refill my water bottle. She called a friend and convinced him to hang out and kick with us, and we went to pick him up, but she dropped me off at the festival on the way to his place. I met up with Jim again, but Ashley never came back. I saw Liz, who is a friend I met through Ashley. She called her to see what’s up and Ashley said she was hangin out with Daryl [the friend who said he was coming] and that she wasn’t coming back. I kinda felt betrayed, because she had just finished telling me how sorry she was that she never returned my calls, but things should be different now, blah blah.. I’m thinkin it was probably because Daryl was so reluctant to come to the festival and meet new people, but I can’t be sure. Ashley was pretty high. This paragraph isn’t really necessary. Oh well. I don’t want this to turn into a girly diary, but this paragraph was just to further describe how alone I am in the shred scene here.
Like I said, my personal shred day was awesome. I was linking a lot of 4’s, and I’m starting to have more variety and length in my runs. I HIT PDX TORQUE!! Hooray for new moves! A lotta times, I’d just mess around and perfectly sync my contacts with the beat of the DJ’s tracks. It’s a great crowd-pleaser.
Shardul said this morning that he was coming to the festival. Heather said two weeks ago that she’d definitely be there. Curtis told me he wouldn’t be able to make it because of work. Michael Sprung said he’d be there. Steven Sevilla said he’d be there. And what about the other 40 inactive hacker/freestyler newbies on the email distribution list?? I feel confident that if any of those people were at the festival, they would have seen us. We were shredding hard the whole time, and it’s not like there were thick crowds of people, like in the past. Nah, there were much fewer people than I expected, and we were right in the middle of the coolest spot in the area. The ideal spot in the ideal venue. It would be the first place a footbagger would go. So I’m pretty sure that the three of us were the only Skyliners present. I’m deeply disappointed.
So next weekend is the 2004 Texas State Footbag Championships. I hope the rest of the club is ready. And I hope they don’t all renege on their solemn oaths to grace us with their presence. That would be shitty if I was the only footbagger to show up to the tournament. I feel like I’m in a nightmare, so in that sense, I wouldn’t be surprised. “I will definitely be there” doesn’t always mean what you think it does.
Gosh I still sound really bitter, but I’m really looking forward to the tournament. It’s been way too long since us Texas shredders have gotten together. I plan to enter pro in both freestyle and net, and golf too, if they twist my arm enough. [You have to wake up too early for golf.] We’ll get to see who’s been making progress, and who only shreds when they come to events. I don’t mean to stab at anyone in particular. Hell, maybe I have a shot at winning this year....
Naaah. That’s a joke. HAHAHA!
This entry should lead nicely into an entry about my progress and practice schedule, OR about the Texas Footbag League.
The Texas Footbag League
I’ll start with the Texas Footbag League. It includes all the IFPA sanctioned clubs in Texas- the Austin Style Footbag Club, the Dallas Footbag Club, and the Houston Skyliners Footbag Club. The purpose of it is mainly to work together to organize Texas tournaments. It would be cool if we had a TFL website, with room for all the Texas club websites under it. It would also be nice if we had TFL t-shirts, so that when we go to Worlds or some other big tournament, we could represent as a state, rather than individual cities. Anyway…
The Austin Style Footbag Club Sadly, I don’t think the Austin shredders hold meetings anymore. Some of them either shred solo or with some hacker friends, though. Andrew Koller has skillz, but probably hasn’t done a whole lot of shredding since Southern Regionals. James Geraci is a yankee from New York City, but he’s going to school at the University of Texas, so he’s an Austinite during the school year, and we welcome him. Cody Rushing kinda bailed out of the scene a while back, but I heard that he might be convinced to come to TX State. He was a little badass. [little in stature but big in badassness] Chuck Ford and Andrew Rincon might also be convinced. I don’t know, but the more, the better. “Kung Fu” Kyle Crawford lives in Austin, as far as I know, so I guess there’s a slight chance that he might show up, if he’s not completely retired. He’s one of the lesser-known BAP members-- The only one residing in Texas, I think. I also hope some newbs show up. If no one recruits newbie freestylers, the TFL will wither and die..
Ok I said that the shredders don’t hold meetings anymore, but the club is run by Tina Lewis, who is a net player. I’m sure the net players meet atleast occasionally. Btw, Tina got third place in Women’s Singles Net at Worlds. She and Heather Thomas [from Houston] got third place in Women’s Doubles Net. Ariel Santesteban [from Austin] is also a net player and I’m sure we’ll see him at the tournament.
There was a thread in the net forum where Jeremy O’Wheel said something to the effect that the IFPA is run by net players, so freestyle doesn’t really get the attention it deserves. Tina Lewis is a good example of that. She’s on the IFPA Board of Directors, and she organizes the TX State Championships most years. All of the focus is always on the net competition, and none of the things that make freestyle competitions great are given any thought. Like DJ’s and real sound systems, playing surfaces better than grass or asphalt, possible indoor locations, or mass public exposure. But maybe I could help with some of that, since I am a member of the TFL after all..
The Dallas Footbag Club is run by Derric Scalf and James Roberts. Derric is a freestyler and JR plays both. I heard a nasty rumor that Derric quit freestyling because it’s not fun for him anymore or something like that. Man, I used to have great, long conversations with Derric about freestyle.. He inspired me. I can’t believe he would just drop it like that. He has always been really good, one of the best players in Texas, but by his own admission, he hasn’t improved very much over the past several years. Of course you get out of it what you put into it.. God I hope he’s at the tournament so I can talk to him about it. Matt Strong had to quit because he’s married and has a daughter now. Mike Gatewood and Shawn Moehring will represent, I’m sure. The twins Jocelyn and Monica Sandoval, I’m not so sure about. They’re probably either living together or very close to each other, and the convenience of always having someone to kick with must be great. But I can see how they might become inactive if the rest of the club does so. Kelly Kelley will be on the net courts. Texas is known for its big net scene. Net players fly in from all over the US to come to our tournaments.
The San Antonio All-Stars Just because they’re not a part of the TFL doesn’t mean they’re not a big part of the Texas crew. Three of the best freestylers in Texas live in San Antonio—Jose Cocolan, Juan Sanchez, and Mike Lopez. I hope they’re not rusty, cuz they will blow your mind. Juan, with his lightning-fast, precision feet, Mike with his smooth effortlessness, and Jose with his huge moves.
I’ll start with the Texas Footbag League. It includes all the IFPA sanctioned clubs in Texas- the Austin Style Footbag Club, the Dallas Footbag Club, and the Houston Skyliners Footbag Club. The purpose of it is mainly to work together to organize Texas tournaments. It would be cool if we had a TFL website, with room for all the Texas club websites under it. It would also be nice if we had TFL t-shirts, so that when we go to Worlds or some other big tournament, we could represent as a state, rather than individual cities. Anyway…
The Austin Style Footbag Club Sadly, I don’t think the Austin shredders hold meetings anymore. Some of them either shred solo or with some hacker friends, though. Andrew Koller has skillz, but probably hasn’t done a whole lot of shredding since Southern Regionals. James Geraci is a yankee from New York City, but he’s going to school at the University of Texas, so he’s an Austinite during the school year, and we welcome him. Cody Rushing kinda bailed out of the scene a while back, but I heard that he might be convinced to come to TX State. He was a little badass. [little in stature but big in badassness] Chuck Ford and Andrew Rincon might also be convinced. I don’t know, but the more, the better. “Kung Fu” Kyle Crawford lives in Austin, as far as I know, so I guess there’s a slight chance that he might show up, if he’s not completely retired. He’s one of the lesser-known BAP members-- The only one residing in Texas, I think. I also hope some newbs show up. If no one recruits newbie freestylers, the TFL will wither and die..
Ok I said that the shredders don’t hold meetings anymore, but the club is run by Tina Lewis, who is a net player. I’m sure the net players meet atleast occasionally. Btw, Tina got third place in Women’s Singles Net at Worlds. She and Heather Thomas [from Houston] got third place in Women’s Doubles Net. Ariel Santesteban [from Austin] is also a net player and I’m sure we’ll see him at the tournament.
There was a thread in the net forum where Jeremy O’Wheel said something to the effect that the IFPA is run by net players, so freestyle doesn’t really get the attention it deserves. Tina Lewis is a good example of that. She’s on the IFPA Board of Directors, and she organizes the TX State Championships most years. All of the focus is always on the net competition, and none of the things that make freestyle competitions great are given any thought. Like DJ’s and real sound systems, playing surfaces better than grass or asphalt, possible indoor locations, or mass public exposure. But maybe I could help with some of that, since I am a member of the TFL after all..
The Dallas Footbag Club is run by Derric Scalf and James Roberts. Derric is a freestyler and JR plays both. I heard a nasty rumor that Derric quit freestyling because it’s not fun for him anymore or something like that. Man, I used to have great, long conversations with Derric about freestyle.. He inspired me. I can’t believe he would just drop it like that. He has always been really good, one of the best players in Texas, but by his own admission, he hasn’t improved very much over the past several years. Of course you get out of it what you put into it.. God I hope he’s at the tournament so I can talk to him about it. Matt Strong had to quit because he’s married and has a daughter now. Mike Gatewood and Shawn Moehring will represent, I’m sure. The twins Jocelyn and Monica Sandoval, I’m not so sure about. They’re probably either living together or very close to each other, and the convenience of always having someone to kick with must be great. But I can see how they might become inactive if the rest of the club does so. Kelly Kelley will be on the net courts. Texas is known for its big net scene. Net players fly in from all over the US to come to our tournaments.
The San Antonio All-Stars Just because they’re not a part of the TFL doesn’t mean they’re not a big part of the Texas crew. Three of the best freestylers in Texas live in San Antonio—Jose Cocolan, Juan Sanchez, and Mike Lopez. I hope they’re not rusty, cuz they will blow your mind. Juan, with his lightning-fast, precision feet, Mike with his smooth effortlessness, and Jose with his huge moves.
my personal progress
My personal progress
Let me start by stating my personal goals. I want to be solid genuine, with lots of variety. I don’t want to be a shuffler, or particularly clipper or toe-oriented. I want to be able to do all of my moves both sides, mid-run. I’d like my runs to be between 15 and 40 contacts. Obviously, the harder you bust, the shorter the run will be, and on the other hand, the longer you try to stretch the run, the more you’ll have to tone down your moves. So 15-40 is a good balance for the level I want to achieve. Ideally, I’d like most of my moves to be spinning or gyro [or inspinning/ingyro]. I want to create artwork with my combos, that’s appealing to the eye, whether you’re a long-time shredder or an ignorant spectator.
