Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Beat Of The Drum

Right now I am in Kyoto where I was lucky enough to find another Couchsurfing host to stay with. This evening I went watch to his Taiko (Japanese drumming) practice and it was nothing like I thought it would be.

Before the practice started I got a chance to try playing...

Learning the proper way to hit the drum

Feeling extremely silly

So much harder than it looks!

After I had finished making a fool of myself and my arms had started to hurt, I took a seat and watched my host and his club-mates practice. Since I didn't know what I was doing I hadn't been playing very intensely but as I watched the others play using all their strength for several minutes at a time (which had them sweating and out of breath!) I realized just how tiring playing these massive drums could be and what a good workout it is.

My host and his club-mates

A very intricate song

Once the club had finished practicing it was time for the senseis (teachers) to practice (they are part of a professional group). They were fantastic. They started off with an incredibly complex drill which they played flawlessly. Then just when I thought it couldn't get any more impressive they changed positions: they went from sitting to lying on their backs with their drums between their legs at pretty much the half way point of sit up. But they didn't stay still (that would have been far too easy...) they would move back and forth, essentially doing sit ups, all while whacking these massive drums with all their might and making it sound good.

Can only imagine what kind of abs these people must have...

Incredible stamina

So cool. Yet another example of why traveling is awesome.

1 comment:

mom said...

Grandpa Sandy would have loved to read this and get your firsthand account!! This really does sound amazing...