Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[boyle]

Hi there.

Haven't been playing much this week, well I kind of have, but not in serious sessions. I have been working quite a bit, and on each tour (I work as a tour guide at the AIS, which is the Australian Institute of Sport), I give a demonstration of footbag. So each day I'm exposing sometimes hundreds of people to the sport.

I saw that post from Ben (I think, one of the PSU guys) about the "work jerks", and that sort of stuff makes you so angry. I'm lucky, that for one I have an opportunity to show off footbag in my job, and also that the other workmates are really supportive and impressed by it.

I will have to catch up on some more Worlds footage, I haven't seen that much. I think Jindra's routine, while pretty strong, shows exactly what people were talking about in this "routines are boring" kind of thread that came on the Facebook page a while back. I haven't watched the others yet, but there was definitely nothing new in that routine.

I am also surprised at how impressed people were with Evan's game in that recent video. People were really shocked by it, but this is exactly the kind of stuff he's been doing all through the tour, and why he won circle in Worlds and Euros. It was definitely awesome though.

I'm still really impressed by Taishi winning Worlds in Shred 30, it's a great, planned, measured performance, and shows you that you don't need to go huge to get the victory, you need to just make sure everything goes really well. Though he told me he had never hit that dropless, so that's a good time to start!

Anyway, I think having a Japanese world champion has big potential for promotion of the sport in the Asia region. And we have the Asian Cup here next year...

[Cass]

Wait, the routine videos are up? Where?!?


I think a lot of people were patiently waiting for that Gatesman video. At least I was. I wasn't surprised so much as excited because I knew it would be super awesome.

[boyle]

Dexter posted a link to a Facebook page on the group, there are only a few routines (maybe 3 or 4). Here's the link - https://www.facebook.com/artur.urbangrey?fref=photo Just scroll down his page and you'll find some cool stuff.

[boyle]

I have been playing in bits and pieces, though not very many long sessions.

I have been doing quite a lot of the tours, so on them I give a short footbag demonstration of a few minutes.

I have started back at uni now, studying to be a primary school teacher. I have only had a few classes so far, but they're pretty interesting.

I hope to get a longer session in today, I think I will play on campus.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Playing on campus, in a very pubic spot, is the way to go! That's how PSUFC got so much success, I think. Maybe put a white board sign out that says something like "Wanted: New club member. Join me and I'll teach you" or something like that. We've had a bit of success with that method. Good luck in the classes and also getting some kids interested in bag bag.

[boyle]

I didn't end up playing on campus today. It really felt like I was just in a rush all the day long. Not much downtime. My first time at uni we had a footbag club going. All things considered, it went quite well. We had a small amount of funding from the uni, weekly session, a few competitions, played four square regularly and of course, drank lots of beer and ate lots of free bbqs.

It's interesting different players reactions and motivations towards getting new players involved. At this particular moment I am not particularly interested in getting new players involved myself. If they do, that's great, but I know that all the hard work can be followed with the crash that comes when they decide they're not that into it.

Funnily enough, I've got quite a few of the guys at work trying it out, and a few of them are coming along. Aside from bringing in a few footbags (which in itself is normally not actually an easy thing), I haven't done much to encourage it, apart from these endless demos. But the rest of the workers really seem to enjoy this, and they're starting to get into it. A couple of guys can do around the world, one can do an inside stall and wrap it around to a clipper, they're starting to get a few of the key basic elements.

I just ordered a GoPro today. Pretty excited about that, Mum and Dad will be making a significant contribution to that, which is why I can buy it at all. I haven't put any gadgets or anything for it as yet, I might wait until it gets delivered. I got the Hero 3+ silver, which is not quite the top of the range, but it will be better than filming with my phone.

Anyway, back to my point on the teaching, I won't really be going out of my way to get some new prodigies into the sport, what I'm much more interested in is creating opportunities for the people who are already involved in the sport, on a worldwide level, and also in bringing back some of the old heads. But if some new people get into it, that would be really nice.

[boyle]

I hear raw videos are in...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YndR-assu1M[/youtube]

This was just a quick run from the other day, in front of the big wheelchair basketball statue. Anyway, I haven't been playing in sessions so much. This week was the first week of uni, and I'm just getting into the swing of things with the schedule, and continuing to do the tours.

Anyway, this video has that Instagram - faded look, achieved by pointing the camera at the sun....

Nothing much to see in that video, just wanted to put something up as it's been a while since I put anything up in here.

Hopefully I can get in a real session today. We are also planning on doing a bit of a bushwalk, since we bought a "baby backpack" last week, so it's time to make use of that.

[boyle]

A couple of good sessions today. We've changed the little man's feeding times, and the basic change is that I get up at 6:30 in the morning. That doesn't bother me too much, as a lot of days I start work at 8:30, but today I decided to get in a session. Had some good long runs.

It was pouring with rain so that showed the beauty of the garage. I can't remember any big highlights from the morning session, but it was good to play at all.

