Footbag Creativity by Scott Bevier

Article by Scott Bevier, 2009 US Footbag Champion

I am honored to share some of my thoughts on creativity and variety in footbag freestyle. Several years ago, it has been pointed out, my style took a new direction. It morphed from a shuffle style with heavy use of toes into something broader and often less intense. My goal was to develop a more personal style, one designed to lengthen my playing career and broaden my footbag skill set. As it was, the law of diminishing returns was staring me in the face, especially in comparison to the technical domination of freestyle in the younger generation.

I decided to practice concepts most other players didn’t care much for. Wacky hacky tricks received more attention in training than typical shred-style combos. A willful disregard of the add-system was in order to maximize creativity. Adds help to understand the physical vocabulary of freestyle, but don’t let adds rule your style. A broad vocabulary is more expressive than being able to repeat the hard-to-pronounce tricks.

Here are a few points on style.

•    A mix of concepts is often more interesting than drill-like combos utilizing the same concept repeatedly.

•    Increasing your comfort with a variety of concepts will allow you a greater arsenal of links and combos at your disposal.

•    Playing with ease usually looks better than going for the hardest stuff you can do.

•    The best freestyle comes with lots of surprises.

With these things in mind, you can be on your way to a more creative and dynamic freestyle game.

Have fun, stay safe!