forgotten_aria

Since I have my shoulder back, I want to use it. Today in TKD I did a bear crawl for the first time and I was very bad at it. So bad everyone had to watch me slowly complete my two laps. Old me would have beaten myself up about it, felt like a failure, but partly because I can trust my TKD community to be supportive and partly because I'm just so happy to have my shoulder back, I completed my two laps, however slowly.

In high school being that last person finishing the physical thing used to make me feel so humiliated. I feel proud that there was not even a crack in my mental fortitude.

I practiced power breaking for the second time tonight. The first time I did only two boards, just to assure myself it wouldn't be super hard for me. Today I tried 5, broke 4 the first time, then broke 3 and then decided to stop because my knuckle got bruised.



One of the black belts was practicing 6, then tried 7, only broke two, decided to stop, so I bought the boards from her and after a technique adjustment, broke all 5. Yay! I can do it! (5 is 100% for the test.) Now if I get to practice again, I can try 6 and see.

Recently my TKD master asked me what my physical goals were. I don't want to have physical goals. I want to take each step forward as best I can. Physical goals for me just lead to disappointment. He even talked about him visualizing succeeding to succeed, but after being disappointed that I shouldn't get my black belt this year, I kind of feel like having goals rather than directions* for me continues to be a bad idea. Visualizing that did jack. I almost feel like winners can visualize because they are winners, not that they are winners because they visualize.

I have been wondering if he was thinking I would say something about a weight goal. But losing weight, while would be really wonderful for many many reasons, cannot be a goal for me. I know what it takes for me to lose weight and I know that if I do, i just rebound and gain it all back. I know that it makes me feel horrible and cranky. I know that I am burnt out on counting calories. I need to make changes in my life that I can in theory make permanent and being at a significant calorie deficit is not something I can sustain.

I've been wondering if it's worth me sitting down with him and chatting with him about it, possibly with some choice research in hand.

* By this I mean a goal is "run 1.5 miles in 18 minutes" where as a direction is "run more regularly so you get in better shape and improve your running stamina."

( Completely unrelated, here is a quick handpan video. )

Taekwondo

My current trial for TKD is going very well. I'm extremely happy with how this school is balancing "it's ok to not be perfect" with "but if you want to be perfect, you need to fix that." The black belts are very knowledgeable, the school has a good energy, the master is good at the why of TKD, the fundamentals and the exercise aspects. Mondays he likes to make people sweat, but sometimes he runs out of time, so he lets anyone who can stay late and work out. It's Kian Taekwondo in Salem, NH. I'm in the 3rd week of my 4 week trial and I'm looking forward to handing over my 6 mo. check next week!

Some people like to say that people don't change, but entering into this, I know I've changed a lot. I'm still very in my head, but I can let go and just do things when I need to now. I know the difference between the practice mind set and the performance mind set and how you have to let go of the mistakes in order to perform.

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Marching Tenors

Inspired by Honk (and because of my ongoing addiction to buying musical instruments), I took a chance on an exceptionally cheap set of marching tenors (quints, toms). They're making me quite happy. Now I just need to translate taiko into marching drumming.

( picture )

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It's about a year since I officially decided I needed to quit taiko. I have three more weeks of teaching classes and I hope to still perform as a shinobue (flute) player over the coming year. In some ways I already miss it horribly. I LOVED being a gigging musician. I loved going all these different people and sharing taiko, which has a magic of its own and leaving the audience happy and thrilled. I loved the people and teamwork and loved moving and making big booming sounds. But on the other hand I am so much less stressed now. I was breaking, mentally and physically. My hearing is also still reminding me that it wasn't so happy with me either. We did a HUGE block of school shows in October (17 shows in 11 days for the whole group, I personally did 11 of those shows and had to get up at 7am, which for me is painful) which also reminded me of both what I love and what I can't really do any more.

So looking ahead... I so want to get back to taiko, but right now it's not looking like a good thing. The reasons I've quit still exist for the most part. The group is still reduced the amount of performances it does and my physical issues aren't great and I'm still not that resistant when it comes to stress. But every time I think "no, really, this can't be the end of that wonderful chapter in my life. I had so many of the things I've wanted for so long and still want."

I'm hoping that TKD can help with some of that. There are a few people at Kian who are as driven and passionate as I like to get about things. I just hope I can find healthy place there as I get good enough to contribute.

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other

I'm still working on the harp. In some ways I love it, it feels very comfortable. I love noodling on it. In some ways I miss the amazing, in your face excitement of taiko. I guess I need to play with my effects pedal more and work on that "in your face" harp sound! I haven't had much chance to play with ableton. Someone asked me recently what I've been doing, and I couldn't quite answer. I haven't been sitting around, but I have been catching up on things that I had been putting off, like dental appointments* and alike.

I am going to enjoy the holidays as best I can. Part of the reason I quit taiko is that I was too stressed and depleted to be able to go up for Christmas last year. After the holidays, I'm going to see about starting to write some android apps and I might check out "The Real School of Music" for vocal lessons and maybe some chances to perform.

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* I got a white filling in a molar and it has been months and it's still a bit cold sensitive. I didn't realize this was a draw back of white fillings. The dentist says as long as it's getting better... I also got my first dental cleaning in like 25 years. That's the kind of things I've been doing since quiting taiko.