Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[boyle]

Ooh. Sounds awesome. Good luck with the thing if it happens!
Also good job with Instagram. I'm new to Instagram. Do you tag stuff to get people to view your stuff? What's the strategy? I'm gonna start being more active mostly for art, but would be neat to post some footbag clips too now and then. How I do?

For me I just post a clip with #footbag if it's a footbag clip. I know some other players put many tags like #hackysack and other similar words so more things come up, but I don't really like seeing long strings of tags, so I just put the #footbag one. I was just taking a look at the #footbag feed. It seems I have one of the top posts, but the numbers for that post don't stack up against the other top posts at all.

Anyway, speaking of the 'Gram, Nick Polini got in touch with me today or maybe it was yesterday, there were a couple of people he had been in touch with in Australia that were interested in getting into freestyle. Actually a few days ago he said hey look at this guy, and it was Albert, who I kicked with in Melbourne recently. So the last couple of days he has said are there any players in x location. And the answer is pretty much there is someone who hasn't kicked in years. The scene is quite dormant at the moment. Caroline and Ryan are both playing a fair bit but Caroline is in Europe and Ryan is in South Korea, both for a fair while I believe. I'm going to Sydney in a few weeks so hopefully I can arrange a kick with Dyalan. Nick said there was a girl that does hoop stuff and some other flow arts or whatever you call it, and she is interested to get into footbag, so I got in touch with her too so we can see if anything comes of that.

I also saw they are having an event up at the local shops in a few weeks and they have asked if anyone is interested to so any performances etc, so I might offer myself up to do a footbag demo. I will have to check the time and dates first to make sure it doesn't clash with work.

[boyle]

Didn't realise the last one was a top post for a painting.



This is not a painting, but it's from an exhibition that just finished at the National Gallery of Australia, and is awesome. Nico loved this display and always wanted to go and see it. That's finished now though, which is kind of disappointing.

I've been playing each day and kept up with an Instagram video each day. Haven't done one for today yet. Might go and do that in my break, which I will take soon. I hit a few new tricks recently.

fairy ss rev swirl
pixie diving op butterfly


A couple of new vlogs as well.





They are both just general bushwalking videos, but each makes some time for a bit of a kick. Nothing special in terms of footbag though.

School term starts again tomorrow so hopefully I will get some calls to do some days at different schools over the course of the term.

[boyle]

I've been playing a fair bit. I've kept up with my daily Instagrams and there have been some good ones along the way.

Like a new trick (spinning rev swirl) - https://www.instagram.com/p/BaH8NNoHulq
Or a 6>6 combo - https://www.instagram.com/p/BaFcj_uHYdn alpine blurry whirl>motion sickness - that's only the third 6>6 combo that I've hit and I'm not sure anyone else in Australia has done more than 2. So it would be really cool to hit a beast. But best to build some consistency in general. Which has also been increasing. Some tricks, things like blender bsos, that used to be pretty difficult for me but it's just becoming standard. So that's good.

When you get those cool moments like a new trick or combo it's kind of disappointing to post up the next one and be like, here's 10-15 contacts of the same tricks I do all the time at the same place, but that will happen in a daily exercise.

Here's my latest vlog. There's quite a bit of footbag in this one. I mentioned that I was playing quite well after riding up a big hill.



My Grandpa is in the hospital at the moment. I will go up to Sydney to visit him tomorrow. I don't think I will get much footbag in, but hopefully I can get a cool scenic clip around the place. I am taking Nico so I will probably pack his bike and we can stop at some skateparks along the journey.

I'm booked in for a footbag demo at the local shops for an event called "Party at the Shops". That's next week and should be a bit of fun.

[boyle]

I haven't posted here in a few days, but I had a very footbag related day. As I mentioned in the last post I was doing a little demo. I was given a grass area where people could just come by and have a go. I had waves of people coming through, and at one stage I had a good 10 or so young boys who were quite into it. I sold a couple of bags as well, so that's good too.

More importantly, I met a bloke who lives down the road, who used to own Rod Lavers in the 90s! He said he has played a bit of net as well and has a net he sometimes sets up, so we may meet up in the future. He was doing a few stalls and butterfly kicks and things. That was something pretty awesome and surprising. I also had some really good runs along the way, so that was good too. I didn't take any photos or video though, so I will have to do something for my daily Instagram post later on.

