Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 15:56:19 -0700
To: announcements list
From: Steve Goldberg
Subject: [announce] Footbag Rule Changes for 1998
Footbag players, fans, and friends:
The International Footbag Advisory Board (IFAB) held its annual meeting
this past Monday, August 12th, 1997. The board meets annually to consider
rule changes and to act as an oversight and steering committee for the
sport. For those who aren’t familiar with IFAB and its charter, all this
information may be found on the IFAB website, http://ifab.footbag.org.
(Note: the rulebook on the website will not be updated for several weeks to
reflect the rule changes below.)
The following is a short summary of rule changes — the wording is to be
worked out by the committees involved and will appear in the rulebook to go
into effect on January 1, 1998. This year, for the first time ever, the
rulebook will be available in print and on-line *before* the new calendar
year!
………….. RULE CHANGES FOR 1998 ……………
NOTE: these are rough notes, and not the official wording. Again, the
official wording will be available in the rulebook.
Footbag Net:
A. Uniforms:
Uniforms are now encouraged to be worn by competitors in net events.
B. Pool order:
In a round-robin format with a pool of 4 teams/individuals,
the order of play within the pool has been changed. The new
order (given teams/individuals seeded 1-4), will be:
(1) 1 vs 3 and 2 vs 4
(2) 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3
(3) 1 vs 2 and 3 vs 4
Freestyle:
A. Head judge:
A section will be added to 505.01 (g) to define the “head judge”
who will take on the following responsibilities during the
freestyle competition:
(1) monitoring the overall judging process, ensuring that
judges are ready and present for each routine;
(2) watching all the routines in the pool;
(3) ensuring accuracy and fairness in judging (i.e., if the
presentation judges’ scores are too dissimilar, the head
judge must discuss this with the presentation judges
to try to reach consensus, and may decide to reject one
judges’ scores if they are deemed to be out of line)
(4) being the official point of contact for players who want
to follow up on their scores from that round, and/or to
raise a dispute (players are not to dispute scores with,
nor otherwise communicate with the other judges during
the round).
B. Live music:
Live accompaniment is explicitly allowed for freestyle routines,
as long as it is made clear to all judges that the accompaniment
is live before the routine begins.
C. Doubles freestyle scoring:
Wording will be added to the formula-based judging system to
clarify the details of several aspects of doubles freestyle scoring:
(1) composition scores are for the team, not for the individuals.
Example: a unique add-value move performed by one team-member
is a unique move for the team — if the other player does
the same move (on the same side of the body), it is not a
second unique move. (More details in actual wording to come.)
(2) there is a special add category, “co-op”, for which an
add is awarded in the following cases:
a. when two players perform the same move in perfect
synchrony (i.e., “mirroring”) — one add is given
total for the synch, not two;
b. when an add-value move is performed by one partner
from an add-value set by the other partner (this
has been called “add-to-add pass”);
c. when any move is performed by one player while the
other player is presenting an obstacle (such as
a leg) — this is commonly referred to as “hooping”;
NOTE: hooping is *not* a dexterity, it is a “co-op”.
……… END OF RULE CHANGES FOR 1998 ………..
I won’t bug all of you with the detailed minutes from the IFAB meeting, but
I know a bunch of you will want to see them. I will e-mail them to the
footbag@footbag.org mailing list tomorrow. If you’re not on that list,
please e-mail me directly for a copy of the minutes.
Steve