Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[boyle]

Had a session on Saturday and one today, both went quite well. Particularly after the disappointment of the TV show. Had sailing butterfly off my foot the other day and something else good today, though off the top of my head I can't remember. A few things today were really working for me, something I am working on now is ripped warrior b2b, was making good progress on that one.
Am very interested to hear about the program Taiishi is doing in Japan, will have to talk to him more about that. Going to go eat some Vietnamese food for dinner.

[boyle]

I've taken a lot of shots of me playing footbag with cool stuff in the background over the past few years, but this is probably one of the top ones (Valle de la Luna, Atacama Desert). The driest desert in the world.

That trick I couldn't think of earlier was motion sickness. Have been trying it for a while, had it on my foot yesterday.

Didn't have a good session today. Was trying to work on flip spinning. I'm not very good at it. Some annoying kids were playing nearby. What they were playing on is actually an art exhibition so another man came and told them off. May have a friend move in with us for a couple of months.

Just got some rent money paid to me by Jonathan, who stayed here a while ago. Not sure if that was a mistake by him, or a little thank you gift or something. I hope it's the latter. I'm broke.

[PoisonTaffy]

How's your spanish coming along by the way?

[boyle]

Ok, not great. I can have conversations with people and have done interviews in Spanish, but I lack a lot of confidence, particularly in group situations. My reading is quite good, speaking ok, writing, not so good. It's coming along though. I may do an intensive course or something in the next couple of months. I think that would be a real help.

[boyle]

Today I was at an asado for our friend, we had a great time swimming, eating and relaxing, but what was even better was that I met someone who knew what footbag was.

On top of that he said he had even had Lavers in the past.

Considering it's been over a year since I've kicked with someone seriously into footbag, that was a great sign. The other positive in that regard is that we are heading to Colombia in just a couple of weeks, so will get to meet a whole range of players.

Yesterday I gave a demonstration as part of the sports day at the school I have been doing the program to teach English through Footbag. That was a lot of fun giving the presentation. I have put a bunch of photos on Facebook



Here are some of the students after our little show. It was a lot of fun. Very positive day.

[boyle]

I was just browsing through the website of the paper of my hometown (the Bega District News). I am planning to submit them an article, and have had a few articles in there before, so I was searching for one of them.

One that I had forgotten about was this one - from when I was 17. We used to live next to this guy who had a column, so really anything we did could be "news"

Top honours for Daniel

Seventeen-year old Daniel Boyle, our neighbour and son of Tony and Christine Boyle, won an Australian Footbaag Championship at the Extreme Games held in Sydney recently.

What is footbaag, you ask?

They have a soft ball, about the size of a tennis ball, filled loosely with beads and it has to be kicked alternately from right foot to left foot without dropping - quite a concentrated effort.

Daniel kicked a total of 495 times before the inevitable drop to terra firma.

It took him five minutes to complete the effort among 25 competitors from Australia and New Zealand.

The Extreme Games included roller blading and skating as well as many other events.

No doubt Daniel will be giving some demonstrations when school resumes, after all, he is an Australian Champion.

---------

Not sure about the need for the double a in footbag though!

[boyle]

Unfortunately I have not been playing too much lately. In a pichanga match I picked up a rib injury. A guy with a bit of weight to him and I collided and I came off second best. I did score four goals in this match though.

Today I find out about this government funding that I applied for. Fingers crossed. I am reasonably optimistic about it, but I know that if I don't get it, I have to keep trying to make it happen. I will also go to an event tomorrow from the government about sports and the community. That should be a good chance to make some contacts. A guy who was a key man in the Olympics is going to be giving a talk. I'm not sure what he is doing in Chile, but with my English speaking skills we will hopefully become good mates.

Speaking of mates, the Australian Championships are on this weekend. It is the first one I have missed since 2005, which is a shame. Sounds like things will be very low-key for this one, the tenth championships, but of course it will be a good time.

The biggest problem in Australian footbag is that we have had serious problems in recruiting new players. In the scene it is the same players, getting older and older, having babies, leaving the country, getting real jobs and that kind of thing.

So unfortunately I don't get to defend my Shred 30 title... (probably one of the lowest scoring champion shreds of all time...).

