footbag.org

[Theodore Fritsch (yyz)]

Jeremy hope ya have a good time, and please don't get hurt!!! The fact that this post has been back and fourth with maybe all of 10 people adding there thoughts is a really good measure that the rule should stay the same. All the points brought up here are good but those that suggest the rule should change are not strong enough to contemplate the proposed changes. My suggestion is control the sets so they do not get stolen.

[Carlos Márquez (fushidoman)]

Wish you guys were down here to have seen all of the jousting injuries sustained at the Sur Americano Championships!

My newest reason for hating on plane breaking is that players from developing net countries sustain injuries far more frequently than North American players. Many players seen not to have an understanding of when and by how far they are breaking the plane, and deny they were even over. I saw about 5 hard falls, lots of bruises, and one broken toe, although Yves claims the players toe was broken before the match.

[Steve Dusablon (dusablon)]

The rule does not need changing, it merely needs enforcement.
Since instituting the yellow/red card rules, I have yet to see anyone actually USE it and this will easily defeat reckless play during competition.

I am for a free plane.
That being said, I rarely utilize the plane rules any more. Experience (old age) has taught me to stay home on defense due to higher percentage success rates and I think everyone who plays this game for any length of time eventually comes to that conclusion.

Too many rules in this area of the game is going to place the outcome of many high level matches in the hands of net judges and take away from players deciding the game's outcome.

My main fear here is that by all appearances on this forum, this seems to be a highly contested rule but it is not. I hope that if this rule change ever comes before a IFPA committee of some sort, that the outcome will come down to a worldwide vote and not be left up to the 3 players in Oakland who oppose the current state of the rules.

[Yves Archambault (yevez)]

The second to last post attributed to Carlos Marquez was actually written by Jeremy as Carlos accounts pops up automatically on his computer.

I have to disagree with Jeremy on the injuries sustained at this tournament. The guys here just fall hard on pretty much every flying shot, contact or not. Jairo s broken toe was before the contact which was pretty much just over the net.

The yellow and red card system seems fine to me but change of rules or not we re just in a non arbitrated sport most of the time. I always thought that flying over the plane should be an ability contest: If you cant do it right just don t do it. If you steel do it faster or higher than your opponent. Never seen many fouls by the great ones, eg Verdy or Shults.

Most players should stay in defence anyways in most situations instead of blocking their partners view and ending up being passed or fouling.

The only touchy thing is the over the net toe jam. It is sometimes frustrating to let the other guy invade your air space but it could result in a bad injury to go for it with a sole, side kick or shtataff.

In short, use your head learn to know where the net is fast and respect the other players.

[Theodore Fritsch (yyz)]

Great post yves, thats great i am finally glad this discussion is over. See Ya ted

[Jeremy Mirken (TheSpecialist)]

After a few days of stewing on Yvez' post, I'd feel like an idiot to not respond. He made it seem like I was misleading the public with my statement- that was not my intention at all, and I want to make that clear. Now, onto my statement:

Let's face it. In NA, the Net game is stagnant. We have a contingency of 30 players or so, most of whom play well and by the current rules, respect players, and who put the health of other players before winning a game or point. THIS IS NOT THE CASE IN ALL COUNTRIES.

If my experience in Venezuela is at all a truthful barometer of the way new and inexperienced players learn to play our game, then we have a lot of changes to make and a lot of issues to discuss. ONE of these issues is how to promote player growth (from a distance) by preaching learning the basics first, and a SECOND issue is how to prevent or limit overly aggressive and injurious play.

On the final day of the tournament alone, I saw 4-5 HARD contact fouls, and not once did the fouling player realize his fault. Now, whether or not Yvez is right when he says a certain player had already been injured, the fact of the matter is that a contender for South American Champ in both the singles and doubles category sustained an lower leg injury (or reinjury) which SIGNIFICANTLY affected his ability to play the game.

Players in SA do NOT value safety over winning plane battles. They fall hard, over and over, ending the day with bruises, cramps, lacerations, etc. This is the way they play, everyone there knows it and accepts it. On several occasions during the tournament and especially during pick-up game play, both Jack and I decided that it was better not to go up and battle for balls near the net out of FEAR that we would GET HURT by their careless and wreckless play.

I TRULY believe that if we currently had a rule set which more severely punished or prohibited plane related fouls, that the development of aerial skills in Venezuela would have been significantly different.