My two favorite shredders to watch [besides Vasek] are Ales Zelinka and Lon Smith, because of their styles. I know their styles couldn't be more different from eachother, but they're both poetry in motion. So artistic. Ales puts so much effort into form and precision, and Lon just has so much variety and smooth effortlessness.. I'd like my style to be like both of theirs, in a way. Sortof the style of Ales, with the variety and amazing links that Lon has.
Right now I’m solid tiltless, occasionally bailing to mirage, illusion, or legover. I never bail to clipper, or even do clippers on purpose anymore. I think butterflies are at the same level of difficulty, they look better, feel better, and in competition, they’re worth more. So I do ducking butterflies, spinning butterflies, stepping, pixie, fairy, and atomic butterflies.. But not clippers. There’s no reason for plain clips, imo.
My challenge thread pretty much maps out what I’m working on and where I’m at with certain concepts. Please challenge me. I love challenges and short-term goals. But in addition to what’s in that thread, I’m also working on a few other things- individual moves and sets that I don’t need anyone else to challenge me to hit. Things like hippy quantum. I’ve decided that since leggy quantum looks so bad and hippy quantum looks so damn cool, that I’m not even going to try to hit it leggy. Just hippy. The first move I’m trying to hit is toe blur or maybe tripwalk, and I’m really close.
I’m also working on nuclear and shooting. I’ve gotten the sets to come straight up, but haven’t hit anything out of it yet. I’m sure you know how it is when you’re so surprised that the set actually came straight up, that you’re not prepared to do anything in downtime. Just like with quantum, I’ll try to hit mirage or butterfly in downtime. Here’s how I feel about the shooting set: It’s common knowledge that the reason it’s unusual is because it’s so hard to get clean. Even if you hit it perfectly clean while someone’s watching, they can’t always be sure that it’s clean, so naturally they assume that it’s sloppy. To verify, sometimes you’d need a video camera with high-speed film and a very high frame-rate, and then watch the video in super slo-mo. I don’t think you should have to go so far out of your way to make it clean that you have to set, then wait for a second, and then jump over with both legs. That’s ridiculous. Of course I’m going to try to hit it clean every time. I’ll concentrate on it. But I’m not going to avoid the set because it’s hard to get clean and hard to verify that it’s clean. If someone calls “The” on me, oh well. I think Newf said it best: Even if it’s not perfectly clean, that doesn’t make it completely worthless. It still looks cool, imo. For the record, I also put dada curves in my runs, and they’re clean 98% of the time. Fuck the trends. I like the move.
The biggest moves I’ve ever hit: tapping eggbeater, tapping dlo, witchdoctor, rasmus, zulu atomsmasher, fusion, pixie paradon, neutron smasher, blurry whirl, pixie barrage, smog, ducking dlo, and pdx torque [the last four are brand new, so they feel pretty big to me.] I know I can hit bladerunner and predator with a little work, so I try them every once in a while, but I really don’t work on big moves like I used to. I’m more interested in the little moves that I haven’t dialed yet, and run length. I don’t care about keeping these moves secret, because they’re not dialed, and I’ve only hit them each a few times or less. I haven’t hit any of those moves in runs, and I’ve only hit them on one side [though again, the tapping eggbeater and dlo would not be hard on the other side].
Some other big moves that I’m close to hitting: atomic drifter, blurriest, voodoo, bedwetter, fog, mobius, foodprocessor, fairy paradon, sumo, shooting butterfly, and guillotine. I could probably hit alpine witchdoctor and blurry drifter, but I haven’t attempted them yet. The only new moves that I really care about hitting soon are swirl, twirl, ducking eggbeater, symp dlo, and symp eggbeater. Those seem essential to me.
What I’m mainly using to practice is drills. I’m a big fan of drills because they work. I use a lot of them to practice, and the idea is that, whenever I can, I just add one concept or other to drills that I can already do.
Drills that I’m currently working on
Substitute mirage for illusion, and fairy for pixie anywhere. The ones in italics are ones that are not realistic at this point for me, but I’m working on the individual moves.
Alternating moves: infinity, ducking infinities, gyro butterfly, osis, spinning osis, diving smp mirage, terrage, atomsmasher, ripwalk, barfly, pdx whirl, gyro whirl, blender, blurriest, splendor, mobius, pdx torque, twirl, and toe blur
butterfly > pdx mirage > rpt
ducking butterfly > ducking pdx mirage > rpt
paradon > pdx dlo / blur > rpt
butterfly swirl > ps mirage > rpt
dimwalk > bs blur > rpt
butterfly > osis > rpt
whirl > osis > rpt
drifter > torque > rpt
drifter > whirl > rpt
dod > barrage > rpt
smp whirl > blender > rpt
ddd > blender > rpt
pdx drifter > pdx torque > rpt
ducking smp mirage > diving smp mirage > rpt
blur > atomsmasher > legbeater > rpt [I didn’t think this one up myself of course.]
legbeater > sumo > rpt
fear > atomsmasher > rpt
paradon > spin. butterfly > spin. whirl > spin. osis > spin.pdx mirage > rpt
paradon > spin.duck. butterfly > maelstrom > mobius > spin.pdx barrage / spin.duck.pdx mirage > rpt
paradon > scorpion’s tail > whirlwind > splendor > spin.pdx.dlo / spin.ps mirage > rpt
Those last two are so far beyond my ability.. But I love spinning, and it’s a great drill for that. I need lots of work on it. Other than that, I’m happy with my progress so far. I’m starting to put bsos barrages, double downs, whirls, drifters, and pdx dlo’s into my runs, and my atomic and stepping both sides is getting much more consistent.. So that’s where I’m at. Now if I could just dial weakside pixie and fairy, I’d be solid guiltless. I just recently hit weakside smear and dimwalk. Whoopee.
Let me start by stating my personal goals. I want to be solid genuine, with lots of variety. I don’t want to be a shuffler, or particularly clipper or toe-oriented. I want to be able to do all of my moves both sides, mid-run. I’d like my runs to be between 15 and 40 contacts. Obviously, the harder you bust, the shorter the run will be, and on the other hand, the longer you try to stretch the run, the more you’ll have to tone down your moves. So 15-40 is a good balance for the level I want to achieve. Ideally, I’d like most of my moves to be spinning or gyro [or inspinning/ingyro]. I want to create artwork with my combos, that’s appealing to the eye, whether you’re a long-time shredder or an ignorant spectator.
My two favorite shredders to watch [besides Vasek] are Ales Zelinka and Lon Smith, because of their styles. I know their styles couldn't be more different from eachother, but they're both poetry in motion. So artistic. Ales puts so much effort into form and precision, and Lon just has so much variety and smooth effortlessness.. I'd like my style to be like both of theirs, in a way. Sortof the style of Ales, with the variety and amazing links that Lon has.
Right now I’m solid tiltless, occasionally bailing to mirage, illusion, or legover. I never bail to clipper, or even do clippers on purpose anymore. I think butterflies are at the same level of difficulty, they look better, feel better, and in competition, they’re worth more. So I do ducking butterflies, spinning butterflies, stepping, pixie, fairy, and atomic butterflies.. But not clippers. There’s no reason for plain clips, imo.
My challenge thread pretty much maps out what I’m working on and where I’m at with certain concepts. Please challenge me. I love challenges and short-term goals. But in addition to what’s in that thread, I’m also working on a few other things- individual moves and sets that I don’t need anyone else to challenge me to hit. Things like hippy quantum. I’ve decided that since leggy quantum looks so bad and hippy quantum looks so damn cool, that I’m not even going to try to hit it leggy. Just hippy. The first move I’m trying to hit is toe blur or maybe tripwalk, and I’m really close.
I’m also working on nuclear and shooting. I’ve gotten the sets to come straight up, but haven’t hit anything out of it yet. I’m sure you know how it is when you’re so surprised that the set actually came straight up, that you’re not prepared to do anything in downtime. Just like with quantum, I’ll try to hit mirage or butterfly in downtime. Here’s how I feel about the shooting set: It’s common knowledge that the reason it’s unusual is because it’s so hard to get clean. Even if you hit it perfectly clean while someone’s watching, they can’t always be sure that it’s clean, so naturally they assume that it’s sloppy. To verify, sometimes you’d need a video camera with high-speed film and a very high frame-rate, and then watch the video in super slo-mo. I don’t think you should have to go so far out of your way to make it clean that you have to set, then wait for a second, and then jump over with both legs. That’s ridiculous. Of course I’m going to try to hit it clean every time. I’ll concentrate on it. But I’m not going to avoid the set because it’s hard to get clean and hard to verify that it’s clean. If someone calls “The” on me, oh well. I think Newf said it best: Even if it’s not perfectly clean, that doesn’t make it completely worthless. It still looks cool, imo. For the record, I also put dada curves in my runs, and they’re clean 98% of the time. Fuck the trends. I like the move.
The biggest moves I’ve ever hit: tapping eggbeater, tapping dlo, witchdoctor, rasmus, zulu atomsmasher, fusion, pixie paradon, neutron smasher, blurry whirl, pixie barrage, smog, ducking dlo, and pdx torque [the last four are brand new, so they feel pretty big to me.] I know I can hit bladerunner and predator with a little work, so I try them every once in a while, but I really don’t work on big moves like I used to. I’m more interested in the little moves that I haven’t dialed yet, and run length. I don’t care about keeping these moves secret, because they’re not dialed, and I’ve only hit them each a few times or less. I haven’t hit any of those moves in runs, and I’ve only hit them on one side [though again, the tapping eggbeater and dlo would not be hard on the other side].
Some other big moves that I’m close to hitting: atomic drifter, blurriest, voodoo, bedwetter, fog, mobius, foodprocessor, fairy paradon, sumo, shooting butterfly, and guillotine. I could probably hit alpine witchdoctor and blurry drifter, but I haven’t attempted them yet. The only new moves that I really care about hitting soon are swirl, twirl, ducking eggbeater, symp dlo, and symp eggbeater. Those seem essential to me.
