Jay's Blog.

[jay7]

We're in Poland!

I'm really happy with where the tour is right now, in terms of 'morale' and schedule. Getting to Poland has really been a reset from all the walking, suitcase lugging, waking up at 6:30 to arrive at schools on time, and cramming site seeing into free time. I've probably spent 15 hours so far sorting through footage, and I realize that the trickiest task is actually figuring out what videos I wish to make. I feel as if it wouldn't be wise to do a, say, 30 minute video. It might be great for a few footbaggers, but it certainly wouldn't be appropriate for the widest audience. I am thinking I will do player videos summarizing the tour, as well as a school demo video, and then two overall tour videos: One tour video of say, 45 seconds length, like a trailer, and then perhaps a 3-5 minute tour video. Anyhow, as I am not even half way through the footage sorting, any suggestions will be heard.

Currently our schedule is to play a lot, and this is doing wonders to my mental game. It has been so long since I've been in a "lets get good and drill" environment with other players, that I almost forgot about the thrill. Evan is really bringing this out in me, as he is training for worlds and euros, and takes it pretty seriously. He left his job, and life behind in order to do so, and it is obvious how this has been helping his game. Some of his runs are flat out ridiculous. It actually spawned a conversation amongst Mikko and I, about how similar/dissimilar it is to 2004 Vasek. How often does one seriously compare someone to 2004 Vasek?

I'm currently drilling some components which I've been embarrassed about, such as flipside blurrier, and flipside spinning whirl. Both tricks I can hit, but also both tricks I wouldn't link in or out of. I'm also trying to have a lower impact trick selection, since I know I'm playing on concrete and have a tournament coming up. I think my body is holding up well, all things considered. Flurricane is getting a lot more consistent, which is swell, and I'm beginning to be able to hit more than 3 high plains drifters in a row. I'm also revisiting quantum, which feels pretty snazzy, and my 'gluteal' muscles definitely have told me about it. Evan has a neat way of phrasing things, including saying "superpower". I think the best examples of how he uses it, would be "Johnny's superpower is nuclear", or, "Brian's super power is Mobius". He said that my super power may well be quantum, and I never looked at it that way. So, I kind of want to embrace that, and, mid-run when I crank out some nice sets, it does indeed feel like a warm summer breeze. I'm generally trying to push my game in many directions, mostly focusing on confidence. I know I can do many tricks, but mid-run I'd never have the balls to commit to them. So, I think gaining that mental strength will help unleash my legs, more than just drilling new shit or something.

I've bought tickets back to Canada, and interestingly enough Michelle and I will have a stop over in Ireland to visit her family. That will mark another country on our map, and I'm very interested to see how Ireland is, especially from the family point of view. Turns out there have been some registered players on .org from Ireland, which means I wont be able to claim Michelle is the first Irish citizen to hit ATW or something That being said, if we ever move there in the future, I think it would be very interesting to promote there, and Justin-Sexton a scene, without facing the "Is that an Irish Dance?" comment. Otherwise, my plan is to go back, see some family/friends, and then work for my sister in Ottawa. Her business is pretty cool, and she is going to let Michelle and I use our Engineering skills to create some awesome stuff. So hell yeah, excited I am. We'll see where things go after that, but somewhat recently I've had my eyes on perhaps seeing/embracing more of Canada. I've got some homework ahead though

A small theory I have had, which has many holes, is that super-cool-top-level footbaggers typically are epic at something else. Felix+Beatbox, Jorden+Juggling, Anssi+Classical Guitar, etc. If I had to guess, I would think that there is a chance that this summer, is the summer when I perhaps start a second hobby. Not in place of footbag, but with the amount of possible doors I have to open, and the passion I have to invest my time into projects/etc, I can see it happening.

