Our latest PopHighlights features 3 talented individuals across Asia- Singapore, Thailand and China- and we take a look at these youths and their outstanding level of technique and skill that they have in their sport. PopConversation discusses how one's able to roll around in style, give your opponents a black eye, and also how to swing about like a monkey.
1) Freestyle Skating by Daniel Tan (Singapore)
21 year old polytechnic student Daniel Tan says that skating is his life. His video starts with a brief pictorial introduction of him and his friends, and in one of the photos, Daniel and his buddies pose with hand signs to a tagline that says 'Freestyle skating is DOPE'. Well if you freestyle skate like Daniel, you're a gangsta as far as we're concerned.
The young skater seems to have mastered the art of balancing on rollerblades as he effortlessly glides across flat surfaces, criss crossing miniature cones in many different and complex looking patterns and he does not even hit one of them! I've tipped over more cones in one attempt at reverse parking then Daniel has in his whole video where his legs zip to and fro between the cones over a hundred times.
2) Muay Thai by Yodcherry Sityodtong (Thailand)
Yodcherry Sityodtong might be one of the toughest 12 year old girl you'll ever meet (or see, if you watch her on Youtube). She trains in an increasingly popular form of combat sport known as Muay Thai (also called the "Art of Eight Limbs"), but what's truly amazing about her is that she's already a pro fighter with over 60 fights under her belt, and most of her fights were against boys, #WhoRunTheWorld.
In her training video, Yodcherry does a vigorous routine of roundhouse kicks, punches, knees and elbows for a full 2 minutes and 40 seconds. In the 2nd part of her training video, she does close to 2 minutes of standard pushups and crunches while getting hit in the abdomen. We skipped part 3 and 4 because we felt tired.
One of Singapore's biggest MMA school, Evolve MMA, hosted her while she was in Singapore.
3) Parkour and Free Running by UrbanMonkey (China)
The 2 main characteristics of parkour (also known as free running) are speed and efficiency. The Traceurs (parkour practioners) in this video, however, aren't looking for the fastest route from point A to B, in fact, with all that front dives, ninja rolls and running up thin air into back flips, we'd be surprise if the boys from UrbanMonkey get to their destination in one piece- but that appears to be the least of their worries as they do many back front and side ariel moves (I'm confident that these acrobats are pretty bored of the 3rd dimension by now).
UrbanMonkey's video is incredibly entertaining, and we wish studying physics in class was as entertaining as their highlight reel. With only a paltry 625 views and 35 likes (as of 3rd Feb 2012) we feel that these free running chinese youths definitely deserve a lot more eyeballs, if not only for their outtakes, featuring a guy in hunting hat and red winter vest doing a funny dance, or their good looking female friend performing gymnastics.
Which of the 3 videos in our highlights appeal to you the most? Sound off in the comment boxes below!
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By Herman Soh