What I’m mainly using to practice is drills. I’m a big fan of drills because they work. I use a lot of them to practice, and the idea is that, whenever I can, I just add one concept or other to drills that I can already do.
Drills that I’m currently working on
Substitute mirage for illusion, and fairy for pixie anywhere. The ones in italics are ones that are not realistic at this point for me, but I’m working on the individual moves.
Alternating moves: infinity, ducking infinities, gyro butterfly, osis, spinning osis, diving smp mirage, terrage, atomsmasher, ripwalk, barfly, pdx whirl, gyro whirl, blender, blurriest, splendor, mobius, pdx torque, twirl, and toe blur
butterfly > pdx mirage > rpt
ducking butterfly > ducking pdx mirage > rpt
paradon > pdx dlo / blur > rpt
butterfly swirl > ps mirage > rpt
dimwalk > bs blur > rpt
butterfly > osis > rpt
whirl > osis > rpt
drifter > torque > rpt
drifter > whirl > rpt
dod > barrage > rpt
smp whirl > blender > rpt
ddd > blender > rpt
pdx drifter > pdx torque > rpt
ducking smp mirage > diving smp mirage > rpt
blur > atomsmasher > legbeater > rpt [I didn’t think this one up myself of course.]
legbeater > sumo > rpt
fear > atomsmasher > rpt
paradon > spin. butterfly > spin. whirl > spin. osis > spin.pdx mirage > rpt
paradon > spin.duck. butterfly > maelstrom > mobius > spin.pdx barrage / spin.duck.pdx mirage > rpt
paradon > scorpion’s tail > whirlwind > splendor > spin.pdx.dlo / spin.ps mirage > rpt
Those last two are so far beyond my ability.. But I love spinning, and it’s a great drill for that. I need lots of work on it. Other than that, I’m happy with my progress so far. I’m starting to put bsos barrages, double downs, whirls, drifters, and pdx dlo’s into my runs, and my atomic and stepping both sides is getting much more consistent.. So that’s where I’m at. Now if I could just dial weakside pixie and fairy, I’d be solid guiltless. I just recently hit weakside smear and dimwalk. Whoopee.
Last edited by Stoke on 22 Oct 2004 23:12, edited 1 time in total.
The 2004 Texas State Footbag Championships was scheduled for this weekend, but it has been postponed to November 13th and 14th. The reason is because there were a lot of people who weren't able to make it, and Nov 13 and 14 worked out better for them. We want as many people to show up as possible.
The discussion thread is here.
The discussion thread is here.
Houston Skyliners, part B
The Houston Skyliners, Part B
Garry Gaman founded The Houston Skyliners Footbag Club in 1980. He was inducted into the Footbag Hall of Fame because of his huge devotion to the sport. He met John Stalberger at the earliest stages of the sport and became friends with him. Garry was involved when the Hacky Sack was patented. He was instrumental in the development and advancement of the footbag scene in Texas. He busted his ass trying to promote the sport here in Houston. He tells me about times when he would go out to the park and kick by himself when he couldn’t get anyone else to join him. He’d kick in a spot that gets the most exposure to the public [So that he could get the attention of other physically active people]- There’s an area in Memorial Park right in front of the tennis courts, between the tennis center and the golf course driving range where runners take breaks, and stretch before and after runs. There’s a little field that’s very conducive to net games, and to this day, it’s one of our favorite spots in Houston to hold meetings when the net players and freestylers get together. And now I’m in his position and I know exactly what he felt like. But he did it in the days before the internet and email. I believe he’s in his mid-50’s now, and I don’t know how much more footbag he has left in him. He has knee problems and back problems, but he’s a damn good net player. He’s currently living on the northwest side of Houston, and he’s a junior-high school history teacher. I haven’t seen him play in many months.
When I started trying to actively help the club out back in 2002 by recruiting new members and encouraging all current members to come to meetings through email, I gradually started taking over the responsibilities. I think he was looking for someone like me for a while- Someone with the motivation to actively promote the club and the sport, and the computer skills to utilize all the available tools on the internet. It’s an honor to take the reins of Texas’ premier club from such a distinguished man. I hope to do something great for the footbag scene in Texas. I would hate to let him or the TFL down.
Tim Vozar I don’t think Garry could have done it all without the help of Tim Vozar, who is also a Hall of Fame member. Tim is a great motivator and he’s great at organizing tournaments and jams. The Austin and Dallas clubs learned the ropes from him. Now Austin hosts Texas State and Dallas hosts Southern Regionals. Tim is now married, has a daughter, lives on the west side, and runs his own electronic money-transfer business. He’s a great net player, and the last time he kicked with us was in July, just before Worlds. It was a privilege to have him as my net doubles partner at Southern Regionals in May .
Heather Thomas is another of our veteran players. She does freestyle, but net is her main passion, and believe me- she’s as hardcore as they come. She has two sons and a daughter, all of them very young, a husband who is a lawyer, and she’s an elementary school teacher, so she doesn’t have a whole lot of time for footbag.. But she makes time. If she has an hour or two to herself, she’ll try to squeeze it in by either going to the gym or contacting me. Most of the time, the only way she can play is if she actually plays net games while she’s at one her kid’s soccer games or swim practices, and I’m happy to help. I’ve gotten pretty close to her whole family. I think I might be overstepping a boundary because her husband Scott thinks even the little time she spends on footbag might be too much. Heather was at Worlds, and I was glad for that, because I get along with her very well, and we supported eachother. She does have a few World titles, and to add to that, now she’s 3rd in the World in Women’s Doubles Net. Way to represent Texas, Heather!
Heather and I like to get high sometimes and hang out.. Man, she can make me laugh soooo hard.. I have some funny quotes:
“It’s not so much the kick, but the cock…” –Heather Thomas, on the sport of footbag, when asked how to do a toe kick. [She really meant the cock of the foot. The directional tilt.]
“Texas women are known for banging.” –Heather Thomas, on Texas female footbag net players. [For those not familiar with net footbag lingo, ‘banging’ is when you send the bag right back over the net, instead of setting and spiking, which is the preferred method.]
Jeff Wells doesn’t get along with Heather very well, and I never figured out why. I think it’s some old argument that can’t be resolved. [??] Anyway, Jeff is really cool. He’s also a veteran Skyliner and net player, but he moved to Smithville, which is a couple hours away, towards Austin. So obviously he doesn’t come to meetings anymore, but since he’s been in the club so long and has been so active, I have to include him. He’s married now and owns a small ranch, a small house, and a bunch of small animals. He’s a flight attendant [forgot which airline], so he gets as much travel as he wants pretty cheaply. He throws pretty large parties at his ranch once in a while, and of course the Skyliners are always invited. I’ve been to two of them now, and he’s been there just over a year I think. He’ll have atleast 2 kegs, barbeque, and lots of other food, and invite people to bring a tent and spend the night. It’s awesome. He has sustained several greivous injuries, but he’s still playing. The last time I saw him was a couple weeks ago, but it was to party, not to play. He talks about setting up a net court there in the field, and I hope he does. A slab of concrete for freestyle wouldn’t hurt. Hm. If it were covered, had a picnic table, and an electrical outlet, that would be perfect..
Dallas Wiard [pronounced ‘Wired,’ which is his nickname] completes the list of veteran Skyliner net players. He’s the most physically active member of the club, including all the kids. He runs all the marathons that he can, bikes to work, which is halfway across Houston, runs triathlons, works out, rides his bike and runs all over Houston for fun, and plays net footbag. He just went on a backpacking trip through the Grand Canyon, which is pretty tough for most people. He’s an old friend [maybe best friend] of Jeff Wells’, and they always team up at tournaments. I believe they call themselves “The Houston Bangers” because of how much they bang the bag. He sells gas chromatographs. Who knows what those are, but it keeps him busy between weekends. He’s a single guy living in a high-rise apartment in the middle of downtown Houston, and he doesn’t have a car or cell phone. It would be very nice to not need a car, but everyone could use a cell phone. He’s quite a character and I hang out with him all the time. He’s just about fully recovered from a broken leg that he suffered while riding his bike to a footbag meeting. Some other guy on a bike clipped him, and his lower leg [2 bones] got bent into a sideways L-shape, so he had surgery and went through physical therapy and recovered with amazing quickness. He’s just having trouble bending his ankle in certain directions. It’ll take a while to gain the flexibility back. He hacked with us a little bit a week and a half ago, when he was still sore from the trek through the Grand Canyon, but we know net is his thing. He hasn’t kicked net in over 6 months, but he’ll be playing at TX State. We’ll see how he does. I hope he plays a few games in preparation before he goes to Austin. Tim, Heather, and Jeff will also be playing at the tournament. I’m not sure about Garry.
"The Machine" Joe Abbott Jeez, I’m gonna need a whole page just for this guy.. I wish the whole footbag community could meet him. He’s a born natural. He’s genetically engineered for footbag, or something, because he soaks up new concepts after short sessions, like he would eat pie or something. I first met Joe at the Westheimer Street Festival in the spring of 2003, I believe. I was trying to meet up with Abman, [who was an active member in those days] and when I finally found him, he was shredding with a couple other guys that I hadn’t met- Shorty [I’ll get to him later] and Joe. I expected Joe to be just another hacker, but it was obvious that he knew about freestyle. He was doing mirages, whirls, eclipses, butterflies, symp whirls, swirls, osis, hopover swirls, clippers, refractions, dragons, flyers, legovers, pickups, atw, .. Man, he did this dragon-refraction, which I'd never seen before.. And he had this really smooth style. His runs were a decent length, and he was very strong tiltless. I talked to him about how long he'd been playin, etc. He's my age, been playin since high school, and he lived in Spring. He used to live in Oregon, and he met Ken Somolinos and kicked with him when he lived on the east coast.. So he learned some stuff from Ken, and he's really enthusiastic about footbag. He was with a chick friend at the festival, but he basically ditched her to kick with us.
