4-time S’pore national yo-yo champion, 22, found confidence & friends through the sport as a teen

To many people, a yo-yo is just a plastic toy.

To Xavier Ng, 22, it is something that shaped his life.

The Singaporean has been yo-yoing competitively since he was 14, and has added four national titles to his name in eight years.

While on break from university, Ng flew to Prague in early August to participate in the 2025 World Yoyo Contest, where he placed fifth in his division with a performance that drew loud whoops from the audience.

He had the audience on a string as he whipped the yo-yo around his neck and legs, knowing exactly when to flash a cheeky wink or grin to pump them up even more. The routine was like a dance, and he finished dramatically by dropping on one knee and pointing his arms outwards.

But Ng had not always been so comfortable with performing.

“In the beginning, when Xavier started [yo-yoing], he was an introvert…he always faced the wall to play,” Ng’s mother revealed when Mothership visited the family home ahead of the world contest.

“So I said he should turn around and let people see.”

A shy child

Ng grew up in Shanghai. His family had relocated there for his father’s job when Ng was just three.

As a child, he felt fearful in front of large groups of people. He often stuttered, and would become “very, very shy” during class presentations, Ng shared.

I was surprised to learn this.

“Shy” is certainly not how I would describe the “four-time Singapore national yo-yo champion” – may or may not have been his pitch to us over email – and someone with a very nice self-designed deck chronicling his achievements.

In person, this confidence was less loud, more warm, as he welcomed us into his house with a smile and told us about his cat Udon that greeted us in the living room.

Today, he would be very comfortable if he had to go on stage and give a speech without prior warning, he told me with such clear conviction that I didn’t doubt it.

He sees this confidence as his “characteristic trait” now, and something he would not have achieved without yo-yoing and his mother’s encouragement.

A unique talent

Ng’s mother, whom he called his biggest supporter, has been close beside him throughout his yo-yoing journey.

She bought him his first yo-yo when he was 12, after the Chinese animated series Blazing Teens sparked his interest.

Yo-yoing was popular among the local Chinese then, but Ng went to an international school and did not hang out with many locals in Shanghai.

“It was mostly just me, myself, and my yo-yo,” he said.

He picked up some tricks on YouTube but, playing on his own, he quickly grew bored of it and moved on after a few months to other activities like soccer and badminton.

However, his yo-yoing skills had caught the attention of a teacher in his primary school, who invited him to take part in the school’s talent show.

The S$200 cash prize and the urging of his mother finally convinced him.

When he won the talent show with a yo-yo routine, something changed in him.

He realised that he was good at yo-yoing. It was a unique skill that made him stand out among other people.

But more than that, the experience gave him a surge of confidence.

This shy boy was stunned by the loud response to his performance.

“It was the first time in my life where people were cheering and clapping for me,” he said. “I didn't know what was happening because it had never happened to me before.”

“After I stepped off stage, I felt a lot of confidence that I could do anything in life.”

Even if that meant making mistakes.

“When I first started competing, I didn't know what I was doing,” he shared openly. “I was going on stage throwing the yo-yo to random music.”

“I first competed in 2017 at the Asia Pacific Yo-yo Championships, and I did terribly. I placed one of the last few in Asia.”

He ultimately improved by practising hard — two to three hours a day during competition season. This intensity has sent him to the hospital several times for stitches after he smacked himself on the head and face with the metallic yo-yos.

Still he persisted, motivated by the cheers and support along the way to keep doing better.

Rediscovering home

Life, however, threw him a challenge he did not foresee.

About three years after the talent show, when Ng was 15, his family decided to return to Singapore for good.

He had only flown back to Singapore with his family for the summer holidays. The idea of leaving the only life and friends he had known hit him hard.

“Coming back to Singapore, it was very scary because I did not know anyone in Singapore,” he said. “I had no friends in Singapore. There's no one really there for me…I actually did not want to come back to Singapore at all.”

When he knew it had to happen, he looked for something that was familiar to him in an unfamiliar land.

Through some online research, he learnt about a yo-yo community in Singapore that regularly gathered at a yo-yo specialty store called Spinworkx in Orchard.

Once he moved back in 2018, he fought off his loneliness by going there every weekend.

“Every single weekend, I will meet new friends there,” Ng said. “And [with] every new friend I met, I felt more comfortable in Singapore. They really made me feel at home.”

Most of these friends were around his age, and had been similarly introduced to yo-yoing through different anime.

