Intermediate Routines for Worlds?

[jay7]

Ok, I'm looking to compete in Intermediate at worlds, and I have a few questions about the Routine.

How long, exactly?
How many routines do you have to prepare?
If only one routine, how many times do you have to do it?

Thanks alot!

[Moxie]

[Moved to General Footbag]

Edit: ...starting now.

[Caleb]

Intermediate routines are 1.5 minutes. You don't have to choreograph multiple routines. It's almost detrimental to an intermediate player if he/she over-extends themselves by practicing multiple routines actually. But if you do well with it, that's all the more respect coming your way from your fellow kicky sackers.

In intermediates, the main focus I could suggest to you is usually not dropping, diversity, and showmanship. If you hit an onslaught of distinctly different tricks (doesn't even have to be terribly hard tricks), not drop often, and smile to the crowd every so often you will have one impressive intermediate routine. But yeah, I guess what I'm hinting at is don't try to go too difficult. Many intermediates make this mistake. PS whirls may be SICK to you but trust me, your open level judges won't appreciate it as much as you'd hoped.......and when you drop 50% of your PS whirls upon execution, it's just not worth the risk. Hope this helped.

[jay7]

Bump. Thanks for the advice Caleb, I just changed my entire attitude towards what I was going to have in my routine

Still, I must ask, how many times do you have to do your routine?

Also, another lingering question, what decides if you play in Open or Intermediate? I always assumed it was the players judgement, because I never saw a clean rule of "tripless = open" or something.

Oh, and if anyone has any videos of an intermediate routine, I'd be grateful, google hasn't found me any so far..

[Torn]

Also, another lingering question, what decides if you play in Open or Intermediate? I always assumed it was the players judgement, because I never saw a clean rule of "tripless = open" or something.

I don't know if there are clean rules for it but I think it's more your own decision. BUT if you have ever got first place at an intermediate competition it's somehow like manners not to compete on Intermediate level at that Competition ever again. Of course you won't go open (at Worlds or European Championship) when you've won intermediate at a local championship
When I went to the Swiss Championships for the first time I was of course intermediate also because it was the first time ever I did actually compete...to my big surprise I got first place and now I will have to go for open at the next Swiss Championship Of course I am looking forward to it but I will have to practice a lot not to look like a complete idiot among all the others

Soo if you are an advanced player (nice 2 and 3 add combos some 4 or 5 add moves) and you've never been to any Competition before I would defnitely say "Intermediate" - anyway it's your free choice to play Open

[Outsider]

I think Torn's assessment of when to compete intermediate vs. open is fairly accurate. I think its safe to say that if you've never competed before, or only competed a very few times, your inexperience qualifies you as an intermediate even if you think your technical skills would put you in the Open category. Unfortunately, unless you're just a natural showman, once your music starts and the clock starts ticking and you know you can't simply start over, you suddenly become much worse at stuff that you ordinarily think of as easy. Nerves, man... Experience competing helps you to deal with those, and without that experience, your skill-level can easily slip a couple of notches when you're alone under that spotlight. Lots and lots of practice can count for alot too, but its not the whole story.

Anyway, to answer your question, there are typically two rounds of competition for Intermediate Freestyle Routines at the World Championships; if you're good and lucky you get to go twice. If you're not so lucky, you only get to do your thing once. In the Open category, there are three rounds. I've never made it to the third round... but then, most times I've competed at Worlds I know I didn't belong in the Finals. Maybe some day...

Personally, I feel that having several different performances is unnecessary for most players, particularly intermediates. Its mostly ever only been the very best pros that benefit from having multipe different routines in big competitions. If placing really well is your goal, then a routine that is good enough to get you past round 1 is probably good enough to do again in the next round. That is to say, if the judges liked it enough so that you make the cut to the next round, its like they're saying "we liked that show enough that we want to see it again tomorrow." Yeah, its really cool to do something different for each round of competition, but realistically, you've got to be super-good to do something different each time and still do it really well. For most of us mere mortals, those of us lacking the super-human abilities of our freestyle idols, I'd say we're better off just focusing on getting very proficient at one performance -- if that performance is good enough to get you through to the next round, its probably good enough to do it all over again. "One good turn", they say, "deserves another."

On the other hand, if you know that you're better than most of your nearest competitors in a particular competition, you can gamble on simply winging the first round, just improv-ing, so that you can save your real show for the next round. Thats gonna be your call to make.

[Zac Miley]

You can find anything on Zavezniki!

http://www.smocl.com/zavezniki/video/ev ... Finals.wmv

That's some intermediate routines from Worlds 05

[crazylegs32]

I hate it when people pause with the bag on their foot and give a dumb look to the audience. They should just kick it instead of those pauses, I guessI agree with bloughchi in this case.