posted by AlexaIf anyone is looking for info on the drum building class, please see the forums for more information. It's under "Events." Thanks!
posted by AlexaThere were a number of people at the retreat in Crestone this past weekend. Hopefully some of them will stop by and participate here. I'd like to know how other participants' spirits were awakened.I had a couple of great moments. I got my puzzle fix from Marco Lienhard. That double twirl in Kagura was so much fun to try to get, and the choreography of his Beginnings piece was a mind twister as well. I live for that stuff. I also took his fue class, with the not so secret objective of getting some shakuhachi pointers instead. I have to say, I felt like a pretty pathetic failure at fue. Second octave? Forget it. By the third piece we went over, I was pretty much miming, just trying to get the fingerings and not worrying about the sound. Oh, I'd be blowing, but I couldn't focus on more than one skill at once. And the pitch on those things would kill my ears every time! I'll stick to shakuhachi, thankyouverymuch.I also feel like Tiffany Tamaribuchi really hit the point of the retreat really well. Usually I feel people dance around the meaning issues. Great players, great teachers, but conveying that portion of it seems to escape people, and I have found myself repeatedly wondering if I get this Spirit thing at all or not. I think I do, on a gut level. Not on a conscious level yet, but it's there, peeking around the edges of the songs and the words. I felt it most when mucking through Kagura with Marco. I would close my eyes and let time stand still between hits, let them happen on their own while I just watched, and laugh when I botched it, and laugh when I got it, and it was great fun. I got bits of that during Julia Misawa's aerobics class (aka Yodan). There is nothing like jumping in circles with others whilst flailing sticks around to get things flowing, even if it is a mite chaotic, and dangerous.And I am so grateful to have had Tiffany spell out some of the finer points of taiko spirit. Taiko is something greater than yourself. It is important to let all of the pride and the fear and the self slide away and just be there for the experience. Let it flow out of you, around others, and back into you, and back into others. It just travels all over the place, the energy of it. And you can tap it, too. Tap the energy of the forest where the shell of the drum came from, the energy of the molten earth from whence came the metal handles and tacks, and the energy of the cattle through it's skin. Not to mention the collective spirit of all who have come before you, and who are with you now, and who you will be with in the future. Let it flow. I think that's why taiko drummers have to be lazy. Otherwise, you dam it all up. I will think of this more each time I approach the drum. That is my big lesson from the weekend.So that's my experience. Tell me about yours. What awakened your spirit this weekend?
posted by AlexaDue to a good deal of personal drama this week, I have found a good chunk of time to go through my taiko materials. I have found some fun quotes from my stays in Japan. This one, if I recall correctly, is from Art Lee."Pain is just weakness leaving the body."What do you think about that?
