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Freestyle Disc to Be a Part of the Inaugural World Urban Games in Los Angeles, 2019!

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This is such exciting news for Freestyle Frisbee that I just had to share: Freestyle Frisbee is set to be a part of the inaugural World Urban Games (WUG) in Los Angeles, California, USA Budapest, Hungary in 2019! Freestyle Frisbee will be featured in the 5 3 day event (Sept 18-22 Sept 13-15).

World Urban Games is a new event, hosted by The Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF). According to their site, “GAISF’s vision is to present a united voice of sport in support of the Olympic ideals and of the Olympic movement and promote sport at every level and in every corner of the world, from grassroots to elite, wherever its members have national organizations and events.”

The World Urban Games event is an effort to give exposure to up-and-coming, modern sports. 

“The programme and festival will showcase all that is best about sports which have been forged by youth and urban culture and which celebrate competition, creativity, lifestyle and the engagement between competitors and fans.” – GAISF President Patrick Baumann

Sounds to me like a perfect description of Freestyle Frisbee. The GAISF must have agreed, since they started with a list 14 eligible sports and narrowed their selection down to 7.

How did freestyle get to be a part of this? Back in 2014 the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) approached the Freestyle Player’s Association (FPA) about pitching freestyle disc as part of their bid for flying disc to be a part of WUG. As members of WFDF, the FPA gave full support. Various jammers world-wide (Germany, France, USA) provided photos and videos of freestyle in urban settings. From there, WFDF made the proposal to GAISF. Freestyle was eventually accepted for eligibility and then made the final cut for inclusion.

“Having Freestyle added as an eligible sport for the first edition of the World Urban Games means bringing another Flying Disc sport to a Multisport Games presence, which is a major step for the development of Freestyle internationally, opening new opportunities for our community.” – Kevin “Skippy” Givens, WFDF Freestyle Committee Chair

For 2019, the city of Los Angeles will build a new new urban park specifically for WUG in El Segundo (CA). There will be ~700 competitors, a music festival, and the event is expected to be the focus of global media attention. Competition events will include 3×3 Basketball (FIBA), BMX Freestyle (UCI), Sports Climbing  Bouldering (IFSC), Break Dance (WDSF), Freestyle Flying Disc (WFDF), Parkour (FIG), Skateboard Street and Park (World Skate), Roller Freestyle (World Skate).

This is quite possibly the largest international venue that our sport has ever been presented on, which is a tremendous opportunity for world-wide exposure of freestyle disc!

The FPA is stepping up to prepare. Their plan is to present a mixed pairs event with 12 internationally represented teams from as many different countries as possible; with a maximum of 3 teams per country.  The FPA is also investigating sponsorship opportunities for competitors and staff, to ensure that the best of our sport will be represented at this event. This is an amazing chance for teams to perform in front of a huge crowd, and be pioneers in representing the sport on the world stage.

I, for one, am hugely excited about freestyle being selected for the World Urban Games. I look forward to keeping track of the preparation progress and with helping out in any way I can. If you want to help out too, you can always support the FPA by becoming a member, donating, shopping, or volunteering.

For more details, check out the links below.

What are your thoughts about this opportunity? Let me know in the comments below.

 

New T-Shirt Design and Colors

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It’s been about a year since we introduced the FrisbeeGuru T-Shirt an opened our store. Since then, many of you have purchased shirts and mugs and joined the Wall of Gurus. In celebration of the one year anniversary and of all the great support and feedback we’ve received from you, we are introducing some new items.

First up is a new set of colors with a yellow circle. With this we complete the rainbow and can match any color pallet for your tournament or jamming wardrobe.

Next up is a new T-Shirt design. It’s a word cloud Freestyle Frisbee terminology in the shape of a hand. With this T-Shirt you can proudly display your love for Freestyle Frisbee and entice your friends to ask, “what is a nail delay?” Who knows, maybe this will be what leads someone into our fine sport.

