Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

[DC Clinks]

What's with all the Dans in footbag man? We're probably tied with Johnny's and Matt's for the most common name. Sweetness is a sweet song, Jimmy Eat World is a dank AF band. Nice Insta run, sounds like you're putting in mad work mate. Keep it up with the shredage.

[boyle]

Best name going around. In reality those are all just really common names.

Been playing a lot, seems the hard work is paying off. Been working on symp dlos this week. Have been able to do them on and off for quite some time, but came across a trick which might well be "cheating" but let's see what the readership thinks.

Starting tricks like that (or even more basic ones like symp mirage/flail) from a kind of "front xbd toe position". Basically your setting toe is in front of the dex leg. You still have to go around it like usual so I think it's fine, but I have found that the positioning has made it a lot easier.

I had a kick with Dianne today and Caroline popped along too. Caroline is still out of action with the hip injury, but good to hang out anyway. We did a mix of freestyle football and footbag. Since there's a comp next week with the ball there was more focus on that. Both of us were not going particularly well but each had some ok runs.

Whenever I switch from the ball to the bag I just feel like a god in comparison, because I'm going from being stoked on let's say a 5 contact run without dropping down to toe, as opposed to getting annoyed that a run is not going over 30 contacts. I didn't do anything spectacular, but had some good runs.

Easter weekend coming up. Have quite a lot of family coming to visit us so that should be a bit of fun. My parents are coming tomorrow then they next day we have a couple of my aunties, my Grandma and my Nanna. I would like to attend the Raiders game on Saturday but I'll see if I can get away with that. Raiders have started the season well this year (which is the opposite to usual), second place at the moment with two wins and a draw. Early days. The Canberra Raiders (also known as the "Green Machine") are a rugby league team and haven't won a premiership since 1994. This year is probably not the year but good to see them having a good start to the season.

[boyle]

I did go and watch the Raiders and they did lose in the final seconds, which always seems to happen when I go.

I had a kick once I came back. I had plenty of drinks so it waa never going to be a great session. I made two objectives along the way. The first was to do inspinning osis which I got eventually.

The other one was 20 guiltless. This took ages, I had so many 17, 18, 19 runs but I told myself to keep pushing until I got it and my final run was 50 contacts.

Pdx whirl> reaper was a cool combo and zipper set revup was a new trick.

[boyle]

Played a bit today in the end, but nothing particularly serious. I was playing in the garage for a while and then Nicolas came in and he was pushing his big stroller around just where I wanted to play, then he has this little tent with dinosaurs playing guitar on the outside and he set that up in the same space. Before he had done that I was making some progress on pixie everything. That's what I'm currently working towards. I actually got one run that was close to complete, but I think I repeated pixie ss mirage and I don't believe I hit either smudge. I actually was just working on pixie pickup and kind of kept going from there.

I hit 17 diving clipper. Looks like the Australian record is 28, so I will beat that this week hopefully. These records are really old (http://www.footbag.org/forum/viewtopic. ... 5dff31b99d) however I don't think many of them would have been added to in that time as the Australian scene as been on a bit of a downward trajectory for about that same amount of time.

Anyway, I got called into work for an overtime shift and had a short session in the park. Wasn't wearing lavers, but managed a 25 contact run, a different run of about 20 which include a couple of quite good combos. And finished on pigbeater.

[boyle]

I had a good session today with Dianne. Mainly freestyle football, as there's a little comp coming up on the weekend - the Nationals. I have chosen a song to use for the routine, mainly for it's pure ridiculousness.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgEPJRWfP7c[/youtube]

Please note the Godzilla sounds within the song. Anyway, I hit spinning ducking clipper with the ball. I've been trying spinning ducking osis for a while but haven't been able to get the catch right, but doing to clipper was much easier. I came really close to ducking legover too. Most of these are quite simple footbag tricks, but it is very different with the ball.

Anyway, should be fun to go to the event. I know the people in the scene a lot better now after a couple of years going to the competitions, and I have also been improving a bit lately thanks to more dedicated practice.

Is that taking away from my footbag game? I would say not at all, and it's definitely helping a little way to boosting up the scene in Australia (from fairly inactive to still fairly inactive but most freestyle football players have a bag and can do some tricks and are using a big footbag influence in their game.

I just had a short session today and was playing pretty well. I hit flog (fairy dlo) as my final trick. It took me quite a few attempts, but I've only hit it a couple of times before. I can't remember if I hit much else of note.

[boyle]

I went to Sydney for the freestyle football competition. I was really unwell so that's a nice excuse for my reasonably pathetic results. I managed to do a spinning ducking clipper in my routine, which was one of my main goals of the day. Unfortunately I kicked the ball off the stage a couple of times which was not so good.

