Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[boyle]

Played a bit today. Hit double switchover back to back, which I have never done before. My right side has always given me trouble on that, but today it was just coming out nicely. Also had dillusion on my foot. That would be a nice one to hit. It's the national holiday here, so it is basically a week long public holiday. Went out last night so am going to take it is today.

[boyle]

I wrote something on the freestyle footbaggers group on Facebook, in the discussion about if footbag is in a good state, bad state, etc. It is interesting that one of the only people pushing a negative view is Honza, multiple times world champion and that the starter of the thread was Aleksi, not so bad a player himself.

This is what I wrote:

It is interesting that no "new wave" has really come through. I was having a look at the results from the last few worlds, and almost everyone entering has probably been playing for 5-10 years. Like somebody said earlier, in many places it's guys who are married, have real jobs, can only play every now and then.

There are key factors missing in footbag in comparison to other sports - one is a top "professional" level, in an area that people just get paid to play footbag. That may not ever happen, but we do definitely have an elite level of players, that at this moment are seemingly getting further and further advance, and better than the "middle of the road" players.

These type of players are either stagnating, quitting or not playing because of other life commitments or happy with the level that they have reached (not everyone is interested in winning Worlds).

There is a real problem, which has been mentioned, with getting people involved to a strong level - many people get people into it, they get some lavers, maybe they are reaching a tiltless/guiltless level, but the big question is - who have any of us got to start playing that has gone on to be better than us?

It is definitely good to have the more regular tournaments, this is one of the ways that we can get people involved - having the old players make a comeback is something, but to have a new generation would be even better.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It's something that I've been thinking on for a while. When you play by yourself for two years you start thinking on these kind of things. I guess the big question is how to measure whether the "health" of the sport. One measurement is the amount of competitors at the key events - and I would say the big three are Worlds, Euros and US Open, none of which had a huge turnout.

The Finnish championship - now that had a turnout. That had one of the strongest fields I have seen in a footbag competition for sometime. Though Anssi said recently in an interview that there are not really any new players coming through in Finland either.

Another one is to look at the winners of the intermediate division at Worlds, and see where they have gone from there. I guess the last person to really kick on from the intermediates was David Clavens.

Let's test that out.

2013: Roy Klein (Israel)
2012: Konrad Chlebny (Poland) - Poland is another place that is developing players, though I think we don't see a lot of those players if we are outside of Poland.
2011: Ilya Sernov (Russia) - Russia is an interesting scene that seems to be growing a bit, though it's a huge country and one of the guys in the Facebook thread said the people in each city kind of stick to themselves.
2010: Hiroaki Wakana (Japan)
2009: Jan Drudga (Czech Republic?) - I have a feeling he was part of a group of four of five young Czech guys, which included Jindra, who were all future prodigies. Not so sure what's happening with the rest of them, but Jindra seems to be going along just fine...
2008: Christopher Schillem (Germany)
2007: Kyle Hewitt (USA) (Jay Boychuk placed 13th of 25 in this event)
2006: Lukas Dobias (SK - Slovakia?) - Rene Rühr was a feature in this event. He was somebody I was thinking that had exploded in recent years, but maybe it was more of a slow process.
2005: Manuel Schmid (Switzerland) - this one also included some up and comers like Dustin Rhodes, Tom Mosher and Sergey Kozlov
2004: David Clavens (USA)
2003: Tomas Tucek (Czech Republic) - In 2003 there were almost 50 players in the intermediate division, with about the same in the open division. This was also the first European Worlds, which I'm guessing must have been a "must attend" for everyone that was in Europe.

So that's the past 10 years. In the time of about 04-07 there were some up and comers who are now some of the best players in the world. I was very impressed at the numbers of competitors in things like intermediate/womens/doubles in these earlier years, all of which have kind of fallen by the wayside, as has the amount of people in open.

Just going on Worlds, you would have to say the sport is "in decline", though it's interesting that many who went this year said it was the "best Worlds ever".

One thing that I think that must change is that people need to know, definitely (dates locked in), one year in advance where the following Worlds will be. That gives time to prepare for those living in the "real world" that I mentioned in my Facebook post.

[boyle]

I'm going to play every day this month and then I'm going to write about it. That's the big plan anyway. Today is the first day of that plan.

