Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 28 Mar 2010 02:59

oh wow, nationals are on next week. Lack of preparation, how are you, my old foe.

I've pretty much got the same aims for this year as last year. It's a pretty weak field comparative to last year, so my ranking should sound better than last year.

It's too bad Silvan can't come, I think he leaves Sydney the day before. What an inconvenience!

I think it should be a good tournament, but we really don't have the same calibre field as last year.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 30 Mar 2010 18:39

I got this article published on an online magazine called Upstart. It's basically a magazine for journalism students run by La Trobe University in Melbourne. It's a great opportunity for young writers.

Here is the link if you are interested- http://www.upstart.net.au/australian-fo ... -to-sydney

Australian Footbag Championships return to Sydney

You might well have played â€˜hacky sackâ€™ before but did you know that it is recognised sport with itâ€™s own world championships? Daniel Boyle previews the upcoming Australian Footbag Championships which are being held in Sydney over Easter.

Footbagger Daniel Boyle previews the upcoming Australian Footbag Championships which are being held in Sydney over Easter.

Sydney will once again play host to the Australian Footbag Championships over the Easter weekend. Footbag, often known as â€œHacky Sackâ€

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 31 Mar 2010 10:06

the juho story is funny! The footbag community ain't that big. how's the malaria?

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 01 Apr 2010 02:16

i think i'm back to full health now. How's the surf?

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 02 Apr 2010 16:23

Nationals in on again for another year.

We're a couple of days in, only the footbag golf has been run so far. I got off to a brilliant start, leading the field after the second hole, and then went downhill from there. Canberra brought up the rear in the rankings, Cope was dead last, I wasn't far ahead.

Jeremy one the first of what will be many more titles, Mitch took out second at his first ever tournament, and Lotus was down two places from last year.

We are staying at the Sydney Harbour YHA, the views are quite incredible from the rooftop.

I hit my first ever 5>5>5, something I have been trying to do for quite some time. I hit darwalk>spinning ducking osis>tomahawk. I've had that come off my foot before, to finally hit it felt real good.

Just waiting for Caroline to wake up, she arrived sometime in the middle of the night, then we'll be off to the show.

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 03 Apr 2010 13:38

surf has been flat, but i'm headed to tofino for a week of testicle shrinkingly cold surf. wish i could be at nationals, was soooo good last year!

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 03 Apr 2010 15:38

I'm glad I convinced you to come then

It was a great time last year.

We had a bigger venue this year for the show, I have a feeling the crowd was about the same. The field in the competition was missing the big names of last year, I think we put on a pretty good show though.

I was really happy with my shred 30, hopefully I scored better than I did at worlds, which would be a new pb. I had a few drops, and I think I hit the same ducking clipper 4 times, however I hit the first 15 contacts with no drops, which is a good start.

Sick 3, I was not so pleased with. Not long after arriving I hit that 5>5>5 combo I mentioned in the previous post first try. Turns out I should have waited. My first round of four attempts didn't acheive much. My safety was dimwalk>blur>paradon, which I dropped off my foot on the first round. The second attempt I put the pixie set straight into the ground, it was time for something easier. dimwalk>pdx mirage>butterfly. That probably put me in about 5th place or something. I tried a stronger combo for my last attempt, I can't remember what it was...spinning whirl was the last trick and I dropped that.

So in the second round I had a lot of work to do. I dropped my first two attempts, then finally hit something like pixie ducking clipper>ducking clipper>spinning osis.

Shred battles was the final event, it was a bit of a shamozzle, we might do that again today.

Caroline, Francisca, Jonathan and I went to eat at the Landsdowne. I was quite hungry so I ate two meals, one steak one schnitzel. Along with 2 beers, this came to a total of $20. What a place!

Caroline went back to join the other players for schooners which Leon tells me were $8.50 a go. We went to the Annandale to go see MM9, it was a pretty good show, I saw a few friends I haven't seen in quite a long time. My friend Brooke gave us a lift back to the hostel, so we avoided the rain.

It was pouring with rain last night, which was a worrying sign for our outdoor rooftop competition, things look a bit better today, but we'll see if it holds out.

Routines and Circle Comp are the events for today. See how I go with them.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 04 Apr 2010 14:42

I did a dropless routine and took 1st place at the nationals by .2 of a point.

