FREESTYLE on FIRE video produced by www.honzaweber.com
Video & Edit by Radek Pšurný
Directed by Lukáš Škoda

Starring Honza Weber, Milan Benda, and Lucaso showing off Freestyle Footbag and Freestyle Football in one of the best videos to date.

Here is the follow up to the first part of my interview with Ken Somolinos. Ken has been playing for fifteen years now and has been a part of different footbag communities throughout the world.

Here is the remainder of our interview:

Do you have a particular personal favorite time within the time you’ve been playing?

I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve lived many places over the last 15 years, and have therefore had many different experiences with footbag as I’ve been part of various footbag scenes.

My sessions with NYFA when I began playing in high school, and as I’ve continued to play with them through the years, will always have a spot in my heart

Similarly, my experiences hanging with the Japanese scene when I lived there, seeing the scene grow and everybody’s skill level rocket up, that was a special time too.

It’d be hard to pick just one time or scene, but those two have to be at the top

There was a big turnout on your recent NYFA visit – any particular highlights from those sessions?

Karaoke and laughing my ass off with the NYFA guys! There was some good shred going on from Clavens and Kemmer, but really I was just digging the vibe of NYFA, and enjoying the stress free environment that comes with a fun jam with no comp.

Where do you see Footbag headed in the next five years?

Hopefully expansion in South America and Asia outside of Japan. I’m also hoping we can build a stronger internet presence. I feel like footbag has done very little to harness the power of social media and the communication tools available to us now.

As for the game itself, I’m expecting the level of play to continue to go up and up. Things that were milestones to me and my generation are now standard for most high level intermediates today and stuff that I find are good benchmarks of skill today, such as beasts and 10 fearless, will increasingly become standard as well.

You have been working on your fearless combos lately – how do these sessions contrast with a normal session?

When we started the interview, i said that footbag is a fun challenge because there are almost limitless aspects of the game to work on. In a normal session, I have fun trying combinations I don’t normally do, and I enjoy improvising and mixing it up, then there are sessions where I work on stamina and long runs.

With fearless sessions, I find I am really working on being able to concentrate as hard as I can for a 12 second period, really focus on getting each set and catch perfect, and at the same time regulate my breathing and energy.

10 fearless is like a puzzle for me. For the really good players in the sport, they can just improvise and get through it. For me (be it due to age, lack of ability, whatever), getting 10 fearless is a challenge, and that’s why I like pushing for it.

If it were something easy for me, it would hold very little appeal. 10 fearless isn’t something I expect to hit every session, which makes it all the more satisfying on the sessions when I do get it.

On the flipside of all that, I know that dedicating entire sessions to fearless probably won’t help me with my goals at Worlds or other tournaments, so I feel it’s a bit of a selfish luxury to dedicate whole sessions to it.

With Worlds coming up in less than 6 months, I expect I will start focusing my sessions more on stamina and elements of my routine, and less on pushing fearless or dream tricks.

What do you find are the best ways to prepare your routines, especially now you have hit quite a few dropless?

• 1. Understand that it is going to be work. It’s not always going to be fun. You can’t go about it half assed. Start early: you can’t learn a good routine two weeks before a tournament.
• 2. Pick a song you really like. If you’re serious about going dropless, you’re going to have to listen to your routine song several hundred times. Ideally you will listen to it every day as you visualize your routine, and every time you play you should listen to it because you’ll be practicing your routine at least once per session.
• 3. Appropriate Difficulty. One and two add tricks have their place in even the best routines. You’re not proving that you can go guiltless for two minutes, you’re proving you can control the bag for 2 minutes and make it work with the song. Many people make the mistake of planning a routine that is too hard for them
• 4. Video tape yourself. The first few times don’t worry about drops, just see what works and what doesn’t choreography wise. Its hard to know what’s on beat and what isn’t until you see it for yourself. What looks good in your mind often doesn’t translate to the timing in real life.
• 5. Study your routine. There are few things less fun than doing a bad routine, and then forcing yourself to re-live it as you watch it in its horrific glory. But that’s the way you learn from your mistakes. When studying video, don’t fixate on drops. Remember to take note of what you did well, and not just what you messed up.
• 6. Practice the hell out of it. If you are consistently dropping in practice, it means your routine is too hard, or you aren’t practicing enough.
• 7. If you are going dropless 1/2 of the time in practice, I’d say you have a 1/5 chance of going dropless when you are in the heat of comp, with pressure on you
• 8. Finally, practice tuning out your environment. Do the same routine every time in your head, and stay within yourself. This will make it easier when you are actually competing

