Last summer in Linnan Park, I came across a group of people volleying a hard yellow plastic ball to one another across a net. Instead of bumping and spiking the ball with their arms, they were mostly using their feet.
From a bench some distance away, I could hear the crack of the ball as one person would serve with a full-force kick above their head. The other team would return with a combination of touches between its players. At times the volleys would end in dramatic fashion, a player flipping in the air to spike the ball over the net (a move I’ve come to learn is called a roll spike — also a popular subject of YouTube compilations). The ball would land before the person did, their body twisting and correcting mid-air before landing on the ground, like a cat.
I could tell this was a friendly, low-stakes game among hobbyists, not unlike the casual games of soccer, basketball and pickleball in parks around Iowa. Still, the players possessed undeniable flexibility, coordination and overall athleticism — qualities necessary to succeed at Sepak Takraw.
The basic rules and flow of the sport would be recognizable to anyone familiar with volleyball. Teams compete against each other by hitting a ball over a net. If a team cannot return the ball within three touches, then the other team gets a point. Unlike volleyball, one person can touch the ball multiple times, and no hand or arm touches are allowed (head, knee, even shoulder touches are fair game).
The origins of Sepak Takraw go back thousands of years, with historians claiming it may be one of the foot-and-ball games that evolved from the Chinese game of cuju, which was the Han dynasty’s version of keepy-uppie. (FIFA also recognizes cuju as the predecessor to soccer.) The modern version of the sport was standardized in 1960 between the countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar. It has been an official sport in the Southeast Asian Games for half a century.
Among Des Moines’ large immigrant and refugee communities are some of the best Sepak Takraw players in the U.S. I spoke with DaChar Liu and Christ Moo, members of the official U.S.A. squad. Moo has won gold in international tournaments in Thailand and South Korea, and is serving as Liu’s mentor going into the 2025 ISTAF Sepak Takraw World Cup in Bihar, India.
We videocalled shortly before Liu was set to fly to the Patliputra Stadium, where the tournament was scheduled to start March 25. International flights and relations have been, let’s say, strained, and he had been having visa issues. I asked if it was all squared away.
“Not yet,” Liu said. “I haven’t got denied today, so that’s a good start. It’s kind of a scramble to get everything together but I’m working on it for sure.” (Liu was able to get his visa in order and represent Team U.S.A. in the tournament.)
Both picked up the game as children, with Moo playing in his native Thailand before moving to Iowa in 2017. A soccer fan born and raised in Des Moines, Liu “got pulled into” Sepak Takraw after seeing his uncles kick a ball around.
“We’d all get together and play at the Wat Lao Buddhavath temple over here on the south side of Des Moines,” Liu said. He only recently started playing competitively. “I got back into it almost two years ago and I actually met Christ that first day. I had no idea who he was, but turns out he lives down the street from me. And we share the same passion for the game.”
Moo ran drills with Liu, most focused on ball touch. “He’d want me to juggle before every practice. He’d set a goal, like juggle 300 balls consistently without dropping it.” (Juggling in Sepak Takraw, like soccer, involves keeping one ball in the air without using hands or arms.) “He’d take a tennis racket and smack a couple balls towards me and I’d have to receive them. Getting comfortable with the ball is the main thing. And from there on, you can decide whether you want to be a spiker, server or a feeder.”
Liu is a server, but he’s training in the feeder position as well. Moo’s bread and butter is spiker, but he’s also a competent server. “They call it a Tekong. I try to get all positions so I can help other players get better.”
Moo is focused not just on training Liu, but building up the local and national Sepak Takraw scene. That scene is most active in the summer, with regular statewide tournaments on weekends.
Minneapolis’s Takraw scene serves as a good model. “They have a lot of courts, like [how most cities have] basketball courts, out and about, spread out through the city,” Liu said. “California, Texas, Indiana has small tournaments almost every weekend. Omaha has a lot of very good players.”
Team U.S.A. has a player from Omaha, Nebraska and two from Minnesota. The national team coach, Jeremy “Coach Jer” Mirken, is based in Round Rock, Texas.
“Man, it’s definitely hard to get everybody all out at once” for World Cup prep, Liu said. “Everybody still has their own lives. But for India, we’ve been able to meet in the middle, which is here in Iowa. I took some weekends and went up to Minneapolis as well. Christ has went to Omaha, training with the other player that’s going to India.”
“And that’s all on your own dime?” I asked.
“Yeah. Spend a little bit, take a little bit of your time, you know? But if it’s something you love to do, as long as it’s not burning your pockets that much, you’ll still find your way,” Liu said.
Moo recently married, which is a big reason he couldn’t afford the trip to India for himself. But for the average Sepak Takraw player, getting into the game is as easy as showing up.
“When it gets nice out, we’ll go out to the [Wat Lao Buddhavath] temple,” Moo said. “They have two courts set up out there. That’s where I met a lot of the guys. We all go meet up there and play friendly matches, pick-up games and stuff out there.”
Liu said you can find him there “six out of seven days of the week” during the warm weather months. “We’ll be there Monday through Saturday, even Sunday, sometimes, depending on whether there are tournaments.”
“It’s definitely welcoming” to newcomers, he assured. “Come by. You don’t even have to play. You could just come watch. That’s how my interest got sparked: I saw and I was like, ‘OK, well, that’s something I want to do’ and just got into it. [And if you want] to get better, you can come to us. We can train together, because Christ is one of the nicest guys I know. He’s open to helping anybody.”
“Get the shoes,” Moo advised. “Get a ball.”
Who knows; with enough dedication and local guidance, you may end up posterizing opponents across the world with roll spikes of your own.
Basic touches in Takraw
We asked Jeremy Mirken, coach of the USA Sepak Takraw team, for some tips.
- An inside kick is used for receiving and setting up plays.
- Hike up your foot between your knee and hip, closer to your knee.
- Don’t angle your foot up or down — keep it flat. (Try curling your toes inside your shoe.)
- Don’t snap your kick, but rather think of it as a lift. You want the ball to hit your foot and gently rebound off of it.
- Practice this: Try juggling multiple inside kicks in a row on one side, then the other.
- Toe kicks happen in front of your body.
- For control, the ball needs to hit your shoe laces.
- “Kick” by moving a slightly bent knee from flexion to extension.
- The angle of your foot is key to your success. Toes curled too far up/backward, will direct the ball backward toward your body instead of straight up.
- Practice this: Work on your toe kick until you achieve a slight backspin and the ball travels straight up and down.
- Headers are used for three purposes: to deflect an opponent’s serve, to spike over the net and to set up for your next kick. The goal of the basic header is to push the ball up.
- Keep your eyes on the ball, tilt your head back and bend your knees about 3-4 in.
- As the ball approaches, extend your legs (but do not jump) to make upward contact with the ball right at your hairline.
- Eyes should remain open to watch the ball throughout the movement.
- Keys to success: Watch the ball, maintain a consistent forehead angle and use the lower body to generate “pop.”
- A good knee touch requires the ability to anticipate where the ball is moving and position the body accordingly.
- Once positioned and balanced, lift one foot as if marching.
- To send the ball straight up, the thigh must be near flat when contact is made and the ball must hit centrally.
- To send the ball high, a contact point near the knee cap is key.
- A variation: For a lower knee touch, contact should be made closer to the mid-thigh.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s April 2025 issue.