I mentioned my Grandpa, I went up with Nico last week and it sounds like he's much improved. Nico sang him some nursery rhymes and he sang along to that. That was great, as he has dementia, so any sort of sign of memory is a positive.

[Muffinman]

Lots of good things in this post. Exciting about the footbagger down the street! We were just discussing at last session how increasingly the footbag community is the same players from like 10 years ago and fewer new players are getting into it. Younger people today just dont even know what havky sack is. So to find someone else like you did is extra special!

[Tjuggles]

Younger people today just dont even know what havky sack is.

I know; you either have or don't havky sack...

[boyle]

There's definitely not the hack circles happening in schools and general public places like there were when I was growing up. There isn't that opportunity to go into a circle and say "mind if I have a turn" and show off a couple of tricks these days.

Been playing a bit recently. Sick 3 combo from yesterday. Ripped warrior>spin ducking mirage>motion. Also had a pretty good run which included blurry whirl bsos which I put up on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BaumQTknvn_

I watched that "Sports Japan" program with Taishi yesterday, I really enjoyed seeing that. I would like to go to Japan someday and just hang out with him for a week or so while he is doing his promoting sort of stuff.

I played a bit this morning and actually really struggled to get more than 1 or 2 contacts a lot of the time, however I did do a couple of 20-30 contact runs. I also did swirl>far rev swirl and rev swirl>far swirl. I would like to join up those combos together, that would be a fairly nice little run.

[boyle]

Today I took Nico over to daycare. He dressed up as batman for Halloween. Not really in theme but he had fun and the teachers said he had a great costume, so he was happy.

Afterwards I went down to the tennis courts for a kick. I had in my mind I would like to hit blurry torque and I did. It doesn't always work that way.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ba45wrLHV1d

I was trying to work a little bit on fearless as well. The best I got was 4. I was wearing my black quantums and when I came back home I was taking them off and heard a big crack and there was a split from where the sole connects to the main shoe part. I knew there was high risk of this happening when I bought them, but it was a little disappointing. I might try some ShoeGoo to stick them back together. It's not every day that I hit things like blurry torque after all.

After I got home I set off on a long bike ride, starting by going up Mt Majura. This was pretty hard work, but I made it to the top. It was awesome coming down. I continued on the ride and ended up clocking up about 50km for the day. Feeling a bit sore now.

I went and saw a rugby league world cup match the other day with Nico. (Lebanon vs France). It was a good game and great atmosphere in the crowd.

[boyle]

This weekend has been a bit of a mixed bag for the footbag. I went away for the weekend, had a free place to stay just down the road from the beach. Except in rained pretty well the whole time, which was a bit of a bummer. It did clear up a few times over the course of the weekend.

Most importantly for this publication, I got in a kick with Dyalan. He was in pretty good form considering he has only kicked once or twice since we last kicked, which was at the start of the year (maybe that was in like vlog number 2). I think all of the kicks that have had more than one person in them in Australia have probably had me in them, which is not saying much. Anyway, I hit a few good runs, some had a couple of 6s in them. I also did a toe blur, which is nothing special to most people but my quantums are not good, so I was happy with that. I think Dyalan also hit at least one as well, though he has always had good toe tricks.

I asked him for some advice on what to do when having two kids...

So that's something coming for next year. Which will mean no Worlds and probably no trips at all. We will probably also buy a house next year so it's going to be all about the home life. We did talk about doing a trip in future though, and that would be to travel the whole of Chile over the course of a year. Maybe when Nico is about 12. That would be cool to do I think. Hopefully we could save enough money to just not work at all while we're over there and have a bit of an adventure.


Anyway, I haven't mentioned what went wrong with the weekend. Before even leaving I kicked a reasonably new bag (Hania) into a bush. It was green and yellow in colour, and so was the bush. It's still there. The next day, since that went so well, I thought I would take my Gopro into the surf. It wasn't particularly rough and it had worked well a couple of other times. It's still there in the sea too.

Not to worry on the bag though, I've just ordered 2 new bags from Ivan and they are on their way. Looking forward to their arrival.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbK--0GHLaf Here's a combo from today.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbGrq3cnNMD Here's a run from me at the beach session with Dyalan.

