footbag.org

[Jani Markkanen (janijani)]

[Eric Wulff (ewulff)]

I think Jani brings up a good point when suggesting it's harder to spike into a smaller court. At the same time, it's easier to set for a spike *from* a smaller court and I think that benefit will outweigh the challenge of aiming into a smaller court. With a better chance of getting to the net and elivating for a spike, the court should open up for the offensive player.

[Martin Côté (martincote)]

[P.T. Lovern (ptlovern)]

When the width is taken away, the back court is easy to cover. A player can move forward and backward with ease, when you need to move side to side and front to back, this is where the dink strategy comes in and is effective on the doubles court. I think the setup we are looking for is like tennis singles long and narrow.Plus a power serve is still a crowd pleaser, we don't want lobbing weak serves, once the excessive width isn't a factor, power can make a comeback to a fun game. I have played on many different courts in my day and this one I found to be the best. We will demo it today, when Flo seeks his revenge from Copenhagen! I guess Flo doesn't know, I am the JUGGERNAUT B%&TCH! Hey Jani, can't wait to see you soon man!

[Jani Markkanen (janijani)]

It's sure good to see you too, P.T. I'm looking forward to see some "merry Christmas" -spikes in singles net!

-Jani

[Martin Côté (martincote)]

The conference was great, it was well run by PT and the topics were right in the money IMO. I know the topics are supposed to continue to be discussed online somewhere. Looking forward to add on these.

Right after the conference i had this idea to have more people to try the net game AND having fun doing so. One of the reason i wanted a smaller court was to make it easier for beginners but i'm ready to let that go because there's no way to please both veteran and beginners with a same court size.

So the idea is to create another court with lower net and smaller court size dedicated to beginners. It's not a new idea and the footsee was aiming at that very purpose but i always found that the footsee was not appealing for adults beginners. I know it's fun to play on at all ages but when you see it for the first time, it really look like it's for kids only.

I can see adding a smaller court for beginners when we play in crowdy parcs with potential circle players around who normally feel too intimidated by a normal size court. I would see something like a 4 feet/120cm high net, the court could measure 12X25 feet 3.6MX7.5M . Also you could have the beginners decide on their own rules, have the knees, 3 kicks when playing one on one, whatever. Just so that they have fun at their very first try. That is the MOST IMPORTANT.

Something tell me that it could be very popular. Every circle kickers that is not into freestyle at one point dreamed of playing over a net. If a smaller court net game would catch on, it could create a much larger pool of potential players ready for the real game, the ones with the best skills would want the greater challenge of the big court and that's what we want ... beginners that already have experience of power kicking over a net.

I could see that as a way to fill the huge gap between circle players and regular net.

The net size and style of gameplay could look like this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=reoXx7az5eY

and i could very well see myself finishing up a day of play on this kind of court with a beer nearby!

So the idea would be to bring a smaller court at specific kick day so that beginners can expect to play on it on a regular basis and who knows it could create an all new market for net set manufacturer

[Scot Hansen (scothansen)]

Hey everyone. Like Martin, I thought the conference was a very productive forum. PT- you did a great job of keeping it rolling and on task. I'm looking forward to seeing the notes from the discussions on the Yves' idea about the "travelling tour" of tournaments. I think we need to jump on this right away and begin collectively organizing sponsorship and media packages, setting dates and locations, and making it happen together. PT or Pat- please get those notes posted ASAP so that we can start determining tasks and assigning them.

[Theodore Fritsch (yyz)]

I for one had no Idea this was and invitation only event. I was a little upset that I did not make the guest list for the net conference. So P.T. please allow me to force my way into this discussion by posting those notes when you get a chance. Also I have to re-say that we need a group of people to learn how to judge, in case you all were too busy sneaking around and holding conference's, I need too point out that head judge's and line judge's were hard too find and those that were used made many mistakes(including me) . common mistakes were: position, hand signals, shifting to wrong line, not noing the rules on service fouls or how and when to call them. Those freestylers that we shared space with in orlando had a nice judge's meeting and there events got great reviews. well thats enough bitching for now your turn!

[Jeremy Mirken (TheSpecialist)]

It was definitely not an invitation only conference. You must just not have been at the right place at the right time when it was being discussed. I mean, c'mon, Im the biggest newbie on the scene, but I found out about it.

Just wanted to point out you weren't purposefully excluded, and that there was no sneaking around.

[Theodore Fritsch (yyz)]

well I was next to every loud speaker at the site and got a copy of every schedule change or update!!! I am also certain that it was not intentional but I was hoping to hurry P.T. with the notes.

