A Master with a Riceball

[Asmus]

Thanks to everybody who came to Worlds and made it so special! It was by far the best and most tiring week of my life. I am gonna write some more about the week in general later.

I also want to make a longer post on organizing Worlds. So if there is something you want me to write about in that - please get in touch.

I love you all. Footbag is the best.

[C-Fan]

Good jorb with Worlds this year. I'm excited to see the insider perspective from a tournament organizer. I think I'd be most interested in hearing about how you worked with local government to secure such awesome locations.

Also, I would love to hear your Friday night story.

[Asmus]

Also, I would love to hear your Friday night story.

I am sorry Ken but I can’t reveal anything of what happened Friday night/Saturday morning. The result however was that I scratched from Sick1, Sick3 and Request and Samu Ahola took this LP with him back home to Finland:




Worlds 2015 - Part 1



As already mentioned: I was super depressed the days after Worlds - all the goodbyes, the humongous hangover, being more tired than I had ever been and all the impressions messed me up. Now that I have distanced myself a little from it - I felt the urge to put down some words describing some of what happened. Mainly so I can remember it better later. So here we go:


Pukka

Tuukka stayed at my place the night before Worlds and we partied hard until he left in the middle of the week. He had to go back to attend some wedding. Pukka is awesome. He showed me this site of sexual positions [not safe for work]. We became obsessed with the position Mariposa (butterfly in Spanish). Here is our version of it:




Ken and Faxe Kondi

I finally got the chance to give Ken Somolinos the juice I had owed him since finals night of Worlds 2009 in Prague. I gave him the most popular Danish sports drink “Faxe Kondi”, which is also a previous sponsor of ours in Denmark. He seemed to like it. The drink is so popular here that some dancehall artists even made a song about it.


Steve, Wiktor and Grischa

Before Worlds even start you will begin to hate Steve, Grischa and Wiktor for their constant requests for documentation, questions regarding everything and general miscommunication. Once Worlds start you will switch between wanting to punch them and wanting to kiss them. After Worlds you will want to give birth to their deformed footbag babies. These guys put in so much work and got so much expertise that without them having Worlds would be impossible.


Young Americans

It was great to meet a lot of “new” young Americans. Cass, Brian Bear, Alex Venis, Derek Littlefeld, Johnny Breakdown and Anton Britting are all great people and reminded me that I have to cross the pond and go to a footbag tournie in the US soon. Anton called me an “oldschool legend” which both made me happy and made me feel really old. Thanks to Derek I got over my fear of Jäger.


The Winners

Competition wise one of my main highlights were Paloma’s dropless finals routine. Me and Paloma has a special bond and I was happy to see a good friend win. Not only that but her routine moved the crowd like I have rarely seen before. It was also special seeing Milan win and hugging him right after the result was announced. Milan went through a lot right up to Worlds, so I was super happy to see such a good friend get what he came for. There are rumors that he will move to Copenhagen on a more permanent basis!


More later..

[Asmus]

Monday Session

Worlds is finally over.. so now I am gonna start playing footbag again. First session was on monday and in attendance were: Nis, Andreas, Verena, Mads Hole filming, Mads Neuhard playing football with his son and special guest star Nick Landes. Lise also made a short appearance.

I played with Nick and Nis first and then Nick joined Andreas and Verena so I had a little one on one action with Nis. Played surprisingly well considering I haven’t played for months. Nis gave me a good tip on infinities that I really needed. Ended the first part of the session with a first try Gyro DLO. Then I played some football with Mads N and his awesome son Mio. He was the kid giving every player medals and hugs during the Award Ceremony at the freestyle finals.

After that I fooled around a little in what had then become a four man circle - five with me. Nick and Nis both played really well, but Mads H was filming it all so I am not gonna share what they hit. I can share that Nick got excitingly close to my challenge of Nuclear Mobius - he promised to film it and send it to me. I ended the second leg of the session with a Pixie Quantum Butterfly on camera. Not that hard for me, but I rarely end up videos these days and that one might.

I posted some photos from the session on our facebook page.

