Flying Clipper is happy to be a part of footbag history.

We pioneered so many styles of footbag along the years here at Flying Clipper. We think this new project by John Stalberger on Kickstarter is fantastic because the history of footbag is so rich with so many stories of good friends.

We’re happy to be a part of that history and happy to support this Kickstarter campaign to see the release of the book about the history of Footbag aka Hacky Sack. The book is called “Hack the Sack.” It will be once it gets funded that is! Go check it out now and help out!

And as a part of telling that story, John is talking on Sunday’s about the history of the sport of footbag on Blog Talk Radio. This is a great service and we’re so stoked to see John telling his stories in a way that you can listen in anytime you like for years to come.

The History of the Footbag Sport

Play this show in your own music player.

All this leads up to the Kickstarter campaign! There is a limited time left to get this book funded! Get a custom footbag limited only to project backers at the $30 level, as well as the book of course! You can also get a signed footbag and book for $70! Many other reward levels available, even for $5, go check it out!

Here we have the two latest recipients of the Dirtbag Footbags which are being used to help with education programs in Chile.

The two children are named Emerson and Jefferson. They stop by the plaza in the Torres de Tajamar every now and then. Their father works in one of the buildings, so at times they come out and play. This weekend they decided to swap the football for the footbag.

Emerson showed some great control, particularly considering he is only seven years old. The younger Jefferson, who is only four, was able to kick the bag, but had a lot more fun balancing the bag on his head.

Despite their young age, both children showed a great attitude towards the sport and were improving within a short time.

The video below shows Daniel Boyle showing a few tricks to his new followers.

A recent footbag session in Santiago’s Plaza de Armas turned into more of a cultural experience, with a live band joining in the fun.

The band played while Daniel Boyle gave a footbag demonstration for some interested onlookers. You can see the video below of the show. Daniel used a Phat Tyre bag.

Despite never having met, everyone involved was able to put on a great show for the passers by in Santiago’s downtown area. Daniel managed all most three minutes before dropping the bag.

Daniel Boyle was joined by a live band in Santiago.

Thanks to the donated bags from Flying Clipper, the sport is gaining traction in Chile, with a demonstration at the recent Milk Cup qualifiers in Colina and meetings with various charities in order to use footbag as a tool for personal development in poor communities, as well as the ongoing footbag and English classes.

Aside from these developments, some of Chile’s best freestyle football players have also taken to footbag. While Vasek, Honza and others have led the way with the transition from footbag to freestyle football, there are fewer cases of others coming into the sport of footbag.

In his role as ambassador for the Danone Nations Cup under 12 soccer event, former Universidad de Chile striker Diego Rivarola was given a footbag and put on a short show for the crowd gathered.

To know some of Diego Rivarola’s exploits on the field, see this homenaje video created after his retirement in 2011. He is particularly known for last minute goals against Colo Colo in the superclásico. 

“Gokú”, who scored more than 100 goals for Universidad de Chile spent the morning signing autographs for excited fans. Rivarola was not the only person to get involved with footbag, with some of the young players having a turn. The footbags were donated by Flying Clipper helping with education programs in Chile.

Daniel Boyle teamed up with freestyle football player Cata Vega, who represented Chile at the 2012 Red Bull Street Style in Italy, to give an impromptu demonstration.

The team that wins the tournament will represent Chile at the Danone Nations Cup in London later in the year.

Next week there will be some more footbag interactions at junior tournaments, with Daniel Boyle giving a demonstration at the Rumbo al Milk Cup 2013 tournament in Colina. Daniel will be giving English lessons to the winning team to prepare them for the journey to Northern Ireland.

The moment finally arrived, the shipment of footbags from Flying Clipper made it to Chile.

The children at Colegio Los Almendros in La Florida were the first to receive the bags and were very excited. These students have been playing footbag every Friday to help their English.

Among others who will receive the footbags over the coming months are some of Chile best freestyle football players, as well as Olympic athletes who have also been receiving English classes.

The donation is an incredible opportunity to build the Footbag community in Chile and the rest of South America, with plans underway to build a competition from the English programs.

