Nintendo DS Includes Takraw + Nashville Update

I don't have a DS, but I just think it's awesome that sepak takraw was included in the new sports package. I did watch the trailer & some kid playing it on youtube & it's doesn't look half bad. It's not that I expect this to do wonders for the sport of takraw. I mean just look at what "California Games" did for hacky sack.... We're 7 weeks into our training now, & there's now 8 of us (total) that have been learning the game. I wish we could get 8 people to a practice, but it's usually 5. No matter... that's still more than we could get to play footbag. I've tried to avoid being too coachy because I just want people to adjust to playing a new game. I also want everybody to have a good time, so we haven't been running many drills either. Well that's all about to change. Starting Jan 1st, we only have 11 weeks till the official takraw season begins. So we're going to be discussing more strategy - - with less "just kick it over the net" - - & running drills like a group of crazy people. It's my hope that this will not alienate any of our players. If we're gonna run with the big dogs, we need to step it up.

Crossing Over to the Darkside

The footbag to takraw transition has been going smoother than I anticipated. Our footbag group only had 5 active members, & we were struggling to get 4 to a practice. The takraw group has only been running for 3 weeks now & we've already managed to have 2 new players - both have shown up for the last 2 sessions. One of the new guys has a background in soccer & the other is lao (who does have some limited takraw experience), but he's eager to get much better. We're not really doing much different from when we played footbag, just switched from a bag to a ball & it seems to be catching some steam.

The real challenge of this is that come mid-March these newbs are going to be playing takraw on a court with a group of guys who have spend most of their lives doing this. I only have 4.5 months, no scratch that 3.5 months now to get them ready. Thus far none of the regular takraw players from the temple know I'm training a group of hacky sackers how to play. So it would be awesome if I just show up with a carload people that can kick who they've never even seen before.

Before footbag.org

I found the first footbag pictures I ever appeared in. So let's roll the dial back to '96 before footbag.org was up & running. In order to learn new tricks in those days I had to wait for the new issue of Footbag Worldwide magazine to come out. Cheers to my original running crew from Jackson, TN - Scott S. & Chris R.

2010 Takraw Season Winds to a Close

As it gets cooler, & daylight is hard to come by the Lao takraw season is nearly over. It's been a fairly productive for myself since I nearly played the whole season, although not as frequently as I would've liked. Footbag has become less of a distraction... when no one is playing anymore. I talked with a few footbaggers, & we agreed that come November it was time to move onto something more locally competitive. Our footbag skills just seemed to grow stagnent & it became more recreation than sport. I'm excited about the upcoming winter sessions because some have agreed to learning how to play takraw. So if we're lucky, next the spring we'll have 3 new takraw players - that means 20+ takraw players next year!

Takraw Article Written for a College Publication

I recently found an article about takraw that was published from my old college newspaper. Here's the link for the whole article plus some excellent black/white pictures - http://www.mtsusidelines.com/2.3112/pan-asian-sport-finds-home-in-murfreesboro-1.307901

My Perennial Struggle

The Nashville footbag scene has been struggling the past 2 years to maintain a core membership of 4. We've had a number of people shuffle in & out the past couple years, yet we still only have the 2 dedicated players that we had way back in '08. However, I've held out hope that we might be able to turn those numbers around. Since I have a kid now my time is more valuable, and my patience is shrinking; I don't have spare time to wait around for indecisive members of the group to show up. So I'm left with the question that I've been pondering for over 2 years... why don't I just switch to takraw for good?

Nashville Pro/Am Tourney

We had a little pro/am tournament with 3 teams last week in Murfreesboro. It was the first time we've had a Nashville only tournament in a long long time. I have to say it was nice to get some competition from within the group & probably something we should encourage more often. So congrats to Alex & Lee for staging a comeback in the final game.

1. Alex G./Lee S.

2. Elliott J./ Andy S.

3. Andrew C./Nikolai T.

I Cannot Find a Hacky Sack Sans Internet

There aren't any retail stores (in metro Nashville at least) that sell hacky sacks anymore. I've tried going to Academy Sports, Dick's Sporting Goods, Hibbetts Sporting Goods, Target, K-Mart, & even Wal-Mart. How is this sport ever supposed to grow if you cannot even walk into a store & buy one? Do I have to go to a head shop to get a footbag? How cliche is that? I personally blame that jackass who invented the mini-soccer ball for the demise of retail footbag. Is this what we look like in the eyes of the general population!?

Entering a New Era

I started a group called nashville footbag on facebook. Blogspot is a good way for me write about footbag, but I seem to be the only one using it. As technology progresses peoples attention spans keep getting shorter, and reading something more than 120 characters seems to be a chore. People have to remember to check blogspot, however, if they joined the group on facebook they'll get the update when they login to check their profile. It's just easier. I will attempt to keep using blogspot, yet I don't feel it's a very effective tool for keeping people in the loop.