In general I have been missing Australia a fair bit lately, just friends, family and the footbag scene too, which is like another family. But I will go to Colombia next week, and will get acquainted with a whole new community and that's going to be pretty awesome.

Francisca has donated me a reiki session to go to today. I don't really know what to expect, but I think it is going to be a good experience.

Anyway, I started saying I haven't played much. The rib injury has been giving me some grief - not too much, I think maybe it is bruised. I also have a blister on my foot, which is just another annoyance. Speaking of other annoyances, the battery in my camera has been playing up, have to fix that before going to Colombia.

[boyle]

Hello from Colombia!

We arrived this morning after a long flight, which included going up and turning back after a flat was found or something like that.

The thing is it didn't really affect us at all in the long run, as we would have had to wait for many hours in the Bogota airport, instead we did some of that waiting in Santiago, they gave us some credit for a free dinner, the problem is the airport food is so expensive, that you don't get too much out of that and have to pay if you go over.

Anyway, today we were just eating our meal not far from where we are staying, and a bloke is wearing Lavers. You know, that's not such a common occurrence, and I haven't seen any players in over a year. So after a while I went and asked him if he played Footbag, and he had no idea what I was talking about. He thought I wanted to buy his shoes and said they would cost $100. I told him I already had ten pairs and didn't need any more.

So hopefully in the next days I will meet with the guys here in Medellin and have a bit of a kick around. Think I will go to sleep pretty soon - Francisca has already dropped, even though it is before 8pm...it was a long journey last night....

We left for the airport in Santiago just before 4pm and we arrived here at the hostel at 9 in the morning (Colombia is two hours behind Chile).

[boyle]

Had a session today, with other people! That's a new addition for the year....

Played alright, I hit ripped warrior>spinning ducking butterfly>spinning ducking osis and a couple of other cool little combos. Don't have much time to write at this moment, maybe some more in the coming days.

[C-Fan]

Nice fearless combo. What's your record at?

Colombia sounds cool. I was hoping to go to their caribbean jam in February, but that's looking unlikely now.

I'd love to see some video of the scene down there, if you have that capability.

[boyle]

My fearless record is still three I had a fourth trick off my foot in that combo (paradox blender), but didn't quite catch it.

I am having some problems with my camera at the moment, but I have my phone with me as well, so I should be able to get a bit of footage at least on that. Hopefully I will sort the camera out before next week and can get some cool footage.

I would like to get my fearless record first to four, then improve from there - that is one of my upcoming goals, to increase that fearless record (alongside titlless, guiltless and tripless - though the first two I would prefer to have a stronger average).

[boyle]

Here is a writeup I did of the South American Championships. Only of my quick time there, I'm going to write more in the coming days.

In December, we went to Medellin in Colombia to attend the South American Footbag Championships. This was the first time someone had represented Chile, and some (most) might say that I am not all that Chilean.

We were still in the Carribean when the first day's play had ended, however the day was dedicated to Net Doubles. Now of course, considering there is only one serious player in Chile, it is slightly difficult to set up a doubles team.

We arrived late at night from Cartagena and returned to the Black Sheep hostel. This is where we stayed the first time, and it had been a very comfortable stay. We were even back in the same room, so everything went smoothly there, despite arriving at 1 in the morning.

The next day's action was the singles tournament in net. Now, seeing that I hadn't played with any people for a while, it was worth a shot. I lost both my games in quick succession, though I did force Edison Duque into a tiebreaker in one set. He ended up finishing with the silver medal.

One thing that I did learn in changing my technique, was the many of the players served with almost a rugby style kick, rather than using the inside or outside of their foot. This gave me a lot better accuracy.

Later that day, Ken Somolinos had replied to a Facebook comment of mine, saying that net then freestyle is the worst possible combination and I would be regretting it in the morning.

We went out for a while in the evening to a salsa club in the middle of Medellin. The place was packed, with all the players having a good time. I was already feeling the soreness, so I was ready to call it a night early.

The next day was my day, jornada de freestyle. It was also the day we were leaving, so we took all our gear to the stadium, ready to leave for the airport immediately after the competition.

The circle was the first competition. After dividing the two circles randomly by number allocation, we were left with some pretty serious inequalities in the two circles.