They would exchange tricks, attend a yo-yo training camp in Australia together twice a year, and spur each other to join competitions.

“I didn’t need a coach because I had all my yo-yo friends,” Ng explained. “Let's say, if my friend learnt a new trick, he’ll teach it to me. If I learn a new trick, I’ll teach it to him.”

His friends were what kept Ng’s passion going even when many lost interest during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The social restrictions and closure of the Spinworkx physical store due to the pandemic caused the Singapore yo-yo community to shrink from around 300 to less than 100 people, Ng said.

But he and his friends stayed close, adapting quickly to daily video calls to chat and share tricks.

A few of these friends competed alongside him in this year’s World Yoyo Contest. I got goosebumps watching the video where his friends, despite not making it to the finals themselves, hollered and pumped their fists when it was announced that Ng secured his spot by winning the semi-finals.

More than a 'yo-yo guy'

To me, Ng’s confidence today is manifest most profoundly in his determination to keep growing and trying new things.

It’s a strength he both gained and drew on through the ups and downs of competitive yo-yoing.

Now, he’s eager to try out other paths.

With a decisiveness that suggested a lot of prior thinking, he told me he will be dialling down on his yo-yoing practice and activities from next year, to pursue his interests in design and marketing.

Despite feeling some disappointment with his finals performance at the world contest, and missing his goal of reaching top three, Ng remains firm about this plan.

Part of it is because he sees no career for himself in yo-yoing.

Based on how others have tried it, Ng sees only two routes to turning yo-yoing into a career: performing at events, or starting a company selling yo-yos and their equipment.

He is “not a big fan” of either.

Or, in his mother’s words, “he has more ambition than that”.

There is no money in yo-yoing, his mother told me very bluntly, though she would be fine with any decision he makes.

“I’m happy to support him as long as he’s happy,” she said.

Although he still plans to “play for fun” and support the community, Ng seemed to want to prove he has more potential outside of this sport.

“I’ve been called ‘yo-yo boy’, ‘yo-yo guy’, all my life,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I’m not just a yo-yo player. I do other things.”

He called yo-yoing his “pure hobby” and not a lifelong pursuit.

I think such a distinction might not be necessary or fair. Much like how he refuses to pursue and excel at just one thing, yo-yoing refuses to fit just one label in his life.

But the way he downplayed it showed his faith in his versatility.

It’s not hard to see how the confidence and social fluency he picked up through yo-yoing could spin off well in marketing and human resources — the specialisations he is considering for his business degree.

Before he hangs up his yo-yo gloves, however, he still wants to clinch one more national title and win the Asia Pacific championship, which will return to Singapore in March 2026.

To accomplish these goals, he might not be able to relax much.

The yo-yo scene has bounced back since the pandemic eased, attracting new players even younger than Ng — and potentially even better.

“I think it's hard to catch up with the new generation of players,” he said. “The new, younger Singaporean players are improving really, really fast, and there will be a time when I can't keep up with them anymore.”

Perhaps he is himself ushering this future quicker, as he currently offers lessons to kids under Offset Yo-yo, a company that has sponsored him for his yo-yos and competitions since 2022. Might coaching also be a way he stays in the scene?

Whatever lies ahead for yo-yoing in Singapore, I have a feeling Ng will remain in the picture for a long time.

Spinning lessons

Before wrapping up and leaving Ng’s house, I asked if he could teach me a very basic yo-yo trick.

Never having played with a yo-yo before, I wanted to see what it was all about.

After giving me a plastic “baby yo-yo” and showing me how to hold it, he taught me a move called a front throw and bind: hurling the yo-yo towards the ground with a backhand throw, then picking it back up quickly by gripping the string with your fingertips a certain way.

He was a great teacher. He patiently corrected my mistakes and encouraged me each time I did a little bit better.

After almost 10 tries, I finally managed a decent throw, but I still could not do the bind.

Ng complimented me on my improvement anyway.

“Actually, I skipped a few steps,” he said. “You were already doing, like, step five.”

Probably lies just to make me feel better, but it worked.

In that short time, I understood the joy yo-yoing brought Ng and his friends.

I felt the thrill of the yo-yo spinning out quickly from the flick of my wrist, and it excited me each time I got closer to binding it.

I could see why Ng loved performing, why he took pride in his yo-yoing accomplishments.

If I could master just this one trick, I would be darn proud of myself too.

Top images from Xavier Ng