Today I had a terrible session. It was windy, cold, and I was coughing a lot. I played in the plaza downstairs, not many people around. So it was a pretty tough session, but that means things can only go up. I hit a few cool little combos, but actually had some problems with my shorts which prevented me from hitting longer runs.

There were two occasions where I was midway through a 20 something guiltless string, but felt my shorts were dropping and I was going to have to readjust, but failed to time it properly and brought about a drop.

I put a little thing up on Facebook, I answered the question on someone else's wall. The reason why I shared it to begin, was that I only met the guy briefly last year, when I went down to the marathon in Patagonia, but whenever he posts something it's usually pretty interesting.

I didn't really think anybody would read it (people then had to answer with one word about where we met). I was really surprised by some of the responses. Not the places, as generally they wrote something about where we met, but who and how many people were responding. People I hadn't talked to in years, a few I had never met or met briefly once, some old girlfriends or girls I had kissed once or twice. And many, many, many footbag players.

I was talking to Asmus online a little. I would really like to go to the Danish Open, it sounds like it's going to be the best tournament this year. In reality it will probably be too early on in the program for me to go there, but I have some belief that my "brand", which I will be getting a nice grant from the government to create, should somehow be a part of that.

I had some other thoughts about different events, particularly what Jon Schneider was saying about getting together at big music events and playing hack. What would be even better (particularly if they were successful events) would be that "footbag" (or somebody involved in footbag) created the events, so that the whole thing would benefit the sport. I was thinking of something like "Rock the Hack" or something like that, where footbag and "hacky sack" are all part of the entertainment. You could start very small, say with someone like Matt Cross playing in some bar or outside venue in New York, then have a couple of footbag players doing some shows, some friends of friends playing shows and then go from there. This is something I'd like to develop a bit further, I think it has potential. Might need a better name, but the idea would be that rather than playing hack being a sideshow at a music event, it's the main idea of going.

How many times have you been to a festival, just simply to play hack, or in the hope that there'll be a fun circle there. I believe that serious footbag players are not the only ones with those thoughts. The second thought is to create some events with a play on the computer nerd style of "hacking".

As part of the Start Up Chile program, I want to do a "hackatón deportivo" for Sport/Life. My basic idea is that each team should be comprised of a tech person, an athlete, a school student and a media person. I want to do about five of these over the time I'm in the program, mostly in public schools, and hopefully some out of Santiago. I think it can be a good way to, firstly, promote the business, and secondly, make some cool stuff. There is a big idea that you "give back to the community". Though there is a big reality that most people don't give anything back to the community at large.

Let's see how everything goes. This month is the key planning month, not just for these six months, but for the next few years, because if I can get something working (like an "incubator" is meant to do), that could set us up for an interesting future. If not, I'll have to get a job with a nice salary...

[boyle]

Have to run so I'm going to make this one really quick. I play today, short session. 30 minutes indoors. Made sure to keep playing for the full 30 minutes, worked up a bit of a sweat. Hit phoenix>tomahawk as my final combo, also hit spinning mirage>eggbeater which was a kind of fun combo.

Yesterday I put together a little bit of footage from the sessions I've had in September.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYKjN1K987M[/youtube]

Nothing particularly outstanding, September in Chile is more about eating and drinking a lot. A lot a lot a lot. So this month I'm trying to stay of the booze. Assisting in that, I have had three bottles of wine delivered to my desk...

Anyway, planning on a bigger and better session tomorrow. Still feeling these cold/allergies, giving me great problems.

[boyle]

I'm off shortly to give a presentation, which will include a footbag demonstration. I am definitely much less nervous about the footbag part, as it's something I've done many times before. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was talking with Asmus recently and he showed me something he's planning to present at the Danish Open, about giving demos etc.

Those guys are really well organised and are an excellent example to follow (though the thing is, that goes for most Scandinavian countries, in most things). Anyway, it's about performing and it mentions if you "don't feel you're good enough", you should still give a show. I think this is very true. People are amazed that you can just do an around the world. Of course, as this text goes on to say, if the show needs a "real professional", bring them in.

