I personally don't really feel like anyones missing a promod. Whenever a player get his own model, it's really great and it's a big personal achievement for those guys, but personally I would never buy a promod. I just feel like I am playing someone elses dama, and it's not entirely my own. I play guitar as well, and I have an old Tom DeLonge Stratocaster (because like a lot of people I used to be super into blink-182), but now it just feels weird to me when I play it in a live context.
I can't think of anyone off the top of my head but I do have to say that @Chad Covington and Sol's idea for the "Vibes" is perfect. As part owner of a company, making a pro model for a player is pretty risky. Do they have reach in the community? Are they well like/received? Will it be beneficial to my company? Will it be beneficial for the player? There are a lot of factors that are so difficult to judge. The Vibes are a great representation of the Sol team without having the name "promod" attached to it. It allows for a unique series that Sol knows will hit its target audience as well as be unique to their brand. Perfect. Look at Grain Theory and the Stodd Mod. That mod has made them tens of thousands of dollars. They recreate in every which way imaginable.
There are different levels of "pro mods". Getting to pick out a tama colors is kinda the entry-level pro mod. This is what we see most because it's the easiest and brings the least amount of investment and risk to a company. Getting to completely start from scratch and design your own shape, pick wood types, pick weights, tama bevel, string hole placement, etc...... THAT is a real pro mod. As far as I know the Stodd Mod is the only true pro mod. Shapes are sometimes tweaked for a group of pros but the Stodd Mod is the only one where one person (who is a top-level player) had 100% say in every design aspect of the product. That being said, the color ways that pros pick always seem to be some of my favorites. The Norcross Sweets mod colors are awesome, TJ's colors are dope and I've always liked the Alex Smith red with the maple leaf up top.
thank you all! now i know im NOT the only one who thinks that people deserve that opprotunity to have one... i guess that makes sense about bishoff
Totally agree with you, I love the whole Sol Vibes series where its just the tama paint thats different, but still the same shape
Not sure why this hasn't been mentioned, but BEN HERALD deserves a mod over anyone else I can think of. Dude has been crushing it for a while now!
Man, Ben really grabbed my attention not too long ago, how long has he been playing? He's pulled off some seriously incredible kendama maneuvers
Ben is an animal. He is the most consistent person ever at lunar backflips, amongst other tricks. I'm pretty sure he laces 1 banger a week, at minimum. I think I remember him mentioning that he has been playing for like 3 or 4 years
I agree man, It's been like the last 8 months that I have had my mouth on the floor. I felt like it was an all-of-a-sudden thing but I guess I was wrong! Slayer for real.
The big thing with KUSA's tribute team, at least to me, seems to be that so far all the recent appointments to the pro team came straight from the tribute team (Dave, Teej) so my only guess can be that Haley is next in line
In the same realm of this topic, I would also like to hear what everyone thinks about people who have the title of a pro kendama player, but don't fit the role. It's easy to start a company, make a pro team, and add players to it, but does that really make someone a "pro kendama player"? There's so much more to being a professional player than the title. In my opinion, these players that are "pro" but don't provide any value to kendama, don't deserve a pro model or the title of pro for that matter. Just my two cents!
At like 0:40 may be the first clip of Ben playing kendama, shot that like fall of 2013 I think. Check him out in the last section starting at like 7:00, shot in spring 2014, the progression is just insane. Hasn't stopped pushing it since. Definitely deserving of a pro model now.