it’s 2015. you are scrolling through instagram and you run into this video if you’ve never played with the yo-yo or a kendama you’re probably wondering why his yo-yo has two wooden pieces at the end of his string if you are a yo-yo player you’re probably asking why is he doing a yo-yo looking trick on whatever that thing is and if you are a kendama player you’re probably totally blown away how did he do that spinny thing how did he get into flying v and how is he so smooth well this is adrian esteban at first thought you may think he is a yo-yo player that turned kendama but he’s actually a kendama player that learned yo-yo to get better at kendama this is what makes him so interesting and this is why i’m making this video fast forward to 2020.If you’ve been in the konami scene for a bit it’s hard to not know about adrian sponsored by grain theory doing tutorials for sweets kendamas down spike’s breakout performance of 2019 candidate he’s a kendama force to be reckoned with you may like him for his black background his colorful strings or his hat wearing frequency but you know him because of his tricks so who really is adrian where did he come from and how did he make these tricks also how has he changed kanama forever well to answer that we’ll first need to establish what kendama was before he entered the scene kendama is a skilled toy from japan in the 18th century it was used at the drinking game and in the late 19th century it was used as a children’s toy to practice concentration and focus in the 2000s it came to america and grew in skating rollerblading and skiing communities as a creative toy players would open up trick possibilities by flipping the ken balancing the ken on the tama in certain ways and juggling both of them together from then on it has consistently grown every year after 2010 string flow was developing too where players would grab and move this string to manipulate the ken or tama every year trick progression grows exponentially for example a lunar was an incredibly difficult trick in 2010 that only a few players can do now it’s a basic trick that you can learn in a few weeks still was a trick that was basically impossible back then and now well [Music] the point is these standard concepts lunars still stalls ken flips juggles light ken flips we’re all progressing heavily but string tricks weren’t sure you had the chrome boys like tk whipping up some fancy lines over in denmark you had d row daniel robinson tackle a good amount of string theory and his kendama co-edit you had the legendary dave matteo inspiring and inventing string flow with breakdancing but string tech just wasn’t close to mainstream nor was it collectively being developed and that’s where we’re going to pause around the 2015 mark and head over to adrian esteban or as slaveon as they call him in november 3rd 1996 adrian esteban was born in japan he moved shortly to san diego california where he was raised in his early years he found interest in rifle slinging kendama hit his high school in 2012 from local breakdancers and that’s where he first found it but he didn’t pick it up until 2014 when he saw someone do a hand roll some might expect to see adrian’s creativity peaking through his kendama play from the beginning but not exactly his early dharma career was much like any other dom obsessed teenager mastering the fundamentals although you can see hints of his early edits exploring in the world of string tech in february 2017 adrian posted this to instagram this was huge you can tell by the comments for kendama players that know adrian you can tell that he’s on his path to what we know of him the green neon string is a major foreshadowing feature for non-dhamma players the comments give you an idea of what kendama has seen before this is so new that konami players can’t comprehend it it’s not only a new trick it’s a new way of playing kendama and this is just the beginning of what we are going to see from adrian 2017 was a big year for adrian not only because of this breakthrough trick but because what happened the next month in june he got an offer for the team that he’s been going for ever since he started green theory a kadama company that’s focused on high quality exclusive kendamas offered him a spot on the flow team keep in mind that this is a top tier team with some of the best players in the world like nick stodd ben harold jacob lowe we’ll dive into ben hard a little later the rest of 2017 adrian posted feeling good feeling better on his youtube which was small short tricks that exchanged between string tech and flow like his post in 2017 but his breakout year what most people know adrian for and the subject of this video wasn’t until 2019 so what happened between now and then if he posted this in 2017 why wasn’t his breakout year in 2018 well some major things happened in his development and it had to do with his roommates after ending 2017 with adrian broadcasting his style and his longer string 2018 popped off with this like his post early 2017 adrian hints at where string tech could go and that he’s focused on diving deep you can see he pushed the string around the cup to make the ken sit on the string they say that rules are meant to be broken adrian here is tackling the rule that you can’t touch the string with your non-dominant hand adrian is showing his audience that he’s willing to break these unwritten rules in pursuit of progressing kendama adrian has the interest he has the string he has the mindset and now he just needs the motivation let’s take a turn here and introduce our newest player in the story ben harold ben harold is recognized in the konami community to be one of the most progressives influential some say best kendama player of all time his edit fringe case in 2019 brilliantly displays his passion for kendama ben has confirmed his spot as a legend in the economic community where ben sits in the story line is his major influence on adrian adrian moved to san jose from san diego between january 2018 to september 2018 to go live with ben you have adrian who has a ton of creative potential as we’ve seen so far in his career living with ben harold who at the time was known to be one of the most innovative konami players adrian expresses how important ben was on his development biggest thing is that like just hanging out with him playing dhamma and then just like talking to him about like how he saw damas like thought about his tricks and like explain or like just like everything he thought about dhamma was kind of like just made me start to think like if i could really imagine this trick i know i could do it like and then just start just like really starting to like have more of that mindset just like uh like every trick can be done if you can imagine it being done as you can see in french case ben’s interest lies in manipulating and maneuvering the cannon tama for complex aerial type tricks ben wasn’t giving adrian ideas of what tricks he can do necessarily