How did you 'Discover' footbag?

fatbagger · Post by **fatbagger** » 03 Aug 2009 02:43

I started playing in my junior year of high, 01-02 school durring lunch with ricky m. We just kicked it mainly but a few people could do tricks like atw, double atw, flying clipper and dragonflies.(Ben West and Chad force). They didn't know about footbag but told us stories about people they saw at local festivals who could do insane tricks over and over. We called them hack gods. The hack gods turned out to be Justin Dale and Alex Zerbe. By that time ricky was hitting consecutive osis with the same leg(we called them scoopies) and atw and legover mabey a few others. They told him about footbag.org and I then spent all of my lunches in the library figuring out jobs notation so I could tell him tricks to do. The first vid we watched was of Eric Wulf hitting torque or paradox torque. Once I figured out jobs I was officially obsessed. In my school you could be up to 20 minutes late and it wouldn't count as an absense, my class after lunch was astronomy and it was my second year in a row taking it so every day I would kick through a third of it and was exactly 19 minutes late. My teachers punishment for being late too much was staying after class and cleaning desks so I figured what the hell I was in no danger of not graduating. I did enjoy the class and knew more than everyone else in the class so I still got a good grade. My senior year was nothing but fun. I do wish that I would have understood the opprotunity I had to learn and focused alittle less on footbag durring class because I spent almost all the time ignoring the teacher and jotting down cool combos for sticky(he was down 5add links so it was lots of fun. I have very few regrets though, I am happy with the way I turned out and never would have traded footbag for anything.

Dave Soderberg · Post by **Dave Soderberg** » 03 Oct 2009 17:15

I kicked throughout high school everyday with friends. I thought I was the shit until I met Matt Cross in January 2008. my life has been better ever since

erikahidalgo · Post by **erikahidalgo** » 26 Jan 2010 23:44

I recently discovered footbag courtesy of my boyfriend.
I saw him play and he was always watching footbag videos, and I grew an interest.
He gave me one of the bags he stitched and has been giving me tips.
It's only been about a week and I started completely from scratch, but because he's been such a help I've gotten two tiltless moves already!
I'm really excited to have taken up this awesome sport.

Friar Fly · Post by **Friar Fly** » 27 Jan 2010 18:11

In my case, it was an outgrowth of another hobby. I needed some gear for that hobby, and I had a $5 off any order coupon, so I bought a footbag.

sidekick · Post by **sidekick** » 28 Jan 2010 12:53

erikahidalgo wrote:I recently discovered footbag courtesy of my boyfriend.
I saw him play and he was always watching footbag videos, and I grew an interest.
He gave me one of the bags he stitched and has been giving me tips.
It's only been about a week and I started completely from scratch, but because he's been such a help I've gotten two tiltless moves already!
I'm really excited to have taken up this awesome sport.

Who is your boyfriend?

I wish I could get girls to play, they all think I'm crazy

calemccoy · Post by **calemccoy** » 29 Jan 2010 16:07

that would be me =]

erikahidalgo · Post by **erikahidalgo** » 29 Jan 2010 17:38

Shmale ShmcCoy is my boyfriend!
And I do think he's crazy.

hrdcorethndr1 · Post by **hrdcorethndr1** » 31 Jan 2010 21:23

My girlfiend is learning too... if we can't grow the sport by the masses at least we can grow it by our spouses.... or at least our girlfriends.

he was always watching footbag videos

i thought that deserved a worthy note

onyx · Post by **onyx** » 07 Mar 2010 11:03

I found a footbag randomly in my closet (no clue how it got there) and decided to look up some tricks on youtube. One of those epic Vasek vids popped up in the search and I was blown away. After some quick googling, I ended up here.

So thank you, Fate.

I wish I could get girls to play, they all think I'm crazy

Your skills definitely negate any crazy you may have.

thedudeman · Post by **thedudeman** » 15 Mar 2010 21:48

i was introduced to hacky sack my junior year but hated it cuz i sucked, then during january i started to play hacky sack in a circle listening to sublime because it helped me relax, then i went on youtube after a few weeks and looked up hacky sack and saw this video of "extreme hacky sack" and saw it was footbag, i found footbag.org, and then found this site, and was told by matt cross to go to the stanford crew sessions and had also heard about it from my friends, and now on a good day after 2 months of training im the best hacker at my school and the worst freestyler i know, kids at my school call me the one man hacky sack circle lol

teh120793 · Post by **teh120793** » 17 Mar 2010 12:52

I had known what a 'Hacky Sack' was since I was like 3, having some around the house that we threw at eachother instead of kicked. When I was like 10 I had the urge to try to see how many kicks I could get with a cube shaped 6 panel pellet filled footbag with winking smiley faces on it. I remember running to my mom telling her I got "3 IN A ROW!!!!!". I bought a dirtbag from a Fishbone at a mall, and brought it to school and a new kid in our class also had one, and had a better kicking record than me at the time (which was like 30 something). We played at recess but after that I quit for like 3 years, and got obsessed again. Now I'm alright at it lol.

GoodleShoes · Post by **GoodleShoes** » 30 Mar 2010 15:33

hrdcorethndr1(Zach) showed me. Still very new, but I LOVE it.

