Woke up early. Met up with Kyle. Put on my gi, and headed to the park to train.
People were playing golf, so we decided to go to different, smaller park with no one in it.
At one point, I decided to practice my stealth, and actually managed to sneak around the perimeter (with Kyle in the middle) without him zeroing in on my movements. That was cool, since it was the first time I actually tried to apply any of that particular area of my martial arts training.
We go home. Kevin gets off work and has a friend with him; Gerry: A Tsugaru Shamisen player, writer, and historian. He is Canadian first of all, so you know right off the bat that you're in for some trouble.
We decide to all go out and practice. Kevin knows a good place out in the "Misawa Citizen's Forest". We go there, split up, and begin our training for the Shamisen Tournament in 9 days.
After what seems like a couple hours of solitude, we all meet back up and go get some dinner.
Later on, we decide to go check out some Minou, which is traditional folk singing, almost always accompanied by Shamisen and a small taiko drum.
The funny thing about it, was that the performance was inside of a resort. So we sort of snuck in as if we were staying there and sat down with the rest of the audience. However, we did buy a couple things at the giftshop, so we weren't completely freeloading.
>At one point, during a break between songs, the woman singer asked if anyone would like to volunteer and play taiko. Kyle immediately jumped up and started briskly shuffling towards the stage. Needless to say, he got the part.
He also offered to play Shamisen too, but the woman just brushed him off. (we have this theory that most Japanese people tend to ignore us at first when we tell them things like "I play Shamisen" or "I built my own Shamisen", because it's just too outside of their norm and they can't even conceive of those things being true without seeing proof).
The night pretty much ended on that note.
It is usual for a Shamisen player to go out to the forest to train, or is that just what you peeps do?
ReplyDeleteAlso, next time you tell the story, you should include the fact that he jumped up to play the Taiko drum AND you played the Shamisen and both of you stole the show. That would be sweet...
Man, that forest was the most fitting place to practice. . . . well, maybe besides the forest Chikuzan traveled, but we're doing the Gunpachiro style anyway. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThat drum felt sooo low, so I wasn't sure if I should bend my legs or just kinda hunch over. . . which I did. (felt a little stupider that way, but meh)
Oh, "minou" is "minyou" by the way. :P
Grant, do you and Kyle know Japanese? i'm just curious how much (either of) you understood what she was saying. Neat video! i love all of that imagery, so much... Forest solitude training seems excellent.
ReplyDeleteWell, when she saw Kyle, she was speaking normal Japanese, which he understood most of it. However, when she was just speaking to the audience, she would speak in the Tsugaru dialect, which we can't really understand very well at all.
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