what ben was doing with something different and arguably more important he was showing adrian that if you can imagine the trick you can land it and more importantly because ben was filming his edit fringe case during that time adrian was seeing that play out first hand like i said earlier adrian has a creativity he had the fundamentals he just needed the inspiration and motivation he wasn’t afraid to do what he wanted anymore he was ready to show the community what he was made of although we aren’t at the big 2019 year yet for adrian the latter part of 2018 is taking form for him adrian says 2018 is when he truly started progressing in yoyo and started getting better and better in april he posted his first yoyo trick in august he posts this banger wash it 10 times so far still don’t get it there should be a slow motion option spiked by sinister dark magic holy tech at the end of 2018 with the post of this you can tell that adrian has arrived the black background hasn’t come in yet but the tricks have he is calm confident speeding down the road to significance he has always had the creativity deep inside of him to take his number where it hasn’t gone before and on the risk of 2019 is where we’re going to pause and go back to where we left off the state of mainstream kendama for non-konami players this is going to add major contrast and a deeper understanding of why adrian’s 2019 year was so special 2016 to 2017 were two huge years for kendama mid 2017 is where kendama peaked on google trends which is a good way to track the talk of kendama across the world kendama is changing and trending strings are getting longer juggles are getting popular and the game is turning into something that’s more fun to watch the elite players who started in 2012 are peaking their performance and it’s an exciting time for everyone apart from the energy the 2016-2017 tricks were juggle obsessed instagram was increasingly popular for the community a new gen style was taking over just to take everyone back we have 15 year old dwesty mid-2016 establishing his style nick gallagher consistently impressing everybody and liad at the beach posting incredible tricks as the elite paved the way for juggling mainstream kendama 2018 is basically everyone else catching up juggling lines that are just getting increasingly more complex who can do the most taps who can do the most late flips who can do a triple late flip between bird who can do it between wing new gen is in full effect now in the community as the elite move on meanwhile string flow is being progressed here and there but the string tech genre is relatively unknown and that’s where the game gets flipped upside down by adrian in 2019 we’ve established where adrian came from and what he was doing up until 2019.We know he’s a creative player we know he has a passion for finding his own path and we know he has just spent nine months playing with the ben harold we’ve established where kinema came from and what mainstream kendama looked like up until 2019. we know it was a simple rhythmic exercise in japan we know that when it came to america it turned into an expression of creativity and perseverance we know that we were just coming off the peak of things you can do with the ken and the tama it’s been six years since adrian had first laid eyes in kendama four years since he started playing in two years since he got sponsored if adrian’s going to make a dent in how kendama is seen forever now is his time he needs to do it now and he does [Music] [Music] adrian’s infamous 2019 year kicks off in february with 23 instagram posts in 28 days words cannot describe what he’s doing it’s just easier to watch every single one of these tricks has concepts that have never been thought of before let alone landed the community is in astonishment after an incredible february you would think that he would slow down but this is where he becomes superhuman he keeps posting new tricks in march and april in may his string packs come out and they are a huge success long strings with big heavy bearings which is brand new to kendama most players figure out a new concept once every six months or maybe once every few months adrian is do it multiple times a week and these are concepts again that are brand new in mayhe releases his edit called string theory and it broadcasts his newfound style progression and ideas taking a break after netit some players but not adrian he continues into the summer july august september it doesn’t stop constant innovation constant displays of creativity and raw talent after eight months of jaw-dropping brand new tricks that the world has never seen nako north american kendama open happens in october it’s the biggest event in north america with thousands of konami players coming from all over the world they have the downspike awards where players are awarded for certain subjects and are voted in by the community adrian was voted in for breakout player of the year and was up against juventus who i’ll talk about later daniel an incredible player for one of the biggest companies at the time rui sora the winner of the biggest competition kaname world cup yui a japanese girl who landed tricks 1341 days in a row and modi who would go on to win that nako the competition is fierce you have excellent players who have been established for years and years sure adrian’s last year was amazing but was it enough granted he didn’t have any competition wins this year he came out with one edit can we rely on his innovation and creativity to beat out the other players these are top players that all had incredible years we were at the top condom event of the year with basically every pro and sponsored player in attendance the 2019 down spike awards breakout performance of the year goes to give it up for adrian esteban after niko adrian got back to california posted a few more incredible tricks on ig released another edit recapping his favorite tricks this year and finished off the year it’s pretty easy to see that adrian left a gigantic stamp on kendama forever at niko for open division competition you have c-whip on the track list at battle of the border 2020 give ninja vanish green triangle these are tricks that adrian didn’t necessarily name but concepts that he put together through inspiration and popularized in 2019 also we have people in the community like the yo-yo list and friend to mars who were significantly inspired by adrian’s work adrian whose humbleness shines through this conversation makes it very clear he couldn’t do what he does without the people before him charles haycock rudy simplicano daniel robinson ben mastic marcus lander and dave mateo juventus is a player from japan that also had an incredible year 2019 when it comes to string innovation if you are new to kendama and have an instagram i strongly urge you to follow adrian he’s still killing it to this day and we’re almost a year after niko 2019.
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