F[uns]tylin' Eclectic · Post by **F[uns]tylin' Eclectic** » 16 Jun 2010 21:34

5th Grade: Dad buys me first hacky sack. Kicked it around with friends during recess.

7th grade: attended festival/fair, started hack circle with friends. bigger kids joined in. the one kid was doing atw's and clippers. I was mesmerized. then they left and said they had to go drop acid...

9th grade: best hacky sacker in school

10th grade: new friend that just moved here showed me some other tricks and told me it was called "freestyle footbag". I watched some videos and started to gain skill.

11th grade: was starting to get bored just footbagging with myself. Went on Modified and found 2 guys who shredded in my area. Bob Riefer and Brian Buchan. They showed me the ropes, fixed some of my lame spots, and told me I had potential.

Present: I shred with Bob every couple of nights. I drill 30 minutes every day. I've spread the word of footbag and gotten some friends into it, along with my friend who got me into it in the first place (he wasn't really into it, but I've interested him to get further into it). Was on TV during my first tournament. I dream about footbag. I'm a straight up shred junkie just lurking around until my next kick-fix.

WyrmFyre · Post by **WyrmFyre** » 16 Jun 2010 23:36

The rough, abridged version....

I took on a job working from home, and it was making me fat and lazy. Bacon sandwiches every morning washed down with sugary fizzy drinks... how I havent pickled my insides i dont know.

So me and a friend made a pact to just get some more excercise in, somehow, and we started with a football, just doing keepie uppies, smacking it around as hard as we could. Thats when I remembered hackysack.

Did some googling, found a place selling sand hacks, along with a few crochet bags my friend procured fro his place of work (amusement arcade).

Played around with them for a bit, not really getting anywhere, did some more googling, and some more, then a couple of weeks later, I stumbled across a Matt Bailey video.

Never looked back

Pirrotta · Post by **Pirrotta** » 30 Jun 2010 14:59

I was 16 walking home with a freind after a house party, He stopped at a park bench and pulled out a footbag (at the time we called it a hacky sack) and started shredding. I joined in and we shredded for about 15 min at the end of the session i was able to kick it 6 times. From there it was just circle kicking here and there until one day i found footbag.org and started watching tutorials mostly by Anssi Sundberg (I still watch his tutorials daily). I have been freestyling ever since.

Magus86 · Post by **Magus86** » 11 Jul 2010 07:02

I discovered footbag thru videogames, actually. There's an old game for the NES called California games. It has roller skating, BMX, flying disc, probably some kind of skateboarding, and footbag. It's actually called footbag in the game. That was back in probably '91-'94, somewhere around that time. I never played until a lot later though. I used to see older kids at the local public pool and park playing footbag. I tried to join in, but I was never any good at it. I couldn't seem to get my leg to bend the right way to do an inside kick, so I never pursued it really. I've had a crocheted bag forever, and I remember my brother and I having crappy 2 panel bags that were stuffed to the gills when we were really young, but I never knew what they were for. Then around 2004 or maybe a little later, my friend went off to college and eventually dropped out, but when he came back, he was into footbag. And he actually called it footbag instead of hacky sack. I always had some bit of interest in it, but since I couldn't seem to do it right before, I never pursued it, but for some reason this time around I gave it much more of an effort. While I still can't do any "tricks" beyond stalling the bag on the brim of my boonie hat, I'm a hell of a lot better than I ever was. I can actually keep the bag in the air unlike before. Footbag definitely is a sport, but I don't quite see it as one, not for me. For me it's something to help pass the time and provide me with exercise. It is quite fun, but I'm sure I don't take it nearly as seriously as most of the other people on this forum.

kam · Post by **kam** » 13 Jul 2010 13:10

I first saw freestyle footbag on a DVD called "The Book of Cool". The DVD was a compilation of skill based hobbies, performed by the masters of each art/hobby, and Vasek was in there for footbag.

I only knew about the DVD because I was invited to film the Pen Spinning section. I ended up passing the opportunity to a friend of mine, but I got a copy of the DVD afterward to see the end product.

I remember thinking footbag was cool, but 1) it seemed too tiring xD, 2) there was no way I was gonna wear shorts, and 3) I was focusing on pen spinning, card manipulation, and magic at that time.

Then, last year, Queency from Nucleusfootwear.com contacted me on my pen spinning site because she wanted to learn pen tricks. After meeting up with her and her husband, we found out we had a lot in common and became quick friends. I gave footbag a try and haven't stopped since (this was in April '09).

Pattycakes · Post by **Pattycakes** » 22 Jul 2010 10:50

Cheebs used to beat me with sticks until i started playing footbag

hacksterbator · Post by **hacksterbator** » 22 Jul 2010 19:52

Pattycakes wrote:Cheebs used to beat me with sticks until i started playing footbag

whaaaat? cheebs? aka Chris Kovacs? he was from NJ. That dude still kicking?

Pattycakes · Post by **Pattycakes** » 22 Jul 2010 21:05

hacksterbator wrote:
Pattycakes wrote:Cheebs used to beat me with sticks until i started playing footbag
whaaaat? cheebs? aka Chris Kovacs? he was from NJ. That dude still kicking?

Yessir. Were playing tomarrow, were both rusty but its coming back.

How did you 'Discover' footbag?

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