Increasing the Popularity of Footbag

RawSko · Post by **RawSko** » 14 Dec 2006 19:00

I would love for people to know what I'm talking about when I say that I play footbag. But rightly or wrongly, I've come to love the feeling you get when people are like "Wooow! I've never seen that before!! That's crazy shit!" And being destignuished from everyone else just because I play what I play.

(I shred solo 90% of the time that I play.)
(I'm not guiltless yet)

I would love to have people to shred with. But rightly or wrongly, I feel as if some of my focus and some of my lime light will be stolen. It's great if you can bounce ideas off a friend and help eachother out with the other's game and all that jazz, but I get more of a workout from half an hour of solo shred than I do from two hours of circle shred at a tourney or something. I'm not anti social or anything, and I wouldn't really mind if I did have to share the lime light, but there's something about a good long solo shred session that feels like meditation. Performing in front of a crowd of people who find a legover amazing while you're busting out spins and ducks and double dexes to the huge applause and general WOWed vibe from the crowd is great feeling. It's terrible that I'm even hinting at the thought of keeping people in the dark just so that I can feel good about myself, but at the same time, that's just how things are right now.

To sum up: I don't really care, either way if with footbag becomes popular or not. If it does that's great; if not... well, I fell in love with it just the way it is.

This is purely my oppinion. I don't know whether anybody else feels the same way.

footymatt · Post by **footymatt** » 14 Dec 2006 20:59

I think some of you guys are taking me wrong, I'm a noobie, and I know it. I'm only making suggestions based on my "out of footbag" life. It's my life experiances from before footbag that are being givin to your ears or eyes

. All that was purely opinon, and by stating my level I was making the point that I understand you guys been doing this longer than me and have more seniority over pressing matters relating to footbag. I'm sorry I don't use alot of stuff

like

all

this

. I'm not trying to be an egotistical noobie trying run the footbag world, it might just have sounded that way.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that last night when I typed that I spent two hours making sure it was right, and when I hit submit it just gliched and lost eveything. I was pretty pissed and my second try wasn't really how I wanted it to sound. All just suggestions.

sniper4life · Post by **sniper4life** » 17 Dec 2006 17:34

First of all Matt, I'd like to say that a lot of your disagrees with what Jorden saying aren't really true. An example is having flyers to give out. It is true that freedom footbags have those, but I would seriously doubt barely anyone actually has them to give out. What I'm trying to say is you are dealing in extremes, while Jorden is dealing in generalizations.

I came upon footbag through online videos and such. I must say that bright footbags and ones that don't clash with your close are veryyy helpful, especially for noobie eyes. You are doing relatively simple tricks and the bag is black and you have like black shorts or are standing with a dark background, and it is impossible to see at all. I was completely biased in starting footbag. I love everything to do with skills with your feet. I saw videos and was like wow, but it is not like I could tell one bit what they were doing with the bag. In my opinion that would turn off some people.

RawSko · Post by **RawSko** » 17 Dec 2006 19:04

I wonder what we could do to make bright/neon colour facile patterns available... that would help noobs to understand, and it would surely help with one's game at least a little. I think it would be a great project to take on. What's the first step? I'll try to contact Field's Fabrics and see what they say...

Outsider · Post by **Outsider** » 17 Dec 2006 20:17

I wonder what we could do to make bright/neon colour facile patterns available...

Yeah, I've been obssessed with more brightly colored and visible footbags for a while now. As an example, I was playing with some kickers in Philadelphia a few weeks ago. We just started warming up, everybody pulled out one of their own bags to warm up with. Most of their bags were not so brightly colored -- one bag was dark brown and light brown panels. I can't remember the others, but they were probably dark blues and dark greens, etc. (White panels start out okay, but pretty soon they become dull grey panels -- not the most visible

) I took out a custom Abshire bag, not at all broken in yet, but everybody kind of gasped and stopped to take a look - it was bright orange and bright turquoise (a bright "warm" color mixed with a bright "cool" color). Everybody's reaction basically demonstrated the point about bright colored bags right then and there.

