Circle Lock

professor · Post by **professor** » 09 Jul 2005 15:19

Our club was introduced to this concept a few weeks ago. We were told that it was a regular practice at tournaments and footbag events. What is it you ask. Basically a circle lock is when a circle is closed off to anyone else who wants to join.

For example, if someone steps into an open space in a circle, someone will say something like, "Sorry this circle is locked, you can't join." Or, someone will say out loud, "I'm declaring a circle lock on this circle!"

I feel this is an extremely unfair, dare I say, un-footbag concept. I thought the essence of footbag was to bring people together, not "lock" them out.

But, putting my feelings aside, I would just like to know if this is a regular thing that is done and how many people have actually heard of this. 99% of the people in our club had no idea what this was, including me. Also, I've never seen it discussed on this forum, so I want to see how well known it is.

Nathan · Post by **Nathan** » 09 Jul 2005 15:33

In all of the THREE tournaments I've been to, this has never happened. Whenever a 6th or 7th person joined a circle, someone would say politely, "why don't we split up into two circles", and it was never a problem.

A circle lock sounds like a rather strange concept.

Zeke · Post by **Zeke** » 09 Jul 2005 15:48

We used to do it as a joke back in highschool (90-94), just to see the shocked look on the person's face. Then we'd tell them that we were just messin around and let them play. I don't think I've never actualy experienced it for real in my years of playing footbag. I have also never heard from anyone else that's come from an event where they have been locked out.

Sounds like some asshole elitist hacker thing to say IMHO.

EDIT:
One time, several years ago I asked to step into a 2 man hack 'circle' and one of them asked me in this reall cocky tone of voice, "Are you any good?" My god, you should have seen the smile on my face as I left them after only 6 guiltless moves and their jaws scraping along the grass

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 09 Jul 2005 15:50

yeah, thats ridiculous. the only time that would be appropriate is when you only have one bag. but oh wait, its not even appropriate then. footbag really IS about accepting people in...its assumed that if you are kicking in public, people are welcome to hop in. i have never refused anyone access to a circle i have been in, even when there are already too many people. its the whole open community spirit of the game.

stva · Post by **stva** » 09 Jul 2005 15:59

So I am hearing that this never happens? WTF Bum!!!

professor · Post by **professor** » 09 Jul 2005 16:03

Zeke wrote:One time, several years ago I asked to step into a 2 man hack 'circle' and one of them asked me in this reall cocky tone of voice, "Are you any good?" My god, you should have seen the smile on my face as I left them after only 6 guiltless moves and their jaws scraping along the grass

Dude, you lived my dream.

HG · Post by HG » 09 Jul 2005 16:09

haha this is the most ridiculous concept! Wow. If anyone ever does that they are getting a swift toot to the besticles

BalinorNZ · Post by **BalinorNZ** » 09 Jul 2005 16:23

HenryG wrote:haha this is the most ridiculous concept! Wow. If anyone ever does that they are getting a swift toot to the besticles

Hehehe besticles.

Yeah I second that.

Badnfluenc · Post by **Badnfluenc** » 09 Jul 2005 16:35

yea, he circle locked me, kicked me out then locked it

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 09 Jul 2005 17:03

professor wrote:
Zeke wrote:One time, several years ago I asked to step into a 2 man hack 'circle' and one of them asked me in this reall cocky tone of voice, "Are you any good?" My god, you should have seen the smile on my face as I left them after only 6 guiltless moves and their jaws scraping along the grass

Dude, you lived my dream.

oh man, i LOVE when this happens. i wander around college campuses in boston just looking for circles (no offense, first of all there are just a lot of people that hacky slack in colleges, but a disproporionate amount of them are ridiculously cocky because they can do a pendulum, so a skinny little mohawked high school senior is the type of individual they love to scoff) to jump into

Sporatical_Distractions · Post by **Sporatical_Distractions** » 09 Jul 2005 17:07

i've only been to a few tourneys (montana jam 1, sjff04, css6, montana jam 2) but i'd never experienced circle lock before. It's an understandable concept but it's a terrible way to present it. i've just seen circles break into smaller circles.

northwest fes is soon to be added to that list

BalinorNZ · Post by **BalinorNZ** » 09 Jul 2005 17:10

Badnfluenc wrote:yea, he circle locked me, kicked me out then locked it

You tell Loren he has an apointment with Henry to have his Besticles tooted!