Yesterday I ate dinner with Nick, my little brother and a friend. It was a good way of saying goodbye. Nick Landes is just an awesome dude! The definition of a person with a heart of gold. Well deserved the second place in Routines. He showed me this yoga pose that is gonna help me tremendously. Nick also build a fort:



Worlds 2015 - Part 2

Jim Penske

I have been watching videos of Jim Penske for more than 10 years, so it was really cool to put a personality on those fast legs. And I must say; he is a really good dude and he is even better at footbag in real life. I saw him hit Blurry High Plains Drifter first try! Now we just need to fly Lon Smith out to the next Danish Open.


My Little Brother

Kicked ass during Worlds. Such a big help. He wrote some nice words about footbag after that I feel like I should share with you guys:

Footbag VM is over and the hangover is starting to go away. It is amazing to see 150 players from all over the world, having such a good time with each other and im so excited that i got the opportunity to be a part of it.
Congratulations to the winners.
I might never understand the sport, but i do understand why people from Japan and the U.S wants to travel to our small country - because the people participating in this event is worth using a lot of money, time and happiness on!
Thanks again!


Achilleus

Evgeny Shiryaev said it much better than me:

Hey everybody! Though the tournament was great (thanks to all organizers, volunteers and participants!) I must sadly say that we have 3 people injured: Yulia Klouda , Aleksi Airinen and Arkady Lobankov . Everybody has the same injury (coincidence?) - achilles tendon rupture:((( After that usually people fall out of the sport for 4-6 months.
Please give your words of support for them and take a good warm-up before games and increase your sport activity gradually before tournaments in order your body to be prepared for high loads.
But what I really wanted to say in regards to this, is that Aleksi is a fucking champ. Right after the accident happened and he was still laying on the floor, I went up to him and asked him if he needed anything. His answer in true Finnish fashion was: “I could drink a beer!”. That is one of the best beers I have bought for anybody. He judged every freestyle competition and his mood never went down. What a champ!


Gifts

Footbaggers are nice people. Here is a picture of all the gifts I got from footbaggers during Worlds:



1. Got a bottle of my favorite alcohol “Jaloviina” directly imported from Finland by Pekka
2. Bottle of Salmiaki from Tuukka for letting him crash at my place
3. Not really from Worlds but footbag related nonetheless and I just got it today. An awesome pouch from supporting Tom Mosher’s Kickstarter project
4. Pin from Anton Britting
5. Business Card from Jakob Wagner’s shop in Berlin
6. Official Red Rocket footbag from Phil Morrison
7. Show bag I got from supporting Nick Landes and Jim Penske’s fundraiser
8. 32 panel by Nick I got as a birthday gift

[Asmus]

Yesterday we played at an outdoor music event, where Beastie Respond and Kode9 DJ'ed. In attendance were Nis, Verena, Andreas, Jasper, Michael, Rasmus (who didn’t play) and my little brother(who played!). My little brother hit a couple of ATWs and some very solid inside kicks. I gave him a bag and he seemed to want to practice more. Exciting!

I had already had a couple of beers before the session started, so it was more about having fun than actually playing well. I did hit Gyro Pickup bsos and Terrage > Quantum Legover [rpt] though. I even won a round of Horse against everybody because nobody could hit my trick.

I filmed a bit and plan on continue doing so. The idea right now is to make some sort of season ender video.

More excitingly I am planning to go to the 19th annual Finnish Footbag Open (FFA 20th anniversary special edition) in the last weekend of November. It seems like I might even be able to lure a couple of the other Danes into going with me. Last time I was in Finland was a blast. Here is the video from back then:

[Derek]

What dope fort picture! No girls allowed? Your brother crushed it, and was a mad rad host/party partna'. Hopefully the Footbag will infect him. Sick that you are potentially getting on that shred hype. Fingers crossed that you make another epic video such as Vittu!, cause that is honestly one of my favorites of all time. Much love, mayne.

[Asmus]

Asmus' Thoughts On Organizing Worlds

There are no golden rules or answers set in stone here, every Worlds is different and there are hundreds of ways of doing things the right way. I haven’t touched on half of what hosting a World Championship is but I hope this does answer some of the questions I have gotten up to, during and after Worlds in Copenhagen.

