Someone kicking and living...now!

http://nevadasagebrush.com/blog/2010/11/15/kicking-the-habit/ This kid was in trouble, he chose boxing and kicking the bag around to make things better. Inspirational. For Jeff Everbo a marginal sport helped to make him feel more complete. Much honor to him and his family.

Kick Volley 03 dates are set

The third edition of Kick Volley, namely Kick Volley 03 will be on March 26-27th in Montreal. Just follow the link for all the details. As usual the best players from Montreal will battle it up for center stage on Sunday. We hope to receive some of the best players from other countries too.
This tournament will be organized by Pro Kicker and the Pro Kicker Impact will be the official tournament kickvolleyball.

A Footbag teaching appearance at the Quebec's Physical educator's congress

I had the privilege to give a workshop to a group of dedicated teachers at the annual Quebec's Federation of Physical Educators congress. I shared my knowledge of teaching Footbag and I also introduced them to Peteca, a cool Brazilian sport. This year's the congress title was ''Bougeons ensemble'' which could be loosely translated by ''Let's move together''.

I also had a product booth at the convention where I showed my Footbag line and Peteca products as well as Takraws and Handsacks. Overall it was a neat experience and I will certainly be back next year in Sherbrooke.

Another successfull footbag workshop in Blainville

I recently had the opportunity to give two footbag workshops at ''Les Semailles'' school in Blainville (25 minutes from Montreal) . It's the 6th year in a row that I can meet with the motivated kids at that school thanks to teacher Geneviève Croteau.

One part of my workshop is a two minutes consecutive kicks contest. One of the 6th graders, Jonathan Roy, kicked 120 times without dropping the footbag. This is talent and dedication, congratulations Jonathan.

Pro Kicker Footbags were provided for the practical parts of the workshop.

2010 European Footbag Championships results and pictures

Complete results and a new and original photo set are now available for the 2010 IFPA European Footbag Championships on Pro Kicker.

These pictures were taken on site during my trip to Brussels for the Championships and include a lot of players portraits including Footbag net singles and doubles champion Florian Gotze and his partner Uli Haase as well as women's net singles and doubles champion Lisa Uebele. Some videos will be added later to the page as well.

The Pro Kicker Impact Official Net Footbag of the tournament

KICK VOLLEY 02 finals game 1

Video of Kick Volley 02 finals game 1, the best moments.

Filmed and edited by Yves Archambault

Great Footbag workshops near Montreal

I had the blessing of being hired to give 8 workshops over 2 days at ''Le Rucher'' school near Montreal yesterday and today. I especially want to commend the commited teacher who made this possible: Diane Bourgeois. Diane is a PE teacher coming close to retirement but she's still extremely involved and concerned about her students.

She's one of the most motivated teachers I've ever met and she's still looking for new ways to make her pupils move. Footbag might not be totally new but there are a lot of myths about it. A lot of people think that it's a poor exercise but of course all the professional level players know better.

I've been offering footbag workshops for decades and I think I really have something powerful to bring in the way to approach the Footbag game. Of course I've been a successful net player for decades and this doesn't happen overnight and without proper technique. I've split the game into very basic principles and developed some very easy drills for beginners. The kids at that school were very receptive about all of it and it was a lot of fun to work with them.

I also introduced them to the game of PETECA a hot sport from Brazil. It surely made an impression. Overall I hope I managed to help Diane to put a few of these kids on the right path or help them to stay on it.

Team work: Pro Kicker designs ways to make kids move, whatever their youth is.

Results for KICK VOLLEY 02

At the end of a highly disputed match the team of Francois Depatie-Pelletier and Benjamin Rochon prevailed over the 2009 winners Luc Legault and Gilles Demers for the conclusion of KICK VOLLEY 02.

See the complete results on the tournament's home page.

Kick Volley 02 was sponsored and organized by Pro Kicker.

KICK VOLLEY 02 is just around the corner: Pre Seeding

The hunt for the KICK VOLLEY 02 title starts tomorrow at the gymnasium of the Old Montreal College. There will be 9 teams, all local, but the quality of the Montreal teams is always excellent.

Here's the pre-seeding for the tournament:

1- Gilles Demers/ Luc Legault (Winners Kick Volley 01)
2- François Depatie-Pelletier/ Benjamin Rochon
3- Martin Côté/ Sébastien Perron
4- Yves Archambault/ Sébastien Duchesne
5- Dominique Soulard/ Dominic O'Brien
6- Geneviève Bousquet/ Thibault Rehn
7- Luka W/ J-F Bélanger
8- Stéphane Tailleur/ Alexandre Kègle
9- Olivier Berthiaume/ Mathieu Payant

The format will be:
1 st round= 3 pools of three teams. At this point only one team will be eliminated.
2nd round the 8 remaining teams move into a single elimination bracket to the ultimate
victory.

The 4 teams that will loose in the quarter finals will go into a consolation bracket with the
initial looser to fight it out for 5th to 9th place in a round robin.

The official footbag for the event is the Pro Kicker Impact.
The event is free for all spectators. The music entertainment
will be provided by DJ Maximum, Maxime Gingras, from noon
on Sunday. See the schedule here.
The best time is of course Sunday afternoon from noon to 4h30 pm

KICK VOLLEY 02 is coming up shortly

This will be the 20th edition of the Montreal indoor tournament and it is set for April 17th and 18th.

The name of the event is KICK VOLLEY 02 and it will be in our homebase College of Old Montreal (Cegep du Vieux-Montréal) This tournament used to be called the Montreal Windchill Footbag tournament.

We have no confirmation from out of towners yet but even if only the Montreal players show up you can expect a very high caliber of play.

It is free for all spectators. The schedule and all the necessary information for the players is available on the tournament's home page.

For the newest information on Kick Volley events you can visit KICKVOLLEY.net

Congratulations to Gilles and Frinki for their win at the 2010 French Footbag open

I finally get back to blogging life as spring is coming early it seems. My friends and teammates Gilles Demers and François Depatie-Pelletier represented Montreal at the 2010 French Footbag Open held in Paris February 26-28th. They managed very well thank you by winning the coveted Open Doubles Net championship over 29 other teams. In the finals match they defeated Jean-François Lemieux, originally from Montreal, who now lives in Paris and his partner Florian Goetze. Flo had won the 5 previous edition's doubles and he's part of the reigning world champion's team. So this is a big accomplishment for Gilles ''The Blade'' Demers and Frank ''The Tank'' Depatie-Pelletier.

Florian Goetze secured the singles title to ease the pain over Matti Pohjola who usually beats him every time in the solo event.

In the Freestyle category Tina Aeberli the swiss women's world champion captured another win in the french capital with a sweet routine. In the men's routines Czech young master Milan Benda was too strong for the competition but local freestyler Serge Kaldany hit the first ever dropless routine by a french player to end up second.

Pro Kicker provided the Footbags for the net competition for a 5th year in a row.

See the complete results and a collection of the finals freestyle videos here.