Okay, Sorry I cannot figure how to make these photos come in portrait style. I don’t know what the frickin’ deal is. I need like a team of tech people. Anyway.
FOCUS 2.5!!
I’ve had mine for two weeks and the I’ve been playing with this dama and my KC mini the most so far. So I definitely like it.
PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS:
Overall: 8
One word to describe it: Solid
Should you buy one: Yep.
Different Damas do different things and this one is indeed a bit different from the rest.
In-depth analysis:
The main difference to this new ken versus the old sweets is the paint. It has kind of a chalky dull finish that adds a real good initial “stick” to tama tricks. Light houses grab really well. However, it will still slid around a bit if you don’t land it right but if you stomp it, it’s not going anywhere.
But in terms of landing lunars and lighthouses more easily, I still think most of the physics of this issue lie in two primary factors with a few auxiliary factors. The primary factor is weight and balance of ken not so much the paint just being “sticky”.
This kendama has a very sturdy and well balanced ken that is highly durable with a type of wood that is very similar to the mugen or oozora wood, but it seems to be a bit more dense which makes it a bit heavier unfortunately.
The other factor is surface area contact / friction between the tama and the cups. You can have the stickiest paint in the world, but if the wood doesn’t grip it, or make full contact then it’s pointless really.
The cups make pretty decent contact with the paint, and the ken isn’t like super heavy, so I didn’t have a problem lunaring it. I like how it felt.
String: very strong. No problems. It came exactly two fingers below the cup, maybe that’s because Matt knows that’s how I like it. ;) so that’s good.
Serado hole position is good, so pulling a lunar was no prob.
Ken durability is insanely good. Spike hasn’t dulled any.
Paint durability: Durable for the most part, but it will kind of chip just a little as you see below. Not a big deal really.
I definitely wouldn’t beat it on concrete though, but that’s fair to say for any kendama. But if you’ve ever played with me you’ll know that I’m an expert at spacewalking valuable and breakable kendamas into hard rough surfaces.
Their new stickers seem to be glued on better. It was not coming off like the last ones. And I think they look pretty sick. The focus on the bottom is super dope.
Gus Carstens is rapidly becoming a well known figure in the Kendama World. His camera presence is something you don’t f$ck with, and his skills are picking up at an astounding rate.
His new edit is bangin’, love the steeze and he chose a really good track. Good vibes.
So if you haven’t checked it out yet, check it out.
Sorry about tech issues. I had a huge post about the battle made and it got annihilated by Safari. I’ve just regained enough motivation to make another post.
This one is much shorter I apologize, but there’s a lot of pretty pictures so enjoy!
Anyway. This battle was amazing. I had such a great time with the Sweets crew and it was a pleasure meeting all the kenthusiasts from Georgia. HUGE thanks to everyone that took their time to make the trip to Nashville. I hope everyone had a great time.
Here’s some photos from the battle, and here’s the winners!
Pro Style: (aka Advanced) Jonah Holcomb
Intermediate: Drew Porter
Beginner: Brett Olsonoski
Might be the most epic thing for Kendama I’ve ever seen. Hands down. Insane.
Advanced Champion Jonah Holcomb.
Will Penniman after he beat me in Deadly. He was the only one to beat me the whole day. Grats Will. Enjoy your new Metallic Blue Ooz!
Intermediate Ladder heat 1!
Beginner Ladder!
More beginners!
Advanced first and Second. Jonah Holcomb and Danny Mason. Canton Georgia Represent.
Pregame. The rain just stopped.
All of our First and Second Place winners!
Intermediate champ: Drew Porter holdin it down for Nashville! Someone had to! Freakin Spacehouse murdered me. :(
Kai Neddersen. 2nd place Intermediate.
Family Photo! Great day!
Huge thanks to all that came out and HUGE UPS to 12th South Taproom and Grill for hosting the battle!!
Tomorrow is the Chik-Fil-A Kendama Battle in Canton,Georgia!
I am so excited for this. This is such a massive event. Expecting at least 150 people at this battle. If you’re anyway near Georgia you have to get to this.
I’m curious to see what it is going to be like and how it will vary from Kengarden and Kensession Stand battles. I feel like everyone is going to try to play me in “deadly.” Which is a game of K.E.N but you play for keeps. It’s a huge trend in Georgia, so it ought to be interesting.
Kensession Stand is proud to be a head sponsor of this event. We’ll have a few Focus Kendamas available for purchase tomorrow, as well as prizes for the events. Also I will be raffling off pretty cool 1 Kendama tomorrow.
We’ve been having a blast so far. The Sweets guys are great people, so glad they could make it. Photos and journal of this epic weekend will be up soon.Also Stay Tuned for the release of the Mini Edit Competition WINNERS!!
Alex Ruisch, your “nothing is impossible” statement kind of scares me. I’m trying to airplane everything now.
I’m going to manufacture a Kendama out of kinesin microtubules in a biology lab and I’m going to airplane it with a precision tool under an electron microscope. And get it on video. You just wait Alex.
Peep Alex Ruisch AKA Kendalex AKA Supernog’s Youtube Channel here.
The word “epic” almost insults how legendary this week was at the Kengarden in San Francisco, California.
Here’s a Journal of my trip. Enjoy :)
Day 1::Tuesday::May 24th
Flew in to SFO that afternoon, met up with Jake and kicked it around town, and had some unreal Hawaiian food. 2 Eggs, Hamburger patty, Rice, gravy, mushrooms. Insanity. Airplanes are awesome by the way.