It should also be said that these are my experiences and thoughts, not the opinions of the Worlds Operating Committee or FootbagDenmark.

Host Application for Worlds

The first thing you should do, if your club is thinking about hosting Worlds, is to get your hands on the Host Application. It sums up the requirements nicely and will make it easier for you to get an idea if you want to do this or not. The Worlds Operating Committee (woc@.ifpa.footbag.org) will be more than happy to send it to you.

Commit!

The second thing you need to do is to commit to the idea of hosting Worlds. First the core organising team have to commit to the idea and then you need to get the rest of your club to do it. Organising Worlds isn’t easy and it isn’t always a lot of fun. I would estimate that between us we have spend over a thousand hours on it. That is a big commitment and everybody has to sign off on it.

The Team

We were 5 in the core team and around 15 more volunteers. That is the absolute least you will need. Twice as many volunteers would have been great.

The skills you will need are the following:
- Graphic and webdesign
- Video editing
- Strong writing skills in a serious business language
- Two people with driver’s license and cars
- Budgeting
- A problem solver
- People with big networks
- Experience running tournaments

A thing I would have done differently, if we had been a bigger team and knew what we know now, is assign some people to not work during week and only take care of the aftermath. The clean up, delivering back borrowed items, etc.

Getting the Venue

My tip on how to get an awesome venue for Worlds would be to become an officially recognized organisation. Obviously, how this is done and what you can get out of it varies from country to country, but here are some of the advantages you might get from it:

- Easier to seek grants
- Support from local government and municipality
- Ability to open bank accounts etc.
- Looks professional
- Tax advantages

Because FootbagDenmark is an officially recognized sports organisation, we can apply for indoor training facilities in Copenhagen. The municipality owns most of the gyms in the city and also the venue we used for Worlds. Indoor training facilities are not usually used much in the summer holidays which made it easier for us. We wrote an application to them. Here is the table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. Collaborators
3. Audience / Target Group
4. Finals
5. Estimated number of athletes
6. Program
7. Budget
8. What is footbag?
9. What can we offer you
10. About us
11. Contacts

After that there was a couple of meetings and then a contract was signed.

Sponsors and funding

When you have found the venue, you will have to raise some cash money. The player registration fees and donations will not be enough. It was about a third of what we spent AND we got the main venue for free.

We did not have a lot of success attracting sponsors and I think that could have gone better with a more focused effort by assigning one guy to focus solely on this. Preferably a person with telemarketing experience.

We did however have a lot of success applying for grants and funding from foundations. How things like this work of course varies from country to country, but it is definitely the route I would focus on.

One of the foundations had focus on development and implementation of socially beneficial initiatives and activities, the second one focused on supporting organized citizenry, research and social and cultural purposes. The last one supports activities and events that are helping to strengthen our district of the city's social and cultural resources and which brings together citizens across social and ethnic backgrounds.

Media

Getting media coverage was one thing we definitely failed at. Early on we got a lot of verbal commitments from print and tv media that they would like to cover it, however once crunch time came we were too focused on actually getting the tournament up and running and following up on these verbal commitments took a back seat.

A World Championship in footbag is definitely newsworthy and getting coverage should be possible. A way of avoiding our situation would be to have a person solely focus on this. The best would be if that person were a communications officer or journalist with experience in writing press releases.

Digital World(s)

Footbag lives in small pockets around the world and on the internet. During a very special week in late July or early August a big pocket appears wherever Worlds is hosted, but an important thing to remember is that there are still more people sitting waiting on updates on facebook or modified than actually at the championship. It is an important job for the organizing team to cater to them - not only because they are footbag but also because it makes the sport look much more professional if we have a strong online presence.

I think we took some good steps in this direction, with frequent updates in text, pictures and videos during the week, a great website and online streaming of the finals.

What I would like to see in the future is:
- Online streaming of all events (with commentary during Finals)
- Social Media Officers
This could be players that in exchange for not having to pay registration fee instead had to make X numbers of posts each day on different social media apps and websites.

