bryan's footbag log

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 12 Jan 2010 10:46

the show jersey shore on MTV. that damn shows like 20 mins from me. i hate it cause all it does is steriotype us into gueedos. and were nothing like gueedos. matter of fact i see more wiggers/ skaters than anything. myself, well im just a fat bald kid. isnt nj hot?

Frank_Sinatra · Post by **Frank_Sinatra** » 12 Jan 2010 17:45

h0ag3yb3atZ · Post by **h0ag3yb3atZ** » 12 Jan 2010 18:29

hall of fame.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 13 Jan 2010 02:23

I heartily concur. I am not, and have never been, a gueedo. I am more of a jock/nerd/conservative/hippy. Hobart has been fairly hot lately, although was refreshingly cool today. Australia just had a massive heat wave but it's over now. It was so hot I poured McDonald's coffee in my lap to cool off.

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 13 Jan 2010 10:20

any tips, tricks, funny stuff or just something you gotta get off your chest goes here

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 13 Jan 2010 10:22

sorry for posting 2Xs. this is a great vid i found but does any1 know the name of the song? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG2laiB2WI0

WyrmFyre · Post by **WyrmFyre** » 13 Jan 2010 11:20

Against Me! - Those Anarcho Punks Are Mysterious

I googled

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 13 Jan 2010 13:38

hey guys, i ordered a bag off ebay for $8 because i didn't have the $ to get a good one here. i ordered 4th and it was mailed out the 5th. its coming from witchita kansas but this wait is definitely to long cause it still hasn't come. the bag is some brand called "Hellbender" wich i have never heard of in my life. This hack features a sand filled microsuede shell and approximate 2.25" diameter and is a 12 panel.
heres the link to the page: http://cgi.ebay.com/Hellbender-12-panel ... 5d275a4b1c

my questions for you guys are...
1. is it a good bag?
2. does anyone have one?
3. do you think it was a good buy?
4. did you ever hear of the brand "hellbender"?

mc · Post by mc » 13 Jan 2010 14:54

In my opinion,

1. If stalling-based freestyle is what you want to work on, you could do better for the same price. If you want to do kicking and a few stalls, this is a fine bag.

2. Not me. However, based on the size, material, and fill, I'm lead to believe that it will probably be light, a bit stiff, and maybe a little large, when compared to the range of ideal freestyle bags (which tend to be small, heavy, and made of a very flexible material).

3. It's not a bad buy, but, in my estimation, that bag will probably be better for kicking around than stalling-based moves. Definitely hold on to it and break it out around people who'd rather kick than show off, or around people who you don't trust to place nicely with your best bags.

4. No, I haven't.

My favorite beginner / intermediate freestyle bag in the same price range is the Mr. Sandman, from www.freedomfootbags.com.

When you decide you want to spend a little more and get a nice 32 panel bag, they have them on that web site as well. Also, there are many stitchers on this web site that you can find who will custom-make you whatever kind of bag you want (assuming you want a 2, 4, 8, 12, 20, or 32-panel footbag).

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 13 Jan 2010 17:28

thanks alot for the post matt it helped ALOT. as soon as i get the bag in ill do a review of it. and as soon as i get some money ill make sure it doesn't burn a hole through my pocket and get one of the kick a$$ bags here.

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 13 Jan 2010 18:28

you guys like the new quote i came up with: Footbag... A Lifetime Of Training For Just 10 Seconds. Because You Always Need To Thrive To Be Better Than What You Already Are.

id like to hear some of your quotes if you made any up. also id like to hear what footbag means to you. and how long have you been playing it?

Frank_Sinatra · Post by **Frank_Sinatra** » 13 Jan 2010 21:26

IMO, the best footbag quotes can be found here.

renke · Post by **renke** » 14 Jan 2010 01:28

bryan732 wrote:any tips, tricks, funny stuff or just something you gotta get off your chest goes here

your name suddenly turns up everywhere, 40 posts within your first 2 days,
hmm you might have set a new record dude

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 14 Jan 2010 06:21

just yesterday i had someone ask me "hey, were can i buy a CHEAP pair of lavers from?" i said well... go check out your local footlocker or dicks sporting goods. they might have em their. and he said "yea they might. but i dont have like $60 for shoes right now." so i said, what about bidding cheap or getting a good "buy now" on ebay? he said "yea man but my mom dosent feel safe buying merchandise online." so i was like, ok, i can relate. how about trying your local THRIFT STORE? hes like "oh man, who'd wanna give up there lavers?!?!" lol so the next day he went to the thift store like a quarter mile up the road from him. what did he find? a MINT PAIR of GREEN & WHITE LAVERS. the only default of the shoe is that the sole is dirty lol. his foots a size 12 and the shoe was 12 1/2. so he bought them anyway. and guess how much they were... ONLY $4.99!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so. whoevers reading this right now, your mission today is to go out to your local thift store in search of lavers.

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 14 Jan 2010 06:30

PLEASE READ PREVIOUS POST BEFORE THIS ONE.

...besides, the money you spend there is well spent on whatever you buy. because you didnt just buy a shoe. you more than likely bought food for a family that cant afford food to provide. or a blanket for the cold homeless of your community that dont have these basic necessities like you and me.

if you cant find a local thrift store near you. go to www.yellowpages.com and search one. also another good place to check for lavers is www.craigslist.com.

