grek wrote:hm...no one has mentioned Derek Vandall...
Derek is pure talent who is absorbed in school and plays footbag maybe twice a year and never practices alone. :p
Vasek
Lon
Jorden
Allan
Chad
Something like that. It really is hard to say. I stick to my top three, and Allan and Chad are just the next FORCES who I can't think are topped by anybody. I'm probably forgetting people, too, though. Ricky may be in there. I haven't seen enough Yves or Felix to really feel I know their games. I'm a big Yves fan, too, though. If you list Flash, I think Hurricane should be there too!!! CHAINSAW MASSACRE @_________@
having just played with felix and having played with jorden a short time ago, here's my list...
vasek
felix
lon
jorden
bevier
keep in mind though that i have never played with lon and am going on the tons of video i have seen, and have only played with scott a couple times at worlds.
Felix should be on all these lists. I saw him shred a bit at footjam last week-end.
At one point I see him and tell him he had a killer 1st round routine (he did), he just said that there was no difficulty in it.. I did point out that there was ripstein, symp. whirling swirl and whirr. He said "whirr? That's not difficulty" and he then proceeded to hit:
whirr x7 > hand catch
I also saw the bag drop 1 inch from his osis on a tripple spinning osis.
yeah no doubt he's in the top 3 in my opinion. I've never played with any of the people on the lists - but it's clear from what you read and from results of comps that Felix, Vasek, Jorden and Lon are all in there. After that it's hard to say on number 5 - there are a lot of people pushing for that position I think - Jim, Peter, Honza, half of Finland etc.
Jeremy wrote:After that it's hard to say on number 5 - there are a lot of people pushing for that position I think - Jim, Peter, Honza, half of Finland etc.
I think a lot of these are really close, and I also think a lot of you are off your rockers...in addition to thinking this is both possible to do and impossible to agree on.
Vasek's first, period, no one compares yet, even Jorden.
4 people have a close second (which makes 5 btw).
Jorden is ridiculously amazing.
Lon is the man...playing with him is bliss, no one strings like liquid.
All of you guys who left off/forgot/discredited Honza are STUPID (yes, pointing fingers.) He has placed second to Vasek in HOW MANY global scale tournaments? And won every one that Vasek didn't attend, right? And can do how many 7 adds easy in his runs? He's SURELY included.
And as for felix, I'm sure he's much better than in december, and even then I saw him hit ripstein x 3 barefoot, and a barefoot surging ducking blender (8 adds), in addition to the rediculousness that comes from every run.
I'd like to place felix last on the list for sure, but Penske is very close, as is Pete. Its a hard call.
Scott, Ricky, Allan, and Ryan are really good (Even since Ryan's quit, and he's still 10 ten and would be top 5 for sure if he's skooled recently) but it's different.
And people like Dylan Fry, Johnny murphy, Miko, and others are rising fast, but I don't think at that level yet.
Chad and Ales are good, but you obiviously haven't been around them and in a circle with one of the top three for very long if you think they are still top 5. They WERE, but not anymore...
And as for schneider, I love his style, but I think there's still a lot of room for him to integrate it more with harder new school stuff though without losing his uniqueness...doing stuff like spinning tootsie rool > ripstein> singularity >spinning blender dragon...and I don't even know if THAT would be good enough.
And I'm so surprised no one mentioned Pinkus. I'm sure there are some of you who think he's top 5. He has tons of tricks no one can do and the most toe>toe 7s. Only trouble is he can't consistantly bust 20+ contacts...only sometimes. If he had the length to go with his power (which is almost impossibly hard), I'd put him on top 5. He and Sebastian could soon be pushing one direction of the envelope in to a crazy new realm of shred. I think sebastian is really good to btw, not there yet though.
So, my top are Vasek, Lon, Jorden, Honza, and Felix -- with the possibility of error in choosing Felix over Penske or Irish.
Great thread Jeremy, lets look back at it in 2 years and laugh by comparing then with now.
Peace,
Bum
"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Gandhi
At the risk of alienating everybody, I thought I`d post in this thread.
The most legit post in this whole thread belongs to David, who pointed out that a lot of you are using some pretty silly criteria for determining who is the `best.` Toe to toe 7s? Competition results? Single moves? At the same time, more important factors such as consistency, string length, and variety are being largely ignored.
It`s frankly impossible to say who are the top 5 in the world, unless you play regularly with all the best players in the world. Just because Jorden puts out lots of great videos all the time, doesn`t make him better than Vasek, who doesn`t put out videos. When was the last time you saw Sunil footage? For all you know, he could be hitting 5 dex tricks now, but because he doesn`t live on the internet, he`s not top 5 in the world. How many of you knew that Johnny Murphy has hit flurricane? Only Chad and Vasek were doing that trick last I checked. Not that a single move makes you good (see the chainsaw massacre comment), but I`m illustrating the point that its impossible to say who is good now, because not everybody is putting out vids (so you don`t know what everybody is hitting), and video lies (video gives no indication of consistency. Hell, my section on Eli`s next video will likely be real good, but that doesn`t mean I play like that on every touch).
Worlds is the one time when you can get a feel for who the best are, and even that is flawed. How many worlds has Lon been at recently? Ricky Moran is certainly one of the best in the world, but he was injured this year.
Don`t even get me started on competition results. Has Honza taken second to Vasek in routines several times? Yes. He also happens to be very good, but routines don`t reflect shred ability (though with the crappy judging lately... ). In the year 2000, several people thought Ahren Gehrman and Chad D were the best players in the world. Neither of them competed that much, and when they did, they didn`t do routines as well as Ryan. But people looked at other criteria (both sidedness, creativity, variety) and thought they were better. Same with Lon... his competition results aren`t that impressive, but that doesn`t mean he sucks. Conversely, doing well in competition is no real barometer for skill in a conversation like this.
Is this topic impossible to answer? Yes. But even so, people need to use better criteria and more persuasive arguments if they`re going to try to discuss this seriously.
I think the point Ken, is that this isn't a serious topic - there is no prize for being the best player in the world according to a few internet geeks (that's me ) - I'm sure this is an impossible question to come up with a definite no arguements answer.
It's also a hard topic to discuss because you don't want to dis the best players in the world. I don't want to post and say "I don't think Honza should be in the top 5 because he has that silly blue thing around his leg" - I would feel mean if I said that.
Johnny Murphy is good. NZ is getting a really strong scene these days I think, but how can people comment on people they haven't seen or know much about. That's probably why many of the North American's on this topic mainly mentioned North American's apart from Vasek - because they see them more often. That's why the Europeans mentioned Felix - because they play with him lots.
I really don't think we should be looking for a "right" answer - different people have different views of what "best" means. Some people think it's about how you perform in a competition, some people think it's about style, some people think it's about how hard your moves are. It's really a very open question - and I like it that way because you get a much bigger range of opinions and you learn stuff that you didn't know (like Johnny hitting flurricane)
Yeh that was good of you to bring that up Ken, i was laughing at the way in which some people justified their 'best' players and stuff... hitting one combo or whatever doesnt really mean shit.
And with that, i wont justify my players hehehehe:
1. Vasek
2. Jorden - 2 and 3 are very close, maybe too close to pick in my book.
3. Felix
4. Lon
5. Penske
I try to look at overall technical ability, style and whether i like to watch them play.
Where is Jon Schneider? Sorry, but I prefer originality and own style in the footbag and Outsider´s style is fantastic 
.
