Living in the present

In SJT, we play a song called "Gendai ni Ikiru", or "Living in the Present". This is not a post about that song. lol.

Tonight during karate practice, I corrected a beginning student who had missed a block during a drill. The drill is simple; the attacker steps forward on count to attack a pre-determined target. The defender is usually told which block to use. This particular student had "missed" blocking the punch and was "re-doing" the block to set it up correctly. That was pretty futile - I told him to not worry about messing up just then and make the next one better.

Taiko, being a musical form, doesn't have "takebacks". You can't go back and fix something once the song is going without stopping the entire song and restarting from an earlier point - just like you can't kick at someone's head, miss, and tell them "hey, let me try that again". :)

In taiko, like most music, we have to play in the moment. Especially during improvisation, we have to create on the spot while thinking ahead about where we want our feet to be, our arms, what patterns come next, etc. And this is where that darned fear creeps in, as in my last post. It can inhibit us.

I don't want to get hit during a drill, even though I know that when I do it's pretty safe and I'm at most going to get a little bit of ouch. But that ouch is a great incentive to do it right the next time! If I mess up a improv solo, well I better recover quick and at least end strong! Next time, I'll be sure not to mess up - either I won't do what messed me up or I'll figure it out before the next time I play it.

Over the years, I've heard from multiple players about how a certain solo didn't work or how they lost the downbeat or they couldn't execute their new move, etc. (happens to me too!) Unfortunately, some dwell on this, and the reality is that it's over by then. All that hindsight should be used for is to make the next time better.

To dwell on failure is to invite fear. Look back only with intention of learning and *make* the next time better!