Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[boyle]

Hi blog. Have kept up the playing every day so far this year. Not yet today, but plenty of hours still remaining. One day I played for a very short time, there were some heavy fires and the smoke outside meant it wasn't really healthy to stay around too long. Another day I was just planning on a short session, but this Russian guy got talking to me, claiming that he had been in a program from the FBI, something about a stolen identity and needing to get his money back from some mysterious group, but he's all better. When he asked if I knew anyone in the US, I said, no not at all.

I got a new computer, it has Windows 8, which is going to take some adjusting too...I have just put together a little video, mainly from my trip to Arica, but it's got bits and pieces of some other sessions from this year. It includes a bunch of things I mentioned in this blog, a few unusual kind of tricks, some reasonable runs, and a few tricks I don't hit so often. As well as playing on top of a fridge... I made it a bit longer, mainly as a recap of the "tourist" experience in Arica.

It was all filmed on my phone, which probably has a better quality than my camera. And at least 1000 times better quality than my previous phone. I was particularly impressed with the quality of the sound coming through, which is why I left it with the original sounds in the early part of the video.

The big goals I'd like to get this year are the following. Also all on film

75 guiltless
20 unique tripless
5 fearless

I have many other goals, mainly on the organisational side of things, but those are the things that I want to do. I would also like to improve my quantum set, which is probably my worst. Aside from that, playing with a bit more variety and intensity are not really goals, but general ideas. Like instead of a ducking clipper, do a ducking osis, instead of spinning clipper, do a spinning whirl, just add in concepts to each area.

Haven't met up with Max as yet, neither of us have been in town yet at the same time, but hopefully next week.

Baby can be due any moment from next week apparently. That may make things a bit more difficult in terms of continuing to play every day, but I would like to set aside some time, even if it's just some minutes, to play some hack every day this year.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_YZ-snpTHQ[/youtube]

[boyle]

Did a couple of combos I liked today. paradon>blender and fairy ss osis>stepping ss osis

That second one was quite difficult a transition for me, but I got it eventually. Went for a bike ride today for a couple of hours. Came across a skatepark along the way, one of the worst I have seen. Holes in the ramps, ramps that don't transition into the flat ground, but people were still using it, which was impressive.

[boyle]

So I've mentioned previously I am working on a European footbag tour. Well in reality I'm not working that much myself on the tour, but it's beginning to come together. Unfortunately with a baby about to come, I'm not going anywhere near Europe anytime soon. Anyway, I had a good long chat with Jay today about some more details, and it's looking more structured. This Swiss Jam has added an interesting extra element to things.

Anyway, one thing we were talking about was how to launch it. You will see how that goes a little more into the future. The basic idea is to create a package that could be done absolutely anywhere, and to prove that professional opportunities for footbag players can work. Aside from that, promoting my Sport/Life crowdfunding platform will be a big aim.

We also have another competition in the works, this will have some of the best players in the world, aiming to get something (that may have been recently discussed in the Facebook group) on film.

We were talking though about how to really kick things off. I said there's not really any point, for example, to do a press conference with the Chilean ambassador to the Czech Republic (the official part of the tour will most likely begin at Todexon). But somehow today when I was on my own Youtube channel I came across this video from David Clavens at Worlds in 2010.

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

The biggest problem with this press conference is that only one or two articles came out of it. It could have been just effective (even more so these days) to send some video and photos to the publication and they will put it up. What I have learned in my journalism experience is that if someone sends you something perfectly usable, then it's most likely going to get used.

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

Another project that's in the works is one that is video based, and should do something to "make footbag look cool". The main idea is to go to some places with footbag players and what they're up to. It's basically a much better extension of my interview series that I was doing on Shred Global, which I think is "over and out". It makes me wish I could have done some high quality "hangout" kind of videos along my travels. The one above, I think I have posted it before, some years ago (it was four years ago after all), is from Papua New Guinea.

Very interesting development there in Rugby League, which is nothing to do with footbag, but is my favourite sport to watch, is that they have admitted a PNG team into the Queensland Cup, which will play games there in PNG. I think this is something excellent, they are absolute MAD for footy there, it is the only country in the world where RL is a national sport. On the footy news, the "Latin Heat" are going to play their first game this weekend, up against the Philippines on the Gold Coast, this is a team made up of South American heritage players, and an exciting step.

