Snarkle Talks: Episode 07 (The Episode Where Elijah Molina Talks Really Fast)

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Elijah Molina (00:00.782)

Let's goooo

*upbeat intro music* 

Kellie Kawahara-Niimi (00:12.526)

Welcome back to another exciting episode of Snarkle Talks. We truly have something special for you today as we debut our very first video podcast. And who better to join us for this milestone episode than the incredible Elijah Molina, AKA Elco Kendama. We had the amazing opportunity to shoot this episode live at LVKO, thanks to our inaugural test of Squawk Box, our unique mobile podcast booth.

Huge shout out to Nate, aka Nurdge, for filming this session. In this episode, Elijah takes us through his inspiring journey with kendama, sharing how he evolved from being a skeptic to becoming a dedicated player and content creator. We'll explore how social media has influenced his approach and the balance between playing and creating content and the changing dynamics of the kendama community.

Plus we'll discuss the challenges of maintaining creativity and passion over time.

So here we go on a fun and fantastic conversation filled with laughs, face palms, and some insightful wisdom with Elijah Molina. 

**transition music** 

Kellie: 

Welcome to another Snarkle Talks episode. I am in person with someone special, and I'm going to have you introduce yourself, say your name, and if someone was going to play you in a kendama movie, who would it be?

Elijah: 

My name is Elijah And if someone was to play me in a kendama movie. Wait, does it have to be like an actor can it be just anyone It could be just anyone. It could be just anyone. I want Zackie to play me. 

Kellie: 

Whaaaaa? 

Elijah: 

I want Zackie to play me. 

Kellie: 

That would be hilarious. 

Elijah: 

Yeah, it'd be good. People make jokes out of that. People make a lot of jokes out of that. People already think we're the same people. He's just better than me. 

Kellie: 

I want everybody to know as we're talking, the face palming has already started. 

Elijah: 

Many are going to happen. 

Kellie: 

I would love to start with how you started with Kendama. Where did your journey begin with the short -form version? 

Elijah: 

Yeah, so it popped off in SAC. It finally made its way north because it started south of SAC. So it made its way north. My friend bought it to school.I was like, that's dumb. That's stupid. What's a candama? More like cant-dama. And then I tried it and I was like, wait, I'm not going to let the piece of wood defeat me. And now out of all my friends who played, I'm the only one who plays and now I'm traveling for it. So that's how I got into kendama. 

Kellie: 

Are you the type of person who really loves to practice hard and grind at tricks? How did you, what is the perseverance that allowed you to live in the kendama world for so long when you're not the person who's like grinding the tricks every day, you know? 

Elijah: 

I mean, I think it's just like understanding the different aspects of it because like it changes over time. So like the first one was just beat all my friends and be better than all of them. And then I was, and then it changed because no one else was playing anymore.

And then the new competition became with myself because especially with social media, I think social media changes the way a lot of people play. I started doing kendama competitions on Instagram and there was a streak in like two years where I was winning something every couple months. No one's going to remember that because no one cares about Instagram contests anymore. 

And then every once in a while there'd be like a local event and I'd podium or like win. But then after that, it just became the fun thing. And I think ultimately that's what happens with like a lot of people is that it becomes like a comfort thing.

I mean, for a lot of people, it actually is a grinding thing. I feel like nowadays, especially with like what people post on their stories with tricks and story tricks being actually important with “this took [X] amount of tries and all that. That's a thing for people, but it's not for me. It's just for fun. And of course now I just do the review, unboxing stuff for it now. And I find that more fun. 

Kellie: 

Okay. I would love to talk about how you got into content creation because the internet has changed how people interact and how we find community in drastic ways. Right? 

Kellie Kawahara-Niimi (04:31.821)

So when you first started, where were you in your kendama journey? And then how did you continually grow your channel, your content from there? Yeah. 

Elijah: 

So everyone sucked in terms of kendama media. No, I'm just kidding. For me, it was always like, no one did anything that I wanted. So I was like, the only way for that to happen is going to be me doing it. And that was more of like watching kendama content. And the best kendama content out there was an edit from Kusa and...The replay value on that's good. And that's what I wanted to take away. But the only people who do content is companies on their own product, right? Like sweets would talk about their own product. Kusa would talk about their own product, but you wouldn't get an unbiased third party opinion. And if people were doing their own opinions on it, I'd be like, that's information I don't care about. 

