けん玉

My family and I like to play 「けん玉」 (“Kendama“).

Kendama is a traditional Japanese toy.
Much like a yo-yo, with practice you can master the basics of Kendama…and with a lot more practice, you can learn to do the “fancy tricks”.

Basically, Kendama is a wooden hammer-shaped toy with a small, a medium-size, and a larger “dish” and also a “spear”.
It also has a string attached with a wooden ball at the other end of the string. The ball has a hole in it.

To play, you have the ball hanging freely and move the Kendama in a manner that makes the ball swing up and then you catch the ball on either one of the “dishes” or the spear.
And then make the ball move to one of the other “dishes” or “spear”.
You have the ball go from one to the other as many times as you can before the ball misses.

Here’s a video of someone who is excellent with the Kendama.
The video tells the names of a number of Kendama “tricks”, and then the man in the video demonstrates them (and he makes them look easy):

Have you ever tried a Japanese 「けん玉」 (“Kendama“)?
Are you good at it?