17. May 2005
Footjam 2005 13-16. May 2005
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FRIDAY
The Munich Crew (Max, Bea, Daryl, Max's girlfriend Svenja) arrived in Z�rich in the early
evening hours. Mike from Landshut came by train, and we soon hooked up with him. The first
people we saw when we arrived at the Rote Fabrik were Ellis Piltz, Kenny Shults, Eric Wulff,
Carol Wedemeyer and Caro Bourgoin. What a first impression..
At the lake-site, we met the Czechs, Ali, Jason V., Andrew Grant and Ian Pritchard, who, to
my surprise, actually neither had a beard nor held a gun at his head (some might remember his
former avatar..)
The Danes were already there as well. (Tobias, Rasmus, Lise and dang, I
forgot his name)
Ian, Mike and Daryl were the first to shred it up, and Ian hit some mad shit. He got close to/hit
(? correct me on this, Ian, in case that you're reading this) Neutron Smasher, Quantum Paradon (?
again, I'm not sure on this)
In the evening we had a big BBQ going, and Klabautermann aka Fleischpeitsche
(Ragga-MC from Berlin, who would have his gig on saturday after the finals) was serving grilled
goodies all night long. I talked a bit with Ellis, who was really nice and down to earth.
Felix shredded a bit in street shoes and full clothing, and easily hit stuff like whirling swirl,
ripsteins and lots of spinning/double spinning stuff.
There was lots of beer floating around everwhere, and apparently some drunk and passed out
Finnish guy burned all his hair off, got a complete hair shave from his friends and passed out
on the lawn..
SATURDAY
We were all woken up at 8 o'clock in the morning, because we had to leave the place we slept in
until 9. Meanwhile, the Crews from Vienna, Berlin, Paris and all over Switzerland had arrived.
After a good breakfast at the Rote Fabrik the first circles and 4 squares started. My knee hurt
like shit, I don't know why. I could hardly stand on one leg, and I couldn't even kick. Not even
4-Square. Competition started at noon, and some people like Karim, Andrew Grant and Serge from
France had incredible preliminary routines.
There was lots of food and drinks available for free all day, little fruit sticks, coffee, tea,
salads etc. just like last year.
After the preliminary open I talked to Kenny Shults, and he said he really liked the european
scene, there's so many awesome players he's never heard of before. He had troubles with his
right foot, and he also gave me some painkillers for my knee.
Kenny started to shred a bit with the Wolhusen Crew, and hit BIG APPLE SAUCE (we got it on tape,
thanks Mike) and lots of spinning combos. It was great to see him play.
The semi-finals and all the finals took place at the Aktionshalle, in front of about a 1,000
spectators, who payed 20 Swiss Francs to see the Freestyle Finals and the Ragga/Dancehall party
afterwards with Klabautermann and Redemtion Sound. It was such a good vibe, and after Semis there
was a big celebration - 5 years of Footjam, 5 years of Planetfootbag and 25 years of Rote Fabrik.
They had 1,000 chocolate muffins, and 30 of us passed them around through the crowd. Mmh.
The Finals were great, even though some players like Karim, Felix or Verena were a bit unlucky
with their routines. Tina Aeberli won the finals with a great routine with Blurry Whirl midstring
and lots of other good shit, Vasek won with another flawless routine, followed by Reni Z�lli,
who had an awesome routine, with lots of choreography and skill. Felix took 3rd, Stefan 4th.
In my opinion, the men's finals were quite a close vote.
Between the finals they had some other cool stuff going - Dennis from Berlin literally rocked
the house with his awesome Yo-Yo routine - he is one of european's best Yo-Yo players and already
played at 5 other footbag tourneys, including Worlds 2003 in Prague. Another man with fast feet
was a Tap Dancer whose name I forgot, but he was pretty cool as well.
I filmed a lot of the circles that went down after the finals, and people like Serge and
Arthur from France, Andrew Grant and Ellis were really rippin' it up. The Finalists didn't
shred at all, they had party in the backstage area.
The party was GREAT. Everybody was so cool, and I had best times with everybody, especially
Dennis, the Yo-Yo Master, who I met for the first time, was so cool.
