Tricking is an aesthetic blend of kicks, flips and twists that fuses movements from disciplines such as gymnastics, martial arts and occasionally dance.

Since then, tricking has found its way into video games, TV shows, music videos and action movies.

For part-time stuntman and tricking coach Joseph Chai, the action-packed films of Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao were his gateway into the world of tricking and stunt work.

“My starting point was actually just watching movies. And then I wanted to try it myself,” said the 26-year-old.

“I discovered by learning all these cool moves, like the 540-kick, that there’s actually a sport for it.”

 

Apart from flashy action stunts, Joseph believes that the tricking community continually shatters the boundaries of athleticism.

“It takes all, I would say, the best part of the other (disciplines),” said Joseph, who is a full-time software engineer.

 “People who don't know tricking, when they first watch a tricking video, they'd be like: ‘Wow, I never knew the human body could do that!’”

Singapore’s tricking community remains small. Dilon estimates that there are about 30 to 40 active trickers today.

Hoping to grow the pool, Dilon co-founded The Hype Tribe (THT) in 2017. It conducts lessons and seeks to establish a stronger mainstream presence for tricking. He has been coaching full-time since then.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought its expansion plans to a grinding halt. “All the restrictions and everything kind of limited our scalability,” Dilon said. While THT is not currently operating at a loss, Dilon says that the number of students has declined at least 30% compared to pre-pandemic numbers.

These commercial challenges have also raised some concerns for Dilon’s family. “My Dad said that he isn’t very optimistic about me doing this full-time, which I agree, given the COVID situation. I think before COVID, I think it was okay, I was actually quite optimistic.”

Despite the challenges, Dilon is pressing on with his vision of growing the niche sport.

“I feel like there’s a lot more room for more movement science-based explanations or methods to learning tricks.”

“Our vision - we revamped it early this year - was to ‘trick forever’. And to trick forever kind of means you are healthy enough to trick forever ... you are also financially able to trick forever, right?” Dilon said.

“If (THT) is a place, a venue (where people are) to be able to do that, I feel like it kind of serves its purpose.”

A word of warning from the experts though - don't try this alone at home.

"I think a gym just generally is safer," said Dilon. "The gym has basic crash mats, has soft foam blocks that you can either use it to jump onto or jump off, or even use it as safety nets around the crash mats, if the crash mats are insufficient."

“A lot of people will just see someone do a move and they’ll just dismiss it and say: ‘Wow, I’ll never be able to do that’,” Joseph said. “But actually, they have the ability to do it as well,” he said, citing the example of a student who learnt to do a backflip when he was in his forties.