Meet my new play toy. It’s called kendama which actually is a word, it is written with two kanjis, which actually represent the toy components: a ball(tamma 玉)and a spike (ken 剣).
The game principle is catching one object with another, where both are joined by a string. It’s very popular concept. There are known similar toys, such as the Latin American balero and French bilboquet. This kind of toys were developed in all hunting cultures. They were mainly used to train kids during early childhood of hand-eye co-ordination. Later on this games were used mainly as kid toys and for gambling.
It’s a great toy to get you loose during the day. It doesn’t need a lot of time or effort. Except you are aiming to compete in Japanese kendama leagues.
Everything starts with simple catching of the ball with the pike, when you master it, you can improvise jiggle sequences and so on. But let me show you what the Pros are actually capable of. Maybe it will look easy for you, if you never before play such kind of games, but still take a look:
I bought one for me from KendamaUSA (the guys from movie above) and love it. This guys have a great assortment of Kendamas. I did get the Ozora, purely Japanese Kendama imported from Japan. Love the packaging and the labels, but I can not read anything 
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- Kendama Ozora packaging manual
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- Kendama Ozora packaging instructions
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- Kendama Ozora Wooden color
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- Kendama Ozora Wooden color
It’s time to play my kendama, see ya soon.
