taiko therapy

i had my first ever taiko lesson tonight. i've been waiting for a month to unload my frustrations on that giant drum...so you can imagine the looks on the seattle kokon taiko members faces when i broke not 1, but 3 of their drum heads!

actually i found that somewhere in the time between high school graduation and now i seem to have misplaced my coordination skills. 4 years of being in the marching band and playing music and moving in time with ease...easily navigating the symphony of choreography gone. or so it seems. perhaps just a bit rusty. like riding a bike. although just last month i managed to fall over within the first 5 minutes and 5 feet of having been gifted a new sweet bike by my rad neighbors. but i made it with no mishaps down to fremont with them my second time on it. and then the return trip which was a rui. [riding under the influence].

always happy to be the biggest dork and source of laugter and ridicule for others in the meantime.

back on the taiko tangent: what a work out! it was also extremely fun despite the perfectionist in me putting that furrowed brow [the asu scowl] of concentration on my face. but i was so in the moment. it was great! we did some stretching exercises, then it was time to bang the drums. [of course i can't remember the names for the different ones. the small stringed ones, the large stringed ones, the regular barrel drums, the big ones on the towers, and the taiko in training plastic ones. glorified garbage cans with packing tape heads. ] we even learned to play a song! this was all during the first 2 hour lesson.

i even made a friend without trying. i was loitering inside...putting off standing in the rain for the bus for 30 minutes when a lady came in and asked me if i had a ride! i said no, i'm taking the bus...why? do you have a ride? and that's how this new friendship began. i also got to meet her way cool bike messenger daugher [think japanese version of jessica alba in dark angel] and her 2 visiting friends. i am telling you all this so you can see that it was a full car already, but she said no problem to giving a total [crazy] stranger a ride that was a bit out of the way. so t-chan ...how is it i can so easily make friends even when i'm not trying? the trick is for me to be able to keep it, right? so my sansei friend [of the older end of the sansei generation] lives just a few blocks from auntie in queen anne [so i even scored a ride for the next time-her offer] and has a good friend that lives in phoenix. at the biltmore, or biltmore area. and has a friend that lives at bayview where auntie lives. small world indeed. i wonder if someone in the family knows her phoenican friend or if auntie knows her bayview friend.

so...3 more workshops to go...and then we'll see if i'm going to be adding taiko master to my list of abilities/hobbies/professions. or if i'll just throw my back out [AGAIN] or impale sensai unintentionally with a bachi. [drumstick] if anything i already know its a good experience for me. exercise, meditation, skill, socializing and yet another thing i can cross off my list of things to do before i die. and so you can stop laughing at me for having the ps2 taiko drum master game. what does that have to do with anything? go figure...does anything i say ever make sense?