Sounds fun, right? That said, going dropless is one of the most exhilarating feelings in footbag, and when you know you went dropless because you worked hard in practice, it’s an especially rewarding feeling. I’ve gone dropless 6 times, and I can remember each time clearly. That’s why one of my goals for the coming year is to go dropless again.

What is your favourite basketball jersey?

I have a jersey from the HS basketball team I coached in Japan. I like that one for sentimental reasons, but it’s not great for footbag. For footbag, I’d say my blue pistons Grant Hill jersey for two reasons:

1. I hit my first dropless routine while wearing it.

2. Grant Hill had some of his best years after he hit thirty, after reinventing his game (due to injury). I take inspiration seeing older athletes defy expectations and do well even when they are past their supposed peak age

Aas for favorite basketball jersey ever, I’d probably go with the year Charles Barkley changed his number from #34 to #32 while with the Sixers.

Magic Johnson had just announced he had HIV, people were scared and ignorant, and some NBA players like Karl Malone were making homophobic comments which were ignorant.

The Sixers #32 was a retired number (Billy Cunningham), but Charles Barkley wanted to show support for Magic Johnson, so he asked Cunningham if he could wear that retired number (Magic wore 32) for a season to show support for Magic, and he did. I thought that was classy

Who are your favourite footbag players of all time? Let’s say, top five

In terms of how they play, or in terms of playing+personal relationship?

either, or both…

In terms of pure playing ability and style, I’d say Ahren Gehrman in the late 90s and early 2000s, Felix Zenger in the mid-2000s, Mulroney in the late 90s, Johnny Suderman in the late 2000s. Juho may be my favorite to watch right now.

It’s tough to say, there’s so many people with games that are fun to watch, games that I admire. Evan Gatesman is definitely on that list. My token non-freestyle answer is Matti Pohjola and Arthur Ledain. If I could play defense and dink like Matti, and spike like Arthur, I’d stop playing freestyle right now.

To finish up, anything more to add, anyone to thank?

I guess I’d end by saying thank you to you for taking the time to do these interviews. I have fun reading them, and I had fun doing this one. My final thought on footbag is to encourage people to do three things

1. Play for yourself. In my experience, it makes footbag more fun and rewarding. If people give you props, great. If not, who cares.

2. Give something back to the community. Host a tournament, sponsor a player, teach a footbag class at your YMCA. Remember how much you love footbag, and use that as motivation to spread the love.

3. Push yourself and don’t understimate what you’re capable of. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the results

You may have read our interview with world champion Honza Weber, who mentioned that a Footbag App for the iphone would soon be released. He let the team here at Shred Global know that the app is ready to go.

It has been quite a long period since the first announcement of The “Footbag” App, but it has finally been launched!

The goal of the app is simply to provide basic and necessary information about the sport for beginners and general public.

Updates will be done of course, so if you have any tips for improvement feel free to send them to ripwalker8@gmail.com

How to get the “footbag” App? Go to AppStore and simply search for “footbag” and then download it.

5 star rating would be of course appreciated and help the ranking!

It was developed by the current world champion Jan “Honza” Weber in cooperation with Plantaapps - run by Mario Plantosar (freestyle footballer), who has also developed “freestyle football” app.

You can check his triple atw with a football in this video:

You can also check the app on the internet link here:

Android users do not have to be disappointed because the App is currently being converted for the Android platform, so in the short future it will be available as well!

