Kendama craze sweeping Hawaii

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - The Kendama Craze is sweeping Hawaii. Just go online and you'll see trick after trick.

We headed to Pearlridge to see why so many are having a ball with the Kendama.

Razor Sports has actually sold this simple toy for 5 years, but the craze exploded.

Razor Store Manager Iakona Medeiros said "Keeping them in stock is a challenge. They come and go weekly. Our next biggest shipment isn't even till Wednesday and there's a long waiting list for what people are looking for."

So how hard is it to learn the ropes? Medeiros told our Tannya Joaquin, "The easiest thing is find kids age range 6 to 10 and they will teach you everything you need to know."

So she asked brother/sister duo Kody and Ian Tamanaha to give her a crash course.

First lesson in lingo. Kody said, "there's many tricks you can do. There's base cup, peg, wet peg."

Ian gave some pointers on the basics. "Just kind of throw it up straight" instructed Ian.

Easier said than done though, as Tannya struggled to land the ball on the wooden mallet of the small model. Eventually, she finally did it, after trading to a bigger version.

Size does matter for coordination, and cost.

Medeiros showed off the range in models and price, saying "You're looking at about 12.95 to 180 dollars, depends on the size, what wood they're made of. How it's constructed, those are big things in the Kendama market."

Once you get the hang of it, the sky's the limit. "It's not just putting the ball on the stick" adds Medeiros. "It takes practice. A lot of us the workers have 8 hours a day to just play with Kendamas."

There are even sponsored Kendama professionals who make more than 50-thousand dollars a year to show off their skills.

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