When I saw an article in the StarTribune a few weeks ago, “Minneapolis’ Sweets Kendamas sells the hottest quarantine toy you’ve never heard of,” it made me smile. I knew I had to write a post about this simply amazing toy our son discovered 8 years ago.
Our son no longer wears a kendama draped around his neck, but he still always has some around… like some of his collection on display near his desk in the photo above.
He first discovered this amazing toy at a Sweets Kendama booth at the Minnesota State Fair in 2012, where they bought one for their son. When his wife went back to the fair a few days later she bought one for herself… and the rest is history, as the saying goes.
Kendama is basically a cup-and-ball toy but is much more sophisticated than it looks. The handle has cups on three sides for catching the ball and a spike on the fourth for spearing it. Beginners start by balancing the ball on various parts of the handle, but that is just the beginning.
What got our son hooked was watching YouTube videos of tricks by expert players. He said it took him about a year to master the basic technique and I remember Thanksgiving the year after he got his first kendama he was getting everyone hooked. I think there were a lot of kendamas under the Christmas trees that year.
It’s a perfect quarantine toy because it is small and something you can play by yourself inside or outside… for a quick break or an intense session.
Sweets Kendamas posts a new YouTube video online each week demonstrating a trick to help you get started or learn new tricks. Kendama can help “develop patience and grit, stimulate the brain, exercise the body, lure people from screens and forge friendships.”
Learn more about it and Sweets Kendama journey in this StarTribune article. Sweets says he has heard from a surprising number of new players who say it has helped them in many ways.
“There are people who literally say, ‘This changed my life. I was in a bad place and kendama saved me,’ ” Sweets said. “That’s something I’m very proud of that I did not expect.”
Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results – shensrud@homesmsp.com
