Origin of footbag nomenclature

[Wim]

Man, I love how it always looks like Eric will drop but you know he won't. "Reeeeeeaaach!"

My first major footbag mentor happens to be Sean Wingert. I met him when we were both studying in Brussels a few years back. We kicked regularly for about 1.5 years.

Aaaanyway, why I'm telling you this is because my meeting him so soon in my footbag career biased me initially as far as my perception of the sport is concerned. I learned only later, when I started attending tournies etc., that his style, trick choice and approach of footbag in general are quite unique nowadays, like remnants of a previous generation of players, the one that matured in the 90s.

It's totally weird, it's as if I were nostalgic of a period I didn't even make part of.

[The Actual Sized E]

Later on, it became well known that James meant to call the trick "geisha" but didn't know how to spell it (or use a dictionary or spell check). Instead we were stuck with "geesha", a nonsense name that just plain sounds stupid no matter how you say it. A name which I vote to keep for historical and comedic reasons.

This was a long time ago, so it's a little fuzzy, but from what I can remember there was a chick who lived in the same city as James (East Moline i think....) that everyone called "Geesha." I remember him acting like he didn't really know her that well, which made it extra strange that he would name a freestyle tick after her . I didn't know it was actually supposed to be geisha though. None of his names really stuck. I doubt he was the first to hit it, but he also named PS Egg "Whisk" back in 2001 i think, but it never caught on.

Speaking of names that never caught on, the best one ever imo was dubbed by our very own resident historian Matt Kain: Peanut Butter Panic for PS Torque

[Outsider]

By the way, if you have any great stories about move inventions or name origins (which I'm sure you do), please post them. Heck, I'd even be happy with mediocre stories.

Okay, mediocre stories… well, you asked for ‘em, Matt, so gather round children, its story time.

At Worlds 2000 in Vancouver we were having the freestyle players meeting in a restaurant, handing out judging assignments and breaking up into little classes to instruct judges in the formula-based freestyle judging system. The Formula-Based Judging System was complicated and required a lot of people to take part in it, so basically almost all of the freestyle competitors at Worlds were required to spend a turn or two as part of the judging team, and those people actually running the freestyle portion of Worlds and organizing the judging would do this, run a little class, to make sure that newer competitors understood how the judging worked and ran so that they new what the hell they were supposed to be doing when they sat down at the judging table. I had gotten a copy of the official IFAB (International Footbag Advisory Board, I think, what is now called the IFPA) Rules of Footbag Sports in the players’ pack at Worlds ’97 in Portland, and I already knew the wording of the formula-based judging rules backwards and forwards, but I had only competed a few times since then, so I listened closely in these classes, trying to glean a little more practical knowledge from the guys teaching the class, guys with much more experience than I. I don’t mean I was looking for helpful tips to judge better, I mean, I was trying to learn more about actually competing. Guys like Eric Wulff were the ones who lead these little classes, and I figured they had both entered more competitions and watched more routines than I had, and I was kind of trying to pick their brains about what made a good freestyle routine. I’m still a lousy competitor, so far as giving an actual performance is concerned, but I did learn a lot by listening to them. Anyway, after listening to one little lecture about the “Performanceâ€

[mattkain]

This was a long time ago, so it's a little fuzzy, but from what I can remember there was a chick who lived in the same city as James (East Moline i think....) that everyone called "Geesha."

Ha. That's great. It doesn't surprise me that he'd have two stories. It is Risden we're talking about. Anyway, I asked him about it once, and he at least told me that it was just a typo and that he did mean for the name to be "geisha." Then again, he did seem a little foggy at the time… Who knows? Either way, 'geesha" is one suck of a name. I thought he also came really close to inventing montage. I remember seeing him try it around the time Eli claimed to have hit it.

Speaking of names that never caught on, the best one ever imo was dubbed by our very own resident historian Matt Kain: Peanut Butter Panic for PS Torque

As long as all my faithful footbaggers in the Midwest continue to call PS Torque "Peanut Butter Panic", I'll be able to rest in peace.


To Jon: thanks for the stories. Never heard that one about Revstein. What about flipwalk? When did you hit that first? Was that at a CSS? How about some of the other ridiculous dragon stuff that you invented?

MK

[mattkain]

From the thread that you linked to:

And one more word regarding invention, I'm pretty sure the Reverese Swirling Symposium Whirl was Scott Davidson's baby.

Wasn't this basically what Scott used to call a double helix? He would jump in the air, pull both legs together, and sort of do the two dexes together (the whirl dex and the swirl dex). It looked really strange, almost like a sideways, reverse shooting set. Now, I might be a little off (it's been a long time on this one) - double helix might originally have been the stomping, non-symposium version of this trick, but I remember seeing him hit this move both paradox and symposium (the symposium verison being the "Reverese Swirling Symposium Whirl" that you mention in the other post). In other words he hit stomping reverse swirling whirl, symposium reverse swirling whirl, and paradox reverse swirling whirl. Anyone remember which version it was that he hit first and actually named double helix?

MK

[Wim]

He would jump in the air, pull both legs together, and sort of do the two dexes together (the whirl dex and the swirl dex)

Dunno, but I've secretly been trying this in my last few sessions thinking it was a new trick invention. So far for my place in footbag history. I guess it doesn't hurt to learn from the old masters.

[bigdirtyfoot]

These posts are all really good - I read the freestyle lists from 2000 till they ended and I knew a lot of them but the more personal stories are gold. Thank you especially to Matt Kain and Jon Schneider!

[CIC flurry]

Thanks Jon.

[JeffRichards]

BUMP

I thought this was a great thread for anyone who hasnt seen it yet and i enjoyed reading it