Why do you Kendama?
Why did you start playing kendama? Who did you learn from? What keeps you playing?
For me, I first saw kendama at a juggling festival in Portland. A great juggler from Japan came and gave a workshop. He had some for sale, but was sold out by the time I decided I wanted one. I was bummed. I picked up a BC kendama a little later and played with it off and on. Then in 2005, the IJA festival was in Portland and a vendor from Japan brought some kendama. They were all over the fest, but again I didn't get one. Matt Hall gave a great workshop on all the different things you could do, and I hunted around. Finally the vendor found a few more and I got a wood TK 16 Master.
I became obsessed with the toy and decided to try and find another one. I had gotten a card from the vendor from the festival and contacted him. The kendamas weren't very expensive, but shipping was really expensive, and the kendama would have cost around $45 by the time I got it. So instead of ordering 1, I ordered 40. I figured I could find friends who wanted them, or at the very least take them to a juggling festival and sell them.
I put up the first incarnation of kendamaspot.com mainly to write down what I had learned, and hoped other people could benefit too. I really didn't have a lot of content or plans for the site. I found out about the Aki Matsuri festival in Bellevue and decided to see if I could sell some kendama there or at least demo them there. But to sell them I needed a business license. I got a business license, and figured since I had the license I might as well put some for sale through PayPal on the site. The next day I had 2 orders waiting in my inbox and couldn't believe it.
Since then you have kept me pretty busy with my little business. I've had to search out suppliers who could get me different kendamas. I've done a ton of research on kendamas that I still want to share. I've gone to SakuraCon and had a great time.
So why do you kendama? What’s your story? Post it in the comments below!
Comments
shing ging on on 9.13.2008 at 10:41 AM
I love KENDAMA! it is aaaaaasome. best game there is in Japan!
crusader E. on on 12.02.2008 at 4:02 AM
i started playing kendama when the japanese exchange program occured at my high school, and i got a kendama as a gift, after that i started playing it and got addicted
dama nation on on 12.05.2008 at 12:10 AM
I started playing kendama about a month ago, and don't really go anywhere without it. My friend got his first kendama from one of the pros on kendamausa.com. Naturally i was intrigued,bought one, and ever since then i haven't been able to put mine down.
keep up the good work
Cole on on 1.05.2009 at 1:17 PM
Well I first saw a Kendama when I played the game "Samurai Warriors" for PS2. One of the characters used a Kendama as her weapon and it amazed me. A few years later, Samurai Warriors 2: Empires was released, and yet again the character returned with her kendama. I went on eBay and bought myself a really crappy kendama (I can only play with it for about 30 seconds before the cups fall off of the stick part!) and now I am searching for another. :) That's my story.