Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[boyle]

yeah, wind doesn't bother me too much. It's probably because one of the Aussie guys many years ago would constantly complain about wind. So I thought if I could play in wind, there should be nothing to worry about.

My toe game could definitely improve, and has improved a little in recent years (eg there's a fairy dlo somewhere in that video), but I have a lot to work on. I came much closer to pixie everything the other day (maybe 11 or 12 contacts. I lost count, but whatever it was, definitely a PB).

[Add Block]

Unless you want to spend many many hours just drilling Pixie, you'd save a lot of tears is you stop pushing it after 12. The difference between 12 and 16 is immense, as you have to end with something awkward, like Pixie SS Pickup > Pixie SS Illusion or something.

It will come to you eventually if you practice it every now and then, but I still regret spending 3 whole session just getting Pixie Gold.

Your toe is not bad, Atomic Osis is cool, and your Pixies look good.

[boyle]

Fun session with Chris today. Will have to see about getting another one in tomorrow. I won't write much today. I hit ps whirl at the end and it looked cool.

[boyle]

I haven't played too much this week. Barely at all as a matter of fact. Have had exams, three within 4 days. Think they all went fine. The first one was the subject I'm doing best at, that one seemed to go well. The other ones were multiple choice, so let's hope I selected the right answers.

My friend Joe wrote up a good article in the Moree Champion.

http://www.moreechampion.com.au/story/2 ... -to-moree/

What a great name for a paper. (A champion name...). Joe is a good friend, another Australian guy who was living in Chile at the same time as we were. He actually lived with us for a while.

It was good to go up there and visit. That video I posted with the skating etc was from the journey up there. It was a very long drive. I think on the way up I left at 7am and got there when it was dark. I had planned to leave at 6am, so I was a little off the pace.

Anyway, if you click on that story you can see some cool photos, lots of girls got involved, which is really important.

We are getting more prepared for a trip to Europe next year. Looks like Finn Air have good prices and the moment and are very flexible with stopovers.

Sydney>(somewhere in Asia)>Helsinki>Norway (stay with my cousin in Seljord)>Copenhagen>Berlin>London>Helsinki>(somewhere else in Asia)>Sydney

is a bit of a rough sketch at the moment. May tinker with that a bit, but I think we will book our key flights within the next month. So that's pretty exciting.

[boyle]

I am very happy to see that Worlds have been announced. We were getting into the spirit of booking a trip "si o si", so it would have been too bad if Worlds were somewhere completely different.

I am back into the swing of working full time. Working the evening shifts this week, so had a kick with Caroline in my break. Have been working a bit on quantum sets lately, definitely on the improve. After I got the comment after that Moree video that my game is very clipper heavy (which is true), I have been working on adding some toe elements. Not today, but 2 days ago, I just hit toe blur on flipside, no worries.

A couple of good things today - it was only about 20 mins of play. Double spinning clipper midway through the first run. A new little combo I'm getting quite good at - spinning pincher>swirl. I would like to put that midway through a routine. Then at the end I thought I should just do some ripwalks. The target was 10 to finish up. I did 22, which is my record.

I was working on the tours this morning, I met some interesting people who do sport development in the Pacific. That is pretty much a dream job. Maybe one day.

[boyle]

Saw a surprising post on Facebook last night, in a good way. It was from Caroline, saying that Juho Marjo is coming to Australia. Normally when people announce that they are coming to Australia, they need to save for about a year and then they come (and most who do come, eventually they don't play anymore).

Apparently Felix Zenger will be touring in Australia next year as well, so that's something too. There is some word of possibility of other international guests too, I know Nathan Pipenberg is heading to NZ for a while.

Caroline said this morning, Juho will probably be the best player to come to Australia, and the easy answer is "yes". Though, if you look at it, and the players at the time they came, maybe there would be a case for Sunil's visit in the late 90s, or Ales in I think that was 2003.

Who else has been here? Dylan Fry has had a couple of visits, Andrew Grant, Max made a permanent move, Phil has been here plenty of times, but he's pretty much a local. Ken was out for a fair amount of time on the Milo promotion, Max from Germany also came here. Flavio also came out, he stayed at my house. Plenty of guests.

Mag Hughes came out here long, long ago. I talked to him a bit at Worlds in 2010 about. He said it was an adventure, to say the least.

I was just looking for some info on that visit, didn't find too much, but did find a post on the old footbag.org mailing lists relating to the visit.

Alan Griffiths ([email protected])
32 yrs old
Australian
Been in USA for 6 yrs
Live in Palm City, Florida
First introduced to footbag in Sydney in 1985 by Scott (Mag) Hughes & Lisa
McDaniel, who were promoting Hacky Sack in Australia.
Visited Colorado in '85 for the "Worlds". Competed.
Just back from Steamboat Springs therefore the renewed interest.
Met with Bruce Guittich (sp?) and Peter Shunny. The museum and new WFA
offices are great! If given the chance it's worth a visit.
Spend weekends on South Beach, Miami looking for kickers. No-one serious but
lot's of 'social' kickers.
Freestyle a favourite. Used to be proud of consistantly doing over 2,000 in
consecutive. Would like to get into net if suitable partner is found.
I see huge potential for the sport but serious effort must be put into
finding a decent (with $'s) sponsor.
Well..........enough?
See ya........................