More on this later.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 08 Apr 2010 09:29

Nationals was really great this year, everything about it just felt really right for me. Doing a dropless routine was really just the icing on the cake.

I made a big post on this the other day, but I forgot about it, closed the window, bye bye, no more post.

It was awesome having Lotus back in the competition, I hope he competes again next year. So I'm pretty stoked about the dropless routine. I had hit it once dropless in practice, last year sometime before worlds. I wasn't really feeling prepared at all just a few weeks back, using the same routine as last year was really a solid idea.

My Grandpa had some sage words of advice just before I went on..."don't drop it".

I'm getting another article published on that Upstart magazine, I think that should go up tomorrow.

Tonight I'm doing my first of quite a few night audit shifts. I can tell you there's not a lot happening at 3.18am in Canberra. Some may argue there's not a lot happening at any time in Canberra, but they can get stuffed.

Going to a bunch of shows coming up. Going to see I Exist tomorrow night, Break Even in Sydney on Saturday then heading to Sydney again the week after to see The Dead Walk.

Next month I head over to England, I haven't got a particular plan about from hanging out with the governor himself, Matt Bailey. By the sounds of it, he is infinitely better than at Worlds, so he will probably kick my buttocks at this little game we play.

I think I might spend some time in London, then head North. I was going to head south, but I may even just wait until I get there to decide what to do.

I will be going to Worlds also. I have started doing quite a lot of tours at my other job, which is probably not going to be great for my health, but it will be great for my bank balance. I'll probably just go over for the competition, then stay a few days either side. I don't think I will go to the US Open.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 12 Apr 2010 11:37

5am, 2 degrees.

Ah, Canberra.

So. This is day one of a 5 night stretch of overnight shifts. I must say I am enthusiastically waiting for the weekend.

Before I came to work I had a pretty good evening. I went to the Labor Club and watched the Raiders. They won away from home (a rare occurence) up against Parramatta (last year's grand finalists, pretty rubbish this year).

They won 24-14, and I had $10 on them winning, so that was a nice little earner as they were paying $3.35. I really should have put on more. When you do that though, it's much more of an issue to lose. Losing $10 is not a big deal. That's just the price of a few beers. This night I won, so it was even less of an issue.

I haven't had a serious shred since I came back from nationals. I've been playing in bits and pieces, but just mucking around really. Waiting at the bus stop today I was mucking around with the combo of spinning inside stall>inside set spinning osis. I didn't quite hit it yet but it seems like a fun combo.

So next month I'm flying to England. I decided I would visit my friends in Austria while I am over in that part of the world. After Worlds last year I stayed with Alex for a week, all the Vienna crew were so nice to me, it will be sweet going back again.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 13 Apr 2010 12:19

One year sometime, I would like to just travel around the world going to footbag events.

I keep reading the "Journies to Tournies" section of the forum, and just think, it'd be so cool to go to this one, this one, this one, just hang out.

Here in Australia it's difficult. We have one proper competition per year and 1-3 jams. We only have a small amount of players, so there's not really any point to having any more major competitions, as distance means high costs for everyone having to travel.

In Europe especially, the next country is just down the road. It would be so easy to just go around, say in June or whenever Euros are, there's a jam in London, Euros in Brussels, a footbag camp in Paris, then the French Championship in Montpellier. All within a couple of weeks. I could imagine that being a lot of fun.

Then you could hang out in Switzerland, go through to Austria, up to Prague, just keep going. I am still pretty stoked on the trip I got to do. Even though I only attended one footbag event (Worlds), I still got to meet a lot of players and play plenty of sessions.

So my next trip is coming together. I leave next month. I'm only going for 2 weeks, but it's a pretty packed itinerary.

I fly into London, with a stop in Malaysia to visit the World's biggest waterpark. If I don't break my leg on the flowrider, I'll get to play plenty of footbag. I've got about 5 days in England, no particular plans, I guess I'll just see what I see. Then I've got a flight to Bratislava in Slovakia, I will take a train from there to hang out in Vienna. After this I'm taking another flight, to Barcelona. Going to see Break Even, and I can imagine a couple of wild nights.

