The Kendama Forum

Forum categories => Tricks => Topic started by: HansNickmans on 03 April, 2013, 13:08:12

Title: Active Balance tricks
Post by: HansNickmans on 03 April, 2013, 13:08:12
I was pondering about the new 'hardest trick' there is with kendama, since lunars and stilts (and axes to a lesser extent?) have become so common. When I started out with kendama, these were the mythical kendama-tricks that you could only see in one or two videos... I actually thought for a while that I invented stilts (not that I could do it, but the concept of a bird in tama grip).

I think the recent 'active balance'-tricks have replaced lunars and stilts in that fashion. Some that come to mind are:
- boarder's balance: not so common yet, but you can see it popping up here and there (Turner Thorne for example)
- no hole stilt: seen done by KendAlex, Zack Yourd and Max Norcross (and probably more). Also beginning to pop up in more edits...
- naughty bird: outside of the original video and Rodney in KE mini-edit 9. I haven't seen it anymore. Probably because of the visual appeal?

This got me thinking, how many more 'harder' tricks are out there? Tricks we now consider to be impossible but will one day become 'mainstream'... Are there any more of these 'active balances' out there? How common are they at this point? Discuss :-)

note: I put hardest between quotation marks since consistency and combinations of these tricks are considerably harder. I'm just thinking of tricks in their purest form

Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: donald grant on 04 April, 2013, 20:22:50
Yep, as things progress, tricks which were considered incredibly difficult become more and more popular.  Stilts and lunars have certainly become more "mainstream", but obviously still remain as tricky as they ever were....:)

Axe is a slightly tougher one, but give it time and I'm sure you'll be seeing it more and more.

As for "active balance" tricks, they're still rarely spotted.  If you want to try something *slightly* easier than boarder balance, you can always have a go at "crazy lighthouse": edge of the base cup is "caught" on the hole and balanced at a slight angle. 
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: Kev on 04 April, 2013, 21:45:15
Quote from: donald grant on 04 April, 2013, 20:22:50
If you want to try something *slightly* easier than boarder balance, you can always have a go at "crazy lighthouse": edge of the base cup is "caught" on the hole and balanced at a slight angle.

While practicing lighthouse today I saw the potential for this trick and wondered what it might be called. Crazy lighthouse! So now I know :)
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: the milky oolong on 04 April, 2013, 23:01:26
Ever landed a Lighthouse not quite centrally, and there's what seems sometimes like a half a second's worth of '...' before the base cup kind of 'clicks' into position? Maybe it's just me.

Thinking about active balance tricks, I suppose you've defined it quite well - you're not 'reaching' a balance position as with Lighthouse and Lunar (and even Stilts to some degree) so much as constantly 'maintaining' one when it comes to active. I've seen a few tricks like this on the net that have pretty much blown me away; spike-wise tama balances executed better than I can balance the tama on one finger with the spike, and obviously those Norcross 'Laquered Stilts' which are nothing short of maddeningly skilful.

I do think the case of 'transitional active balance' tricks (my God does that sound un-cool) has to be mentioned as well: I've watched Alex Ruisch switch from Lunar to Inverse Lunar while maintaining total contact, and I have seen someone (I think it might have been a very talented Swiss kendama player) pulling off Centrifugal Lighthouses (sounds like an early seventies prog band that never made it), similarly blowing the whole concept of rotation in kendama well out of the water. Something about these tricks especially captivates me in the way, as a quite unspectacular but obsessive juggler, watching Teku's endlessly inventive multi-ball contact juggling (www.juggling.tv (http://www.juggling.tv)) kind of tears the 'sport' a new paradigm, to be oddly vulgar about it.

I'm off to thread my kendama with an extra long string, throw the ken in the air, put one foot on the tama and climb out of sight into the desert sky.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: HansNickmans on 05 April, 2013, 07:35:53
Funny you made the link to Teku, I really enjoy his stuff as well! He got me back into contact juggling a while back. However, I see those centrifugal tricks as another 'class of trick', something along the lines of 'contact kendama :-)'. Zack Yourd and Jeffrey van Reeven did some of these in their latest edits (five trick fix and the sunrise edits respectively...)

