
David Leberknight
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David
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Leberknight
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I received my first Hacky Sack brand footbag as a gift from my brother James in 1980 and it changed my life. Within a few years I was playing every day, and a few years later I learned how to make multi-panel footbags from Bjarne Everberg of the Danish team at the World Championship tournament in Colorado. Soon I had my own company that I called Funky Footbags, and I travelled to music festivals to kick and to promote the sport, making money at the same time with sales. This was a wonderful 'side hustle' to complement my day job as an I.T. guy. I spent a lot of time kicking it with the Wash Park club in Denver, and with all the cool kickers who rolled through Boulder back in the day.
Since then I have taken a footbag with me to more than 80 countries, where I have taught many locals to do tricks and to sew bags. I even took a footbag with me when I climbed Mt. Aconcagua at 6959 meters, which gives me the high-altitude kicking world record. I love freestyle tricks and net, but I still prefer the original game of getting hacks with friends, cooperative, fun exercise. Now I live in New Zealand where I still play often, encouraging Kiwis to Bring Back the Hack!
By the way, the Myanmar version of Footbag is called Chinlone, and the local crew loves to play that too 🙂 Here's a video from my first trip to Myanmar ... and here's a video from my second trip to Myanmar. My website has some of the oldest photos of footbags online (since 1997): Footbags on the Web - Keep kickin' it, and y'all have fun!
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