Then back to London, I'm flying to Brisbane so I can go see Evergreen Terrace. Apparently to get to Brisbane I have to go to Melbourne first, so I'll be hanging around there for a few hours. It's all coming together, shoudl be a lot of fun.

The next trip I need to start saving for involves a little place called San Francisco...

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 14 Apr 2010 08:12

Day 3/5

I didn't get in my evening nap today, so I'm feeling incredibly tired. Running on 3 hours sleep and being awake in the middle of the night is not a great feeling.

So I had my first real session since nationals today with Caroline at the Lyneham shops. I was quite happy with how I was playing, some nice long runs. No new tricks, atomic rev swirl was probably the biggest highlight for the day.

It was good to just get back into the swing of things really.

I can't wait til this week ends. Next week should be sweet. Ruiner are playing in some dudes house, then I have the next two days off afterwards.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 15 Apr 2010 03:50

We had nationals a couple of weeks back. Here's a couple of photos

Me vs Jeremy in the Shred Battles

We were back at the Easter show again this year. We got to go in a bigger venue, it's where they do the Lilypad stage at the Big Day Out. That's basically just weird stuff all day long. Maybe one day we could get footbag on there.

I think there was probably about the same amount of crowd this year. The crowd photos from last year looked sensational, with the big stadium in the background. It was a different angle this year, and there were a lot of empty seats.

This was the view from the rooftop at the Sydney Harbour YHA. Not bad, hey...We held our competition for rotuines and circle up there.

Here's one of Lotus in full flight.

Here are some of our loyal supporters! You can also see the oncoming storm in the background, which had us pretty worried. Somehow though, it never came to our little spot on the rooftop.

Here is one of all the players. Nearly everyone is doing "the pointer", a Copey favourite.

Here is one of me, with the Opera House in the background. The grin on my face might portray to you that I was pretty stoked with my routine performance.

Then here is one with some of my support crew. I was really happy with how many people came to watch me. We didn't have so many people coming from the hostel, so it was good to have a little bit of a crowd, even if it was small.

In this photo we have Shaun (my sister's boyfriend), Alison (sister), Mum, me, Grandma, Grandpa and Francisca.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 16 Apr 2010 11:35

This crazy week is almost over.

Just one and a half more hours, and that will be that for my time as Mr Night Audit guy.

Working five of these shifts in a row does not seem in any way, shape or form to be healthy.

I went to the gym today, first time I'd been this week. Got in two footbag sessions, and I have cycled quite a bit. Maybe 40km for the week. So considering I was asleep during most of the daytimes, I have got a decent amount of exercise in during my time.

Looking forward to returning to a somewhat normal life.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 24 Apr 2010 00:07

So I think I'm going to buy a ticket to San Francisco next week.

I've seen some specials with V Australia. I can get over there for about $550. Most other companies are showing $1500 return, which is a bit pricey for me.

So, as I've taken way too many holidays already, the maximum I can go is for two weeks. I'm going to have to pass on the US Open, but that doesn't phase me too much.

I'm thinking about going to the Vans Warped Tour in San Diego on the 10th, then try to fly out from LA on the 12th. Maybe I could come back through Fiji or Hawaii or something, I've seen some pretty cheap flights.

Anyhow, it's still 3 months away, so I can wait a while to buy the return ticket, and to decide on a return date. It will be best to have some kind of flight rather than having none.

I go overseas in 2 weeks. Looks like most flights are back in action of the volcanic ash fiasco of the last few weeks. In saying that, it looks like I've timed my flight to perfection really. As long as it doesn't erupt again, then I'd be in trouble.

I haven't played footbag in a while. Me and Caroline played sometime during the week, that was a pretty good session, we had a bunch of school kids watching us, cheering and that kind of thing, that was kind of awesome actually.

I had a session in the gym today, just mainly doing cardio stuff before coming to work. Once again I have not been going enough, so it doesn't really make it worthwhile. I want to be going 3 times per week, I think that's a reasonable amount. I should be playing footbag nearly every day.

So yeah, Worlds. I'm going to start working on a new routine. I'm a bit tired of the one I did, as I did it at Nationals 09 and 10 and at worlds last year as well. The other thing is I have now hit it dropless in competition, so I've done everything I really want to do with that.

