my walls revelation

david · Post by **david** » 26 Jul 2005 09:24

hi,

i know this should be in bags and equiptment, but i never check that part of the site and feel that this is perhaps more important then just a little mod.

as you all probably know, the idea of cutting off your toe box walls is now gaining huge popularity. tons of people do it. and forpeople who play in shoes that never had walls like climas, this topic relates as well.

you see, i first cut off my walls when matt cross came to my town to shred. i was snagging pixies left and right. he said i should just cut them off. so i did. for about 6 months now i have been playing in lavers with no walls on, and i can pixie shuffle for as long as i want without even trying. there are tons of other people who have the same thing. jorden, mosher, cross, they all cut off their walls or switched to shoes with none.

this leads me to my current dilema. i got a new pair of lavers about a month ago. out of the box and modded, i kept the walls on becuase i thought that maybe it would only take a little bit of time to get used to walls again. one month later im still snagging, and stupid shit like 10 pixie legovers is hard. and ive been skooling this hard, trying to get good pixie form. i think this alone shows that cutting off your walls is extremley detrimental to your ability to play with them.

but when i think about it, who cares? whats so bad about having no walls and making footbag easier? well first off, some people who cut their walls off have pixies that look like garbage. look at nick laroche (an advocate for walls and pixie form), his pixies are beautiful. he makes smear look like a whirlwind. but the many people who just slop off these sets (and i am probably one of them) just arent justifying the "walls slow me down" mentality.

so now i am faced with a dilema. i am not kidding when i say that my janiwalker is just as consistant as my parkwalk. should i cut them off and return to my happy days of endless shuffle, and therefore being able to skool other stuff. or should i keep skooling for a month just to get my pixies up to the level where my other game elements are. i feel so stupid writing this, but its actually bugging me.

for people reading this that have done the mod, and think "dave, your just an exception, if i got walls i could do it fine", your lying to yourself, becuase i thought the same thing. i thought just lifting my knee a little bit more would easily solve my problem. but there are countless players that would not be anywhere near as good at pixies if someone made them play with walls.

perhaps my issue is blown out of proportion, but this is actually is a big deal. how about in shred 30 contests, where a second can make you 1st or 2nd. if someone is throwing off pixie insanley fast becuase they dont have to worry about form, i would feel slightly gipped. a botched pixie set can lead to 1 drop instead of dropless.

i would really like to hear anyones views on this matter, and advice on whether i should cut them off or not.

-david clavens

bigdirtyfoot · Post by **bigdirtyfoot** » 26 Jul 2005 09:33

I feel like since we don't have an official shred shoe yet, the idea is to emulate (to the best of our ability) a shoe that would be ideal for shred. Obviously, many players feel like walls are not good for toe shuffle, etc. I don't see a problem with cutting off walls.

However I'm looking forward to this thread and I may change my mind, who knows?!

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 26 Jul 2005 09:41

My brother has lavers with the walls on, I have lavers with the walls off. I occasionally wear his shoes (for the fun) and find that I can pretty much hit the same things - although I do occasionally get stuck on the walls so I guess it makes a small difference.

I actually cut off the walls on my latest pair of shoes not because of the walls but because I wanted to lace my shoes in the normal shoe lacing manner rather than in the hold the laces up manner. I tried playing with the walls on but normal lacing but because I had cut the stitching on the bottoms of the walls so they raised up they flopped around and were annoying. I didn't want to lace down to the bottoms because it looked like it may reduce my toe box or something. I don't know. It was like 8 or 9 months ago now and I'm sure there was a reason why that wouldn't have been ideal. I think I may well not mod my next pair of lavers at all - but we'll have to see how that goes. Actually I'll almost definitly cut out the inside canvas because I want to be able to feel the bag better and have my shoes be able to "breathe" more.

I really think you should do whatever you want from your shoes. I can only assume that people who think it is "cheating" to cut the walls off have done no mods to their shoes at all. I think somebody once said that pixie sets in shoes with the walls cut off aren't clean. Well I've watched videos of myself hitting some hard pixie moves like pixie atomic symposium illusion and the pixie set has always looked clean to me.

I say do the mod if you want for sure - I have absolutely no problem with modding your shoes. It's just like playing football in football boots except in footbag we have no big shoe companies to spend thousands of dollars developing a shoe specifically for footbag so we have to do the development ourselves. Imagine tomorrow Nike releases a shoe made for freestyle footbag and it's basically identical to a pair of lavers with the walls cut off and the inside canvas cut out - except because it's made that way there is no cut edges. How many people would complain about that and say that wearing those shoes is "cheating" or that sets in those shoes were "unclean"? Nobody would apart from the smart arses who would have read this very post and would be trying to make a stupid joke.

nastynate · Post by **nastynate** » 26 Jul 2005 09:55

I thought haveing a cup on your foot was cheating, but now not having a cup is cheating????? weird!
I use a clipper rail because it makes my game easier and more fun. Are my osis someitmes sloppy, yeah, but that don't bother me or my homies.
If you want to chalange yourself with keeping walls great, if you want to chalange youreslf by shredding with a net bag great, if you want to challenge yourself by wearing pants great. Mods, soft bags and short shorts are just more enjoyable for me.
As far as competion goes I say do whatever you can to try to be even close to the golden child.
-linscott

Colin · Post by **Colin** » 26 Jul 2005 10:00

The dilemma is about how deep your pixies are? Check some video of your walless self, and go through it frame by frame. If you're unhappy with how your pixies look, work on them. If you're happy with how they look, chop up your shoes and continue being happy.