That's actually something I'm really excited about the potential for, there is an emerging Rugby Union scene here, Argentina is particularly good, there's no reason why Chile couldn't play in the next World Cup IMHO.

Speaking of World tournaments, it is "extremely disappointing" to hear, or not hear, about what is happening for Worlds this year. It is making things difficult in the push to make footbag look a credible sport when the main competitions may not happen. This past year there was already no South American championships or Australian championships, and it looks like that plague is heading into the heart of the footbag world. I have been saying this for a while, but I'm sure nobody cares what they say at the end of the world, but each new Worlds needs to be known before the current year's Worlds takes place. It's only logical.

Anyway, I've been browsing few some old Youtube videos. Here's a bit of a comparison of me

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

This is from 2009 - you know, both Andrew Grant and Flavio played in this small piece of backyard. Not together, they were in Canberra at very close times, but they didn't cross paths there. Maybe in Melbourne for beers. Old mate señor Grant missed out on the famous paper party. I can't remember how that all came about, but it was a pretty wild party with some good friends where everyone ended up covered in paper.

Anyway, the only thing I was going to post today was a run from today's session

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GAr2T0gCbM[/youtube]

So some comparison after four years - less beard, less hair. More smoothness. In reality I had a lot of these same tricks in this previous video, but was pushing to hit a lot of them. Less bails, there are a lot of going down to things like legover in the earlier video. Living in Chile, well, that's a big difference, isn't it... I also had Quantums in that first video, which were the seemingly on the up new footbag shoe. I guess not all is what it seems...

[Asmus]

The biggest problem with this press conference is that only one or two articles came out of it. It could have been just effective (even more so these days) to send some video and photos to the publication and they will put it up. What I have learned in my journalism experience is that if someone sends you something perfectly usable, then it's most likely going to get used.

I strongly agree with this and really think it is one of the places where we could have pretty easily promoted DFO better. I plan on a attending a workshop on writing press releases and creating promotional kits for this purpose soon.

Speaking of World tournaments, it is "extremely disappointing" to hear, or not hear, about what is happening for Worlds this year. It is making things difficult in the push to make footbag look a credible sport when the main competitions may not happen. (...) I have been saying this for a while, but I'm sure nobody cares what they say at the end of the world, but each new Worlds needs to be known before the current year's Worlds takes place. It's only logical.

I agree but I still have hope that some of the experienced tournament directors pull it together and organize a small Worlds this year. If not I am pretty sure there will be a nice big worlds in a cool European city next year.

[boyle]

It's definitely not too late for someone to do a good job of Worlds this year, it's just that a place needs to be chosen, then the tournament can go ahead. Well, we can just see what happens from there.

[boyle]

Caroline just announced on the Facebook group today that she bought a hostel in Poland. Lots of supportive comments, and I think it's something that will work, not only as a footbag community thing, but as a business. Caroline has a good energy for running a place like that, and she has told me she has good staff running the show, so she can do more of the "outside the box" kind of things.

So that may solve some "cryptic" or not so cryptic comments previously hinted at, and adds a bit more weight to the plans for April, that I had mentioned in the previous post.

Also in the Facebook group, Lotus posted that he lost everything in a fire, that's terrible to hear.

[boyle]

I have kept playing every day. Sessions lately haven't been that crash hot. Yesterday I played some ultimate frisbee, it was a pretty relaxed game, but good opportunity for a good run. Felt a bit sore today though, and extended that soreness by riding to a meeting that I had, which ended up being about a 15km ride. Not that that is a hugely long distance, but it just sort of went on and on.

I haven't hit too much of note lately. One of my biggest goals for the month was to hit a new trick, and I hit gyro dlo, as well as a bunch of stuff out of cloud kick, after a set. Things like stepping op cloud kick into symp mirage, this kind of stuff.

I have been reading with great interest these posts about consecutive kicks on the facebook group. I also had a thought. Everyone complains that "oh the crowd is too stupid, they don't know a clownface from a clipper". What a crowd does know though, is that 50 kicks is more than 30 kicks. The philosophy behind consecutives is quite simple, and it actually matches in well with this "endurance" craze that's growing more and more through trail running, ultramarathons, ocean crossings - it seems, in marketing terms that "extreme" is dropping a little, and "endurance" is more important - because in these endurance events, there will always be something a beginner can do (and pay for).