It is hoped that the application for the Chilean government program “Start-Up Chile will be a great success. You can see what’s happening in Chile in the video below.

Footbag Chile gives a huge thankyou to Flying Clipper and a vamos to all Chilenos to start playing this great sport!!

With all students back at school, it was time for Footbag to return to the classes in Chile. After making a very successful alliance in 2012, the first school to return to was Colegio Los Almendros in La Florida.

La Florida is an outer suburb of Santiago and Los Almendros is a public school there. Once again the children were very enthusiastic, with many retaining their skills from the classes last year.

The classes in 2013 will look to add even more to the program. Students joined Daniel Boyle last year at the school sports day presentation, thanking the crowd in English and showing off their new skills.

This year, there are plans to host a footbag competition at the school, before getting nearby schools to take up the challenge and compete in a regional tournament.

Flying Clipper has made a great donation of footbags to Chile, which should be arriving in the country shortly. After giving a presentation about Sports and Education at the recent Edcamp Santiago, Daniel Boyle has opened up possibilities for classes at more schools and hopes to create a larger scale program this year.

We get a lot of great reviews of our products from professional jugglers, and it always warms our hearts to know jugglers out there are getting the most possible use in the most extreme environments out of their Flying Clipper juggling props. 

Rhys Thomas is a juggler from Portland, OR. He recently got his hands on some of our Phat Tyre 32-Panel Juggling Balls and he had some absolutely fantastic words to share about them! Read here:

I’ve juggled Flying Clipper bags professionally for over 20 years. During this run of kinetic employment, I’ve put various Flying Clipper bags to the test of street shows, stage shows and festival shows. I’ve had Flying Clipper bags that have gotten wet, sat under heavy props, been run over (oops), stepped on by livestock, got teethed on by babies and all survived to be juggled another day.

On St. Lawrence Island, Alaska in February, just uphill from the frozen whale head on the beach, I set my bowling ball down and it cracked from being so cold and brittle. My fingers were stiff and the clubs inflicted pain with each catch, but my Flying Clipper Tossaball Hybrid bags stayed supple and soft as ever.

Footbag has had some publicity in the media this week. Firstly, an English class with Chile’s top athletes was televised on two sports news programs (Vive Deportes and CDO), while Diario del Futbol ran a profile about Footbag.

In a football obsessed continent, the Diario del Futbol looks to promote both smaller competitions and clubs, as well as sports that are associated with football.

Appearing in this publication is a great chance to get some further publicity for the sport. The link to the interview is in Spanish, but you can find some more information about the Footbag and English programs, which Flying Clipper has donated 100 footbags toward, in an article at English language publication I Love Chile.

The video below shows a different angle on sports and education, with footbag on display outside of the controversial Universidad del Mar. The university has been closed down by the Chilean government after a long running corruption case.

Students have taken matters into their own hands, taking over the university. Protests for education in Chile have made headlines over the past years and with an election coming up in 2013, the students will be sure to return to the streets this year.

For more information on Footbag in Chile, visit the Footbag Chile website.

What A Review!

As we’ve said in the paste, we LOVE hearing from our AMAZING CUSTOMERS! You guys and ladies out there are seriously so cool!

Sometimes we get really cool responses from the fans out there, and today is one of them. Max is one of our long-time customers and he’s done a few reviews on our products as well as our competitors products. We always love to see our balls run the gambit with our meticulous customers, especially those that juggle professionally and use our balls in shows and other events!

Max is back with another great review, this time of Flying Clipper and his years of experience with our company. Here it is:

I’ve got a few reviews already posted on the site for some of the Tossaballs so I’m probably just going to make this a general review of Flying Clipper as a whole. I’ve also made a video review for the 32-Panel Phat Tyre Tossaballs  that is already hosted on Flying Clipper’s Blog: (http://www.flyingclipper.com/blog/index.php/customer-review-of-the-brand-new-32-panel-tossaball/) Like I said, this is just going to be a basic overview/review of the company as a whole with a few specific product mentions added in for good measure.

