Previously, pastimes such as Block Blast, hacky sack and fingerboards have ruled the halls of Ida B. Wells. However, this year they’re all passing the torch to another gimmick.
This time around, it’s kendamas flooding the school halls.
Kendamas originated in Japan as a skill toy, and now you can’t walk down the halls during lunch without seeing at least one kid trying a new trick or battling someone out in a game of K.E.N.
A kendama consists of a ken and a tama, all made of wood, both of which are connected by a string. The ken is a handle that has two carved out cups on either side, a small cup on the base of the handle and a spike in the middle. The object of the game is to flip the tama, a wood ball with a hole in the middle of it, into the different cups and up onto the spike, linking tricks together. There are also more advanced tricks where you hold the tama instead of the ken and balance the ken on top of it.
Kendamas were initially popularized in the early 2010’s by skaters in the United States. This eventually spread to school children and younger adults from Gen Z. It reached a peak in popularity in 2019, just before COVID-19 hit. During the pandemic, without the ability to gather in person, school fads were on the decline and Kendama’s popularity dipped with it.
This school year, however, IBW students drifted back to kendamas, often playing with friends during lunch or just passing time in the hallways to get away from class.
Oliver Deazley, a senior at IBW who’s been playing off and on for 10 years, said, “Everyone’s there and you can kind of do it whenever and go out in the hallway and just do it [kendama] for five minutes or do it [kendama] for an hour.”
Kendamas are gaining popularity from people online with a large following, like erraticsquirrel, who’s a professional kendama player who posts his best tricks. Deazley said, “I’d definitely say that there’s a pretty big impact with people posting kendama clips, and it’s just getting more widespread and getting more popular.”
This increase may be attributed to the stricter restrictions of phone and personal device use in schools. As of the 2025-2026 school year, IBW students and other Portland Public Schools (PPS) students have to lock their phones away in Yondr pouches for the entire school day in hopes of increasing students’ attention in their classes and minimizing distractions.
However, Daniel Berzialy, a senior at IBW who started playing in Oct. 2025 said, “I think I would use my kendama probably the same amount just because even when I’m at home, when I have my phone, I use my kendama a decent amount.”
Kendamas can be a way to interact socially and have fun while still giving an opportunity for students to have fun at school without having to stare at a screen on their phone, even if the clicks and clacks from the tama landing heavily into the ken are driving some teachers crazy.
These toys on the rise also bring a new social aspect to IBW. Different groups of students will hang out playing with kendamas together, all trying to land their own tricks, even with different skill levels, talking and having fun. Berzialy said, “I would see my friend who would do this trick, and I’m like, ‘I’m trying to do that,’ and then I would do it, and then I would add on to it.” He expressed how the community is important to progress for kendamas.
Groups can also play specific games with the kendamas. The rules of a game of K.E.N. are similar to H.O.R.S.E., where one person sets a trick, and the other person has to match it. If they can’t land the trick, they get a letter, and if you can’t get the trick when you’re setting, then the person setting swaps. First to spell out KEN loses.
Kendamas are bringing the school together in the way hacky sacking and tech decking has done in the past. “I can kind of stray away from my phone, and kendama is super fun in general,” said Berzialy. “You can just do it anywhere, really.”