I was in the more difficult of the circles, which included Brayan Stiven, Alex Lopez and a couple of young guys who played a lot better than me.

I was feeling the "net legs" starting out. I couldn't get my strings going, the first run I dropped on the third contact. Of course I got angry and frustrated at myself, and just made things worse.

During the density round, I got more into the flow of things, but I had done the damage to myself in the variety. I was a long way from making the final. What kind of international superstar was this....?

The next competition was the Big One. Just your best trick. We had about five or six attempts, and I started to click into gear. I opened with my safety (Phoenix), then proceeded to hit three different six add moves (spinning ducking whirl, food processor, alpine blurry whirl). The only trick I didn't hit was when I basically spun around and stuck my foot out - some may say I was going for double spinning whirl, which I have never hit, but it wasn't planned that far ahead.

As I was watching Brayan, who works on the "go hard or go home" philosophy, I thought I might be in with a chance, as he had nothing to show for his first four attempts.

Then he hit nuclear torque...

After this competition we were able to go inside the sports hall, which is mainly used for martial arts. The net events were inside the basketball stadium, which didn't really have anybody just walking by, so there was only a very small crowd.

This stadium (just across the pathway), had people coming and going, so there was more chance to attract people to the sport.

We went back for a cheap meal nearby the stadium during the lunch break, then the next event was routines. Routines has always been my favourite event, and probably the one I have performed best in.

Although I hadn't really been training hard for this event, the routine (to Back in Black, by AC/DC) went down reasonably well. Brayan had a much harder routine, but had some problems late in his routine with the drops. In the end he finished slightly ahead of me.

Sick 3 and Shred 30 saw me get my best ever results. I hit a 5>5>5 (darkwalk> spinning ducking butterfly>spinning ducking osis) in the Sick 3, but my sloppy presentation saw me lose out to a 5>5>4 (blurry whirl>blurry whirl>pdx drifter)

Afterwards we started judging, then soon enough it was time to have the presentations, say our goodbyes and rush to the airport.

IN other news - Flying Clipper have donated me 100 footbags in order to carry out my education programs here. That's going to be a great start to spread the program and also to ask for more support. I haven't planned the exact strides for how I'm going to make it, but I am completely convinced that improving sport and education is something that Chile can be a world leader in.

Leaders in education like Finland, Singapore are just looking at sport now, as they have figured out most other elements to education. I have been in contact with a few people about that, so hopefully I will have some exciting news ahead.

I will probably put some photos and videos up later, when I get some extra time.

[C-Fan]

Thanks for the write up, I enjoyed it. Props on hitting some good stuff in Sick 3 and Big Trick.

[boyle]

yeah, I was pretty happy with both those events (particularly with the "net legs"). I'm going to write some more about my time in Colombia in the coming days. I didn't get too much footage, but I know some of the other guys did, I will have to check out what is around.

[boyle]

I broke my consecutive kicks record today. 2123. The old record was 2015, so it wasn't a huge jump. I felt good about it though, I had been playing reasonably well, then went for a swim. After the swim I had no towel, so to dry out I started kicking. I felt I had a good control, so I kept kicking, and then I got my new record.

I had my mind focused on the target and got it done on the first go.

I am hoping that can be a sign for a job that I am applying for. It is in the Australian Embassy and pays a nice salary. In terms of Australian Dollars it is very small, but I don't need to earn $AU at this moment. Every peso counts and there's not many of them coming in.

If that doesn't work out, I have started doing a program with some of Chile's top athletes, beginning with some English classes. Let's see what happens from there, but I think there is a strong chance to get some funding and get it really going. I have high hopes for that.

Here's a video from me playing today. It's filmed from my phone sitting on a bench, so of course it's not the best quality.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/1jMXbLOTWgg[/youtube]

[boyle]

[youtube]http://youtu.be/XgTRJSU0Hko[/youtube]

Here is a little video I put together from my time in Patagonia last year. Unfortunately the freezing cold conditions, strong winds, lack of Lavers, various other boo hoo excuses and general lack of skill prevented me from getting some Big Tricks into the video, however, there is some awesome scenery in there.