That night, he and I went to the Ice House [an outdoor bar on West Alabama].. And we talked a lot about footbag and concepts. It was great to talk about advanced freestyle with someone new in Houston. Since we have such different styles, we figured we'd rub off on eachother and learn a lot when we kick with eachother. It's the best way to learn. And we figured right. Joe and I get along very well since we have so much in common.. He lived about 45 minutes away from me, but I would still drive to his place like 2 or 3 times a week to shred, and a lot of times, one of us would crash at the other’s place and we’d stretch the session to 2 or 3 days. Joe is tall and lean and has such incredibly massive potential, I can’t describe it. His style is so smooth and he loves to throw huge moves into his runs. So he was always pretty far ahead of me with his progress, but I was the guru who knew about all the concepts and technical stuff. I was his mentor- I would suggest new concepts or combos that he never would have thought of on his own, and I’d teach him the names for everything, all about the add system, the trends in freestyle, what’s new in the scene, who’s hitting what, and of course I’d show him a lot of videos. With the new concepts and moves, he’d usually pick them up with amazing speed. He would rarely shred without me, so I pretty much witnessed all of his progression. Here’s a taste:
Pixie, atomic, quantum, stepping, shooting, nuclear, and spinning both sides
flailing, wanton, sailing, frantic, furious, and surging one side
Flurry both sides, orig.bs.blurs, smp dlo’s, and pdx barrages like nothing. That symp dlo is so easy for him, that with a little work, he could be putting wontomic moves into his runs almost effortlessly.
Some of his biggest moves: spinning voodoo, rage, scorpion’s tail, spin.pdx barrage, ducking ingyro smp whirl, plasma, whirlwind, maelstrom, .. There are many many more, and he can put any of his moves in runs.
The problem is that he doesn’t play consistently, so as a result, he’s not progressing lately. He has days when he’s on 100%, and days when he’s not, and that can be frustrating. At the time when he lived with his dad and I could drive up there and kick with him 2 or 3 times a week, he was progressing rapidly, but then he moved out and didn’t have a car or a phone, and was very hard to reach. He had trouble finding steady work and a place to stay, and could only meet me if he could contact me, but he was usually busy with something. There was a period where some days he would be totally in the groove and shredding it up, and other days where he wouldn’t be playing near his best, and there was always an excuse, like he was drunk, or tired or didn’t have the right gear or something.
He lived with Dallas for a while, and one day, while he was riding Dallas' bike to work [the same bike that Dallas was riding when he broke his leg] he lost control and broke his collar bone. That set him back from footbag and every other physical activity for a few months, because he couldn't move his shoulder at all without intense pain. He started shredding again as soon as he could, but we never got into the shredding several times per week like we used to.
And then eventually he just started to get rusty.. Recently, his Lavers got completely worn out. The soles just disintigrated, and he didn’t have the money to get new ones [though it seemed to me that he always had money for beer and cigarettes, and abstaining from that for a few weeks woulda bought him new shoes]. So he’s been playing barefoot, and the feet can’t take it for very long on concrete, esp with symp moves and stuff. Also, he was restricted to toe moves only, because he’s not very good at barefoot inside/clip stalls [neither am I, but he got much better at his double switchovers, b2b terrages, dominatrix, and frantic mirage]. And even though he can be awesome at toe-only runs, it’s depressing for me to witness him not playing anywhere near to his potential. Lately, he has called me very rarely and then when we do meet, he quits after a short period and has an excuse. So of course I hassle him about it. He used to joke with me like that all the time, making fun of me if I gave the slightest hint that I wanted to rest for a minute.. He got his nickname then because he would just keep going and going without stopping. I might take a 5-minute break, and he'd shred solo until I joined him again.
The latest news on Joe Abbott is that he's moving to Savannah, Georgia [for work] on Saturday and won’t be back in Houston for atleast a couple months. I hope he calls or writes an email or something. And I hope he gets himself some new Lavers and gets back into it hardcore. It’ll be sad for me if he doesn’t realize his potential because he’s my student prodigy, and the rest of the community could learn from him. He’s an inspiration.
Steven Sevilla is one of our more intermediate level players, but he’s eager to learn. Joe and I used to shred in malls all the time, and a lotta people would stop and watch us for a while. [there’s another thread about being kicked of places for shredding, and I contributed to it] On the day we met Steven, his friend CJ saw us shredding there and called him up on the cell phone. Steven was a hardcore hacker at the time. It took him about 3 minutes and 30 seconds to get there and find us, so we had a good session in the middle of the mall that day. You just gotta keep an eye out for security. [They eventually would recognize all of our faces and knew what we were up to even if they didn’t catch us in the act.] Now Steven is hitting ripwalks, eclipses, and other stuff, but his form and style need serious work. He was at Worlds, so some of you might know him- he was the muscular Hispanic guy with long black hair and some metal in one ear. He’s in the circle with Verena Lenneis and David Clavens in the “Worlds Prequel” video. I don’t kick with him very often, because he lives in Humble, which is like 45 minutes NE of Houston, and I can only reach him at work. He never calls me anymore. Anyway, Steven and I were getting into doubles freestyle for a while, and we made excellent progress in a short period of time. When I get into doubles practice with him, it’s really exciting to think about all the endless possibilities for doubles freestyle. We’ve already done some things that I’ve never seen anyone else try. We were hoping to have a routine ready for TX State, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, cuz we’ll need atleast a little more practice.
Sophia is Ashley’s roommate, and at first, they always came to meetings together, but now Ashley is a little bit more active. Sophia is the one who is able to buy nice bags but she seems pretty busy these days. Soon after they first joined, I introduced them to Heather, and she tried to proselytize them to the net game [that’s my new word], and the chicks actually liked net better! But freestyle is just easier to get together and do on a moment’s notice. You gotta form a plan for a net session. Anyway, I’m happy that they’re interested in both, and I will continue to support them and coach them. Btw, Sophia is just learning toe stalls, and has decent bag control with kicks. She and Ashley live a few minutes away from the IceHouse, so it’s easy to set up a small meeting.
Lonnie Hobbs [known as ‘Shorty’ to us and ‘underooninja’ on the forum] has been a part of the club as long as Joe has. I met them both at the same time at the same place. He fit right into the club, and he lives in the Heights, which is pretty centralized. If we were hangin out with Shorty and not shredding, we’d probably be getting stoned at his place and playing some classic game like Galaga. He’s a huge fan of console games and has a lot of classics. Anyway, he made some pretty good progress kicking with us. He was hitting pdx and smp mirages, butterfly, osis, mirage, legover, hopover > rev. hopover, etc. But he’s had so many injuries, illnesses, and ailments, that he hasn’t kicked with us in a long time, and might be retired for good. Let’s see.. They include: pinched nerve in his back, some sort of disfunction in his jaw that caused pain, pneumonia, a broken clavicle, some kind of elbow problem, and knee problems [forgot what the problems were specifically]. Btw, I think he’s now 28.
Mary Meinke is a friend we met through Shorty, and she used to kick with us whenever she could. She’s roughly the same age and lives in the same location as Shorty. We all enjoyed her company in the circles as well as outside of footbag. I think she was hitting mirages and legovers. But she had some kind of accident and tore some cartilege in her knee, and then just aggravated it by freestying. The last time I talked to her, the injury didn’t seem to be healing well enough to take up freestyle again. But we still see her around occasionally. Best wishes to her.
There are many more members of the club, but none of them are very active. Some of them have joined the club on footbag.org, but I’ve never met them or even communicated with them. Some people I met in person have expressed interest in coming to meetings, but were never heard from again. Some people used to be more active, and then just faded away. Oh well. I keep trying. What are ya gonna do..?
Garry Gaman founded The Houston Skyliners Footbag Club in 1980. He was inducted into the Footbag Hall of Fame because of his huge devotion to the sport. He met John Stalberger at the earliest stages of the sport and became friends with him. Garry was involved when the Hacky Sack was patented. He was instrumental in the development and advancement of the footbag scene in Texas. He busted his ass trying to promote the sport here in Houston. He tells me about times when he would go out to the park and kick by himself when he couldn’t get anyone else to join him. He’d kick in a spot that gets the most exposure to the public [So that he could get the attention of other physically active people]- There’s an area in Memorial Park right in front of the tennis courts, between the tennis center and the golf course driving range where runners take breaks, and stretch before and after runs. There’s a little field that’s very conducive to net games, and to this day, it’s one of our favorite spots in Houston to hold meetings when the net players and freestylers get together. And now I’m in his position and I know exactly what he felt like. But he did it in the days before the internet and email. I believe he’s in his mid-50’s now, and I don’t know how much more footbag he has left in him. He has knee problems and back problems, but he’s a damn good net player. He’s currently living on the northwest side of Houston, and he’s a junior-high school history teacher. I haven’t seen him play in many months.
When I started trying to actively help the club out back in 2002 by recruiting new members and encouraging all current members to come to meetings through email, I gradually started taking over the responsibilities. I think he was looking for someone like me for a while- Someone with the motivation to actively promote the club and the sport, and the computer skills to utilize all the available tools on the internet. It’s an honor to take the reins of Texas’ premier club from such a distinguished man. I hope to do something great for the footbag scene in Texas. I would hate to let him or the TFL down.
Tim Vozar I don’t think Garry could have done it all without the help of Tim Vozar, who is also a Hall of Fame member. Tim is a great motivator and he’s great at organizing tournaments and jams. The Austin and Dallas clubs learned the ropes from him. Now Austin hosts Texas State and Dallas hosts Southern Regionals. Tim is now married, has a daughter, lives on the west side, and runs his own electronic money-transfer business. He’s a great net player, and the last time he kicked with us was in July, just before Worlds. It was a privilege to have him as my net doubles partner at Southern Regionals in May .
Heather Thomas is another of our veteran players. She does freestyle, but net is her main passion, and believe me- she’s as hardcore as they come. She has two sons and a daughter, all of them very young, a husband who is a lawyer, and she’s an elementary school teacher, so she doesn’t have a whole lot of time for footbag.. But she makes time. If she has an hour or two to herself, she’ll try to squeeze it in by either going to the gym or contacting me. Most of the time, the only way she can play is if she actually plays net games while she’s at one her kid’s soccer games or swim practices, and I’m happy to help. I’ve gotten pretty close to her whole family. I think I might be overstepping a boundary because her husband Scott thinks even the little time she spends on footbag might be too much. Heather was at Worlds, and I was glad for that, because I get along with her very well, and we supported eachother. She does have a few World titles, and to add to that, now she’s 3rd in the World in Women’s Doubles Net. Way to represent Texas, Heather!