Anyway, about getting more bright colors available, neon colors and such, I've asked some stitchers about this before: I think it was Carol or maybe Richie who told me that the prefered fabrics for footbags are actually usually produced for the sake of upholstry and curtains and such. So... well, not that many furniture makers and interior designers are interested in lots of neon day-glow curtains, if you see what I'm trying to say. That is part of the reason why it can be tough to find those sorts of colors. I have owned a couple bags here and there, over the years, that had some neon. I'm just saying that those colors are probably a little harder to come by, and there is a very practical reason for that. I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't try to do something about it if possible, but... just imagine how much more fabric it takes to cover a few sofas, or makes all the curtains for a couple rooms worth of windows... now multiply that by the total demand for sofas and curtains everywhere (millions of people interested in buying a whole sofa or two, millions of homes that are wanting curtains, etc.), and now compare that to the total amount of fabric used by footbag stitchers (merely dozens of stitchers, using relatively small amounts of fabric, stitching for only a few thousand kickers) and you'll see why it might be an uphill battle trying to convince fabric makers to make more neon facile for our sake.

I wish I didn't always have to be the bearer of bad news...

But good luck

We could all try custom-ordering some neon-colored sofas and curtains... maybe the industry will take notice...

RawSko · Post by **RawSko** » 18 Dec 2006 08:21

Outsider wrote: We could all try custom-ordering some neon-colored sofas and curtains... maybe the industry will take notice...

I would proud to own a chesterfield like that!

I sent field's an e-mail last night to make the request. I don't know what's involved in making a new colour of fabric available, so I just figured that I'd ask... we'll see. Hopefully they'll get back to me soon.

::::EDIT:::::
they just replied. Thier e-mail read as follows:

Ben,

Thank you for your informative letter. We have had
numerous requests for brighter, neon-type colors in
the Ultrasuede Light, but we are limited to the colors
that are offered by the manufacturer of Ultrasuede.

They come out with several new colors twice a year,
and we choose which ones to carry, depending on our
customers needs. We will keep this in mind, the next
time new colors are offered. I will also contact the
marketing department of Ultrasuede with this request.

Sincerely,

Sheryl - Field's Fabrics

I sent another e-mail back to them asking for a way to contact thier manufacturer... maybe we could all beg for Bright Flourecent Caution-Vest Orange to be one of the new colours for this year.

[/i]

kyle · Post by **kyle** » 18 Dec 2006 20:13

Neon isn't a must, after all bright reds are fairly common. I myself have a nice Flash Red bag by zeb jackson. You can spot that fucker from 50ft away.

david wrote:Footbag looks like a mess. People can't follow something so small. People like big stunts, with lots of space. Example: motocross. Could be the dumbest thing ever, but people fill stadiums for it. Why? Because it's on a big scale. From 50 feet away any footbag tricks looks like a blur, and you can't see the bag.

I think what you mean to say is 'freestyle moto'. Motocross on the other hand, or any other form of bike riding, is what I live for. Infact, I may be the only person around thats busted clean 3 and 4 add moves in motocross boots.

Dat · Post by **Dat** » 19 Dec 2006 01:12

Jorden wrote:1. Footbag tricks are getting more complex. The untrained eye cannot travel at the rate of the bag. It becomes harder to distinguish subtle differences when a variety of multiple dexterity moves -- hence, common advanced shred moves may appear similar or even identical to the viewer.

Besides not being familiar with the tricks, I think footbag is confusing to watch because it's easy to spend too much time watching the bag and trying to figure out where it is going in relation to the legs, when in reality it's just going up and down while the legs are moving around it. When I watch videos I know what the bag is going to do and just pay attention to the leg motions, but I'm not sure how you could go about teaching that to the public.

2. The entire general public is far behind the times of modern freestyle. Perceptions of what is the epitome of footbag is neither accurate nor representative of today. The majority consider kicks to be the main aspect of footbag, and the most desirable attrribute to have is a high number of kicks. This MUST change.

I think this is the main reason why footbag is gaining momentum outside North America faster. People elsewhere are less likely to see freestyle and think "oh that's just hacky sack" and move on. Sure there are articles and news spots done on footbag every once in a while, but not everyone sees those. The movie "She's All That" seemed to make a small difference, but it wasn't popular enough and didn't show enough real freestyle. I think there needs to be a huge media blitz to undo peoples' current notion of footbag. I don't think that'll happen soon though.

I predict footbag freestyle will only leave hacky sack's shadow after it gains popularity in the rest of the world, which is mostly unaware of the hacky sack fad, and North America catches on after (ironic since it was invented here).

I think the dominance of hand sports here hurts footbag a lot too. People get comfortable with their good hand coordination and don't want to give that up and start from scratch to play soccer or footbag with their awkward feet.

3. Footbags are too small/not visible enough. Even with relatively simple tricks, distinguishing a small airborne footbag from the surroundings (i.e. background) is not an easy task. This is true especially when the bag has faded or dull colouring of panels. Visibility HAS to be considered more highly in public performances.

