james wrote:yer a cuntinual source of inspiration to me
Thanks buddy! That's one of the nicest things you've said about me!
Money is OFFICIALLY transferred over to PayPal for an exciting laver purchase so the ball is rolling now!
More debauchery is happening this weekend, so I won't write too much about that, but I gotta say it's a little disheartening reading about the footbag scene now that a lot of people are chiming in. I miss the footbag boom, it was such an exciting time that you kids who weren't around then really missed something. Everyone cared, and everyone played. Hard. Clubs had record number of members and it never seemed it would drop off.
I wonder what happened? Is it because so many of us started at the same time that we all lost interest at the same time? Is it because worlds started being moved to Europe? Flipsider closing down shop? Most probably it's a combination of these factors.
One big thing for me is not having a larger-than-life shredder holding the torch and shining their guiding light on us (however unwilling it is in the case of Ryan). It seemed to me that during Vasek's reign, people just tried harder either inspired by him or in a desire to take him down, or just learn his moves. He was such an influence that when one of his videos came one and he would fiddle with some concept, it would become an instant trend.
It seemed like in 2004, everyone was learning ripstein and jani-walker, and in 2005, everyone could do those tricks. There was a HUGE surge in whirr/dbl blender as well...
I think his interest waning actually had a big impact on the sport, as no one was around at the time to really take his spot. The drama of worlds just lost impact when he lost interest, which is a big thing as well. David definitely is the new-school shredder equivalent and his accomplishments are pretty mind-blowing, but Vasek just had this aura - he really was the Golden Child. As a side-note, Felix dropped out around this time as well to pursue beatboxing, so it was 2 giants in 1 go. Ales went muscle instead of lean, another big move. We all look up to our footbag heroes, especially when we're just starting, and the loss of three greats to the evil known as real life was an especially hard blow to the scene.
I wonder what will happen next?