Most people within the Footbag community would be well aware of Jan “Honza” Weber from Prague, Czech Republic. He is the current World Champion of Routines. After many appearances in the finals at Worlds, he finally climbed to the top of the podium in Helsinki.

In what I hope will be a long running series of interviews, I decided to ask Honza what he has been up to now that he is “the champ”.

Honza searches for a new doubles partner...

First of all, for those who may not know you, give a brief introduction of yourself and your time in Footbag.

Hello, my name is Honza Weber (as the title of the interview will also probably say  ) and I have been playing footbag for over ten years. I have made BAP (not that a lot of new people know what it stands for these days  ) in 2002 and over the years I managed to win couple of major footbag tournaments including Euros and Worlds. You can also watch this nicely done documentary of me .

You won your first Worlds in the singles routines this year, after 10 years of trying. Describe your feeling after the results were announced.

Well, yeah…. Finally! As everybody was cheering during that night. Actually I think it was much better feeling to win after so many years than for example if I would have managed it just after couple years in one of those when I was finishing second all over again. 

It was a great feeling and in fact much more than that. It is very hard to use words for that description, your body is so full of energy that you can make a hole into a wall just by using your thumb  You feel just incredible. I mean I have won doubles routines at Worlds 4 times before this one, but it just never really felt that good. The first one in 2004 was bloody awesome, but it also meant that much because it was first doubles dropless routine ever… The 2011 singles routines win was different from any other win, it was a pure relief, I had the feeling I could finally die satisfied and without regrets , I have succeeded  and on the flight back it was really the first time ever I was not scared… and I was very happy it was quite obvious even before the results announcement because the worst is when you win and people talk whether the result were correct.. :/ It was great night that day, an important one for me .

Who (or what) were your big influences when you were starting out in Footbag, and what are your influences now?

Back in 2001, when I started with footbag, my heroes were Ryan Mulroney, Peter Irish, Rippin and Sunil Jani. Simply the best players of that era. During the time Ryan became my favorite because of his amazing style as well as Karim Daouk (of course just until he started playing net  ). These days I am not really into hardcore shred anymore, but if there is anyone I like to kick with, then it is Milan because it is always fun to shred with him and he is probably the only one who can inspire me to hit new moves and combos these days.

There are many good players nowadays, but the problem is they are too predictable and after watching some of their videos they cannot really surprise with anything while playing in the circle and if they can, they lack the style. Lately I have enjoyed footage of Samu Ahola and Jay, it was very surprising indeed! I should also mention Vasek, I have spent a lot of time kicking with him and despite having never really worshipped his skills, he had an influence on my game.

What do you aim for when preparing a routine?

It depends whether it is a routine for performances or routine for competition. I must say I feel really good preparing my performances and I am really confident about those, but I honestly do not like my competition routines. It feels like a have some kind of mental block or something. I think just 3 of my routines in my career were representative; the Spiderman one from Worlds finals 2004, Thierry la Fronde from Worlds finals 2009 and probably the Figaro one from 2011 finals.

You are quite involved in the freestyle football scene as well – you had a pretty big hand in organizing the European and World championships. Do you see footbag and freestyle football coming together more in the future?

Definitely! These sports simply have to be connected and the communities should cooperate as much as possible. I have started doing freestyle football in early 2010 and in the beginning I have been doing footbag moves mostly, but later I discovered all the possibilities of the original freestyle football moves and I have been practicing them since.

Here is a video from a year ago and I am gonna make another one during the next week… :

It is just amazing to see the passion of the freestyle football players, it reminds of the golden footbag era from 2002-2004. They have shown a big respect for footbag and they are really inspired by all the moves we can hit. I think it is just about time when we all start organizing tournaments together on a regular basis.

Look at this video from this years Prague Freestyle Football World Champs. – the atmosphere speaks for itself:

Really, watch that one, it is GREAT!

Tell us some more about the “Freestyle Union” shows

“Freestyle Union” is a freestyle team of people showing Footbag, Freestyle Frisbee, Yo-Yo and Freestyle Football. For a long time we have been doing performances at various events together and later we decided to take it more seriously and prepared quite a nice show for a Prague’s university talent show, which we eventually won. It may not sound like a big deal, but there were almost 100 competitors and the final was during a big event with over 5000 spectators.

