Is footbag on the rise?

[Rieferman]

Cam and Jon's posts.. YES what they said.

I said long ago that I was done running events, but I could be convinced that a spring time hack-circle-centric / takraw / frisbee fun day was worthwhile (although I'll make Nick do most of the work.. ha ha). It'd be easy to setup, cheap, and fun. And if a couple of obsessive hackers ask for more, we're ready to show shred.

edit: since we're on a new page, I'll recap here:

jon wrote:

Hacky Sack is good. It should be very good for footbag. Footbagger's negative attitude towards hacky sack has had us shooting ourselves in the foot for years.

Hacky Sack is the gateway drug to footbag, but all those recreational kickers see the serious freestyle junkies all strung-out on shred and they decide to stay in school.

Hacky Sack is fun, but shredders have a special knack for making it not fun. Shredders should:

1. try not to change a hack circle into a shred circle or get preachy/teachy and sanctimonious to the hackers -- try letting hackers have some fun for a change, instead of making it a lesson. Hacky Sack was fun before there was good shred, and it still is. Some people who just can't get enough Hacky Sack will graduate to shred. There will be a bigger pool of potential shred addicts if we don't discourage all the recreational hacker users.

2. try to enjoy a good circle kick instead of just thinking of all the shredding that you're not doing. I try to play hacky sack when I can find it. I think that with my way-above-average hacky-sack kicking skills I am able to make a hack circle more fun for largely-unskilled hackers by giving good passes, making saves that keep the bag in the air, and occasionally (not constantly), showing off some fairly basic freestyling skills. I believe that "making a hack circle better instead of worse by using my skills for good instead of evil" is a worthy but subtle freestyle skill that I'm willing to bet most hotshot shredders suck at. Shredders: try to learn this important but under-appreciated skill -- you might even have some fun.

cameron wrote:

Hackysack was a blast. It was also all about hanging out, people were cool.

We should start hack circles up again. Those got more people into footbag than anything else.

[abstract]

sorry for the incoming block. a few thoughts on potential.

a) the sport needs money. we all know this has been a problem for a long time. it's a catch-22, because the sponsors won't endorse something that isn't popular, but you need incentives to make people take competition seriously on a wide scale to get the popularity required for sponsorship. i don't think freestyle soccer would be close to where it is right now if it wasn't for Red Bull.

imo, every footbag player on the planet should be purchasing official footbag shoes. it's unfortunate that so many players still prefer lavers / g units ( but obviously understandable due to performance & personal taste ) & their low cost makes them so attractive...because dumping money to adidas & reebok doesn't do anything for our sport.

it's one thing to purchase a product right now because it is superior, & it is another thing to invest in the future. please consider this when buying your next pair of shoes. i love the fact that the best bags on the planet are made by players, it ensures sustainability in that commercial area of the sport.

i know footbag players don't have much money, but we can make the dollars we do spend count for more. buy footbag t-shirts, player made bags, quantums, nucleus, fourkast gear, etc.

b) soccer is the most popular sport on the planet. that is a real asset for footbag, imo, that hasn't been explored in too much depth that i have seen.

the "Boom Boom" video with vasek & lucaso, mixing footbag & soccer freestyle is great promo that reaches into a demographic outside our own, which is critical for growth. more hybrid promotional video like this should be done. footbag / skateboarding, footbag / fixed gear, or footbag / soccer.

which brings me to the next point, freestyle footbag is great cross training for soccer. this is something that can be explored when approaching elementary & high schools for demonstrations.

my nephew is 13, & quite a gifted soccer player. i have started teaching him some freestyle footbag & he picked up the basics extremely quickly.

if we are looking for growth in the sport, we need to look to the younger generation, but also the members of that generation that are in the best position to receive what we wish to show them. i believe that young soccer clubs are probably one of the best targets due to a similar skillset they are already working on, which also has a higher chance of sparking an interest or even passion for the game.

c) Lululemon. this company is growing insanely fast, & these guys love any form of alternative athletics. if you have a Lululemon near you, they probably do regular in-store demos & events for all kinds of things, from Yoga to Hulahooping. if you have something visually unique & athletic, they will love you long time, just make sure to present it with a clean image to them ( think Fourkast style ).

sorry, i didn't really touch on where i think the sport is right now, because i don't have the historical perspective to put it in context. but the above are a few areas where i feel energy could be devoted to inspire growth.

