I tried this mind-blowing ancient Japanese technique

It's 3 am and im here, sitting, watching a dude rub his ball for 36 hours straight

You were right, it's the best dorodango I've ever seen. It's also the first, but those are minor details.

The ancient japanese did this as a symbol. A symbol of patience and hard work. With hard work even a pile of dirt can become a shiny gem. Now you have proved that you are capable of great patience and hard work and that you dont give up.

So it was "dorodango" ... I used to do this technique when I was younger and in spring or autumn on the beach and the forest on the cliffs nearby. We just took a big or two hands full of muddy sand from that area, where the waves disappearing in the sand. We formed a kind of ball with it with twisting while throwing it from left hand to right hand and vv. Every now and then we took a little bit less muddy or just dryer sand from the beach and added it around this ball. We were perfecting the technique of drying the ball with throwing it from hand to hand and grinding and forming it with turning it around and around. At the end, means after about 2h, we were only adding really dry sand or soil and were kind of polishing our sandball while it got perfect spherical and really robust. We actually were able to roll it over the pathes in the forest or even concrete later. But mostly we had fun with just throwing it down the cliffs and hearing a loud dull bang of the impact. Everytime nice to know, that those intuitive techniques have a name.

I love how he values his wedding dirt like gold

What are we waiting for? Let's get an assembly line going. I'll dig.

Why am I watching a man turn dirt into a shiny ball at 2 26 A:M

Now THIS is a true DIY project. No fancy workshops, no expensive machinery, just some dirt and a lot of free time!

Picking the dirt from a special spot was such an excellent idea! Beautiful result!

I used to know some people back in the 1980s who lived in a dirt floored cabin. That floor was swept every day and it was shiny and hard like those dirt balls.

This video has been up for 2 months, and currently has 1.6 million views.. 1.6 million people have watched you polish dirt, including myself.. Not bad. Good job man

Not gonna lie, after he said I married my wife debbie, I fully expected him to say she died X amount of time later and that he was going to make this from the dirt from her grave. Glad debbie's ok, but still... little disappointed

That's such a a sweet way to preserve a memory. I kinda want to teach this to my kids

Okay this is getting crazy. I legit just read the part in one of the Eragon books where a dwarf does this exact practice and i had no clue it was based on something real

Ifu get the dirt wet enough that theres a couple in layer of water above, and then stir it. More organic material will float to the top so u can get rid of it. Doing this makes it alot smoother

I love turning moldable materials into spheres

The ancient Japanese techniques using ancient Japanese microfiber.

I love that you choose to do it the legit way instead of adding wax. Your dorodango is magnificent.

Dorodangos are usually multiple-day labors of love, and the most perfect ones can take weeks to finish, so a 24-hour timeline is very ambitious.

I had a project in like grade seven and it was basically a "make a step by step on anything you want" type thing. Mine was dorodango. One of the tricks I learned that helps with the shine factor without cheating with wax or spray is gently pressing/rubbing it with glass/ceramic ware in addition to a microfiber cloth. Sped it up a ton and it looks way shinier!