Pronunciation
Today I had the privilege of watching an as-yet unreleased footbag video. I promised not leak any details of it (it’s very cool), but I am going to allude to something that was said during it; namely, that it’s very important how you pronounce your moves. I thought that using this word ‘pronounce’ was very apt, and that I might elaborate on what he (I don’t want to quote directly) meant.
Just like words, individual footbag moves can have varied pronunciations, and this accounts for a person’s style to a large degree. How you string together your moves together sets (no pun intended) the tone of your “voice”, and, depending on how you move, you can make a coherent statement.
Just stringing moves together doesn’t necessarily say anything, just like saying “To Be, or not to Be. That is the question!” in a resigned voice looses all the intensity and emotion of Hamlet’s situation. Sure, you might be able to hit that move or combo, but how are you hitting them? Do you know how to pronounce the words correctly? You can absolutely “say” a move/combo wrong, and if you’re not thinking about it, then you could be talking nonsense 
Here are two definite ways you could “pronounce” any given single move incorrectly:
- "The’ing" your dexterities means that your leg doesn’t actually circle the bag; your leg(s) do the movement and you catch the bag at the end, but you didn’t actually circle the bag.
- "
Slurring" a set generally means that the bag hasn’t left your foot before the first dex is supposed to take place. The stepping set is the most commonly ’slurred’ set.
You can also rush moves to the point where they just look spastic; flailing your arms around too much during moves/combos can also affect “pronunciation”. Generally, I’d say that people who don’t learn the basics well enough tend to exhibit these “speech patterns”; if you can’t even pronounce the basic letters of the alphabet (1-2 add moves) correctly, then your speech rhythms will never sound right.
While these latter considerations are certainly more subjective ones, the point is to see the analogy to linguistics and the parallels that exist between speech and movement and recognize that it’s not enough to just hit a move; if you hit it with some style, you can really say something.