[Muffinman]

Sick fearless and motion tricks!
That's more fearless than I've ever done!
I wish I could focus on learning motions, but I can never seem to settle on a single thing. They look so good!

[boyle]

They are also reasonably easy. You have pretty good double down tricks so it shouldn't be too hard for you to do some more. My record is 5 but I would like to start pushing that a bit higher. I've also got to work some more on my flip motions, which is going ok, and keep doing some bigger motion tricks, like stepping ducking motion etc.

[boyle]

Got two new bags in the mail from Ivan yesterday.

This was the first run. https://www.instagram.com/p/BbiC7IWHgPo

39 contacts, not a bad start with no warmup, nothing.



The black material on the right side is a little bit sparkly, just like the previous bags I had from him.

I had a kick with Copey on the weekend, that was fun. Jonathan also came out, he is back from Toronto. So it was a bit of a hack/shred session and that was cool. It was also raining but that didn't stop the session. I went for a long bike ride a couple of days ago. 87km. Have been aiming to crack the 100 mark but that will have to wait for another time.

[boyle]

I got a lot of positive feedback from my little Instagram clip today from Mt Pleasant. I've actually been there quite a few times. I had done quite a long ride (about 30km) and started up my kicking with a run of about 30 contacts.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb0lqjCneBp

There were some army blokes around (the hill is within the military college but anyone can go up there) and they were like you should put this stuff on youtube. I said I tried to put something up on Instagram each day. One guy asked what's my Instagram and followed me straight away. A few people said the framing was good on the video. Funny thing is, I just always to the same thing. I put my phone in the general direction of where I'm kicking at hope that I'm more or less in the screen. Maybe I should put more ideas into that sort of thing, but for a quick go, I don't think it's too big a deal.

I hit a new trick today. Zipper set diving mirage. Not sure if I've done much new lately. Was working on tripless the other day. Goal is 20 unique. Didn't get there. Did get diving butterfly ducking butterfly rpt into diving osis ducking osis rpt. I have been working on a couple of ways to get there, which maybe needs to change as I'm not getting there. I have worked on putting a little combo in front of my kinda regular shred 30 starting pattern.

pixie ducking clipper>pdx dlo>fairy op butterfly>blizzard>dimwalk>blur>dimwalk>blur>parkwalk>sidewalk>ripwalk>sidewalk>ripwalk>diving butterfly>ducking butterfly>diving butterfly>spinning butterfly>spinning osis>ducking ois>torque>motion

I actually just made a slight adjustment writing it out so that might even be more possible and I could even go further from there. Something to think about.

My sister gets married this weekend so we have a lot of family around and should be a good weekend.

[boyle]

My sister gets married this weekend so we have a lot of family around and should be a good weekend.

"Should" would be the imperative word there. If you are a friend on Facebook you would already no we had some tragic news on the morning of the wedding. So now we are preparing for the funeral of my Mum this week. Full on.

Have had a lot of support from friends and family, including plenty of footbag players. I had a good chat with Caroline about a week back. She is over in Europe at the moment and I think she will stay there for a while too.

Also, the wedding went ahead and it was a great event. They had a jumping castle, they had plenty of beer, I did some footbag on the middle of the dancefloor.

Joulukalenteri is on again. Enjoying it so far. I haven't even looked at any of the Link of the Day but I will give some ago next time I have a proper session. I was kicking in my break in hiking shoes. I came very close to hitting ripped warrior>motion sickness in them. Loved the one from Khoa - great that you can be kicking along and Hania just happens to walk past!

I said I would do a video early in the piece but I haven't made any contact to set a date or anything. I have submitted a video the last few years and also ran it a few years back - that's something I'm certainly glad not to be doing. It's a lot of work, but it's a really nice project.

So I bought 3 pairs of Quantums a while back and two are pretty well deceased. I might try to fix them up, but I have a feeling they are beyond repair. I am also wondering if the key damage was on different feet, then I could just wear different colour/size shoes, but I think it was both on the left foot. I still have one pair though. I definitely thought they would last a bit longer, even though I had low expectations. Anyway, on these black ones I was midway through a run and the sole fell completely off the bottom of the shoe (it had been coming lose already). So it's quite easy to see why they had to put a stop to the distribution on these. I would really love to get a pair of Q2s. I have a feeling Copey may even have some but I don't think we are the same size.

