How To Play Kendama The Japanese bilboquet device is quite simple-looking. The game consists of a wooden hand-piece which is attached by a string to a red, wooden ball that has a hole in the center. The hand piece has four main areas: 1) the big cup, 2) the small cup, 3) the tower, and 4) the spike.
I tried playing this game at my elementary school for the first time this week, and I think it’s great! After about ten minutes of practice, I was able to catch the ball on each of the cups, and the tower. Soon after I was able to even catch the ball on the spike. Catching the ball on the spike is pretty hit or miss for me and apparently it’s the same for a lot of people. That’s why the red ball has so many scratches on it. There was one student though who was really good at kendama, he was able to do some of the trick catches as well. I wikipedia’d (is that a word?) kendama just to find out a little more info, and Wikipedia had this this list of tricks:
1.Around the World: big cup-little cup-tower-spike 2. Slip on Spike: crossbar to sliding spike 3. Earth Spin: spike to flip back on spike 4. Around Japan: big cup-little cup- spike 5. Around Europe: spike-big cup-spike-little cup-spike-tower-spike 6. Bird: balance ball between spike and cup 7. Under Bird: balance ball between cup and tower 8. Lighthouse: balance tower on ball 9. Airplane: swing ken to land spike while holding the ball 10. Swag: Pull up ball to stab down spike
The tricks that really sound fascinating to me are the bird, ad the lighthouse. I can’t even do the bird trick by hand-placing the ball between the spike on the cup. Throwing the ball into this delicate balance point seems like the challenge of a lifetime. The same goes for the lighthouse. I read that and I was like “So let me get this straight. In stores you can find kendama for sale You want me to hold the ball and try to get the hand-piece to balance on top of it?” Of course I couldn’t resist. After trying and trying I decided that I’m good with my basic, run-of-the-mill kendama skills.