The Z List: Sean Ng strikes a perfect ‘power balance’ between badminton and ballet

Through his distinctive comedy, he juggles between being energetic on the court and elegant in the dance studio. Meet the Z List, badminton and ballet aficionado, Sean Ng.

Sean Ng’s brand of humour is a simple one: it’s slapstick, it revolves around the badminton court or ballet studio, and it’s always under ten seconds long (reminiscent of old Vine videos, or the early days of TikTok). But the punchline hits the mark every time. It’s hard not to keep watching his antics online — and the sillier they are, the better. There’s a lot to be said about charisma, and Sean’s is palpable through the screen.

Even now, at the shoot for our 2024 edition of The Z List, as he is decked out in Hermès from head to toe, Sean carries himself in that same suave manner you might see in his videos. His grin is confident if a little cocksure, his posture no less than perfect. For his close-up shot, we try affixing a pair of Gentle Monster sunglasses to his nose before doing away with it altogether — it hides his big, expressive eyes.

While his good posture can be attributed to his latest pursuit of ballet, his good physique can be chalked up to over a decade of playing badminton. And though it may seem like Sean is in the midst of a juggling act between sport and dance, he admits he’s just enjoying the ride. Even as a content creator with over a hundred thousand followers, he’s no stranger to the spotlight. Flowing from one thing to another is something that’s part of him by now. “I guess I can say it’s all natural to me,” he says of his increasing online fame (which he also credits for how smoothly our shoot goes). “I’m not the type that’s camera-shy at all, it’s very normal for me.”

We bond over growing up as an only child — and the inevitable thirst for attention that comes with it. Social media, and subsequently content creation, has given Sean — or “Oppa Sean”, as he’s known online — that much-needed outlet to express himself. “You get a lot of attention if you like it,” he says with a laugh, after pondering over the pros that come with his popularity. “And I do like that. I enjoy people looking at me, and talking about me. In a good or bad way, depending on the situation.”

Jack of many trades

Growing up, Sean found himself inspired to get a start in something. And like many young boys who were tuned into the men’s singles badminton finals at the 2008 Olympics, he was captivated by the heated match between Lee Chong Wei and Lin Dan.

“It was what motivated me to start badminton,” Sean shares. “I started at 12 and it was like, the moment I held the racket, my parents noticed that I’m talented. I didn’t have to train much in the basics, and I knew how to ‘badminton’. The badminton was badminton-ing.” He gives another laugh. “And I played until I was 17 or 18. I went professional, and I played in some international tournaments as well.”

In the course of his training, the next natural step for Sean was to train others. His dad had been a coach at TEAM Z, a Klang-based badminton academy, for some time then — and at 16, Sean followed suit. “When you’re training, you would eventually have your coach ‘coach’ some juniors,” he elaborates. “But in my case, it was more of helping my dad. We started with small classes, and eventually there were more students, so I trained while coaching. Then after the pandemic, I proceeded as a full-time coach.”

Having seen his videos on his Instagram and TikTok, I can’t help but wonder aloud if he’s just as uproariously funny in real life as he is online. “What you see in the videos, I’m like, times ten in real life,” Sean says with a proud smile. “So I’m more goofy and more fun in real life. Some people might be scared to talk to me because I seem kind of ‘cool’ or ‘fierce’, but no, I’m way goofier than I am in my videos.” He pauses. “But definitely not on the court. I’m a very strict coach.”

It’s hard to imagine Sean as someone serious, but if you scroll through his alternate Instagram account dedicated to ballet, you’ll be able to catch glimpses of it. Among other things, ballet has taught him discipline: “It taught me how to stay calm. Because my musicality is not that good, but I have to practise to get it right. And if I want to get that, I have to be very, very calm at certain moments, like when you mess up. Just like in life, when you mess up, you can’t be like, ‘Oh my god, what am I going to do?!’ You have to keep yourself in control through everything.”

Sean only started doing ballet a little over a year ago, but he is fully committed to it. Perhaps it’s the flexibility he has gained from a lifetime of badminton or the strength of his core that’s eagerly sought-after in the world of ballet, but it seems he was a natural fit for the dance form.

“I chose ballet because at first I found it very challenging,” Sean tells me. “And because in Malaysia, it’s very rare for a male to do ballet. My teacher said to me, ‘Your body is suitable for dancing ballet.’ So I quickly started full-time on it — then I fell in love with it. I trained in everything.”

He owes the ease of flowing from badminton to ballet to his own tremendous fitness. Discipline is one thing; actually having the stamina to keep a steady head for both the sport and the dance is another. It’s a seamless connection that he weaves between the two.

