I have come to find myself in a bit of a predicament. I'm lost in kendama! Yes, the toy with endless tricks and lines and stalls, I'm lost! I feel as if I'm officially able to classify myself as an expirenced beginner, and I'm ready to love to the intermediate category but don't know how? I don't know what tricks to do, should I take tricks I already know and lace them up? Do I focus on string tricks, stalls, get really good at lunar tricks??? WHERE DO I GO WITH KENDAMA?!?! I'm still having fun but I want to progress, and it seems like he progression in the first month was insanely fast, now it's slowing down Any tips on how to keep progressing?
I started doing string tricks at the very start and this helps a lot to givesome flow to your combo. Also, I think the biggest level up was learning: base cup to lighthouse, spike to ghost lighthouse etc. All different ways to go from one trick to another. Also there is somuch creativity with string tricks. For example kicking the ball or even learning the leg roll (thing like hand roll but on tour leg). Kendama is about creativity so learn few tricks and try to compile them to combo. Keep slaying!
I used to go through Kendama USA's trick videos on youtube. They are split into beginner, intermediate and advanced. I watched those a lot and just learned them all. It was sort of like a to-do-list for me. I had that, and I slowly built a practice/warm up routine. For a long time I made a point of having to land Around USA at least once every day. That build consistency and trained all of the very basic stuff. After I would get that I could work on intermediate stuff I liked: Cold Pizza, J-sticks that sort of thing. Also! Watch a ton of edits. People do really cool stuff and often you'll see cool lines that you wouldn't think of yourself.
Yeah challanges like around USA every day are very good, i had a challange that i had to do double j stick before i open my home doors now i am doing double j sticks very often
I like to take any trick and do an around version of it. Say you're feeling pretty honed at handle stalls, could you do around handle stalls. Also taking any trick and then thinking can I invert this? can I put this upside down? Both of those have been really challenging but really fun for me. Good luck!
I did the same thing except with the sweets tutorials as the KUSA vids didn't exist back when I started. From there, go wherever you want! String, tech, classic tricks. So many possibilities. It also doesn't matter what you learn first or don't learn first. I learned everything regularly before learning the inward version, but I know others who learned inwards before regulars. I think a big thing for me was consistency, so I always and still do a lot of the same tricks so I can get them consistent enough to bust em out casually without having to grind.
I would just watch edits on edits until i saw tricks that looked super fun or even searching on instagram, and dont forget to also get creative and make your own combos or lines.! ✌
I just watch yoyo videos from the 90's and think to myself, I wish they still made bright green windbreaker suits.