In a show though, you should play to your ability and try not to drop. Don't go for the all out shred, and tricks you can't do. Doing these kind of things help with routines as well. I saw that only three people competed in open routines at the East Coasts. That's kind of ridiculous, one would have to say. Maybe people don't like competing in routines anymore...maybe people don't want to prepare, they just want to shred...don't know. I like routines though. Sounds like it would have been better to be all open though, I think there were some other categories too. The other categories should only really exist if there's enough demand (ie more than say 7 in open).

Anyway, playing today, left work a little earlier so it wasn't as cold when I played. It was still windy though. Actually I left work a lot earlier, I just went home for lunch and never came back. I can do everything from my computer, so it's no problem there.

Speaking of not being prepared, I haven't actually prepared a routine in ages. There are always to many "what ifs" in Chile to have something prepared. That's why my last TV appearance went so well, I just got up there and did it, there was nothing to be disappointed in. They didn't give me a time limit, a practice run or anything. So it was good to do that dropless. Actually, that wasn't my last TV appearance, I got some time on air at the recent Red Bull Street Style in Chile.

That's something else, I mentioned this on the Facebook group. The final of the Red Bull comp was really bad. I don't know if those guys choked under pressure, or weren't really the guys who should have been in the final, but there were way too many drops and too much losing control. What is amazing though is that in the Santiago event there were 32 competitors... this is more than the competitors at Worlds. Different sport though.

So I didn't say much about today's session in the post. Nothing much to report. Was working a bit on flip nuclear set. Also had double spinning mirage off my foot. It wasn't well controlled at all though. Speaking of this idea of keeping control and playing to your level, I went for a double spin in 2007 at Nationals in Tasmania in the routine. I had never hit it before and I certainly didn't hit it then.

So I'm really strongly considering going to Europe next month, but the key is to try and convince my wife that it is a good idea. Of course it is a good idea, I would also need to get approval from the project (which is part of the government), but I think that would be quite easy. There is enough time to figure it all out, so we'll see. In reality it will probably be a no, but, one can dream. I think I saw the Czech championships are one week before the Danish, so that could be a fun trip in itself.

Let's see. Now it's time to go and make this presentation.

[boyle]

So I played today again. Played in a different place, it was a little annoying. I left the office after a fun day - I was broadcasting on the radio. We have an online radio and I was finally shown how to use it so I want to start getting things going in that regard. I am going to do a "matinal", that's what they call the morning shows here in Chile and I will probably do a couple of others as the time goes on. The most important thing is to have the shows on the air, otherwise nobody will listen.

I'm sure not too many people were tuning in, but I really enjoyed it. It really needs someone to pick it up and get the ball rolling, otherwise there's no point.

So anyway, I played today and where I was planning to play there were some skateboarders, whatever, footbag is pretty portable, so I moved to a new place. Then the skateboarders moved there. I'm not really against skateboarders, I have spent plenty of time of my life in skateparks, but there are some guys (particularly kids of this age, maybe about 17), who just have such arrogant behaviour. They got kicked out of the area soon after, so I was left in peace.

Well not really in peace because I'm still having these problems with the allergies. Bring back the winter or bring on the summer, get rid of the pollen. I worked on a few things, I was working on mirage>legover and getting a bunch of contacts of that in a row. I think I got up to about 20, don't really remember. There weren't too many great highlights from this session, I had a few runs of 25ish guiltless. This seems to be a big problem, I'm getting to about that number and either running out of steam, running out of ideas, or dropping on something stupid. I will have to rejig how I'm doing my runs. I had one run towards the end that was focused on adding in a few harder tricks along the way into the guiltless run.

One thing I have been working on a bit lately is terrage>terrage and it is getting better, I've also being working on improving barrage on both sides.

So I came back home and where I usually play, there were some kids playing Aussie Rules...not something you see everyday in Chile! I talked to them for a while and had a kick around. I told the Dad about our club, but he didn't really seem interested, which is too bad. They are only here short term, so they probably have a lot of family visiting to do.

Oh yeah, the little presentation, it went really well. I gave a quick footbag demonstration, dropless. It was probably about a 20-30 second performance of footbag (part of a 5 minute presentation where the slides moved every 15 seconds). It went well though. Met a couple of nice people there, good to give a bit more confidence in my "business", which at this moment is really practically nothing. Hopefully not for so long though.