“With badminton, I was already a disciplined player,” Sean muses. “My main advantage is that I’m very strong in my endurance, my speed, my stamina. So in ballet, I use that as an advantage to practise long hours. Because I don’t really feel tired even after long classes. It helps a lot in my ballet, where I can use more time to practise. And I have strong cores. It’s different from an athlete’s core, when you’re dancing.” Conversely, what he learns from ballet, he carries with him into his badminton coaching. “Especially flexibility training, mobility training, and some ways of training the back. In badminton, we have to use our back a lot. And after learning ballet, I know there are safer and easier ways to exercise and do progressions.”

A ‘stand-up’ kind of guy

Taking up ballet — or any form of dance, for that matter — has its stumbling blocks, especially if you didn’t grow into it the way Sean had with badminton. “It’s tough,” he admits, “it’s very tough. The harder part will be on the girls, because ballet is mainly female-centric where the girls have to be very perfect. Men mostly only have to be very strong, because some things you don’t really have to have the flexibility, depending on yourself. If you have it, it’s like a plus. But the tough part with being in ballet for me, especially at my age, is probably that the body starts to get stiff faster compared to if you had started it much earlier.”

“And this is coming from someone who’s already flexible,” I chime in.

“Yeah,” he notes, “but you still ache a lot, and you feel terrible the second day after practising. More than if you had started it when you were young. Because the recovery rate is very slow. And you get stiff very fast. Then that’s more time you have to spend in the studio to build your mobility, more training.”

How does Sean deal with all this? With his creative touch of humour, of course. Like everything else he’s taken on, comedy comes pretty naturally to him. Entertaining the masses is not something totally new to Sean. In and out of the lockdown season, he was featured in the dating show, Crush on You, on GoXuan (对你有感觉 Duì nǐ yǒu gǎnjué in Chinese).

“After that many people started supporting me, and I started focusing on content creating,” he says. “One of my dreams is to be a model or actor. That’s what I initially thought. I thought that if I had many basic skills, or maybe something in the arts, that would help my acting skills as well. So I proceeded to learn piano, singing and guitar as well.” (Ultimately, this is the road that led him to ballet.)

But his knack for comedy carried forward in the form of skits and POV Reels, quick-witted and sharp enough to jostle the funny bone. One video that has stuck with me is titled Dance of the Little Sean — a play on Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Swans” — in which he fuses the best of both his worlds (badminton and ballet) to promote the Swan Lake production by the St. Petersburg National Ballet Theatre at KL’s Plenary Hall last month.

“The way I keep my audience engaged is not just through filming funny, comedic content,” he says. “Sometimes to make a connection, I would reply to people’s messages. Some interactions, talking to them and such. Because some of them ask me for advice, and so I’ll reply to them. And sometimes I’ll do some live videos to chat with them.”

The advice-giving goes both ways. In Sean’s alternate Instagram account, many trained ballet dancers from everywhere offer up helpful pointers and constructive criticism, on his form and techniques, and he welcomes these, too, with open arms.

Broader strokes

What I catch almost immediately from Sean, from the moment we sat down, is the sense of sureness in the way he speaks. This is a Gen-Zer who knows exactly who he is, what he’s set his sights on, and how he plans to achieve that. And it’s very refreshing to see.

For Sean, juggling his full-time job as a badminton coach, mastering ballet and growing his macro-influencer status is rewarding enough to keep him going. The only price he must pay — as does everyone else — is time. “You have to spend long hours doing content, and editing,” he opens up. “You have to plan. And on top of that, I have my schedule and my own life. I have to do another ‘life’ outside of content creating. And eventually when you use a lot of time, you’ll find that you have less time for yourself and for your family as well.”

Yet despite his lament about personal time — or perhaps because of it — Sean is a non-stop kind of person. “Besides content creating and badminton, currently my schedule is totally packed with ballet,” he says. “So even in my free time, I use it to practise. On my rest days, I would still train my brain. I would do some ‘homework’ by watching ballet videos, or coaching videos. I won’t waste the time on doing nothing. But if I really have to, I’ll use the time to rest.”

interview PUTERI YASMIN SURAYA | editor-in-chief & creative direction MARTIN TEO | assisted by RONN TAN & MALLIE MARAN | stylist ISAAC CHONG | stylist assistant ZIYIN | photography EDMUND LEE (ONE3FOUR STUDIO) | videography POR JIA JUN | assisted by STANLEY LOH | makeup SHIYO JOO | hair JUNO KO | styled in HERMÈS, MSGM

In its fourth year, The Z List 2024 continues to celebrate the inspirational and aspirational, as well as the most dynamic youths who find strength in empowering their communities through the work that they do. Working together, the Gen-Zers come in full force to make an impact strength on strength.