[P.T. Lovern (ptlovern)]

Ok Guys,

Here are the notes. I encourage the people who submitted the topics to make threads out of them and debate them further. I am real slammed with going back to school and my masters for the next few weeks. So please help!

REMEMBER, CHANGE CAN ONLY HAPPEN IF EVERYONE BUYS IN!
Don't wait for it, make it happen!


Future of Net Footbag Conference 2007
Orlando, Florida

Organizers: Yves Archambault, PT Lovern

Attendees: Patrick Keehan, Martin Cote, Jeremy Mirken, Chris Ott, Matti Pohjola, Tuomas Karki, Justin Sexton, Maude Landreville, Francois Pelletier, Oxana Prikhodko, Dominique Corlard, Luc Legualt, Philippe Lessard, Gilles Demers, Scott Hansen, Cory Current, PJ Daigle, Chris Siebert, Ben Alston, Walt Houston, Steve Dusablon, Elliot John, Robert Lavinge

Notes: Participants were encouraged to sign in and vote for their three most passionate topics listed, they were also encouraged to submit any additional topics. Participants also were able to submit during the day prior to the meeting.

Topics Submitted:

1. Recruiting New Players, emphasis on Women- Julie Symons (Presented by PT)
2. Pro Tour- Yves and Chris Ott
3. Improving Singles Net (reducing the size of the court)- Martin Cote
4. Pool Formats for 8,16,32 IE The switch- John Leys (Presented by PT)
5. IFPA Treatment of Net=Yves
6. Separate Worlds- Yves
7. Running cooperative tournaments for Freestyle and Net- Jeremy Mirken
8. Improving IFPA Formats for Tournament Play-PT
9. Officiating- PT

Minutes:

9:34pm; Aug 16th

Intro: Yves
• concerned about future of our sport
• need better organization

Similar conference in past
1st conference: montreal 2002; only 6 attendees
2nd Finland, 2005;
3rd Orlando, FL

PT Lovern:
Forum rules:
cell phones off, minimize side conversations, raise hand; wait turn; don’t interrupt, keep forum notes online keep discussions occurring via online forums

Topics:
Recruiting new players; specifically women
• women make for great spectator and visibility
• make them feel welcome
• lack of available nets for new players
• yves: always have 1 more net available than you have players
yves has a formula (excel spreadsheet); every club should have a flier or handout
• yves; playing in popular places with many people. setting up booths in colleges or schools
• ALWAYS set up an extra net
• play in public areas
• bruce: biggest job as promoters....is to set aside personal interests, and give the time to new players. have set times for play so people know. again, have that extra net for new players
• jeremy m: women tend to attract new players. need to promote the women more; more women in videos; background of women players, and how to use that to advantage to attract net ones. Yves agrees to put up some women’s video online at FW and prokicker.ca
• shunny; give new players old net bags
• justin; need to make net easier for beginners
• PT; lowering net for women? happens in other sports
• loaner net set?
• ott; embrace the current women
• chris; more success with having foot-c
• tallbob; simple bottom pole modification for shorter nets
• Maude agrees to make updated email list for women



Footbag net tour (circuit) 4 in Europe
• missing mass media aspect of tournament; must present as professinoal sport
• 8 great tournys over the world; 4 in europe, 4 in North america
• need to have 350 seats, bleachers; DJ, beer booth (similar to beach volleyball)
• costs money, but will pay off if done properly. we have plenty of contacts....chris ott
• places: Monteal (20th anniv)
• Chris Ott is a HUGE resource
• SteveD/chisS; how? how to get money? old skool players have continually donated year after year, and tiring of giving
• Ott: spent last 4 years developing ‘tour’, all over US, Europe, & Canada. This effort generated Disney contacts. Now has 20 contacts and places to have ‘tour’. Need professionals for raising money. 5-tourny tour could almost happen right now. chris gets phone calls all the time (team conferences, sports conventions, concept is to bring sports to diff cities). contact in Chicago that does promotions (keller winslow?) Cities often willing to help with media and local sponsorships. need a pre-assembled ‘package’, and must be sold that way. Six flags? need a built in audience
• Ott: 5 Independenet events; sponsors are out there, just waiting to give money to the next big thing. take it to the people. when we package it and do it, we need the superstars
• Scot Hansen; similar to how beach volleyball took off. ‘packaged tour’ was sold to a sponsorship (jose cuervo).
• walt; how to get started? (jeremyM; guide exists on internet)
• Bruce; full time career since 1981. in the 80’s....series of regional events (east coast, southern, westerns) in past, WFA gave money to these regional events. had coors light, wham-O,
• Tallbob: go see other events in your area. networking with other directors
• Invitational/qualifying rounds?
• joshP; bundle events with other huge events?
• ChrisS; advice...give the media specific times, as to not show up during down-times.