In the battle I had one really good turn, where I think I only dropped it once, but there are three rounds, so I wasn't able to make up for the previous efforts. I did a bit of footbag after the comp, hit spinning swirl early on. Haven't been playing much this week. Went for a long bike ride the other day, just under 50km, so just recovering from that.

Couldn't do the routine to the silly Godzilla song as the DJ was incompetent and not able to play it. It was a little annoying but I hadn't really practiced that routine so I wasn't too concerned.

Today I am going with Nicolas' day care on an excursion to the bus depot, better leave for that now actually.

[C-Fan]

Couldn't do the routine to the silly Godzilla song as the DJ was incompetent and not able to play it. .

At least you've never had song problems with your routines in the past.

[boyle]

No, can't recall any difficulties along the way...

[boyle]

Hi friends. Writing this from work at 10:30 at night. Been a bit of a long day, but most are. Put this little clip on Instagram today and it had a few likes.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BD92XOSGIAD

Came out ok for a couple of minutes and not wearing lavers and about 10km into a ride. I have been getting into the habit of leaving a little early for work and just going for a bit of a bike ride and enjoying this great weather because winter is coming soon and there will be nothing left to enjoy.

I was just at the park today with Nicolas, as he was playing around I just did a little string, mainly of duckings and butterfly and a few other tricks. All of a sudden I had 22 contacts which was cool. Would be good to get a few more of those "effortless" strings to get some bigger numbers.

Caroline said she had some bad news from the doctors on her hip yesterday, she may have to get surgery after all. Saw her at the Frenzal Rhomb show last night. It was the first night Francisca and I had out together in a long time, though what was longer was the last time we went to that venue, which was when we just started going out. In 2009. Frenzal were pretty good. It was pretty much exactly the same as when I saw them at the same venue last year, but they are always fun to see.

I have been feeling pretty sore lately, just a kind of all over soreness so hopefully it either improves or becomes more specific. Home time soon. Great news. Not so great news on the Raiders today. They had such a great start to the season, but they were thrashed today, which is more of the usual business. Booo.

[boyle]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEKqEkIGIFA - Got to make use of the good weather, it's not going to last too long. Winter is coming. I just had a quick kick today and a good session yesterday with Dianne, mainly with the ball but a bit of footbag from both of us. I have been working on doing doing a transition from a spinning clipper to some sit down tricks. I hope I will be able to get that smoothly sometime this year, I think it would look really cool and be something reasonably unique.

I had a beer with Caroline after we finished. She said she saw Copey at the Frenzal show, but I didn't see him there. Hopefully get him out for a kick some day soon. I also saw Jonathan that day and told him he should bust out the Lavers again.

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

Here's a second clip from today, it was such a nice day, had to get into action. Went for about a 20km bike ride as well. Did a couple of bike rides and bushwalks on my day off. I have been wanting to go to this place the "London Bridge Arch" for some time and finally made it out there a couple of days ago. It would be good to go with someone else to hold the camera as I couldn't quite get the clip I wanted.

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

I went to the skatepark this morning as well. It was such a nice day I just had to get outside and do something and that was a great way to start the day. It's also school holidays so that was a good time to beat the crowds.

[bobgreen]

I hadn't commented when I originally saw your clip from the London Bridge Arch, but I thought that the light reflections from the water on the rock were really cool. I think you are right though that if you had a camera person that it would really open up some interesting opportunities for an cool shot with some sort of panning. In addition to the visuals, I am impressed with how well you can play wearing pants.

[boyle]

I was pleased to actually get that light effect with the camera from the phone. I will definitely go back and visit again and try to get some better angles there.

[DC Clinks]

Nice shred clips, agreed that the bridge scene was pretty cool and warrants further footage. Your shred in pants is gnarly, been wanting to film something in jeans myself. Fashionbag is realz. Footbag at a skate park sounds interesting, I'd imagine decent surfaces to work with? Hope you're keeping it chill mate.

[boyle]

Something from the Vasek manual (which I haven't read in a long time, but the main thing I took out of it) (paraphrased, obviously after so long) is that you should be able to play anywhere, anytime and it doesn't matter about the shoes or clothes and you should be able to do some tricks and I believe really strongly in that. The message that I took from it is that your training (sometimes) should be on a hill in the dirt, drunk late at night and if you can do that you can play anywhere.

PS the surface where I was playing was sand, although pretty hard sand, but I think that's much more difficult than playing in jeans.

[boyle]

I had a pretty rough night at work yesterday, so I wanted to kick when I got home and drink some beers as well, despite the fact that I had to be up again at 6am. I am paying for that a bit today, but the session was good and had the desired effect of calming me down and letting me get a reasonable sleep. I watched a movie so it wasn't actually a reasonable sleep, it was less than 4 hours. My sleep has been really good this month, average over 8 hours so that might wreck that.

