This year’s UYYC Kendama Contest is set to take place April 27, 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri at the Pierson Auditorium on the UMKC campus: University of Missouri-Kansas City. Also known as the BBQ capital of the world, Kansas City is centrally located between west and east coasts!
If it’s your first trip to Kansas City it’s also remarkably only a 2-4 hour road trip from Lake of the Ozarks, St. Louis, Branson, Springfield, Tulsa, Sioux Falls, Wichita, Omaha, and Little Rock!
We’ve made changes to our previous format and judging and there will be one freestyle round synchronized to the music choice of the competitor! Winning this years prizes and titles will come down to whoever brings the best tricks and cleanest freestyle of the day!
Kendama Freestyles
All players perform a 2 minute performance. It is recommended to focus on putting together a routine of landing as many hits and spikes with as few misses as possible; showing the judges a clean freestyle with a good base of tricks and exhibiting control of the dama. Because of this keep your tricks limited to what you can consistently land.
Because of time constraints the Kendama Finals will begin immediately at the conclusion of all the Yoyo divisions. It is the responsibility of each Kendama player to be ready to go earlier than the time posted on the schedule. If you leave the property to grab food we recommend to bring the food back to finish on-site.
Music
All competitors are competing to their preselected song that they uploaded online. If you registered day of the contest then music will be preselected for you.
Judging
There will be no negative points for any missed spikes, drops, or switching kendamas. That being said if you keep missing your trick your not scoring. So set your goal to land as many spikes as possible and sticking to your practiced routine. A player can also repeat the same tricks and repeatedly score points towards their total tech points but may risk a lower score in difficulty.
Tech Score (Judge 1)
Left clicker: number of spikes
Right clicker: number of times the dama hits a basecup, smallcup, or large cup. All elements will count as 1 click for example 360 flips, tosses, or rotations. If your element ends with a missed spike you still score the element but will not pick up points for any missed spikes.
Note: At the end, Judge 1, will multiply total spikes x 5. The total score from both categories makes up your tech score.
Difficulty (Judge 2)
On a scale of 1-10: Judge 2 will score based on the difficulty of tricks you predominately feature in your freestyle. 1 pt being beginner level tricks and 10 pts being advanced level tricks.
Note: Repetition of tricks won’t score negative points but may not yield the highest difficulty score.
Originality (Judge 3)
On a scale of 1-10: Judge 3 will score based on the originality, style, composition, and flow of how well player synchronized their trick combos to music
Awards
The award ceremony is scheduled for 4pm or immediately following the Kendama Finals.
Kendama prizes and awards will be given out from our sponsors for 1st-3rd place overall.
UYYC Kendama medals will be awarded to 1st – 3rd place Overall. In addition all Kendama freestyles will be live-streamed at the event!
Don’t forget with paid registration it is free to also compete in all yoyo divisions for even more swag. Good luck everyone and thank you for supporting us in our 6th year!