Syncing music to the stomp point of bangers is a technique that has been used in skate videos for 20+ years. Having edited 7 feature length skate vids before we ever got into dama, it was definitely an influence. I picked all the music for edits 1 thru 8
Yea, pretty much this. It isn't really the sort of thing I would say a kendama player came up with by any means
Downspike. For real, such an awesome community of players on an equally awesome social media platform.
Companies accepting player input. Both customers and sponsored players. A few years ago, Sol asked me what kind of apparel would be great to add to their website before they had apparel listed and I suggested baseball tees. It was pretty cool to see that they had added baseball tees as one of their first shirt options when they first dropped their line of Sol apparel. This also extends to the actual kendama merchandise. KUSA players getting together and brainstorming the shapes for the Craft series (2.0, Slim, Shift, new Slim, etc), Sweets and their players making the new Prime and Next Gen shapes (and Christian Fraser completely crafting the new shape for his legend mod), and most recently Analog adapting the base cup hole into the new 'Portal' due to their player Steve Vargas still wanting that complete contact for base cup finger spins (the Clutch trick). And even more famously, GT pros actually getting to go to the workshop where their kens are manufactured by hand in the US to work on and build their pro mod shapes. I'm certain most of the larger companies newest shapes (the Prefect, the 1% and new Slaydawg 2.0, etc) all have input from their sponsored players as well.
Physical, brick and mortar kendama shops. Not a trend, but it really does make a difference when a community has an shop/indoor space that players can meet. With the Manila scene's shop gone (temporarily, I hope), it's become much harder for the community to assemble and have regular jams.
Thanks for the support and vote of confidence, we're working on getting a new place (fingers crossed). It didn't hurt that our old shop was "inside" our ramen shop in case you needed a bit of kendama fuel it was right there.
True sir! Nowadays we have to worry about venue and people getting to the place. It's a hassle I didn't experience back in the day.
The new sweets kendamas tutorials. They're super in depth, and they're a really good place to point beginners who want to learn kendama tricks.
Kendamacares.org Just became familiar with Kendama Cares at Battle At The Border this past weekend. An orginazation and concept hopefully the whole community can/will get behind.. helping others and bringing positivity/light to others is truly what I believe brings people eternal inner happiness & peace. They helped donate goods to Open Table Nashville a group Chad and the Sol guys work with to help homeless people in the area. Really nice people doing a really uplifting positive thing in the community!!
I’m sure we mentioned gifting kendamas in this thread already? If not, here’s a good one. Sold this og hickory Homegrown a while back that I had put a burn design on. Cannot remember who I sold it to but apparently it was gifted to someone who then gifted it to someone else before it got to the hands of @andy_bambi on IG. Saw it on Sweets Kendamas story post for everyone’s sunday setups and was surprised at seeing this dama I didnt think I’d see again.
That’s fun!! Yes the giving in Kendama is ridiculous in a great way! I’ve been gifted amazing fresh damas, extra strings, random toys, gifts. @Kendamamami won sweets’ first spike challenge and I know has given away SOoo many of them to new players, homies, and just random peeps he meets.
I've gotta say, #28TricksLater is one of my fave things about dama, it just brings so many people online to push themselves to learn new things, and share the game of kendama. Its awesome. Nice work on that, @Christian Fraser
I like the trend where most of the male kendama players I see out there aren't sexist and actually encourage female players to get better. You don't really see that in a lot of sports.
Thought I answered this. My bad. Received the newer FYW x Sol collab (the tama is the new design, the ken seems to be from the original design as it lacks the base cup hole) and the new maple Opposite Day rubber cup damas from Shelton and Chad last Christmas/my Birthday