Do you guys prefer natural or painted tamas? And Why? And from your experiences, which is your favorite natty kendama? I dont have much experience with natty tamas, but I really enjoy the sound and the natural feel to it. Im always one to have a natty with me, just to make sure paint is not all thats keeping my game up. Ide have to favor a keyaki Ozora myself. ~ Greetings out of Switzerland
Cusion clear is the bomb! I was going to say to exclude it on this thread though. Ide definetly consider practicing with some slippery tamas, and up the challange!
I definitely prefer painted (cush clear is by far my favorite <3 ) but with natties, I love GT's raw ash tamas. surprisingly to me, it has just enough grip that even I can do lighthouses and lunars coming from someone who normally play cush clear/the tackiest, grippy-est tamas ever.
Lately im in love with cleared natty's. My last 3 purchases have been; the new shiguchi maple/keyaki with micro-grip, a lyon noguera pro mod with lofty clear, and a HG maple/paduak with cushion clear I have a preference for natty's uncleared though. It means i had no help from paint of any kind to land a trick.
I have wavered back and forth on this subject for a good while now. Currently I am in a huge Natty phase. Ash in particular has been my go to. Atlantic's ash kendamas are hands down my favorite (no bias )
A friend of mine and I just grabbed kenco raw stripe zen kendamas. This is the first natty I bought. I like it a lot. It is really slippery currently, so I'm having some problems with lighthouses and lunars. The one my friend got had a better grip right out of the box, of course... Any advice on making it a bit more grippy? Also, one of the best natty kendamas I tried out was the Bonzai Ash. The first clack I heard was enough to fall for it
I definitely use both. but if i want an extra challenge natty or die. and i do like to have extra challenge sometimes.
I used to be all about the sticky tamas when I first started. First kendama was a red trib and it was way too slippery for me at the time, so I ordered a white aTack a month later. As I started progressing, I slowly started getting rid of all of my "stickier" paints. The only painted tamas I have now are a trib, OG JKA, Girr, stripe zen, and Terra (with the exception of a silk and a pro clear that I shan't get rid of due to sentimental value). However, I do like playing stickier clears every now and then; Sourmash is probably the favorite, musou/cush/pro clear is pretty dope, and aTack always brings me back to the first time I landed tricks like lunar and lighthouse flip. One clear I particularly remember liking was the original Sweets F3 clear before they started pro-clearing em. Picked up a red F3 when they first released and it was one of the best clears ever to me. And although I haven't played every company's natty, GT raw ash is unbeatable. When you play a GT raw ash in Japantown from 5-9 PM on a Tuesday, it is the most honed kendama ever and throws the need for sticky tamas out the window.
Natty all the way dude. my favorite natty kendama is the kaizen craft slim maple. this kendama is beyond amazing. I love the feel of all natural wood in your hand.
It depends for what tricks I like nattys more then painted except for balance tricks my fav natty is either walnut stripe hg or ash gt tama on hg ash ken
I love both lol it's hard to choose just one. Silk paint is so good for lunars and all tricks in general but I love the feel of nattys when I do cup tricks or lighthouse tricks.
As of late nattys have been the jam. There is just something super satisfying about landing a clean line on one.
I do like my painted setups. But i've found myself leaning more towards natty kendamas lately, especially Sol and RWB. RWB's ash tama is just as raw as GT's raw ash tama and i love the sound of playing a natty ash setup!
Natty life...I was all about KUSA silk for the first 5 months of me playing. However, when I bought my first kenco raw stripe I shredded it to bits, making it incredibly honed and tacky. I fell in love. Soon after I bought my next raw stripe, and the next, natties were truly my go-to. And now that I have the GT raw ash... you already know
I love tacky painted kens that hav jus the right amount of slick but have recently started to move on natty like hg. They will get grippy after breakin in enough anyway. And theres still the amazing grain and probably more amazing sound.