Canberra, Australia via SCL - Daniel Boyle

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 19 Jun 2011 04:35

We will be at first, but once we settle in we will probably head down to the coast somewhere (depends where we can get jobs/houses etc).

That doesn't sound like a good situation to go into, maybe you should just come to Chile instead

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 24 Jun 2011 05:42

So we're 5 hours along the road, a few more to go and we will be arriving in Melbourne for the nationals.

Cool.

Hopefully it will be a lot of fun.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 30 Jun 2011 07:26

So today, a pretty surreal day. I'm writing this at the end of the day in Kuala Lumpur, day one.

I didn't mention anything about nationals, I played ok and came second in most events. 3 drops or so in my routine. It was probably one of the best routines I've done in a comp, but I wasn't really happy with it.

Anyway, 4:30 this morning I was up and atom. I looked out through the window and in the darkness I didn't see any frost, which meant we didn't have to scrape the ice of the car.

I ate a pear as I went to get in the car and we drove to the airport. This time there was nobody laughing at me telling me I booked the flight for the day before (see: 2 weeks ago) and after a short while I was in Melbourne yet again, though not for long. Just a change from Domestic to International, which is conveniently all in the one building.

I boarded my flight with Air Asia and we were away, no troubles, it just took a fairly long time. Longer than I thought actually, I thought it was a 1 hour time difference, but the difference is 2 hours.

On getting to the terminal there was this longest queue I've ever seen in my life, but what can you do but stand in it. As I was getting towards the front some Aussie guy behind me was getting cut up about another guy cutting into the queue (didn't seem this was uncommon practice), but the other fellow pulled out the reverse racism card "you think you're too good to do this, and I'm dirty so I cut the queue"... "no, I just saw you go in the line in front of me" and back and forth they went.

After leaving Canberra in the middle of winter, 31 degrees was a bit hot to handle. I got out of the airport (finally), and there was a man with a sign, a sign for me....an Important Guy... (maybe).

So old mate Rohan took me into town, the airport is miles away from the actual city so it took ages, and he had to pay about 6 tolls. He said he's had enough of Malaysia and is thinking about emigrating to New Zealand.

When we got into the city, we went into the Mid City Mega Mall, this is where the competition is happening, inside the shopping centre, so there's always people passing by. It's a pretty big deal, with a big video continuously playing. I feature in the video, alongside old mate Z. Zidane, who is some kind of rep for the new Adidas product.

Just after my part in the video (it's taken from my routine last year, a spinning clipper, then another cliipper, alongside a number of other videos that must have come from different Youtube accounts. Anyway, just after me, Vasek comes along and does 5 ripsteins in a row...not too bad.

Anyway, I meet some of the guys, I met a lot of people at the same time, and I don't remember too many names, but I wasn't really sure about their level at all before I came. The main guys into it have come from a freestyle football background and have taken some tricks from that. One guy definitely has a lot of potential, but I told him he needs to work more on his other side (and I can talk....)

So over the time I did some workshops with people who came up on the stage and a couple of short demonstrations. It's more of the same tomorrow, So now I will go to sleep in my hotel room, which is just around the corner from the event site, the event is in the Mid City Mall, which may well be the biggest in South East Asia. These Malaysians sure love their malls.

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 30 Jun 2011 07:59

Wait, huh? What are you doing in KL? What was this event you are going to? I feel lost.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 30 Jun 2011 17:33

hmmm, I just realised I hadn't written much about this at all. I think I made up a longer post a while ago, but my computer crapped out and so it's not there.

I'm in KL up until the weekend, they are having the first ever Malaysian championships.

It's sponsored by Adidas (although it's about a deodorant -Pure Game, rather than being about a shoe- Rod Laver). So they have a big section in a mall with lots of signage and people can look down from the stories above. Apparently some TV crews will come over the weekend as well.

In the leadup to the competition they have got me to come out and help the players learn some tricks. The original plan was to come out a couple of weeks back, and again this weekend, but that one fell through, so I didn't really want to say too much, in case that happened to me again.

But now here I am and it's time to get ready for today's activities.[/img]

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 30 Jun 2011 23:46

I will try and post up any news stuff I find about the tournament. Here's an unexpected place for footbag to appear....in the beauty section...

http://lifestyle.malaysia.msn.com/Beaut ... id=4864909

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 01 Jul 2011 06:19

"the man himself, THE Daniel Boyle from Canberra, Australia"

(they really said that...)

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 01 Jul 2011 13:06

boyle wrote: Here's an unexpected place for footbag to appear....in the beauty section...

Don't be modest now...

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 01 Jul 2011 18:31

http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?f ... ec=central

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 02 Jul 2011 07:30

So today is day 3 in KL. Well actually, I think we're just outside KL at the Mid Valley shopping centre.

My hotel is actually attached to the shopping centre, so I haven't ventured too far away, as I only have a limited time when not going up on the stage.

Anyway, for three days now I have been making appearances on the stage, doing some routines, giving some pointers to new players. There are a couple of players who have a lot of potential, and are learning quite quickly.

Oh, did I tell you (dear diary)....the winner gets a trip to Finland for Worlds (probably a better prize than the winner of worlds will get...)

So tomorrow is the final of the competition, and tomorrow I will be flying back home as well, which is pretty crazy to think about, as I only arrived a couple of days ago. The idea of going back to work at my normal job is not particularly appealing to me (considering I will have probably earned as much within these few days as almost 2 weeks of work, doing something that I am really passionate about.

There have been A LOT of people watching, I would say the number would be somewhere in the thousands, this mall is enormous (although oddly enough, nothing opens til 10am, if you want breakfast there are only about 3 places open, one being maccy d's.

