Do ro tsu ku update

No one will care about this except me, but I'm at 156 bpm, yo! I started out at 90 a week ago. I think part of getting something like a rhythm into your body is just working everything out--all the things that you get hung up on or hypnotized by, or the distracting thoughts you think when you're trying to learn something. Once you learn to break those bonds then you can just flow and go with it. Kind of like when you pour a glass of water and slowly fill it to the point where it's brimming over and should spill over, but doesn't because water likes to hold together in that very precarious surface-tension way. All that tightening up of shoulders and having your mind race and your heartbeat getting all fast and sweaty palms, all that just needs to happen and processed and experienced so you can put it behind you. Then there's that point where the water releases its hold upon itself and overflows and you don't think about those things again. I think that's the point I'm at. Just tonight I was at 152 for 25 minutes, and if you want to count it out, I played the do ro tsu ku pattern 152 times a minute, multiply that by 25 and you get (getting out calculator) . . . 3,800 times. Then I cranked the metronome to 156 and did another 30 minutes so that's . . . 4,680, and add that up . . . 8,480. And that's just tonight! Boy, I'm a slow learner. But it's good practice. When you play things that many times it just gets into your body and you never forget. Sometimes I'll be asked to play a pattern that I don't immediately recognize but my hands and body remember that I had diddled that or whatever and it is easy. It's all about learning skills. And practicing.

On other fronts, last night my car threatened to overheat itself as I was driving home from tai chi. I've been having a leakage problem for over a year now, and it finally just bubbled over (get the analogy!??) and after hissing angrily and leaving puddles all over the place, I decided that I needed to get it fixed pronto. I searched the internet and read reviews and was lucky to find a wonderful shop just around the corner from where I live, and am happy to report that I was made to feel very comfortable and not-scammed at all. I have a distrust of all mechanics whom I don't call "Dad." Dad of course is the best mechanic in the world, but since he lives 400 miles away, I needed to find someone to fix my dear Yaku (my faithful jeep). If you live in or near Berkeley and need a reference, let me know. (Does anyone actually read this blog?)

Oh, and I started a new session of taiko classes. The class was giganto--we used every single drum. Good energy in that class. One of my concerns is that I will bore my returning students by going back to basics. I asked them to do my drill with the opposite hands, but I think I will need to find more ways to keep them challenged. I love my returning students and would hate to see them leave. I am offering a "continuing" taiko class next session. Not sure what I want to call that class yet. We've been throwing around the name "intermediate" class, but I'm not sure anyone is really an intermediate yet. I have so much I want to teach, and I hope that I can focus more on skill, technique and kata in that class, whatever it's called. Maybe etiquette too. I'm not a big one on bowing and all that, but I just cringe at the thought that my students go out into the world and not understand why we bow, or how to bow, or why we show so much respect. I, for one, truly believe that respect (for teachers anyway, or maybe I can only speak for myself as a teacher) must, in a certain respect, be earned, and not insisted upon. I hope one day I can earn it from my students. But also there are the wonderful people out there in the taiko world who you just show respect to. But that is a difficult thing to explain to students, so my thoughts on this are still not fully formed. Stuff to think about.