Remember, all proceeds go directly to supporting our mission, so don’t hesitate to check out our store. We thank you for your support! Don’t forget to tune in to The Jammers 2018 Live stream. You might even see me wearing one of these fine shirts on the stream 😉

FrisbeeGuru – 2017 in Review

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One of the most effective strategies for improving one’s Freestyle Frisbee game is self-reflection. After a jam or performance, it’s helpful to take a moment to think back and recognize what worked, as well as where we can improve and grow.

Since this site’s inception in 1998, I’ve been doing a similar exercise. As I sit and reflect on Heinsville and FrisbeeGuru in 2017, I am taken aback at just how much we’ve accomplished. I also want to share my thoughts with you because you’ve all been such an important part of this amazing journey.

At the beginning of 2017, I set three goals:

  • Centralize Freestyle Frisbee live streaming on this site
  • Increase the audience viewership for the FPAW 2017 live stream over 2016
  • Create at least three new items of content for the blog

Looking back, all three of these were successful. With the help of Jakub “Mystic” Matula and Chris Bellaj, we hosted 14 live streams. We also added our own streaming service so we no longer need to use Youtube, UStream, etc. This means no commercials and that we control the content. For FPAW 2017, we placed a Facebook ad promoting the finals. This resulted in an uptick in viewer traffic, surpassing all other FPAWs except for 2013. And, of course, with the weekly podcast on Sunday, weekly polls on Thursday, and other content (like the training videos) on Tuesday, the goal of three new items per week was easily met.

Randy Editing

If that were all, I would be more than satisfied. Looking back at previous years, those three items would have put 2017 as one of the top productive years. But that’s only part of the story. Early in 2017, Randy came to me with an idea. As we discussed it, we realized the synergy with my expertise with internet technology and his expertise with internet marketing. We partnered up and created another set of goals:

  • A Weekly Podcast
  • Increased website traffic, live stream viewership, and audience engagement
  • Income to fund the FrisbeeGuru mission

Shortly after this conversation, Shootin’ the FrizBreeze was born. Then, we rebranded Heinsville to FrisbeeGuru, which immediately grabbed people’s attention and made it easier to point non-Frisbee friends to the site. We also organized our Facebook presence, added a mailing list, and began promoting FrisbeeGuru and all our projects. Then, we added the donate button, T-Shirts, and the Wall of Gurus. Most importantly, we clearly defined our mission.

What’s been most amazing about 2017 is how many of you have joined us for this adventure; comments are up 10x from years pasts (even more than that on our facebook posts), people contact us regularly with feedback, ideas, or questions (some from regular freestylers and others who are new to the sport). We’ve had more outside blog posts and photo contributions this past year than ever, including people proudly wearing their FrisbeeGuru T-Shirts, and many generous donations toward our continued endeavors. THANK YOU!

Of course, any good self-reflection includes areas for growth. There are several things that I’d like to improve:

  1. Technical issues caused some of our live streams to fail this year. This included both issues with hardware on-site and issues with our live streaming service. Certainly sometimes things just break, but I’ll be adding more backup planning and improving the software.
  2. I’d like to improve our overall audio and video quality. What we produce is pretty good, but I believe increasing the polish would lend more credibility to our various projects.
  3. I’d like the FPAW live stream to be more like a show that communicates not only to the knowledgeable freestyler, but to a lay-person audience. Therefore, I will be working toward adding more commentary and other filler material to keep people engaged with the live stream. We’ve experimented with this in the past and the feedback has been very positive. I think we now have the expertise to bring this to the next level in 2018.
  4. FrisbeeGuru T-Shirt sales and donations have been appreciated; enabling us to do many things this year that we would not have been able to otherwise. In order to keep our growth and improvement on track, we are launching a Patreon campaign on Feb 4th, 2018. Patreon is basically a crowd sourced funding platform, similar to Kickstarter, allowing fans to become monthly Patrons of projects that they love (like FrisbeeGuru!).