I think this kind of freestyle show is perfect for all kinds of events and the combination is much more entertaining than the single sports performances. But show is what it is all about , so you must have something extra in there as well. We are currently working on new and much better performance and we have been booked for several events including some international ones, which is amazing for those few months we have been promoting this show, so I think if we continue in this progress it may become very successful project promoting these freestyle disciplines!

Here is the first round of the talent show: And this is our Facebook page:

Honza takes flight

What do you think about the current state of freestyle footbag, and where to go from here.

Nearly half a year ago I wrote an essay called “The Future of Footbag Freestyle”, where I have summed up my thoughts I had in mind for certain amount of time. Long story short I was quite negative about the sport`s future because some of the habits in the game are in my opinion still medieval and I found them to be the main source of lack of new players. So if the community wants the sport to move forward and gain more members, then those are the ones to be changes in the first place. You can read the article here: Http://www.shredglobal.com/archive/the-future-of-footbag-freestyle-by-honza-weber/

I was glad the essay caused quite a discussion and people actually started to think about it more. Some arguments said that the situation goes in waves and sometimes there is more and sometimes less players, which is in fact very reasonable, but on the other hand the last wave must have gotten lost somewhere . This is a serious topic though and despite the situation might have become slightly better, it is still very far to be good and changes are to be made here in order to make the sport successful and known!

You must spend a lot of time working on routines and performances- do you have time to work on any big new tricks?

Unfortunately not :/ I spend lot of time these days practicing Freestyle Football and kicking with bags I use for performance, so I rarely kick with regular 32 panels. On the other hand since I was travelling a lot for footbag tournaments during the last couple months, I got into a good shred shape and managed to hit some cool and hard stuff, the only thing to mention though is probably barraging same whirling swirl. I will try to get it on video soon… The other problem is that when you push your limits it is very easy to get injured and therefore I also became afraid of trying big moves.

You have got to travel quite a lot through Footbag- what are some of your biggest highlights over the years?

I loved Japan! It was always my dream to go there and finally it came true. It was an unforgettable experience and I recommend everyone to go there at least once! Russia is always a blast, no matter whether in Moscow or in St. Petersburg, both place sare amazing. I really enjoyed all the California trips thanks to Steve and Queency and meeting Tony Hawk in L.A. meant fulfilling of another dream of mine. I mean there are so many wonderful places I visited, but these are the ones I keep thinking of the most. Here is a short vid from the Tony Hawk event.

10. What are your plans for 2012? There have been some whispers about a Footbag app, tell us a bit more about that.

Plans are of course pretty big, so will see how successful will be their realizing . I would love to continue travelling and performing all around the World. It is a great life I have right now and I pray it stays like this! Anyway for the start there is a “Footbag Freestyle” app for iPhone coming up any day. It was developed by my freestyle football friend (another example of connection between the sports  ) Mario Plantosar from Croatia. It is just a first version, so we plan further improvements on the app. It is more informational, but the first goal was to come up with something and wait for the feedback. The final goal would probably be to implement ShredSessions footbag online video game into it. For those who have not played it yet, give it a try here

What advice do you have for people new to the sport of Footbag?

Do not get discouraged by how hard footbag looks like! After some practice you will start improving really fast and you will love it! It depends just on your will and want to improve because anything can be achieved!

Maybe this tutorial video will help you in the beginning 

Do you have anything else to add, or anybody to thank?

I think I have covered all the topics. I would like to thank everybody that support me and have supported me in the past! Naming all the people would make a huge list here, but I am sure they all know! I am very grateful for that and let me know if I can do anything for you in return!

Honza Weber

www.HonzaWeber.com

So first of all I would like to say a big thanks to Honza for being the first interview subject, and of course congratulations on the victory in Helsinki.

Feel free to add any comments on the interview, or to suggest who you would like to see interviewed next. I am planning to release one interview per week from players right around the world.

Who do you think will be next?

Here is the first entry for the Joulukalenteri, 2011. This is a special video edited by Ken Somolinos, from his time spent in Las Vegas during his time living there and jams. There is some mind blowing combos, drills and tricks in this video, and I’m proud to now present you with a link of glory. Thanks to Evan and Ken for being entirely legendary, and making this happen. Merry Christmas, Modified.

Gatesman Footbag from Ken Somolinos on Vimeo.