Reducing the size of the singles net court; make it more appealing -Martin Cote
• cote: 20 yrs ago..people liked to play both. over the years, doubles became more exciting to play & watch. spiking attracts people. with a smaller court, opens the door for more offense
• cote: 2 possible size options:
• only narrow (44’ x 17’)
• narrow & shorter (40’ x 17’)
• JP; good for the ‘extra’ net, for beginners
• Bruce; history.....used to be large than badminton. past heated debates about keeping this a 1-hit game. Con might be the equipment
• PT; quit singles because of lack of offensive shots. singles has evolved into placement. Manu killed singles. maybe have a single day tourny with smaller court. have clubs experiment with new size, and report back to footbag forums
• jeremyM: 2 reasons people don’t play singles; don’t want to cover so much court. don’t want to play a 2.5 hour match. new scoring method?
• Ott; reducing width would make game more exciting. all changes need to ‘upgrade’ sport, and make it more spectacular for audience. dinks = NOT attractive for spectators. shortening court might take away some of the ‘spectacular’ shots.
• ChrisS: purpose of changing size? for players or spectators? make game easier so new players have more fun
• tallBob; power shots....placement & dinks. possible ‘serve’ line in center of court,
• SteveD: less and less singles because people are conserving energy for other events.

• IFPA formats for tournament play;
• PT; have generally been improving formats, but still too much playing in single and 2 day tournys. Montreal recently eliminated pool play @ last event, straight bracket format. Strict tourny format @ ALL IFPA events, so players know schedules in events
• Ott: good idea...advocate of single elim for a long time. seeded players automatically into brackets, with qualifiers for other tournys? top players automatically qualify. double elim doesn’t award the upset....just gives that upset another chance.
• ScottM: double elim brackets? first 3 years of competing @ worlds only played 2 games
• ChrisS: pool play works, double elim too long. pools of 3 are a nice change.
• SteveD: all for whatever speeds up events, but new format works against ‘new’ players.
• justin; seeding issues, not a good seeding system. double elim helps with seeding issues

IFPA treatment of net?
• yves; if you go to main page of IFPA website, it’s all freestyle. no net, no net videos. main contributor is SteveG. possible new association?
• bruce; has any communication been made to SteveG about this issue?
• JeremyM; specific discussions with SteveG...not interested in promoting net anymore. on footbag.org, there is a wikipedia, where anyone can upload videos & photos & stories. we MUST expand footbag.org ‘net’ section to include links for videos and ‘relevant’ info
• ChrisS: freestylers are lazy. they show up, they don’t compete, they don’t pay....but the #’s (net/freestyle) seem to be similar, in terms of registered players.
• JoshP; with freestyle.....the tournament portion is a small aspect of thier weekend (stitching/trading/shredding/hanging out). with net, it’s all about the tournament portion
• ott: IFPA frightened because they don’t have control of footbag.org
• AI: how to get more net videos on footbag.org? seeding? how to take ‘ownership’ of ‘net’ link on footbag.org
• personal galleries on footbag.org are not accessible enough
• Julie feels she’s not doing enough, worries that she might step down. we must encourage Julie, offer to help, give support

Pool formats?
• PT: the inevitable ‘flip’, rematch. seeding often dictates that clubs end up playing each other (finland vs finland; chaos vs chaos)
• tallbob: often times much disparity between one rank to another, and the ‘switch’ can penalize the better seed by giving them a much tougher team
• finland; doesn’t have a good solution. maybe ‘basket’ system used in soccer
• if you upset in your pool, you then replace that team (if 7th seeded team upsets 2nd, they then become 2nd)...’Steal the seed’ then play a predetermined opponent.
• shunny; new idea for recruiting players.....net tourny for freestyle players

