Taishi Ishida

Taishi Ishida began playing footbag in 2003 in Yokohama, Japan. His area of interest was freestyle footbag, which is the discipline of executing footbag tricks and linking moves into combinations. Taishi largely schooled by himself in his early years, watching videos online to improve his skills. His inspirations included many Big Add Posse members and future Footbag Hall of Famers Eli Piltz, Vasek Klouda, David Clavens, Jorden Moir, Jim Penske, Lon Smith, Sunil Jani, Felix Zenger, Juho Marjo, and Evan Gatesman. His very first inspiration came from Eli Piltz with his Flipsider videos and website, which were very popular at the time. He has also mentioned his great respect for people who contribute to the preservation of the footbag community, including many organizers and promoters.

In his early days as a freestyler, Ishida dreamed of playing like his heroes from the footbag videos he studied. These dreams were realized when he won multiple World titles at the World Footbag Championships in the following years;

-World Footbag Championships, Circle Champion, 2014
-World Footbag Championships, Circle Champion, 2018
-World Footbag Championships, Routines Champion, 2024

Taishi was also inducted into the prestigious Big Add Posse (a group of the best freestyle footbag players in the world) in 2018 for his hard work and amazing freestyle skills. He is also considered the greatest Japanese footbag player of all time.

Even before many of these accomplishments, Taishi decided he wanted to spread awareness of footbag and pursued the sport as a profession. Becoming a full-time performer was a major turning point in his life. He not only significantly promoted the sport of the footbag, but also honed his freestyle and showmanship skills.

Ishida has performed a great number of shows over the years, teaching new players about the sport and entertaining the masses. At present, he is one of the few full-time professional footbag players, as it is his job to travel and perform for a living. This has greatly spread footbag awareness across the world, thanks to his unwavering dedication and passion for the sport.

Much like his early footbag heroes, Taishi has been showcased in many, many footbag videos, articles, interviews, TV shows, documentaries, and other forms of media.

For all of this and more, Taishi Ishida was inducted into the Footbag Hall of Fame at the World Footbag Championships in 2024.

Taishi Ishida