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[Mark Magyar]

Taka Hasegawa mentioned that he has Koma Spin Top DVD available at his SpinGear shop.
http://global.rakuten.com/en/store/yo-yo/item/dvd-komatatsu/

Include 100+ tricks.Traditional to advance.Made by Japan Top Museum.

[ta0]

Nice! I want it! 
It is somewhat expensive for a DVD but I'll ask Taka if he can bring me one to Worlds and at least I'll save the shipping cost.
Thanks for the heads up, Mark.

[pplgrande]

Looks great, but for that price it should come with a koma in the package 

[silvertop]

Well, I've ordered it!  Will let you know how good it is.  It looks like it is done by Fujita San, who is a great collector and performer, and whom I have met here in the states.  He performed at a Japanese Saturday school down around NYC some years ago, and invited me to come visit because we had been in correspondence for some time.  We used to sell quite a few of our tops we made at The Toycrafter to him for his museum shop.  Somewhere I have video from an old shoulder held video camera I had at the time.  Some pictures somewhere too from the event.

Note on the Saturday school concept.  Many in the US Japanese community want their children to grow up with knowledge of their language and culture, and the kids spend about 5-6 hours on Saturday doing just that.  The school paid for Fujita San to come over and make sure the kids knew about tops!

[johnm]

From the costume of the player this might be a preview.  Looks to be quite well done.  Notice one of the koma has a notch/neck in the tip, perhaps a modern design addition borrowed from the neck in our style of top?

link =

???Amazing Japanese Spinning Tops

[the Earl of Whirl]

I like the sound effects.  I need more exciting sounds and music like that when I practice.  Of course, a couple of good grunts always helps!

[Watts' Tops]

He is very good.  It is the first bearing tip Koma I have seen, if it is a bearing.

[ta0]

Notice one of the koma has a notch/neck in the tip, perhaps a modern design addition borrowed from the neck in our style of top?

It is the first koma I see with some type of bulge at the end and I also suspect that is an influence from us . . .

It is the first bearing tip Koma I have seen, if it is a bearing.

I bet it is fixed tip. I wonder if the boomerang to the side of the finger is a way of avoiding the repeat sting of a sharp tip. I love that he literally makes the top stand on the string!

[Mark Magyar]

When looking at the earlier YouTube video I decided to do a word search and then came across this video.
the 2nd part of this video which is the Spinning Top begins at 4:30. the P.O.G. Menko part is interesting too though.

Japan Top Museum director Yoshihito Fujita and his "top" student Tsutomu Takeda.

Part 2 video. Special Technique for Throwing a Koma Spinning Top.

[Mark Magyar]

Notice one of the koma has a notch/neck in the tip, perhaps a modern design addition borrowed from the neck in our style of top?

It is the first koma I see with some type of bulge at the end and I also suspect that is an influence from us . . .

  notch maybe for wire walkers.?.. Maybe you can also do a trapeze and swing them back to your hand because of notch.?..

It is the first bearing tip Koma I have seen, if it is a bearing.

I bet it is fixed tip. I wonder if the boomerang to the side of the finger is a way of avoiding the repeat sting of a sharp tip. I love that he literally makes the top stand on the string!

I'm trying to figure out how he can spin the koma on his two fingers like that and then tranfer it to his thumb. It looks like spinning the koma on two fingers like that will cause friction making the koma slow down.?..

[ta0]

Thanks a lot for the videos. That Tsutomu Takeda is really good. The koma tangler is crazy. Should we assume it was inspired by Takeshi's? And the top in the tongue looks like the Colombian trick.
I hope Taka can give us some inside info at worlds (but brace yourselves if the Japanese start to compete in our events!)

[silvertop]

The DVD cost me $56 through PayPal with them doing the conversion to yen.  I'm still awaiting the shipping charges!

[ta0]

I have watched the DVD I got from Taka at worlds. I cannot recommend it enough.  It has 90 minutes packed with trick after trick after trick.  Simply fabulous! There are like eight different players. Master Yoshihito Fujita does the instruction on the basic two throws and shows some classic koma tricks.  Most of the tricks are shown by Tsutomu Takeda. But the other players are also very good, including several kids, what makes you wonder how competitive it would be if they came to our contests . . .  The video shows many advanced tricks that will look familiar to us but I did not know they could be done with a koma (I suspect several where adapted from ours).  Others are new to me and we should adapt to our tops!  Anyway, it is a complete course on koma.  The quality is great and the more complex tricks are shown in super slow motion.  It even ends with two different kinds of "top battles" which are completely different to ours. 

I guess the only drawback is that it is all in Japanese (or an opportunity to learn that language  ). Takeda is the only one who actually speaks (he says something on most tricks) but before each trick there is a page description that I could not read. For the same reason, navigation in the DVD is difficult (but I guess I will eventually figure out what each title means).

I think this DVD is a must for anyone interested in koma or in top tricks in general.

[Neff]

want

[poptop]

I want a copy.  I'd like to go to Japan and pick it up too...

This makes me wonder what other tip shape or tip mods have been tried on koma and for how long.