Iron Clad Ben wrote:
I for one really don't consciously think of Asian footbaggers as a subset of footbaggers. Footbag transcends those kind of simple divisions.
Sounds like this is all in your head.
From personal experience, I disagree. I've been playing footbag for 11 years, and despite the lack of asian players in the sport, at pretty much every tournament I've been to people have confused me with other asian players. Another common occurence is for me to introduce myself to other players and have them say to me: "I've already met you," when they totally haven't. This still happens to me, and I'm not exactly a new player on the scene.
You brought up Takumi as an example. I can think of at least 2 times that somebody has posted a random vid of some asian kid on modified (one was freestyle soccer, and one was some random footbag clip) where the player in question was NOT Takumi, yet everybody thought it was. I've NEVER seen that happen with a white player.
The simple truth of the matter is that footbag is dominated by white teenage males, and that can make people who are older, female, or racial minorities feel uncomfortable in the sport. When somebody asks me if I am Tu or Tuan, and then shafts me when they judge my routine, a part of me does ask if race played a role. Most of the time, I hope it doesn't. But when I hear somebody claim that footbag is colorblind, it strikes me as dangerously naive.
