Historians of Downspike, is it possible to trace and identify the origin of kendama juggles? I know that it is a recent trend, only having dominated the meta in the past few years. I once saw in a Sander video something called "juggling", but it was a far cry from what people do today.
I don't know but it would be very interesting to see if anyone does know about were the recent trends came from.
I remember reading something a while back on Facebook about a dude named "TJ Harris" (I think it was at least) who totally revolutionized modern kendama juggling. Maybe someone else on here knows? I started playing in 2014 when juggles were just picking up speed and becoming the trend, so I don't know all the OG players.
Sweets visited the IJC in... 2011 or 2012? A lot of jugglers picked up dama after that and started pulling some funky tricks. There are lots of examples prior to this I'm sure, but the meta started to change a little at that point. Juggling is a fairly 'basic' trick in some sense, so I don't think there is any one person that can claim to be the originator of it. I do remember Jacob Foshaug being on that game pretty early though. Check this edit from 2012: if you skip to 3:22, he has a few tricks that are the foundation for later stuff (kenflip before a juggle/swap, pull up tap into a juggle, etc)