Anyway, time to hit yee old hay. I'll toss a picture here, of a demo Aleksi and I were a part of in Switzerland

[MetZelRio]

So curious, what would that second hobby be? I love footbag first of all and most of all out of all my hobbies, but I also do all those mentioned above. I do believe you'd be great at whatever you did choose, but at the same time, I wonder if that would be good for you to pick up another. They are expensive, time consuming and perhaps since you're a driving force in footbag, a new hobby might hinder the momentum of footbag as a sport. I dont mean to be negative about a new hobby, or persuade you not to get one. Selfishly, I so wish Jorden was doing footbag related stuff more than Juggling (Much respect!) but he has to do what HE has to do. Same for you. I do also recognize that you said it would not be to take the place of footbag. Whatever you do, I'm one of the first folks that want to know what you would be up to. Do tell!

[Allan]

Turns out there have been some registered players on .org from Ireland, which means I wont be able to claim Michelle is the first Irish citizen to hit ATW or something That being said, if we ever move there in the future, I think it would be very interesting to promote there, and Justin-Sexton a scene, without facing the "Is that an Irish Dance?" comment.

Back in 1998/9, a team of 10-12 (including Sam Conlon) footbag players of varying ability did a pretty big tour of Ireland for Snickers. They hit up most schools in Southern Ireland and did a finale promotion at a big football match. I went, but hated (truly hated) the experience and quit after, like, 2 demos (the kids were beyond terrible). Sorry about that Mike. But the rest of the team was pretty successful, and were the ones whose next tour went to Czech Republic, thus exposing Vasek to the game.

[boyle]

I would love to hear more about these kind of tour experiences over the years. People have gone on various "footbag tours", usually for some kind of brand or other, but I don't think there are too many really detailed histories of them, because these things are a huge part of the footbag history. Maybe the lack of follow up (or even of the knowledge being written down for others to follow up on) has been a problem point for footbag over the years.

Though it seems the Czech team did a pretty good job...

[Asmus]

Since you will sort through all of the footage anyways I think you should make a long raw video with all the good/decent stuff you won't use in the well edited videos. I always like those kinda videos and unreleased footage is always a shame!

Can't wait to see all these videos and read(maybe even talk) more about your experiences on the tour.

You are a true champion in the footbag community!

[boyle]

I just wrote an email saying what I'd like from a "business/client/marketing" perspective, but as a fan, this is what I'd like to see.

- general hangouts in each city, eating traditional foods, being in the famous locations (potentially from other footbag videos)
- Something like an ongoing best trick contest, like the best trick that each player hits in different cities
- Kids learning how to play and having a good time, and them being amazed by the players on the tour. There is that sensation that you see, even when someone like me plays, and their eyes just light up. It would be great to have that captured on video.
- Hitting ridiculous things in out of place locations/clothing (hopefully there was something in a full gorilla suit rather than just the shirts...), or Anssi hitting nemesis standing on some kind of dangerous precipice overlooking a city in Switzerland.

What I'd like to see is some blokes (and girls) having a good time, enlightening the world on footbag, and also a clear idea of the places that they are in and how it has benefited the kids or the local clubs.

Look forward to seeing what comes out, there will probably be enough footage to add an extra month to the calendar...

[jay7]

So, real life has begun since the tour. Currently I am in Ottawa, Canada, the capital. My sister lives here, and, happens to own a business of her own. I'm volunteering in exchange for room/board, yet again, and going to start applying to real people jobs. After a year of scurrying around, the motivation to keep scurrying has dwindled. Having solo sessions again, with no filming, or no one within 200 km's to play with is oddly refreshing. I'm playing with a demo bag still, oddly enough, just because I've sort of grown accustomed to it. Yesterday,I was tinkering with the link spinning twirl b2b, and, couldn't stick it. So, I switched out to a trusty 32 panel, and, just felt like it was too wee. I compromised by switching to a slightly larger 14 panel, but not demo bag status, and hit it though. Thanks to Nick for the challenge. It actually took me two sessions to hit it, so, about 3x longer than I anticipated. Zooming out of spinning twirl, is, a bloody challenge at all. It was cool taking a concept which, I never really mastered, and then disecting it from the basics, and then built up components, and hit it.. Sometimes the logical approach like that works, and sometimes you still just suck. So, cheers to not sucking?