Separate worlds
• yves; end of the event is freestyle showcased. net events take ‘earlier’ timing during the day. last event is singles freestyle. combined net/freestyle....no concerns with sound of music and other distractions. sport has become specialized....nobody does both anymore. last year....net events finished on friday....so no random spectators....becuase our showcased events finished during ‘working’ hours. recent events have spent all thier money on FS, and nothing on net.
• tallbob; FS & net are not naturally played in the same settings. needs are different, harder for directors to find both settings.
• bruce; worlds is a daunting task as it is, separating them makes it easier for directors to run events
• ott; difficult to deal with both disciplines. FS & net don’t mingle anymore. FS & net don’t talk to each other. as ott prmoted this years sport to disney & otheres.... people instantly related FS to hacky-sack....when talked about net, no instant hacky-sack connection
• shunny; separating decreases power and influence.
• PT; concerned about next years worlds. tired of being second-rate @ some European events
• in favor of same worlds; 4
• in favor of separate events; 16 how to get more players into net?
• AirJer; not good that both events are @ the same place....sound issues.
what’s the target audience? recruit FS’s.

How to recruit the FS’s into playing net. -Air Jeremy
• provide net sets to all freestyle clubs; many FS clubs would pay $10 each to get a net
• exhibition tourny/event; net players play FS, FS’s play net.
• JP; PT freestyling would be hilarious; easier to recruit players that aren’t already involved in FS. Do demos @ FS only tournys...try to actively involve each other in each others’ events.
• Shunny; Pro-Am events with FS’s.
• Milne; Beaver open does Pro/Am every year.
• cross-over events
• AI: AirJer; start a Pro/Am thread on the FS forums

[Justin Eichenlaub (justin41)]

thanks for writing it down.

i already have some comments but it will have to wait after training.
plus i feel that some things on the list are mmmh say, hard to interpret if you havent been there.

i´ll try (once again) to get the frankfurt-players to read this too.
its sad, that one of the best clubs shows so little interest in the future of the game.

[Cory Current (cdcurrent)]

no props for the note-taker?!? I see how it is....(maybe I should move that discussion into the trash-talking thread)


One quick note.....this topic.....
Footbag net tour (circuit) 4 in Europe

should have read
Footbag net tour (circuit) 4 in US/Canada, 4 in Europe

I meant to go back and edit some of those Titles after we finished, since it was hard to capture all the real-time discussion while attempting to go back and edit things and make them more readable/understandable.

[Grischa Tellenbach (grischa.tellenbach)]

Many thanks PT for posting your notes (I wished I would have been there).

G*

[Justin Eichenlaub (justin41)]

i see, this is getting a blown up and completely unreadable post.
so i say we form some new topics. as the amount of info here is just too much to be diskussed like i tried

sorry for loading this thread with this fat ugly post.
------

mmhh... typing comments into the post is pretty time-consuming. I will try to comment marked [-initial statement] and add my comment in the next line. I hope that will be readable.
Also I must say that expressing my thoughts in English is not really easy and the possibility of misunderstandings is high on both sides.
And then the sheer amount of input is overwhelming.. Giving me a hard time to write consistently on topics that are relevant.



-lack of available nets for new players

I made 5 sets which I will sell cheap to beginners in germany (maybe Europe). Actually building a netset is easy. It wont be as nice as the pro sets but good enough for training. I photographed the whole thing and post a instructional How-To as soon as I find the time. Also I found some good sources for material… except for the nets. Where are good and cheap nets to get?


-every club should have a flier or handout

who has one? We could make a prototype to give to the clubs which can be translated and adjusted. What should be in it? Basic rules, spikes, training methods? -> new thread would be helpful here.

-yves; playing in popular places with many people.
We play in the park whith lots of spectators. But still its very rare somebody shows real interest. Sometimes people kick with us for a few minutes but get demotivated because its just too hard to play.
A beginners court is something I´ll work on for the next summer.

-bruce: biggest job as promoters....is to set aside personal interests, and give the time to new players.
Having one “veteran” caring about nothing else worked very good last weeks. We made up some kind of rotation system where one player had to instruct the newcomer when not playing. I bring 10+ bags to the park every time so I can throw at newbies.

-justin; need to make net easier for beginners
A beginners court with a lower net and smaller court is easy to make, but again: someone has to set it up and get people to start playing. Something I (self-)critizise a lot about. It takes a lot of devotion to make new players come again. So a “promise” from the established players to have and use a beginners court could be a start.

Footbag net tour (circuit) 4 in Europe
Lets have that topic separated completely.

Reducing the size of the singles net court; make it more appealing -Martin Cote
• only narrow (44’ x 17’)
• narrow & shorter (40’ x 17’)
• JP; good for the ‘extra’ net, for beginners

I have never tried any of these options but will do.
So the modification could be made to have a dual-use net. Adding extra markers for the smaller court and maybe another set of bottom poles.

