First national Chinese yo-yo competition spins into New Jersey

EAST BRUNSWICK – For Alex Tai, 16, of Marlboro, his last move in his set was the most difficult. With two diabolos, also known as Chinese yo-yos, spinning on a string connected to two sticks, he had to toss both sticks in the air so that the diabolos spun in a wide circle. Then he had to catch the sticks.

Tai was competing in the first national diabolo competition open to any resident of the US. He was one of about 50 competitors from as far as California and Puerto Rico to perform in from of judges at the Fields Sports Complex in East Brunswick.

Five categories were broken down into individual and team performances and the winners received trophies. The individual category included divisions for under 13 year olds, 14 to 17 year olds and over 18 year olds. The team category had two divisions, one for teams under 18 and another for teams over 18.

Diabolo, a traditional sport with roots in China, merges complexity with artistry. Its purpose is to wow the audience while having fun performing.

Chang Wei Hsuan, a judge from Taiwan representing the Chinese Taipei Folk Sport Association, said in Mandarin that he was looking out for technique, choreography and rhythm.

Chang said he likes the sport because of tradition, but also because of its variety.

On the artificial turf field, performers caught diabolos by the string, jump roped with diabolos and juggled diabolos by strings with their foot extended in the middle.

Archie Ramlogan, 29, who competed with New York University’s diabolo team, said the hardest move was one invented by his teammates called the “pizza toss” where two diabolos are spun by the center of the string.

“It’s like the most high risk move because it’s literally everything up in the air,” Ramlogan said. “Basically, I start it, I throw it, and then (his teammate Jonathan Sun) has to catch it. I had to throw it at a good angle for him to catch it.”

“It’s like two pizza bakers,” Sun said.

The diabolo community is relatively small, resulting in core groups of tight-knit enthusiasts.

Jennifer Sun and Richard Yan of Montville said their younger son Andrew Sun-Yan got into diabolo around the age of five after watching his brother practice.

Sun said in Mandarin that her family tries to promote the sport because her son’s passion.

“If he didn’t like it, we wouldn’t,” she said.

Yan remembers walking with Sun pass Columbus Park in Manhattan’s Chinatown after dark and seeing what looked like fireworks.

Upon closer inspection, he saw a young man practicing in the cold with LED diabolos.

“He’s the only one,” Yan said. “He was like doing it in the dark. He was working really hard.”

Graham Lo, who is a distributor for Sundia, the company that makes diabolos, said he would practice at odd hours including past midnight when less people were around.

Lo, Sun-Yan and four other diabolo performers would later get together and created USA Diabolo Association to organize the first national competition, open to any US resident.

“Our mission is to make it more popular, spread it,” he said. “And the few people that are already doing it, just wanted to gather everyone together, unite everyone into a single community.”

While the sport is promoted at many Chinese school and tutorials exist on YouTube, there wasn’t a space for adults who aged out of the local under 18 competitions.

“I, myself, was part of the Chinese school competitions,” Lo said. “But, … it’s only like five competitors. I got top five place without even trying. … So, we wanted to grow. That’s why we hosted this one.”

And when the call for competitors went out, families and college teams signed up including three students from Monmouth Fidelity Chinese School in Marlboro.

“It’s really impressive that people fly in from Puerto Rico, from California just for this event,” Lo said. “It shows how rare this opportunity is. How much people want to make use, take advantage of this opportunity. So, we have people from California, from Washington, a few from Texas, Michigan.”

Alejandro Feliciano, 14, from Puerto Rico, began seriously learning diabolo a year ago. On Saturday, he placed first in his individual 14 to 17 age category out of 11 competitors.

“I just saw a video on YouTube and I was like ‘Oh that looks pretty cool’,” he said.

Truman Wang, 16, from Texas, grew up in Taiwan, where he said in Mandarin that the environment was more conducive to learning diabolo. He placed second in his individual age category and said that his performance wasn’t perfect.

He said he would love to learn more styles because he believes there will be more opportunities to perform diabolo later in life.

Linda Quach, 22, competed as a team with Fiona So, 16, both from Long Island. Quach, who teaches diabolo classes, said, “The most difficult thing was to try to keep our flow together. We already had like good synchronization, but just keeping our mind calm. … We practice a lot, like every day.”

Quach and So placed first in the over 18 category out of five teams.

In the under 18 team category, the girls group Spinny Gang placed first, Kevin Xiang placed first in the under 14 individual category and Stanley So placed first in the over 18 individual category.

Lo said the organization’s goal is to have an annual competition.

“Being completely honest, I was surprised we were able to do it this year with very limited man power.”

This year’s competition relied on collaborations with the Association of New Jersey Chinese Schools and student volunteers with the Formosa Association of Student Cultural Ambassadors (FASCA) among others.

But regarding this year’s competition, Lo said he was surprised at the skill many of the younger competitors were demonstrating.

“Back then, if you got the yo-yo spinning, threw it and (caught) it, you were the coolest kid ever,” he said. “Now they have more than one yo-yo, two yo-yos, three yo-yos. Yeah, it’s actually really impressive. … The amount of technique has grown in this community.”

Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: First national diabolo competition spins into NJ