Aleksi ‘Air’ Airinen hits a 3 trick combo all 7′s

Alpine Whirlygig > Montage > Gangsta Party

Directed by Jay Boychuk,

A stellar video showcasing the amazing technical mastery of freestyle footbag icon and spokesman Anssi Sundberg… A must watch!

Also known as Symposium Quantum Quantum Butterfly

Pawel Manages to his this seldom seen set very cleanly!

Big thanks to Daniel Cadavid and Sebastian Ceballos for getting this video up and letting us know that Colombia is stepping up their game! Props Colombia!

The video is from a recent meeting in the city of Calarcá, it’s called “El Cacique del Footbag (like the Chief of footbag), it’s inspired in the Indian who ruled those lands… The footbaggers there are: Álex López (the host), Brayan Bossa (Footbag Boy), Sebastián Ceballos (Sebas Ska) and Bernardo Palacio (Rasta Bernard).

Quite possibly one of the most beautiful and articulate videos ever made for Freestyle Footbag

Thank you Russia… well done!

Worlds 2011 in a Nutshell. (written by Jay Boychuk)

Milan’s Final

Worlds 2011 was held in the most populated city in Finland, on the southern coast of Helsinki. A few tramstops from the main train and bus station, “Kamppi”, a shopping centre and an Opera house. This was perhaps the first and best thing about this location, as it could be quickly accessible without the cost of a taxi.

For freestyle, Worlds really began on Monday morning, with the final check in, judges meetings and circle contest opening. The new freestyle playing surface was assembled, the music was cued and 10 pools of competitors in the open division began. New to many freestylers who have attended worlds for the last few years, was the high level of Russian presence in competition. This is certainly an up and coming nation, with many high level competitors to look out for in the future. The top competitors in freestyle had a bye to semifinals, such as Milan Benda and Vasek Klouda, but the rest of the circles had a single competitor advance.

On Tuesday, there was much more competition to warm your legs to, with singles, doubles routines, and shred 30. From the first pools in open Freestyle routines, had multiple competitors advance to semi finals, and without byes all competitors were thrilled to see players like Vasek and Felix Zenger do their qualification routines. Czechs like Honza and Milan were already doing their dropless routines, easily forshadowing who would end up in Finals. That evening showcased a crowd event, the 2011 video contest. After what was the speediest Hall of Fame ceremony to date, players gathered underneath a billiard establishment into the large theatre. The curtains were drawn, and then the near 10 competitors unleashed their hard work onto the screen. Many solid competitors were in attendance this year, with videos from players like Damian Gielnicki, Jay Boychuk, and Vasek Klouda. However, it became obvious within the first minute of Mikko Lepistö’s second video, that the contest had a winner. With less than 10 footbag tricks executed in the video, the comedy and originality of the story gripped the audience. The results ended up with Mikko taking first, Vasek second and Pawel third.

Wednesday had the busiest day, making way for a light Thursday to allow the finalists to rest their legs. Routine semifinals, mixed doubles finals, circle semifinals, sick 3 semifinal and women’s circle final were on the list. As a judge for every single event that day, I can really attest to the difficulty in playing level this year. Many up and comers had solid routines, all of the crowd favourites didn’t disappoint, and people wanted to make it to Finals. Always a pleasure to watch are players like Olaf Piwowar in events like Sick 3, as well as Milan Benda or Honza Weber. At the women’s circle contest final, Hanna Mickiewicz, Jana Sassakova, Silwia Kocyk, and Tanja Salakka competed for the gold medal, in a ridiculously tough circle. After many long varied runs, the players were pushing their game. It ended up that Hanna took the gold, for Poland, a big congratulations to her.

Thursday was a lighter day, with two square, and unofficial events such as request and sick 3 final. The top match in Two Square, with Steve Goldberg from the USA and Wiktor Debski from Poland was vicious, with the first game going to Steve, but ultimately being won by Wiktor. Request was ran slightly different this year, focusing more on pure difficulty of the combos instead of tricky weird links. Vasek Klouda and Anssi Sundberg advanced until the fourteenth round, combos Marius->in gyro Mirage, and Atomic DLO to enterrage. Milan, with extreme ability passed these rounds and advanced all the way until the seventeenth round, eventually dropping gauntlet->big apple in the eighteenth. This made Milan the gold medalist in Request, leaving Anssi and Vasek to battle for second and third. In Back up combos, Vasek grasped his second place, and Anssi third. In Sick Three, players were allowed to try combos 7 times, and they didn’t disappoint. Anssi with combos like triage->enterrage->paradon swirl, Milan with Nemesis->Stepping whirling swirl->bedwetter, or Genesis->ps whirling swirl->spinning motion, really upped the overall level of difficulty this year. With the combo listed previously, Milan grabbed his next gold medal at the world championships.