[cd]

Great thread. It's due time there was a serious conversation about this again.

I don't have time to add my thoughts right now, except that I think an entire section of Modified should be dedicated to Promotion. There are lots of worthy discussions that were touched upon here that deserve their own thread.

[Green Lanturn]

Great discussion. Just a couple of quick points.

First, I agree that a great place to promote footbag is with youth soccer. I think they are a very natural combination. Maybe setting up demonstrations and selling footbags, shoes, apparel at youth soccer tournaments could not only promote the sport, but maybe generate some money. I remember attending a soccer tournament that my son played in and there was a guy there demonstrating and selling a training aid that was basically a soccer ball attached to a bungie cord that wrapped around your waist so you could strap it on and each time you kicked the ball it would come back so you could kick it again. This guy had a crowd around him for the entire two days that we were there. And all he was doing was kicking a soccer ball over and over again. Just a thought.

Second, I also completely agree that the community should do what it can to promote hacky sack. Here's why. Footbag is hard. Footbag is really hard. Even trying to learn to clipper consistently is hard. And that's a fundemental element. I think people who start to learn footbag freestyle may feel really frustrated, really quickly when they can't complete even the basic moves with any consistency. I know I did. I still feel really frustrated at times. This may turn off some beginning players and if they have the "I could never do that" attitude, then we've already lost them. Hacky sack circles are a low-stress, social, fun way to get introduced into the sport. The more people that are willing to circle kick on a regular basis will lead to more people getting into serious freestyle. Those who have the drive to get better and serious will do it. It is about getting as many people aware of the sport and sustaining participation.

On another side note, yesterday, my 7 year old son told me about a dream he had and he said that Vasek was in his dream footbagging on a boat with him. Too funny.

[Muffinman]

Maybe foursquare is a good avenue to explore alternatively to hacky sack. I've taught a handful of demos and foursquare was always the highlight for the kids. It combines hacky sack with a fun goal, competition, creativity, and socializing. You don't need to be able to kick it 5 times in a row to be able to play foursquare; it's also probably less frustrating, since a "drop" can equate to points won! Maybe it should be a more spotlighted competition event when presenting the sport to the public.

To me, just kicking in a circle is kind of a drag, but foursquare is basically the same thing and tons of fun!

[Frank_Sinatra]

We had tons of guys coming out to play foursquare, none of them got into freestyle.

[Rieferman]

4 square is about winning and losing. A good hack circle is about the energy. The energy is what makes the circle so amazing. Just an old fogie's point of view

[WyrmFyre]

I want to learn how to play 4 square so I can teach it to younger kids, like my 12 year old. Give him a game where theres no winning or losing and its almost an incomprehensible theory to him. Give him a game where theres a competitive element though and he's all over it. I suspect its harder at a young age to understand the "compete againsts yourself and gravity" nature of freestyle footbag, but whupping your best friends butt is easy.

Its also a great playground game and one i would happily stich up half a dozen kicky bags for. This might not apply to every 10 - 14 year old but if its another way of getting a bag into a groups hand, its gotta be a good thing.

[Laroche]

Where will footbag be in 5 years?

[Rieferman]

As always with this sport, there will be a small group that really works to improve the sport, and the rest will just sort of wish for it (but actually do nothing at all... like this thread actually). That being the case, and with internet tutoring available now, players will continue to become more skilled, but number of players will not increase dramatically. Thankfully, I think the sport is established enough that it will not die off either.

So, status quo for the next bunch of years is my guess.

[david]

Bob brings up a good point about us sitting around and hoping something will get fixed.

To me, I need a good website that I can push people to when they want to learn about footbag. It needs to be Flipsider 2.0. I will message Kevin now, because I heard that he had something like this in the works. And if he doesn't, well, I'll try to get the ball rolling.

David

[Rieferman]

OK, there's three main issues as I see it..

1) how to attract more potential players

2) how to encourage potential players that express a deeper interest in freestyle

3) who will actually do any of the work.

----

Answers:
1) attacting more potential players:

Understand and use the "power of the hack circle" to your advantage
Cool website
Videos, and having videos played at places such as skate shops
Play in public locations
host a tournament or a jam
do demos at schools
etc.

