Common Kendama Trick Misconceptions

With how widespread and varied kendama and kendama tricks have become over the last decade there are many misconceptions about tricks and how they are executed and even the name they are called.

The purpose of this thread is to gather many of these misconceptions and clear up the doubt and confusion about them.

First one I'll bring up, Juggle to Lighthouse and Throw/Toss/Kenflip to Lighthouse. Many players learning juggles eventually come across Juggle to Lighthouse (very popular 'level up' post on FKC). However many of those players post it as the first clip below and many (myself among them) know it as the second clip below.

(Toss to Lighthouse)


(Juggle to Lighthouse)

 

I believe that you’re correct. I learned you actually need to do a juggle and then land the lighthouse. This could be an amazing thread with great clarifications to the game. Please keep posting!

 

For sure, this one is fairly popularly confused trick

 

The top video with the tama on the spike I’ve always known as Loaded Gunslinger/Loaded Revolver while Gunslinger and Revolver are interchangeable similar to Small Cup Bird and Nightingale or Cliffhanger and Axe.
Though I could be wrong about Gunslinger and Revolver being interchangeable, but Gunslinger/slinger has been the prevailing term as of late similar to Cliffhanger was the older name for the Axe trick which is how the trick is more commonly called.

I’d also like to add that the two tutorials from that yoyo group is very dated by comparison, and though the player in the tutorial is skilled they do introduce some very unknown tricks or some that is not referred to in any kendama competition.

 

The biggest one for me is people calling spike “in” (i.e. juggle in or bird one turn in)

“In” is when you’re holding the tama and the spike goes into the tama.

“Spike” is when you’re holding the ken and the tama goes onto the spike.

It didn’t really bug me at first but now I’m starting to see this misconception everywhere.

 

This is something I noticed as well when I went to my first kendama event, but can’t explain it away beyond just semantics.
There are tricks that use the term ‘in’ for spike and others use ‘falling in’ for airplane. afaik i’ve only seen both the ‘in’ for spike and ‘falling in’ for airplane done in ken grip for the most part (bird flip in like you mentioned and big cup falling in as opposed to big cup airplane)

 

Ok, I'll bite...
One that really yanks my chain is people who don't get the difference between "Backhand" and "Penguin" catches. It's only a Penguin catch if your elbow is higher than your hand.
All penguins are backhand catches, but not all backhand catches are penguins, folks.
That's my lockdown mini-grumble for the day, stay safe, D

 

O

ooh, good one.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=jug...ient=safari#kpvalbx=_63GhXuLNOO6i_QaIoIDwDg39

it’s difficult for newer players to learn accurately when they get their info from tutorials like these.. I believe KUSA’s YT tutorial for juggle to lighthouse is the exact same with Kenyatta demonstrating if I remember correctly when I was trying to learn them.. I got called out(only in DM) on IG when I learned this trick and I guess mis-labeled the toss to lighthouse as a juggle to lighthouse

*edit: would the name juggle up to lighthouse be more accurate than toss to lighthouse or vice-versa? In your all’s opinions??

 

Interesting, I don't remember this tutorial dropping at all haha.

I've discussed this with Tim on FKC and for the most part a single juggle involves the 1 ken toss and 1 tama toss which is why when you see people juggling out of Airplane it's typically called 1.5 swap juggles. Which would make the tutorial here more of a half juggle since the ken is tossed up the same way a juggle is initiated but is 'incomplete' because the tama was not juggled as well.
No one else has brought this tutorial to my attention when discussing if their trick was a juggle to lighthouse or not

 

I also wanna add that, though I have mad love for the Sweets crew and homies, they seem to have a bit of loose interpretations on some tricks.
When I helped judge NAKO/MKO in previous years and we went over the tricks, Whirlwind was one commonly asked trick when considering if we should count it if the tama didn't do an Earth Turn. Everyone knows Whirlwind as a combination of Earth Turn and Kenflip, one of the first advanced tricks that many players learn but as judges we were given the ok to count it (or at the very least not miscount it) if someone did the trick without the Earth Turn (purposefully or not).

This isn't to say that they're always loose with trick interpretations but there is a precedent for it.

 

Depends on how trick definitions and interpretations have changed between the 2. Like when Lunar Tres started getting popular and people wanted to set the differences between Tres and Lasers (I'm not a skater, I only really am familiar with the names of the tricks in relation to skating and the execution of Tres in kendama)

 

Sweets team isn’t the only one mislabeling though..

Seems like the two biggest companies(most popular and been around longest In the States) both interpret the trick the same way.. I understand people having different opinions on what juggling actually is, but by definition juggling is tossing one thing in the air while holding another and releasing it to send the other object in the air.. when you “Juggle Up“ I would technically call it juggling because you are pulling the tama up initially which would be like your initial “toss” out of your non dominant hand catching in your dominant hand and releasing the Ken to send in the air so something is always in your hand and always in the air as well..

By my personal opinion only I would consider it a toss/(Ken flip)/throw if you tossed the Ken at the same time you’re pulling the tama up(kind of like kenflip to spikes, but instead of catching the Ken u catch the tama and land lighthouse) not sure if his is accurate or correct, just how I see the tricks. The guy that called me out was a member of FKC too and I remember him saying there was a debate on there about it too, and I feel like he got called out and that’s why he DM’d me, so as to not publicly call me out but try and correct my mis-label.

I do think if our sport of kendama is wanting to be taken serious and to a new level I feel like some of the top companies here should gather with some of the top Japanese companies and compile an official trick list and includes all new school tricks up to this point(yea I know people are constantly coming up with new tricks and variations). This time in the world when things are slowing down to a halt for most would be a good time to work on something like this too via video chats and whatnot. <— just my 2cents

 

is a bird that doesn't lean on the spike considered a wing?

 

That is actually called a perch! If it's not leaning on the spike with the ken vertical (well, as vertical as it can get for the trick) then it's a perch.
With the ken horizontal, it's a wing

 

Nipples,eh? Does this mean we're going to have to refrigerate the stage at comps to help the judges??