In situations like performances and in videos I think visibility of the bag helps a ton because of the reduced overall visibility. The yellow bag in Kevin's latest CSS7 video is a good example of how this helps. I think for playing at the park though any bag will be easy to see enough if someone's just walking by.

4. There are not enough internet/commercial footbag videos geared towards promotion/public viewing. Even with the greatest footage of the best players, with 1. and 3. true the video will have limited success. The focus must be towards audience comprehensibility/appreciability.

When I introduce people to footbag I usually show them Erik's July 2005 video. It's easy enough to follow and isn't too radically different from plain hacky sack.

I showed my friend the video I just finished and he liked watching Dave the least because he played "too fast" and looked "messy and out of control." I'm still going to put my video out as is though because it's good footage and it deserves to be seen by other players. That's my main motivation to put out videos I suppose, rather than selling footbag as a sport. I would only film and edit a video for a general audience if I knew regular people were eager to see it and I was paid to make it, both of which aren't likely going to happen. My time seems better spent documenting current freestyle and making videos aimed at other footbaggers.

Besides asking players to dumb down their game for the camera, the only solution I have is lots of slo mo.

5. Players don't perform/practice in public as much as potentially possible. (self-explanatory)

I would have played in public more if I had more people to play with earlier on. I think a lot of people fall into that category. If you have people to play with you're more likely to go outside and meet them somewhere. Too bad footbag isn't more popular

My preference is playing solo indoors late at night anyway. It seems that's when I have my most productive sessions.

6. Routines/stage performances are generally not paced enough to allow for a viewer to become progressively more immersed in the sport and understand the increasing difficulty levels.

Yeah this is a big problem. I know I've done a couple horrible demos because of the lack of a well prepared demo/routine. Preparation is everything for performances/demos/public speaking.

This could be improved upon by making an article or thread about pacing and choreographing routines, describing how to maintain people's attention by slowly building to a climax.

7. To the uninitiated, footbag (Hacky Sack) isn't dangerous, thrilling, nor extreme.

The other day I ran into Ritchie Abshire and Jason Crook at the beach. As thrilled as I was to see footbaggers in public, oddly I felt what other people must feel and saw footbag as just guys jumping around and catching some ball. It was also weird I didn't care to stay for very long. I think this all was because I wasn't prepared to play and was preoccupied with other things, as most passersby are. If I had planned to meet them there with the intent of hanging out and playing with them I think I would have been much more attentive, being part of their circle.

8. Players often don't have promotional materials available when confronted by interested observer(s). This includes personal information, a brief description of the sport, and resources (like footbag.org, clubs in the area and sites to buy shred equipment).

When I was in college I took part in my school's open house. I had a booth for my footbag club with TVs playing shred videos, kicked some myself, and handed out CDs with routine and shred videos from the internet. I even encoded them in MPEG1 so they would play on any computer. I thought that would be enough to get people to watch videos, but sadly people wanted to play the videos on their DVD player and not have to bother with putting it in their computer. Fortunately I finally started making videos and can make my own high quality DVDs for footbag promotion. I'm going to have my new 3 minute video on DVD, with a list of footbag resource websites to visit at the end. I plan to upload the .iso file and post the link here so other people can burn it and distribute it as well.

I try to keep a few of the freedom footbag flyers in my backpack to hand out to people who seem interested. I also tell people to look up hacky sack on YouTube, which I think is more effective than telling people to go to footbag.org cause videos take more steps to find there.

9. More videos must be geared towards effective basics instruction. As serious players continue to improve, the tendency for beginners is to observe these players and rush through the basics. We need easily accessible videos to emphasize the importance of form and consistency for foundation moves (basic kicks!).

Making a video like this is a pretty tall order. Besides you, I don't know anyone else who's fully qualified to make something like this. Such a video would need to teach textbook form. There's been Tricks of the Trade, and the recent Swiss (or some other European country) instructional video, but both showed tricks with bad form.

Besides lack of patience and the desire for instant gratification, I think rushing through the basics also has a lot to do with how people think they can hit a trick they are doing it correctly. And if they can complete the trick without dropping they're ready to move onto the next harder trick, instead of refining the form of the first trick. Also, normally people don't call someone on their unusual form which develops into a hard to break habit. They just see it as that person's style, and it's considered their prerogative to do the trick the way they want, regardless of how inefficiently or dangerously they may be doing the trick.

10. For videos and performances, clothing should not distract from the airborne footbag. There should be a significant colour/shade difference between shred clothing and the footbag. It is not you that should be the main feature in performances, but the bag itself.

Yeah it would be hard to pay attention to the footbag if a player was dressed in some wacky, loud-colored costume.