[boyle]

I played briefly today, but given the situation I will count in as a session, and given that I am writing it up in this blog, I am continuing to go along with my goals for the month.

So today I went on a pretty long bushwalk. Hiking, trekking whatever you wish to call it. Tramping, as the people in New Zealand say. It was a full day walk, heading towards the La Paloma glacier, which is pretty impressive. So I had a stop early in the walk where I played for a little while. I also got some short video, but the one of the best run I did at that time didn't turn out. We kept walking up towards these frozen waterfalls. People actually do ice climbing on them, I think when it is a bit more in the winter.

Anyway, played there a little bit. All the playing was with jeans, not with Lavers and at 2,000+ metres elevation. So it wasn't particularly good. That time I was just playing to try and get something on film, but later on I went and specifically went to play. I was actually going to play in shorts there, but I decided against it (it was at 3,000m elevation on the way to a glacier, so maybe it wasn't really shorts weather). Not many highlights from the footbag, but the walk itself was pretty amazing.

It was a full day walk, about 20km it seems, so now I'm feeling pretty exhausted. I also had a crash on a slippery rock early in the campaign, this kind of hurt my ankle and to add insult to injury, I put my hand in a spiky bush in this same fall.

[boyle]

Seems in fashion to put some hiking images in the footblog section...

This is from yesterday's adventures, midway along the route. Actually that was probably pretty early on, though I think it might have been after my little stumble. That was an annoying little fall. I have been having some slight problems with my ankle, but we visited a friend today and he had a stumble near the bus stop and now has one of those moon boots...I sprained my ankle in Nepal about this time 2 years ago. That was just one of many mishaps on that travel through Asia...but it got better and I got better at footbag. I couldn't really play at all though, for quite some time.

So I did play a little today. Once again, not really a session, but it's something I'll count. Firstly because I gave a small improptu demonstration at a birthday party we were at. In this demonstration I slipped, the concrete was as even as I thought, and nearly had a problem with the other ankle, but that all worked out ok. Aside from this short display, I played for a short while, and in that time managed a string of 14 guiltless. I also did some exercises when we came back from the party - particularly one with insides and clippers, just holding in position for extended periods of time.

Tomorrow we have our ultrasound to see how the baby is going along. It is already 5 months along, so we are more then halfway there. Apparently the little one is already working on the footbag moves...

[boyle]

Had two sessions today, both of about 30 minutes. In the first session I hit something I have been working on for a while. I got in on film, so I will have to make sure that I did it properly. The trick I have been trying is spinning butterfly cross body rake. I will have to review that footage, but I had it on my foot a few times.

Both times I was thinking about what I could hit for the online competition. I don't really know, particularly for the ten trick combo, I was thinking about a few starting options, and didn't get so much further than that. I did hit phoenix>revup>whirl, which is something I was thinking of expanding on to work into the combo. Let's see what I can come up with.

The second session was after work, and after the ultrasound - it's definitely going to be a boy and all signs are looking positive, which is great news. All healthy and moving around. I hit a few good tricks in this second session, but mainly just single tricks. Things like atomic ss dlo, which was a recent addition to the game, or symp dlo from inside set, which I don't think I had ever hit before.

I was also building on my basics, doing osis>clipper rpt, with varying amounts of success. I am starting to wear in a new pair of lavers and they really are quite stiff (they're not that new either, but they've been in the cupboard for about a year). I have my other pair soaking at the moment, but I think they've got some life left in them. I also have a black pair, which are practically done, but I have had a session in them every now and then.

In a key money saving move, I haven't bought any take away lunches, or drank any beer this month so far. It's only a month old, but I think these two moves will definitely pay dividends.

Chile will be playing Colombia on Friday night, hopefully that game will go towards a spot in the World Cup. Australia are already in, but I'm sure they will be bundled straight out.

I would like to do a footbag event in Brazil at the time of the World Cup. I think that could be a good idea. They did a little event at the same time as the World Cup in Germany called "Worlds", but I don't know if there was so much building on that opportunity. It may have been just out of time as well.