This evening I decided to play again, and I think I'll dedicate some time to Rubberman in the next few days and potentially be able to hit it. I'm still a long way off, but things began to feel right.

Also - stepping ducking osis>pdx blender. Came close to spikehammer>phoenix, which is one I've been after for a little while now. Had a few good 30+ guiltless runs and was trying to insert some harder tricks into the mid sections.

[boyle]

Good session today. My legs were sore after the double session on Sunday, and yesterday I walked up a mountain in the rain, so that added to that.

Started off pretty rough, was trying to get long tiltless, but that wasn't really ticking along. 45 was my best. Made some progress on spikehammer>phoenix.

Made more progress on rubberman. Got up to 5 contacts. That was a mixed one. On one hand I was really happy, as that's the most I've done, but on the other hand it seemed like today was the day. The one I got 5 contacts on I started on my weak atomsmasher.

Think I'll film something for the atomic badge. Tap>atomic legover rpt seemed quite doable, and that's enough for a bronze. Been working a fair bit, going to uni a little, tomorrow is my main day, and this time around I plan to play on campus. It has been really cold though.

Some good shipping news. Our goods should be in the country possible tomorrow, and in more exciting personal news, my GoPro should arrive in a few days. Good stuff.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

You'll love the GoPro. I cherish mine. Some of the accessories are pricey/shitty to deal with, though. Other than that, no complaints.

Hope you film while on campus. Would be cool to see footbag at an Aus university.

For the Rubberman bit, what really helped me learn that drill was Blur> Legbeater> Ripwalk *rpt. Also, a bit tip when trying shuffle drills like that.. Try slowing down a good bit. I know I always thought that sort of shuffle was quick quick quick. But when you slow the movements down, it's a lot easier to control. But yeah, I hit that Blur> Leg> Rip drill every few days to work up to Rubberman. I wish I would have just filmed and studied my atomsmashers (in slow motion/frame-by-frame) in the first place though. I would have saved a lot of time. I would recommend it. When I filmed them recently, I was able to notice that my good side was totally different from my bad side. This method is really helpful for so many.. well.. all concepts, I guess. Observe the difference, then just force your body to do what it did on strong side and you'll have that move (whichever move you want, not just talking about Atom) dialed in no time.

Your case with Rubberman sounds so similar to what my case was.. hit 5 contacts, drop on 6th. CONSTANTLY. This was all because of my flip Atomic set being garbage. Maybe this is the same case with your flipside? I'd like to see some footage of them, if you get around to it. Hope this helps a bit.

Oh and Phoenix> Spikehammer is a super tight combo. I like that. Try to peg another Phoenix after the Spike eventually and then even get the drill later on.

[boyle]

I had begun replying to this but never finished it off. Think I need to work on my atomsmashers more. ..that drill with ripwalk I can do pretty well.

New highlight yesterday. ..spinning ducking osis b2b. Played squash today, lost every game. Disappointing.

[boyle]

Got spikehammer>phoenix (on video) also got phoenix>spikehammer (not on video)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESWRYd84sRA[/youtube]

Though I mentioned that ripwalk>blur>legbeater drill was fairly easy, seems that was a bit of a lie. I did thaat eventually, but it took me ages. Got a few three contacts of atomic, but nothing to get the four for the badge. Not far off though. Not much progress on rubberman, wasn't really working on that.

Played some more squash today, at least I won a game. Next time I will take the match. My serves are really bad, so I've got to improve that, otherwise I have no chance.

Just got the news that I will be getting Centrelink, which is a government payment for studying. So that's very exciting. Very very exciting.

[boyle]

I should have my GoPro by now, except, well, I'm an idiot. Actually it's nothing too bad, however the people had come when I wasn't around, so they left a note, and I had it ordered to be redelivered - except I wasn't around again.

So now I will just pick it up from them, though I won't be able to do that up until Thursday, I've got quite a busy week.

Because of these busy times, I'm going to get a nice pay this week. That's pretty awesome. Another awesome thing is that because of my studies starting up, and that I qualify for a government assistance while studying, they give you $1,000.

What dears.

The disappointing thing, is that I just though, during this week I would probably get enough money to buy a plane ticket to Europe. Of course there are other expenses like food and rent, but unfortunately because my financial situation has been very dire for a very long time, I have quite a bit of debt on credit cards, so I'll be able to take a big chunk off that, which is important, and it means that once it is time to buy a plane ticket to go to Worlds, there should be reasonable possibilities of that.

Felt a little trouble in my hamstring today when playing. Doesn't seem too bad, but it hurt quite a bit in the moment, I was going for legbeater midway through a pretty long string.

Still waiting to hear about that South American funding, I'm guessing I should know in the next couple of weeks. If that was to come good, that would be so awesome. I haven't heard anything for either of my references about being called though, so I won't get my hopes up too much.

[C-Fan]

Nice seeing some recent vid of you in the blog. Props especially on the spike-phx combo. Cool seeing alpine fearless links.