Friday was the Open Circle contest final, which definitely lived up to expectations. In their first circle finals, Evan Gatesman and Anssi Sundberg entered the ring among familiar faces Milan Benda and Damian Gielnicki. Seated from Evan, Anssi, Damian to Milan, each round was more competitive than the last. In probably the tightest density round to date, each player ripped out consistent long runs, with no single bad run. Between Variety and Density there was no clear winner, and eventually the scores had to be carefully analyzed in order to determine who the winner actually was. With combos like Stepping whirling swirl->alpine blizzard, Milan Benda from the Czech Republic eventually grabbed his next gold medal in Circle Competition. In a very suspenseful award ceremony announcement, it turned out that Anssi Sundberg from Finland took the Silver, and Damian Gielnicki from Polan took the bronze.

Saturday was the final day at worlds, and each competitor was amazed at how fast the week had gone. Shred 30 was the first event on the list, with the top ten competitors from semifinals in the running. New tournament software was being tested at this event, attempting to give the audience a real-time feel for the competitors rankings, as shred 30 is a purely mathematical event. Grabbing his first Gold Medal of the tournament, Honza Weber clocked in with a score of 255.82, and in second Milan Benda with 240.06. This gave the Czech Republic the top two spots, and in third Finland’s representative Aleksi Airinen with 220.4. After some net, Women’s routines were up, entirely composed Non-North American representation. After a solid routine it turned out that Jana Sassakova from the Czech Republic took the gold, her first. Second was Tanja Salakka from Finland, and third was Hanna Mickiewicz from Poland.

The premiere event of the week was moments away, Angry Birds were all over the floor, and the crowd filled the seats in the gymnasium. Open Singles routines were underway, and no one was sure whether last years world Champion would take it again, long time competitor Honza Weber, 7 time World Champion Vasek Klouda? The semifinal dropless Aleksi Airinen, or 2008 world champion Damian Gielnicki? Anssi Sundberg did a devastating dropless routine, midway through the routines and it was evident to the audience that the Czech’s would have to work for their placings. Aleksi Airinen did his great performance with one drop, which also would seat him among the top. Honza Weber was up, and absolutely floored the audience. A flawless performance, strong song, presence and trick selection were presented and tension was higher and higher for the final competitor Milan Benda. Emerging from the basement, separated from the competition Milan Benda walked onto the stage, and performed a one drop routine, and the judges pens gritted against the paper. Perhaps the highest seating even achieved by a Finn, Anssi Sundberg got the Silver medal in his second event, Milan Benda taking the Bronze. After 10 years of attending Worlds, multiple second places and 93 freestyle medals received, Honza Weber from the Czech Republic was the new World Champion. Extremely well deserved, the honour completely belonged to Honza. Fantastic performance, and we all welcome our new Champion.

Honza’s Final run

After celebration for the week ensued at the local bar/restaurant Gringos Locos, the Big Add Posse meeting came to a conclusion. Everyone was brought into the bar, Anssi Sundberg stood on top a table and gathered everyone’s attention. With a short speech, it was news that two new members would be accepted this year. First inductee from Poland, was long time insanity, Olaf “Anaconda” Piwowar. For the first time since 2004 in Montreal, a Canadian was inducted into BAP, Jay “The Creator” Boychuk. This concluded the 2011 World Championships, with many smiling faces, great memories and only great partying go right into the morning. Rumours have been stirring, but look forward to perhaps attending the 2012 World Championships in France, Poland or the USA next year. A final congratulations is in order to all the Finalists this year, great job everyone.

The Stanford Footbag Crew … plus world champion Milan Benda throw it down in this video taken and uploaded by Brian Sherril!

Pretty impressive video from the current world champion. One of the first, if not the first, legitimate 5 dex tricks landed clean.

And here we go………………….

Here is a brand new video showcasing Canadian Footbagger, Jay Boychuk. Filmed at 300 frames per second, it shows a great new perspective for newcomers to the sport.

The results event 4 are shown in this video, in order from 8th place to first place!
Congratulations to the winner, as the overall season winner of the $500 will be announced early this week!

