The American Freestyle Open will take place in Austin, Texas on June 9-11. Watch here. Charles Logan, the tournament director, took time from his busy schedule to share some details about the event.
Jake: Austin, Texas has a long history of amazing Freestyle events. What inspired you to hold this event?
Charles: The east coast and the west coast have their regular share of tournaments. I feel it is our duty to spread the jam as much as we can all over the country. The Austin freestyle community is committed to doing their part.
Jake: Being an FPA sponsored event, it will use the standard FPA judging system. It will include Open Pairs, Mixed Pairs, Women’s Pairs, and Co-Op divisions. Also, Ryan Young will be running the judging using his tablet based system. I understand that routines will be shorter than the usual 4 or 5 minutes. What is the reasoning for this adjustment?
Charles: There is a lot of controversy over the length of routines so I won’t go into it too much but will say that we prefer the shorter routines and as a part of our bid we requested that from the board.
Jake: What is the venue for your event?
Charles: We will be in Zilker park! Zilker is Austin’s version of Central Park. The turf management is good, the park is in the heart of Austin and there are some great places to swim, get food and transportation logistics are great.
Jake: How many players do you expect? Are there any top teams we should be watching out for?
Charles: The tournament is shaping up to be really small. Believe it or not we think that is okay. Makes for a tighter community for those that can make it. It is not too late to come. For those in the rankings hunt this is a good opportunity to rack up some points! So I encourage all to get on the bandwagon and get your flights booked asap!
Jake: Anything else you’d like to add? Anyone you’d like to thank?
Charles: Austin has a really rich history with freestyle Frisbee. Some great players came out of Austin and we have hosted all kinds of tournaments from worlds to local and state freestyle events. When you listen to some of the “Shootin the Fribreeze” the mentions of Austin in the early days of some of these great freestyle players is astounding. Unfortunately freestyle in Austin for the most part died off at a certain point. Huge thanks to Dan Yarnell for being the Austin’s Freestyle Sensei these last several years. Many thanks to all the Austin freestyle community for supporting our tournaments and a huge thanks to you (Jake) for helping with our streaming and Ryan Young for our judging! Paul Kenny has also been a real help as well in guiding us along in hosting the AFO.