I am not much of a video editor, but that one came out ok, and makes me think I might work on some other scenic footage that I have built a collection of. What I want to complete is a "Chile" video. It was my idea to do that for the Christmas calendar. Maybe if I start working on it now, I can do it for this year's Christmas calendar....

Have been playing reasonably regularly. Haven't hit too much new lately. Just working on solidifying things, trying to build up some of the concepts that I'm really quite bad at and generally ignore. The flipside of many, many sets and tricks is on this list.

I will be having a session with the freestyle football guys this afternoon, after going to the Aussie Rules training this morning. Both of these should be good fun.

[boyle]

I haven't made a post in this blog in three months and the blog is still on the first page. That says something about the state of Modified. The question is what does it say at all - and what does the state of footbag say about the state of the footbag community?

Is footbag dead? No, definitely not. It is peak season for competitions, with people flying all over the world to attend them. I am not one of these people.
Is Facebook killing footbag communication? No, not really. The key is doing all sorts of communication. However, footbag was better at communicating in the past.

For example - http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... AG1009092/ - Sports Illustrated, 1996, a story about the World Footbag Championships. In Montreal of all places.

Is footbag growing? In terms of players, I'm not so sure. In terms of countries, I think yes, or the hotspots are shifting. I think Worlds needs to go somewhere outside of North America/Europe next year or the year after and I think Colombia is the place. It is accessible, reasonably cheap, has excellent facilities and good freestyle and net scenes.

I am going out in a minute so the next episode I will tell you about my game. I am playing pretty regularly, don't have too many proteges, will give a demonstration next week at a huge football expo, might be moving cities for a job, was looking at going back to Australia but that fell through, have been teaching some English. Things have been pretty chaotic lately to say the least, but they're going along.

[boyle]

I am on the bus down to the south of Chile. Depending on how things go tomorrow, there could be some great changes ahead. Let's see how the 1,000 km journey goes first of all. I have a job interview with a tourism company, for a communications role. That's quite good because it mixes my experiences in Australia with what I have done here in Chile.

Here is a video of the last time I was in the south. There are some pretty incredible landscapes down there. To be honest I wasn't expecting to return so soon. It sounds like the weather is pretty rough at the moment - emergency warnings, big storms, so there may not be so much chance for kicking around.

http://youtu.be/8wiaCAxzWog

I have actually only been able to spend minimal time kicking this week. I would like to get in some training as I have some big opportunities next week. I will go on TV on the "Show de Goles", a football supporters show, then I will be giving many demonstrations at the Feria de Futbol called F11. That is going to be a really huge opportunity for footbag in Chile, it will be interesting to see how it goes, particularly if the job doesn't come through. Though I think there would be no point in me spending 12 hours each way on a bus if there was no gig on...

[boyle]

I'm going on TV tonight. Hope it goes well. I went for a job interview in Puerto Varas, in the south of Chile. Hope that goes well too. While I was there I had a bit of a kick around. You can see some results in this video.

http://youtu.be/yWjiNKFs_g4

[boyle]

[youtube]http://youtu.be/pPkNka6_0Yg[/youtube]

Hi blog. I was on TV the other day. Important guy, big star. Actually I will be on TV tomorrow, on one of the morning shows - the "matinal" called Mucho Gusto. I have been on TV here quite a few times now...each time it must give some recognition to the sport but I think it will be difficult to build upon into something real.

On the other hand, tomorrow and over the weekend we have the Feria de Futbol, which will give a real chance to people to come and have a try of footbag and see how they like it. I'm going to see what happens but I would like to run some small competitions there, depending on a wide range of factors.

Anyway, the TV performance was great. The best thing was that it's a live filming, so you get in, do you thing, then you're done. Well actually, the best thing was I didn't drop it in front of the live TV audience. The Show de Goles is a long running football show, that is quite popular - they just have blokes talking about football while huge-breasted models stand around doing not a particularly large amount of anything.

Anyway, performance went well, finished with a phoenix. I actually hadn't prepared so much, as the times I've been on TV before, you really don't know what to prepare for - slippery floors, lighting flashing in your eyes - but this time the floor was great, lighting good and I didn't feel any pressure. I just felt like I had something to do, went up on stage, did it, and that was that.

Hopefully can do something similar tomorrow - we'll see what happens!