How old is hacky sack

In the U. Today, millions of players throughout the world participate in the sport of footbag. It took both hard work and dedication, but Mike Marshall and John Stalberger made their own wish come true and, in the process, gave millions of us renewed faith in our feet!

The concept behind footbag — intercepting an object in flight and keeping it airborne by using all parts of the body except the hands and arms is not a new idea.

Rather, as surprising as it may seem, the roots of our modern-day kicking game are to be found in ancient Eastern cultures. In China, Japan and Korea, a game known as shuttlecock has been played for more than 2, years.

This game utilizes a small, feathered, disc-like object to kick and pass between players. The various shuttlecocks used have had subtle differences. In ancient Japan the game was also used to train the military, with officers forming clubs and standardizing rules. In Korea the game is played for practical reasons by shopkeepers and street vendors as a method of keeping their feet warm in cool weather!

The national sport in the Malaysian countries is a footgame that is over a thousand years old called sepak takraw. Known more commonly as football in every corner of the world except North America, soccer is played in more countries than the United Nations has members. Footbag is simply a modern version of these ancient kicking games, but it differs in two important respects: the object and the use of the upper body. Inventions Expert.

Mary Bellis covered inventions and inventors for ThoughtCo for 18 years. She is known for her independent films and documentaries, including one about Alexander Graham Bell. Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Bellis, Mary. The History of Hacky Sack.

Biography of James Naismith, Inventor of Basketball. Important Innovations and Inventions, Past and Present. Sports Vocabulary for English Learners. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for ThoughtCo. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data.

Dead as it may seem, hacky sack lives on as a small but active niche sport. Growing up, Malin saw footbag as an alternative to more organized sports. Similarly, James began playing hacky sack back in , and while his friends and everyone else in his high school eventually grew tired of the sport by , James continued on.

Hacky sack is now a game of elite professional skills. As guys like James continued to hone their hacky sack abilities while everyone else moved on to Yo-Yos, hacky sack tournaments began to sprout up. James has competed in the world championships twice when it was hosted in Montreal. So the social aspect is really important, and I really like our footbag community. There are legends from China dating to BC while Japan has written history showing something similar to hacky sack in the seventh century.

Further, the hacky sack that inspired the game to be developed in the United States was inspired by a Native American game that was being played in a detention facility. All of this means that there can not be one single point shown as the source of where the hacky sack game truly started.

We can only know that the modern version that has become so popular around the world was created in and that it has been a phenomenon ever since.

Casually hacky sack is played everywhere on earth where a group of students is gathering, while many, many adults love the game the vast majority of players are students that are studying. This is because the game requires a few hours of free time in wide-open spaces that most working people may not be able to easily gain access to.

The IFPA has a hall of fame and has been recording some of the best players ever since. This means that there is at least some part of the players worldwide that have dedicated their lives to professionally playing hacky sack. No one person or group of people can play hacky sack better than others, this is because the sport is both relaxing, fun, and easy to pick up and learn.

It can be played while on vacation with friends or when you are alone waiting for a ride to go home from classes. You do not need to be part of the specific group but having a hacky sack in your backpack will mean you can make new friends with absolute ease.