[boyle]

Played for about 45 mins today. Went for a bike ride after work and then stopped for a while to kick around. First up, I was playing with some of my different tiltless moves, and doing ten in a row of them. Some good, some alarming. Pickup has never been a strong point of mine, while my flip mirage seems to have gone downhill and needs some work.

Later in the session I hit phoenix>fog for the first time. This is a combo I've been working on for some time, and that I had on my foot about four times, so it was a good feeling to hit that. There wasn't so much else of note, but I was really happy with that combo. I'd like to hit something out of that to build upon that.

Probably did about 15km on the bike as well. Would like to get a bit more use out of the bike, rather than just riding to work and back. That's not so far anyway.

Let's see what comes from tomorrow's session.

[boyle]

Played for about 45 mins today. Went for a bike ride after work and then stopped for a while to kick around. First up, I was playing with some of my different tiltless moves, and doing ten in a row of them. Some good, some alarming. Pickup has never been a strong point of mine, while my flip mirage seems to have gone downhill and needs some work.

Later in the session I hit phoenix>fog for the first time. This is a combo I've been working on for some time, and that I had on my foot about four times, so it was a good feeling to hit that. There wasn't so much else of note, but I was really happy with that combo. I'd like to hit something out of that to build upon that.

Probably did about 15km on the bike as well. Would like to get a bit more use out of the bike, rather than just riding to work and back. That's not so far anyway.

Let's see what comes from tomorrow's session.

[boyle]

Well I did play today, but it was another kind of "only just" session. I was at work and not wearing footbagging clothes (I had an English class at BHP, so I was wearing more formal attire), but I decided to work on my consecutive kicks. At first I was aiming to do a total of 1,000 though then I got into action, the first step was to get to 100, which is how I normally start each session. With the big formal shoes, that took a lot longer, though eventually I got about 450. I was aiming for 500, but that was pretty good for the situation.

When I came home, I put on my lavers and did a few tricks. Nothing really good, I didn't want to jump around to much and have any neighbours complain, however when I was finishing I decided I wanted to finish with paradox blender, and that's what I did (after a few attempts).

It would be really great to play with somebody else. I know Evan Lovely is coming to South America later in the year, he was asking for tips on Patagonia on Facebook earlier on. Hopefully he stops by Santiago for a short while.

[boyle]

Had my session for today at lunchtime. Have been doing really well with bringing lunch to the office, rather than buying take away, which is saving me a lot of money. I am also trying not to drink this month, which is difficult when you get invited to events where they shove free drink in front of your face. Have managed to hold on so far though, so that's a good start.

Still a long way to go in this month, including two World Cup qualifiers with the possibility of Chile qualifying for the World Cup. I think it will be a high scoring draw tomorrow, then maybe another draw with Ecuador and that will be enough. A win would of course be better though.

So my session at lunchtime started off pretty slowly, but finished with a good trick. I have hit it before, but this time it felt really good, the trick was ripwalk swirl. I was reading something in Nick Polini's blog, about an excess of BOPs and of zooming. I definitely have an excess of bops, particularly as I've been trying to get these longer strings. I think I might focus on quality instead of quantity for a while, and start looking at some cool links. One that I thought of, and hit (after quite a few tries) was spinning osis>revup. If I could get that in the middle of a long run, that would be quite good.

I have been invited to talk tomorrow on the BBC World Service about the game between Chile and Colombia. Hopefully that all works well and it will be another media moment to add to my "fame".

I am going to the ballet tonight with Francisca. We got some free tickets given to us (the owner of our house is the lead dancer in the main ballet company in Santiago). Not that I know anything about ballet, but maybe there will be some helpful influences for the footbag game. Let's see. Maybe not...

[boyle]

Today could have been one of the great days in Chilean sports history. It wasn't though. 3-0 up thanks to goals from Arturo Vidal and 2 x Alexis Sánchez, things were looking good.

You can never be too confident in the Chilean team though (except in them letting in easy goals) and this was a case to see. The game finished 3-3, meaning Colombia will go to the World Cup. Chile need a draw to go through, and in reality will probably still go through as Uruguay play Argentina.

The other things was the bidding for the 2019 Pan American Games, where Chile actually only got 9 votes out of about 50, so that will go to Lima. It was interesting as many people (in Chile) seemed to think they had it in the bag.

