I used to do that often, but figured it was kind of cheating. It was almost ridiculously easing landing Birds if I licked my bevel.
Just saw a post elsewhere where the guy said he had to have 8 finger because it was "easier to juggle."
That is ridiculous! I can't imagine having the string that long or having someone else hold the kendama as you measure.
They probably play standing on a chair. When they posted that I couldn't even bring myself to reply. He's probably part of the group that thinks anything under 5 fingers is "old school."
I keep my ozora at 2 fingers: keeping it classic, standard, old school and proper. Most everything else is at 3 though.
Wow, I remember when I went to Berlin on a Kendama Clash competition and I read on fb in the description of it, that the string has to be 2/3 fingers long. So I changed from probably 4/5 fingers to this. When I came to the contest it came out that everyone is playing on 5/6 strings luckily I won, but swing double gubslinger was a madness Now when I am learning taps and juggles I play on 5 fingers string.
I just got a dama from @Keeks that is about 4 fingers. My initial intent was to trim it down, but I'll keep it that length for when I decide to dive into deep waters with juggles and taps.
I have another bad trend in kendama. When I won the competition and I won few damas, I was so happy and happy. And than like 3 kids walked tome and was like "would you like to trade it?" And I was like "no I haven't even seen them" And they "what about 50€?" For me it is so bad. Like ok, you can ask about it, but not straight after someone got them. And not pushing them to do it. Also I heard that not only I had experienced that.
Some, but not all, of behaviors like this just comes from a lack of respect. Those are prizes that someone earned and won through effort and practice. It's essentially an extension of the trophy given out too (if any), who would go up to a competition winner and ask them to trade for their trophy? Or to buy their trophy from them? Granted whoever won those extra damas/whatever other prizes were won can do whatever they want with them; give them away, trade, sell, etc but it really is bad to go up to ask for them like that RIGHT after they get the prize bag and before they can even go through everything in there. Posted this earlier in this thread, but this reminds me of my pet peeve of when you're showing off a dama on facebook or instagram and even mentioning how stoked you are to have it or how much you love that dama, with no mention whatsoever of wanting to sell or trade it, and someone asks to buy or trade for your dama.
I thought I was extreme when I checked my dama and noticed that it stretched to about 4 fingers from playing! I normally set it at 3.
I know that I'll catch some hate from this but I'm not a fan of kendama/dancing even though I got inspired to play from watching zoomadanke edit. I just like straight kendama shredding.
Thanks for finding that, I couldn't remember where it was. I guess next we'll need some kind of fishing reel device to have a variably adjustable string.
That would be really cool because that would allow for you to adjust your string length for a desired trick.
Speaking of the Juggle trend, When people think juggling is the end all, be all criteria for kendama greatness... Juggling is an awesome skill to have, sure, but not being able to juggle to spike shouldn't make anyone see a kendama player as "worse" than another. Everyone has their own style and kendama journey, after all.