9.8 meters per second squared (or 'Snowflakes')

Footbag freestyle is a living workshop on Physics combined with Physiology. Terminal Velocity of a falling object is 9.8 meters per second squared. That is one of the few things I remember from high-school physics class. I don't know why that stuck, but it did. I quote Wikipedia: "An object falling toward the surface of the Earth will fall 9.81 meters (or 32.18 feet) per second faster every second (an acceleration of 9.81 m/s² or 32.18 ft/s²)." I read a few other cool things at wikipedia on this topic, but most of it made my eyes roll into the back of my head.

When I think about how this plays into my footbag game, I am reminded of how I am truly the master of the obvious. Really, footbag players don't have to deal with footbags at Terminal Velocity (for a human, that is about 120mph). We deal in Apex and the beginning part of the 'falling' process. When we set the footbag, we can somewhat control the height of the set by the amount of energy we put into the set, and the Apex is split second when the footbag stops moving in mid air... think about that. Stopped in mid-air, pretty cool. Really, every trick no matter how difficult contains the Upward, Apex and Downward motions. We refer to the motion that starts the whole process as the "Set."

During the Downward portion of the path, the footbag falls at 32.18 feet per second faster... each second! When I think about how that impacts our sport, I am glad I don't EVER kick the footbag over 32 feet high! Even Net players rarely kick it that high, but because of Terminal Velocity our sports are very different. Our brains can compensate for this with enough practice, that is why not everyone can be an outfielder in professional baseball... it is a learned skill. Footbag deals primarily with the first 5 feet of downward acceleration, which tells me that I have had a lot of practice learning about the path of a footbag because almost every set is the same. Ironically though, they are all unique and I dare say that no two sets are the same. The point in space where the footbag is located at any given moment is only accurately portrayed using X, Y and Z coordinates. Even though I have done literally MILLIONS of sets, I don't think any of them were the same.

By my math, after the Apex, a footbag set at four feet would take 1/8 of a second to fall. So while most tricks have a set height of under 4 feet, that means that most of the trick happens VERY quickly after the Apex. It is amazing how many body motions can be put into such a small amount of time. I mean, I love playing and improving, but look at the last two world champions in the sport and how many micro-motions they put into the strings they do. They are truly pushing the edge. Insane.I think I'll stop now, because I am very impressed with myself and all my fellow shredders.

Shred notes: 2/6/10
Hit Blurry Symposium Whirling Cross Body Rake (7 adds) on film (somewhat thin)... hit it on my first try, pre-camera much more solidly. Also hit Blurry Whirling X-Body Rake on both sides in the same string. SWEET! Tons of rake strings today. Raked the hall.