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.

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 committed 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.

The end of the road for Yevez

Finally, it wasn't as bad as I thought. I ended up playing until 2022 😎

 

Yeah! It looks like it's the end for me as a Pro Footbag competitor. Yesterday I blew my left knee again (2004) while playing a little Peteca with a friend. I must say that I had a great run as I played for 28 years including 25 years as a competitor.

I won my first tournament in Montreal in 1985, then it took us four years to organize another one here. That's when I started a series of at least one win in an open tournament for 20 years in a row, including two open doubles World Championships. I won a lot of East american tournaments at first including Montreal, East Coast and the Funtastik Summer Classic. These three tournaments used to be called the Devil's triangle. I added the Midwest regionals, Southeast regionals, US open, Texas State, New Jersey Spike and Shred, some European Championships and French open to the list as well as my last victory ever at the second South American Championships in December 2008 in Venezuela.

The sweetest victories: Worlds 2001 with Alexis Deschênes, my first singles win at the European Championships 1999 and the 2000 US open with Rob Adams.

Of course there were also a lot of tough losses but we tend to forget more about them right?. Still I'll never forget Alexis and I loss to Allan Petersen and Peter Shunny at the great 1997 Portland World Championships. To this day I still think that we were the better team but nervousness got to us. At least we had the chance to come back 4 years later and win it all in San Francisco.

I was not the most talented player but I worked my ass off. For over 15 years I practiced 6 days a week, 6 hours a day all summer long. In the end I won a lot of matches against better players because I was practicing more than they were.

It's all been a lot of fun but now it's time to move on. I want to wish good luck to all the serious competitors out there and I wish to think that some of you will believe that it'll be a little easier not to have to meet me on the other side of the net :-)

The 2009 World Footbag Championships in Berlin, recap

The 30th edition of the IFPA World Footbag Championships was held in Berlin this year (July 20-26) and the finals day was a great success. The ARENA was the finals location and had bleachers with very comfy seats on three sides facing a huge stage.

The day started with the women's singles net finals. This match was scheduled for friday evening but due to different time constraints it ended up on finals day. Maude Landreville won the title over Geneviève Bousquet, both players are from Montreal. Women's singles was the only title missing on the glorious Montreal Footbag net club list. Mission accomplished.

The next match featured Emmanuel Bouchard facing JF Lemieux, both from Montreal, again. Bouchard won the open singles title for the 12th year in a row over JF in 2 straight games. Then the women from Montreal came back to face Irena Marc and Llena Mlakar from Kranj, Slovenia. Maude and Geneviève won their second career doubles title (Montreal 2004) over the very improved Slovenian team. Mixed doubles was next and guess what: Two teams from Montreal were facing each other. JF Lemieux and Maude Landreville won over Luc Legault and Geneviève Bousquet. If we all know how to count right this makes three titles for Maude. Winning the triple crown, very impressive.

The most important title of net is open doubles though and unfortunately this one escaped the feet of the montrealers. Favorites Florian Gotze and Patrick Shrickel from Germany won the coveted title over 2008 champs Emmanuel Bouchard (Montreal) and PT Lovern (Chaos club California) This was a 3rd title for the Germs (2007-07). They had a great start winning the 1st game easily with textbook offence and great defence. They lost it in the 2nd game, probably feeling the pressure of the 1,100 spectators heavily pushing them for a quick victory in their land. The 3rd game started as bad for them, at one point they were loosing 2-7, but they rallied nicely at the end to fly over the finish line with a sweet victory. Congratulations to Flo and Patti, well done. Some very good KICK VOLLEY was played that day but my favorite match of the week was men's semi-finals 2. Luc Legault and Gilles Demers lost a heartbreaker 14-16 in the 3rd set against PT Lovern and Emmanuel Bouchard. Luc and Gilles tied for 3rd place with fellow Montrealers JF Lemieux and Benjamin Rochon.

The doubles match, as well as the next events, was streamlined live over the internet, a first at the WFC. Pro Kicker Impact Footbags were the official net bags for the tournament.

The rest of the evening was all freestyle events. Lets just say that Tina Aeberli won the women's title. I think she started her domination in 2005 (Helsinki) and she is still clearly ahead of her competitors. In men's singles routines Vasek Klouda regained his title brilliantly with the only dropless routine of his bunch (8 finalists) and probably from the whole night.

After that the night returned to music, party and chaos, Berlin style. A solo artist and a band entertained the crowd for a while at the ARENA and then we moved on to the Glashaus on the same site, some to celebrate their victories, some to drind away their losses, promising themselves that next year would be better.

Benjamin Rochon blocks Jani Markkanen's toe reverse in a quarter finals match

The 2009 Green Cup, Footbag Net at its best part 2

Finals day at the Green Cup.

We finally get a sunny day and the weather is perfect for playing KICK VOLLEY. As stated in article 1 there are 7 montrealers out of 8 players in the doubles semis, cool. The first semi-finals opposes JF Lemieux and Ben ''Rock on'' Rochon to Alexis Deschênes and François Depatie-Pelletier. It takes a lot of fire power to get past JF and Ben's defence and Alexis and Frinki just don't have enough in them that morning. Winners and on their way to the finals in 2 straight games: JF Lemieux and Benjamin Rochon.

In the second semi-finals veteran Yves Archambault and his partner Luc Legault start the match as major underdogs. They face PT Lovern and Emmanuel Bouchard, the reigning World Champions. As planned Lovern and Bouchard win the 1st game but Archambault and Legault put on a good fight. Then the underdogs won the second game to send this match in an ultimate set. The turning point happened at 3-7 (PT and Manu in the lead) when it took over 20 side-outs to get another point for the champs. The rest of the game was pretty much a walk in the park for Lovern and Bouchard but the match was much longer and tougher than expected. That situation would signify a heavy toll to pay for Bouchard.

The 3 rd place match is played right after this semi-finals and Legault is clearly exhausted. He had to spike so many times in the previous match that he doesn't have much left in him. It shows as he misses a lot of serve receptions, very unusual for him. Deschênes and Depatie-Pelletier cruise to an easy victory in 2 straight sets.

Then the doubles finals started and it promised to be a battle. The first 2 games are a split and moving on to a 3 rd game the red team is very confident (JF and Ben). After 3 points Emmanuel Bouchard has to forfait from the match due to severe leg cramps. The grueling duel of the semi-finals has taken its toll and the Green Cup once again evades the hands of PT Lovern and Manu.

In 2008 they lost at the same stage against germans Patti Schrickel and Florian Gotze.

The new Green Cup champions: From Montréal, Jean-François Lemieux and Benjamin Rochon.

After this match JF defeated frenchis Greg Lima in the singles finals sweetening his doubles victory with yet another title.

In the mixed doubles PT Lovern and Jodi Welch won over JF Lemieux and Lisa Monti.

PRO KICKER footbags were used throughout the entire competition.

The 2009 Green Cup results and picture set on Pro Kicker