Playing on your toes

Iron Clad Ben · Post by **Iron Clad Ben** » 07 Sep 2007 09:02

So pretty much all the good players are in agreement that playing on your toes is best for your form, and the best way to prevent injuries such as shin splints.

I know this, but since I developed bad habits from learning a lot of the basics solo (footbag.org trick descriptions and ToT1 before I found modified or played with other shredders) and about a year+ of playing flat footed and no one pointing out that I should play on my toes. I would bet at least a baker's dozen people have told me I need to play on my toes. I've been trying to fix this since the beginning of the calendar year 2007 but it's been tough since my bad habits are so ingrained. I can do individuals moves or drills and try to be conscious of it but when I'm in the middle of a run my body usually reverts to my habit of playing flat footed since I'm more concerned with keeping the bag and what move I'm going to do next rather than being on my toes.

I know other people have switched their style to playing on their toes. How did you do it? Were there specific drills/moves/stretches you worked on? How did you break the bad habit of playing flat footed? Any help would be appreciated here, I feel like this is the biggest thing that's holding me back in footbag right now. Also I find that it's a bigger problem with clipper moves than toe moves for me. Thanks.

Moved to General Footbag from Trick Tips. Great thread, but not about tricks. -Erik

CautionFragile · Post by **CautionFragile** » 07 Sep 2007 10:39

This is a suuuuuuuuuper old school kung fu trick to keep you on your toes, which is bad during a fight, but it was only an exercise

.

Stand flat footed with your feet together. What you will be doing is jumping as high as you can WITHOUT BENDING YOUR KNEES!!! Did you bend your knees?? DON'T

. This is important, because if you bend your knees there will be limited benefit.

You will hop as high as you can, land on your toes and slowly let yourself back down to flatfooted.

Got it? Now make sure that you do not use your body to lift yourself in the jump. ALL TOES!!!! You will find that without noticing it, you will use your shoulders to lift yourself into the jump

. That is because you are thinking you want height, but you don't. You're focus should be solely on the form of the exercise, you will get higher and higher eventually.

A good way to check your progress is to dig a little hole and try and pop out of it. It's actually pretty fun.

And a good way to make sure that you aren't bending your knees is to put a few scewers(sp

) shishkamabob sticks, behind em. Bend your knee, scewer goes into your leg. It works

.

Hope this helps

.

Matt K · Post by **Matt K** » 07 Sep 2007 13:30

I just try to be really concious of putting my weight on my toes on landing (I'm still not that good with it).

Try being on your toes for most of your walking.

Practice Clipper without a bag with your weight on your toes.

One thing I did that was kinda weird was get a little tiny board, about 6in. x 6in., and just did Clippers on that. The only place you can really balance on a small board like that is on your toes. Just doing stuff like Muted Clippers and Swirls on it kinda forces you to stay on your toes.

Wu_ · Post by **Wu_** » 08 Sep 2007 13:06

CautionFragile wrote:

And a good way to make sure that you aren't bending your knees is to put a few scewers(sp ) shishkamabob sticks, behind em. Bend your knee, scewer goes into your leg. It works .

that iss soooooo old school kung fuuu.. hah i love that idea ...just like that good ol "shaolin master killer" where he has blades under his arms so his arms dont drop while carrying buckets of water on each side

i am really just a beginner so this might just be a load of crap what i am about to say but if u have been playing flatfooted all along than probably ur form on tricks like clipper and butterflies for example will change quite a bit if u want to play on ur toes.
my clippers were really bad and than i thinking about the whole play on ur toes thing so u can hop in and hop out of clippers better.. it totally change my whole approach to clippers.. for one its way more energy consuming but to me thats a good thing that way i build up more stamina. hope that was helpful and not just out of line

Uranos · Post by **Uranos** » 10 Sep 2007 05:04

The best thing to do is try to play without making much sound (no stomping)
on the ground, and everytime you hear yourself landing too loudly then ban yourself from playing for like 1 week or something. this forces you to make softer landings and stay on your toes because nobody likes to not play for a week.

