The Footbag Shoe

Brandon1337 · Post by **Brandon1337** » 12 Oct 2005 02:04

I know this is prob aly not possible but i think it would be soo cool tohave like a kicking/stall/any time a bag hit your foot thing, where it coulld count

Wasabi · Post by **Wasabi** » 12 Oct 2005 10:03

Much props to you Tom! I really hope to see your most perfect design on a footbag shoe will become, and what Athletic Shoe Company it will come out of.

Good luck.

BalinorNZ · Post by **BalinorNZ** » 17 Oct 2005 16:18

Hey mosh,

Just incase u havent seen it, you might see something interesting in here, just thought I would post it, because it relates to the topic

...

Courtesy of Jon Shindler

Outsider wrote:I think that the question being asked really is "what kinds of qualities of a shoe make it good for freestyle?"

I play in Rod Lavers. I have never used Climacools or CTs. I am not going to try to compare these shoes to one-another here, just to describe the qualities that I think generally make a shoe good for freestyle, so you know what NOT to get to play in.

One things you want in a good freestyle shoe are relatively flat surfaces, especially on the toe and instep (though I also insist on nice flat outsides too ). Some more modern athletic shoes have very rounded surfaces. That just makes it much harder to catch stuff on your feet. A special little feature of some shoes, like the Lavers, is what we call a "Toe-box"; the re-enforced part of the top of the shoe which contains the eyelets (the holes that your laces are threaded through) extend down towards the toe on either side of the flat toe area. These strips of material are sewn down to the material, but we cut these threads and laces the shoes in such a way that these strips are pulled upwards, making little walls on either side of the toe. These walls make toe-stalls (and any moves that end with a toe stall) much easier early on when you haven't yet been doing them for years. Lots of early basic moves to learn involve a toe stall, and those little walls make learning these tricks much easier. Many shredders cut these walls off now, since they feel that they get in the way of some more advanced tricks, like pixie sets, where you must flick the footbag off your toe quickly while your foot starts to move sideways to circle bag. The walls can make the bag stick to your toe when you don't want it to.

Many shoes have an instep that sort of cuts away under the arch of your foot. This is generally very undesireable in a freestyle shoe. You want a nice even surface to catch the bag with on that instep, since so many moves start or finish (or both) there. For sports like running or basketball, you don't really need alot of sole underneath the arch of your foot, and it makes sense that they don't bother putting alot of unnecessary extra rubber there. Footbag is different.

A lightweight shoe is pretty essential. We have to move our feet quickly in many directions to circle around a little bag while it travels through the air. Extra weight is bad. Also, we have to be able to feel the bag on our foot with a high degree of sensitivity, so extra padding of the shoe's upper (upper = basically, all the material of the shoe other than the sole) is counter-productive. Take a skateboarding shoe, for example: they often have a very good shape for freestyle footbag (nice flat sides), but they have alot of extra padding to protect the feet, and simply because manipulating a skateboard with your feet tends to tear up the shoes. Thus, you'd have decreased sensitivity to feeling the bag on your foot, and all that extra padding makes those kinds of shoes pretty heavy too.

One other quality that I can think of right now is support. When people say support, I generally just think of this as cushioning between your feet and the ground. Sometimes when people talk about "support" they mean a shoe that would keep your ankle from twisting too much, protecting your from spraining it (like a hiking boot). But we need to be able to flex our ankles around alot for footbag, so thats not the kind of support we mean. We stomp around on our feet alot, jumping up and down and such. Thin, non-squishy soles can leave your feet hurting very badly. Lavers have plenty of cushioning for me, being a bit below average height and weight for American men. Some bigger guys complain that Lavers don't have enough support. I think they mean that they don't have enough cushioning in the soles. I'm not certain. Anyway, when the soles of my shoes start to get worn down, I replace them because otherwise I suffer extra irritation to my feet that I just don't need. I go through about two pairs of Lavers a year. Some go through shoes much faster, some players don't seem to wear down the soles of their Lavers at all. It depends on how they play, and I can't really tell you exactly what people do that makes shoes wear down or not.

Converse All-Stars (Chuck Taylors?) seem to have some good qualities for freestyle, but like the skateboarding shoes they have some fatal flaws. They have pretty flat surfaces, they aren't too heavy, and they have relatively thin material for sensitivity. They even have a potential toe-box. But they have VERY poor cushioning. This is a problem in another way too. The soles of those shoes are so thin that they greatly reduce the amount of usable footbag-catching surface on the instep. Lavers have a more substantial sole, and that sole provides just about the right amount of flattened area on the instep to do alot of the work of catching or kicking the bag (though I don't really catch the bag entirely on the sole, without it that bag would roll off my foot ALOT).

One last thing, related to the padded uppers, is that a non-bulky shoe is very desireable. Alot of freestyle involves circling your legs and feet around the bag while its in the air. Shoes that are wider than necessary could simply give you less available space to do all those bag-circling manuevers. You can just think of this as being related to pants. You don't see many good footbag players playing in long baggy pants, because those things would simply get in the way of circling your legs around the bag. They would cut down on the available space between your legs for the bag to move through. Same thing with bulky shoes. A sleeker profile means that you're less likely to hit the bag with your shoe when you don't want to.