SUNDAY
After merely 4 hours of sleep we were woken up by Jan again (singing "Footbagspieler sind
intelektuell, intelektuell, intelektuell", and a good breakfast was a good way to start the
day. Some of us were Cupstacking (I think Jakob Wagner brought them with him, and he's pretty
fast already), and at 1 o'clock the golf tournament began. There were 5 holes spread all over
Zurich, and each team was given a map and free transportation passes to find the holes on their
own. On every hole there were 2-3 bonus questions which, when answered correctly, would lower
your total kick score. Our team: Jason Varvaro, Micha from Chemnitz, Dennis Yo-Yo, Schubi and me.
It was great fun to walk/drive trough the city and try to find the holes. We were lazy at the
beginning and chilled at the park for an hour or so, and when we needed to cross the Zurich-Lake
in order to get to the next hole, we and 2 other teams would miss 3 ferries, because all were
full before we could get on it. So we left out hole 3, and went straigt on to the next. One was
around a church, all uphill, with par 8, another was in a park full with people, another one
next to the lake (where Schubi had to get into the ice-cold water to retrieve his driver-bag...
before the French Crew came and told us that we were playing the hole the wrong way, starting
at the end point..
).
We arrived back at the Silh�lzli in time before Dinner. At Dinner time, Felix and Vasek were
shredding together, and there was this big circle around them - everybody was sitting around them,
watching and eating - it was such a cool atmosphere, everybody watching 2 of the worlds best
players trying ridiculous moves like Alpine Janiwalker, Felix tried his Barraging symp Nuclear
set, went for double spinning pdx Blender (not sure if he hit it that weekend though). Vasek's
pet peeve seems to be stepping ducking lately, for he had runs with 8-9 Ripped Warriors in it,
with at least 5 Ripped Warriors back to back. Delicious. It was cool to see both of them hitting
insane combos and seeing Kenny's jaw dropping to the floor..
Later, more 4 square action ensued - and I could play again, because my knee felt much better.
I hit 20+ Osii b2b twice, which is a record for me.
In the evening, we all went back to the Rote Fabrik, where the players party took place. We took
the public bus, and I talked with Kenny Shults about the beginnings of freestyle during the whole
ride, how people took Freestyle when he started out with it, how it evolved and so on. It was really
interesting to get such an insight about Freestyle, and Kenny is such a nice person.
During the players party, I managed to get some more footage of many people, and I can't wait
to look through all the 5 tapes and make the video. Daryl was shredding hard, he was the last
man shredding at that day, only to be the first one the next morning getting into his shorts
and shredding again...
Mike, Daryl, Jakob Mai and me took a taxi to get back to the Silh�lzli gym where we slept again.
MONDAY
After some more 5 hours of sleep we had breakfast with Bircher Muesli, lots of bread, jam and
nutella and even more coffee, we had more shred and 4square going, and the net semifinals started.
The Net Finals were incredible, it was raining like shit (actually, it was raining since the
second semi-final, where Kenny and Eric defeated 2 guys from Montpellier, France, whose names
I don't know - I'm still pretty unfamiliar with Net.
In the Finals, Kenny Shults and Eric Wulff played Florian Goetze and Patrick (?) from Germany.
It was top-class, ending something like 11-15, 15-10 and 15-3 for the german team. Even though
it was raining like crazy and both the ground and the bag were totally slippery, both teams
played top-class Net Footbag. I think Eric didn't miss a single spike in the finals.
Then, in the tent, a Big Band started to play, playing some good-mood swing from the 30's + 40's.
There was Barbeque and more beer, and between 5 and 6 in the evening Mike and me went with Jochen
Bauer, who drove as back to munich. The rest of the munich-footbag crew had left before the
finals. Too bad they didn't witness the fitness.
Footjam was easily the best tournament ever. Jan's organisation skills are unmatched, everything
went so tight, there were like 6 different T-Shirts to buy (one of them was for free), there
was food and drinks for free all weekend, everybody got a cool Planetfootbag 1litre drinking
bottle, 1 year IFPA membership, and the best times one can have, for an entry fee of merely
30 Swiss Francs, which is 20 Euros. Big thanks to Jan, his organisation crew, all the people who
were there all weekend just to make us food, to the Rote Fabrik (we're still the only people who
were ever allowed to sleep inside the Rote Fabrik in their 25 year history), and everybody else
who made Footjam 2005 so great.
