Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[Tjuggles]

Yeah I like it. It reminds me of those videos where one thing is happening in the foreground at normal speed, and things are zooming around in the background at high speed.

You would have made an even bigger impact with the take with Nico pissing in the bush though.


EDIT: TOP POST PAINTING!
Mana Island; Don Binney; 1971; VUW.2005.1

[boyle]

Like the painting. Is that somewhere in NZ?

It some administrative news, I'm going to run for IFPA Executive Director. Let's see how that goes. I'm not really known in the net game, so that may bring be down a notch.

I've also been thinking about making an online course to be like an "IFPA accredited instructor". I just went through a similar course for Athletics and thought it would be easy enough to do something similar for footbag.

In unrelated news, I've been delving a lot into the family history lately. My Mum did up a book of my Dad's family some years ago (30ish), so I had a fair bit to go on, but building more upon that too.

Been working on Shred 30, as that's the only event I'm still in.

This was the best one I got so far, about 170.

darkwalk>pdx mirage>phoenix>pdx mirage>PLO>dimwalk>blur>dimwalk>sidewalk>ripwalk>sidewalk>ripwalk>butterfly>diving clipper>ducking clipper>diving clipper>ducking clipper>spinning clipper>spinning butterfly>inside (bail)>butterfly>ducking butterfly>diving butterfly>ducking osis>torque>butterfly>gyro butterfly>diving clipper>drop (was going for rev swirl)

I'd still like to go for 200, but I'm thinking if I can get around 180, that might be enough to submit. Let's see how it goes in the next week. It could be pretty busy in the near future. I'm also with the kids pretty much all the time, which is sometimes an opportunity to kick and sometimes a major distraction. (As you may have noticed in my routine video)

[Tjuggles]

Like the painting. Is that somewhere in NZ?

Yup, it is just up the west coast from Wellington.

I took a tour of the art gallery and one of the things mentioned was how when Pākehā (NZ Europeans) came to NZ and saw places like Mana island, they saw a location void of life (since no one lived on it) and painted it accordingly. This contrasts with the Māori perspective which sees the island as a treasure, flourishing with the life of flora and fauna.

It some administrative news, I'm going to run for IFPA Executive Director. Let's see how that goes. I'm not really known in the net game, so that may bring be down a notch.

Nice! I watched those three videos by the way and made some notes. I think there are some good points in there, and a lot of work to be done.

Been working on Shred 30, as that's the only event I'm still in.

So you didn't submit to sick 3? I think we are still waiting for those results to come out.

[boyle]

Yes I submitted, but I won't be in the top marks, that's for sure.

[Tjuggles]

Ah, haha yeah fair enough.

[boyle]

Been a little while since my last post.

As mentioned, I'm going for the Executive Director in the IFPA. A bit more information on that here - http://sportslashlife.com/daniel-boyle- ... r-of-ifpa/

We are down visiting my Dad at the moment. There has been a bit of a spike in Covid cases, particularly in Melbourne, however we had 0 for a long while in Canberra, now it's back up to 5 or so. Sydney has more than that too. It's been raining practically the whole time we've been here, but hopefully we can get out to the beach or park or something.

I've finished all my Worlds videos. I got in a shred 30, which on first count was pretty much spot on 200. One of the ducks is just really not there at all though, so that will bring me down slightly. It was already a repeat contact though, so it shouldn't make too much difference. Unfortunately for me, I went off the screen on the last contact. By that point it was probably out of time though, so no big deal on that one too.

What I am glad is I had it ready to submit, as it's probably a bit difficult to get in a decent session here, particularly with the non stop rain.

Definitely time for a break from shred 30, pretty sick of them. Will be nice to do just some regular kicking. I'd like to put together something with all the leftover footage, but lots of other things to do too. School holidays at the moment, but I probably better get things set up for next term also, which starts next week.

[C-Fan]

I've finished all my Worlds videos.

Congrats! That must be a relief. I have a weird love/hate with them myself. Like, on one hand I can't wait to be done with them, but on the other hand I know I'll be sad once it's all over.