Although our current rules do not cause numerous injuries in the NA scene, they certainly provide an environment for less experienced players outside of our NA scene to learn by sustaining injury.

[Olli Savolainen (opa)]

Plane breaking done cleanly is one of finest things in our sport. At best it brings out player's superiority with both physical ability and game-reading. Being that great it would be a shame to disallow it.

Here's my 2 cents on how I see injuries happening and possible actions to take to deal with the issue:

I think the risks (of injuries) are mainly due to two separate cases:
A) Valuing the point more than your opponent's health and thus taking the risk of hurting the opponent (or even worse: hurting in purpose to shake your opponent's game or ultimately taking him out)
B) Not having the ability to do it. Either not having control on your body or not realizing the risk.

Obviously A being the case with skilled players (in competitions). I think at the very moment the best players can do plane breaking cleanly and do have the ability make their own judgement whether to put all in and try to win the point or have that respect on other players and retract if needed. This is good sportmanship and more likely to happen when our sport is still a small one and we know each other well.

If/WHEN this sport is to grow we're going to see more of both cases A and B. I'm not sure what to do with B as it is likely to happen mostly in training and we cannot really have control on how people around the world want to play and what kind of risks are they willing to take.

Case A is probably more significant out of these two because that's something we control by rules. It also sets the example to behavior in training. As the sport grows it shifts into more competitive direction and probably the incentives for winning also get higher. That's why relying just on good sportmanship is not enough. Penalties for reckless behavior (whether it's pure opportunism or just lack of skill or common sense) have to be severe. Furthermore, Whether the foul was "breaking the plane" or "contact-foul" there's still room to judge how harsh it was and hence what's the appropriate penalty. So, this way disallowing plane breaking is not a complete solution although it would shift into more strict direction. Anyhow, all penalties tend to be rather useless unless there's REAL officiating in the matches!

So, if breaking the plane was against the rules, officiating the matches would probably be easier and we would be able to survive with current officiating system for some more time. I would prefer it staying allowed and contacts being the real foul. BUT, I do realize that if we want to keep plane breaking allowed there would soon have to be real referees in competitions to make the big decisions whether a contact was a minor foul or malicious enough to get you sent off! Plane breaking would be a bit like tackling in hockey for example: you can do it and at best it's truly enjoyable, but if you do it wrong you get penalised.

All in all, I see this whole thing coming into an officiating issue. As I would like this sport to really grow big I see that referees are anyway needed in some point no matter what the rules are. BUT if footbag net stays as it is and grows only slowly we could by "certain rule changes" make it easier to keep it going as it is now (without dedicated judges). Realistically, the latter one is probably the most likely scenario and as much as I WANT TO SEE GOOD JOUSTING I think banning it is the lesser evil than increasing number of injuries...

[Theodore Fritsch (yyz)]

I never took as someone was intentionally making it seem like they were someone else!!!! Hope no one else did!
As far as the bringing more people into the sport, people are gonna have to give more demonstrations(perhaps showing people how and when to break the plane). One such great opportunity just past in chicago(i have serious injuries I am dealing with and could not make it) If you are one of the people who is good at net and you want this sport to continue, than you should take part in atleast one demonstration per year. I no money is tight but maybe people should give away one of there flights or tanks of gas to give net demo's. Scott Davidson is a wealth of information on how to get things going as far as demo's
As far as judges!!!!! I have been saying for 3 or 4 years now that we need more qualified people to help run and judge net. DEAF EARS FOLKS!!!! For anyone Who has any energy too work on this let me know.
PLANE BREAKING SHOULD STAY AS IS!!!!!! MY LAST OPINION. see ya ted f

[Jeremy Mirken (TheSpecialist)]

Back to the same argument:

So at Worlds this year, I was fouled on my side of the net going after a set from my own partner. The spike I was going for was a schtataft. Because of the trajectory of the set and my focus on the footbag, I was unable to see that my opponent was trying to steal the ball from me. When he made contact with me I was at the peak of my jump with my feet above my head, and I took a hard foul. In order to prevent falling hard on my head or my side (foul occurred indoors), I instinctively put my hands down. From the force of the impact with the ground, I immediately injured my right hand. I believe I now I have a broken hand (currently uncomfirmed).



So what I want to know is . . .