Out of no where my pixies seem to be back. For some reason they felt, shitty, for a bunch of Europe. However, the last tree sessions I got (first try) pigbeater-smog-pixie drifter each side, and they felt powerful. Kind of nice to pop some old basics out, with ease like that, after they left. The only thing I have to do, is tackle flip clipper and make butterfly my bitch still. I've been drilling ss butterfly->ripped warrior*rpt for a few days, trying to really focus on the closer-to-body butterfly on my flipside. Watching Aleksi do things the same way on each side, with so little fear, easily made my eyes try and look as to why the other 'tourists' had such a small amount of problems with Butterflies. They just catch them so, straight in front of them, which also means a delicate balance of hip turning. But, the more the bag is in your center, obviously the more balance you have, and I find when I get a few repeats of the before-mentioned drill, I really start to 'feel' how bloody easy it is. Things such as ripwalk->sunil*rpt / jani->side*rpt also become infinitely easier after I do some of this drill... But then things like fury get way harder. Blarg. I figured out in Poland that I can still duck furious within a few tries, so it is kind of annoying to start training my furious in a way which makes fury seem hard. I'll have to just get more variables coded in my spine so I don't have to keep it all in RAM... Resulting, hopefully, in each trick feeling just as good as the others.

Since I've been working, as well as trying to find a job, as well as video editing, as well as spending time with my family, videos have been coming out slower. There are two uploaded on youtube already that haven't been shown to the masses, so I'm not really worried. Probably a function of the fact that Boyle is doing the exact same thing as me right now, which is figuring out his move to another life + a baby. The big thing I suppose I learned from the tour, is to push where things pull, and to not bother wasting energy to tug of war anything. My sister studies/works with "permaculture" which, is basically a thoughtful way to living which also includes gardening, and she gave me a university lecture style introduction to it. I found that, pretty much all the principles she spoke of could be applied to the tour, and, it was interesting. One of the ideas in Permaculture, is that if you often are running into a problem, perhaps the problem can be the solution. An example I found for Footbag, is the following.

(Playing Footbag in a public place)
Stranger: Hello! Is that training for soccer?
Footbagger: No! This is a real sport, and in no way relates to soccer at all. Go away now, you soccer fan who was intrigued by my footwork.

Versus

Stranger: Hello! Are you training for soccer?
Footbagger: Not specifically, but it is great training for footwork and coordination with the ball. Those who play soccer usually find this easier, and vice versa. If you want, your soccer playing child could pick up a Footbag/Hacky sack and really help his control.

Using the problem as a solution?

I've found throughout the tour, and the last year of asking people about how they began footbag: 95% of footbaggers began because they saw circle kicking in school. 2% of Footbaggers (PSU really ruins statistics) began because someone asked them to, or verbally insisted the sport was fun and cool, and those who did start like that, typically stop after a few years. So, if our sport benefits from the masses circle kicking, and then the true footbagger within finds their way to freestyle, why aren't we promoting circle kicking more? I remember in highschool, when my first goal was "I need to be better than all the schmucks outside in the smoking pit", but aside from that, there were like 5 other *groups* of people playing hacky sack. The learning curve to Freestyle is bloody high, and you have *NO* fun failing on every trick for 8 months. If you can have fun kicking, after a week, and then suppliment it with a few tricks, suddenly you aren't solely failing all the time. You also, assumedly, already have a group of friends who play hacky sack, and can have a support group to keep morale high. Once you are ok at kicking, and are encouraged to keep playing because you have friends and it is actually fun, then advancing to stalls/etc is less of a learning curve, and you already have friends who are doing it,..

Anyway, whatever, I could ramble forever. Point is: With more circle kickers, we get a bigger opportunity for more freestylers. On the last days of school when I brought in a sandman bag, I came back from Germany a year later and noticed that every hack group in the school had a sandmaster. Many of them stalled, and I saw some people ATW, and I wasn't even there. Within that school year back in Canada, five people at my school could do ducking clipper, out of the ~30 consistent hacky sackers. I enjoyed the tour, because we put such an emphasis on circle kicking with the kids. 40% of our demos were circle kicking, and we told them how great it was for recess, bus stops, etc. Then when we proceeded to say you can do many other things, *like* freestyle, *like* golf, etc, we really explained the whole sport as "anything with a footbag" can be fun. I want to email a few of the schools, and ask if the teachers have seen any kids still kicking with the footbags they have.....

