Yo-Yo France

Iskandar Shah Interview

Pour la version française, c’est par là: Interview Iskandar Shah par yoyo-france.net (français)

Muhammad Iskandar Shah (or Iskandar Shah, simply) is a yoyo player from Singapore. He’s known to be one of the bests at a very rare yoyo style named « double dice 5A » (or DD5A). DD5A is a variant of standard 5A but with an additional counterweight sliding in between the yoyo and the first counterweight. Iskandar also used to judge contests in Malaisia, Jakarta and Thailand. Former team YoYoJam member, he now plays for Adegle and Spinworkx Xtreme.

He is no stranger to asian competitions and he often qualifies as a top 5 player at Asia-Pacific contests. He is the 2008, 2009 and 2010 Singapore 5A Champion as well as the 2005 Asia Pacific 5A champion.

Due to his extremely innovative style, he often amazes the crowds (see the videos below) and he’s also known to be just as nice and humble as he’s good as a player. There is no doubt he is of the new breed of players who will define tomorrow’s yoyoing.

Genesis

Well, it started when I was walking with my mum in the town area of Singapore, back in 1998. I saw yo hans and team pro yo singapore doing a demo and then I immediately got hooked. But sadly, shortly after I bought a pro yo and after trying and trying it seemed I was not able to play at all, and then when I wanted to learn more the craze died and I just couldn’t find any source to help me out. So I stopped playing. Then in 2003 the craze went on again and that’s how I wanted to start yoyoing again.

From 1A to DD5A – Making progress and competing

In 2003 I was just playing single A. But i felt that I wanted to be different in singapore, as the only known 5a player in Singapore during that time was Andrew Lin from Duncan crew Singapore (2004,2005 singapore champion)(2005 world yoyo contest 3rd) and that is when I started 5a. Since then I’ve been hooked to 5a. Shortly after I realized Andrew Lin had a distinct style of « astro 5a », and since I wanted to be different from other people, I started to toy with the idea of 2 dices and in 2005 after I became asian champion I never stopped playing double dice.

the following year I did i think a pure double dice fs and got 2nd in asia

Iskandar Shah and the future

What drives me to keep playing since 2003 is that I want to be one day recognized by players for doing double dice around the world, and my dream to, one day, become world champion, as well as Asian Champion at home, here in Singapore. This is what drives me. There are a lot of people who inspire me and listing them all would be a never ending task. But If I had to pick one, it would be Andrew Lin. I think yoyoing is both an art and a sport, as there are enough competition to be considered as a sport and it’s artistic enough as it has 5 different stlyes of play.

I believe that yoyoing has a bright future, more and more people around the world are playing yoyos, and it’s really starting to pick up. It is growing leaps and bound but just like any other sport. Of course, there will be times when it’ll be more calm, but thats also what makes people strive to go higher!
I have been joining almost any yoyo contest in Singapore, and I’ve even been to other asian countries as a head judge and judge for their nationals. I can tell it’s definitely a fast growing sport.

The unexpected thing about yoyoing is the amount of friends I have made, not only in my country Singapore, but throughout all asia, and that was really not something I could have imagined when I first started to play.

Double dice 5A, a brand new style

First I do not want to claim to be the founder of double dice, I started double dice, like I have mentioned earlier, because I wanted to be different from 5a players around the world. And the most I could see was people playing astro 5a, so I just toyed with adding another dice and, after 2005, being asian champion I’ve never looked back.
Now, I try to create new tricks but as years go by I find myself trying more and more to create tricks really taking advantage of the 2 dices, and less single dice tricks while simply holding the other dice.

Adegle Comet, Iskandar Shah signature yo-yo

This entry was posted on Lundi, mai 16th, 2011 at 14:19. It is filed under In english and tagged with 5A, 5A double dice, DD5A, Iskandar Shah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.