HOW TO PLAY DIABOLO.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXIX, Issue 21, 23 November 1907, Page 35

HOW TO PLAY DIABOLO.

There has arisen in England as well as in France during the past few months * perfect craze for the game of Diabolo. Everyone plays it. It is scarcely a year since it invaded the Continent, and already it has ousted every other game. The sands at all the Continental resorts this summer have been crowded with solitary diabolists, families of diabolists, battalions of diabolists, till every person of sufficient agility on the beach has appeared to be playing. Whole districts of cities have been given over to it. In Paris a special police law has made it illegal to play diabolo in uie streets. The latest record has been accorded almost national importance, and the papers publish accounts of diabolo records and revise them from day to day. A diabolo tournament was held the other day at Etampes, in which a quarter of the inhabitants were competitors. Etampes, by the way, holds the diabolo record, the bobbin having been hurled from the string and caught again 3307 consecutive times in 100 minutes by a youth of that city.

We are not likely to remain immuno from the infection in New Zealand through the summer, and some account of the game and how it is played will, therefore, be of interest. The precise history of the game does not matter; enough that it comes from the Far East, like the cholera epidemics l(it is a sort of ancestral game in China). The great charm of diabolo is claimed to be that you can play it anywhere; you need nothing except two sticks with a string between and a bobbin like a dice-box. You need neither a competitor nor a partner, though, of course, these are eminently desirable accessories, and it is well, of course, to have someone to admire—and check your score. The simplest form of the.game, and the one that has appealed most on- the Continent, is the solitary game, and as all players have to learn that way. it is here described minutely. The celluloid' bobbin is dropped on the ground. Holding the two sticks with the string hanging between, the player approaches and slips the loop made by the string under one end of the bobbin, so that it lies in the groove. As he raises the sticks the bobbin hangs from its centre. Poising the left hand with the top of the stick about level with the waist, he moves the right hand up and down, so that the bobbin rotates along the string. This process gives a rotatory movement to the bobbin, which, like that of the gyroscope, steadies it. When the bobbin is thus steady and rotating rapidly, he lets the two ends of tfie sticks come together, so that the string hangs in a loop as slackly as possible, and then with as sharp a jerk as

possible draws the sticks apart so that the string becomes taut. The bobbin flies up into the air to a height, when done by an expert, often of fifty feet. It moves quite steadily, rotating some-

times, it is estimated, at a rate of 2030 turns a minute. As the bobbin comes down the player slightly , slackens the string, holding the right end rather above the left. The

bobbin is caught near the right stick, runs down the string, and is jerked up again into the air before it reaches the other end. Die motion is rather like the conjurer’s trick of the ball-fountain, in which he keeps the ball passing from his left hand up and over and catches it in his right as it conies down. It is in this form of the game that the records are made, the bobbin being hurled up over a thousand times in SuccessionAuthorities at present are not agreed in all the particulars. The length of the string, whether the bobbin should be of gaily painted tin, iron or celluloid, and what the sticks should be in length, are matters of individual preference. It is also not quite agreed what is the acme of skill. Though the majority of players vote for a record in the number of consecutive throws off the string, there is a school of quieter players who think it reveals a more artistic skill to catch the bobbin in weird positions, behind the head, for instance, or over one shoulder. This, again, is a question for the individual. Mr. C. B. Fry, who was among th®

vanguard of those who have brought the game te notice in England, rapidly appreciated the further possibilities of the game. In a recent number of “Fry’s Magazine” he described diobolo tennis, which is played in courts: “With the diabolo spinning on the cord and well under control, tlm player faces his opponent, who is about 24yds. away, inside a chalk-line enclosure. Suddenly the slack cord becomes a tight cord, and the diabolo is shot across the net precisely as an arrow from a bowstring. The receiver waits with his arms outstretched so that the slender cord hanging from the batons is almost taut. “No matter whether the serve is a lob or a high flyer or a skimmer, the diabolo always preserves its equilibrium, so that the receiver can catch it on Ins cord just as though he had thrown it up himself. Always provided he is accurate enough of eye and quick enough of hand. When he catches it he retains it. Still spinning, for a fraction of a second, just long enough to obtain control of it and gather direction before sending it back.” Two players can have a good game standing about twenty yards apart. It requires practice, of course, as the rotary movement of the bobbin must be kept up. Another game is played by sides, the forwards separated by about twenty feet. The field is set much like a football ibid. and the side which allows the diabolo to fall loses a point. There are other subtleties in the game. Some players will practise tor days to make the bobbin run up the stick to tile hand and back again, a fascinating but extremely difficult movement which gives a half nu’-iea! din like a humming top.