Outsider · Post by **Outsider** » 09 Jul 2005 17:15

Actually, this sounds pretty familiar to me, though I've never heard that particular phrase "circle lock" or of anyone declaring outloud that a circle is locked. What I mean is that, at a tournament, any serious circle (not necessarily to be judged by how good the players in the circle are, but rather, how intent they are on shredding hard) would generally politely discourage a person from joining the circle if that new person would bring the total number of kickers to 6 people. Well, that number could vary. Sometimes four is the max, sometimes five. The basic idea is that too many people is undesirable in a circle intent on serious shred, and thus any kicker in the know simply wouldn't try to join a circle that already looked to have a maximum number of people (usually 5, sometime 4). If the kicker was not "in the know", they would be politely informed "sorry, six (or five) is too big, find another circle."

I'd say that a given group of people who really want to shred together (say, some friends who live in different parts of the world, don't get to kick together often, or, for instance, a group of people who have met and talked on some online footbag forum for years but have never gotten to play together at all until now...) are not under any obligation to split apart into smaller groups on behalf of anybody, unless there simply is no other choice. At most modest-to-large sized tournaments, there is almost always some other choice for that odd man out.

Actually, it never hurts to ask. Lots of times a given circle won't really care if it has six or seven people in it because they're not intent on serious shred. Maybe they've already been playing all day long and are tired, or maybe its a circle more intent on trading some tips, teaching some newbies, or just joking around some. If its a already a large circle that I'm looking to join I'll usually ask "would you guys MIND another person?"

professor · Post by **professor** » 09 Jul 2005 17:23

What if the lock was based upon ability?

Outsider · Post by **Outsider** » 09 Jul 2005 17:37

Yeah, okay, its been know to happen. There have been all-BAP circles. Newbie participation in a circle with, say, Vasek, Sunil, Honza, and Pete would sometimes be discouraged by somebody. I've seen, sometimes, a group of top players at a tournament actually try to go somewhere private for a jam. Look, its not such a horrible thing. Put yourself in those shoes: you want to have a really good shred with some other serious kickers, where some serious high energy is built up and shared by riffing off one-another's smoking hot strings. There are other circles nearby with less-able players, or people kicking more casually at that given time. Now, given that scenario, is it really ALWAYS necessary to let some uncoordinated eight year old participate in your circle? Wouldn't you consider saying "hey, kid, why don't you go over and kick with those other people, they'd be happy to teach you how to do a toe stall."
Me, I've got no problem doing that. On the other hand, I've sometimes been the guy who says "hey kid, why don't we go over there, just us, and I'll kick with you, and we'll let these guys have their fun uninterupted," you know, take one for the team. Its not such a big deal.

Zeke · Post by **Zeke** » 09 Jul 2005 17:53

Outsider wrote:Actually, this sounds pretty familiar to me, though I've never heard that particular phrase "circle lock" or of anyone declaring outloud that a circle is locked

Now that you mention it... I kinda know what your talkin about. It's like an unwritten/unspoken/unofficial rule (for lack of a better word). I was under the impression that they had run into some hack-nazi's. So who exactly did you guys hear this from, then?

professor · Post by **professor** » 09 Jul 2005 18:02

1. There were no other circles to my knowledge.
2. There was no uncoordinated 8 year old.
3. This wasn't a tournament, it was a club meeting.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 09 Jul 2005 18:07

I think I remember that they do the same thing at the Berlin Footbag Club. I think it depends on the situation as Jon said. When you already have a circle of 4 or 5 players and there are enough players around to start their own circle - they should do that, in fact I'd expect them to that without even trying to join the circle currently going on. You see a circle of 4 or 5 players and you look around to see who else wants to play. If I saw a circle with 5 players in it, I'd tend to go and drill or something by myself rather than joining (unless it was a more social circle) just because I think 6 is too many to have in a circle.

I don't think it matters too much about ability but rather who is in the circle first.

professor · Post by **professor** » 09 Jul 2005 18:23

I don't know, it seems footbag has a lot of hidden rules that nobody really talks about.

Zeke · Post by **Zeke** » 09 Jul 2005 19:19

To a certain extent I agree. But at the same time it's hard for me to call them rules since everyone has their own interpretation of pretty much everything (even the 'free' in freestyle). Maybe guidelines would be a better term. Someone brought up the point years ago that when you explain the rules of a sport to people, you hardly ever have them ask why the rules are the way they are, more often then not they are just accepted and the sport is played. Then we have footbag. Self-serves anyone? I guess it's cool that our sport is still so young that we really do have an opportunity to help it's development. What other sports can you say that about?

But what do I know... I'm just a hacker.

modified

Circle Lock

Have you heard of a circle lock before?

Circle Lock