The Future of Footbag in the US (long post, worth the read)

[Asmus]

Eventually some of those kids will develop an appreciation and interest in net (the same kind of appreciation I assume europeans have for net and footbag in general after growing up with soccer), and will have enough foot coordination to have the confidence to try playing. You won't have to convert them because they'll already enjoy kicking footbags and beating other players, and will feel at home playing net.

Just trying to kill a rumour here! I don't think that soccer being played alot is really that good for footbag!
The comment I hear the most is can you do that with a soccerball.
When people who plays or have played soccer try, their usual answer is "too hard, I gonna stick to a REAL ball"
I went to Boarding school with a guy on the danish soccer nationalteam under age 21 and he hit legover on both sides with a footbag after 5 minutes. And said "Too hard!". This guy has played soccer for many hours everyday for pretty much his entire life!
But that's just freestyle maybe it will work for NET.
I don't really think so because many of the people I know who play soccer serious find Tennis and Volleyball to be boring since there is no bodycontact.

[Dat]

I guess I chose my words wrong. I didn't mean to imply that soccer players naturally love footbag. I meant that I assume it's easier for europeans to appreciate footbag from the soccer culture because they are more open to the idea of foot sports, as compared to here where the idea of learning to use your feet sounds weirder. I don't picture superstar soccer players picking up footbag, but I can see kids who used to play soccer in the school yard and watch it on tv more likely to pick up footbag than kids here who play basketball and watch football.

[dyalander]

Ok Jeremy here are my thoughts - I didn't have time to read through everyones posts but i read the original post and am speaking to the general question of how footbag should proceed in the US with a specific focus on how net and freestyle should be brought closer together. These are just thoughts and opinions take them or leave them.

Because freestyle and net only overlap in a small area of the skill set required to be good at each the vast majority of players will always need to devote themselves at one or the other in order to get good. Then there is the different equipment required by each which translates to the fact that net and freestyle make different demands upon the tournament organizer. This assement of the two parts of footbag inform the thoughts that follow so if you disagree with this initalassesment it will probably have a snow ball affect as you continue to read.

Essentially, I think the disciplines are already in a state of competition for players and this will in the future become a broader state of competition – for attention, and for sponsorship dollars. The sports offer sufficiently different prospects for sponsors and given the separation between players, I don’t think resources brought in by one should be siphoned off by the other.

I think the only way for it to be feasible for competitors to do both would be for net and freestyle competitions to be separated and spaced out so players could train accordingly. But given the way in which freestyle has progressed to such a high and technical level I don’t ever see players competing across disciplines as they did in the past anyway.

Despite this I don’t think it needs to be a state of hostile separation. There should be the one overarching umbrella of “footbagâ€

[SpYdeR]

I think Net would be really fun, and I would buy a set, but I have no one to play with. I dont have anyone to play with in freestyle either. Its just me and myself. So I just spend hours shredding all by myself*tear* The only time I actually play with someone is when I am on break at work, and this chick i and i kick my Joshua Raye bag around for awhile. (15 min) until break is over. Then I go home and shred by myself. Shredding is sooooo muc hmore fun when you are with a few people. I wish I could go to a footbag event sometime.

[Tsiangkun]

I think net and freestyle should be re-united in a cheesy flick, and then try real life later.

I can just picture it. . .
Our leading man dominates the net scene. During preparation for the Olympics, he tears something or another, and is never able to play net again.

During physical therapy, he is working out with a lady. They are given a hackysack as therapy. Initially he laughs at freestyle, and cries from the pain of not being able to play footbag anymore.

Ultimately the two of them get to compete in the olympics in the mixed doubles freestyle.

[The Energizer Benny]

the movie idea....... ehhhh, not sure. no offense. maybe there could be some ninjas. Like the Japanes team at olympics dress as ninjas or something. anyway...

Earlier, it was said that the resources brought in by one should not be siphoned by the other.

For small tournaments this is true, and I feel like the most important resources in this discussion are space, time(*), and patience or amount of helpers for the director.

If there is a two or more day tournament, one that is predominantly freestyle, but there are two nets available for kicking, people will kick over them. That proves that the interest is there.

When I hosted my tournament in New Paltz, NY, I held both events. and almost doubled my open-level attendance by having net as well. If you live anywhere near Vince Bradley, you are in luck,. If you catch him on a good morning, he will set up and run your net tournament for you (leaving you free to smell the roses).

I just feel like I love both sports. I do compete at both at open level, and it would be harder for me to attend twice as many tournaments as I do. I like knowing that if I go to a tourney, even if I am concentrating freestyle, that there will be a net around.

[mosher]

At Camp Wakahakee we had net set up, we didn't wind up playing it until the very end but hot fuck, IT WAS AWESOME!!!

Like, basically all of us fell totally in love with it.

I am calling it now, net is about to boom again!

