Freedom Footbags

Up until last weekend, David Clavens was the reigning US Freestyle Footbag Champion. He was not able to attend the US Open Championships last weekend primarily due to the financial burden of traveling from the east coast to the west coast (there is another reason, but we’ll get into that later).

Footbag is really different from the vast majority of sports out there. We don’t have big sponsors knocking down our doors or huge contracts. Heck, footbag is probably the only sport that has evolved to this level of complexity in which the average American cannot even properly name the sport, as they are more likely to call it by the brand name Hacky Sack. But for those players that are serious about the game, well, we don’t play Hacky Sack. We don’t play this game to get rich. We play this game, above all, because we love to play.

David Clavens is one of those players who has really helped to push the limits of the sport to new heights. More often than not, the biggest and best combos landed are not caught on tape. Once in a while though, some monster combos and strings are caught on tape.

This is a “rewind combo” (which is a move that followed immediately by the reverse of the original move) that will make you look twice!

If you have trouble viewing the video above, you can watch it directly on YouTube.

If you are wondering, those tricks are called “furious drifter” and “cold fusion”. These are both 3 “dex” moves, and the Job’s Notation for this combo is:

• Furious Drifter: CLIP > OP IN [DEX]> SAME IN [DEX]> OP IN [DEX] > SAME CLIP [XBD][DEL]
• Cold Fusion: CLIP > SAME OUT [PDX][DEX]> OP OUT [DEX]> SAME OUT [DEX] > OP CLIP [XBD][DEL]

So you like rewind combos? Here’s another super phat link never before caught on tape:

If you have trouble viewing the video above, you can watch it directly on YouTube.

The fist and second moves are called nuclear op drifter or “sixty nine” due to the way the legs circle the bag tracing out the numbers 6 and 9. Jobs notation for 69 is:

• Sixty Nine (5 adds): CLIP > SAME OUT [PDX][DEX]> OP IN [DEX]> SAME CLIP [XBD][DEL]

The “sixty nine” to “sixty nine” rewind is followed up solidly by a small run into 3 5’s (Blurriest, PS Whirl, Spinning Whirl) and then shortly after by a “beast” (6 add, 6 add, 6 add) combo of three “blurry blenders” or “food processors”:

• Food Processor (6 adds): CLIP > OP IN [DEX] > OP IN [PDX][DEX] > (back) SPIN [BOD] > SAME CLIP [XBD] [DEL]

David Clavens also just released this video with a few clips from one of his better sessions caught on tape. There are a few massive tricks, as well as links, and of course one of the ultimate “rewind combos”…

It’s not been uploaded to YouTube yet, but you can download it from the www.footbag.org gallery:

Video: “day one”

For those of you who are still learning to even be able to follow professional footbag, the massive “rewind combo” we alluded to earlier was “Nemesis to Nemesis” - Totally huge! Job’s Notation for nemesis (that’s four dexterities, eight when hit back to back):

• Nemesis (6 adds): CLIP > OP IN [DEX]> SAME IN [DEX]> OP OUT [DEX] > SAME OUT [DEX] > OP CLIP [XBD][DEL]

Well, you’ve seen the videos… EDIT October 4, 2007: Due to the request of David we’ve edited this blog. Suffices to say Dave injured his back, and has now esentailly recovered and doesn’t want to dwell on the past.

Peace.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 15th, 2007 at 2:26 pm and is filed under Footbag Community, video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.