Watching you(@Cameron Herrero) get in front if the cam during the livestream amd lace some forgeound tricks. That golden yank for sure was a moment for the kendama history books though.
Falling asleep on the Hotel Lobby stairwell with Bryan Hansen at like 5am only to get woken up by security. The real MKO was in the lobby all night every night, jamming with the homies.
One of the most impressive things in my opinion was how organized and well planned everything ran. Huge shootout to @MattSweets and the rest of the Sweets crew (both on stage and in the skunkworks) for putting in the work and getting another one in the books.
MKO was epic. Judging the freestyle alongside Alex Ruisch and Tamotsu Kubota was an awesome experience. The freestyle contest was amazing to watch!
The highlight for me was definitely not being able to talk after like 4 hours of being there. I wish I could've talked to more people.
definitely learning new tricks and hanging out/jamming with homies was my most fav! but i also loved watching all the final matches of open, freestyle, and yank comp. and doing speedstackingggg! t'was a major throwback to middle school hahaha
My pleasure, would be stoked to do it again! A lot of people said things like "I'd hate to do it, so much pressure!", but I think we had a great lineup, and the decisions were on point. Thanks again!
I have been playing kendama for a year and have gotten to know/watch a lot of players over instagram. The highlight of MKO for me was getting to meet all of these people who have inspired me. Thanks for making this all possible @MattSweets It was a dream come true. SWEETS! SWEETS! SWEETS! SWEETS! SWEETS!
The freestyle was absolutely hype. Everybody who competed in the top 16 went off. There were so many battles that had ridiculous trick after ridiculous trick. I got a different experience from my first year because Atlantic was vending this time around. Huge shout out to Cody, Gabe, @MattSweets and any other Sweets staff member who helped us out on the back end of things. They were so professional and helpful it was incredible! I thought everyone meshed really well this year. It felt like everyone came together in one large, massive group. Instead of people breaking off into little groups of people. I thought that this year also had a ridiculous number of "big name" kendama players. All the young kids who came out were in awe of legendary player after legendary player that was just walking around the venue. It's fun to watch a small niche community like that.
Honestly the whole trip as a whole was my highlight. MKO16 was my first kendama event I have ever attended. Definitely one of the best times of my life. Also finally meeting fellow players from the community. It was all so surreal. The vibes coming from the event were so positive! Sweets did an amazing job.