Are Bearings Really Better?

Micro bearings have become the norm for "Premium" kendamas and seem to be a selling bullet point for a lot of companies, but my question is, are they really better? Does anyone out there have a side by side comparison video providing proof that they actually work? Someone on a previous thread said they help with pulling up lunars, any truth to that? I have entirely switched to micro bearings but I feel I did so mostly because of hype and now I don't even have a kendama without one. Anyone able to shed some light on this, are they really worth it? Should I keep buying them or not? And also, do you use bearing lube on yours from time to time?

 

I have a few damas with bearings but most recent ones I've bought inc. kaizen 2.0, POP and a couple of Enjyu ozora are just regular beads, and I have to say I'm in the passing fad categorie with spinners! They sometimes seemed to work really well at untangling string but other times seem no better than a normal bead.
Ozora beads and kusa are my favourite, they seem less tangle prone than others.

 

I have both. Don't really have a preference. I don't think bearings make play any worse... What I don't like is beads or bearings that are overly heavy since they are more likely to fall out the tama hole on stall lines.

 

I do find the bearing helpful for clutch tho

 

I think they help on shaving time and energy off of striaghtening the twist in the string. My ozora is the only dama without a bearing. When attempting balance tricks, every now and then, I have to take just a little bit of time to untwist the string. I think there is a misconception that it will tangle less. I find it true because the string has less twist in it. So when attempting the a pull up with twist in the string, the string will roll onto itself on the way up as shown in this poor video I just put together.

 

I've bought a number of bearings from RWB and Dama Mods and I have had instances where certain bearings do not spin the way they are supposed to in certain tamas or on certain strings.
Sometimes it takes just flipping the bearing on the string the other way to get it to work correctly, or using a different one entirely.

That being said, when I started kendama, untangling/unspinning strings were a constant thorn in my side and spinners definitely helped mitigate that, especially when doing certain pull up tricks and the ken wouldn't hang still because the string was still spinning.
A lot of the tricks i'm currently able to do, i do not see much of a difference between having bearings or beads used in the tama, but my level is still pretty low tbh. Not all of my setups have bearings used in them, and I actually have a couple left over waiting to be used.

 

My S2 Kotodama is a perfect example of this. The bearing gets sucked into the string hole and creates an occasional stuck effect. To avoid this I have put an extra bead between string hole and slip knot.
I also had a bearing once that wasn't happy with the knot I made using a KUSA black string. I undid the knot and tied it up again adding an extra loop. This sat on the bearing face better and didn't get stuck anymore.

In my opinion microbearing is the new black. Jump on board and ride this train!

 

I've tried the second bead trick, but put it in the wrong order
But again, normally flipping the bearing on the opposite end has usually fixed the stuck issue for me.
A lot of people I've seen claim that silk string is the best pair with bearings than nylon, but I've had more issues with silk string than nylon even after flipping the bearing or switching to a different bearing. At that point it was just better putting the bearing to use on a different set up and putting a bead onto the whacked out string.

 

I think the KUSA strings are the best with the bearings. They slip around the space of the bearing face and are lighter in weight. The "silks" are thick and depend heavily on the bearing to sit properly with the tama to be able to free spin. Take a skateboard wheel for example: if you overtighten the axle nut, the wheels won't spin properly. It given the right amount of "wiggle room" to release the pressure/stress forces, then you get a smooth spin.

 

Very true. The strings I use mostly are KUSA strings and Ozora strings. Ken Lab and Sol strings, in my experience, work really well too.

 

I have a few bearings and I think they really do make a difference. There are a lot of factors that go into it too. If the knot is too big or if there is a bunch of extra string at the end of the knot it might make it hard for the bearing to spin. Or at least this is what I found after playing with them exclusively for a while. But I also use two beads for beaters which for the most part does the same thing as bearings but a poor mans version.

 

That's genius!! Plastic on plastic has a great amount of slip to "act" like a bearing.

 

Yeah I thought that was pretty clever as well.

 

Now that I have switched to bearing kendamas, I do not really see the need for the lame wood ones with the plastic bead. I never have string tangling issues anymore!!! Does anyone happen to know if these kendamas are competition approved (aka fit in the gloken box)?

 

IMO they really make difference. Swirl from tana grip is one of the best example. You spin the tama and spike it, and then you can keep on playing because string isn't tangled. Also I remember learning lunar without bearing. Gosh! The ken was always spinning and I had to retangle it all the time. All the taps when you spin the tama with your hand, leg, it spins for years and it doesn't tangle. I play on sweets prime with its original steing and damamod bearing. On the other way, I have a brand new bonz atron pro mod, and when I speen the tama, the string is tangling. Bearing 4life

 

In my opinion they help a lot

 

I got a norx mod that came with a spinner bead but it seems that the string gets more tangled than without the bead? Can someone help me?