only kidding about the ban part, but just try to make as less noise as possible and the rest will follow

Dave Da · Post by **Dave Da** » 12 Sep 2007 16:31

I am switching to playing on my toes very early in my game
I found that doing consecutive clippers on your toes helps with your form and makes it a lot easier to tranfer the toe playing to other tricks.

brinard · Post by **brinard** » 12 Sep 2007 17:41

i played pretty flat footed and slow until i got climas. they have a slope downward towrds your toe, so it make your ankles high, and you have to play on your toes. im pretty sure it was the brick like lavers that kept me flat footed for the beginning.

id invest in some clima 1s. ill find you a pair if youre interested enough to pick some up. what size? how much wil you pay?

othewise, id just walk on your toes all day until you just do it naturally when you shred.

Frank_Sinatra · Post by **Frank_Sinatra** » 13 Sep 2007 07:02

I just watched your latest video (the recent one linked from your blog) & have one comment that maybe would help:

It seems like you're setting by using your leg as a lever to create the force for the set. Try hopping a little bit (along with what you're currently doing) to set the bag. This will naturally put you up on your toes with each set, even if you don't really hop off the ground, just going up on to the toes/ball of your foot will be good.

Hopping into each delay is something separate that I sadly don't have any tips on. I do have questions - how long have you been drilling your new techniques? Do you think that's enough time to really ingrain the new technique, or should you stick with what you're drilling for a while longer? You said it took you over a year to learn your current habits for doing moves, maybe its reasonable to think it will take as long to learn a new set of habits.

EDIT: One more thing -- Keep it Form!!

Nathan · Post by **Nathan** » 14 Sep 2007 18:44

brinard wrote:i played pretty flat footed and slow until i got climas. they have a slope downward towrds your toe, so it make your ankles high, and you have to play on your toes. im pretty sure it was the brick like lavers that kept me flat footed for the beginning.

id invest in some clima 1s. ill find you a pair if youre interested enough to pick some up. what size? how much wil you pay?

othewise, id just walk on your toes all day until you just do it naturally when you shred.

i don't think this is solid advice. first you should play in the shoes that work well for you and fix your form.

alex urano is right. if you play flat footed you will make a lot of noise. play silently for a few sessions.

Wu_ · Post by **Wu_** » 14 Sep 2007 19:43

that is just his experience ..there is nothing wrong with sharing experiences ...and i bet it would work too since clima cools arent such flatfooted-shoes as lavers are.

if your getting new shoes and are sorta wonderin wether to get lavers/quantums or clima cool style shoes than you might just go for clima cools if you have the problem of playing flatfooted too often. it is definitely true that they are built differently putting more weight on the front of your foot than on the back. i have had them on.. felt weird though since i am used to quantums.

janis · Post by **janis** » 14 Sep 2007 22:04

It doesn't matter what shoes you are wearing, you should still play on your toes.
Getting different shoes is not going to help shin splints if you keep the same form, I only say this because I changed shoes a few times when I really should have been changing my form. My shin splints actually went away when I started playing barefoot and started playing on my toes.

IMHO form is the most important thing.

Benzilla · Post by **Benzilla** » 15 Sep 2007 04:32

i started playing on my toes yesterday and in my experience they made toe stalls and clippers alot easier and consistant for me.

funklovesfootbag · Post by **funklovesfootbag** » 15 Sep 2007 20:13

I just want to clarify, you mean playing on the balls of your feet right? Because I think playing on your tip-toes is a bad idea.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 Sep 2007 02:47

Wu_ · Post by **Wu_** » 16 Sep 2007 07:04

umm ..playing on your tiptoes is a bad idea?!?! ..I am not gonna go search for that thread again but I read Jorden also saying that playing on your toes is better for your game AND is better for your knees since your foot takes some pressure off of your knees when landing. Playing on the balls of your foot ...pressure goes directly to the knees, especially when you do a big jump.

