Would'ya? So, looking back at the years (or months or whatever) that you have been playing dama, is there anything that you would change about when you first started...or later on in your career? this can be anything from tricks learned to kendamas purchased or even players you watched. Just anything. personally, I didn't have enough knowledge when first starting and bought a kaizen padauk as my first dama. Not that it's a bad dama or anything, but it was not a good first dama choice. It was expensive (bought it on amazon... n00b) it wasn't durable (like at all), and I mean it's padauk; like I should have gotten beech or birch or something durable and cheap like that. So, that's my regret, what's yours?
So. Countering your argument, the kendama I LEAST regretted was my third kendama, the kaizen padauk mint. That was literally one of the best decisions in my dama career. That dama was so durable, was honed at anything, and I probably had most of my progression with it. Also, it looked supa cool when playing it, and the natural color change from orange to dark red was lit.
Yeah, I get it! Also, woods and paints vary a lot. Sometimes people get lucky with their order, other times, not so much...
I was starting out playing dama right around when KUSA dropped the Kaizen Crafts, and of course, I bought one. I ended up destroying that dama, and not in the good way. I wish I would have decided to wait and buy it until I was better at kendama so I could make better use of such a great kendama.
My first dama was a piece of garbage i got from a restaurant gift shop. No brand. Just a weird hammer looking shape with the tiniest base cup that you could imagine. And the string was as heavy as the tiny tama. It was dumb. But $3 also. Then I upgraded to my first real dama which was a blue tribby and I thrashed that thing to pieces. I chose a good first dama but I do wish now that I would have went with quality over quantity bc I have so many damas but a lot of them are $15-25 and aren't good all around hammers. Have strengths but more weaknesses. Higher quality equals better all around. At least in my opinion. That's why I'm focusing now on higher tier damas to improve my game and collection.
I wish I hadn't sold so many of my kendamas, to be honest. Had to sell my Craft slim and my KROM Deluxe Quad Split to fund a vacation, but maaan do I miss that Craft now. Such a honed dama.
Also, I wish I had learned my balance tricks on a slick tama. Nowadays, I find that I need to have a silk/sticky tama to do consistent lighthouses. I can still correct this by practicing on my JKA damas, but I think I would've saved a lot of time in the long run if I started the lighthouse grind on a JKA kendama.
I would've started sooner. I have only been playing a few years but I would have loved to have known about kendama when I was younger. The weird full circle of how I found kendama annoys me. Grew up obsessed with Anime and Japanese culture. Then got into Poi Spinning when I was a raver kid, that lead me into other skill toys like Astrojax. Then looking at a old forum post about a list of skill toys saw kendama. Astrojax USA was selling KenUSA damas. picked up a tribute and a pill. Realized kendama has been around FOREVER! That I've actually seen it in anime's I watched as a kid! That's where the addiction began. Now I have the same 2 poi spinning sets and nearly 40 kendamas
I have only been playing for about 5-6 months so my regret is just finding out about Kendama later in life