Have you tried the app out yet? What do you think? Any suggestions for the next update? Let us know in the comments section.

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

Alpine Whirlygig > Montage > Gangsta Party

1st Malaysian Footbag Championships

I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the first ever Malaysian Championships which were held over the past weekend. My role was to give some assistance to the new players there, and also to judge the tournament.

With no idea what to expect, I got up to a very dark and cold Canberra, and many hours later arrived to the complete opposite in KL.

The competition was sponsored by Adidas Pure Game. Unfortunately they don’t have anything to do with the shoes department, so it wasn’t free Rod Laver shoes for all, but they did book in a spot in Mid Valley, one of South East Asia’s largest shopping centres, right in the centre court of the mall.

If you were going to the shopping centre, it was likely you would see the Adidas display, and if you saw that, it was likely you would see some footbag. I gave a number of demonstrations over the 4 days, every few hours, showing off a few tricks, and doing some routines.

The first day I got to meet a few of the players, I really had no idea what to expect, and I thought it would be more likely players would be coming across from Sepak Takraw. The best guys that had picked it up fairly quickly though, they came from a freestyle football background.

Lucky shoppers had the opportunity to get a footbag for free. With 4 days in the shopping centre, this was the kind of exposure that footbag never ever gets, and could do with a lot more of it. It wasn’t just a free gift though, to pick up your free footbag, you had to kick 5 times, thereby getting people up on to the stage and to come and have a go.

With the sport only new in Malaysia there was no point in holding the traditional events, no one wants to see a 2 minute routine filled with drops. The first events were all about participation, so the first one was the same as the very first event I ever competed in (consecutive kicks).

This meant the man on the street had a chance to compete, and you never know your luck, you could go to the final for the grand prize. That prize was something you don’t hear about often in the Footbag world. An all expenses paid trip to Worlds! Worth $10,000RM, which equates to just over $3000 (Australian or US). The support behind this event was just phenomenal.

It wasn’t just Footbag on the stage though, even though Footbag was the main event. There were breakdancers, and Shawn Lee, ranked number 9 in the world at beatbox.

The semi finals and finals were held on the Sunday, the semi finals took it a notch up from just kicks, which allowed me to explain what happens in the major competitions, but in a shopping centre, you don’t care about adds, you want to see people keep the little bag in the air, and you might want to see a couple of tricks. So to get through the semi finals, the best tricks were going to get there. The back up count would be the amount of kicks you did in your 60 seconds on stage.

Over the days I was there, the guys I was training picked up plenty of new tips. I tried to instill in them the idea of getting the tricks done on both sides, of using the clipper and the toe, and some different ideas. There was no need to go into the concept of adds or other technology, that’s something that can be learned once you have a few more tricks in your bag.

I guess this was the beauty of the trip, this simplicity of the game, the sheer enthusiasm showed by the players, even the ones that could just to tricks, all of them were trying to progress on to stalls, and most people were able to catch the bag on their foot after a few tries. Even though this players were just starting out, there must have been a thousand people or more watching the final. That’s the beauty of a big sponsorship, and such a public location.

The finals were on at about 3pm on a Sunday afternoon, the centre was packed with shoppers and the centre court had all four levels with people looking down over the tournament.

First there was a junior competition, this was just back to kicks, and some of these kids showed great control. Fitri was the winner, with over 100 kicks in his 1 minute timeframe. That was actually the second highest score of the entire weekend.

After the juniors it was time to step on to the final five. They had been selected on their control and variety during the semi final. My judging criteria was going to be similar to that of the Circle Competition, what I was looking for was variety and difficulty, with control being another aspect I was keeping an eye on.

Every competitor had a few tricks in their bag. They had to take a number from a hat to choose when they went. After each player had their turn, I would demonstrate one of their tricks to the crowd. They might have done a clipper, so then I would say without these basic blocks, you won’t be able to do the more difficult tricks, then do something like a ripwalk, to show to the crowd the path of progression.