I have more ideas in regards to this but I have to put some more thought into them.

Prize Money

Just to clear something up:

We considered prize money at Worlds but finally decided against it. We even considered only giving prize money only to Doubles Freestyle since we had a sponsor who for unknown reasons really were into that event.

Let me do some math that shows why I think that was a wise decision.

If we take every official event (except the masters net competition, intermediate competitions, golf and women’s sick trick since there was only two competitors), there are 16 events that should get prize money. This means 16 first places, second places and third places. 12 times the prize money is shared between two players because of doubles. So, if nobody got first through third in more than one event 60 players would get prize money. However only 34 players ended in the top three in any of the events. Let’s say number one(s) get 100 euros, number two(s) get 60 euros and number three(s) get 30 euros. That would add up to 3040 euros. That is a lot of money.

Where could we find that money? It is pretty much exactly the same same as it cost to give every (170+) players a free meal every day. Or it will would have been the same as raising the registration fee for over (170+) attendees with 50%.
So we decided to benefit 170+ players instead of 34.

Conclusion

Organising Worlds is a hard and often thankless job. It is also one of the best experiences of my life. It feels amazing to give a lot back to the community that has given me so much. Not only do I appreciate footbag and footbaggers much more now, I also feel like I know them much better and I even feel like I know my own strengths and weaknesses much better. Would I do it again? Maybe. Would I recommend others to do it? Definitely.

You are more than welcome to post questions here, if you questions you don’t want others to see you can PM me and I will answer to the best of my ability.

[C-Fan]

Thanks for that post. There's so much work that goes into hosting a tournament, and most people have no idea. I can't even imagine how much work goes into a tournament on the scale of Worlds. I thought it was a very interesting observation you made about media and social media coverage. I've always been shocked how little coverage we get/seek for Worlds and USO. It seems like such a good opportunity to grow the sport, I definitely think a press officer would be a great idea for any future Worlds organizers.

[yyz]

Nice write up!! I would like to say I had a absolute blast at worlds this year. Copenhagen was great.
That being said you have pointed out many of the things that have sucked about Worlds since I first attended in 1990. 1) not enough or no sponsors, 2) Very little or no media coverage 3) no efficient way to get the news out to player and fans who could not make it. ( I have had to wait 3-6months for results when Footbag world was the only resource for this) I set of footbag sport on facebook so organizers would have a plce to share media and sponsor stories and ideas with the footbag world. I monitor it often and see very little posted with this topic in mind. recently there was a post about the Finnish sports museum. The idea I had was not to post publically(even though this is a closed group) but if someone wanted to approach there state or countries sports museum, perhaps they could contact the person who posted this and get some info on where? when? and to whom they dealt with at that museum, then when you approach your local people you can use this info to bolster your standing with your sports museum. One perfect missed opportunity would have been Disney. We held worlds at there Orlando theme park. The people we dealt with there could have been a great resource for seeking local sponsorship world wide. Again the Copenhagen team did a great job, that I am happy as can be. We as footbag organizers and fans let worlds come and go in a unfortunate typical manor. One thing sponsorship can bring is more non-players out to see our world class athletes. Its so sad to see them use up there physical gifts in a gym hidden from the rest of the world. But I am not without guilt in any of the sports shortcomings, as with most there certainly is more I could and can do to help the sport grow- ted GREAT JOB WOC AND COPENHAGEN!!!

[boyle]

Interesting post to read, especially on the cost vs entry fee. It was a great venue to get especially for free. Like we talked, and you mentioned on the post, someone with all the right connections is very important.

I think live streaming (at least of the finals) should be mandatory as part of the bidding process, with resources assigned from the budget.

Having that association is really important. I know you guys say that Denmark is really generous, which is true, but most countries have these offers for registered sporting clubs, it's just that most footbag scenes don't have enough players to register (unfortunately). Though I'm sure a few more national bodies would not hurt at all. Having a USA Footbag Association or a Canada Footbag Association would make a lot of sense and probably make an improvement in the possibilities of getting funding, from any source.