And then along with that, if it's information that people do care about, then there's a lot more replay value and all that. And a lot of people say this, I talk really, you say this, I talk really fast. And I think that helps because they have to watch it again to see what I'm saying. And not only that, I talk really fast because I'm jam packing as much information in a short amount of time. Cause you can say a lot of stuff about a kendama. 

Nowadays it's getting harder because all of them are getting good for the most part, because they all do the same thing just in different ways. But in terms of evolving, it just became just something fun. Like I realized the community slowly, but surely appreciated it. And I didn't make money off of any of it. Like I was putting in a lot of money into the things, reviewing stuff, buying stuff, doing unboxings for stuff.

And for the first four years of it, was making no money off of it. And then now I'm finally monetized, which is great. That's fun, right? But yeah, that was like the biggest thing for me. 

Community stuff and gradually over time, when in -person events started happening and people were physically like telling me like, yeah, that's dope. I was like, dude, thank you. So that's what kind of keeps me going now. That's how that's kind of evolved. 

Kellie: 

In terms of how you've created this unbiased position for yourself. Like I want to talk a little bit about how we as Snarkle Rocks help support you as an unbiased content creator for Kendama Spaces. And what is the balance to you of how you want to be a player for a team, but also still be you? 

Elijah: 

I talked to a lot of people about this because I made a video months before getting sponsored. I'm like, “I'm never getting sponsored.” And the people were like, dude, why'd you make that video? I'm like, guys, I really thought I was never getting sponsored. And then I had to do this for myself in that...

Elijah (06:59.725)

I had to justify like, this is a kendama art company and they're not making me commit to a specific shape and any of the 3D printed tama designs that we do, they're not going to give me an upper hand in competition. So then I can just be myself and there really is no bias, especially because it's a for fun thing and not something used in competition. Obviously there can be animal tama competition in the future and that'd be super fun, but most companies they make a shape and then they have players and make them play that shape and...boom, done, right? Like that's how it is. But because we don't have that, I can still do what I do. And that's why it works the best in terms of like all my review videos and stuff. And it's not like my non-Snarkle reviews, I have to say anything about Snarkle because they don't involve Snarkle. So it's fine, right? And then in my Snarkle reviews, they're Snarkle videos. That's how simple it's gonna be. So yeah. 

Kellie: 

One of the things that we really love about how our partnership has worked is that freedom for you to still be you and grow because, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, being the pro player is a goal, but it's not the only goal because kendama is bigger than just competitions. How do you place yourself in that overlapping sphere of kendama realm versus competition realm? Where do you sit? 

Elijah: 

I feel like I fit very much in the middle.

Cause I'm definitely not the best kendama player ever, but like I'm very involved in the community still cause I do the review things, right? So I think I'm pretty approachable. Like a lot of Konama pros are not approachable and they kind of clique and then feels like it's hard to talk to them. And not everyone's like that, but for the most part, that's kind of how it is. But I feel like a lot of people don't have a problem just going up to me and being like, good videos, blah, blah, blah. How do you do this trick? And I'm like, yeah, this is how you do it. Might not be the best advice because I'm not the best but I can still also hang with those pro players if I want to. So I feel like that's kind of where I sit in that hierarchy, the best. 

Kellie: 

I think that's really true. You're deeply ingrained in the community in multiple facets. And because you're a personality that people watch regularly, it's a little bit like we know you. We get a smidge of a glimpse into your personality as opposed to somebody who's always very stoic on stage or like very concentrating, it's a different image to put it with a person. Do you know what I'm saying? 

Elijah: 

Yeah, I agree. 

Kellie: 

And as a person who has been in the community for a really long time, how do you think it's changed over the years and where do you think it's going to go? Both in terms of play and in terms of culture. 

Elijah: 

Yeah, so I think Kandama's have had itts peaks and stuff. I would say media -wise in Kendama, Kendamas at its peak.

