I look at my time in three sections - first 5 years or so were circle kicking - varying from every day to once a month - I never improved at all in this time. Next year and half was learning freestyle but by myself. I was completely a big trick one side player. At the end of this stage I could hardly link 3 3s together. I didn't know what things like guiltless meant and I could hit 2 or 3 6 adds.
Last year and half have been with people to kick with and have seen enourmas improvement. I can now hit runs over 40 contacts (guiltless) and bust big combos.
Moral of this story - do everything you can to get people to kick with. You should have as many contact details as possible in your footbag.org account since this makes it much more likely for people to contact you (and they will still probably email you) and you should regularly search the member lists and do your best to recruite people. - having people to play with meant that I went from barely tiltless to guiltless in less than 4 months.
i hacky sacked for like half a yr when i was in yr 8. Stopped that and started freestyling about 4 months ago which was in June. And now im really close to being tiltless.
i started hacking in my last year of high school, i've been freestyling since fall 2000 around the time i started college, so i guess that makes it about 4 years. sometimes i wish i hacked longer before getting into freestyle.
I started circle kicking around 1994. I got informed about freestyle around 1997. I started freestyling once I met up with Richie and Canyon in San Diego in 1998-99 . . . so I guess ~6 years off and on or 10 years off and on depending.