The press officer would be great, then they could also be responsible for volunteers on social media etc. There is also a lot of opportunity these days for own content creation, even if the "regular" media is not covering it.

It's great to something like this, it's just like reviewing they way you competed - of course the plan is to do a dropless routine with all the cues in place, but not everything works.

It was a great event overall, very happy to be there after so long away from Worlds.

[Asmus]

Fingers crossed that you make another epic video such as Vittu!, cause that is honestly one of my favorites of all time. Much love, mayne.

It will be hard to make such a video from a weekend trip, but I am working on something that I hope will be equally epic.

Thanks for that post.

You are very welcome.

But I am not without guilt in any of the sports shortcomings, as with most there certainly is more I could and can do to help the sport grow!

I wish more people would think like that and thanks for the nice words.

I think live streaming (at least of the finals) should be mandatory as part of the bidding process, with resources assigned from the budget.

Agreed!


We had a nice little session yesterday. In attendance were: Verena, Blau, My little brother, Mads N, Nis and Jasper.

I played with Verena and Blau and went over and helped my little brother a couple of times. Didn’t play too well but got a couple of highlights:
- Gyro Pickup, Ducking Clipper and Spinning Clipper [all bsos in the same run]
- 13 Infinities (this is embarrasingly low and something I have to work on every session)
- Ducking Legover > Same DLO [bs] with the big showbag Nick Landes’ gave me.

I filmed Mads and Mathias afterwards and got some good stuff for my video project.

In very exciting and top secret news (because you get those in my footblog) Milan Benda will be living in Copenhagen from early September and at least 6 months forward. He is going to have an actual job here, which means he doesn’t have to busk and thus have more energy to come to our sessions. I am super stoked about that.

[redshredz]

This is a great write up! Good stuff again on the hard work you all put in, it showed for sure Awesome Worlds again!

[Asmus]

Thanks Red!

Yesterday we had a session at the good old indoor thursday spot, which actually kinda sucks. I don’t feel like the outdoor session ever started this year and I am not ready to crawl back inside.

In attendance were: Jan Birkel, Mathias Blau, Nis Petersen and Kim Mortensen.

I got the chance to play one on one with Mathias Blau for most of the session. It is always a pleasure to do that with a player that is that good. Good enough to actually get really close to Quantum Gyro Mirage when challenged to hit it. He hit Pixie Gyro Mirage [bsos] before that.
My highlights were:
Pixie Muted Swirl midrun [bs]
DSO [bs]

Nis were playing well (saw him get close to Montage) and Kim didn’t look as rusty as I thought he would.

Afterwards me and Kim had a beer with Carina. Carina is our main contact at the thursday spot and she was a key figure in organizing the 2013 Danish Footbag Open. She told us that she is gonna quit on monday, which is very sad. She is definitely an honorable member of FootbagDenmark.

Something more positive is that I have decided to move together with ze gurlfriend. It is a little bit scary but I think it will be great. It is also gonna be nice to be able to use both rooms in my apartments and not have to rent one out. Makes it easier to have footbaggers crashing

The board of FootbagDenmark has started organizing our (now) annual cottage trip. I think the crew needs to get spoiled after all the hard work everybody did for Worlds and this is a great way of doing it. I did a Doodle to find out, when people could go. How many of these abbreviations can you guess who belong to?

[Asmus]

Session yesterday with Nis, Troels and Mathias in the yellow room. Mathias and Nis wasn’t really feeling it but they are still damn good at footbag. Finally got a chance to play with Troels after a long while and he has definitely leveled up. Lots of good shit. Troels attempted Eggbeater and asked me if I had ever hit it. I said no and proceeded to hit it first try. I read somewhere a while ago that the trick for Illusion is to set the bag in front of you. Apparently it is. I also hit it on flipside after a couple of attempts. Pretty stoked about that.

So only one but a big highlight:
- Eggbeater [bs]


I just booked my flights for the 19th Annual Finnish Footbag Open (FFA 20th anniversary special edition).
I will be flying in thursday afternoon and back sunday night. So a nice little trip to visit the homies and the moomins.




