APRIL 24th, 2018
The official Gloken, Sweets Kendamas, Kenadma USA Tour has begun!
This trip is a collaborative effort between these three companies to go out into the world and work together to “Spread Kendama Love”!
The tour starts down in Sao Paulo, Brazil. For the first time in history Kendama USA & Sweets Kendamas are visiting South America to carry out this misson. When we arrived at the GRU Airport, we were welcomed with big smiles and open arms by the local kendama players! Our Brazilian tour guide Mauricio Sant Anna was very excited to meet the kendama players he has been watching on Youtube since he started playing kendama in 2014.
Mauricio happened to be at a past event that we attended a couple years ago called the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado. It was an event we got invited to from Slackline Industries. He was a judge of the Slackline competition and Sweets and I never met him! The world is very small I realized and now he has become a good friend as well as our tour guide for the Brazil part of our Tour.
As the pictures from the airport will show, we attracted a lot of attention from the people surrounding us. One of the pictures shows a little girl who was so interested in kendama but was too young to play. Mauricio was trying to show her what a kendama was but she just wanted to grab it and run around swinging it everywhere instead. While we were at the airport, one of the local kids “Kaue” was trying to impress Tj and I with his spacewalk skills. In the process he dropped his kendama on the concrete ground and his only kendama he owned chipped off a huge chunk from the base cup. When I saw the disappointment in his eyes, I knew what I had to do. I went into my bag and pulled out an Avalanche PRIME and walked up to him with my hands behind my back, told him it was okay because I had a gift for him. I revealed the new kendama to Kaue and his shoulders went from down and slouched to upright and he stood tall and hugged me right away! He was so overwhelmed with joy that he started crying and got embarrassed for showing his emotions, I held him longer and told him he deserves this kendama and its okay to cry. Not shortly after gifting him the PRIME, Tj pulled out a Wyatt Bray Pro Mod out of his bag and gave him another kendama to add to his collection… Making only a total of 3, and he received 2 of them that day.\
I’ve gifted a lot of kids kendamas and I’ve only had 2 kids shed tears of joy for being so grateful. 1 was in Romania, and the second being Kaue. It made me realize we have a huge impact as Kendama Pro’s and it is our duty to “Spread Kendama Love”.
After getting a good nights rest, we traveled to Mauricio’s hometown Praia Grande, Sao Paulo, Brazil. He took us to the beach where we met some local Slack Liners that are just starting to play kendama. They showed us their skills on the line and we showed them our skills with the dama. It was in that moment as well that we met a young Professional Surfer who was 9 years old. Later Thiago (The Surfer) ended up ROASTING Tj because he tried to teach him how to say a phrase in Portuguese, yet Teej just couldn’t figure it out. Despite the language barrier, we gained a bunch of new homies through this toy we play with and love called kendama.
It’s a beautiful thing to travel the world and have this opportunity to Spread Kendama Love with some people I really care about. We continue on our mission over in Macapa, Brazil which is walking distance to the Ecuador (Middle of the Earth) and I can throw a rock into the Amazon River, that’s how close we are. We will keep you updated as much as we can.
If you want to stay updated… Follow the Grams @gloken_dama, @kendamausa, & @sweetskendamas.
Much Love,
Norx
Come back soon, we need you here in Brazil, the kendama is growing very little, we have no visibility. We need help with kendama growth. Thanks for everything.
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