Trick Tip of the Week: Full Hands
Every week I’m going to be putting up a simple tip that may help with your game. Two weeks ago I posted about a simple ankle stretch.
This weeks tip is: Keep your hands full. And by that I don’t mean you should keep objects in your hands (though I often end up holding an extra bag or two when kicking in case I feel like juggling two or three).
What I am talking about is really far different from simply holding an object, yet it’s a bit difficult to put into words. I am currently studying Aikido with my sensei (teacher) Kimbal Anderson. Aikido class is where I first learned the concept of keeping a body part “full of energy”. Essentially, when you are moving it is important to move your entire body as one entity, and to keep the energy flowing throughout your body uniformly.
When you are playing footbag, the focus is generally already on the feet, so it’s easy to keep your lower body full. However, I noticed today when I was kicking that my hands felt a little “dead” when I was playing. The next run I focused on keeping them full and had my longest run of the day (which was about 47 tricks, approximately 3.3 add ratio). One way to do this is to pick a color (whatever you like: red, green, etc.) and imagine that both hands and both feet are so full of energy that they glow that color.
The beauty of this tip is that it can help with any move, and any level of player. Putting too much of your focus on your feet can potentially lead you to forget about the rest of your body, leading to your body not moving as smoothly as it might if it was balanced.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Wow I was skeptical about this tip and not sure i undersood it at first then i tried to incorporate it. i found difficulty imagining colors on my hands so i intead focused on changing the positions of my hands during play (i usually play with them in a fist) i first opened my hands and focused on keeping them flat with all the fingers touching and tryed a few things i know well toe stall inside stall and outside stall( im relatively new so these may not seem well know to an expert player more like second nature but never-the-less they seemed an appropriate starter trick for me)there was little noticable change in these that i have some experience on then i moved to the clipper stall ( ive been haveing trouble not catching it but sending it back into the air afterwards because of balance issues) to get to the point of this story i succesfully caught the footbag (which i can do 2 of 5 times) the 1st try AND nearly returned it to my comfortable playing position. thank you for this very helpful tip perhaps by the time the next one comes out i will have mastered the clipper and moved on to more difficult moves to incorporate it in.