Uni has been going fairly well. I'm really liking studying online. I do so many other things in my life online, it's not hard to adjust to online study. I think some people find that change difficult. I get to write about some pretty sweet stuff for my different courses, and numerous people have said my work is pretty good, which has probably been the most surprising part of the course.

So the era of "Danpacers", or, more to the point, me renting out my small two bedroom unit to one million backpackers, it's all over. The last guest checked out yesterday, he's flown back to Ireland today. That means Francisca and I now have our own place, and that's pretty good news.

We had a house inspection the other day. We did a good couple of days of some pretty heavy cleaning. "Very good" was what the house inspection said. I've got to say, that's a new one.

So, things are going pretty good. Hopefully that doesn't change anytime soon.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 25 Apr 2010 04:40

Today was definitely a day of two parts.

I slept in fairly late, finished off the book "The Bodysurfers", hung about at home, then went to work at the AIS.

I only had two people on my tour, even though there was no one training, they said "that was a great tour".

Then I went over and watched the Raiders. Kickoff was at 2, and I had to be at work by 3, so I could only see the first half. Souths got in first, against the run of play. The Green Machine went on a bit of a run, scoring 4 times in 15 minutes. 24-6 at half time. Looking good....

The FADERS are renowned for losing steam is the second half, as they did against the Tigers. We watched that match at nationals, they had a terrible collapse in the second half.

Exactly the same thing happened in the second half. In both games, 0 points in the second half.

It is not looking like a good season.

However, the Melbourne Storm got found out breaching the salary cap for the last five years (in no small manner either) and they will finish the season on 0 points. This means the Green Machine will not finish last.

I am however, beginning to like this idea of only watching the first half, then living in a dream world pretending they won.

It only took me 13 minutes to ride into the city from the match. I tuned back into the radio, it turns out that was a bad idea. "Raiders on the attack, OH they've dropped the ball". "Looks like Souths are in for a TRY, YES, IT'S A TRY, the Green Machine are in trouble here".

Final score Souths 26- Raiders 24

All they needed was just one try in that second half, and they couldn't get it.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 30 Apr 2010 02:30

Here's a video from my time in PNG. That was a few months back, not sure why I haven't put anymore video up.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1BdsrQxgv8[/youtube]

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 30 Apr 2010 20:56

Caroline and I had a bit of a kick yesterday, was the first time out in a while for each of us, there was a little bit of rust for each of us.

It took a while to warm up as well, even though the sun was out, it was pretty cold. After Anzac Day, winter always arrives. Looking at that PNG video, there's definitely a big difference in weather between then and now!

Still managed to work up quite a sweat though, I saw a friend after we played, he asked whether I had gone to play squash or I'd been for a run.

So once I got warmed up, I actually hit some good stuff, I did that 5>5>5 combo again (darkwalk>spinning ducking osis>tomahawk), I haven't added to my tally of fearless combos though.

A while into our session a guy came, he was from Mongolia. He had a little kick around, it looked like he had played a lot of that game they play in China in the past, he was rocking flying clipper kicks, flying butterfly, some quite long runs of this stuff (I started trying it and struggled to get past one).

I tried to ask him if he was around Canberra for long, however I don't think he understood what I was talking about.

Footbag always provides these cool little experiences. I think the mix of footbag, travel and working in the hostel means I can meet all these awesome people and have little stories to tell.

Like on Wednesday night, I walked up Black Mountain at 2am with my friends from Finland and Francisca. That was a totally crazy idea, but it was a lot of fun.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 08 May 2010 20:17

So, my trip has begun.

I'm at BackHome hostel in KL, Malaysia. I arrived this morning after an overnight flight. I got into the city and the first thing I did was to play Footbag. I knew that had I had a long way to go to my hostel, and that it was only going to get hotter, so why not sweat it up for a shred to begin with.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6pruyMqNec[/youtube]

I didn't play for long, but worked up a crazy sweat in the process. Have walked a long way, so I'm due for a bit of a rest, then I'll head out and explore Malaysia a bit more.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 14 May 2010 15:27

This page is something along the lines of Daniel Boyle's travelling footbag circus

I played in Traflagar Square with Matt Bailey a couple of days ago.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOlhUvAw1Wo[/youtube]