Footbag origins

[Jeremy]

Ok I'm not really talking about origins as such - but games from other cultures that closely resemble footbag. Can people list talk about any?

I've heard of a few:

Obviously Sepak Takaw from South Asia - players kick around a cane ball over a net - like net footbag.

one I just found out about today is kenmari from Japan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemari?
which apparantly is exactly the same as circle kicking - players just kick a ball around and try to cooperatively keep it "off of the ground" (sorry random buda's best quote). I'd be really interested in knowing if anybody knows more about this sport - have seen it played etc?

I've also been told by random strangers while playing footbag in public that the game originates from South America, Egypt or from the Australian Aboriginals so perhaps they have similar sports?

The basic concept of keeping something off the ground with your feet is an easy sport/past time to come up with I think - so it wouldn't be surprising if it existed in most cultures. I think I remember something about the Aztecs having a similar game maybe?

I don't know but I think it would be an interesting topic to look into.

[Tsiangkun]

I could swear there was some "asian" group of kids playing a competitive game where the person who kicks the ball to the ground gets a point. The other players cooperatively try to keep the ball off the ground to prevent to other player from scoring points.

[Jeremy]

A link to some short details about some various asian "footbag like" games:

http://www.footystamps.com/orig_asia.htm

Tsu Chu sounds cool - I like the penalty for losing

[Leland]

here is the web site http://www.ballgame.org

same rules really keep the ball of the ground.

If you want to know more i have the book that you can get from the website its even better. If you find any older games let me know please.

[Muffinman]

My dad played Yin Tze(?) ("shuttlecock") when he was growing up in Hong Kong. It's like a heavy badminton birdy, kind of. It's, like, 300 layers of a footbag-sized circle cut out of newspaper, with, like, 5-7 feathers sticking out of the middle. I think you can buy them in plastic or leather.

[sampotter]

An actual -origin- of footbag is freestyle frisbee. Back in the day Kenny took a lot of inspiration from that sport in the creation of footbag as we know it. Osis is directly from freestyle frisbee, afaik. Can anyone expound on this relationship? I know the sports used to be pretty close together.

[footbinc]

Foot Birdie is now also quite big in Eastern Europe, apparently Hungary breeds some really good players, same with Finland. i saw some video of it and its pretty bad ass. as I understand it, Foot Birdie in a circle was played as far back as 500 AD and possibly earlier in China, but it could all be hearsay.

Ben

[ninja]

My dad played Yin Tze(?) ("shuttlecock") when he was growing up in Hong Kong. It's like a heavy badminton birdy, kind of. It's, like, 300 layers of a footbag-sized circle cut out of newspaper, with, like, 5-7 feathers sticking out of the middle. I think you can buy them in plastic or leather.

I have a couple of those newspaper ones my mum got from Hong Kong but they only have 2 or 3 feathers stuck in it. I played with a plastic one some guy had in high school. Its more kickable and moves smoother in the air.

[limester816]

My dad played Yin Tze(?) ("shuttlecock") when he was growing up in Hong Kong. It's like a heavy badminton birdy, kind of. It's, like, 300 layers of a footbag-sized circle cut out of newspaper, with, like, 5-7 feathers sticking out of the middle. I think you can buy them in plastic or leather.

Yeah, both my mom and dad (from the Phillipines, and China, respectively) played that... which makes me believe that it has been around for ages, because my grandparents tell me they played it too.

[LittleBoy footbag]

similar to that. my folks are filipino as well and they played something like that. however we called it "sipa" and it has just a simple bottlecap and plastic streamers that are no loonger than 2 inches and very very thin.

takraw i've also had the pleasure of kicking. i seemed to love kicking that thing. of course, i got to kicking it way before i knew anything about footbag.

[Splint]

You know, I've played Shuttlecock and it's freakin' hard. I played a circle game with some kids on campus and I thought my footbag skills would help. They didn't really do that much for me.