But in terms of in -person things happening, it's definitely not where it was a couple years ago. Like I would say 2016, when companies were going to different states, Hawaii was like a big popping thing. I know Sacramento at one point was a big popping thing. Events like that would happen a lot, a lot. And those don't happen as much anymore, unfortunately. So that's kind of like a give and take. The social media aspect of kendama definitely was not where it was at versus where it's at today.

And in terms of where it's gonna be in the future, if we look at it like a line graph, kind of, in -person kendama dipped and then social media kendama boom, all that, and then they're gonna meet at some point. And I don't know when it's gonna meet, I don't know if it's gonna be next year, I don't know if it's gonna be the next couple years, but I hope pretty soon. I have a lot of faith in the community, especially with smaller events happening more often and people making effort to come to events in different countries like Teo doing his thing for EKC. The Washington players, like a group of Washington players came to KWC last year, which is crazy. So things like that, I think, are going to be great. And the day I see jams happening or just events happening as often as I did back in 2013, that's the day that that line graph will intersect and it will be beautiful and it will be amazing. 

Kellie: 

I had a lot of thoughts, but I'm going to segue for like a second. I was talking to somebody the other day about the content we create as kendama players. And I think one of the things that you do is you speak to a bigger audience than the kendama player who creates content for kendama players, right? In terms of furthering the community and creating more reach, how do you imagine content growing so that we grow the community and not just live in an echo chamber where we try to one up each other's tricks?

Elijah (11:34.637)

Yeah, well, I think community is doing a good job at least now, especially with everyone like this is a podcast, right? And Isaac's doing a good job with his podcast. Everyone's kind of doing a podcast. MJ, I think is the best example of that right there. MJ from Japan. That's what I want Kendama to be because he's so, his reels are great because they're for beginner players and they kind of just do something really good. They're like super friendly. Some pro players can get some stuff. There's sometimes history videos in them too which is also really great. So things like that where players can start just generalizing it and making it in short form content, because I think the podcasting is a good step forward, but it is also very long form content. 

So yeah, MJ is kind of that gold standard. And I think not that people have to copy MJ, but the more we can get the content to be as digestible as MJ's content, the better it will be. I'm not saying I've gotten to where MJ is at, and I think I can still work on that, but that's a goal of mine. He's killing it with that. 

Elijah: 

Are you able to tell us what's coming up next for you? in terms of just my channel or in terms of what specifically? 

Kellie: 

In terms of your channel, in terms of where your kendama play is gonna go, and do you know where you're gonna be next? 

Elijah: 

Yeah, so my channel, I want to be posting three times a week and the format I want to do in a very ideal world is like a review, an unboxing, and then a story. Cause I think there's a lot of kendama stories that haven't been told, at least from my journey. People are like, “dude, have you ever been sponsored?” And I'm like, “yeah, once.” They're like, “by who?” “That's a story.” So just stuff like that, or little things that have happened and what those interactions have meant. Even if they don't get as many views as like the unboxing or the review or whatever, I think it'd be a good place just to have that instilled on the internet. Like this story happened to me, that's how it changed my life. This is cool. Cause I'll tell a story sometimes in my unboxings and stuff, people are like, well, what happened? I'm like,I didn't really talk about it as much as I should have, huh? So that's something I want to do in terms of my channel and whether it grows from there or not, it's good. I'm not doing YouTube shorts. I'm not doing them. I'm not going to do them. You can't give me money to do YouTube shorts. So I'm not doing those.

And in terms of my kendama play, I don't know if this is a thing for kendama players, but I missed the way I used to play in like 2016. I feel like it was so much more raw and so much more creative, which now I'm like, can I trip tap? Can I floor tap today? And I'm like, dude, I'm so boring now. It used to be so much more interesting back then. I think my best trick composition ever is back in like 2014 and that's one year at kendama and I don't think I've ever made a trick look that pretty ever again I probably can do the trick cleaner now, but it doesn't make it as raw as when I landed it Instagram clips used to only be 15 seconds, right? So I had to shove all of this in 15 seconds and the very end of the clip is me going “Ooooh!!”” And then it just cut off

cause it's 15 seconds. So like just that, I just missed that energy. 