PS I now have a net set up in my back yard and I am looking to find a nice pair of Nike Airmax's

[Senor Grommet]

That's cool to hear Tom. Thanks for letting us know

[yyz]

I love this! I just found this post, and I am reading alot of good things(and some bad). I once drove 90 miles one way so I could compete in net and freestyle on the same weekend.(not looking forward to that again)
First of all It seems most agree that we all play FOOTBAG. I learned how to play footbag many years ago, we did it all back than. Too excell in todays tournaments it is true one will have to choose which aspect of footbag they want too excell at.
Second if number one is agreed upon than too seperate them totally will leave us with FOOT or BAG. This would be a mistake in the nature of the game. Both need feet and a bag. If this is not apparent than we should forget are feet and bag the sport all together.
Lets look at american football. There are people who kick the ball,catch the ball, throw the ball, hold the ball. Also there are people who never touch the ball. The sport is still together and played as a team sport. Yet all over the place they have youth compitions called punt,pass,kick.
Tournaments should and I beleive soon will have to, scale back the number of players. There use too be events called footbag festivals, were footbag was demonstrated and not played. More of these could help all aspects of FOOTBAG.
Recently I was able too go to chicago and play some net,four square and freestyle. Freestyle had some compitions and so did four square, net only had play no compitions. At worlds people talked about how too bring more players too the game. Those who played in chicago actually did something to expose more people to net
As FOOTBAG players We have lots of ideas, lets start putting some action behind them. I for one will continue to play freestyle and net on a regular basis and Have already layed plans too go back to chicago next year and set up my nets.
I am available to do what ever it takes too further the popularity of FOOTBAG. I am NOT available TOO FOOT OR BAG.
see ya ted f

[sniikeri]

Net has more potential as a "real traditional sport", as the rules are strict and clear and there are no style points. Net compares easily with e.g. badminton, tennis and volley ball.
Freestyle, however, has judges and therefore can never be as objective as net.

It's a good question why neither of them has hit on fire in a really large scale. Afaik there's a huge number (tens/hundreds of thousands?) of hacky sackers in the US and Canada, but footbag lacks the sport status. The potential is there.

We footbag players miss a lot of that potential probably because net and freestyle players don't promote their disciplines together, at the same place and time. Many potential newcomers may see only the other discipline performed and never get into it, although they might have liked the other. So I agree with Jeremy; it'd be a good idea to organize more freestyle&net events with a basis on promoting, not just to get more freestylers play net and net players play freestyle but perhaps attract more new kickers to both.

I believe the reason why footbag is still such a minor sport is due to the difficulty of getting the equipment. I mean, there's no sport store on this planet selling footbag shoes: you can't just walk in, ask the shop assistants for "Do you have footbag shoes?", follow the assistant to the shoe segment, try them on, see which one is the right size for you, pay and go play. A freestyle footbag shoe hasn't even existed longer than over a year - and that already is excellently positive development.

So. Why not promoting footbag to newcomers primarily with *4-square*? Freestyle seems incomprehensible to someone outside the sport, net also looks difficult. 4-square requires only the basics a normal hacky sacker has, it's cheap, laid-back (you don't need to have a real sport outfit on), fun and it develops skills that are useful for both net and freestyle. More experienced players could then tell them about fs&net and also show them a bit, tell them where to get the gear etc. Later on, those who got hooked might specialize to freestyle or net.

[atze]

we made some special net bags for beginners a while back. they're softer and have just a little less bounce. our experience was that they enable much much longer rallies for novice, intermediate as well as pro players. unfortunately the bags also didn't last that long and would become too soft to play after about one pro level game.

but i think this would be the way to go if you want to get more people involved in net. make it easier for beginners to enjoy the game.

the biggest problem net is facing in my opinion is that there is absolutely no market and no incentive for anyone to develope new products. the freestyle community is lucky to have the whole pool of casual kickers that is interested in the same kind of footbags used for freestyle. i don't know how many net footbags other companies sell but i guess it's less than 2% of total sales. I know that planetfootbag sells about 2 netbags a year...

[mouseman]

Its purpose was to discuss the future of the sport of Footbag Net, which is not currently experiencing the surge in popularity that freestyle is

This is funny, because the situation is the exact opposite in Finland :)

[Senor Grommet]

Thanks everyone for recent replies to this thread. I really value all of your opinions. One of the things that I find very interesting is that a lot of very talented Eurpoean freestylers are becoming excellent net players, for example Yves Kreil, Sebastien Deschenes, Dexter Struz.

Finland, which used to the the Eurpoean capital of freestyle is now a net-dominated counrty. I guess things go in cycles.

As far as making net easier for beginning players, a softer bag can make for longer rallies, or a shorter net can make for easier spiking. Maybe a combination of both would be the best idea. I wonder about the possibility of Manu or Yvez making a beginner net set. I think I'll post about it in the net forum on footbag.org.

Seeing Jorden be so great at juggling while maintaining or even increasing his footbag skill makes me quite sure that it is more than possible to be at the top of both the freestyle and net disciplines, as Kenny Shultz was for so many years.

[Senor Grommet]

http://www.footbag.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 6647#36647

I made a new thread on the topic above. That fucking forum receives fewer replies than a single mother with 2 mute children. makes me pissed. Please read my 2nd post (the third post overall in the thread) for a quick laugh.

[Tsiangkun]

I don't think that soccer being played alot is really that good for footbag!

Just trying to kill another misconception.

Soccer is the most popular sport in the USA. More kids play soccer than any other sport. Soccer is the most popular womens college sport in the USA. Soccer is the reason minivans are still selling. Soccer is so popular we have the phrase "soccer mom" in our lexicon.

None of this has been a plus for footbag here either.