I've found that the most difficult part for me as a beginner in this awesome new hobby is not necessarily nailing one individual trick, but learning how to transition between tricks. I mean I don't always want to end everything in a spike, I like to experiment with how to nail my trick and lead it into the next. Any thoughts on this?
No tips because I'm still a beginner too but I want to get to the same place where I can link more tricks together. My problem right now is consistency.
Consistency is definitely a major issue with me as well. I suppose everything will come with repetition and time though.
So i'm finally getting to the point where lacing them together is a goal for me. I learned everything until the point of being solid up to lunars, and now im working on transitions from one trick to another. It is definitely difficult, but if you strip it down to the basics, it becomes way easier. one example was doing juggle to Lighthouse. as soon as i could do juggle to lighthouse from a hanging tama, and get it to lightouse, i can now get lighthouse from any way that the tama is chilling. I think more difficult than transitions is being ridiculously consistent on the transitions. Working on doing them five or six times in a row so that you can consistently land them during a trick.
i actually think always ending on a spike might be kind of played out. Why not end anywhere? they do in japanese play all the time.
I don't know if its necessarily played out. It has a sense of finality no matter how you do it. The kendama is now exactly how you would place it on a shelf, its chilling in your hand the same way as you got it out of the box. Like full circle. You could end it any way you want, but it has always had a sense of finality to me when someone spikes it and just looks at the camera in amazement or freaks out.
For me it definitely has its place as the curtain call so to speak. I just want to get to a point where everything is natural and it's not like, "so here's this trick, now let me set everything up and hold completely still for 30 seconds to show you this next trick..." that's an exaggeration of course but there are definitely times where certain tricks feel awkward like there's just nowhere else to go, at least for me. But like I said, I'm super new to this.
Experimenting is great, its how it gets you to that weird creative zone where you think of stuff that people might not have done before. The person I know who does weird stuff that not a lot of people do is Ben Herald. He just put out a full edit of cool/weird tricks that are mind boggling. For example, I know that people have already done these, but one of my favorite transitions from lighthouse is bottom cup pressures. I grab the ken like I'm going to trade spike it, but then I apply some downward pressure with the basecup and swoop it behind me so that the ball is on the bottom cup. Might be hard to understand off of reading, but it is a trick that I feel people don't do. It's also a cool way to get from lighthouse to basecup without spiking and then going to basecup
yeah exactly, that's pretty much what it is but I just apply that downward pressure to get to basecup instead of just turning my hand around and catching the ball in basecup
For me right now I've been noticing any types of trades really help you keep flowing. Anything where you switch grips is pretty hand. Like if you ever finish something in tama grip a cool tease is 1.5 j stick trade to Down spike. At that point you can go for down earths or around downspike or all sorts of things.
Try stuff like Lighthouse falling in, and around USA (Big cup, spike, earthturn, small cup spike earthturn, base cup, spike, earthturn) these are both very satisfying tricks to get for beginners, but also help you practice for harder tricks such as stalls, lunars, and any consistence. P.S. You said that you don't want everything to end with spike, BUT TRY TO!!! It is hard to learn cups to spike, stalls to spike, and balance tricks to spike, but SPIKEING after every trick will help A LOT.
Ok, so I have been struggling to figure out how to transition in a way I see people do all the time and I just can’t seem to get it watching others in their videos. I don’t know if it has a name, but it’s when you change from tama grip to a ken or sara grip or vice versus, but the tama remains connected on the spike. For example, you airplane and want to switch to ken grip without loosing connection or you spike then want to switch to tama grip without losing connection. Does this make any sense. Is this beyond newb? Lol.
@Kristina maybe this is what you were looking for: Going from ken grip to tama grip "Switch Grip" or "Turnovers" I believe are common names for the transition.
Omg yes! Thank you so much! Everyone seems to have a different technique I just wasn’t getting it. Homework tonight between classes lol. I have been kinda ‘stuck’ this will be at least one way to get things progressing to new stuff. Thanks again, I’ve been looking for ages!
Aside from the tips already posted here, find inspiration from other sources! A lot of my transitions in flow come from other kendama players, either from what I see on instagram and in edits, or with the people I regularly jam with. Seeing other kendama players just gets the creative juices flowing, you know?