The 360 Dilemma

by Crazy Ivan


The 360 is one of Myachi's staple moves.  Patterned after the infamous soccer trick called "Around the World", a move that quickly became a staple of footbaggers, the 360 is a relatively simple move that creeps into literally thousands of Myachi moves and combos.

The Around the World is a cool trick, but it takes 80 days to do...

In the footbag world, the "Around the World" is done on the toe.  You pop the hacky sack up, move your foot and calf in a circle around it and then catch back on your toe.  In Myachi this move is called a "Foot 360", though many staunch footbag fans still call it the "Around the World".  But the hand version is a far easier move to master.  So much so that where it might take a few months or even a few years to learn a toe 720, a 720 on the hands is something that a pretty coordinated player can hit on their first day.

In the footbag world, nobody's surpassed a 1440.  Well... I'm not as up to speed on my footbagging records so I could be wrong on that, but I seriously doubt it.  Only the best of the best can manage a 1080 so it's hard to imagine anybody doing an 1800 unless they were about 9 foot 4 (about 2.8 meters for our European readers).

The upper body version of this move, on the other hand (get it? hand?  It's just like comedy!), is much easier to do and moves much quicker.  Because of that, a determined Myachi player can rack up those multiples of three hundred and sixty pretty quick.  A 360 and 720 can be learned in a flash, but even a 1080 will yield to a determined player with only a few days of practice.

When you go above 1080 things get a little bit tougher.  To do a 1440 and and an 1800, not only will you need practice, you'll also need a few physical advantages as well.  Height becomes a huge factor when you start adding rotations and there's an obvious reason why.  For a true 360, your hand must go all the way around the Myachi, both over it and under it.

See, many of the 720s and 1080s you've probably seen people do wouldn't hold up to a technical inspection.  A lot of people just vaguely wave their hand in a circle somewhere around the Myachi and call it a rotation and if that's your standard you can probably work your way up to 6120 after a while.  But the real Myachi standard is much tougher.  You have to orbit the Myachi during each rotation.

Obviously, if your hand has to go over the Myachi, you can't throw any higher than you can reach.  This is where the height thing makes a big difference.  In order to give yourself enough time to get four or more rotations, you'll have to start and end pretty low to the ground.

Wait... not that low to the ground.

You'll want your hand a few inches off the ground to start.  That way you can start circling the Myachi while it's still heading up.  The problem is, you can only throw as high as you can reach so if you're 4 foot 5, you're not going to be able to throw as high as somebody who is 6 foot 8.

So now we get to the big question that is the ultimate point of this entire article:  What's the record?

Well, no surprise, it's not a clear cut case.  Many people have hit undeniable 1800s and several people claim 2160s (including the author), but as of now there is no real video evidence of a 2160.  I'm pretty darned sure that I've hit the 2160 a number of times, but things get moving so fast at that point that it's impossible to tell for sure if you're actually getting full and fair rotations.

To know for sure, the act would have to be captured on a pretty good camera and it would have to be from a certain angle.  A straight on shot wouldn't tell you if the hand was going around the Myachi (as opposed to just making circles behind it) so you'd have to be able to see it from the side.  I'm certain that evidence will show up soon because I believe there are a number of people out there that can hit honest 2160s, but until the evidence proves it we can't say definitively that 6 rotations is the record.

There are plenty of claims of much higher numbers.  There have been You-Tube videos claiming 2520s,  2880s and even a 3600 at one point.  When you check these videos, you'll find that the evidence is lacking.  The movements on anything over an 1800 are so fast that a real time video is all but useless in assessing these claims.  Invariably, these videos are too far away or too grainy to back up the claim at all.

Officially, the record stands at 1800, though we all know unofficially that this record has been broken.  If you can provide a solid video of anything above six rotations, you'll be the new record holder.  Just keep in mind that we'll want some pretty substantial evidence, so don't film in from 25 feet away on your little sister's phone.