Dat · Post by **Dat** » 16 Sep 2007 10:49

"Playing on toes" is bad advice because it is vague and misleading. I know players end up focusing on trying to do what they think is playing on their toes and end up lifting their heels high up off the ground and locking their ankles, knees and hips when they push down hard with their toes. Very bad. Your ankles, knees and hips need to give a little when you land, so your whole leg is cushioning as a team, not just the arch of your foot (this is what ruins arches). Locking your leg joints also changes the pivot of your body so it's only in the front of your foot, farther forward from your center of gravity. This gives your body an extra tendency to fall backwards, inhibiting your balance and form when you have to work harder with your upper body and lower back than necessary to stay keep from falling over. Loosening your joints will make things easier, allowing you to do more counterbalancing with the joints within your leg, relaxing your lower back so it isn't strained, and lessening the work your shoulders and arms have to do so they can be used more for other things like twisting your torso for paradox and spinning.

Instead of thinking about standing on your toes, just be aware of your heel and make sure it doesn't go all the way to the ground, while keeping your support knee, ankle and hip loose enough to give a bit.

It actually takes more strength to keep your joints loose as opposed to clenching and locking them rigidly, making it mentally tempting to lock your joints. This makes locking joints a discipline problem, a skill dead end you have to mentally work away from, rather something you can fix with just hours of thoughtless practice. When your joints and loose and your muscles are working as a team, dividing up the work, you get tons more balance and you avoid excessive stress on your joints. When you land it takes a lot of work to catch and support your weight. If you keep your muscles loose your muscles will soak in the bulk of the energy, if your muscles are clenched then your joints soak it in instead.

brinard · Post by **brinard** » 16 Sep 2007 12:12

i don't think this is solid advice. first you should play in the shoes that work well for you and fix your form.

alex urano is right. if you play flat footed you will make a lot of noise. play silently for a few sessions.

im pretty sure thats what i was saying... play in the right shoes... lavers didnt do it for me.

is flat footed bad form? climas fixed that for me. my answer seems valid...

Dat · Post by **Dat** » 16 Sep 2007 13:30

Also, don't do these:

This is a suuuuuuuuuper old school kung fu trick to keep you on your toes, which is bad during a fight, but it was only an exercise Laughing .

Stand flat footed with your feet together. What you will be doing is jumping as high as you can WITHOUT BENDING YOUR KNEES!!! Did you bend your knees?? DON'T Evil or Very Mad . This is important, because if you bend your knees there will be limited benefit.

You will hop as high as you can, land on your toes and slowly let yourself back down to flatfooted.

Got it? Now make sure that you do not use your body to lift yourself in the jump. ALL TOES!!!! You will find that without noticing it, you will use your shoulders to lift yourself into the jump Embarassed . That is because you are thinking you want height, but you don't. You're focus should be solely on the form of the exercise, you will get higher and higher eventually.

A good way to check your progress is to dig a little hole and try and pop out of it. It's actually pretty fun.

or this:

I just try to be really concious of putting my weight on my toes on landing (I'm still not that good with it).

Try being on your toes for most of your walking.

These are shortsighted solutions to the problem of standing rigidly and inefficiently with your whole body. You've got lots of joints, muscles and skeletal structure to use as a team of simple counterbalancing machines; learn to allow them to all work together, instead of consciously and desperately forcing your extremities to do all the work.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 16 Sep 2007 17:02

yeah great posts from Dat.

I think the point is that when you land completing (or even in the middle of) footbag moves, you want to cushion your wait with a combination of bending your foot (which lands "staggered"), your ankle and your knee. The more you can absorb that impact across your body, the better for you, and the easier for you to spring back out of the move. All that cushioning makes it easy for you to stall as well because your whole leg is helping to cushion the landing for the bag too.

Sergey · Post by **Sergey** » 16 Sep 2007 19:07

You just gotta be smooth as silk brother.