. Unfortunately for me, I went off the screen on the last contact.

I feel your pain. I had to toss a couple entries because I drifted out of frame. So frustrating.

Definitely time for a break from shred 30, pretty sick of them.

Amen to that!

[Tjuggles]

I've finished all my Worlds videos.

Congrats! That must be a relief. I have a weird love/hate with them myself. Like, on one hand I can't wait to be done with them, but on the other hand I know I'll be sad once it's all over.

I agree with the 'Congrats!' and the relief/love/hate thing. I have yet to get a 200+ shred 30 on tape. In fact, this is because I have been preoccupied with other events to sit down and think one through. I have tomorrow and the day after to get it down.

[boyle]

I actually think that may work to my advantage - while others have been working for their other events, I've had some time to work on that. Not like I'm going to go so great anyway.

[Tjuggles]

yeah for sure. Mine didn't work out as planned, but at least now things have calmed down (for those of us not still in any events).

[boyle]

I did up a vlog yesterday. Not much footbag content, but there are a couple of runs in there.



Do I have more important things to do? Yes, but it was a nice bit of relax. I'm not working Mondays now (last semester I wasn't working Tuesdays). So I was able to go out on a bike ride around the local area and make a little vlog out of it.

So yes, back to school. It's been a bit weird not starting on the first day, I feel that's put me out of whack a little bit. I arrived late yesterday as well so I was kind of rushing around non stop, today was a bit better, and tomorrow I don't have such a busy day. So that's good.

So we have the IFPA Election coming up in a little while. I have made some more videos for them.





Second one is Spanish version. My Spanish is not particularly good, mainly because I never work on it and I learned on the streets of Santiago rather than in any proper course, but I had a few message already from some of the South Americans thanking me for that one. Also, even though it's far from perfect, I could do a six minute video of the top of my head, so it went OK.

I know there have been a lot more votes than previous times, but no idea how things are standing.

Some thoughts on my competing at Worlds.

- Most importantly - It was great to have the opportunity to compete. I set a goal some years ago to reach "5 by 35", which would have put me on 5 Worlds. I think I set that before going to Denmark. Speaking of those previous Worlds, I'm getting a lot of cool photos coming up in the Facebook memories from the different trips. With both of those trips to Europe, I spent about a month travelling around, in 2009 on my own and in 2015 with the family. For the trip to the USA, I just went there and came back. It was a disappointing venture and I think it would have been good to make it part of a bigger trip (however, I also went on two other trips that year, so no big deal).

I'm getting off track here.

Routines - goal was for a dropless routine, which I was able to get. On the last opportunity basically. I had two one drop routines which I was considering I could hand in, but glad I got dropless. Too much pausing and dropping down to basic tricks, but good to tick that box of dropless.

Shred 30 - I wanted a 200, but it will come in below that. They sent a message to say a trick down out of screen within the time limit will count as a drop. I think that one would still be my best score. I worked on shred 30 quite a bit, so there's still room for improvement there. Still way better than anything I've done in comp though. I once won an Aus champs with a really low score (slightly over 100), so it's good to be better than that. I think in Denmark I got in the 140-150 range.

Shred Off - Any issues of this one were of my own creation, I simply wasn't up to speed with the deadline, then nearly let it pass. I literally saw something in Ken's blog and was like - oh, that's today. All the other deadlines I had written on my calendar, but for some reason I didn't have this one there. Anyway, I'm not sure I could have come through to knock out Adam, but at least I could have given myself 30 more seconds to give it a shot. That would have put me up against Mr Simku, so no real difference there.

Sick 3 - I hit phoenix>blur>pixie motion - I had some other 5-5-5 combos, but this one had a bit more on each side. I don't really have the big combos to compete at the high level of this one, but I was happy enough with this combo. The other combo I had in mind was darkwalk>double spinning osis>paradox blender, but I wasn't able to hit that.

In Denmark I think I hit something like phoenix>blur>paradon - which was my safety, I couldn't hit any of the combos I wanted to. That came 8th. I didn't actually realise this was pretty much the same with an upgrade on the last trick. It came in the mid 20s. Obviously everyone can do a lot more tricks with unlimited attempts.