This post went everywhere. Hope it wasn't painful to read. My plans ahead are to look for work in Ottawa, and keep playing footbag mostly for myself. Perhaps in late summer / fall, I'll venture into the world of school promotion again, but after spending a year on the move, I'm looking forward to investing into myself a bit. Fortunately, that involves Fooshack.

[bluevampire101]

(PSU really ruins statistics)

Hi Jay!

Hope you can visit PSU sometime soon You're more than welcome.
Sorry about the whole statistics thing.

[boyle]

Moving your whole life is pretty difficult. As is that transitional "post college/uni stage". Wouldn't it be great if there was some kind of website that assisted you with that process....

spinning twirl is pretty awesome, let alone back to back. That's a great link.

I like how you talk about that solution to the problem with the "is this for soccer". I guess it's mainly about a good attitude, going with the flow, rather than telling people to get lost.

It is a bit weird how the circle kicking concept is not considered, by most players, a part of footbag, even though that's the exact reason most people got in to it.

The way we operate currently in footbag, is as if someone just took up skateboarding, then they should be expected quickly to do a kickflip over a few stairs. In that case they'll try, fall, try, break their neck, and then give up on the sport. At least with the early stages of footbag you don't break your neck...

Look forward to seeing what you do in terms of promotion etc. There's plenty of money out there for "sport for development" kind of stuff, if we as the footbag community can get our hands on some of it, that's a good start.

[jay7]

Splendid Day.

Mobius->Paradox torque->Paradox Torque->Mobius 4th try ever.
Morpheus Bsos.
Nemesis->Nemesis 2nd try.
Blurry Drifter->Blurry whirl->Blurry Drifter->Blurry Whirl - 2x one string.
Whirr->Blurry whirl->Whirr->Blurry whirl 3rd try.
Kilo bsos in 2 tries.
Flurricane bsos in 3 tries.
Alpine sidewalk->Ripped Warrior*rpt intro a string.
Spinning swirl->Gyro swirl*rpt into a string.

Enjoyable strings too. Real close to some really nice things. My '8th year' anniversary of Footbag will be on Saturday, and it'd be nice to hit some nice goals. I've been on a footbag vacation, only focusing on the game, and nothing else. No filming, playing with Stanford, hanging out in the purest footbag place. It is really nice to have every session with 4->10 people who just love footbag for what it is.

[C-Fan]

Sounds like you're balling out. I'd love to see video, and I bet you'd enjoy seeing your current game in a few years too.

[Asmus]

Sick shit buddy!

What's Kilo?

[Muffinman]

What's Kilo?

Miraging double switch I think

[jay7]

Yeah, that is what Kilo is Erik.

I watched the Euro's live feed today, and got some net, circle and routines. I think it was pretty awesome that I could see it live, in a city so far away.... It was funny that Michelle was actually the one who said "Uhhhh,, JAYYyyY!!" when she was watching it alone and saw Vasek playing live. Props wife. Props Finland for making professional live streaming a possibility. I'm beginning to agree with Allan about how horrid youtube is, with their music copy-writing though, seeing as I had to watch routines with music in the background. Fortunately, I knew the music choice of a few players, but like, Aleksi said months ago he'd use Ricky Martin, so I might have watched a completely different routine than everyone else

The assumed inventions tonight.

Rev swirling symp rev whirling swirl.
Rev swirling symp rev whirling swirling dragon osisrake. (Definitely unsure of what that last component's name is. Half dragon half gyro outside? You've all seen it).
Pixie shooting rev whirl. (Not to be confused with pixie symp quantum atomic, since the quantum was hippy).