I’ve been a juggler for about 10 years now. After my first non-learner set of beanbags (millet -filled thuds) became so dilapidated and worthless after less than a year of use I vowed to never use beanbags again. I switched to stage balls and filled stage balls for the first 5 years or so of juggling. One day I was roaming around the internet looking for some new props and new places to purchase props. After following a few links I stumbled upon a website that was completely new to me, www.FlyingClipper.com. FlyingClipper.com immediately caught my eye because the site as a whole has a nice clean look to it; it’s well laid out, easy to navigate and there are a ton of different products.

The only reason I continued to browse after noticing all the beanbags was because they all had mention of some “Hybrid Technology”. I’ll be honest , I was skeptical at first, but after reading more about it on the well put together FAQ area I was intrigued. Not only did the props avoid using millet, but they took it one step further by adding two types of filler to one ball. Twelve panel beanbags with each panel being a pillow filled with crushed quartz all wrapped around plastic pellets to help fill the void. It sounded like an amazing idea to me. Not only did it help to create balls that had even weight and mass, but they would not break down any. I couldn’t resist any longer, I had to buy myself a set. I clicked around and decided on a set of Ultrasuede 2.8″ 130gram Tossaball Hybrids.

I was still slightly skeptical of the Hybrid Technology when my new props arrived. I followed the instructions that came with them and threw them into the washing machine, cold wash/cold rinse/no soap. This was a very impressive new thing to me, washable juggle balls?!?! When the wash had finished and the balls had finally air dried overnight I was thrilled to finally begin using them! I immediately noticed the quality craftsmanship, the stitching was evenly spaced and solid. No gaps between stitches to allow filler to fall out. The Ultrasuede material was clearly the highest quality available. I started throwing them into the air, my 5-ball cascade immediately felt more solid than ever.

Not only did they have a completely dead drop unlike any of my filled stage balls they also had no wobble in the air no matter how much spin I added to them. Five years later, 25 or 30 machine washings, countless drops from 7′s and above and those Ultrasuede Tossaballs are still in prime condition and feel exactly the same as they did during that first 5-ball cascade. That to me is what a juggling prop should be! I shouldn’t have to replace my props every year because they’ve become so soft and wobbly in the air. I shouldn’t have to worry about getting my props dirty for fear of not being able to clean them. I should be able to use a prop for ten’s of years and have it feel just as good as it did on day one.

“That is what Flying Clipper is all about. They’ve created a line of top quality and innovative juggling props with enough variety to meet anyone’s needs.”

Since that first set, I’ve tried quite a few of the Tossaballs from Flying Clipper. Recently, I purchased myself a set of the 32-Panel Phat Tyre Tossaballs. These caught my eye because they combined two of my favorite things. Juggling, and helping the environment. Rather than be filled with sand and plastic pellets like many of their other products, Flying Clipper went above and beyond to create a juggling ball unlike any other on the market. These balls are filled to the perfect volume with ground up, recycled car tires. That heavy duty rubber that you’ve been driving on for years is now the filler for an incredible piece of juggle-able art. They use a few stainless steel pellets to help keep the weight of each prop consistent as well as make sure that the mass of each feels the same. Because none of the filler is organic these props are, like everything else from Flying Clipper, completely machine washable. Since getting these they’ve become my main props for any kind of juggling. They’re slightly underfilled so drops and catches are completely dead; they stop right where they land. Definitely an A+ prop in my book.

Not only has Flying Clipper created an amazing line of juggling props and footbags but they’ve also dedicated themselves to expert customer service. After placing an order you get a confirmation email with details of your order. A little later you receive an email letting you know that the order has shipped. I’m on the east coast and I’ve never waited more than a week for my props, and that wait was only because the color I wanted was out of stock at the time. If you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for by browsing online go ahead and contact them. Emails are usually answered the day of or early next day and if need be you can give them a call to help sort out shipping issues or with any questions about your props.

Flying Clipper has become my go to website for new juggling balls or just window shopping. I’ve never had an issue with them and I’m certain that if something did go wrong they would do everything in their power to correct it as soon as they could. They value their customers and they value quality, both in their props and their service. I don’t think you can have a bad experience with them even if you wanted to. Well done www.FlyingClipper.com; you’ve earned my business and respect for life.