Anway, personally I am pretty big on consecutives, but I've never done like a long, long, long, long, long rally. My best, I think is 2123, I may have got those numbers around the wrong way. I reached 2014 this year already, and I think I could take care of 5000 with some good focus. Something I have been thinking could be fun to do would be a Worlds, only of consecutive kicks. I think that would bring out such an interesting crowd, and I'm sure there are a bunch of people who want to have a crack at setting an official mark, maybe of 10,000 or 20,000, or 1 million maybe...(it's all about endurance and marketing...)

But anyway, consecutive kicks are this easy to enter (for absolutely anybody) event that has dropped off the scene of footbag tournaments. I don't know if I would have ever bothered with freestyle if it there was no consecutive kicks events at the 2001 competition I went to.

So I mentioned a "hypothetical" Worlds (of a different nature above), but it seems that the process for the real Worlds is dragging on, and like (maybe Ianek) said on the Facebook group, maybe Worlds won't happen at all. Venezuela was given the flick some time ago, and much to the public outrage of Ted F, New York will not be the host. I believe there was a Paris bid as well, so you would think if they said no to the other options, they would say yes to that...you never know though. The fact is though, the later it guest to announce where it is, the less people will have a chance to go.

If people are concerned about USO not happening, and New York's ability to hold a major event, then the USO should be there. If Paris has a reasonable bid, then Worlds should be there. If not, all the bids should have been thrown out a long time ago, and a new process held.

[Asmus]

I have been reading with great interest these posts about consecutive kicks on the facebook group. I also had a thought. Everyone complains that "oh the crowd is too stupid, they don't know a clownface from a clipper". What a crowd does know though, is that 50 kicks is more than 30 kicks. The philosophy behind consecutives is quite simple (...)

Couple of thoughts. First of all this reminded me of this (which in my opinion is one of the best TV appearances footbag has ever had:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li6Fs9THPCU[/youtube]

(...) and it actually matches in well with this "endurance" craze that's growing more and more through trail running, ultramarathons, ocean crossings - it seems, in marketing terms that "extreme" is dropping a little, and "endurance" is more important - because in these endurance events, there will always be something a beginner can do (and pay for).

I won my first footbag from consecutive kicking. But doing five kicks has not much to do with endurance or "extreme". We should focus on that is it cool to do tricks rather than it is cool to do 359835 kicks. As I said in the interview with you "We should focus on the things that make footbag good, not try to emulate what makes other things interesting". I do like the idea of having a consecutive event at jams to involve people though.
Where did that interview with me go by the way? Can you send it to me if it is not online anymore?

So I mentioned a "hypothetical" Worlds (of a different nature above), but it seems that the process for the real Worlds is dragging on, and like (maybe Ianek) said on the Facebook group, maybe Worlds won't happen at all. Venezuela was given the flick some time ago, and much to the public outrage of Ted F, New York will not be the host. I believe there was a Paris bid as well, so you would think if they said no to the other options, they would say yes to that...you never know though. The fact is though, the later it guest to announce where it is, the less people will have a chance to go.

If Paris has made a real bid they should be able to do an amazing worlds. They have done big annual tournaments for many years. They have a big group of net players and many of them are former freestylers and it's a cool city. Venezuela would be cool but maybe they are not ready yet and Ted organizing a Worlds in NY from Finnland seems risky. I understand the decision.
Looks like there will be a lot of good bids for Worlds next year though!

We probably have things we need to discuss soon. I will catch you on the flipside.

[boyle]

yours are here - http://sportslashlife.com/2013/11/27/fo ... us-helmus/ and here http://sportslashlife.com/2013/12/02/da ... t-success/. Have to fix up the picture at the top, as I had changed the theme of the site after putting that one up. Eventually I will put all the other ones I did on Shred Global up on there too.