2) how to encourage potential players that show deeper interest:

teach them yourself
point them to web resources (again, insert cool website here)
stay on them about getting together
keep it fun so they don't burn out in less than 2 years like so many others

3) who will do the work:

????????????????????????

[Anz]

There are a lot of good ideas for promoting the sport etc --

The biggest problem is that people don't share them but try to make them happen by themselves. This makes it a lot harder, so most of the projects are given up on when they're half done and most of the community never even gets to hear about them.

It would be much better if you'd share your ideas, so someone might even step up and offer help.

In FFA we're (slowly) working on promoting footbag in various ways. This is a hobby, so nobody is very active, but we communicate and eventualy something gets done.

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples
then you and I will still each have one apple.
But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas,
then each of us will have two ideas.â€

[DimitriFrazao]

I think access to footbag is another problem.
Playing with a real bag makes a huge difference on improvement and consequently making the player more interested in the sport.

When I was back home in Brazil I showed my girlfirend's little brother a few footbag videos. Next week the kid is trying to sew his own footbag and started watching tutorials. Although he's excited to learn, his bag was really hard to play and he doesn't have access to good footbag products. That's holding him back and this is a huge problem that makes new players give up.

I'm learning how to stitch so that I can bring him and his friends couple footbags. I also just got him one of those $15 quantums for Christmas
Gotta invest a little bit on people!

If each person donates $1 or stitches 1 bag we could gather tons of good bags and give them to kids in school. Somehow make a system that generates bags for kids that want to learn, but don't have access.

It would be much better if you'd share your ideas, so someone might even step up and offer help.

I just made a google group: [email protected]
If anyone is interested in contributing to make a website dedicated to teach footbag, PLEASE join in. Even if only to give feedback and ideas.

PLease, let's make this happen!

[Kljopa]

For the European Countries maybe it is possible to start them EU Youth in Action or whatever projects , and cooperate between countries making it a bigger project. With exchanges and stuff like that. It's a way to get some money.

But there's work to be done for this.

[fatbagger]

Someone was talking about advertizing and and how to get money for it. Well what if we get some of the best players in the world to donate some epic shred, get a good video maker to donate some time and sell the video like jorden did with badassery to raise funds for advertisement. We would need a trustworthy and compitent person to sell the video and use the funds properly. Just an Idea.
On another note, I'm not very good with presenting things to people but I had to do something so I sent this to Rob Dyrdek on one of his fantasy wish pages.
Hey Rob,
My name is Dan Reed and I am an athlete that participates in one of the largest underground sports in the world. It's called Freestyle Footbag and is on the verge of exploding. Our world championship is generally held in a different country every year to accomidate the world wide aspect of our sport. We have groups set up in 43+ countries all over the world with thousands of people playing the game. The fact of the matter is we NEED your help. No money or sponsorship necessary. What we need is someone like you to help us get the word out to the world that we exist and we shred. If their is any way you could possibly just mention our sport or show it on Fantasy Factory or your FB pages it would put us over the edge. You would be giving 5000 people their fantasy in one act of kindness. Just like skatboarding in it's early years someone had to set the stage for the public and now you could do that for us. I strongly suggest at least checking us out. Youtube David Clavens euros routine, Felix Zenger, Vasek Klouda, Evan Gatesman, Jorden Moir, Jim Penske, Milan Benda or Nick Landes. These are some of the best players in the world. If you wish to talk to the community our forum is at http://www.modified.in . If I had my wish you would bring one of our top players on your show and just mess around or something just to help us look legit. We are struggleing to overcome stereotypes about our sport being just hacky sack and that we are all hippies and stoners, Which is just not the case. I'm sure the skateboarding community can relate. We want to show the world that we are athletes not stoners kicking around a bean bag. I understand that you probably can't have one of us on your show but any mention of us anywhere would be a dream come true for my entire community. Help us be like you and the other great skaters, Give us credibility. Any help you could give would be greatly appreciated. Our forum is very active so if you need to contact anyone in the sport for details or anything else go their. If you only look at 1 video on youtube it should be David Clavens 2010 Euros routine. Please let me know what you think if you can, I know you are a buissy person. Rob, Please help us rise.

Don't know if it will amount to anything but it's worth a try. I suggest others do something similar. There are lots of famous people who could potentially help our sport reach the public in a cool way.