And then some rubberman practice. Ken mentioned the idea of east coasts to me, and it bit me in the ass enough to consider training to compete. Part of me just really wants to shred alone, and enjoy it to the fullest extent though. Without any distractions or mental stress of competition, cameras, etc. But, part of me knows I'll regret not competing when I can't. I'm truly just enjoying doing drills and things under 10 contacts at the moment, which isn't really conducive to competition. Either way, I can see myself continuing to play frequently to keep the possibility of competing at bay.

Edit

One more assumed invention downtime concept tonight.

[Toe and Paradox] downtime illusioning [wauxpin style butterfly+gyro motion] ss legover. No idea how that one would be named either. A downtime illusion followed by the opposite leg doing a butterfly, followed by that butterfly leg doing another legover.

[boyle]

I haven't been paying too much attention, was the streaming just through Youtube? And you couldn't hear the music because of the copyright etc? That would be pretty annoying....I said to someone the other day that in this day and age having a livestream shouldn't be something nice, it should be essential.

I would have a feeling the first one has been hit, no idea who by, but it's a pretty awesome trick. The rest I can barely imagine...Also, you should be there at the Euros, and you should compete, even if you just rock up on the day after all this solo practice.

[MetZelRio]

The rest I can barely imagine

Yes, what he said, precisely. What on earth? Please...show us all these on the 2014 Joulukalenteri with a new Jay Boychuk spotlight video. Please.

[Derek]

Snap. If you go to East Coasts, I'll definitely need to roll. I'm curious, what's the longest you've gone without hitting new inventions?

[Cass]

Hey! Let me know what your plans are for East Coasts! I haven't decided yet if I'm driving or flying but maybe we can travel together

[jay7]

We'll see about the jay boychuk joulukalenteri video I am extremely unmotivated to make any videos at the moment, since ten to thirty hours of editing a video getting 250 views and two comments is extremely unrewarding. I am sure I will get a swing of motivation due to a good idea or something though.

As for how long I have went without inventing, I guess two years? I don't think I started inventing until at least two years in. After that, probably like, another few months in between... But once I unlocked invention mode, I guess it would probably be like, a span of 12 sessions or something without at least inventing one thing.. I usually invent in waves, and sometimes I will get like twenty in one session. I think I just got a new one just now, both sides.

Terraging as wauxpin, bs.

Right now my biggest problem is my atomic set heights. I am trying to step my atomic game up, but it is hard to do reactors/fusions when you keep setting chin height. God dammit. I figure if I am opening the door to competing again, I might as well raise my drill length, and I figure I will try and do at least rubber man*4 once a session to start. I got rubber*3 today before I got wauxpins in my head, maybe I will get four by the end of the session.

My knee is worried about some tricks, so I am trying to do moves landing very specifically without sideways momentum, which makes my double downs look more like anssi's. It is weird, but, might ultimately be better for the knee's? Anyway, halting a selection of moves for the moment.

Edit. By the end of the session I got....

Double fairy flail, and double fairy symp mirage. Overdexed double fairy symp egg. That trick is pretty tough on the groin tendons, so I might not chase it too much. Either way, it is totally possible, and that is cool.

[isirc10]

I am extremely unmotivated to make any videos at the moment, since ten to thirty hours of editing a video getting 250 views and two comments is extremely unrewarding. I am sure I will get a swing of motivation due to a good idea or something though.

I know that feeling, and I think anyone who has ever had to sift through footage has as well. While my videos are lower caliber than yours and I only spend 10-20 hours on mine, I hope you understand that those 250 views are all people who care, people who use these videos as inspiration for their game (hell, even just their day). That video you post might be the one that a 15 year old kid will watch while eating his cereal and will go online and buy a sandmaster to try his first clippers. (That first slo-mo video of you is what got me interested in high school - If I hadn't seen that and looked into footbag, I would have just walked by the place where I first met Nick and wouldn't be typing this reply right now).

I guess I would like to ask you a question - why do you make videos?
I have been putting more and more time into editing my footage because of your work with the Sport/Life videos and would like to know what your motivations are when you first sit down with hundreds of gigabytes of dexes at your fingertips.