I had never seen that video before. People always like some kind of record, or historic attempt, that kind of thing. But someone doing 60,000 + kicks is not good for television, that's why world record attempts like in the video work much better. The biggest thing with consecutives is that it is an entry point, that is really lacking for new players. I think it would also be good to have a consecutive focused event, just so that people who are trying to get a big score, etc, aren't taking away from the main event. Even when I first got into footbag, it seemed that consecutives were on the downhill slide, but I see them making a bit of a comeback - and we are already seeing many people, even guys like Tuukka are getting more into it.

It would be great to have some kind of event with people only focused on that. Obviously if you're at Worlds, you don't want to be trying to break a consecs record. But if a whole bunch of people got together to focus on a new record, or PB etc, surely there would also be likely to be more volunteers for kick counting and this kind of thing.

I think Paris Worlds would be good, but even better would be for someone to say, "hey Worlds are in Paris, on this date"....

[C-Fan]

I like your observations about consecutive kicks. I think there's some fertile ground to be plowed there for sure.

If people are concerned about USO not happening, and New York's ability to hold a major event, then the USO should be there. If Paris has a reasonable bid, then Worlds should be there..

Super agree as well.

[boyle]

Seems to make sense to me. But let's see. Better to get the events on the board to allow people to make plans than to just wait and let it rot.

I think the consecutives is even less about fertile ground, but about re-planting in old surfaces - it's a way to get blokes who might not have competed since 1987 to have a run. I am actually strong considering doing something in Chile later in the year, depending on how fortunes work out. I am hoping to create a competition at the "Feria de Futbol", which I think will be in May. For that, I'm hoping that the event will commit to bringing out one player, and hopefully by that time (it will be just after I finish in Start Up Chile) I can bring out one or two more.

I had a little thing earlier about the "best Southern Hemisphere" players. But I think something very interesting would be the "best Spanish-speaking players". In all honesty I don't know about the Spanish speaking abilities of a lot of the players from "back in the day", because I know that a lot of US people learn Spanish, then there would be a bunch of European players that know Spanish as well. That would be interesting though, and I think that Mr "C-Fan" from above might be in position number 1, particularly on current form.

I may get a run on this list somewhere, but that really defends how you quantify "Spanish speaking"...

Chile play Costa Rica tonight in a friendly. Interesting fact is that each team (despite it being a non FIFA date, normally reserved for local players), have a player from the Swedish league.

And speaking of trivia, we're going to start doing a weekly trivia night from Tuesday week. I think that will be fun.

[C-Fan]

One thing I love about the footbag community, is discovering players' secret skills/abilities. Language for sure is one, but also other hobbies is another.

Off the top of my head, here are some good footbag players who speak Spanish very well, that may not have come to your mind immediately:

Matthias Lino-Schmidt
Fine Schwengbeck
Tina Aeberli

If you want to find more, you may want to look up the Spanish footbag group on Facebook. They just started it up like 2 weeks ago. Search "Spanish Footbag" or something like that.

You might also want to talk to Flash Bevier. I know he went down to Columbia around 2006 for some Coca Cola promotion. I don't think he speaks Spanish, but he can probably give you some insights on the whole "footbag promotion in South America" side.

[boyle]

I guess that's the beauty of any sort of small, tight-knit community. I guess it's like some of us who are into various different things, we somehow "expose" that we are "alright at hacky sack"...

I hadn't heard of Fine before - does she still play? I saw a video or two around. Speaking of the Germans, I caught up with Max a while back. I think he will be back from the south now, so hopefully we can have a real session sometime in the coming weeks. Opportunities for real sessions may come few and far between in the very near future.

I had Void come of my foot a whole bunch of times today, but I never got it to work. Also went to a do at the ambassador's house. The invite was "personal, non transferable, blah blah blah" except that it was addressed to "Usted"...anyway, nice night and a bunch of blokes from the footy there. Free beer always helps the night be nicer too...

[Asmus]

Off the top of my head, here are some good footbag players who speak Spanish very well, that may not have come to your mind immediately:

Jasper in Denmark is solid guitless and fluent in spanish aswell.
He is a really cool dude and travels in South America from time to time as well.

Free beer always helps the night be nicer too...

Truer words have never been spoken!

[boyle]

Except when the free beer is "light beer". That seems to happen quite a lot here when the events are sponsored by Corona. You think, great free beer, but then it's only light beer! This event did have Corona, but it was not light beer.

