By Jake Chng

IT IS often derided as "show-off" football: all flash and no substance. But, to 19-year-old Tan Yong Wei, freestyle football is a way of expressing his creativity, much like painting or sculpting.

The third-year Singapore Polytechnic Infocomm Security Management student has been "freestyling" since 2007, and was one of eight quarter-finalists in Sunday's Red Bull Street Style Singapore tournament.

He tells my paper about his passion for freestyling and provides a glimpse into the local freestyle-football scene.

Why did you choose freestyle football instead of other sports?

I played football for almost 10 years, but I was quite disappointed in the way football was played in Singapore. Also, I couldn't run as much as I could in the past. So I stopped.

When I was playing, I liked to try tricks with the ball - juggling, balancing and flicking the ball.

With freestyle football, I am able to concentrate on doing those tricks and express my creativity.

How do you learn freestyle-football moves?

I learn the moves by watching videos of freestylers on video websites like YouTube, and trying out the moves during my training sessions, which last between two and three hours daily.

The speed at which the tricks can be picked up depends on the individual.

In my opinion, every freestyler starts off by copying moves, and they "graduate" from being a copycat when other people start copying their moves.

In that sense, I'm graduating soon, because I'm starting to create my own moves.

How big is the Singapore freestylefootball community?

Fewer than 20 freestylers actually.

We meet up occasionally to practise at the Esplanade underpass or at The Cage.

Freestylers here are split into three main groups - the "Live Performers" who use more gimmicks like water bottles, the "Hardcores" who focus on the technically-harder but not so crowd-pleasing tricks, and the "In-betweens", who do both.

What have you learnt from the Red Bull Street Style tournament that will help you in future events?

I learnt that I need to prepare a proper routine, instead of being impromptu, which was the way my routine at the event was like.

Also, I would need to know what the judges are looking for, and be better prepared for it.

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