thanks to kendalex and his swing technique tutorial, i just started getting
stilts.
was so stoked when i landed my first one. it was on a kendamaco natural bamboo. after that i made it a mission to land a couple on each of my other kendamas and i can get them fairly consistently now

for me, i load them like i would a lunar (twist the ken counter clockwise a few rotations so that when i let go it starts to rotate) and right when the cups are where i need them i pull up and stop the ken from rotating any further and get the tama into position. i wasnt getting them before because i was treating stilts exactly like a lunar and trying to make a gradual landing. stilts made more sense after i saw kendalex's swing tutorial and i realized i could suspend the ken from rotating any further. That made them alot more feasible.
i also started trying out trade spikes and can get them every ~10-15 trys. still havent got the hang of trade spikes but i am getting them now.
my next big trick that i want to get down are lunar flips. they seem impossible right now but tbh so did jumping sticks/earth spins when i first started