Heather and I like to get high sometimes and hang out.. Man, she can make me laugh soooo hard.. I have some funny quotes:
“It’s not so much the kick, but the cock…” –Heather Thomas, on the sport of footbag, when asked how to do a toe kick. [She really meant the cock of the foot. The directional tilt.]
“Texas women are known for banging.” –Heather Thomas, on Texas female footbag net players. [For those not familiar with net footbag lingo, ‘banging’ is when you send the bag right back over the net, instead of setting and spiking, which is the preferred method.]
Jeff Wells doesn’t get along with Heather very well, and I never figured out why. I think it’s some old argument that can’t be resolved. [??] Anyway, Jeff is really cool. He’s also a veteran Skyliner and net player, but he moved to Smithville, which is a couple hours away, towards Austin. So obviously he doesn’t come to meetings anymore, but since he’s been in the club so long and has been so active, I have to include him. He’s married now and owns a small ranch, a small house, and a bunch of small animals. He’s a flight attendant [forgot which airline], so he gets as much travel as he wants pretty cheaply. He throws pretty large parties at his ranch once in a while, and of course the Skyliners are always invited. I’ve been to two of them now, and he’s been there just over a year I think. He’ll have atleast 2 kegs, barbeque, and lots of other food, and invite people to bring a tent and spend the night. It’s awesome. He has sustained several greivous injuries, but he’s still playing. The last time I saw him was a couple weeks ago, but it was to party, not to play. He talks about setting up a net court there in the field, and I hope he does. A slab of concrete for freestyle wouldn’t hurt. Hm. If it were covered, had a picnic table, and an electrical outlet, that would be perfect..
Dallas Wiard [pronounced ‘Wired,’ which is his nickname] completes the list of veteran Skyliner net players. He’s the most physically active member of the club, including all the kids. He runs all the marathons that he can, bikes to work, which is halfway across Houston, runs triathlons, works out, rides his bike and runs all over Houston for fun, and plays net footbag. He just went on a backpacking trip through the Grand Canyon, which is pretty tough for most people. He’s an old friend [maybe best friend] of Jeff Wells’, and they always team up at tournaments. I believe they call themselves “The Houston Bangers” because of how much they bang the bag. He sells gas chromatographs. Who knows what those are, but it keeps him busy between weekends. He’s a single guy living in a high-rise apartment in the middle of downtown Houston, and he doesn’t have a car or cell phone. It would be very nice to not need a car, but everyone could use a cell phone. He’s quite a character and I hang out with him all the time. He’s just about fully recovered from a broken leg that he suffered while riding his bike to a footbag meeting. Some other guy on a bike clipped him, and his lower leg [2 bones] got bent into a sideways L-shape, so he had surgery and went through physical therapy and recovered with amazing quickness. He’s just having trouble bending his ankle in certain directions. It’ll take a while to gain the flexibility back. He hacked with us a little bit a week and a half ago, when he was still sore from the trek through the Grand Canyon, but we know net is his thing. He hasn’t kicked net in over 6 months, but he’ll be playing at TX State. We’ll see how he does. I hope he plays a few games in preparation before he goes to Austin. Tim, Heather, and Jeff will also be playing at the tournament. I’m not sure about Garry.
"The Machine" Joe Abbott Jeez, I’m gonna need a whole page just for this guy.. I wish the whole footbag community could meet him. He’s a born natural. He’s genetically engineered for footbag, or something, because he soaks up new concepts after short sessions, like he would eat pie or something. I first met Joe at the Westheimer Street Festival in the spring of 2003, I believe. I was trying to meet up with Abman, [who was an active member in those days] and when I finally found him, he was shredding with a couple other guys that I hadn’t met- Shorty [I’ll get to him later] and Joe. I expected Joe to be just another hacker, but it was obvious that he knew about freestyle. He was doing mirages, whirls, eclipses, butterflies, symp whirls, swirls, osis, hopover swirls, clippers, refractions, dragons, flyers, legovers, pickups, atw, .. Man, he did this dragon-refraction, which I'd never seen before.. And he had this really smooth style. His runs were a decent length, and he was very strong tiltless. I talked to him about how long he'd been playin, etc. He's my age, been playin since high school, and he lived in Spring. He used to live in Oregon, and he met Ken Somolinos and kicked with him when he lived on the east coast.. So he learned some stuff from Ken, and he's really enthusiastic about footbag. He was with a chick friend at the festival, but he basically ditched her to kick with us.
That night, he and I went to the Ice House [an outdoor bar on West Alabama].. And we talked a lot about footbag and concepts. It was great to talk about advanced freestyle with someone new in Houston. Since we have such different styles, we figured we'd rub off on eachother and learn a lot when we kick with eachother. It's the best way to learn. And we figured right. Joe and I get along very well since we have so much in common.. He lived about 45 minutes away from me, but I would still drive to his place like 2 or 3 times a week to shred, and a lot of times, one of us would crash at the other’s place and we’d stretch the session to 2 or 3 days. Joe is tall and lean and has such incredibly massive potential, I can’t describe it. His style is so smooth and he loves to throw huge moves into his runs. So he was always pretty far ahead of me with his progress, but I was the guru who knew about all the concepts and technical stuff. I was his mentor- I would suggest new concepts or combos that he never would have thought of on his own, and I’d teach him the names for everything, all about the add system, the trends in freestyle, what’s new in the scene, who’s hitting what, and of course I’d show him a lot of videos. With the new concepts and moves, he’d usually pick them up with amazing speed. He would rarely shred without me, so I pretty much witnessed all of his progression. Here’s a taste:
Pixie, atomic, quantum, stepping, shooting, nuclear, and spinning both sides
flailing, wanton, sailing, frantic, furious, and surging one side
Flurry both sides, orig.bs.blurs, smp dlo’s, and pdx barrages like nothing. That symp dlo is so easy for him, that with a little work, he could be putting wontomic moves into his runs almost effortlessly.
Some of his biggest moves: spinning voodoo, rage, scorpion’s tail, spin.pdx barrage, ducking ingyro smp whirl, plasma, whirlwind, maelstrom, .. There are many many more, and he can put any of his moves in runs.
The problem is that he doesn’t play consistently, so as a result, he’s not progressing lately. He has days when he’s on 100%, and days when he’s not, and that can be frustrating. At the time when he lived with his dad and I could drive up there and kick with him 2 or 3 times a week, he was progressing rapidly, but then he moved out and didn’t have a car or a phone, and was very hard to reach. He had trouble finding steady work and a place to stay, and could only meet me if he could contact me, but he was usually busy with something. There was a period where some days he would be totally in the groove and shredding it up, and other days where he wouldn’t be playing near his best, and there was always an excuse, like he was drunk, or tired or didn’t have the right gear or something.
He lived with Dallas for a while, and one day, while he was riding Dallas' bike to work [the same bike that Dallas was riding when he broke his leg] he lost control and broke his collar bone. That set him back from footbag and every other physical activity for a few months, because he couldn't move his shoulder at all without intense pain. He started shredding again as soon as he could, but we never got into the shredding several times per week like we used to.
And then eventually he just started to get rusty.. Recently, his Lavers got completely worn out. The soles just disintigrated, and he didn’t have the money to get new ones [though it seemed to me that he always had money for beer and cigarettes, and abstaining from that for a few weeks woulda bought him new shoes]. So he’s been playing barefoot, and the feet can’t take it for very long on concrete, esp with symp moves and stuff. Also, he was restricted to toe moves only, because he’s not very good at barefoot inside/clip stalls [neither am I, but he got much better at his double switchovers, b2b terrages, dominatrix, and frantic mirage]. And even though he can be awesome at toe-only runs, it’s depressing for me to witness him not playing anywhere near to his potential. Lately, he has called me very rarely and then when we do meet, he quits after a short period and has an excuse. So of course I hassle him about it. He used to joke with me like that all the time, making fun of me if I gave the slightest hint that I wanted to rest for a minute.. He got his nickname then because he would just keep going and going without stopping. I might take a 5-minute break, and he'd shred solo until I joined him again.
The latest news on Joe Abbott is that he's moving to Savannah, Georgia [for work] on Saturday and won’t be back in Houston for atleast a couple months. I hope he calls or writes an email or something. And I hope he gets himself some new Lavers and gets back into it hardcore. It’ll be sad for me if he doesn’t realize his potential because he’s my student prodigy, and the rest of the community could learn from him. He’s an inspiration.
Steven Sevilla is one of our more intermediate level players, but he’s eager to learn. Joe and I used to shred in malls all the time, and a lotta people would stop and watch us for a while. [there’s another thread about being kicked of places for shredding, and I contributed to it] On the day we met Steven, his friend CJ saw us shredding there and called him up on the cell phone. Steven was a hardcore hacker at the time. It took him about 3 minutes and 30 seconds to get there and find us, so we had a good session in the middle of the mall that day. You just gotta keep an eye out for security. [They eventually would recognize all of our faces and knew what we were up to even if they didn’t catch us in the act.] Now Steven is hitting ripwalks, eclipses, and other stuff, but his form and style need serious work. He was at Worlds, so some of you might know him- he was the muscular Hispanic guy with long black hair and some metal in one ear. He’s in the circle with Verena Lenneis and David Clavens in the “Worlds Prequel” video. I don’t kick with him very often, because he lives in Humble, which is like 45 minutes NE of Houston, and I can only reach him at work. He never calls me anymore. Anyway, Steven and I were getting into doubles freestyle for a while, and we made excellent progress in a short period of time. When I get into doubles practice with him, it’s really exciting to think about all the endless possibilities for doubles freestyle. We’ve already done some things that I’ve never seen anyone else try. We were hoping to have a routine ready for TX State, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, cuz we’ll need atleast a little more practice.
Sophia is Ashley’s roommate, and at first, they always came to meetings together, but now Ashley is a little bit more active. Sophia is the one who is able to buy nice bags but she seems pretty busy these days. Soon after they first joined, I introduced them to Heather, and she tried to proselytize them to the net game [that’s my new word], and the chicks actually liked net better! But freestyle is just easier to get together and do on a moment’s notice. You gotta form a plan for a net session. Anyway, I’m happy that they’re interested in both, and I will continue to support them and coach them. Btw, Sophia is just learning toe stalls, and has decent bag control with kicks. She and Ashley live a few minutes away from the IceHouse, so it’s easy to set up a small meeting.