By chance the final player to enter was Ariff Karim. There was simply another level up here. Even though he is just a new player, and had a drop early on, Ariff brimmed with confidence. He linked many tricks into each other, and finished with a moved borrowed from his freestyle football experience, stalling it on top of his sole whilst lying flat on the ground.

Soon after, I announced him as the clear winner.

Having such a massive competition was such a great kickstart to a new scene in Malaysia. I am back in cold, cold Canberra now, but I will be returning to KL in just a few weeks, and can’t wait to see how much everybody has improved.

I feel so lucky to be a part of such a great competition.

Footbag Club Malaysia on Facebook is the best place to go for more information on Malaysian Footbag. Thanks to Zaid for the pictures.

In the next couple of months I will travel to Malaysia, India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Unfortunately not for any of these massive events, but hopefully I will be able to bring news of more Footbag in hidden corners.

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.

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

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/

Name: Scott Davidson
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Website: http://footbagfreestyle.blogspot.com/
See all Scott Davidson Posts here!

Check out my youtube playlists of freestyle footbag videos…
The reason for this post was to let you know that I have reorganized my 100 youtube videos into playlists, located at my channel:

http://www.youtube.com/footbagenlightener

and click on the Playlists option.
See videos in the following categories:
-Competition Videos (23)
-Contest Videos (8)
-Doubles Freestyle
-Footbag in the News
-Lunch Shred Videos (46)
-Promo Videos (17)
-Youth Outreach
More categories forthcoming…

Happy St. Patricks Day! I was shredding that day and made a quick little video on my phone, but when I published it to youtube, I selected ‘private’ and so no one saw my video. Honestly, the phone app failed 5 times before it published, so I had to retype, on the phone, all of the details each time, even with copy and paste, it took forever. Frustrating. Now it is up, and ready to view…

Name: Derrick Fogle
Location: Columbia MO
Site: http://h4x354x0r.com
See All Derrick Fogle Articles

I kicked for over 3 hours today. w00t! Happy St. Patty’s Day!

Amazingly enough, I only filmed 5 rallies: 3 duds, and 2 like this. It was an awesome session, even with the chaos from the Frat boys and their dunking tank. There was coffee earlier, violently green drinking cups later, and the dunk tank crew supplied the tunes! Got new batteries for the boom box, then didn’t even need them.

I repaired Prissy, but not quite well enough; there’s still one spot where beads are still leaking. But, I brought an old net bag this time, and sure enough, the power hacker dude showed up at the end. So, I totally saved my freestyle bags this time. I even gave the guy the old net bag when I left.

My Speaker Circle presence so far has been to go long on rallies, but lame on difficulty and variety. Sometimes it seems like this old body needs to go lame on difficulty sometimes. I’ve been flogging (footbag blogging) for 2-1/2 years now, starting at 45. I’ll be hitting 30 years of footbag at the start of July, and 48 years of age at the end of August.

If there’s anything I can say is an age-related degeneration, I’ll have to spend half the time talking about general aches and pains, and the other half about the loss of motion range tolerance. For someone that used to do a lot of jumping stuff, I can barely get off the ground now. Landings often seem stiff and painful.

But still, for a guy my age…

I’m in great fucking shape. And I think I owe a lot of that to footbag. Just sayin’…

3:00/16:00 – Thanks for tuning in!

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!

Guys! Better watch this video. Penske played around with those great ball of fire and put on some serious skills on it.

Hey Fellas! This is the last part of Las Vegas Jam from Nucleus Footwear (Facebook). This guys really put on a show to entertain us. I hope you enjoy it. Have Fun!

Yoh! Check this out an interview and some of Vasek Klouda’s tournament video. I hope you like it. Enjoy!

Fellas this is the 3rd Part, you’ll enjoy this like the 1st two parts. Have Fun!

Video From Nucleus Footwear (Facebook)

Guys this is a battle between Weber and Benda. You should watch this. Epic Video!