Anyway, I hit quantum pickup so the session must have been ok. Was mucking around with some juggling balls too, started a little run with a cloud kick into regular juggling (3 balls), then did a through the legs trick in the same run. Did some work with the ball as well, it's a bit hard in the garage, space is too confined, much better for footbag.

I've been doing some work on pixie everything lately. I think I will get that soon enough. Got to work a bit more on the pickups and illusions and the transitions between both of them. It's frustrating, but at the same time it's good to build up any of my toe game. I have put aside that challenge for the 20 unique for a while, I would like to get the pixie everything and I imagine that I should be able to get the 20 anyway by doing that (maybe).

I'm going to the Raiders game this afternoon. Hopefully they have a victory.

[boyle]

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEcU93kGIE1

I played for a bit today at uni. Got a good sick 3 on video (first try). Phoenix>bs blur>pixie op blender. Was pretty pleased with that. I had bs blur>pixie blender before I put the video on then though I'd add a phoenix at the front. Happy with that. Wasn't so happy with a result I got from an assignment which I read just after doing that. Will just have to do better in the next one. I mentioned the Raiders game, I took Nico for his first game, they were thrashed. A bit disappointing, but he had a good time there. He kept saying "come on Raiders". They didn't respond (40-16 loss was the final score).

Had some good runs today, quite a few over 30 contacts. Had a few 5>5 combos along the way too. Also did dso from a kick which was a fun trick, not sure if I've done that before. Op legover from a pincher too, definitely haven't done that before.

Going to Vietnam next week, that's cool.

Here's another clip I was pleased with, which has nothing to do with footbag. I took Nicolas to a few parks yesterday and one had a basketball court. I had been mucking around trying to kick the ball (rugby ball) into the goal. I had a few close ones, but hadn't got it in. I decided to just put the camera on and see how it went.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEaZb-hGINn

In it goes! With pressure on the kicker. It was from just in front of the halfway line, so I was happy with that.

[boyle]

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

I went to the Lyneham shops today, the old stomping grounds. I used to live on that same street and kick there a lot. Just after this clip I hit VOID. I have been trying that for so long, so ridiculously long and that just happened really easily today. Couldn't get it again though.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BEf30uomIGU

Here's a silly clip from my break. Nice save...Nothing particularly special in this little time. Was good to get a second kick in. Was trying a few combos with multiple 3 dexes. Didn't get any of them though. Have been doing some work on pixie everything, really bringing it back to the beginning (do each move, handcatch, then work on each of the links). That will pay off eventually and I reckon I will have that done, maybe by the end of the trip to Vietnam. Not sure how much I will play over there. Probably a reasonable amount. I know I'll be doing a lot of eating delicious food and it will be great.

[boyle]

Off to Vietnam. Should be a cool trip, with a stop tomorrow in Kuala Lumpur. We have just caught the bus to Sydney and Nicolas has been quite well behaved. Hopefully that continues for the overnight flight. We can only see.

Therr has been some talk of consecutive kicks on the Facebook group. I would like to see a consecutives comp sometime. I imagine you would bring out a few legends. Also, if it's just consecutive kicks, nobody will complain it's taking up to much time.

Anyway, I am going to do some practice and try to come up with a good score. I usually aim for about 100 kicks a minute but will have to up the tempo to get serious about it.

[boyle]

Hi friends. We are in Vietnam. Been here about 4 days now in Ho Chi Minh City. It's close to 40 degrees all the time so it's pretty sweaty just walking around.

I have played a bit though and got little bits and pieces on video. We have access to the pool at the gym next door which is great, though it was closed over the weekend.

I came across some kids playing shuttlecock yesterday and was able to have a little circle kick with them. We got a few triple hacks with that, and I had one round with a flying butterfly on either side.

We still have another week here so hopefully I can get some footage for a cool video.

[boyle]

We are coming to the later stages of our trip in Vietnam. It is hot here, all the time. You may have seen a little clip of a hack circle with some monks. That worked out great. We were walking along and saw a lane that led to a temple. There were a bunch of boys kicking a ball outside so we joined in for a while. Then I gave them a footbag and we had some fun with that.
Came across a takraw circle the other day as well. Had a short kick, but Nicolas was intefering too much so we had to move on. Played a bit yesterday but me legs felt very heavy. Went for a swim in the evening and that was very refreshing. I have been working a bit on putting some unusual surfaces and kicks into my combos to make things a bit different. Things like symp mirage from a stall on top of the knee, pixie sole kick, etc.