I've spent quite a bit of time with Nico lately, as you can see in some of my Instagram videos. He has been making plenty of appearances, sometimes hilarious. The last one is a great one.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb8luM-HiP9
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcEKQnEHw7m
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcGZ_AxH2f2

Can't remember if it's actually a new trick, but I hit zipper set symp whirl. I have a feeling I may have done it once or twice before.

[Tjuggles]

Holy smokes! Your mom! That's insanity, especially on the morning of the wedding! I am at a loss for words...

Was your mum passing sudden? I feel like you had mentioned something about your grandpa getting old or something, but nothing about your mum (if memory serves that is). Seeing a parent die flipped my entire world upside down.

[boyle]

Very sudden. She went from being just a reasonably regular Mum, who was petrified of heights. To throwing herself from a great height.

My Grandpa is quite old, he has dementia and lives in a home. We visited him a couple of days and he was in pretty good condition (considering). We also haven't told him because he probably won't understand/won't remember.

It's hard what to think so far. I took the last week off work and we all went to Sydney and surrounding areas before, I think it's still just more of shock and general sadness. I guess having Nico around keeps you focused on the regular day to day things, and then there's another baby on the way. Don't know if I have mentioned that in here, but that's coming in April next year.

[C-Fan]

My condolences again about your mother's passing. I can't imagine how hard that must be.

the wedding ... had a jumping castle, they had plenty of beer,.

That sounds like an amazing combo for the participants, but an awful combo for the guy who cleans up the castle.

I feel you on the Joulukalenteri stuff. I think I had a decent streak of participation going, which ends this year. Just no time to play, much less make a proper video. I do hope to participate in the LOTD though.

Congratulations on the upcoming baby! That's news to me. Hopefully everything will be a bit easier the second go around, since you have the experience of Nico under your belt now.

[Tjuggles]

Very sudden. She went from being just a reasonably regular Mum, who was petrified of heights. To throwing herself from a great height.

Wow. I can't imagine what you feel. Well, yes I can; if it were me I would for one thing be wondering why. And I would be in disbelief.

My dad passed away in 2003 after a year-long battle with cancer. As I mentioned earlier, that flipped everything upside-down for me. Having Nico (plus one, congrats!) will help for sure to get over the initial disorienting blast of Holy Fuck. In my case, I turned to heavy drinking and not giving a fuck for about 2-3 weeks after my dad died. Then I wrote a speech about his battle in Japanese, won a Michigan Japanese language speech contest, got a free round-trip ticket to Japan including a one-week homestay. I cancelled the homestay, didn't take the flight home, and 12 years later I am in New Zealand.

Happy to talk anytime homie.

[boyle]

I think my Dad is also handling things well (considering) and that's a sort of beacon that if he is keeping it steady then I should be able to keep it steady too.

Here's an Instagram clip for today. https://www.instagram.com/p/BcWPvIEHfXx There is actually a replica of the capsule that helped dig out the 33 miners in Chile so I kicked in front of that. I wasn't planning that, was just passing by and thought it would be nice.

The upcoming addition is quite exciting, a little intimidating, but like Ken said, we've been there before. I don't want to go into full time teaching while that is coming though, so I will probably leave that til late next year or even the year after.

I had quite a few drinks in the immediate aftermath, but I have actually been laying off the booze for a few days now and might try and continue that for a little while. We have our work Christmas party next week though so I don't know if I will hold out the resistance against a whole lot of free drink.

I kind of feel like I should be embarking on some kind of project, maybe footbag related. But I will leave thinking about that for a little while.

[Muffinman]

My thoughts are you with you and your family. What a tragedy. I'm so sorry.
I don't know what it's like to lose a parent, but my brother took his own life almost a decade ago and it really shook my whole family. I don't know what your relationship was like with your mom, but I think the worst part for me is that I never properly processed it. I just tried to ignore feelings. I'd recommend chatting with a therapist after your natural mourning period has kind of winded down. That can help a lot. Also let me know if you ever need someone to talk to <3