And then in terms of where I want to be next, honestly, I've never really had big plans for kendama like that. You know, one of the small goals I want to do is bring back the second Dama community, but that's always easier said than done. And we've tried and I've tried, but people have like normal life things. and throwing kendama things is not easy. So that's what I would say would be the next thing for me, but nothing next for me in terms of like personal things. I don't think there's really like anything next that I've thought about for just me personally. 

Kellie: 

All right, well, we should work on that. 

Elijah: 

Community, community, empathy, kindness. 

Kellie: 

And we're great at those, probably for the most part.

I had a couple of thoughts. One of them is when we have constraints, sometimes the most amazing things come out of it. So like having 15 seconds to really make a point is such a skill. And when you hit it, it feels so good. And I wonder if there's a way to bring that back. 

The other thing, something that comes to me a lot is age. As we get older, as life happens, as we get jobs, as things change, the way we were, like in 2016, that Elijah, does that Elijah still exist?

I'm in a small box somewhere. In a very small box somewhere. I don't know. I feel like innocence when you're younger is like a really big part of it. And when that comes in hand with kendama, the more you get exposed to the real world, the more, I'm gonna say close -minded, but like just the more you realize. So I guess, I don't know, your brain kind of just like almost feels like it becomes smaller. So sometimes I'll do something and it'll be like a nice, ooh, I feel young again. Yeah. Yeah. But, no, I don't get a lot of that too much anymore. 

Kellie Kawahara-Niimi (16:14.19)

You also are better now. So hitting the tricks, right? Like the dopamine of hitting the same tricks that you did when you were in 2016 are going to hit different now at your skill level. And that, like, I think they call it a plateau. That slow growth is so much harder to push through. The same goes for art. You hit a point where you're like, I'm really good at this. And then you're like, well, I guess I'm staying just good at this. And the hits of dopamine aren't as big in that space. 

The other thing you talked about where your videos are going. And I have heard that people love your stories. That people really enjoy getting to know you and hearing about you as much as they like hearing about the things that you're doing. So I really hope that does well. 

Elijah: 

Yeah, I also do.

Kellie: 

Yeah, I think it's gonna be really neat and historically just having that archived somewhere is important. 

Will you please tell people how and where to find you? Yes, of course. There are two main ways to find me. There is the YouTube channel, which is @Elco Kendama. And then there's the Instagram, which is also @Elco Kendama. Elco is spelled E -L -C -O and Kendama is spelled Kendama. And if you don't know how to spell Kendama, it's in the title somewhere…hopefully spelled correctly. It's gonna be spelled correctly, right? 

Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you so much for being on this podcast with me, and I can't wait to see you tomorrow doing all the things. 

Elijah: 

Yes. 

Kellie: 

At LVKO. 

Elijah: 

Yes. 

Kellie: 

Where we're recording live. Ahhhhhhhh. 

Elijah: 

Yes. Am I talking to people tomorrow? 

Kellie: 

I don't know yet. We'll talk about it. 

Elijah: 

All right. Sounds good.

Kellie: 

Byyyyyyeeeee! 

Kellie Kawahara-Niimi (18:08.685)

And that wraps up our very first video podcast episode of Snarkle Talks. We hope you enjoyed this fun and insightful conversation with Elijah as much as we did. A chat with Elijah is always an adventure and I'm thrilled wherever we end up. If you love this episode, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to our channel for more amazing content. Also check out Elijah's content where all the links are linked below.

Stay tuned for future episodes where we continue to explore the wonderful world of Kendama and beyond. Before we go, I wanted to drop a quick pig fact based on the Snarkle Rocks 3D tama that Elijah helped design, the lechon. Did you know that lechon is a delicious roasted pig from the Philippines and is often considered the centerpiece of Filipino celebrations? It's so beloved that some regions even have festivals dedicated to lechon, featuring parades of beautifully decorated roasted pigs. Yup, a pig-rade. 

Until next time, remember that a lean house is just a lighthouse that you didn't land. 

Thanks for tuning into Snarkle Talks. See you soon.

Kellie Kawahara-Niimi (19:32.365)

I might be clammy. 

Elijah: 

Solid.