- new scoring method?
We played tie breaks and liked it: 3 winning sets to 15, every bag counts. It was much more fun and quicker to play too.

-SteveD: less and less singles because people are conserving energy for other events.
That could be solved by tie-break-scoring too. I find it more fun to have more games with less serve-changes


• IFPA formats for tournament play;
-PT; have generally been improving formats, but still too much playing in single and 2 day tournys. Montreal recently eliminated pool play @ last event, straight bracket format. Strict tourny format @ ALL IFPA events, so players know schedules in events
-Ott: good idea...advocate of single elim for a long time. seeded players automatically into brackets, with qualifiers for other tournys? top players automatically qualify. double elim doesn’t award the upset....just gives that upset another chance.
• ScottM: double elim brackets? first 3 years of competing @ worlds only played 2 games
• ChrisS: pool play works, double elim too long. pools of 3 are a nice change.
• SteveD: all for whatever speeds up events, but new format works against ‘new’ players.
• justin; seeding issues, not a good seeding system. double elim helps with seeding issues

I cant really understand what this means. I get the point but not the result of the disussion….

IFPA treatment of net?
• yves; if you go to main page of IFPA website, it’s all freestyle. no net, no net videos. main contributor is SteveG. possible new association?

I may be one of the few who still competes in fs and net but I do have the feeling that its not the same sport. So aiming on the evolution of net, a separate association seems to be worth (another) consideration.

• JeremyM; specific discussions with SteveG...not interested in promoting net anymore. on footbag.org, there is a wikipedia, where anyone can upload videos & photos & stories. we MUST expand footbag.org ‘net’ section to include links for videos and ‘relevant’ info

I tried to contribute an instructional video since the little workshop PT held at prague 2003. But never got any real feedback from the german players. They just rather put up a net and play than “work” on making video of single moves. I´d still like to make a workshop with the goal of a workshop-dvd but that does cost. I even have a film team and a concept for that but I don’t seem to get a date and a place where, say 10 players, would be available and willing to do that. The lack of communication to the Frankfurt-players made me finally give up that project. I guess you´ve seen the planetfootbag-dvd? Having something alike for net could really help.

• ott: IFPA frightened because they don’t have control of footbag.org
???
• AI: how to get more net videos on footbag.org? seeding? how to take ‘ownership’ of ‘net’ link on footbag.org

Does it have to be on.org? I´m confident that steveG would help to promote a net-only-site on .orgs frontpage.

• personal galleries on footbag.org are not accessible enough

True. The whole .org thing is kind of web 0.87beta. I´m not too much of an expert here but a “cooler” site would be a good thing to have. But we would need to have someone contributing 100ds of hours or a lot of money into that kind of thing.

Pool formats?
Should be a single thread too…

Separate worlds
• yves; end of the event is freestyle showcased. net events take ‘earlier’ timing during the day. last event is singles freestyle. combined net/freestyle....no concerns with sound of music and other distractions. sport has become specialized....nobody does both anymore. last year....net events finished on friday....so no random spectators....becuase our showcased events finished during ‘working’ hours. recent events have spent all thier money on FS, and nothing on net.

Although fs is promoted more and definitely is the more popular event I did not feel that net is under-concerned (voc?). At worlds06 it was rather the other way around.

• ott; difficult to deal with both disciplines. FS & net don’t mingle anymore. FS & net don’t talk to each other. as ott prmoted this years sport to disney & otheres.... people instantly related FS to hacky-sack....when talked about net, no instant hacky-sack connection

Is that a pro or a con? Concerning popularity the hacky-sack-connection is not too bad, concerning professionalism it probably is…

• shunny; separating decreases power and influence.

? Do we actually have any , I might not understand what is meant by that.

• PT; concerned about next years worlds. tired of being second-rate @ some European events

As I said, I did not feel that way. But I see there are good arguments for a seperation. But I´d rather see some additional net-only tourneys happen than no net at the big (fs) events. From my perspective it’s a matter of proper organization. As long as there is only one person in charge for both a certain bias is natural. I´ve never been overseas so I cannot really judge how it was in america. The actual problem I see is of organization-nature. Time and space for fs and net differ too much. I love it to play prelims close to the fs-place. I like to watch both. As soon as we get to the brackets I find it rather disturbing to have routine music (or worse: dexters announcing) nearby. If there were a possibility to have one day together and another separated, I would be fine. I am really torn apart on that issue.