Lonnie Hobbs [known as ‘Shorty’ to us and ‘underooninja’ on the forum] has been a part of the club as long as Joe has. I met them both at the same time at the same place. He fit right into the club, and he lives in the Heights, which is pretty centralized. If we were hangin out with Shorty and not shredding, we’d probably be getting stoned at his place and playing some classic game like Galaga. He’s a huge fan of console games and has a lot of classics. Anyway, he made some pretty good progress kicking with us. He was hitting pdx and smp mirages, butterfly, osis, mirage, legover, hopover > rev. hopover, etc. But he’s had so many injuries, illnesses, and ailments, that he hasn’t kicked with us in a long time, and might be retired for good. Let’s see.. They include: pinched nerve in his back, some sort of disfunction in his jaw that caused pain, pneumonia, a broken clavicle, some kind of elbow problem, and knee problems [forgot what the problems were specifically]. Btw, I think he’s now 28.
Mary Meinke is a friend we met through Shorty, and she used to kick with us whenever she could. She’s roughly the same age and lives in the same location as Shorty. We all enjoyed her company in the circles as well as outside of footbag. I think she was hitting mirages and legovers. But she had some kind of accident and tore some cartilege in her knee, and then just aggravated it by freestying. The last time I talked to her, the injury didn’t seem to be healing well enough to take up freestyle again. But we still see her around occasionally. Best wishes to her.
There are many more members of the club, but none of them are very active. Some of them have joined the club on footbag.org, but I’ve never met them or even communicated with them. Some people I met in person have expressed interest in coming to meetings, but were never heard from again. Some people used to be more active, and then just faded away. Oh well. I keep trying. What are ya gonna do..?
Shred at Last Concert Cafe
Last night, Jim and I had a session. But before I even went out I had my mind made up that it was going to be a shitty one. It’s a very humid day, I hadn’t kicked since Sunday, and I was going to the IceHouse just to kick with Jim. The IceHouse doesn’t have a whole lot of light at night, and the most conducive spot for freestyle is usually really dirty and occupied by people using it to play basketball. So I was glad for the excuse to shred, but wasn’t very hyped about it. I’ve never had a great shred with just Jim, in these conditions. Anyway, I took the bus most of the way, and then walked the rest of the way, and finally met Jim, right on time. There weren’t many people there at the IceHouse, and it was Wednesday night, which is drum circle night at Last Concert Café. You get in free if you bring a hand drum, and Jim mentioned that he brought two hand drums. No question- we headed straight for Last Concert.
I’ve decided to make a separate entry just to describe in detail all of our favorite Houston venues for footbag. I’ll get to that later.
Ok, the best place to kick at Last Concert Café is the main stage, but you can only use it if the band isn’t using it, of course. Tonight, the band happened to be using it. The next most suitable spot is the sand pit, right in front of the stage. There isn’t very much light there at all [we got there at like 10:30, but the show really got started at 11, and the drum circle at like 12:30]. So we start shredding there. Picture this- It’s a really humid night, and sweat has started to accumulate before we even got started. Once we start getting into it, it pours down our faces. On top of that, we’re kicking in sand, so sand gets everywhere. Every time Jim serves me the bag, it comes with a big pile of flying sand. The sand clings to every surface of my body, but I avoid getting it in my eyes. More people start showing up. Incredibly hot women start to shake their groove thang next to us. Since we’re right in front of the stage, we become part of the show. I felt completely nasty, could hardly see the bag, the surface wasn’t very good, and the bag was getting soaked with sweat and sand, just like me. So it wasn’t my best performance, but I toned down my game a little bit to compensate for the shitty conditions, and it turned out to be a decent session.
A couple of hackers joined us, but not for long. A chick came up to me and asked “Are you Michael Schaeffer?”
I said “No, but you’re close. Michael Stokely.”
“My friend knows you.”
So I saw an old friend from high school there. And you know all those problems I talked about having in my freshman year? Well, he was one of people who influenced me to make some pretty stupid decisions. I realized this when I joined the Group, and never hung out with him again after that. I asked him at the Café, “Didn’t you leave Sharpstown after freshman year?” But felt stupid afterwards, because he stayed for all four years, but I just had no memory of hangin out with him after the first year. But I did sit down and shoot the shit with him there at Last Concert. We talked about old times and caught up. He hadn’t changed a bit [except for gaining a little weight] but I still gave him my number. He gave me a few beers [from his pitchers], and so I actually got a buzz, and I hadn’t spent one dollar the whole night. Even the bus was free.
Of course I wouldn’t have gotten a buzz if I wasn’t dehydrated from sweating so much.. But I couldn’t play after that. I tried to, and looked pretty silly. I had digressed to trying to kick the bag a few times in a row, and then tried to sync the kicks with the beat of the drums. Some strange guy said “Hey- That’s pretty gay.” I just shook my head and walked away, but then came back and tried to explain to him that I was drunk, but I can do some really cool shit with a footbag. Some of the bystanders who saw me earlier could back me up. I really don’t give a shit what any stranger thinks about it [unless they’re interested in it], but at the same time, I’m not gonna play if I’m not at the top of my game. That was my queue to take off my Lavers.
I’ve decided to make a separate entry just to describe in detail all of our favorite Houston venues for footbag. I’ll get to that later.
Ok, the best place to kick at Last Concert Café is the main stage, but you can only use it if the band isn’t using it, of course. Tonight, the band happened to be using it. The next most suitable spot is the sand pit, right in front of the stage. There isn’t very much light there at all [we got there at like 10:30, but the show really got started at 11, and the drum circle at like 12:30]. So we start shredding there. Picture this- It’s a really humid night, and sweat has started to accumulate before we even got started. Once we start getting into it, it pours down our faces. On top of that, we’re kicking in sand, so sand gets everywhere. Every time Jim serves me the bag, it comes with a big pile of flying sand. The sand clings to every surface of my body, but I avoid getting it in my eyes. More people start showing up. Incredibly hot women start to shake their groove thang next to us. Since we’re right in front of the stage, we become part of the show. I felt completely nasty, could hardly see the bag, the surface wasn’t very good, and the bag was getting soaked with sweat and sand, just like me. So it wasn’t my best performance, but I toned down my game a little bit to compensate for the shitty conditions, and it turned out to be a decent session.
A couple of hackers joined us, but not for long. A chick came up to me and asked “Are you Michael Schaeffer?”
I said “No, but you’re close. Michael Stokely.”
“My friend knows you.”
So I saw an old friend from high school there. And you know all those problems I talked about having in my freshman year? Well, he was one of people who influenced me to make some pretty stupid decisions. I realized this when I joined the Group, and never hung out with him again after that. I asked him at the Café, “Didn’t you leave Sharpstown after freshman year?” But felt stupid afterwards, because he stayed for all four years, but I just had no memory of hangin out with him after the first year. But I did sit down and shoot the shit with him there at Last Concert. We talked about old times and caught up. He hadn’t changed a bit [except for gaining a little weight] but I still gave him my number. He gave me a few beers [from his pitchers], and so I actually got a buzz, and I hadn’t spent one dollar the whole night. Even the bus was free.
Of course I wouldn’t have gotten a buzz if I wasn’t dehydrated from sweating so much.. But I couldn’t play after that. I tried to, and looked pretty silly. I had digressed to trying to kick the bag a few times in a row, and then tried to sync the kicks with the beat of the drums. Some strange guy said “Hey- That’s pretty gay.” I just shook my head and walked away, but then came back and tried to explain to him that I was drunk, but I can do some really cool shit with a footbag. Some of the bystanders who saw me earlier could back me up. I really don’t give a shit what any stranger thinks about it [unless they’re interested in it], but at the same time, I’m not gonna play if I’m not at the top of my game. That was my queue to take off my Lavers.
Session at Tinseltown
Joe Abbott called me today and said he's doing alright, and he'll be moving to Savannah, Georgia on Saturday. So Joe, Jim, and I got together for one last shred before he leaves. We went to the Tinseltown theaters and had a great session. Joe’s blades were a little rusty, but he did get into the groove enough to crank out a few badass runs. I hit a few lengthy strong-guiltless runs myself, and pulled some combos that Joe had never seen, but I don’t think they’re anything to brag about.
Joe modded his shoes for freestyle. They’re old tennis shoes, but they’re pretty light. He took off the whole top of the toe, like Genzu’s shoes. I guess it helped those shoes, cuz they were pretty rounded on top. But he likes the mod in general, and I fail to see how it helps Lavers. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I like my shoes to cover the toes. I think I owe a lot to the flatness of the toe surface of my Lavers. Anyway, atleast he wasn’t barefoot, and he was doing a lotta clipper moves, which is great.
*New move for me- Toe blur. I finally hit my first quantum move. And it was hippy.. So pretty. Joe got the wontomic set to come up a little bit. He said he’d work on it in Georgia. He also hit smoke, which is a new one for him. It was a good session and I’m glad we got to do that before he leaves. We’ll keep in touch.
Oh- We had to miss the Astros' last game of the season. They were so close to making it to the World Series. It was game 7 and I didn't see any reason why they couldn't have won. Before I left my place, we were up 2 - 0 in the fourth inning. When we got to the theater, I said "Damn- it's a ghost town." Usually the place is alive with moviegoers. When I said that it was probably because of the Astros game, Jim slapped his head and wanted to leave to watch it right then, but we stayed and kicked. So we lost the game. Oh well. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but it woulda been cool if the Astros made it to the World Series. Good for St. Louis.
Joe modded his shoes for freestyle. They’re old tennis shoes, but they’re pretty light. He took off the whole top of the toe, like Genzu’s shoes. I guess it helped those shoes, cuz they were pretty rounded on top. But he likes the mod in general, and I fail to see how it helps Lavers. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I like my shoes to cover the toes. I think I owe a lot to the flatness of the toe surface of my Lavers. Anyway, atleast he wasn’t barefoot, and he was doing a lotta clipper moves, which is great.
*New move for me- Toe blur. I finally hit my first quantum move. And it was hippy.. So pretty. Joe got the wontomic set to come up a little bit. He said he’d work on it in Georgia. He also hit smoke, which is a new one for him. It was a good session and I’m glad we got to do that before he leaves. We’ll keep in touch.