I'd say that covers most of the qualities that make a shoe good or bad for freestyle. If anybody wants to add anything or correct me, please go right ahead.

HG · Post by HG » 18 Oct 2005 11:47

its jon schneider

mahhkohh · Post by **mahhkohh** » 20 Oct 2005 13:28

who else but tom mosher could possibly realy start a thing like that!when u ever finish the prototype,please post it...cause if the shoe will not get produced by the big athletic shoe company then i would like to see how the perfect shoe looks like before i slip back into my climas!!!

i wish u all the best for this project,i´m sure u will make the best out of it!!!

go mosher,put your name in the history books!

Chema · Post by **Chema** » 29 Oct 2005 22:14

Hey, Tom, how's the shoe going? Do you have any renderings of concepts yet?

Keep at it,
Chema

DoctorJay · Post by **DoctorJay** » 29 Oct 2005 23:56

I make you a special footbag shoe -

ahhh that statement is obviously ridiculous if someone tell me stuff llike that .

Otherwise Tom , you are one of those ( wondering and counting ) five persons in the world I wouldn't put it past him to get [ it is a phrase so I guess you'll have to look it up , all you non native speakers] the shoe project working .

I hope this thing won't be the first thing where you fail - Good luck !

Jorden · Post by **Jorden** » 30 Oct 2005 10:27

Hey Tom,

One thing you might not have thought of -- how 'bout a heel box?

Or crazier yet, an ankle box??!!

mosher · Post by **mosher** » 30 Oct 2005 10:45

Jorden wrote:Hey Tom,

One thing you might not have thought of -- how 'bout a heel box?
Or crazier yet, an ankle box??!!

Oh, it's already been thought up.

Heh, Ianek had lavers with a heel box at KICKASS.

akalazou · Post by **akalazou** » 30 Oct 2005 14:02

gl with your shoe Tom

personnally, id put soft sole (to prevent some shin splits) and the old school look (like lavers)

im sure that everybody would like to see the design when it will be done, this shoe will probably the best footbag shoe ever, the entire world will thank you for that.

cant wait to see it

footjoe · Post by **footjoe** » 30 Oct 2005 14:44

hes already been through that stuff man , hes gonna make his own shoe!!!!! not some copy of another shoe , I would want my moshers looking totally different so I can stand out

akalazou · Post by **akalazou** » 30 Oct 2005 15:18

i meant that i dont want to see the same look as lavers .. just to keep the old school style

sniikeri · Post by **sniikeri** » 31 Oct 2005 03:09

I'm sure that Tom will get pissed when he reads it.

He has said like 1000000002131 times that he has thought everything.

Skippy! · Post by **Skippy!** » 31 Oct 2005 05:27

As soon as I get my moshers, I'm modding them.

Chema · Post by **Chema** » 31 Oct 2005 06:16

You guys Tom's gonna make a shoe that looks like nothing we've ever seen before, he's not gonna copy the style of some existing shoe. This shoe is gonna be 100% Footbag designed, if you want the look of lavers go buy lavers.

mc · Post by mc » 31 Oct 2005 06:27

sniikeri wrote:I'm sure that Tom will get pissed when he reads it. He has said like 1000000002131 times that he has thought everything.

oh yeah?

will the moshers have a SOLE BOX?!?!?!
what about a tongue box?

yesterday at a session, a newb came by, and tried to whip out an inside stall in some skate shoes, and did this awesome bag snag with his shoelace, like when someone whips the string between their sticks at a diabolo and catches it out of the air.

So, how about high performance shred laces for ill bag snag tricks? possibly with some kind of weight system, or possibly a little box or cup of it's own...

WHAT ABOUT THE PUMP?! WHO REMEMBERS THE PUMP? Moshers need a pump for ultimate performance. and light up heels when your shoes hit the ground.

and midi sound effects that you can plug different cards into for different sounds.

oooh! today I'll use my squish card! tomorrow, I'll use my smash card, or maybe my explosion card!

I'm going to get a custom fart card for my moshers (or is it "Choice Kicks"?). That would make shred awesome. or maybe a random animal noise card.

sniikeri · Post by **sniikeri** » 31 Oct 2005 08:04

I'd like to have an ass-box for my pair please, do I have to buy it as an accessory?

Skippy! · Post by **Skippy!** » 31 Oct 2005 08:52

Matt Cross made my day.

akalazou · Post by **akalazou** » 31 Oct 2005 09:40

Matt Cross wrote:
sniikeri wrote:I'm sure that Tom will get pissed when he reads it. He has said like 1000000002131 times that he has thought everything.
and light up heels when your shoes hit the ground.

agreed, but with changeable led, that way we will be able to customize the color patern

Wasabi · Post by **Wasabi** » 01 Nov 2005 02:28

Skippy! wrote:Matt Cross made my day.

Agreed Skippy.

modified

The Footbag Shoe

YEAH