Diabolo History

The origin of diabolo

According to the information of Encyclopedia of China, the inventor of diabolo doesn’t be depicted. But one thing can be certain is that diabolo has been existing since long ago before the Min Dynasty. 

In the Chinese ancient book of Teikyo Features Slightly, The main part of the diabolo is round and there is an axle made of bamboo in it. People wind cotton threads around the axle and fling it so the diabolo will keep rotating because of the centrifugal force.

One of the basic diabolo skills is to throw up the diabolo into the air and catch it with the cotton threads. The other is to let the diabolo climb up the pole. And the last one is to throw the diabolo to your partner.

These basic skills became one of the Chinese traditional acrobatics gradually.

Modern Diabolo

In the past, due to the difficulty of learning, diabolo was expensive and its materials were not popular. So, the development of the diabolo was slow and made it the entertainment of farmhouses in Northern China. Not until recent years plastic diabolos were invented, more and more people noticed this folk art. In addition, various competitions facilitated the learning of diabolo which helped the diabolo start to boom. The invention of Fly Series is a big landmark. It is different from the traditional diabolo. It makes the control of the diabolo much easier in details for some beginners. As to other accessories, wood sticks are replaced by carbon fiber sticks, cotton string is also replaced by the nylon string and water string. Different accessories have different functions for different movements which makes the simple diabolo much more lively than ever.