Anyway, let's talk about footbag. I continued on my streak of playing, though once again short session. It was actually a bit longer than I planned and a couple of interesting things happened. Not much interesting on the tricks front happened. I hit mobius as the last trick.

I was playing along and some guys from one of the other towers were whistling to me. I looked up and gave a wave, thumbs up. Then they kept whistling. This wasn't the kind of whistling that happens in South America when a player makes a massive blunder, but like a "hey". They were holding something, that I couldn't tell what it was. These guys were probably on the 15th floor.

So the guys throw the object, with remarkable accuracy - and it's a crochet hack. I played a little bit with that and tried to hit some things. I did a nice little 2 bag juggle with that and another bag (only a few contacts). Then later on someone asked me what the sport was called. The game was about to start so I didn't have too much time to talk to him.

Pretty disappointing for Chile, even though they are still in with a great chance. I was really hoping to go to Plaza Italia to celebrate. Guess I have to wait until Tuesday for that, hopefully they don't have to do the playoff with Jordan. Even though they would most likely win, it's longer to see what's happening.

Planning to have a longer session tomorrow, maybe go for a bike ride as well. I will also go and check out the National Games with a couple of friends.

[boyle]

I had a good session today. I did all that stuff I said I would do in the last paragraph of my previous post. I rode some way up the Cerro San Cristobal, then went off in the direction for one of the pools up there. This is where they held one of the events for the Homeless World Cup. On the way back we trusted some Chilean blokes we met and got totally lost (well not totally lost, we just went in the complete opposite direction as we needed to - so it was fun to fly down there on a bike, in the daytime.

It's great that feeling of getting up a bit of speed on the bike going downhill. It's not something I've done too much on this bike as I've mainly been too lazy to put in the work for the uphill. Like footbag, like life, whatever, you've got to do some hard yards to get the benefit.

So at the top of the hill I started playing. Things did not start well, I could barely move my legs and was having trouble just getting a few kicks. The legs seemed to get moving though, and I got a couple of things on film that I may submit to the online competition. I might try to film something a bit better, though these are all reasonably viable options (that of course won't win).

I hit a Sick 1 (not that hard, but something that I only got recently), a Sick 3 (ok, it's a 5>5>5, but I could probably do something a bit better) and a Weird 1. I was pretty happy with that one. I guess it's not particularly weird, though is a bit different from the standard stuff. I haven't been too many different and unique tricks lately, that's something to work on a bit more.

It was a good session today though, I sweated a lot (maybe the hill climb on the bike really contributed a lot to that). So we went to the Juegos Deportivos Nacionales in the afternoon, it was a bit weird, and a bit interesting. Isidora Jiminez, who is a new sensation, came third in her race. She is the big sensation in Chilean athletics, they say looks like Maria Sharapova, even though she doesn't look a bit like her.

Karen Gallardo, who was in my English classes I did with the athletes earlier this year with the athletes, won in the discus. Another bloke who also went to the Olympics won the 100m sprint. After watching that we watched the handball for a while. It was pretty even at the start, but one team started running away with it and the other blokes basically gave up.

This event was a great chance to test things out for the South American Games next year, but with barely any crowds (practically just the competitors and their mums), it was no test event. Chile also bid for the Pan American Games in which they were crushed by Peru.

I will go to footy training tomorrow, see how I can fit in my session. Maybe in the afternoon. Still keeping up with my target of not drinking any beers and playing footbag every day for the month. Still a long way to go, but best not to lost the target in the first days...

[boyle]

It was a pretty short session today. I woke up pretty early. My phone told me it was 8am, which seemed like a sensible time to wake up. Then I started doing some stuff on the computer, bits and pieces and after a while the computer told me it was 8:20. This was over an hour later, which I thought was weird.

Like many things, this can be blamed on the government. In reality, that's exactly who to blame, as they keep playing around with the date that the time changes for daylight savings, without having anything prepared for the technology makers to automatically change on date x.

Not a problem though, but I arrived very early to the footy training, and played some footbag. Nothing in particular to highlight, had some reasonable runs though. I have really been working on adding a few new tricks and combos into the runs. One I was adding in, moreso yesterday was atomic ss illusion, which is something I have not hit too often. Today I was trying to add in quantum osis, which is not one of my strongpoints, but I had it in there a few times.