As for the active balances, I was thinking about some mad moves that came to mind while reading this post:
- no-hole & no-spike stilt? Just balancing on the rim of the cup.
- naughty stilt (or inverse naughty bird)? (I mentioned this one before in another post, but I haven't seen it done)

Those crazy lighthouse are fun though, gonna try and have a go at them tonight.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: SamB on 05 April, 2013, 15:21:51
Quote from: HansNickmans on 05 April, 2013, 07:35:53
As for the active balances, I was thinking about some mad moves that came to mind while reading this post:
- no-hole & no-spike stilt? Just balancing on the rim of the cup.
- naughty stilt (or inverse naughty bird)? (I mentioned this one before in another post, but I haven't seen it done)

Turns out neither of those need to be "actively" balanced. I just tried then and your ken should sit in those positions quite happily, now swinging up to that position is something else entirely.
In Poland Toshi had a theory that you can spin the ken body (dead body style) on the ball, as far as I know it hasn't been managed yet but I think that would go into this class of tricks. (you can see him attempting it on the best trick video ~1:30)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL8rFPLaoiw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL8rFPLaoiw)
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: The Void on 05 April, 2013, 18:54:13
Quote from: SamB on 05 April, 2013, 15:21:51
Quote from: HansNickmans on 05 April, 2013, 07:35:53As for the active balances, I was thinking about some mad moves that came to mind while reading this post:
- no-hole & no-spike stilt? Just balancing on the rim of the cup.
- naughty stilt (or inverse naughty bird)? (I mentioned this one before in another post, but I haven't seen it done)
Turns out neither of those need to be "actively" balanced. I just tried then and your ken should sit in those positions quite happily, now swinging up to that position is something else entirely.
Hmm, not sure about that:
-No hole stilt is surely a dynamic/active balance, with the rim of the cup against the curve of the ball.
-No spike stilt should be possible as a passive balance... Although damn hard!
-Naughty stilt. This one feels different to me on different kendamas. I think a slight difference in the spike length can make this one vary in feel. It could be a "nearly landed Aeroplane", or else it would have to be active, I think. But I'm not 100% sure of what exactly this one is.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: HansNickmans on 09 April, 2013, 11:07:17
I found some more 'active balances'
- spinning the ken on your finger (with the tama on the spike, saw it on gloken somewhere...)
- the candle balance which is sort of common
- putting the tama in the bird position and balancing the whole ken on one finger. Looks great and really challenging...
--> biggest difference here is that the balances are not tama on ken, but whole kendama on finger/hand/nose/...
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: br4d24 on 09 April, 2013, 18:43:51
I was gonna say that trick where you balance the ken on the tama with the spike but it may have been covered. First saw it in the Japan edit and now its getting more common.

I personally think that the yoyo style/string tricks are going to be the next progression in tricks, considering the whole mixing of the scenes going on recently.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: Tetsuya Takahashi on 10 April, 2013, 15:58:49
Are you talking about satelight? That move is super hard. I tried doing one..epic fail.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: SamB on 24 May, 2013, 16:00:46
Sweets Kendamas | Three Trick Thursday | Miles Gibson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmdwSOCK2Q8#ws)
I guess we can add "tightrope" to this list now too (1:20)
[user]br4d24[/user] [user]Tetsuya Takahashi[/user] The spike on the tama trick is called "Borders Balance"[nb]Does anyone have any idea why it is called that?[/nb] by the way.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: BKA on 24 May, 2013, 16:12:09
Quote from: SamB on 24 May, 2013, 16:00:46The spike on the tama trick is called "Borders Balance"
No it isn't, it's called Boarder's Balance.
Quote[nb]Does anyone have any idea why it is called that?[/nb] by the way.
It was named by Takumi Okada, who sometimes used the online name of Boarder (as well as jugglertakumi). It's his balance.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: Dimensions on 24 May, 2013, 17:09:54
It definitely isn't a hard trick
But I believe Munich tower should be in the list as well