So anyway, for the "competition" today, well it was more of a get people to have a go, so we just did consecutive kicks (1 min), there were a couple of the guys, who are learning pretty quickly, got 100+, which is pretty impressive...I didn't bother with deductions for drops etc.

I'm not really sure how we will do the competition for the semi finals, but the final we will do a circle comp. Normally I am a big routines supporter...but none of these guys will have done a routine before, and the circle will be good for the crowd etc.

What an experience though, wild.

PoisonTaffy · Post by **PoisonTaffy** » 02 Jul 2011 09:33

Their organization sounds Amazing! I'm stoked for having sold a footbag this month. They got competitions, sponsors, articles and a plane ticket prize! Is it because of Sepak Takraw?

Learn their secrets, Daniel!

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 02 Jul 2011 15:42

It's funny, it's nothing to do with Sepak Takraw, they tried to get some players interested but they weren't really interested in playing at all. The guys who are really picking it up well all come from playing freestyle football.

The backing of a marketing company makes a huge difference, and then the sponsor being Adidas is another big deal. The location as well, it's in the centre court of this ENORMOUS shopping centre (which is apparently very popular with the locals too), means that people are walking by and checking it out.

It's all very exciting and hopefully I can get something similar going in other countries...

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 05 Jul 2011 02:23

I had such a great time in KL, it's not that great being back in Canberra. It's freezing cold and there are 100km/hr winds outside, so I am staying indoors for the next little while.

I wrote a bit about my trip on Shred Global- http://www.shredglobal.com/archive/aust ... hips-2011/

I think there were some Malaysian newspapers (and maybe even TV) doing some things, so I will post some links once I see them.

There's a cool video here- http://vimeo.com/25975174

There was a pretty big crowd

sen · Post by **sen** » 05 Jul 2011 06:54

Crazy! Sounds like a lot of fun!

PoisonTaffy · Post by **PoisonTaffy** » 05 Jul 2011 08:29

Aw I wanted to see more of your routine there!

Looks like a cool event, though! Maybe i'll send this to adidas israel and see if they'll sponsor an event for us.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 06 Jul 2011 01:38

yeah, it was a lot of fun. There is absolutely no reason this could not work in any country at all, considering that Malaysia didn't really have a scene at all before this event.

It would be good to get something similar going in Australia, let's see what happens

C-Fan · Post by **C-Fan** » 06 Jul 2011 06:04

Sounds like an awesome time. Props on promoting the sport.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 12 Jul 2011 03:58

This type of promotion has a lot of chance for, well, pretty much any country in the world, as it was quite a success in a country with almost no footbag scene. I would like to get this going a bit further. It's not such great timing for me, but the photos, videos and just the general experience have given me some good ideas for the future.

In my own footbag news, I have been playing pretty much every day, but not for very long sessions, because it's freezing cold. I meet Copey and Caroline most days for lunch, but they don't always kick because they are not hard enough.

Today was very cold, which reminded me that in 2 weeks I will be heading through south east asia and it will be 30-40 degrees every day, not 5...I haven't really hit any new tricks, just really been trying to do longer runs, and work on a few tricks on my flip side, and my atomic sets, which are very bad.

In other Canberra news, Caroline bought her ticket to go to Worlds yesterday........I wish I was going, would be super cool to go to Finland, I have quite a few friends there that I met in the hostel in the last couple of years.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 16 Jul 2011 00:25

Today I worked at the AIS, doing some tours. I have been doing that for a long time now, like 5 years or maybe more....anyway, I hadn't actually worked there in ages, but I did tours for the whole day, probably showed 300+ people about footbag over 6 or so small demonstrations.

I had a good time actually, I had one school group where the teacher had been around with me on their excursion 2 years ago. He was really interested to see what I was up to with Footbag...I guess on the previous trip I was probably just about to head to Worlds for the first ever time, and I would have been pretty excited.

I do wish I was going to Worlds this year, but I have plenty of other travels to be excited about.

boyle · Post by **boyle** » 15 Aug 2011 23:00

So, right now I am in Nepal. I haven't updated here in some time, I tried a couple of times and I had some computer troubles or something, so nothing happened there.

Anyway, I have a sprained ankle, which unfortunately is not footbag related. As I was going to sleep, trying to keep my mind from the pain, I was thinking of a combo that I could have been trying to do this to myself...

(this was in my mind, I didn't hit it). I must have drifted off pretty quickly because I just remember one combo, backside bedwetter>fusion>ps whirling swirl

Maybe that's something to aim towards....which will probably end up with the same result.

Anyhow, in the next couple of days while I just rest up I will probably write some more footbag related things in here. I have not played too much on my trip. I got to play with the guys I met in Malaysia again, that was a lot of fun.

Anyway, on that day it was raining, so the main place we planned to play was out of action. We played under a roof somewhere and I hit a few good tricks. We finished playing and Francisca and I were walking around the shopping centre, and we ended up coming back to that original spot and Ariff was playing some freestyle football....I came on to the scene, did a few tricks with the ball and then kicked it away and brought out the footbag.

From there we played for a while, and I said, I'll just do one more run. It wasn't really a run at all, but I hit alpine blurry whirl and caught it in my hand, and that was enough for me.

Since then we went through India for about 2 weeks, and now we came to Nepal. Our plans have kind of come to a bit of a standstill now though, as I have to rest up for a while. Went to a doctor and got an x ray, no fracture, it's just a sprain, so that's good news. Hopefully I will be back to good health in about a week.