I also started playing around with some tricks with one of the junior Aussie Rules balls. I was trying to do some good control, and had some reasonably long runs of about ten contacts, mainly with stalls on different surfaces and a couple of ATW style tricks. I also hit reverse swirl and came close to whirl with the thing.

Honza made an interesting post yesterday - a follow up to his "future of footbag" essay. It can be read on his Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/notes/honza-we ... 5916533455

The question at the start is - is there even a future for footbag? I think yes, but I think there will need to be some key changes. People complain a lot about lack of sponsors and lack of media coverage. The first thing is to ask if the people will sponsor you, or write about your competition. If none of us ask for anything, then we definitely won't get it.

In reality I have probably got more opportunities than my "level" should allow me. This is through a range of things....being one of few people to play in the country/hemisphere, being in the right place at the right time and having jobs with flexible hours.

Like practically every player in the world, there's plenty more that I could have done, and like many of us, despite giving demonstrations in front of thousands of people, going on TV, being in the newspaper, going into schools, this hasn't helped to get any new, serious players.

The situation in Footbag is very different. The products are way cheaper and the companies have absolutely no interest to cooperate with the players. Their only target is to make money, which is understandable, but since they do not invest anything back into the sport because they do not sponsor competition nor the players, they are like parasites! They do not realize that when we quit, they will go bust.

This is something that's not entirely true, but I think what we need to see from the companies is maybe a more systematic approach to how things are funded - World Footbag, Flying Clipper, Planetfootbag and Freedom Footbags are just some of the companies which have donated prizes and probably some money towards various events.

I guess what Honza is looking at is for players to be paid by these companies to either make promotional videos, attend tournament or give demonstrations. I think the reality is these companies don't make anywhere near enough money to do that, but of course I'm not sure, as I'm not running any of the companies. I just don't imagine thousands of hacky sacks are being sold each day.

This is an interesting similar essay, from 2009 from Red Husted. http://fourkast.com/blog/the-state-of-f ... otbag-2010 - it's quite a good piece, and what he particularly touches on is the decline of competitions, due to the lack of clubs, that everyone is more spread out.

With this funding I have been given, what I am hoping to do is put some of that into footbag. My dream for a long time is to have a Footbag World Tour, and I think in the next couple of years there could be a possibility to pull it off. It will depend a bit on how I can go during the six months that I have the incubating boost with Start Up Chile, then where things go from there.

I have to say, we are not the only sport with this trouble though, and the ebbs and flows will always continue.

[boyle]

Today's session was not very good. Maybe from being too tired, particularly after the weekend's other activities (bike ride, footy training and all the other footbag sessions. It could also have been the distraction from the little kids who came and stole the footbag and ran away with it, up until the point that the dad made him come and give it back. The kid is about two years old, so not much to be done.

Something I did hit was spinning osis b2b - this has been something that has been giving me trouble for some time. In particularly the flip spinning osis, so that was something good. I also hit 25 pickups on the first try. That is one of my quite weak tricks, so it was good to get that going ahead a bit further.

There has been a bit of talk about changing routines and the systems I'm judging. I said on Facebook that if there were simply more competitions and people entering in them, then the level of the routines should rise as people will have more focus and training.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Nice job with Spinning Osis b2b. Always fun to see that people are getting better at spins. I think what helped me most with spins was drilling Gyro Clipper b2b and beating my record every time. One thing that helped with zooming was doing the Osis, then freezing it into a clipper for a few seconds, then pretending I was a spring and releasing the tension and unloading the energy, which will unwind you and send you into the spin. Good luck with those. And keep those little kids away from your footbags Congrats on the baby btw!

[boyle]

My gyro still needs quite a lot of work. My strong side zoom is quite good, but the other side also still needs some work. Those kids were annoying. Particularly that they kept coming back when I just want to have a quiet session.

Today I had a nice session. Well I had a lunchtime session, which went along fine, no particular highlights, but some good long runs. This was a definite "footbag for exercise" which has been mentioned in some other blogs.

In the morning I had a long chat with Caroline, which was really good. We talked on many things, some which will need to stay under wraps a little while longer. Definitely some very interesting developments on all sides.

