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Welcome to new students Yael and Joyce!
Opening question: What is your favourite colour? Or, what colour represents your personality?
Sore!
After warming up, we warmed up our vocal chords and hara with some kiai practice on the word “Sore” which generally means “Ready-go!” You will hear this word in taiko a lot - you can compare it to “5-6-7-8” in dance instruction. We took some time to unmute and kiai freely as our voices can connect us, even when we are on Zoom.
DoRo Don Drill
We spent some time on a DoRo Don drill which mixes up the use of the right and left hand. The main thing we are working on is to balance out both sides and become aware of where you may have challenges on your non-dominant side. Here is a video of that drill. It’s quite long so you can work ahead if you like on certain patterns that might be trickier than others (e.g. RLL - LRR - RLL - LRR).
Movement Cards
We brought back the movement cards. There are 4 so far:
The Line
The Sunshine (or Bird)
The X
The Windmill
Since the Windmill is the trickiest one, here is a video to practice it. (In the drill we usually do 6 DON’s but here I’m only doing 2).
Next week we’ll review these and also have an opportunity to come up with your own 2 beat movement.
Happy practicing!
REMINDERS:
Payment for classes should be made here: https://www.paypal.me/sanjosetaiko OR by check made out to San Jose Taiko, 565 N. 5th Street, San Jose CA 95112 (please mark the check PRC). The fee is $10 drop-in or $36/month. Please mark on your payment what dates the payment is for. This will help greatly in reconciling payments.
Bachi can be purchased to be mailed for $10 a pair.
Our friends in southern California are also running a taiko class for Parkinson’s called “Rhythmic Flow Taiko” on Sundays. Please check their website for more info.
Join the San Jose Taiko Parkinson’s Recreational Class Facebook page to share info/resources.
At any time, feel free to email yurika@taiko.org for questions!