I released a video the other day. I was hoping to film some more for it, but since the summer already seems to be over I thought why not throw it out there. Looks like I might get my hands on some footage from Worlds, so I also wanted to wrap this project up before that.

You can watch it here:

[Asmus]

Great session yesterday. We started with a small meeting of the board. We decided to move our cottage trip to Spring and now need to figure out another way to thank the volunteers for their hard work during Worlds. We also started planning Danish Champs which of course will be a small cozy affair this year.

At the session were Mads Neuhard, Kim Mortensen, Nis Petersen and Mathias Blau. Great company if I must say so. I played with Kim and Mads. Kim had a rough day at the office. First he couldn’t hit Gyro DLO and I hit it first, then Mads did the same to him with Spinning Whirl. Mads Neuhard was on fire - Hitting stuff he hadn’t hit for 10 years. I started really well, then I hit a slump but managed to end the session fairly strong. Good times.

Here is an old video of Mads Neuhard (edited by Mads Hole) in case some of you don’t know his sexiness: My mom just texted me if I could get her one of the purple shirts from Worlds. That’s what I call Purple Swag!

[Asmus]

Epic session yesterday with a lot of legends, three former Danish Champions and the current World Champion - just look at this line-up:

From left to right: Andreas, Nikolai, Michael, Frede, Mads, Jan, Milan
Kim, Nis and yours truely

More photos here.

It was very nice to see everybody again but it was a bit of weird session footbag wise. First of all I played most of the session with Milan with his big showbag. It is insane what he can do with a bag that big and shitty (Nemesis > Pdx Ripwalk for example), but I couldn’t do shit. He was also constantly excusing for not playing well which was a bit weird since he was still pretty much only doing links I will never be able to do. Only good thing I hit was Terrage > Pixie Muted Swirl.

Milan is in Denmark for at least six months and hopefully a full year. He is working in construction building an indoor ski slope 3 weeks at a time and then he has one week back in Czech. He says it’s hard work but the pay is decent and he loves Copenhagen and Copenhagen loves him.

Jan was nice enough to bring me some of his footage from Worlds. Expect something sick soonish.

[Asmus]

On monday I played with Nis, Mathias and special guest Alex Venis. It was Alex’s final night in Europe. He isn’t the footbagger I know best but I definitely like him. I also like his weird style.

Everybody played pretty terribly. I have been sick for the past 2 weeks or so and I could really feel it, Nis was trying to play in Quantums, Alex was beat from travelling and had some stomach issues and I don’t know what Mathias’ excuse was.

Mathias was recently on a Danish TV show called “Versus”. He had to compete against a freestyler on an obstacle course. Pretty stupid but he did a good job. Didn’t win the race but did show some tricks. Here is a video of him preparing his intro run:
Afterwards me and Alex had a couple of beers. It was cool to catch up on his travels and hear his thoughts on Worlds. He ended up crashing at my place before getting up super early to go to the airport. Good times.

[Asmus]

In this week’s episode of what’s rotten in Denmark: Injuries, Yesterday’s Session and Mads Hole...


1. Injuries

FootbagDenmark is cursed at the moment.

Nis is out with a meniscus injury. He won’t know when he is back before after surgery. Could be really bad..

Jasper has been diagnosed with osteoarthritis of the right big toe (probably derived it from a small footbag injury that never healed properly) and have just been sprayed with corticosteroids. His toe will be stiff forever.

Paul has gotten sesamoiditis.

I just got the sad news about Paloma.

I wish everybody a quick recovery and remember: A doctor visit a year, keeps you playing without any fear.


2. Yesterday’s Session

Me, Mathias and Kim started out with a short meeting about Danish Champs (more on that later, it’s only a little over a week away) after that we went into kicking. The breakdancers before us had a really good energy going. Lots of friendly competition, some American guests and an awesome soundtrack. I always enjoy the breakbeat music they dance to. Stuff like this.

Frederik came when we were warmed up and we all played in a four man circle. Short session but it was good to play again. Lately my interest for footbag has been pretty low but hopefully actually kicking could reenergize me a little.


