Begleri! A fun and simple pocket sized skill toy!

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ok, there are a few people on here who know what these are… these come from the “name one thing that you carry that you think no one else does” thread:

enki_ck:

crew:

and now here is mine:

a Begleri is essentially a form of the Greek worry / prayer beads known as “Komboloi”. they are used as a way to keep your hands busy and just as a general time waster or peace-of-mind creator.. in Greece i guess it is very common to see the older taxi drivers waiting for fares and playing with these… they typically have a lot of beads on the traditional komboloi but they sometimes have a fewer amount like six or so… a shorter version like this can be seen above in enki_ck’s pic above…

some of the longer ones:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Four_Kombologia.jpg/220px-Four_Kombologia.jpg
see wikipedia entry here for a brief history of the komboloi:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombolói

the Begleri i will be talking about is a version with one larger bead on either end which is more commonly used for tricks and more like a skill toy such as a yo-yo etc. the most common type found in Greece has a small metal/aluminum barrel nut/bead on the ends with rounded corners:

and this is the type that you will see in most of the begleri videos on YouTube.

i started off by making one like enki_ck’s by drilling out a dice and putting some paracord through it… this worked out pretty good but seemed a little light and was more uncontrollable than some of the YouTube videos i had seen, so i found a guy in Greece selling the authentic ones with the metal barrel nut beads on them and got a couple… when they arrived the string was way too long for the tricks seen in most of the YouTube videos and was kind of a “bouncy”string if that makes sense… i found the proper length with some paracord and used the beads and created my own that is now perfect. the beads have a little weight to them but not enough to crack your knuckles or anything. also try to find a bead or whatever that has some semi rounded corners… if you look at the real deal metal beads they have the edges slightly smoothed and this helps the corners not to catch when you are doing tricks.sometimes the dices flat edges can hook under the string during certain flips…

for those of you wanting to make your own, I wouldn’t start with the dice as they are far too light and you will have a tough time mastering any of the tricks shown in YouTube videos etc. and also because of the too wide surface area on the flat side and not enough rounded-ness as i mentioned above. also don’t use ratchet wrench bits, these are way too heavy and do not compare to the real deal beads from Greece at all. I don’t have a small scale capable of taking micro measurements but i think one of the real deal beads weighs about as much as two of the dice put together.

for string length, I read instructions on here i think that said you want to be able to take one of the beads and put it in your palm, and run the string back out through your pointer and middle fingers and back up over the top of your pointer finger and then down through your pinky and ring finger, like this:

you should have enough string between the back of your pinky and the start of the bead, to almost be able to fit another bead in there. also, pay attention to where the string sits… it should wrap around your first knuckles, not towards your palm, as this is the area that will be seeing all t he action when you are doing tricks.
you should have enough slack to do this position well:

now, on to the videos
this guy shows a really really good example of some quick begleri moves:

as far as instructional videos, it is far more fun to figure out your own moves but this video is probably the best out there at showing some of the basic fundamentals that some of the fancier tricks revolve around:

and then some of the other instructional:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42qvYW13_h4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAGgUJ31Hww&feature=player_embedded

also, you can leave the string longer as you can see in some of these videos, i just think it looks good when its nice, short and tight. although extravagant tricks can be done with very long string begleris:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ems4i40f7HQ&feature=related

hope this inspires some of you to start carrying these things! they are really addicting!

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