The takeover happened so quickly – because of a little ball on a string with a cup and a spike.
One minute, he was just a kid at Mater Dei High School in 2014. The next minute, kendama happened.
Suddenly, Alex Hirota of Santa Ana had an obsession that not only changed him immediately, giving his life a purpose he never expected, but that could also have long-reaching implications for his future.
At first, he thought it was a stupid concept. You hold the wooden cup, and swing the ball and try to catch it (or impale it with the spike). It’s like a yo-yo with a tiny sword.
“This looks dumb,” Hirota remembered thinking. “Why would I try this?”
He couldn’t get the ball in the cup.
“It was impossible,” he remembered thinking. “You can’t do this. … Then it took over my life.”
Two years later, Hirota is a student at Santa Ana College, taking business classes to help him when he – someday in the not too distant future – enters the world of kendama full time. Hirota is not only a professional kendama player, he’s a kendama event organizer and a kendama salesman. He works at the little Duncan kiosk in Downtown Disney, where he sells yo-yos and kendamas.
Kendamas sell for between $20 and $600.
“It’s a booming business,” Hirota said. “There is a whole kendama community. It’s still underground in Orange County, but it’s growing.”
On the first Saturday in April, Hirota’s group, Kendama OC, hosted its first event – the Orange Juice Open – at the 4th Street Market in Santa Ana. About 150 kendama fans showed up to participate in one-on-one battles in which they had to execute a series of tricks such as “Faster Than Gravity,” “Lighthouse Flip,” “Moon Circle Quick Spike” and “Inverted Forward Jumping Stick.”
Hirota’s Instagram page has 11,000 followers. And the Kendama OC club has 25 to 30 members who meet in Huntington Beach each Sunday to practice and share their obsession.
Kendama, according to legend, was originally a Japanese drinking game from the 1700s. The more you missed getting the ball in the cup or on the spike, the more you drank. Hatsukaichi, a city in Japan, is known as the home of kendama, and the world championships are held there. KendamaUSA was founded in 2006.
Hirota began practicing hours and hours each day. But his career didn’t begin until he posted videos of himself doing kendama tricks in 2015.
That’s when he got an unexpected phone call.
From Minnesota.
“My parents were very skeptical,” Hirota said. “This random person bought me a plane ticket.”
The call from Minnesota was made by a man named Matt “Sweets” Jorgenson, who is the CEO of Sweets Kendamas. Jorgenson offered Hirota a free trip to the Mall of America in Bloomington to work as a social media specialist for the Minnesota Kendama Open. About 500 participants showed up for that event, and one of them was Hirota.
“I found him on the internet,” Jorgenson said. “He is a special dude.”
Hirota used a camera to live-stream the action, interviewing players and taking part in the tournament himself. When he met Jorgenson in person, Hirota accepted a position on the Sweets professional kendama team, of which there are four – pro, legends, homegrown and focus. Hirota is on the focus team. He now participates for Sweets Kendamas at competitions around the United States.
The goal is to get to Hatsukaichi for the World Cup in 2017.
“He has all the tools to win the World Cup, or to influence people around the world to get into kendama,” Jorgenson said. “We need more people to know we exist. Alex is very personable when he’s interacting with fans.”