WHAT THE F-CK IS A YELLOW CARD FOR? And what does it take for a player to actually get one? I am going to lobby hard for this shit to be enforced at every tourney I attend for the rest of my career.

I KNOW that if this same foul had occurred at the Green Cup, there would have been consequences. Why not at Worlds?

[Jeremy Mirken (TheSpecialist)]

And this rule . . .

"K. Unsportsmanlike Conduct Foul: Scorekeepers and tournament officials are allowed to assess unsportsmanlike conduct fouls (see 107). "Silent" foul cards or verbal warnings will be used to communicate the assesment of foul to players. Yellow cards will signify warnings, and red cards will signify ejection from the game. Players/teams are generally allowed 2 yellow cards before being presented with a red ejection card, but these limits may be modified by tournament officials."

. . . is f-cking bullshit because no one has ever seen it assessed.

If a player can be given a red card for throwing a tripod in anger, shouldn't a player be given a card for injuring another player with an aggressive plane foul?

[P.T. Lovern (ptlovern)]

word to all that.

It won't be long and the plane rule will change, it is the only controversy we currently have. I mean there were 7 fouls at least in game one of the semi, this is silly. When we have time we should count how many there were, and I saw plenty more in other matches.

Furthermore, a ref has to ask players if there was contact or not? I mean what other sport do you have a call that asks the players if it was a foul. Ref: "Excuse me Shaq, did you just commit charging? Shaq: "no of course I didn't"

I will leave it there, I was glad to see so many fouls not yours of course, cause it is only a matter of time till people see the light that breaking the plane is really 90's footbag, and players are way more skilled now and don't need to lean on this "spectacular rule". It is becoming just dangerous now, not spectacular.

[Alexander Smirnov (chezl)]

I would say that I am not 100% sure on this or that opinion, but couple things from this Worlds

1. I actually have the same thing as Jeremy, but I know my hand is not broken, just hurts

2. I am myself crossing the plan pretty often and I still think this is attractive for the spectators,but....

3. the fact is that it might be rather dangerous and we have to do something to support the spikers to feel more comfortable and also if you still want to block - no problem, block can be done on your side

4. the cards are really necessary and if you thoughtlessly go on the opponents side and foul again and again, expecially in the game you do not think about it - someone can really get seriouslu injured


I am saying all this once again - when I am persoanlly the guy who likes to cross the plane and I understand that sometimes in a game it might be dangerous...but when there is no straight rule, you just do not think about it too mucm, just go for it.

[Steve Dusablon (dusablon)]

#1
Your "injury" is due solely to inadequate flooring.
Had you been playing on a properly padded surface (or heaven forbid- OUTSIDE) your injury never would have occurred. Everyone that played indoors came home with an identical hand/wrist injury.

#2
It is not unsportsmanlike to go after the bag. Period.

#3
When the definition of "unsportsmanlike" comes up for debate, I sincerely hope that any rule changes will be made by net players around the world and not just 2 or 3 guys in P.T.s basement.

[Jeremy Mirken (TheSpecialist)]

For more than 2 years now, I have played footbag indoors on a wooden floor and I have adapted my game and spiking style so that I no longer fall. I ALWAYS land on my feet, even when trying spikes that send most people to the ground. I take pride in that.

There are ways to block safely, there are ways to joust safely, and then there are reckless maneuvers. A player who hurts another player in a joust, because he goes for a ball on his opponent's side of the net, not even chasing his own set but a set from the other team, and who doesn't even apologize for sending his opponent to the ground (to me) is demonstrating unsportsmanlike behavior.

At least when Alexis goes over and contacts a player, or does something he considers risky, he apologizes profusely for it.

I'm sorry, but my injury had nothing to do with inadequate flooring Steve. It had to do with one player's recklessness.

There needs to be some sort of penalty for aggressive plays that result in injury to an opponent.

[Martin Côté (martincote)]

I don't Know about you, but the only reckless way to cross the plane that i know of, is using side kicks sole push. I dont think a shatataf or skuff block could be dangerous. With a side kick push, there's all the player's weight behind and i've experienced it myself with some newly able plane breaking newbies.

So if i was to define what would deserve a yellow or red card, i would sure include the side kick push. I just don't see any other.

I have to agree with PT that it's quite silly for the Ref to ask the players if there was a contact over the net. I think in tounament, the Ref should make the call, not the players. There will be some slight contact that will be missed by the Ref, but that better that having to ask the players.