In a small courtyard on the north side of Jingshan Park, which overlooks the Forbidden City in Beijing, a small group is practicing a new sport it hopes will resonate with soccer fans. It's called triple J.

"The biggest sports market in the world is shuttlecock kicking" the inventor of triple J, John Du, says on the sidelines. "The three Chinese characters for competitive shuttlecock kicking all begin with J, so I named this game Chinese triple J."

The first known practice of kicking the shuttlecock goes back to the fifth century BC in China and has since spread all over Asia as a popular pastime. Du turned the informal exercise into a competitive sport - releasing a set of rules and official equipment in 2010.