Anyway, good to be a part of it. I like the online format. I think it would be good to do some regional ones. You could do an Asia-Pacific event, which I think would be pretty cool. Might even get a few more players who haven't been seen in a while. You could have a really interesting competition there actually. Some of these new players from Japan and China come through.

[boyle]

Today I hit something that I probably should have done long ago, but don't think I even have completed it. DATW in both directions, on both side, in the same run. Also one after the other on either foot. The right foot one came after a double pickup as well, so I was going alright on the double dexes.

I went to the gym today, when I arrived there were no classes on so I could play in that room. I'm still a bit hesitant about going to the gym, but we have no active cases of Covid here, so that should be fine.

There's a thread on Facebook that Erik made in regards to Lynton Stephens - https://www.facebook.com/groups/footbag ... 017526008/

Some good videos through there, and here's one.



And anyway, very good player etc etc, and I posted a run on Facebook the other day, it started with pixie ducking rev swirl. https://www.instagram.com/p/CC1_PthFNdA/

And in the comments, one Mr L Stephens writes, "strong run".

Happy with that one!

I'm running the @footbag Twitter account now. I've set up a bunch of searches on TweetDeck, so if people mention "hacky sack" or Vasek Klouda" or a bunch of other things, I will see them. There's not a lot of activity on Twitter for footbag, but there is certainly a lot of potential for it.

Here is a thread showing the finalists in Open Routines.

https://twitter.com/footbag/status/1287228493596565505

I'm thinking to do similar for the other events but it's a little bit time consuming.

Last week I got that vlog from a nice sunny day. This week it's pouring with rain, so it's certainly a change.

[Tjuggles]

Today I hit something that I probably should have done long ago, but don't think I even have completed it. DATW in both directions, on both side, in the same run. Also one after the other on either foot. The right foot one came after a double pickup as well, so I was going alright on the double dexes.

Nice one! I definitely have a LONG list of footbag things I should have done long ago...

I went to the gym today, when I arrived there were no classes on so I could play in that room. I'm still a bit hesitant about going to the gym, but we have no active cases of Covid here, so that should be fine.

That's stink. Having that on my mind would likely detract from focusing solely on shred.

I'm running the @footbag Twitter account now. I've set up a bunch of searches on TweetDeck, so if people mention "hacky sack" or Vasek Klouda" or a bunch of other things, I will see them. There's not a lot of activity on Twitter for footbag, but there is certainly a lot of potential for it.

Cool, nice work. I feel like the more outlets the better. Of course, it would be nice to streamline things so that a post to platform A would also get sent to platforms B, C and D. I bet I could help make that happen.

[boyle]

I'm pretty happy with my shred 30. Not quite the 200 I was aiming for.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQByGFH ... .be&t=3006[/youtube]

This link goes directly to my round. Interesting though as there would be no difference in my placing if I scored, say 200 on the dot. I was impressed to be ahead of a few people, Matt Kemmer in particular. I think it's top 8 tomorrow, so that would put me at 11. That would certainly be my most successful event of this tournament.

I have this little idea for a month long shred 30 tournament - where you have to do a Shred 30 everyday - whoever gets the top score wins something, whoever gets the best average wins something. Though by the end of the Worlds time I was really sick of Shred 30, but it could be an interesting concept.

The voting time or IFPA should have come to an end round about now. Not sure which time zone it is set for, but I'm well ahead of all of them. Which means waking up at 5am for the Worlds action. Well worth it though, great commentary and super production. I think it was Pawel Rosek running that, not sure it was just him, but it looked superb. Very professional.

As I mentioned, the voting closes. Let's see about the results. I think it's a great chance to build on this tournament, and there's also a lot of work being done on the rebuild of the footbag.org website.

[boyle]

Watching Worlds was really fun. It was great to see lots of familiar names on the chat who maybe aren't playing much these days. There's been some talk about "what does footbag need" lately, and a few people and mentioned the need to make things fun, make it appealing for those kind of people, who maybe aren't going to compete but they want to be there and hang out with the footbag community. I think there were elements of that in Copenhagen - a few people just came for a day or two, and also happen to be incredibly good players.