Hey Fellas! Its been a long time since my last post, so in my return i got something special for you from Norek Dudzinski. It was insane! Enjoy!

Yoh! Pretty cool video of Zelinka awesome techniques!

The Future of Footbag Freestyle, By Honza Weber

Recently I watched couple sideline videos from various years World championships and in the background I was hearing all the names of great players from the past being read in their pools and it forced me to think about the past of the sport and of course its future. Let`s be honest because there is not many of us left here in freestyle. That is also why I mentioned the word “freestyle” in the title of this article. I have to diversify between freestyle and net because, let`s be honest again, these sports do not have much in common except all the freestylers switching to net when they grow up, which leads us to the first downfall of freestyle, the age. When you are young enough, it is very easy to be obsessed with freestyle because you can improve quite fast, but when you get older, not only that it is hard to keep up with the young players, you also fight with the flexibility of your body and the fun can be gone with the same speed it appeared.

The other reason for footbag freestyle breakdown is other freestyle category, freestyle football. This very young sport, which gained attention of thousands of people around the World (including our fellow bloke Vasek) in the beginning of the new millenium, managed to overgrow footbag in a small fragment of time that footbag had existed. When I first entered the freestyle football community, the players kept talking about “freestyle”, not “freestyle football”, just “freestyle”, which I could not understand. I was asking myself “Are they really that cocky to think they can overcome the meaning of the word and implement it only to their sport? What about freestyle… jet ski , bmx and so on?” When I did realise how widespread has the sport and the community become in such a short time, I start to understand.

Not only has freestyle football gained players, but also media attention because people can simply see what is going on, which is sometimes very hard with footbag. Visibility of footbag has always been a problem. Even though the media wanted to make some reports on footbag, it was just impossible with the small footbags the players are allowed to use. There is a solution now though, football and all the freestylers who can handle it.

The current freestyle footbag community has one big problem and that is the lack of new players. Great amount of older players has quit the sport, but there is nobody to compensate the losses. The 12th annual Todexon tournament just happened here in Prague last week and there was 7 registered players for the event. Yes, 7 players, that is ridiculous! I remember in 2003, there were over 80! We had to have 3 rounds and we had to start with the routines at 10AM to be able to make the finals on time at 8PM. That was incredible! Milan told me how angry he was when he saw just those 7 registered players and I understood. He worked really hard for many years to become the top player and now he has no competition and it seems as a waste of time for him and wanting him to quit the sport as well as all the others before him.

Steve Goldberg also visited Prague last week for 13th time in his life and I still remember what he told me during Todexon, “There is no passion for the sport anymore” and I again had to agree. It seems just like a duty for the players to come to tournaments and compete. To compete is also harder than ever before, freestyle has reached an incredible difficulty level and there is basically no bad or intermediate player competing these days and therefore it is very easy to finish lets say 10th out of 10 competitors.

“It looks to me like our history, running on repeat, over and over” are words from the latest song of my favorite music band “Looptroop Rockers”, but these words have also the same meaning as a story about history of frisbee freestyle Dexter told me some time ago. The sport almost died during the 90s, but the community managed to survive and is even evolving these days. I think footbag is also really close to “extinction” these days and it is really just up to us to save it because nobody else will or can help. One way could be to force the players to compete with big bright visible bags and make the sport more suitable for media, which could afterwards attract sponsors and bring some money and more people. I know it is probably not the best compromising solution, but in my opinion it is worth trying. I still remember when I saw Jorden using such bags for his routine and I thought he was crazy, but now it seems like a good idea. I just hope people like Queency, Steve, Red, Daryl and Dale will not give up that easily and together we manage to ensure there will still be any footbag freestyle players and tournaments when our kids ask us “What is this?” and they will be holding a beautiful 32 panel bag in their hands.

Honza Weber

Watch the Dropless Video that secured the win for Honza Weber at Todexon 12 in Prague on April 16th

Cool Video everyone hope you check out Clavens showcasing his freestyle footbag skills and keeping to amaze us with it! Hope you enjoyed it.

Source: www.footbag.org/

A Documentary video of David Clavens. Its a cool video about some information about him. Its really interesting hope you enjoy it!

Hey Fellas! check out this video of Ales Zelinka and Honza Weber. Damn it was epic! Those guys got some serious skills to show for us. I truly enjoyed it! So better watch it!