So you're playing DAMA, or KEN with your friends or whoever. What is one trick you always like to throw in that just gets people. Doesn't have to be something crazy. For example, I was playing with a guy who was newer at Kendama (but a world yo-yo champion) for fun and he held the kendama out at arms length, tama in one hand, ken in the other. He closed his eyes and the moved his hands together and put the tama on the ken (with his eyes closed). I tried it and missed, it was surprisingly difficult lol but so simple. I remember @Chelsea May Perez mentioned on IG she likes to throw in a simple double j-stick, gets people every time. Personally I like to do a weird lighthouse tap thing. It's like you're going for a simple Lunar, but before catching you tap the base cup towards your opposite hand. This cause the ken to twist into a perfect lighthouse. Pretty simple, but people are always like whaaaaat and they usually get a letter. Okay, your turn. What do you do?
If I really want to give someone a letter, I just do whatever their weakness is. Like if I know you're not good at slingers, I will pull out my triples on you. The only time I play this way is if the person who asks me to play is a cocky little poop and only wants to play so that they can feel like a big shot when they win. Otherwise, I'll just do stuff that I feel the other person can land, but it would be a challenge to do it in 2 tries. That being said, I usually jam swing dub sling, dub sling. The triples version of that trick. Lightning drop swap bird. Dub turn house, dub flip, dub flip trade. Around bird. 1.5 swap. Inward lunar cushion. Some others I can't really think of. Dub j is always a killer though. Same with whirlwinds.
i really like pulling out opposite handed tricks, i have a buddy who just started playing kendama in the last few months, and we came up with an idea to play DAMA against each other is that i just play switch so theres a huge handicap for me, so through playing with him I've got my opposite hand strong for certain tricks. Even just around the world with your other hand is hard.
This is a good one! I usually go for stall tricks such as HANDLESTALL and bird to improve my consistency. Then I would go for a juggle trick ( if they can juggle) such as a double juggle to spike or juggle with double kenflip to spike Then finnaly I would finish them off with a moonscircle, gooncircle, or a balance trick
Ooh this used to be my specialty... way back during KG Roots tour we had a running tally on W/L for the whole tour haha. Kids out there were vicious! Some good ones I can hit consistently: - Start holding candlestick, swing to spike (so you do a quick half-kenflip) - Handlestall, earth back to handlestall, spike - Various hanging tricks - Around downspike - (start tama grip) Straight pull up tap -> 1 turn trade spike - Around Canada - Around Denmark @RodDama has some good ones... Airplane -> insta double J stick -> insta double J stick
Not many people that I play against do Zero Spins, so I usually go for those(and it's the exact same one in KUSA's zero spin tutorial).
Inward slinger, late inward slinger downspike Various underbird junk Candlestick grip handlestall 2.5 kengrip downspike These are the favs I know I can hit nearly everytime
For me sweets specials and variations of them, like downspike, Juggle to lighthouse, or late gunslinger. For some reason many people don't learn sweets special.
When I saw Haley Bishoff do it in KUSA's Hawaii Volume 1 video, I was like, "I need to know how that's possible." And so I practiced with the help of the video, and now I'm working on spiking it.
I usually like to do earth but mid earth trade to penguin grip. Really easy but people get super confused if they have never seen it before.
I've been rockin the candlestick around underbird, then swap it to spike lately. Its a good one for DAMA games, try it out