So I didn't get the gig for the IFPA job. The score was 84-51. Thanks if you were one of those 51.

I'm not too disappointed in the end. Last month there was no election to go for, so it wasn't something I was planning on. The only thing I'm a bit disappointed in is that I put in a lot of materials and plans, I don't think I saw anything from Arthur after his original videos.

Here's my Shred 30. I came in 11th place, pretty happy with that, although I was in a good position to push a bit more.



Unfortunately those last couple of days I was pretty well rained out, I was also with the kids down the coast and come to think of it I didn't even take my shoes. I think I had already done hundreds of attempts at the Shred 30, so that would be that.

[boyle]

Didn't mention that I played today. The month is only a few days old, but I'd like to go back to posting an Instagram clip everyday.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CDViaDUFDkC/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDX0FttFMmG/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CDaOgj0FWOK/

These are the clips for the first three days. Went to the gym today also. I'm off on Mondays now but from next week I will be joined by Jasmine.

I also went to the skatepark but my legs were running out of steam by that time. Here's a video of a different time, same location.



Anyway, in today's session I had something a little different in mind - I set a target of hitting 20+ 5 add tricks. Not worrying about links etc, just had to do the trick and get the handcatch, or keep playing. This was the order (from memory, so maybe I have a few in the wrong order).

1. atomic ss blender
2. flip darkwalk
3. phoenix
4. flip blurry whirl
5. blurry whirl
6. darkwalk
7. pixie diving osis
8. spinning ducking butterfly
9. spinning whirl
10. pixie zulu butterfly
11. spikehammer
12. ripped warrior
13. stepping ducking osis
14. paradox blender
15. spinning ducking osis
16. scorpion's tail
17. pixie ss double down
18. motion
19. backside blur
20. pixie op blender

I hit a few more as well, and there's some others like ducking PS mirage which I can hit with reasonable ease. Good for thinking of some different fearless combos and that kind of thing.

[Tjuggles]

Nice work. That is a nice goal. Lately I have been trying to do consecutives, especially things that repeat.

[Muffinman]

Wow, lots of 5s!
Your Worlds shred was incredibly impressive, btw! You're such a consistent player with lots of huge tricks! Just hitting a bunch of 5s sounds really fun too

[Tjuggles]

Tesla has announced a 5-to-1 stock split. I bet all of these 5s had something to do with it.

[boyle]

oh yes, that was me.

I haven't really played much the last days. Some slight kicks. I actually hurt my hamstring playing indoor soccer. That has (wait for it) hamstrung any opportunities for playing. It's actually really given me some grief as I can barely run. In the PE classes I like to show the kids what they are meant to do, and if we are running (which we are right now, focus on sprinting and athletics), I like to be able to run with the class, which I can't really do properly.

Speaking of school related stuff, the "HPE Day" is coming up. Not sure if this is national or international,but I've been talking with a guy from the directorate and it seems I am going to be some kind of "face" of the movement, showing footbag as an option for PE classes etc. There is actually a lot of potential in this. I am also going to a meeting tomorrow of our local area and I have suggested that we need to have more online competitions for various things. I suggested a bunch of different things, but mainly I mean competitions involving kicking a hacky sack.

Furthermore to this, I have an assistant one day a week, he is studying some kind of sports class, actually similar to what I did in high school. I've been talking with the teacher about helping in a cross country carnival for us, but I'm going to talk with the class next week about a few different things. They need to do a certain amount of hours organising different things as part of their class. At this point there are very few events in general that they can even help out with, so my thought is that they could assist with making some online footbag events happen. Being agile and adventurous and whatever else have you. I'm actually quite excited by the prospect. Maybe there's no benefit in it, but I see it as being something that is mutually beneficial.

Speaking of those 5s - I'm going to allow 5+ tricks (eg motion sickness, food processor). I will see if I can get myself up to 50. The ones on the list already won't count.