Sipa

Everyone gets their own chalk circle and their own sipa, and nobody can touch anyone else's. It is you, a falling washer and one minute. Kick it as it drops through the gold circle and your streak goes up by one; let it reach the ground and the streak is back to zero. Only your best streak of the minute is ranked, so a drop costs you time, never what you have already done.

The kick

Q kicks with the inside of the foot. The sipa shoots up fast and floats down slowly, the way a shuttlecock does, and a gold circle hangs where your foot meets it.

• GOOD is anywhere from just over a metre off the ground down to 16 cm. PERFECT is the middle of that, from about 80 cm to about 30. Both add one to the streak; PERFECT is only a different word over your head.
• On the way down the sipa spends about a fifth of a second in the GOOD window and a tenth in PERFECT.
• A press while it is still above the window says TOO EARLY and does nothing, and Kick then needs about a third of a second to come back: longer than the window. So don't mash. One press just too early is usually a drop.
• After a drop there is a 0.8-second pause, then the sipa is served again and you are back on your spot, standing still.

The bounce changes with the streak

Up to 4 in a row, every bounce is the same, about 2.7 m high. From 5, bounces alternate between a high floater of about 3.7 m with a long hang and a quick pop of about 2 m, and your badge says HIGH or QUICK. From 10 they cycle through high, quick and standard, and the washer glows orange.

Footwork

After the kick that makes 9, your badge says FOOTWORK NEXT and you can walk. From 10 on, about half your kicks send the sipa a step (0.8 m) or two (1.5 m) to your left or right. A pad on the ground shows where it will land.

A kick needs the sipa within about a metre of your feet and in front of you, within about 70 degrees either side. Stand still and your chibi turns to face the landing spot by itself. Kick on the move at a sipa beside you and you get FACE IT; kick one out of reach and you get TOO FAR. Either way the press is spent.

The camera stands in the middle of the court looking back at your face, and the movement keys follow it. Walk toward the pad as you see it on screen, not toward your chibi's left or right.

How the best streaks get built

• Kick on height, not on rhythm. From 5 on the bounce keeps changing, so a beat you settle into puts you early on a high one and late on a quick one. Watch the washer drop into the circle.
• Aim for PERFECT anyway. It sits in the middle of GOOD, so aiming at it leaves room either side.
• Move the moment the pad moves, then stop. The sipa is up for over a second and you walk 3.5 m/s, so there is time to arrive and square up.
• Keep kicking when your best is out of reach. On a tied best streak, whoever kicked more in the round finishes ahead.
• A drop costs over two seconds before your next kick: the pause, then a full serve. Late in the round that can be your last attempt.

Sipa in the Philippines

Sipa means kick. The toy is a small lead washer (tingga) with a tuft of shredded plastic twine (panali) pushed through its hole. It flies weight first with the strands trailing, which is why it floats down. Children keep it up with the inside of the foot, counting each kick aloud: isa, dalawa, tatlo, one, two, three. That counting game, sipa bilangan, is the one this round plays, in a school quadrangle at morning recess, with a flagpole, an acacia for shade and a hopscotch court (piko) chalked on the side.