Looking back at this past year, I could not have imagined accomplishing so much without the help of so many enthusiastic jammers, partners, fans, and contributors. What excites me the most is that looking ahead to 2018, I am more motivated and charged up than ever.

Now I am asking you to share what you think: What have we done well? What could we do better? Is there anything that you suggest that we can try? Let me know in the comments, or send me a private message via our contact form or via email, Facebook, etc.

Wall of Gurus

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Guru Flower

Welcome to Wall of Gurus

This is a tribute to all those who’ve proudly supported FrisbeeGuru. We thank you. Our mission is to aid in the growth of Freestyle Frisbee. Click to read more. If you’d like to support us, donate, become a patron, or buy something from our store.  If you take a photo of yourself, send it to us! We’d love to add you to our Wall of Gurus.

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Frisbee Guru T-Shirts, Now In Women’s Cut

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We heard your feedback and have added a Women’s Cut to the FrisbeeGuru T-Shirt line. Just like the Unisex Cut, these shirts are made from Jersey Knit cotton and are very soft. They are perfect for a lazy weekend day and even better for the jam. All proceeds go to support FrisbeeGuru’s mission.

If you’re looking for other items, check out all our apparel here.

Frisbee Guru Becomes our Parent Brand

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20 years ago I started Heinsville with a specific vision. Matt and I reasoned that one of the main things keeping people from taking up Freestyle Frisbee is that it is difficult to learn. We set out to make it easier by writing and gathering How-To articles. Many of the best players at the time wrote for Heinsville.com; people like Arthur Coddington, Larry Imperiale, and Dave Lewis.

Since then the vision has grown. This site is now the home for Freestyle Frisbee Live streaming, Shooting the Frizbreeze Podcast, interviews, event results, polls, and more. Though we have expanded to be a hub for Freestyle Frisbee content, teaching is still at the core. It’s as much about growing the player base as it is about growing the fan base.

I have also learned that using an inside joke as a name is not good for attracting new players. When I say “heinsville.com” people don’t know how to spell it. When people read it, they pronounce it incorrectly. It resonates with jammers, but not with the rest of the world.

Making this change has been a difficult decision. Here’s what tipped the scales for me. I was jamming by myself on the beach. Someone approached me to ask what I was doing. During the conversation I said “go to frisbeeguru.com.” Not only did they remember it but they later contacted me through the “about us” page.

So, it’s time to grow. FrisbeeGuru.com is now the parent brand for this site. It encompasses the Live Stream project, Shootin’ the Frizbreeze, Heinsville (learn to jam), and serves as the entry point for all content created by this team. I am confident that this new brand will serve us well going forward.

Don’t worry, though, Heinsville lives on. It represents the “learn to jam” content and will continue to be used in future projects. All links to heinsville.com will continue to function. One of the things I enjoyed as new player was learning all the special Freestyle Frisbee language. Understanding the term Heinsville is a sign that you are part of the jamily.

Learn more about our mission.

Want to help? Click here to donate.

Heinsville’s New Alias – frisbeeguru.com

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Frisbee Guru

Heinsville is such a fun concept for Freestyle Frisbee Players. Hein means to play at your best, so Heinsville is the place all the players want to be. In Heinsville the disc is always slick, the wind never gusts, your nails don’t fall off, and you never get tired.

Of course, this site is all about spreading the jam, teaching others, sharing the culture, and growing the sport. As fun as the name heinsville is, it’s difficult to share with those who don’t yet know the language, which is of course a big part of the target audience.

Enter Heinsville’s new alias: frisbeeguru.com. Now, if you meet someone who might be interested in learning a few tricks, just tell them to go to frisbeeguru.com and they will end up at Heinsville.

The frisbee guru has reached the third level of transcendence of the disc. He sits in the lotus position while frisbees float about under his complete control. He is one with the disc, the wind, and himself. Now go out and spread the word. The Frisbee Guru has arrived.