I guess it's not so surprising that there are plenty of European players who have some Spanish abilities or knowledge. Would be great to build things up some more here in South America. In reality I have a bit of money that I could put into that at this moment, but I'm not so sure of exactly how to do that. I have seen plenty of marketing campaigns involving footbags that look kind of cool, but they bring zero new players into the sport.

I guess whatever I put into needs to have some payback in the future, whether that's more players or in the actual form of pesos, dollars or cents that come out later, that remains to be seen. If you have any genius ideas on that, let me know....For a start I'm going to buy some more footbags, which I will sell. I have had a bunch of people asking me about buying footbags recently, and I haven't really had any to sell. I have done the giveaways already, so now it will be time to people to show if they are really interested.

Played yesterday. Hit flip revup for the first time. I also did the stepping "bronze" challenge for the badge. I thought I had the ducking challenge as well, but then I went back and read there is also a diving challenge, so ducking butterfly>diving butterfly is not going to work in that case.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtw9k8_9yx0[/youtube]

stepping osis>ripwalk>sidewalk>stepping ss clipper>ripwalk>stepping ss clipper>stepping op clipper>stepping op clipper

I could definitely get the silver, which is only one more contact. Gold may be doable for me, maybe if I was to kick off the string with a ripped warrior, and do a blurry whirl midway through. That could work. The fairy and quantum challenges are pretty much impossible for me, pixie I think I should be able to get bronze with not too much difficulty, atomic maybe with a lot more difficulty. Double dex and osis are maybes, will have a look at them. Symposium I don't think I will even try, sounds pretty dangerous and knee-ruining. So plenty to work on there.

Definitely a good idea though - good, fund, easy for anyone to try out, and endless possibilities to keep improving and testing yourself.

[boyle]

Have played each day this month/year. Well not today, because I just woke up. Let's see how the session for today goes, as today could be the day. Francisca has started to have contractions, but there not yet close enough together to go to the hospital. Once they are, the whole thing can take 12 hours on average, maybe more maybe less.

Anyway, here is a run from playing yesterday. I was pretty happy with the first combo that I hit in (stepping ducking legover>phoenix)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XNJrNDZbAw[/youtube]

I met up with some freestyle football guys a couple of days ago, they are starting to get things together to make things more organised, with the eventual goal of creating a federation. Plenty of options to work together with them. Let's see what happens. First things first, to concentrate on the baby...

[janis]

Hope all goes well with the baby!

[boyle]

Things went well with the baby. Managed to have a short session at about 10pm at night. Nothing much to report from that, but in the last few days I have hit some pretty "big" tricks for me. But they are just one offs, I guess. I hit flip fog for the first time, I hit sailing butterfly a couple of times in a session and a few other things. They weren't really in a run though. But, they are something.

Tomorrow I am going to go and register the baby at the Registro Civil. Nicolas Hugh Boyle Borquez will be his name. In Chile at least. I'm not sure how that's going to work in Australia. I will go to the embassy in the next days to figure things out, but of course in Australia it's not common practice to use both the father's and mother's name.

We have received a lot of love, particularly on Facebook. So many friends from all around the world saying congratulations.



Today has definitely been something of a surreal day. A little extra good from the day is that my team won. Tonight was the last opportunity I had to make use of my season pass. They've put the prices up, but with having a baby and all it's not going to be easy, or worth it, to go to the stadium each week.

But anyway, impressive goal from a "Chilena" (overhead kick) - http://sportslashlife.com/rodrigo-mora- ... -de-chile/

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuT5oDmjod4[/youtube]

Here's something else impressive. Surfing in Antarctica. Chilly.. http://sportslashlife.com/ramon-navarro ... ntarctica/

I have been working more on my site there, hoping that things start to come good in that regard. Have had a couple of good conversations with various people all around the world recently in that idea. Let's see how everything goes.

[Nathan]

Beautiful, Dan. And the baby looks alright, too.

but seriously, congratulations! I can't believe you had a session and posted to modified the same day, too! Superman.

[C-Fan]

Beautiful, Dan. And the baby looks alright, too.

.

Nice. But I also second the real sentiment: congrats on the healthy baby.