Oh- We had to miss the Astros' last game of the season. They were so close to making it to the World Series. It was game 7 and I didn't see any reason why they couldn't have won. Before I left my place, we were up 2 - 0 in the fourth inning. When we got to the theater, I said "Damn- it's a ghost town." Usually the place is alive with moviegoers. When I said that it was probably because of the Astros game, Jim slapped his head and wanted to leave to watch it right then, but we stayed and kicked. So we lost the game. Oh well. I'm not a huge baseball fan, but it woulda been cool if the Astros made it to the World Series. Good for St. Louis.
Skyiners newspaper article
Get a Kick Out of Life
By Louis B. Parks
Houston Chronicle
Friday, March 26, 2004
Gaze intense, feet flying, Curtis Taylor is on a hot string. His eyes and his whirling feet are locked on a tiny bag that he’s kicking, kicking, kicking. The 17-year-old Clear Lake High School senior is turning foot juggling into an artistic and athletic performance. He jumps and spins, twists and turns. Right foot, left foot, now calf, now instep, over the shoulder to a behind-the-back sole-of-shoe kick. So fast it’s hard to follow.
“When you do it in a circle (of friends) and hit a new trick nobody else can hit, everybody is like, ‘Wow,’” Taylor says later. “It feels good.”
Taylor is doing freestyle, one of two footbag games or “disciplines” played by the 30-plus members of the Houston Skyliners Footbag Club.
Finally he misses. The footbag plops unceremoniously to the ground. His fellow Skyliners give him “props” – high-fives with hands or feet. The acknowledgement is brief, because the next player is already into her own routine.
The Skyliners, started in 1982, are enjoying a resurgence after being somewhat dormant in recent years. On this Saturday there are about a dozen men and three women, ages 17 to mid-50s, at the weekly Memorial Park gathering. Their common denominator: a desire to combine fun and physical fitness in an unconventional manner.
The nonprofit International Footbag Players Association has 14,355 active members in 153 countries. More than 40 countries have clubs listed on the IFPA web site, www.footbag.org. There are 361 clubs in the United States, including 23 in Texas.
The informal Skyliners hope to recruit from the thousands of Houstonians already playing some style of footbag. In the simplest form of the game – once commonly called Hacky Sack – participants casually kick it alone or to friends in a circle, keeping it from hitting the ground. Add in complex trick routines, and hacking becomes freestyle.
“You can do it anywhere,” says Michael Stokely, 25. “You just pull it out of your pocket and start kicking. It’s fun, it builds flexibility and endurance and camaraderie. It’s cheap. A footbag costs about $8, and that’s all you need. (Although good) shoes help a lot.”
In freestyle, good shoes means sneakers with large, flat front panels, the better to catch the bag.
While freestyle is the main passion of the younger Skyliners, seasoned members favor the net version.
“In net you still need to be agile, but not as agile as in freestyle,” says Tim Vozar, 45, a 22-year veteran of the Skyliners and footbag.
Vozar, who manages computer programmers for a bank service, looks pretty agile as he leaps high in the air, twisting, to use the bottom of his foot to spike the footbag back over a 5-foot-high net. He’s a veteran of many tournaments and, along with club founder Garry Gaman, is in the Footbag Hall of Fame.
“Net is like beach volleyball for the foot, with two people (or one for singles) on each side” says Stokely, who takes computer programming classes. “You play to 11 (or 15) points. When the bag comes over the net you have to set it and spike it or send it back over.”
Both freestyle and net require more than just physical talent.
“Strategy in net, patience in freestyle,” says Skyliner Heather Squires-Thomas, the 1994 World Champion women’s team freestylist. “Both require endurance and strength.”
A preschool teacher, Squires-Thomas recently picked up footbag again after an eight-year break in which she had three kids. Now 40, she hopes to make a comeback this summer, but in net.
“In those years, freestyle has taken off into a realm I don’t even recognize,” she says. “It has evolved exponentially in regards to what these guys are doing with the bag. Their adds (tricks) and linkage are just incredible.”
Squires-Thomas likes the near equality footbag allows women.
“I come from a time when women didn’t play sports as much. Now the world’s open to us. With footbag I can be an athlete.”
In the club’s informal “meetings” in Memorial Park, club members quickly divide into two groups. Freestylers congregate at a wooden deck area to work on their moves. There’s no scoring, and the only points are the praise of fellow Skyliners after a good string of kicks.
Others set up a net area near the park driving range and play singles or doubles. Score is kept, but play is more for practice and fun than for competition.
At tournaments both events are highly competitive. Net is scored much like volleyball. Judging for freestyle, as in ice skating, is more subjective and based on 10 criteria, such as originality, difficulty, and presentation.
In competition, practice and often in casual play, freestyle moves are set to music. Performed by a skilled player, the twists, jumps and turns look like a combination of ballet and gymnastics.
“The learning curve is just terrible,” Stokely says of the dedication needed to be good at freestyle. “People who have done it for a year or two are so much better it can be intimidating to the people just coming in.”
Taylor says he practices at least a half hour daily and sometimes for four hours.
“It keeps me doing stuff and not just sitting around watching tv all day,” he says. “It’s kept me in shape.”
“There’s a name for every move,” he says. “Mobius, scorpion’s tail, vortex. A dexterity is every time your leg goes around the bag.”
An index with video of freestyle moves is on the IFPA web site.
Skyliner members often compete as individuals in tournaments around Texas, the United States and the world. The Southern Regional tournament is in May in Dallas. Austin hosts the Texas State tournament in fall. The World Footbag Championship is in Montreal in July.
The Skyliners hosts the Space City Jam 2004 tournament at Westheimer Street Festival, May 1-2. Players from all over Texas and beyond will compete from about noon-7pm both days. Call Stokely at *number omitted* for information.
Tournaments also include competition in the two other footbag disciplines: consecutives and golf. Consecutives is kicking the bag in the air as many times as possible without dropping it, alternating feet. In the 1970’s, consecutives was the major competitive event, but the number of successive kicks became astronomical. The current record on the IFPA web site is 63,326 for singles and a toe-numbing 132,011 for doubles. The latter, by a coed pair, took 20 hours, 34 minutes. These days, consecutive events are usually limited to five minutes and the number of kicks in that time are counted (world record, 1,019).
Footbag golf, which has waned in popularity, is a kick-the-bag-in-the-holes (or baskets) version of conventional golf. It’s fun, but takes lots of space and preparation.
Skyliners meetings are open to anyone, and there are no dues. Club gatherings are usually in Memorial Park near the tennis center on Saturdays. For information, call Michael Stokely at *number omitted*. Or check the Skyliners’ web site at www.footbag.org.
Just remember, no one ever beats the sport’s toughest competitor for long. In the words of footbag creator John Stalberger, “Gravity always wins this game.”
Additional coverage online www.houstonchronicle.com/ features video: Footbag players in action.
By Louis B. Parks
Houston Chronicle
Friday, March 26, 2004
Gaze intense, feet flying, Curtis Taylor is on a hot string. His eyes and his whirling feet are locked on a tiny bag that he’s kicking, kicking, kicking. The 17-year-old Clear Lake High School senior is turning foot juggling into an artistic and athletic performance. He jumps and spins, twists and turns. Right foot, left foot, now calf, now instep, over the shoulder to a behind-the-back sole-of-shoe kick. So fast it’s hard to follow.
“When you do it in a circle (of friends) and hit a new trick nobody else can hit, everybody is like, ‘Wow,’” Taylor says later. “It feels good.”
Taylor is doing freestyle, one of two footbag games or “disciplines” played by the 30-plus members of the Houston Skyliners Footbag Club.
Finally he misses. The footbag plops unceremoniously to the ground. His fellow Skyliners give him “props” – high-fives with hands or feet. The acknowledgement is brief, because the next player is already into her own routine.
The Skyliners, started in 1982, are enjoying a resurgence after being somewhat dormant in recent years. On this Saturday there are about a dozen men and three women, ages 17 to mid-50s, at the weekly Memorial Park gathering. Their common denominator: a desire to combine fun and physical fitness in an unconventional manner.
The nonprofit International Footbag Players Association has 14,355 active members in 153 countries. More than 40 countries have clubs listed on the IFPA web site, www.footbag.org. There are 361 clubs in the United States, including 23 in Texas.
The informal Skyliners hope to recruit from the thousands of Houstonians already playing some style of footbag. In the simplest form of the game – once commonly called Hacky Sack – participants casually kick it alone or to friends in a circle, keeping it from hitting the ground. Add in complex trick routines, and hacking becomes freestyle.
“You can do it anywhere,” says Michael Stokely, 25. “You just pull it out of your pocket and start kicking. It’s fun, it builds flexibility and endurance and camaraderie. It’s cheap. A footbag costs about $8, and that’s all you need. (Although good) shoes help a lot.”
In freestyle, good shoes means sneakers with large, flat front panels, the better to catch the bag.
While freestyle is the main passion of the younger Skyliners, seasoned members favor the net version.
“In net you still need to be agile, but not as agile as in freestyle,” says Tim Vozar, 45, a 22-year veteran of the Skyliners and footbag.
Vozar, who manages computer programmers for a bank service, looks pretty agile as he leaps high in the air, twisting, to use the bottom of his foot to spike the footbag back over a 5-foot-high net. He’s a veteran of many tournaments and, along with club founder Garry Gaman, is in the Footbag Hall of Fame.
“Net is like beach volleyball for the foot, with two people (or one for singles) on each side” says Stokely, who takes computer programming classes. “You play to 11 (or 15) points. When the bag comes over the net you have to set it and spike it or send it back over.”
Both freestyle and net require more than just physical talent.
“Strategy in net, patience in freestyle,” says Skyliner Heather Squires-Thomas, the 1994 World Champion women’s team freestylist. “Both require endurance and strength.”
A preschool teacher, Squires-Thomas recently picked up footbag again after an eight-year break in which she had three kids. Now 40, she hopes to make a comeback this summer, but in net.
“In those years, freestyle has taken off into a realm I don’t even recognize,” she says. “It has evolved exponentially in regards to what these guys are doing with the bag. Their adds (tricks) and linkage are just incredible.”
Squires-Thomas likes the near equality footbag allows women.
“I come from a time when women didn’t play sports as much. Now the world’s open to us. With footbag I can be an athlete.”