Also just read that there was a New South Wales championship in 1986, and a competition in Perth running for a number of years in the mid 90s. I didn't know that.

Haven't played much, just some short sessions in work breaks. Did a tour at the AIS today, and did my little demonstration without drops. That was good.

[Asmus]

Take good care of my brother Juho. I need him in Copenhagen next summer.

[boyle]

Think he's planning to be here about 6 months, so he should be in perfect condition for Copenhagen.

Speaking of Copenhagen, I requested leave for that time next year. It will mean I won't be able to take any time off up until then, but that will definitely be worth it. Think we will be purchasing our tickets in the next week or two.

[boyle]

Whirling swirl bsos. That was the first time I have hit it on the flipside. So that was pretty good to finish up a non-Lavers session in the park in my work break.

I like the idea Nick was saying of having a sort of trick portfolio or whatever he called it. I think my "specials" are definitely not consistent enough. I will have a bit more of a think about it and write down what they are.

Have Sunday, Monday, Tuesday off so heading to the coast. Will try and play plenty of footbag down there, have a couple of little plans I'd like to try and work on. Going to Sydney in a couple of weeks to see Nick Cave as well. Just found out the work schedule will work for that, so next step is to try and line up a shred with Juho.

That's going to be good to have him around, I think Caroline is concocting some big plans, so look forward to see what happens.

[boyle]

I had a very good session over the weekend. Sunday I guess it was. I hit pretty much all of my "special moves". I only hit them once, on one side, but I did the following.

spender, alpine blurry whirl, locomotion, food processor, paradox torque (on a rock at the beach), fairy ss torque. I hit some other stuff too, and I hit some very good long runs. Even some toe tricks in there...

So we went down to the coast to visit Mum and Dad. We took Nicolas to the beach and he really really loves it.

I have not played since then. We were driving back and stopped for lunch and before getting back in the car, I said, I should hit spinning ducking osis. So I did.

Have enjoyed the first couple of calendar videos. I can't do reverse whirls so I think my luck is out already on the link of the day. Maybe I should learn them. I have never really liked them though....probably mainly because I can't do them. There is a bit of talk, especially from Nick, about getting good at certain concepts and building on them, keeping a focus. Then there is the question though, do you have an all around game, if you can't do certain tricks at all.

I have always struggled with a wide variety of tricks and just left them to the side, but some of those seem to be coming into focus lately. I will be on my break from work soon, hope to get a kick in. It absolutely poured with rain (and it hailed) earlier on, but hopefully I can find a dry place.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yo Dan, can't wait for your video! About keeping a general focus on things.. I think it's good to do this, but I don't think I explained it correctly... So what I meant was that I think it's good to home in on a handful of concepts, get really good at those.. Constantly focus on those. Though while you're focusing on those concepts that you want to be very good at, I think its smart to become "consistent" at other things that you may not the smaller tricks mid tricks out of but you can still do the smaller tricks midstring. For instance, I want to be very good at spin tricks. However I should also drill Atomics so I can at least hit the basic atomic tricks to fill my strings. Atomics aren't my strong point, and I know I won't be hitting huge atomic tricks but at least I can do atomsmasher to legbeater mid string. I hope that clears things up a bit for you

[boyle]

I was mainly reflecting on my complete lack on some tricks, particularly reverse whirl, where I have gone to extreme ends of "focusing on the good stuff".

I had a short session with Caroline just before. We were impeded by thunder and lightning and some rain, but found an undercover spot. By short session, I mean about 10-15 mins. On my way there I thought, wouldn't it be good to hit alpine blurry whirl>spender. So after a few kicks I tried that.

I didn't hit it. But I did hit spender in the earlier tries, so that was good. Had a few runs, much better than last night's attempt at a session. You could barely call it that. I did a tour today, they are getting few and further between, a combination of not much work on there, and me working a lot here.

I got some advice from Evan at Worlds in 2010, when I was trying spender. It's nearly 5 years later, but I am starting to put it into practice. He said I was setting too high and spinning too slow, so I think of that every time I try that trick. A fast spin and a medium height set. I guess that's a problem with trying any "big" trick, you really throw yourself into it and sometimes throw the bag way too high, or something else wrong.

Something else I watched today was this NOLA horse battle between Ken and Nick. I was very interested in Ken's strategy, and the tricks chosen. I think beforehand you probably would have scoffed and thought it would be a walkover, but Nick did quite well. Almost all those tricks that Ken did I can do (occasionally). These are not even ones I would call a "special" because they are that inconsistent. But I think I've hit them all aside from ducking pdx dlo.

I would like to try that out whenever we next have a competition. I am a big fan of the Tony Hawk games, and I like the idea of incorporating that kind of stuff into footbag.

[boyle]

I have some very nice news for next year's footbag plans. Today we bought tickets to go to Europe. Feels a bit unreal, but we've got them. We'll have a few days in Helsinki, then stay with my cousin in Norway before going down to Copenhagen, then some days in Berlin and London before flying back through Bangkok. Should be a great trip. Nicolas will have seen plenty of the world by the time he needs to start paying a higher price. He has already crossed the Pacific a few times.

