Established in 2007, the non-profit organization was launched at the charming harbour city of southern Taiwan – Kaohsiung. Aims of the Association are to promote the culture and significance of diabolo by way of training, tutorials, workshops, grading tests, competitions, performances as well as research. The members participated and performed in numerous festivals and carnivals of celebrations, arts and religions. Not only acquiring the opportunity to demonstrate their excellent skills, but they also learned experience from the live performances on stages. “Learning by doing” is one of the major concepts and belief for tutoring and learning in the Association.
Unique Features of the Association
1. Progressive grading system:
Each grade requires different tricks to be completed and scores to be reached. Tricks are classified into 8 categories including toss, wrap, speed-up, grind, flip, hook, orbit and auxiliary. It ranges from the basic ones such as “elevator” to the advanced ones such like “bilateral around-the-leg with jumping”. Through this system, learners are more aware of what they need to improve for progressing to the next grade/level.
2. Interactive tutorials and workshops:
Relevant events are held by the Association from time to time to assist learners, instructors and school teachers for refreshing or updating their skills, knowledge and qualifications. Learners are encouraged to ask questions or express different views in the events. Surveys are always conducted either online or by questionnaires afterwards to “have your say”~ Different opinions or feedback are highly respected and valued by the Association for improvement. The digital platforms including website and Facebook are also available for the public to exchange and share experiences.
3. Significant publications:
The comic book named “Diabolo 123” was published to illustrate the main diabolo tricks for beginners and advanced players. Academically, the members of Association published articles including “Challenges towards the internationalisation of Taiwan’s diabolo” which compared and contrasted the diabolo developments among Australia, China and Taiwan. It explored the challenges and difficulties about promoting Taiwan’s diabolo to the world as well as provided possible solutions for that. Also, the other journal paper named “Reporting of the diabolo news in Taiwan’s mainstream newspapers” employed the qualitative news framing analysis to examine the diabolo-related news in the four mainstream newspapers of Taiwan. The findings might contribute to the press policy and writing styles while reporting the issues of relevant folk sports. Further, a master’s thesis titled “A study of diabolo sport industry – business model”
took the Association as a case study and recommended the potential ways for the better operation. Another master’s thesis titled “Relationships among competitive state anxiety, flow experience and sport performance of diabolo contestants” investigated the correlation in terms of demographic variables. Questionnaires were utilised as a study tool to exam the interrelation among the above variables. The findings suggested that self-confidence, supports from parents and coaches were significantly important to the overall performance of contestants.
Currently the ongoing event holding by the Association is the 2023 “Diabolo on Video” Competition. It’s totally FREE of charge (no registration fee or hidden cost)~ Please refer to the following website for further details: http://www.diabolokh.tw/index.php/2012/13-2012-07-19-09-11-01/900-2023415
About the author:
Mark Tsai/ PhD in Communication, University of Canberra, Australia. He won the championship title from Australian Diabolo Tournament and is currently working at Medicare Australia.