In important news, Chile are winning 2-0 at half time, which should mean they go to the World Cup. Even though they blew a 3-0 lead last week, but that was in Barranquilla, not with an almost completely red stadium. That's good news. I think I would like to go to Brazil for a weekend during the World Cup...probably not go to any games or anything, just be there and be a part of the atmosphere. Of course we're going to have the baby, so there is not going to be a way to go there for any big length of time...however, a weekend could be fun and achievable.

This afternoon I had a game of tennis. We played a game of doubles..with my professional "enemies", but good friends. It was Australia vs England, with a hard fought setting seeing the Aussies 7-5 winners on the clay. After we played I thought it would be good to get a couple of runs on video. My very first run was a nice 20 contact run, it was good to be already warmed up and not too tired out.

Maybe I should get into gambling on sports. I tipped the Colombia game to finish 3-3 and I said that this game was going to be 2-1 to Chile. Both correct, Chile to the World Cup. The coach Sampaoli and his crew get $1 million. Not a bad way to earn a living. Already you can hear the horn honking in celebration. That won't end any time soon.

[boyle]

Today's session started quite badly, and remained that way most of the time. Until my last trick. So let's talk about that. When Copey and I used to play together in Canberra, we always had this idea that you had to "finish with a bang", you couldn't just finish dropping. This was a few years back and the tricks would always very. Sometimes it would just be hitting something like DATW to ensure that you hit something.

Today, after some good and lots of dropping on the ground, I thought of working a bit more on my atomic. Another thing I have been looking to do is hit my first 3 dex>3 dex. I hit my first 3 dex 6 years ago, so it really shouldn't have taken this long...There is something to say for my toe game and both sidedness that they still need quite a bit of work.

I was working particularly on fairy ss dlo, which I have hit before, though not very often. I never did hit that today, though I hit tapping dlo on the first try.

Anyway, I was working a little on the atomic side of things and decided to try backside atomsmasher. The first go, it hit my foot, but the set and everything came out very nicely. Same story on the second try. Then a bit of a drop off, then Francisca was coming home so I decided to have one last attempt and hit it. I have hit that before also, but haven't even thought about trying it for some time. I'm not really that keen on doing too much symp stuff, though I was also figuring out a bit more about symp double downs, which I have never "got" at all.

An important breakthrough for me today, which had nothing at all to do with anything that I did. Footbag players are talking about crowdfunding. I then replied on the Facebook group and said "hey I'm building a crowdfunding platform". This is a positive step, though just the beginning baby steps.

Today it is 2 years that I have been living in Chile. I really thought I would have either trained someone up, or found someone that was keen to kick by now, but hasn't really happened. We will see what happens in the next couple of years.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgTRJSU0Hko[/youtube]

This blog has been lacking colour lately. Here is a video I made about this time last year, from Patagonia. Some pretty impressive scenery in the background to that. Some pretty cold water that I kicked the bag into. It was a glacier after all...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wiaCAxzWog[/youtube]

Here is another one a bit further to the north, but still to the south of Chile. These videos are all about the scenery, with some footbag shots in front (I am not even wearing Lavers in either of them). I would like to make a full video with the scenery from throughout Chile. I still have to put together something from our trip to the Atacama Desert last year.

So in two years I have done many things, most of them not leading to earning money, but now I have got this government grant so it might see a change in fortunes. We have a baby on the way, which will of course see a change in lifestyle. In terms of footbag, I have been able to keep playing, I guess I am playing better than ever, though I probably haven't progressed at the same rate as if I was playing with even one other person on a regular basis.

I have gone on TV a bunch of times, given some good workshops in public schools, have made a few videos, have done some interviews on Shred Global, have introduced footbag to some Olympic athletes and got Diego Rivarola to give a few kicks. Flying Clipper also donated me some footbags to help with my programs, which was really a great help. That stock is coming to an end so I have to decide on my next move.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEWyZCrX_j8[/youtube]

There are many things I still haven't done, but things are definitely on the up. Midway through this year, things really weren't looking too good, but we kept pushing on and plenty of pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Hopefully these videos add a bit of colour to the blog, there hasn't been too much variety aside from the text of late.