That's really exciting news. Not sure if I will play today, think I might just have a rest. Another evening shift tonight, then straight back in tomorrow morning. Good to switch up to the mornings. Juho arrives in Australia next week, I think Caroline is planning to go up and meet him at the airport. I kind of would like to, but we go to Sydney on Saturday just for one night, I definitely don't want to do that twice in a few days. But hopefully I will get a kick in with him next weekend, that would be great.

[Asmus]

Excited that you are coming to Copenhagen next summer.

Could you do a post about your plans with your new position at IFPA? I would be very interested in reading that.

All the best,
A

[boyle]

That's an interesting one. I'd like to see what the general plan for the IFPA is and go on from there. I will definitely do a post up of my plans, I haven't thought too extensively on it yet. I'd like to do something at Worlds, it'd be good to do something similar to what Dan Ednie did at the Worlds in Berlin, a kind of "qualification" course.

It would be good also to lineup something like in 2010, where some of the best players did short workshops on how to do certain tricks. We can talk more about that closer to the date. I would also like to do some more in the area of promotion of footbag in general.

I plan on trying to get a lot of online resources together and available. A lot of it already exists. Hopefully I will be able to impart some things I have learned in my studies in sports management and in education. That's all pretty vague, but I will work more on a bit of a plan in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

Pretty excited to have tickets already, it moves that question from a maybe/ if I get the money/ wouldn't that be nice/ I didn't get the money/I wish they had a livestream...

Instead, it's time to start training.

[boyle]

So yesterday was my day on the calendar.

Here's my video if you haven't seen in. I got some really great compliments, especially this one from Zach Jahner

Loved both of these videos. Dan, you have the best looking butterflies. Especially your near butterflies.

I'm sure there are many players who have a better looking butterfly, but we look more into their bigger tricks of the arsenal. I've never had such a comment about any kind of trick of mine.

I was happy with how the video came out, I wanted to leave a few "bumps" in the way, give a bit of a raw feel. It was also awesome to get some awesome shred from where I first started kicking. It looks very different to back then. The first time I kicked a crocheted bag there was in 1997, and it was just a dirt patch, which I had mainly created running around and kicking the footy (and commentating on my imaginary matches). It looks great what Dad has done with it now.

Funnily enough, he seems to find a footbag in the gardens around there each time I go there. He gave me one last weekend, it was full of holes and I don't even remember where it came from originally, it might even by one of Ian's bags from many years ago. It looked like it had been in there for a number of years.

Just talking to Juho and hoping to line up a short footbag session on the weekend. We are going up to see Nick Cave in Sydney, but I have to work in the morning of Saturday and afternoon of Sunday. It will be great to have one of the best players on hand.

Another good news is that Olly Bowman, one of the football freestyle guys from NZ, is going to spend about 10 days here in Canberra while the Asian Cup is on. So that's pretty exciting too.

Had a quick session during work lunch break today, hit ripstein to finish off. Had a couple of long runs, but not too much memorable. Was more important to get out in the sunshine first of all.

[bobgreen]

Nice video and song selection. The garden where you learned to play looks like a perfect training spot. Must be fun to get to kick there from time to time.

[boyle]

yeah, I like kicking there. There is a low hanging branch from one of the trees though and it can be quite dangerous. I'm really happy with how the video turned out. I had some previous footage that I was going to use to put together a video, but was playing well enough that day to make a whole fresh one.

[boyle]

Had a quick session today in the garage. It was pouring rain, so good to still be able to kick. The garage is a lot more crowded than when I first moved in. It was mid-winter then though, so it was perfect for indoor training. I can actually kick outside even in the rainy weather, there is a carport, which has a roof and a light there as well, but it is outside the baby's room, so I went for the garage.

Tried some of those links of the day. I think I did numbers 3,4,5. I got confused between 1 and 2 (I was just going of memory), so that wasn't correct.

Anyway, after too many tries I finally got blender>ducking flapper. That took way too long. I did toe rev swirl>far symple swirl. That took a few goes but it wasn't really out of my league. In reality that is something I should hit first time, every time. I also did the one with the axle, I didn't really know the name of that trick before, but I've done them before. I also saw spinning pickup>torque, I could do that for sure. The rest, probably not...

I was playing around a bit with my flip motion today. I've hit that before but not consistently. Felt a lot stronger today. I was also trying motion out of pdx torque on the strong side. No success but a nice idea.

Had the last couple of days of work, a nice refresh. Worked one tour yesterday. It's good having full time work considering that the tours slow down substantially over the summer. I had a long snooze when we came home today, still felt quite tired when I woke up though.

We will go up to Sydney and see Nick Cave on Saturday. Hoping I can get in a quick kick with Juho at some stage. We don't have much time though, so that may not happen, but he's out here for 6 months or so. Caroline has gone up to meet him at the airport.

[Add Block]

Try that link the other way round, so Motion > Pdx Torque. Or just regular Torque, both would look really cool I think.

I like rain. It means it's not snowing.