[Edited for copyright infringement]
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: Tetsuya Takahashi on 25 May, 2013, 00:22:55
Oh. The people in sac call it satelight but boarders balance sounds better.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: NJKendama on 01 June, 2013, 05:26:46
Does anyone have any tips for Boarder's Balance? Even if I put it on the tama, it stays for maybe 1-2 seconds before quickly sliding off. Thanks for the help!
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: Dimensions on 01 June, 2013, 12:14:30
Quote from: NJKendama on 01 June, 2013, 05:26:46
Does anyone have any tips for Boarder's Balance? Even if I put it on the tama, it stays for maybe 1-2 seconds before quickly sliding off. Thanks for the help!
http://www.kendama.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1002.0.html (http://www.kendama.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1002.0.html)

Please use the search tool or look here:
http://www.kendama.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1082.0.html (http://www.kendama.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1082.0.html)
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: NJKendama on 01 June, 2013, 20:06:30
Thanks, Dimensions!
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: HansNickmans on 19 June, 2013, 10:31:37
Watching edit #3 by Cooper Eddy he does a "crazy lighthouse" flip (what Donald suggested). Never saw that before. It is at 2:20 somewhere:

Cooper Eddy | Edit 3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la_VwsL3R5k#ws)
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: HansNickmans on 22 December, 2014, 09:12:57
Forgot a bit about this thread, until I saw this today (apparently Bonz did it first):
http://instagram.com/p/w2oDjvtruu/?modal=true (http://instagram.com/p/w2oDjvtruu/?modal=true)

Move over boarder's balance, there's a new sheriff in town. The "no hole no spike inward stilt".
We gotta find a better name for this...
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: Kev on 22 December, 2014, 20:38:31
Ah great! I thought we'd start seeing these :)

Here's an old thread where we discussed this type of trick.

I humbly suggest 'Crazy Lunar' or 'Crazy Stilt' as the name.

http://www.kendama.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1206.msg8995.html#msg8995 (http://www.kendama.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1206.msg8995.html#msg8995)
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: The Void on 23 December, 2014, 01:10:49
http://instagram.com/p/w7b0PctruD/ (http://instagram.com/p/w7b0PctruD/)
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: HansNickmans on 29 January, 2015, 10:34:19
There is a nice shot of a 'crazy stilt' by Turner Thorne in this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8pKo0NClmQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8pKo0NClmQ)

Also, in an old thread I found 'Mission to Mars' as a possible trick name for balances going beyond Lunar... It's probably never gonna catch on...
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: the milky oolong on 29 January, 2015, 21:29:33
Quote from: The Void on 23 December, 2014, 01:10:49
http://instagram.com/p/w7b0PctruD/ (http://instagram.com/p/w7b0PctruD/)

I agree with Sweets on the Instagram description; I wasn't ready for that.
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: BKA on 17 July, 2016, 11:37:34
https://instagram.com/p/BH864_kjkeU/
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: Chunky Nutwhip on 10 August, 2016, 17:27:34
Has anyone sen or had any success with 'tightrope' balancing the tip of the ken on the string as you hold it taut?  I gave up pretty swiftly.  I never do, but I imagine this isn't one for the tip gluers!
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: The Void on 15 August, 2016, 19:40:56
I've never got into this trick. Not sure I've ever even seen it done solidly in the flesh. Sweets was working on it at Kendama Camp last summer, slaving away, I saw him get maybe a second and a half before trying to exit. Seems to be a really tough one to nail down.
Quote from: Chunky Nutwhip on 10 August, 2016, 17:27:34I imagine this isn't one for the tip gluers!
Ha ha!
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: PikWik on 16 August, 2016, 02:20:30
i have seen that BB tight rope a few times on IG. & i wanna say ive seen BB flip to BB tightrope!
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: PikWik on 16 August, 2016, 02:31:26
i knew i had, heres the first couple i found. highlight being FIZAL

[instagram]https://www.instagram.com/p/BDzrGuGiMMx[/instagram]

[instagram]https://www.instagram.com/p/BBR-zGFjYHa[/instagram]
Title: Re: Active Balance tricks
Post by: Chunky Nutwhip on 16 August, 2016, 10:36:40
Thats nuts, wonder how may takes that was?! I have landed a decent crazy lighthouse to BB, admittedly it was supposed to be a lighthouse to falling down, but I'll take whatever I can get  ::)