I've been taking tai chi for the past 5 weeks and am loving it. Tonight we finally got through the whole form, and now we can work on kata stuff. I wanted to take tai chi to help me with balance and centering myself for taiko. The other day in taiko we were doing a movement within a song and all of a sudden I realized, hey this feels a lot like one of the tai chi moves, and I started working that into my kata and I think I looked (and felt) a lot better. Plus I think going into tai chi from my taiko background really helps, though I think it would have been easier the other way around. I want to get to the point where I have memorized all the moves and I feel pretty and grounded doing them. That takes practice I guess. There are millions of old people in parks who look way better than I do. I always thought it looked cool, and I think that's one of the reasons why I'm taking it. Plus the teacher is great. He's mellow and unintimidating and patient. He also knows kung fu and once in a while he'll demonstrate how our seemingly innocent tai chi moves can break a wrist or or knock a person down. Sometimes when he does that I get the urge to take his kung fu class, but I'm worried that I may get injured taking a martial art and not be able to play taiko, which would just be really sad. But wouldn't it be cool if I could flip a 200 pound man to the ground? Little ol me?
On the flip side (flip, get it?), my students seem to be enjoying their taiko class. I worked some paradiddles into a fun movement drill and I think they liked that. Last night a few of us were talking about the class and they seemed to be interested in learning more basics. I remember when I first started taking taiko I really wanted to just stand there and work on drills for long periods of time, although the emphasis was on learning songs. Maybe I should be less worried about them being bored and go ahead and work on drills. We'll see. I think I need to have a heart-to-heart with myself and try to plot the future of what taiko might look like at RCW. It'll involve more commitment and writing a song for them, no doubt. We'll see, we'll see.
On the flip side (flip, get it?), my students seem to be enjoying their taiko class. I worked some paradiddles into a fun movement drill and I think they liked that. Last night a few of us were talking about the class and they seemed to be interested in learning more basics. I remember when I first started taking taiko I really wanted to just stand there and work on drills for long periods of time, although the emphasis was on learning songs. Maybe I should be less worried about them being bored and go ahead and work on drills. We'll see. I think I need to have a heart-to-heart with myself and try to plot the future of what taiko might look like at RCW. It'll involve more commitment and writing a song for them, no doubt. We'll see, we'll see.
But life is good. I'm doing what I love. I'm challenging myself. I'm trying to share what I love and challenging others to do it too. That's the whole point of it all, isn't it?
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