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Why weight match a kendama?

Discussion in 'The Sesh' started by Cheech_Sander, Apr 25, 2017.

  1. Cheech_Sander

    Cheech_Sander Administrator Staff Member

    Joined:
    Aug 19, 2016
    Location:
    Los Angeles, CA
    Recently I have seen a lot of preference to "perfectly balanced" kendamas. I can understand how this would be helpful for juggles. But for anything else, why?

    what is the theory behind it? To me, if they weigh differently, that is simply another piece of important information that my hand is relaying to my brain as I hone-in on the muscle memory of a trick.
     
    Apr 25, 2017
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  2. DaKaiz3nWizard

    DaKaiz3nWizard Member

    Joined:
    Jan 16, 2017
    Location:
    Mapleton UT
    Some people like heavier or lighter damas. For some it's practice. Others it's because they can't land certain tricks or its to hard.
     
    Apr 25, 2017
  3. James Hoang

    James Hoang Slayer

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    Nov 8, 2016
    Location:
    San Jose, CA and Milpitas, CA
    You might want to look at this article from Sweets's website.
     
    Apr 25, 2017
  4. Sirwillcode

    Sirwillcode Slayer

    Joined:
    Jan 21, 2017
    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    I have a set up that is severely unmatched and hand rolls can be somewhat unpredictable given the heavier tama. That's the biggest difference for me.
     
    Apr 25, 2017
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  5. azleonhart

    azleonhart Moderator Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2016
    Location:
    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    I've noticed that spacewalks, moons and handrolls can behave quite differently when the variance between the tama weight and ken weight increases.

    So, as far as muscle memory is concerned, i take a little bit of time to re-adjust when that happens.
    We're just too used to almost matching variances.
     
    Apr 25, 2017
  6. goenKendama

    goenKendama Administrator Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2016
    Location:
    Metro Manila, Philippines

    Thanks for posting that, it's a great piece and pretty much covers it all.
    (side note: One thing though does anyone else have a formatting problem on that Sweets page? The picture doesn't show for me and the post is one long paragraph.)
     
    Apr 25, 2017
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  7. amagad

    amagad Slayer

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2017
    googles cache goes as far back as april 14th so I cant get the image for ya, but the image appears to have been removed from their wordpress. Formatting likely an issue in wordpress as well, CSS styling perhaps?
     
    Apr 25, 2017
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  8. Nick Lectura

    Nick Lectura Moderator Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2016
    Location:
    Santa Cruz, CA
    Totally agree, space walks are somewhat harder when you have an unbalanced set up. For example, heavier tama and light ken means the tama whips the ken around in the air. Like if you go for a lightning drop, the tama will seem to whip around faster than the ken. When it's balanced, the two are always opposite as they circle through the air, and it makes tricks like spacewalk swaps easier.

    While playing with an unbalanced set up is definitely doable, I think a lot would prefer weight matched, myself included.
     
    Apr 25, 2017
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  9. ilivir

    ilivir Honed Member

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2016
    Location:
    Antwerp, BE
    It's fun to experiment with weights but like the Sweets article says, it's also in the mind. For stuff like handrolls I do notice the diffrence with just a few grams though. I'm only eight months into kendama so my collection is still pretty small to compare a lot but my overall best balanced dama at the moment is a RWB complete that I recently bought from their new website. I didn't put any notes about the weight when ordering so that's really cool I think.
     
    Apr 26, 2017
  10. damon

    damon Slayer

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    Oct 13, 2016
    Location:
    Salt Lake City
    My main thing is juggles. You really want an even weight on both tama and ken so you don't have to change your throw every time you have to juggle. It's kind of like juggling a lacrosse ball and a tennis ball, it's just awkward.
     
    Apr 26, 2017
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  11. Steezdiaz

    Steezdiaz Slayer

    Joined:
    Nov 1, 2016
    A lot of it is in the mind for sure. We should set up a blind test where there were 3 Kendama setups (2 unbalanced and 1 balanced) and you could play with each one but then at the end had to say which one was the weight matched one. I bet most people would get it wrong.

    I can't tell you how many times I get a new Dama and don't weigh it for a week or so and it feels totally balanced to me. Then I go weigh it and it's like 70/90 haha
     
    Apr 27, 2017
  12. m.peterson28

    m.peterson28 Member

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    Feb 28, 2017
    Location:
    St. George, UT
    i feel like this too
     
    Apr 27, 2017
  13. Congarranza

    Congarranza DS Legend

    Joined:
    Jan 10, 2017
    Location:
    Camarillo, CA
    Worst setup I ever received was 15g off. After, a three way swap I now have 3 setups at 0.35, 0.95, 3.05 gram difference. Best setup out the box is an Ozora 1.65g and Koto2.0 1.7 gram difference.
     
    Apr 27, 2017
    Relyk likes this.
  14. azleonhart

    azleonhart Moderator Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 12, 2016
    Location:
    Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
    Mannn, my very first Mugen was 18g off!
    Tama 90g, ken 72.
    Spacewalks felt so damn awkward!
     
    Apr 27, 2017
    Steph Lussier likes this.
  15. amagad

    amagad Slayer

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    Feb 21, 2017
    90g wow, what a tank
     
    Apr 27, 2017
  16. Almostgets

    Almostgets Slayer

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    Oct 12, 2016
    Location:
    The 'Go
    Great article. Love the idea of the placebo effect in setups
     
    Apr 29, 2017
  17. Matteo Schulz

    Matteo Schulz Member

    Joined:
    Jan 1, 2017
    Location:
    Washington
    Hey guys! Just thought I would post this question open to discussion: what do you guys think the difference is between weights and certani types of tricks? Are certain weights better than others for certain tricks? What are your thoughts?
     
    Mar 8, 2018
  18. Aaron Gallegos

    Aaron Gallegos Slayer

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2017
    Location:
    California
    You want the ken and tama to be close in weight because when you do string and aerial tricks, you want the center of mass to be as close to the midpoint as possible. That way, one piece won't have a larger rotation path during space walks and one piece won't rotate slower than the other during stuff like butterfly and swirl. Also, when you do juggles, it just feels weird when one is much heavier than the other. I personally don't notice these things unless the ken and tama are more than 15 grams apart though (only one of my setups is like that luckily). As far as total weight of the setup goes, that's up to personal preference.
     
    Mar 8, 2018
  19. Angelo San Juan

    Angelo San Juan Honed Member

    Joined:
    Jan 20, 2017
    Location:
    Roselle, IL
    Imo I love juggles when the tama is heavier. Most of my setups are tama heavy as a matter of fact but it's all mostly preference! There is some truth about center of mass but nothing too crazy to worry about unless they are way off. My preferred weights are 72ish ken with 80g tamas. But i have others that are lower for other tricks and heavier for other ones. I like to have a range of options in terms of weights but for some reason light setups (anything under 69) is awkward as Ive gotten my preference down!
     
    Mar 8, 2018
  20. goenKendama

    goenKendama Administrator Staff Member

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2016
    Location:
    Metro Manila, Philippines


    @Matteo Schulz We had a similar thread running so yours has been merged so everyone may see the previous replies. Be sure to check out the Sweets article mentioned above for lots of good info.
     
    Mar 8, 2018