Do you do fairy sets? Is there a similar problem there?

sampotter · Post by **sampotter** » 26 Jul 2005 10:01

I think pixie is really only one part of the issue. Walls are the best for pixies, imo, because they force you to make a minor change for cleaner, easier, and more efficient pixies. You may drop a bit more often, but I find ducking pixies a lot easier and more ergonomic when you're forced to set through your knee instead of being able to slur and dex leggy. However, what about other moves like rakes and symposium mirages and moves ending in symple legover? These are a lot easier in shoes with the walls still on. DLOs are hard in ClimaCools, so are rakes, which is because they don't have a defined toe box due to their lack of walls. This can lead to bad form. At any rate, I'd say do what you think is most important for your game. Do you want to be clean or consistent? What's the inherent correlation between the two?

jon · Post by **jon** » 26 Jul 2005 10:16

Just gonna repeat what has already been said and say whatever you feel is warrented is fair game. Freestyle is too new to have rules like this imposed on it. Without a real footbag shoe or the ifpa stating what is good and what is not I think anything is fair game. That being said I think I will try taking the toe box off my next pair of lavers, and with that being said I still am not a fan of adding anything to a shoe to make it better for footbag, imho taking stuff away is fine however.

Tsiangkun · Post by **Tsiangkun** » 26 Jul 2005 10:23

keep the dexes clean on the tricks, and it doesn't matter at all.

If the sets become cheap ass, pathetic, toe reflexes instead of knee lifting legitimate dexes, then it still doesn't matter.

Style is a choice, just don't expect people to blow sunshine up your ass if the sets are crap and you are hitting huge tricks with crappy sets.

Yeah. The main thing is to keep your tricks clean.

CIC flurry · Post by **CIC flurry** » 26 Jul 2005 13:16

Tsiangkun wrote:...don't expect people to blow sunshine up your ass if the sets are crap and you are hitting huge tricks with crappy sets..

Word

SandWraith · Post by **SandWraith** » 26 Jul 2005 13:17

"JUST FOLLOW YOUR HEART. THAT'S WHAT I DO"
-Napoleon Dynamite

But seriously, do what makes you happy (and doesn't 'the' your tricks

)

Laroche · Post by **Laroche** » 26 Jul 2005 13:46

Well, you already know my opinion, so I wont re-iterate. I WILL say, however, that your pixies looked fine on the video you posted recently, so its really up to you.

For those struggling to pixie with walls, the trick in doing pixie sets with walls is simple: point your toes down. Really, thats it. Once you lift your leg and point your toes down, it accomplishes 2 things:

1) Your foot is no longer in the way, and the bag leaves your foot, so the walls wont snag

2) It is GUARANTEED to be clean, because it passes around your upper-calf

Oh and thanks for the pixie props

!

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 26 Jul 2005 15:07

I never cut the walls on mine, but my shoes are really old and the walls have been permanently pulled back from how tight I tie my laces. So I didn't cut the walls, but my shoe looks and acts like I did.
I remember playing in other peoples' newer Lavers, where the walls were intact, and I had trouble with my pixies. I snagged, but once I got the hang of it they would only occationally snag. I'm pretty sure my good side pixie set is clean (I know my flip isnt, but I know why) with or without walls.

If you're asking this because of what others will think, my advice is that you play in whatever way is most fun for yourself. The'd moves can be styley. Why not? Who cares. Have fun.

SlashC · Post by **SlashC** » 26 Jul 2005 16:53

I play with walls and do lots of pixies. I learned to pixie sockfoot. I don't remember having any problems with sidewalls when I switched to shoes (leather)... It was more an issue of being able to feel the bag and knowing when to release it from my foot.

I think I can still slur the pixies even with sidewalls.

I recently started playing in a new pair of lavers laced differently and found that they snagged quite a bit. I changed to my original lacing style (on blue mesh) and now they work great. Lacing can actually greatly effect how much the pixies will snag. Some smaller 32's and sandbags tend to flop into the sidewalls and get stuck. I find that my lacing technique greatly reduces this problem.

I haven't cut off my sidewalls because I don't like the way they look w/o them and for me I'de find it sort of like cheating. I don't see it as cheating when other people do it though, but I've always been more critical of my own game...

footjoe · Post by **footjoe** » 26 Jul 2005 17:52

yeah , ive sene rory bust out that pixie shuffle like no tomarrow in the good ole sidewalls , he knows what hes talking about

my views on this are , I cut off 3 eyelets after seeing jordens and was like oh sweet , I had previesly only cut off 1 but I like it better with th eohter 2 off also , I tried walls with the g-units I got and still could pixie you just gotta concentrate on setting it first then dexing but without sidewalls its more like a one fluid motion thing , I dotn like sidewalls and never will they get in the way and make me cook popcorn without asking so my 1 2 on this is do what you like if it makes you happy

HG · Post by HG » 26 Jul 2005 18:09

listen to joe.

he's the man

HooD · Post by **HooD** » 26 Jul 2005 19:04

I've cut up lots of lavers, and I like the wall for anything landing in toe, but I had problems with set consistency. I also found myself relying too much on those walls so I wouldn't have to control the stalls as much. I've cut the walls off in different ways, but it took out some control out of some moves. Since I've done the tubing mod, I won't go back. It's a perfect smooth medium between the two if you do it right. I'm not preachin onto you, but if you don't like the walls cause they're too big, or the no walls, because of lack of control on some moves, the tubing mod plays a nice middle. You can always try it on some old lavers *shrug*

edit : I voted cut.

modified

my walls revelation

cut em?

my walls revelation