Takraw Action

It's still pretty quiet around here footbag-wise, so I've been playing more takraw as of late. Here's a quick little video of some action at the Wat Buddharam Temple in Murfreesboro.

Attendance Issues & the Great Flood of 2010

Attendance issues are certainly nothing new to Nashville. It's plagued us time & time again. The flood forced us to cancel a session a couple weeks back, then a number of people called out on Mother's Day. It's an unfamiliar feeling to go nearly 3 weeks without footbag, but it happened. Every year I think, 'this'll be the year' & it falls short. In Janurary we had 6-8 people at every practice in winter! That's never happened before, so I took it as a really positive sign. As the year had progressed, attendance had dropped & we're struggling to find that dependable constant 4th player that we need to keep the game afloat. We have a number of part-time players that show up on occasion, however, part-time doesn't cut it. We need a steady 4.

Takraw Back in Effect

The takraw season fired off again in April this year. It's always nice to get in some extra kicking whenever I can. The spring tournament was supposed to be the other week, but was cancelled due to rain. Enjoy some of the photos I took last week.

Fav. Pictures of Mud Island Belt

Mud Island Belt 2010

Another tournament is passed on into the records books. The turnout included 5 world champions & numerous attendees from Oakland, Santa Cruz, Montreal, New Orleans, Portland, Chicago, Memphis, & yes even Nashville (a.k.a. me). So 15 doubles teams in all. although it would have been nice to get a 16th team to round out the pools, but we wound up with 5 pools instead. Only 16 people competed in singles out of 30 competitors.

Doubles
1. P.T. Lovern/ Emmanuel Bouchard

2. Johnny Leys/ Franki Pelletier

3. Jack Harris/ Jeremy Mirken

4. Kenny Shults/ Ken Hamric

5. Martin Cote/ Luc Legualt

Singles

1. Kenny Shults

2. Franki Pelletier

3. Luc Legualt

4. Martin Cote

5. Jermey Mirken

I partned up with mike "willi" williams from Memphis. We played well during the warm-up's on friday going 6-2 (mind you most of these games were against lower level teams). The sets were coming nice & easy, but the kills/spikes were just okay - a decent % were shanked or sided out. So by the time saturday rolls around & we discover our pool contains Manu/P.T. & Tommy C./Brad W. We played Manu/P.T. first of course!

I'm happy to report that neither of us served out for both games, the problem was getting possession. During the first game it was clear that Manu/P.T. were shaking the rust off, so I was disappointed to only get 2 points on the board. I didn't really struggle with either of their serves, I was dishing out good sets to Willi with plenty of time to reach the bag. Again it was the execution. It was a shanked spike or sloppy set that ruined it & never allowed us to find the groove. The second game went much quicker as the world champions got loose & started crushing away. Once again 2 points. It was frustrating because even though I could tell what spike they were about to use & the general direction of the shot... my feet couldn't keep up with my brain.

In the second match Willi & I played Tommy C./Brad W. It was nearly an identical loss, only we weren't playing world champions. My serves & returns/sets were fine. This may have been one of the few tournaments where I actually played at my level. We should have beat them at least one game. I think there's a lot to say for chemistry in footbag. I feel that I would be able to compete better at tournaments if I had a partner I was accustomed to playing with. The past 3-4 tournaments I've partnered up with someone that I rarely kick with. We actually had time to prepare prior to the tournament & didn't use it. If I ever intend to change my tournament performance, I need to be more prepared.