With rubberman, might I suggest trying it from a different starting point each time? When I was first working my way to rubberman, I would always try and start it from weak blur. Usually I'd drop on the 5th or 6th trick doing that. Then, one day I decided to try it from different starting points. For some reason that was the breakthrough, and on that day I hit it from all 6 starting points. I'm just saying it can be easy to fall into a rut by trying it from the same point every time, so experiment. It worked for me.

Good luck with the grant moneys. It'd be sweet to see you at Worlds next year.

[boyle]

I think it's really important going from all the surfaces, so I have been starting from everywhere.

Rubberman is always something I have put in the toi hard basket, but it seems very achievable now

Mt biggest aim for next year is to get to Worlds so fingers crossed.

[Asmus]

*fingers crossed*

[boyle]

One can only hope. I've got some positive hopes, which is about all I can have. My guess is that I will find out within the next two weeks. Maybe a bit later. You find out sometime in September, but programs are due to get started from October, so I'm hoping they give a few weeks notice.

I did a lot of tours today, 5 as a matter of fact. You drop in a few of the old "as I mentioned before" tricks, even when you mentioned that five hours beforehand.

Anyway, I do a footbag demo on each tour, and in general it's pretty much exactly the same. Since I've been doing it for over 5 years, I've come up with a little show that I can generally pull off without drops, and most days that goes ok - today was not one of those days.

Anyway, I give the introduction and say I'm Daniel, I play footbag, this is old mate, he plays cricket, or this is young lady blah blah she plays tennis, then I will give my demo. I might ask them "who knows what footbag is?"

cri cri cri cri (that's the crickets going along, or the tumbleweed rolling by). Most of the time some people say oh, it's something to do with a foot and a bag. Then I say, you might know it as hacky sack. bit more blah blah blah - then on to some tricks.

Show a few stalls (it's usually toe>inside>op toe>clipper>outside>pincher>a couple of kicks>neck stall>catch to clipper)
Then I tell them that next you start going around the bag (ATW (in)>pixie>ATW (out) > clipper >legover>clipper>ducking clipper>spinning clipper) at that point I say you can also add in ducks and spins.
The next part I will give a bit of variety, but I tell them that you start mixing things together. If I'm feeling good I'll start with DATW, if not, maybe magellan, sidewalk or dimwalk, then generally go into something like ducking butterfly>ducking osis, or maybe a spinning osis, sometimes a spinning ducking clipper at the end. Occasionally, I might try and throw in something a bit special, like a mobius, or ps whirl, though I don't do that often, because most of the time I don't hit them.

Then I tell them a bit about my results, that I've been national champion, competed at Worlds, and also at the South American Championships, where I came second. It's too bad I didn't get a victory there in Colombia. I really hoped I would win one event. Would have added to the tour...

Then, as it was in 2006 when I first started doing tours, I do a phoenix to finish up. These days I am getting the groups to guess the different concepts that happen in that trick. Most of the time they miss that first dex, and the last dex - they'll say "you put it up over your head, then caught it on the toe".

Which is exactly not what I did. But some people do get it, and that's nice.

I'm pretty lucky to have that opportunity in the job, but after a bunch of tours in a row, you really do get sick of the sound of your own voice....

We've got an early start tomorrow, so I'm off to bed.

[Derek]

I can see getting tired of your own voice, but, still. SO rad! Cool to get a feeling of whatcha do when you put on a show. Some people can follow the Phoenix? That's good. I wish I had some Clipper game, such as yourself. Much more crowd pleasing and easier to follow than a buttload of dexes happening in 20 seconds. Hoping to make Worlds next year, as well. Maybe we can meet each other.

[boyle]

Would be great to meet! Some good news, as a guy just posted in the Facebook group, he is coming out to Australia for a year. That could be something to kick start things here.

He is going to be based in Melbourne. It will be interesting to see what Caroline does in the next few months. Nothing is known, but I would bet she will spend some time in Aus.

Went and watched the Raiders yesterday, they had a win so that was nice.

[boyle]

I have always said there should be more collaboration between footbag and freestyle football, so now I am doing something about it. I am going to be Vice President of the Oceania Freestyle Football Federation. Sounds pretty nifty, hopefully some good can come out of that.

I have a pretty good feeling on being involved, this bloke Paul Harvey has been doing really good work for about ten years now, and it's all about beefing up what he does.

Anyway getting involved in that area seems to bring much more potential than anything in the IFPA.

In that area I see only work with minimal potential for reward, and a lot of committees that don't do anything.

Especially being in the southern hemisphere, there's no thought in the world scale from footbag.

Let's hope that changes as time goes on. Obviously the scenes in Australia and New Zealand were much stronger about ten years ago, so it's much harder to kick things off.

I did ripped warrior today mud run, not sure if I have done before, but felt easy and smooth.

Had a job interview today. Only applied last night and had the interview today, so strong hopes. Would be a very good gig.