[atze]

3) who will do the work:

????????????????????????

[PoisonTaffy]

From our organization's experience trying to promote footbag and hack.
Even before I joined the organization spent years of playing at large events, running demos, spreading fliers, collecting emails, selling cheap bags, running a website.

It seemed that the only thing that really worked was teaching at schools & after school classes. It's a tough, weekly, sometimes daily occupation, it requires a lot of time and resources and it takes years to produce a stable, self sustaining scene.

We did that for a year, and had a magnificent year of freestyle & net explosion. Once we stopped due to exhaustion, the scene shrunk back to square one, because we didn't produce enough momentum for it to spread on its own.

I don't believe in advertisements, t.v appearances, demos etc as real ways to bring in substantial amounts of new players, I think they're nice additional strategies at best.

To me the real solution is obvious, but it takes a shitload of effort and I don't know

3) who will do the work:

????????????????????????

[/quote]

[Frank_Sinatra]

3) who will do the work:

????????????????????????

Exactly.

I don't want to be a joykill here, but that's probably unavoidable, so I'm just gonna say it - there is a serious lack of professionalism in footbag.

We all talk a big game and very few of us do the things we say we're gonna do. And even when we do them, they're kind of half-assed. Not everybody of course, so if you're one of the very few that doesn't half ass things please don't take offense (but at the same time, if you're reading this and taking offense, maybe you are half assing things? Please no PMs). And hey I half ass, or probably even quarter ass, all the footbag stuff I'm involved in too.

I'm talking about things like putting a plan together, breaking the larger objective down into smaller tasks, setting deadlines, and then doing what you have to do to meet those deadlines. And being resilient enough to try again if it doesn't turn out how you dreamed it the first time around.

I know we've got a young community, most people who are active in it haven't got much experience in environments where they are expected to actually do the things they say they'll do. And those of us who are a bit older and have more professional experience generally have a lot less time to devote to footbag stuff.

When somebody comes along who has the demeanor and willingness required to do things for the cause of footbag, I think they generally get extremely frustrated because they feel like they're alone in that cause. Getting volunteers who don't wander off to play hackysack is like pulling teeth. Working with people who didn't do the things they said they would do is really frustrating.

EDIT: And at the same time I totally understand why people would walk off rather than sit & listen to some joykill telling them what to do. The very first tournament I ever went to, I'd been playing with CIC for a couple months maybe, and it ended with like a 20 to 30 minute lecture from the organizer. Really lame.

We all want it to be a hobby, and to be fun, and to be a way of blowing off stress rather than increasing it.

This sort of leads me to another point that I haven't seen other people really get to yet: most people stop playing and never give back to the sport. There's a few people, I doubt I need to name names because anybody who's been to a big event knows who they are, who even after their most active playing days are done continue to find a way to be involved & keep the footbag world turning. Where would we be without them? Yet it seems like we look at "they stopped playing" as a really good reason for that person not to be involved in anything footbag related.

Every other sport I can think of has avenues for former players to give back. And every other sport I can think of wouldn't be where it is without the contributions of former players. Coaches, refs, donors, announcers, promoters, that sort of thing. Now obviously we're not on that scale where all of those roles are appropriate, but some of them are.

Since this has been a mostly negative rambling rant, I want to end on a positive note: I'm really inspired by what Queency is doing with Nucleus, and I think its a perfect example of bringing professionalism into the sport and making a contribution for the benefit of all the rest of us.

[Fade2black]

Edited: my iPhone typing skills suck I apologize

When talking to non footbag related sponsors regarding the footbag season that we started... The general response was, show me what a sponsor can get from this.... Essentially asking us to provide then with the amount of hits we would receive on the site over the duration of the season...

With that being said, shred global, Fourkast, and freedom is pulling money out of their own pockets to fund the $500 grand prize as well as the event prize money. Once this season is over, we will be able to give the potential sponsors the information they require when deciding to help out next year. Should this initial season (see online contests thread) get substantial submissions and website and youtube hits ( on modified and shred global) we could get some serious prize money .... Sponsorship deals .... Hype going.

1) if there is a person with more website design knowledge then myself, I would be happy to hand the keys to playfootbag.org with some money in order to tweak it into a fun site where new players can Lear all about the sports history, its tricks (thanks Anz), an it's future...