---

I think footbag as it is now is too focused on keeping the players happy instead of entertaining spectators to easily cross over into mainstream. I kinda like it that way. I don't enjoy spectator sports and performances (ie juggling) because

A: I'd rather go play football myself and have fun than watch other people play on Monday Night Football,

B: Performers tend to do things at a lower level than they are capable of so they can avoid dropping/bailing to impress and hold the attention of audiences who can't tell the difference between what's easy and what's hard. I don't see the honor or satisfaction in that. I enjoy watching people shred and do their best, doing what they consider hard, even if that means they may drop every 10 seconds or less.

---

To help the sport grow I think the biggest thing is helping people to learn properly faster. The learning curve for footbag is steep and scares off a lot of people, especially people who have no one to play with. There's too much time wasted in people figuring out all the subtle aspects of footbag by themselves, stuff people have figured out already before them.

A good analogy is Rubik's Cubes. At first it seemed impossible, but I learned it wasn't that hard after all. In high school, after my friends showed me some basics it wasn't long before I learned how to do it myself. I didn't have to be a genius to figure it out, and I had fun doing it. And this is just information they got from a book. If no one showed me I probably would never have thought it was worth my time to learn and I would have missed out.

I'm trying to figure out how to verbalize these things I think every player has to learn in order to get the hang of footbag. Hopefully it'll help players learn before they get frustrated and quit, players who can add to the sport and help it grow.

---

Someone just reminded me footbag has a quality that isn't highlighted often in promotion: the convenience actually of playing. You can play just about anywhere, without the immediate need of other players, and with equipment under 100 dollars. The only sport more convenient and cheaper is running.

shreddaily · Post by **shreddaily** » 19 Dec 2006 03:42

Heres a little rant about popularity as related to something that I have studied and really enjoy, and also happens to be pretty unpopular, jazz.

Ask most hip-hop/rock/emo fans there impression of a 1940s jazz cd and the 3 most common comments are:
1 lots of fast notes
2 the beat is hard to keep track of
3 It all sounds the same
Well replace "notes" with "leg motions", "beat" with "bag", and "sounds" with "looks" and you'll come up with something the last person who walked by your session was thinkning.
OK, in the early and most popular days of jazz there was swing music. Anyone could come and partake in the music by dancing and enjoying themselves. This era relates well to the popularity of hackeysack. During this timethere were these cats, Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie parker, who where taking swing to a new level. They put so much time and study into there art they created a new genre "Hard Bop". No one had ever scene mastery of ones instrament like these 2 shredders. They played in quite clubs in front of few people and there main fans were other musicians. The public didn't really like them because it seemed too flashy and not dancable. Dizzy and Charlie are a lot like, say, Kenny and Rick. These two took something like hack, put it on a huge talent pedistle, and created shred.
After Dizzy and Charlie, lots of people wanted to sound just like them, and lots started too, people even got faster and played even more bizzar scales. Like Pete, Ryan and now Vasek. But the style Diz and Charlie laid out called "hard bop" was already about as far as it could go, the abilities where being maxed, and people just weren't listening. Eventualy people started branching out into styles like funk, fusion, cool jazz, smooth jazz ect... And it turned out that the public actually liked some of these off shoots.
Footbag hasn't evolved from its "hard bop"(no pun

) days. And in my opinion the #1 thing holding it back from evolving is GUILTLESS. Setting a standard level of difficulty to prove ones talent is pretty unprecidented in the arts. ONLY a tail grab on a skate board isn't frowned upon. Playing long notes in a solo doesn't make it unworthy. Yet 90% of freestylers(me included until recently) think a trick that doesn't contain 3 adds is too easy and not worthy in a freestyle string.
In every form of art there is push and pull between talent and simplified inovation. Many people call Jackson Pollocks art "too easy" because he just throws paint on the floor. Certainly the 3 chord songs by greenday are easy, but do they have no artistic merit?
Now I garantee you many "hard bopers" laughed at the mellow sounds of soul music and think smooth jazz is just plain cheezy. Maybe it is, but there are people out there who can relate to it much easier than to "hard bop." These genres, no matter how simple, bridged a gap between the public and jazz.
I love guiltless freestyle. It is what it is, and what it is NOT is enjoyable to the uninitiated. The genre of shred is never going to be main streem. It is by definition a style of difficulty and presision.
So if you desperately seek popularity , earase ALL thoughts of ADDS or GUILTS(and I don't just mean throwing far legovers and clippers!). Create a new genre... You may be scoffed at by the "hard boppers" as a guilter and maybe your tricks won't be as dificult as a clean nemisis, but you may help bridge some gaps.

