Time out (1): Yo-yo

For a change, let’s not talk about the financial services. Let me tell you instead what I was up to last weekend.

It was a change from the normal routine. I was at Genting Highlands from Friday until Monday (18 Dec 2006) to watch a yo-yo competition.

Not any yo-yo competition, mind you, but the Fourth Asia-Pacific Yo-Yo Championship.

It seems that every year, this competition is held around the Asia-Pacific region and it brings together some of the best yo-yo players in this region as well as the hopefuls.

My son was one of the hopefuls. For the past 12 months, he had been badgering me to take him to Genting to watch this event. I relented but I insisted that he should participate in it rather than be there as a spectator. After all, what better teacher is there than to take part and compete against the experts.

I had expected the yo-yo competition to be ordinary and had prepared myself against the anticipated boredom of Genting. (Well, the casino is good enough for a short visit but I don’t know my aces from my picture cards. Moreover, the indoor theme park at the First World Hotel is not for me too. I’d prefer the outdoor theme park but I’ve been on those rides far too many times before.)

However, after watching the first few minutes of the yo-yo competition, I suddenly became very interested in it. I was very impressed by the talents of the yo-yo players, especially the top ones. They can do a myriad of tricks that put my basic up-down-up-down stuff to great shame. Note: I ended up watching every competitor perform over the three days.

If you want to know more about yo-yo and the people behind this game in Malaysia and Singapore, a good place to start looking is http://www.spinworkx.com. They are the organisers of the annual Asia-Pacific championships.

I’m terribly proud of my son, especially after I had thrown him into the deep end of this competition. He knows his tricks but this is his first-ever competition.

Although he could not get past the qualifying stage, it takes courage to perform on the stage in front of a big audience at the indoor theme park and in the face of stiff competition from the better players from Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and hosts Malaysia.

He took everything in his stride. In fact, I was surprised that he chose to participate in two events which in yo-yo parlance were the 1A (Single-Hand) and 5A (Counter-Weight) events. The 1A was to do tricks with a single yo-yo – the type that you and I are more familiar with. The 5A was a yo-yo with a die or ball counter-balanced at the other end.

There’s also the 2A (Double-Handed) which involves playng with two yo-yos simultaneously (one in each hand) and the 4A (Off-String) where the yo-yo is not attached to the string. I found these two categories to be the most fascinating and impressive.

Finally, I just want to say that I am glad to have gone to Genting. Just by watching the yo-yo competition, I have come to understand the passion for this game. It is a healthy pursuit for young people. They get to develop their motor skills as well as get to mix with their like-minded peers from around this region.