Enjoy…

Fearless Footers [video]

The results of the Men’s Open Finals have been posted on the Australian Barefoot Water Ski Club’s website now and here are the final standings for Men’s Open:

1. Keith St Onge (USA)
2. Heinrich Sam (South Africa)
3. Andre De Villiers (South Africa)
4. David Small (Great Britain)

You can view the full results here.

The Women’s Open results are final as well and here are the standings:

1. Ashleigh Stebbeings (Australia)
2. Elaine Heller (USA)
3. Emily Goldia (Great Britain)
4. Laura Szwed (Great Britain)
5. Shannon Heller (USA)

It starts off with what is probably a typical Heinrich pass.  For those that don’t know, he’s a pretty good barefooter of some reknown.  At the ripe old age of 17, he has already set some European Junior and Open trick records.  The kicker is he is just as good as barefooter now, if not better, after he has survived a bout with cancer.

After his initial trick run to warm up, he lines up next to the boat to try some freestyle.  His freestyle isn’t as polished as Andre’s yet, but I’m sure it’ll get there soon.  Enjoy the video from BFC…

You can find the video on BFC’s South African Barefoot scene page here.  In the video section on that page, it is called “Heinrich shows his Freestyle Talent”.

This video does come with a little warning.  They do a boat to boat exchange of footers on the boom.  Please don’t try this without excellent drivers and some serious confidence in the other footer’s ability.  The results could be bad without 4 very competent people (2 drivers and 2 footers).  Be sure to be comfortable with all 4 peoples’ skill level for that trick.

BTW, be sure to watch till the very end.  Heinrich tries some overhead 3′s on the boom.  Fun to watch, looks like it might hurt, but he bounces right back up… literally.

These guys (the De Villiers brothers) are always trying new things so there would have to be some great spills.  How about a video of that?  It would just be nice to see a human side to these guys?

Well, it appears that Chuck has changed his mind.  On the eve of the election, this new video came up on the website. 

You can find the video on BFC’s Video page here.  It’s titled “I Fell Down”.

Chuck’s rational for not showing the wipeouts is that he’s trying to encourage people to barefoot and doesn’t want to show the painful side of it.  But guess what, unfortunately pain is a part of the sport of barefooting. It doesn’t need to be a big part of it, but even people that are learning the basics, they want to see that even the great footers fall down and go boom when they are trying new things.  Plus, if they don’t see the pros struggling to learn new things, new people can become frustrated when they don’t get it as quick as these guys do.

So thank you for the video of the wipeouts, even if they do just tumble up about half the time, which is really just sickening.

BTW, no I did not start that thread.

Here’s the video, judge for yourself…

Overhead 360 [BFC video]

It’s My Life [video]

Yes, another week, another BFC video of Andre de Villiers doing more crazy stuff next to the boat.  I wonder what their thought process is for dreaming some of this stuff up?

Hmmm, how can we get more air we jump out of the boat at 40+ MPH?  Trampoline… let’s give it a whirl.  Have someone throw us out of the boat… sounds like fun.  

We already doing some slick slides at the end of our runs, what can we do to have more fun on those?  How about after we start sliding, we stand up and try to foot again, or maybe just try to jump… that might work.

And then we try some other crazy stuff.

Time for you to check out their new video…

You Don’t Know [video]

New tricks.

Although people have come up with some slick new tricks, of which a ton of video is floating around on the net, it seems that the the WBC (the World Barefoot Council) only recognizes tricks that have been sent in to them for review for being officially recognized and having point values assigned.  It seems some people find this to be unfair, or maybe, too much of a hassel to go through.  They think that, hey there is video of it on the web, it should be recognized.  How many points will it be worth?  (You can read more of this discusssion over on this thread at BFC).

Foot (a WBC member) laid out the process… send a video of the tricks being done long line to the council and then the council will review them.  The council isn’t going to come look at videos on BFC to search out new tricks.

Now people are asking why the council isn’t going to look at videos on BFC?  Well, I’m guessing because the current process calls for the videos to be sent to them.  Plus, the council can’t be expected to search out new videos on the web looking for new tricks to add.  Why?  Because popular websites are going to have an easy time getting their tricks recognized.  A little one person website that posts new tricks probably isn’t going to be found, and the trick not reviewed.  It just isn’t a realistic process to go through.

Now maybe the WBC might need to update their process to recognize video links submitted to them, which I think would be fair.  Levels the playing field.  But expecting members to find them on their own accord is not a fair expectation for them.

Well, the people running BFC posted a video of new tricks they want considered, put it right on their front page, and asked WBC members to look at it.  Not sure if this will be enough to get them approved, but they are trying.

New Tricks for the WBC [video]