3. Mads Hole

On the way out the door me and Mathias ran into Mads Hole. Good news for all you Hole Fans - Many more videos coming!!

Good-bye until next time..

[Asmus]

Danish Champs 2015

Prelude

25 years ago on Øster Farimagsgade Skole, a public school like any other in Copenhagen, a new association for local people and small sports called “Idræt Lokalt” opened. The organisation was meant to be an alternative to traditional sports clubs in Copenhagen and footbag was one of the first sports to get an indoor training spot through the organisation at the school. Footbag has been played there every year since and we still have a weekly indoor training spot. I wouldn’t be surprised if that makes it the longest running continuous official indoor footbag spot.

The first time I took the long trip to Copenhagen alone as a big boy was to go the Danish Footbag Champs at Øster Farimagsgade Skole back in 2004. This weekend Idræt Lokalt was celebrating their 25 years and we decided to have the Danish Champs in association with this big event.

Here is a bunch of our previous videos from Øster Farimagsgade Skole.
(Some good stuff in here: Prague Crew, Ryan, etc..)

Friday

The festivities started on friday afternoon with a reception for members of the organisation and important Copenhagen people. We were invited to do a small show. Me and Mathias had planned that I would say a few words and he would show some tricks, but it turned out we were supposed to do the show at the same time as some old people playing ping pong. So we ended up just kicking for playing in front of a crowd while old men were playing ping pong right next to us. It was pretty weird, but we did a decent job and we got some compliments after.

And now I am off to the actual Danish Champs..

[Asmus]

Danish Champs 2015 - Part 2


Saturday

I got to the event site an hour early to begin setting up, but there was some folk dancing going on. I texted the others and said they shouldn’t come yet and headed out to find a cup of coffee. I ran into Mathias Blau on the way out. We talked about how crazy it is, that we met for the first time at exactly the same place eleven years ago. Back then we were both in our early teens, lived in the outskirts of Denmark and had just started kicking. Time flies.

When we got back to spot Nis and Rasmus had arrived. Haven’t seen Rasmus for a while, his career has really picked up and he has been travelling a bunch. Was good to catch up with him.

Soon after Mr. Special Guest Søren Nøhr arrived all the way from Aalborg. Mathias had revealed the day before to me that he would come and it got me a bit more excited to compete. Suddenly we had enough players to make it interesting and I felt like I could beat everybody (except Blau obviously). It sucked that I hadn’t play much leading up to the tournament, but the chance to actually “win” a second place made me want to do good.

The rest of the crew arrived and we started setting up, warming up and hanging out.


The crowd

Routines

First competition was Open Routines and the field was as follows: Troels, Jan, Me, Søren and Mathias.


Troels started very strong, but didn’t finish as well. Jan flunked his routine and stopped after 1:40 and then it was my turn..
I hate that I dropped on the first trick and obviously I should have had less drops, but I still like this routine and I think I might actually work on it and do it again in the future.
Søren obviously killed me in technical, but I feel like mine was better artistic. Same drop count. He deserved to beat me though.

And then Mathias just killed everybody:

Rest of competition

Next up was circle with Troels, me, Søren and Mathias going at it. Mathias killed us again, he had around 90% of the total run time. Søren beat me quite easily and I managed to out Troels in the final round.

Then we did Sick3 where I first hit my safety combo (Terrage > Tripwalk > Far Symp Rev Whirl) and then hit Quantum Legover > Phoenix > Far Symp Rev Whirl. That was enough to give me second place.
Finally we did Sick1. I managed to put some pressure on Mathias with Pixie Tripwalk but he ended up taking it with Crossbody Toe Stepping Ducking Rake

So I ended up with two 3. place and 2. second place. Pretty happy with that.

After competition


Special Guest Søren Nøhr, Winner Mathias Blau and his lovely girlfriend Lena

Afterwards there was a big party for “Idræt Lokalt”. We paid 20 DKK and had a big buffet and all the wine you could drink. I practiced my German to Nis’ Russian mother in law and even danced with her. After that we all disappeared into the night.


Troels, Nis and Nis’ mother in law