HAPPY SHOE SEARCHING!

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 14 Jan 2010 09:24

ok, well my hellbender bag came in today and its good i think but nothing that i can put a serious review on because im a footbag noob. the reason being that being is because before this bag that i just got, the only other bag that i used before it was some crochet bag that i bought for a dollar to get into the footbaging sport. now i bought this new one wich you already know. i bought because i thought it would inprove my playing better but i guess not

. because when i had my old crochet bag i could only keep it in the air MAX with 2-3 kicks. its the same with my new one, 2-3 kicks... the shoes i kick with are lakai telfords

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&s ... ages&gbv=2
what am i doing wrong?
did everyone suck this bad when they first started playing?
ya see, i just dont want to get discuraged and give up this easy.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 14 Jan 2010 16:58

2-3 kicks was as many as I could get when I started. The most important and best secret to improving your game is just putting in the hard yards of practice. Lon Smith once told me that every day he puts on his favourite CD at the time and plays to the length of that, regardless of how he feels. That's the kind of mind frame you need to have - it's not a question of whether you feel like playing or not, it's just something you have to do.

I do have some more specific advice about improving your kicks, but really, the main thing is just practice.

Firstly when you're kicking, really make sure you work both sides equally, or your weaker side more than your strong. Having both sided skills is compulsory for being a good player, and especially with the fundamentals. I can't stress this enough. Ideally you should kick alternating feet each time - left to right to left to right etc. It's fine to spend time training doing different patterns - all left foot, left left right right etc. but alternating kicking should be the default.

Secondly, although keeping track of your personal record and trying to beat it is good and keeps you motivated, try to spend some amount of time - ideally the majority, but it depends on your motivation and discipline - kicking the bag up straight (ideally alternating feet). Whenever you kick the bag and it doesn't go straight up - catch it and start again - don't chase it. Some people often recommend that you begin by dropping the bag from your hand, kicking it once straight up and catching it again - do this both sides and then slowly increase the number of kicks - 2 kicks until you catch it, then three etc. I didn't do this and I don't know if it works, but it sounds like a good strategy.

The number of kicks you can get improves exponentially. That is to say that at first it's really hard to get over 10. Then once you can get over 10, it will be a lot easier to get to 20 and once you can get to 20 getting to 40 will be even easier etc.

Thirdly, there are a bunch of different kicking styles you can do. The most important kicks to work on are inside kicks and toe kicks, but there are also different styles of toe kicks. There is a bit of debate about which styles of toe kicks you should work on, but in terms of having a good freestyle game later on, I'd recommend spending significant time (but it doesn't have to be all your time) working on toe kicks where you lift your knee up and don't bend the ankle much (with the shin perpendicular to the ground). These are probably the ugliest looking toe kicks, but also the most useful, especially for later on when you start learning toe delays. I'd recommend working on toe kicks and inside kicks about evenly. To begin with I'd just work on either one or the other at a time, but as you get better at them you can move towards patterns like toe>toe>inside>inside>toe>toe>inside>inside etc. This will be very useful later on if you want to have a balanced game.

Finally, the skills you need for freestyle footbag rely on having muscle control that you really don't need for anything else. Hence when you're starting it's really hard because you can't make your legs do what you want them to. This is a character test. Good players stick at it and push through that problem without giving up, even though there are plenty of times when it feels like you're not making any improvements. Be patient and positive. I remember a few weeks in to playing footbag getting 9 kicks in a row, being super stoked and thinking how amazing I was. Now I can easily get to 1000 and I my only thought about it is how boring it is just to kick the bag instead of doing tricks.

Oh, one more thing. There is a sales expression; "Work smarter not harder." That applies to footbag too. Everything you try to do, whether you succeed at it or not, try to evaluate it and look for all the things you could be doing better about it. I guarantee that nothing you do is perfect, so there's always things to work on. I always think that just being able to hit a trick is the first step. Being able to hit it perfectly every time should be the goal, and there are no tricks that I feel that I've mastered to a level that I'm happy.

Good luck

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 14 Jan 2010 17:19

thanks a bunch jeremy, im gunna work my fuÂ¢kin a$$ off now. one more thing. can you were high top shoes like i do? or is it better to wear a low cut shoe so you can bend your ankle?

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 14 Jan 2010 22:05

Definitely better to wear low cut shoes. There is even a mod some people do to their shoes to make them even lower cut

When you're first starting out, I'm not sure how big a difference it makes, but eventually you'll want to get a pair of good footbag shoes - Lavers, g-units, quantums or nucleus are the main footbag shoes at the moment. I wouldn't worry too much about it for now, but it's definitely something to do in the not too distant future. Of course better shoes won't magically make you better. Good players can hit most of their tricks in most shoes, and poor players can't hit most tricks in any shoes. Whatever shoes you wear, you still need to put in the hard work.

bryan732 · Post by **bryan732** » 15 Jan 2010 05:23

when you lift weights, you gotta lift every other day so you dont get hurt. does the same apply to playing footbag?

bryan's footbag log

how long do you kick in one day?

bryan's footbag log