Great weekend!

[Rome writes]

We started a new Adult Rec Class (ART) and have really good attendance-- 10 or 12 students. We worked on basic tachi-uchi stance and strike, and learned the beginning of Tanaka-sensei's Renshu. I really like this new format, spending 3 weeks on tachi, 3 on naname, 2 on O, and 2 putting it all together. It's as fun and challenging to teach as (I hope) it is to learn.

Sunday was the first All AZ Taiko (AAT) rehearsal up in Phoenix. Forthe past 3 years Fushicho Daiko has organized a performance including all AZ taiko players at Matsuri. (Learn all about Matsuri, one of the largest Japanese cultural festivals in the US, at www.azmatsuri.org.) This year, we'll be playing 4 songs: Silk, Shutsujin, Kachidoki, and Ogi Matsuri. We have 7 Odaiko Sonorans participating and working like crazy to learn Silk and Kachidoki by the end of February. In fact, we learned Kachidoki in the car on the way up to Phoenix on Sunday-- talk about dedication!

The rehearsal was SO MUCH FUN. 40+ taiko players in unison, practicing movement and rhythm and stage presence together. It's such a rush to play with that many people. AAT truly will be an awesome spectacle. I was really proud of how well all our peeps played, too-- everyone faked Kachidoki reasonably well, and looked darn good on Silk. The arrangement Fushicho has created of Ogi is...beyond description. They broke us all up into 5 groups of 8-9, and set up several stations in the stage area: 2 shime stations with 8 shime each, one station with 4 big drums miyake style, one station with 4 big drums up, and one station where you just yell and get the audience going. The groups rotate through all of the stations, and Ken (from Fushicho) worked it out so there is always one group playing shime and one group on big drums while everyone else is playing, so the song never stops. We play through Ogi ELEVEN times, and the whole piece lasts 10 minutes. It's going to be amazing!!

After the rehearsal all of us Odaiko Sonorans stopped for dinner (taiko = food), and then headed back to town. There was construction and a terrible traffic jam on I-10, so we didn't get home until after 10 PM. It was well worth it, though.

Last night was our final special Silk practice, before we move on to Kachidoki next week. I'm so happy Esther has given us permission to teach Silk- it's an awesome song. Even if we never perform it, the skills in the song are fantastic, and it's FUN, and great exercise when you run it 7-9 times as we did last night. Congrats to everyone who's conquering Silk!