Jorden · Post by **Jorden** » 19 Dec 2006 15:23

Wow.

2 of the greatest posts on Modified -- in succession.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 20 Dec 2006 02:34

Wow Nate. That analogy was awesome, thanks.

footymatt · Post by **footymatt** » 20 Dec 2006 05:09

Yeah nicely said daily. Good post.

Jordan- In all dude I gotta say: I really don't care if footbag makes a big splash and becomes some commercial sport like soccer or stays "underground". Well on second thought, I'd rather it stay "underground". I like the fact that I have a sport that I'm into (and getting better at slowly) that most people even don't know about (unless they know hacky sack, yuk). So it's cool when people ask you about it and you hook them up with some info, makes you look better to them because you know something they don't (could go the other way too I guess). But in the end, as long as I get to play then, I like Footbag. Thank you.

BTW Jordan, I think you kick ass dude! Great vids!

Sporatical_Distractions · Post by **Sporatical_Distractions** » 20 Dec 2006 11:40

this may add a slight change in footbag popularity:

there are plenty of footbag videos on youtube. When you are adding a video, or editing an already existing vid

, add as many keywords as possible. every spelling of hacky sack, hackysack, hackey, sacky, sak, sac, etc. also use trick names as keywords. A random person searching for videos of a butterfly will have a footbag vid pop up if butterfly is a keyword.

for those already into footbag, adding tricknames as keywords can be a learning tool. If i can't find a video with surreal, I can use it as a keyword along with footbag and get a visual representation of that trick. I would only use this method though if a video of that single trick was not available on modified, footbag.org, flipsider, etc. This would also force you to watch the entire video until your desired trick happened. watching other footbag tricks while waiting for the one you want to happen will help ingrain more footbag into your brain.

slapdash21 · Post by **slapdash21** » 20 Dec 2006 20:27

yeah, youtube, myspace, and facebook are real big right now, especially popular with the age group that footbag appeals to the most, so we should utilize all three (and other free methods of self-advertisement on popular websites) as much as possible. ride the latest trend...become the latest trend.

Jayjoo · Post by **Jayjoo** » 21 Dec 2006 16:07

Get a real instructional footbag video in the "most viewed " category in youtube would be great . But we'll need more than 2.000.000 views!

-> 1000 guys just have to "view" ( that means just click..) 10 times per day this video during 200 days

Pyroman924 · Post by **Pyroman924** » 21 Dec 2006 16:11

As for the color/visibility issue, I've been wondering whether or not neon spray paint would affect playabilty or not. Right now, I'm to afraid too try it out on my bags

but as long as it didn't affect the playability I think that would work. It wouldn't necessarilybe permanent if you didn't want it to be and we wouldn't have to possibly pay extra for bright fabrics. Just a thought.

RawSko · Post by **RawSko** » 22 Dec 2006 13:42

I think that might stiffen the fabric...

Pyroman924 · Post by **Pyroman924** » 22 Dec 2006 14:24

I think it will too. But, I think that the paint will crack in order to allow the fabric to bend better as well. If so then the bag will be more visible, will be about the same bendiness (I think), and be just as playable. I think it may be worth a shot. I can try it out on my old old old cosmic staller from WFA. The things a piece of shit but I think it will serve as a test bag. If anybody else tries this let us know how it works.

james_dean · Post by **james_dean** » 23 Dec 2006 04:07

The fabric would be much stiffer if you sprayed it like that, but if you used an already very soft and easy to stall bag and only used it for videos/demos/busking etc, then that could work well. Good thinking.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 24 Dec 2006 03:04

In regards to what Nate wrote, I don't who saw my video in the Christmas calendar but those of you did will no doubt note that there were three or four long but very easy runs with a couple of hard moves but also lots of guilts (and even tilts). Being able to hit runs like that in public on demand made earnt me over $2000 USD this year. Being able to hit symposium fog or step out of superfly earnt me $0. I play two types of footbag. I play footbag for myself, where I'm always trying to improve and challenge myself. This is the reason why I play footbag and if I gave up or got bored of this kind of footbag, I would give up footbag altogether. When I play this kind of footbag I only ultimately care about what I think of it. I also perform footbag for crowds, to spread footbag and hopefully make it more popular. The average person thinks a toe stall is a trick. When I perform footbag I keep things simple and I put dropless as far more important than difficulty. I think music today clearly shows that people like things they can understand (without having to learn a lot first). If I were a musician you'd have to call the performing I do "selling out" but so long as I'm also playing, I can live with that.