In the club’s informal “meetings” in Memorial Park, club members quickly divide into two groups. Freestylers congregate at a wooden deck area to work on their moves. There’s no scoring, and the only points are the praise of fellow Skyliners after a good string of kicks.
Others set up a net area near the park driving range and play singles or doubles. Score is kept, but play is more for practice and fun than for competition.
At tournaments both events are highly competitive. Net is scored much like volleyball. Judging for freestyle, as in ice skating, is more subjective and based on 10 criteria, such as originality, difficulty, and presentation.
In competition, practice and often in casual play, freestyle moves are set to music. Performed by a skilled player, the twists, jumps and turns look like a combination of ballet and gymnastics.
“The learning curve is just terrible,” Stokely says of the dedication needed to be good at freestyle. “People who have done it for a year or two are so much better it can be intimidating to the people just coming in.”
Taylor says he practices at least a half hour daily and sometimes for four hours.
“It keeps me doing stuff and not just sitting around watching tv all day,” he says. “It’s kept me in shape.”
“There’s a name for every move,” he says. “Mobius, scorpion’s tail, vortex. A dexterity is every time your leg goes around the bag.”
An index with video of freestyle moves is on the IFPA web site.
Skyliner members often compete as individuals in tournaments around Texas, the United States and the world. The Southern Regional tournament is in May in Dallas. Austin hosts the Texas State tournament in fall. The World Footbag Championship is in Montreal in July.
The Skyliners hosts the Space City Jam 2004 tournament at Westheimer Street Festival, May 1-2. Players from all over Texas and beyond will compete from about noon-7pm both days. Call Stokely at *number omitted* for information.
Tournaments also include competition in the two other footbag disciplines: consecutives and golf. Consecutives is kicking the bag in the air as many times as possible without dropping it, alternating feet. In the 1970’s, consecutives was the major competitive event, but the number of successive kicks became astronomical. The current record on the IFPA web site is 63,326 for singles and a toe-numbing 132,011 for doubles. The latter, by a coed pair, took 20 hours, 34 minutes. These days, consecutive events are usually limited to five minutes and the number of kicks in that time are counted (world record, 1,019).
Footbag golf, which has waned in popularity, is a kick-the-bag-in-the-holes (or baskets) version of conventional golf. It’s fun, but takes lots of space and preparation.
Skyliners meetings are open to anyone, and there are no dues. Club gatherings are usually in Memorial Park near the tennis center on Saturdays. For information, call Michael Stokely at *number omitted*. Or check the Skyliners’ web site at www.footbag.org.
Just remember, no one ever beats the sport’s toughest competitor for long. In the words of footbag creator John Stalberger, “Gravity always wins this game.”
Additional coverage online www.houstonchronicle.com/ features video: Footbag players in action.
Horribly bad news..
As I've mentioned before, Joe Abbott moved to Savannah, Georgia for work. I got one call from him while he was over there, and he seemed to be doing ok.. But lately, I've been very busy, and no one has been able to get a hold of me. I just found out last night that he was hit by a train and killed on Monday. I'm still having trouble accepting it. He was probably my closest friend. I don't have many. Anyway, it's a huge loss for his family and anyone who knew him. Nevermind the fact that he was one of the most hardcore and most skilled members of our club. He was a really cool guy and I learned a lot from him. I can't believe I'll never shred with him or hear his humor again.
I don't want to spread any rumors... But being hit by a train is a terrible way to die. It seems to me that you'd have to be really careless, stupid, and intoxicated. I don't believe Joe was any of the above. An autopsy was performed, and it was discovered that he was lying on the tracks when he was hit. I can think of two explanations: 1) Suicide. Not a chance. 2) Foul play. ... I got all my information from James Leberknight, who has been in contact with Joe's mother Francine. Apparently, he got into a fight with someone prior to Monday, but that's all I know. The authorities are investigating, of course.
He's being cremated in Savannah. The funeral service is on Saturday, but I don't know any of the details yet. I'll find out today. James and I are working on organizing some sort of memorial party on another date. We'll invite all of Joe's friends and celebrate his life. I wish it could have been a lot longer.
As for myself, I've finally gotten a job. I'm working at Fry's Electronics. They're opening up a new store in Webster, and I'm helping to set up and get it ready before it opens. There's a deadline, so everyone is working overtime. I work 7am-12am [17 hours] 7 days a week. And it takes me about 45 minutes just to get there from my house. So I don't have much time to do anything but work and sleep [for like 4.5 hours max at a time]. Today is the only other day besides Thanksgiving that I'll be getting off for the next month, so I gotta figure out something to do besides sleep. I believe I will get shitfaced and toast Joseph Abbott.
They're also working on another one in Stafford / Sugarland / SW Houston. It's 3 minutes from my house. I'll be working there asap.
..Ok, the TX State Championships was cancelled because only 3 people showed up [including Curtis, who drove to Austin from Dickinson by himself] and the club is not very active lately. My feeling is this: If you really want to get serious about shredding, you'll find someone you can kick with. So you can't blame it all on me. But Joe was one of my biggest sources of motivation.. I loved shredding with him.. And I will miss him.
I don't want to spread any rumors... But being hit by a train is a terrible way to die. It seems to me that you'd have to be really careless, stupid, and intoxicated. I don't believe Joe was any of the above. An autopsy was performed, and it was discovered that he was lying on the tracks when he was hit. I can think of two explanations: 1) Suicide. Not a chance. 2) Foul play. ... I got all my information from James Leberknight, who has been in contact with Joe's mother Francine. Apparently, he got into a fight with someone prior to Monday, but that's all I know. The authorities are investigating, of course.
He's being cremated in Savannah. The funeral service is on Saturday, but I don't know any of the details yet. I'll find out today. James and I are working on organizing some sort of memorial party on another date. We'll invite all of Joe's friends and celebrate his life. I wish it could have been a lot longer.
As for myself, I've finally gotten a job. I'm working at Fry's Electronics. They're opening up a new store in Webster, and I'm helping to set up and get it ready before it opens. There's a deadline, so everyone is working overtime. I work 7am-12am [17 hours] 7 days a week. And it takes me about 45 minutes just to get there from my house. So I don't have much time to do anything but work and sleep [for like 4.5 hours max at a time]. Today is the only other day besides Thanksgiving that I'll be getting off for the next month, so I gotta figure out something to do besides sleep. I believe I will get shitfaced and toast Joseph Abbott.
They're also working on another one in Stafford / Sugarland / SW Houston. It's 3 minutes from my house. I'll be working there asap.
..Ok, the TX State Championships was cancelled because only 3 people showed up [including Curtis, who drove to Austin from Dickinson by himself] and the club is not very active lately. My feeling is this: If you really want to get serious about shredding, you'll find someone you can kick with. So you can't blame it all on me. But Joe was one of my biggest sources of motivation.. I loved shredding with him.. And I will miss him.
Texas States was cancelled!?!? 
Man that sucks. I was always under the impression that that was THE main tournament in the South every year. Anyway, cool blog so far. Just wanted to point out that my signature on the program was originally just the Chinese character, and I didn`t write KEN SOMOLINOS in plain letters. I think Michael wrote that. The character means `healthy,` and is pronounced `ken` in Japanese. That`s my given name, since my mother is Japanese.
It sounds like you`re hella busy at work, but when you get a chance I`m sure a lot of us would love to hear some of your stories from Worlds 2004.
Man that sucks. I was always under the impression that that was THE main tournament in the South every year. Anyway, cool blog so far. Just wanted to point out that my signature on the program was originally just the Chinese character, and I didn`t write KEN SOMOLINOS in plain letters. I think Michael wrote that. The character means `healthy,` and is pronounced `ken` in Japanese. That`s my given name, since my mother is Japanese.
It sounds like you`re hella busy at work, but when you get a chance I`m sure a lot of us would love to hear some of your stories from Worlds 2004.
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Just call me hagesy
- Atomsmashasaurus Dex
- Posts: 913
- Joined: 15 Oct 2004 21:43
- Location: Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia
Wow it's been almost 2 years since my last post..
Well I haven't stopped shredding- just stopped blogging. I've been having a lotta fun with footbag lately... And that's what you have to do if you want to keep playing and improve your game..
I just posted in my challenge thread.. Challenge me!
I actually have been blogging a little bit, but in a different forum- Houston's own footbag forums- because I want to encourage the other Houston players to post there. You can check out my other blog here.
We had a random new guy show up at our meeting on Sunday- that was awesome. Curtis, Kristi, and I were shredding at the IceHouse, and I got a call from this guy who said his name was Max and he was in the area, so I told him to come meet us. He found me on footbag.org. He had toe stalls and inside stalls, and that was about it, but I was happy to meet him. He's actually from the Woodlands, so maybe he and Kristi will meet up to kick..
Recent highlights:
I hit ducking butterfly > ducking pdx mirage > repeat yesterday
Finally hit osis > whirl > rpt [easy cheezy- I know]
paradon > voodoo
Curtis and I had a badass session on Sunday.. He hit some monster combos, and a super-clean ripstein. I busted some long, phat, guiltless runs that I was really happy with. Didn't hit any new moves, but that's ok. I don't attempt big moves very much anymore, like I used to.
Well I haven't stopped shredding- just stopped blogging. I've been having a lotta fun with footbag lately... And that's what you have to do if you want to keep playing and improve your game..
I just posted in my challenge thread.. Challenge me!
I actually have been blogging a little bit, but in a different forum- Houston's own footbag forums- because I want to encourage the other Houston players to post there. You can check out my other blog here.
We had a random new guy show up at our meeting on Sunday- that was awesome. Curtis, Kristi, and I were shredding at the IceHouse, and I got a call from this guy who said his name was Max and he was in the area, so I told him to come meet us. He found me on footbag.org. He had toe stalls and inside stalls, and that was about it, but I was happy to meet him. He's actually from the Woodlands, so maybe he and Kristi will meet up to kick..
Recent highlights:
I hit ducking butterfly > ducking pdx mirage > repeat yesterday
Finally hit osis > whirl > rpt [easy cheezy- I know]
paradon > voodoo
Curtis and I had a badass session on Sunday.. He hit some monster combos, and a super-clean ripstein. I busted some long, phat, guiltless runs that I was really happy with. Didn't hit any new moves, but that's ok. I don't attempt big moves very much anymore, like I used to.