69 Dead Footbaggers

In my attempt to find new footbag blood, I've logged in quite a few hours in the footbag.org members section. I searched Nashville & every podunk town in about a 50 mile radius of the city. So I created an excel sheet of all the footbaggers, year joining footbag.org, e-mail, & phone numbers, and by the time I finished, I had a list with 70 people on it. I began e-mailing & calling profiles that were created all the way back in 1998. Sure there were a tons of expired e-mail accounts & disconnected phone numbers, but a few people e-mailed back. Unfortunately the most popular response was, "who are you?" followed by, "what's footbag?". Yup you guessed it... the phone calls were even worse. After it was all said & done, I found 1 person who answered the call to play some footbag & is still with us today. It was worth it - even though I discovered 69 dead footbaggers.

Tommy is Getting It!

At a time when we're struggling to get more than 4 people to a practice, we have to make every minute count. There are plenty of people that like footbag, but Tommy is breathing it. Previously, I've never felt like anyone from the Nashville club has matched my enthusiam for footbag before. Tommy may have only been playing for a few months, however, he wants it more than anyone out there on the court; he stays later & trains harder than anyone I've ever met. It's just a matter of time before his drive excels him to the pro level.

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.

Kessler Turns 50!

We had a nice little birthday celebration for David over the weekend. 8 people turned out in all to get together for a little disc & footbag. It warmed up to 60 degrees over the weekend & that was all the reason I needed to go outside. Also we had 2 out-of-towners visiting, Dustin from Tullahoma & Willi from Memphis journeyed to Nashville for the special occasion. I spent some time fumbling around with my camera & finally found the motion capture function. It really helps to photograph action shots too. I've got tons of footbag pictures where I cannot find the bag, but I know it's there somewhere. Thanks for coming out people & I think we'll be seeing more of Dustin in the near future.

Nashville 2010

2009 clearly marked the rise of Andrew Coleman from a freestyler into a net player. Which leads me to ask the question who does 2010 belong to? Our attendance for the year thus far has been amazing, we've had 6-8 people at the last 4 sessions! Last year we were barely getting 4 people to a practice. Tommy, Justin, & Nikolai are showing up much more consistantly this year. All of them should break the novice barrier this year if they keep turning up. Nashville has 10 active players that know how to play net, but the challenge is still getting everyone to show up. So now that we have the numbers, all I need to do is discover where modivation comes from.

How High Can You Kick? Pt. 2

So this is the conclusion of the epic battle. Sure my landings might not be graceful (a boxing ring has more give than what it actually sounds like), but I really wanted to win. I spoke with everyone the following week & while all were sore in the following days, 0 people were injured. The 7'7 video that I have doesn't seem to want to load for some reason. So here's the finale!

This was where we maxed out. I'd like to think that I could go a little higher, yet I felt so beat up at this point I think I may have reached my limit. In researching other kicking games I came across the World Eskimo Indian Olympics that has a similar event. They do a one legged jumping kick event & a two legged jumping event. So far I haven't seen the record yet, but there are videos on youtube claiming 8'4. It's pretty amazing stuff. We'll be sure to have some follow up competitions in the coming weeks.

How High Can You Kick? Pt.1

After some discussion about how high we thought we could kick, I decided it was time to throw down. Last weekend we had a jersey premier party & we couldn't think of a better time or place. There weren't many rules involved: standing or jumping, 3 chances, & you only had to make contact with the ball. There were 6 (out of 8) that decided to participate in the contest. We started filming at 7'0 & at that point we were already down to 3 competitors: Andrew, Neil, & myself. The commentary is mostly by Alex G. Enjoy the pain!

Nashville Footbag Gets Jerseys!

The only shirts we've ever made were iron on's & even that was 4 years ago, so this has been a long time coming. It seems like every footbag jersey I've ever seen is blue/white, & I tried really hard to avoid that particular color combination. Emily made the design in photoshop & despite the rush process, I believe it turned out nicely. I decided to make 15 of these because that should cover most of the past & present footbaggers within Nashville. If we went with t-shirts we could have doubled the quantity, but i really wanted to go all out with these.

Blast From The Past: Tree Wizard

We had an unexpected guest in town over the Christmas holidays. James Farmer a.k.a. the tree wizard who kicked footbag with us in '04-'05 at MTSU. He earned the nickname tree due to his inability to move quickly to the bag & wizard because...... it was just damn funny. I'm proud to say he's now serving our dear country in the United States Air Force somewhere in NC. It's been a long time & even though we didn't get to play any footbag together, we managed to knock a few beers back to the M'boro. Take care wiz & we'll see you again.