Day 2::Wednesday::May 25th:
Today consisted of a lot of preparatory ken battles in the Kengarden. Jake and I met up with Mr. Sourmash himself at a super dope hole-in-the-wall restaraunt. Then that night we streamed a Kendama battle Live on Ustream from the Kengarden. It was pretty epic. It was funny because some kids expected us to do like tripple inverted lunars in a K.E.N match. We wuz lyke, foo you crazy.
Later that night the Sweets crew rolled in and we threw down!
Hella insane
Jake and I decided some Waffle House would just put the icing on the cake.
Day 3::Thursday::May 26th:
Grabbed some good grub and went to help Jake churn out the New Kengarden Shirts. It was a learning process to say the least… Turner showed up at San Franpsycho where we were printing them. Then we met up with Gus Carstens and Spencer Shores later on.
Gus brought the new Kensession Stand Shirts. Pretty stoked.
We had a pretty epic kensession in Japan Town where the last Kendama Battle was. Then we went shopping and we FOUND BABY KENS!!!!
Then we cruised down to Fatlace and kicked it with them for a while. Got the kengarden back up on the fatlace blog too. Pretty epic. Check out the Article!
Day 4::Friday::May 27th
Nothin’ like a 2am Kengarden Stair session to get your kenskills / quads up to par. You try and lace a trick on every step and try to make it to the top. Luckily I pulled off 59 Airplanes in a row. :D Pretty Stoked. There was some epic last step failage / extreme kenrage too.
The Sweets Crew of Matt, Brett, Chaz, Ryan, and Shane all stayed in a hotel but Turner and Gus and Spencer all stayed with us, so the next morning there was tons of ladder practicing, and then we all went over to Ube’s Icecream Shop to take a look around.
Bangin bikes!
That night we kicked it at The Kengarden T Shirt release party at 1314 with San Franpsycho! So much fun! Got to talk with Astrobot, a pretty sick Dubstep producer and we definitely promoted a lot of Kendama. And if you haven’t heard of San Franpsycho, you need to. They kick ass and take girls. Get to 1314 Grant St if you’re in SF and rock their gear.
May 28th::Battle Day::Saturday
I walked down and got a delicious bagel, and someone approached me and said “weren’t you in the San Francisco Magazine with one of those things” (kendama). I was so stoked! But I explained that I wasn’t but it was Matt Rice and my cousin Jake Wiens was the one who started the Kengarden out here in SF.
Trotted down to watch the United V Barca Champions League Final at this bar. IT WAS PACKED!! United sucked it up and lost, but I watched the second half with Jochen and met a UNC National Champion at this sushi bar. I was stoked!
Ashley brought out some EPIC Kendama treats! OMG DELICIOSO!
Battle time!
Rowan rockin the new shirt!
The impromptu rain ended the battle only a hair early, but we wen’t straight to Jochens house where he jammed an epic DJ session and we all chilled.
Hella crazy inventions were made such as the Beer dama, and Turner got one of the First Sourmash Stove Tamas. So much fun to jam with new kinds of Kendamas.
It was awesome getting to meet everyone, and chill with Chaz, Alex Sierra and crew then too.
Ridiculous
Stove dama and painting in the background by Sourmash.
Day 6::Sunday May 29th::Day after the battle
Gus, Spencer and Turner had to cruise on out, so Jake, the Sweets Crew and myself decided to stroll down to Golden Gate Park, and hit up the House of Air.
Which is essentially a gigantic trampoline course / park. We figured after 5 straight days of Dama and stairs that we might as well top it off with a 2 House of Air session to confirm musculoskeletal damage. hour
Sweets n’ them flew out that night at 11pm so just before we dropped them off we had a few brews and some sushi at a dope sushi bar. If you can’t sleep on a plane after 5 days of kendama, parties, stairs, house of air plus a couple beers and some sushi…God help you.
Epic rock stacking by Jake and here’s the whole Sweets Kengarden and Kensession Stand crew, except for Chaz Edwards who was off talking to his girlfriend or something.
So we dropped them off and chilled the rest of the evening.
Day 7::Monday::May 30th::
Park day!!
This day was soo fun!!!
Jake and I decided on strictly NO KENDAMA and just chill at dolores park and catch some rays.
Well, that idea kind of failed. We wen’t to the park and got invited to this party at the top end of the park and we pretty much played kendama for 2 hours. Everywhere we go kendama is unleashed. It was crazy. Super fun though, great people.
Chillin at the top of Doloris Park. 55 and Sunny. Epic day.
We proceeded to hang out at the after party with cool people. We got pretty amused with cat paint, solar systems, and neuroscience.
Jarl getting attack by Kitteh via cat paint
Day 8::Tuesday May 31st::Final day in SF
Jake had to do some work in Santa Cruz so I went down there with Jake, Sourmash and Harald Boyensen from Girls and Boomboxes and toured Santa Cruz. Tried to find some surfer chicks on the beach, but it was a little chilly that day.
That night Jake and I had our traditional Ryokos night with Amanda and we had our unbelievably epic sushi meal before I departed on my overnight flight back to Tennessee!
The Kengarden just released its new online store premiering the YUMU Kendama. The YUMU’s are just like other Kendamas except these have holes in the cups and you can place an optional spike into the cups for extra difficulty. These are perfect for beginner and advanced players. The Kengarden is selling Blue, Red and Wood YUMU’s. They come with one extra spike. And the YUMU is $23 plus s&h. Also, all the proceeds go towards future Kengarden Battles and other Kendama events! Check em out! The Kengarden & The Kengarden Store
chip just a little as you see below. Not a big deal really.
