Thunder and Lightning

Another fun weekend...

This time around, I ate fire. Sadly, no pictures, but I really did eat fire. Stopped short of actually running fire along my arms...just a bit too hairy for that. But it was fun to play with some of the other fire toys. Still not competent enough to actually spin fire. Dunno if I'll have the patience to figure it out. I feel like doing something else with it anyway. I have the idea of stagefighting with flaming sword and shield. Of course...I'm equally as incompetent in that, but with a good partner, we might be able to work it out.

The thing I love the most about these various fireplay activities is the sound of it. When you swing that poi or staff or torch through the air, there's this roar like a thundering waterfall. Maybe it's my inner jedi responding to the lightsaber-like noise, but it's the most fabulous thing in the world. I think part of it is that the fire is in motion and it describes circling arcs that surround you and there you are, in this whirling ring of fire -- not really trapped by it, but creating it, defining and being defined by it. The merging of the physical and metaphysical is pretty intense and it'd be fun to find something similiar for the other elements.

I got a few more lessons in drumming this weekend. The very practical lesson was in how to string up and tighten/tune my drum. Turns out I'd been playing it without a layer of lacing. So, a quick tutorial later, I laced up the drum and the sound improved about 600 percent. Not surprising, I've known for awhile that I needed to figure out that part of drum maintenance. So that was good.

The fun lesson was more time on the Djun. There was a request for drumming, the Djun was free, so I fired it up. I felt terribly self-conscious. I don't have any real formal lessons in the various rythyms and patterns, so I just made up something real simple I hoped I could hold steady for awhile and just let it go at that. The people playing on the Djembes were all good to expert so as long as there was a baseline beat, they'd go do their own thing. Despite this, I still dropped the beat a few times and when they switched off to a new pattern, they had to show me what they wanted out of the Djun. So I didn't feel terribly successful in a technical sense. But later on, a few people who'd been elsewhere in the house commented on how good the Djun sounded. Since one of them was a pretty decent Djun player in his own right, that made me feel a lot better.

Playing the Djun is definately a moving meditation. The Djembe has a bit of leeway and there's usually lots of people playing on them so it's easy enough to figure out what to do next by watching other people's hands. And if you can't figure it out, just listen to the Djun and play around it. People who are really into Djembe can get lost in their complex sub-patterns and rythyms and it's really neat. The Djun, at least in my limited experience, is a bit different. There aren't usually that many other Djun to crib off of (if there are any other Djun players) and the whole point is to hold a steady baseline for everybody else. So you have to keep focused. More so for a neophyte like me. But it's like a zen koan, your mind just keeps racing around and around and around until it falls away and there's your enlightenment. I got some of that this time around. When things are going really well, I can hear things. Nothing terribly distinct, usually it's this shouting or loud chanting. It reminds me of Maori war chants. Of course, if I listen too closely, I stop hearing it and I generally botch the drumming as well. So it's a case of paying attention to it by ignoring it. There were a few points where that effect came along and I managed to hold onto it for awhile.

The other really great thing about the Djun? It's loud and deep and you hit with a stick. I've been really wanting to just pound on something lately. Just physically struggle a bit with something and push it around. My SCA friends will be quick to invite me over to one their bruise-fests but that's not exactly what I'm thinking of.

And in other news, I'm participating in the Iron Chef Game design competition over on the Forge. You have one week to take four "theme ingredients" and use at least three of them in a roleplaying game of your own design. I'm pretty psyched in that I've managed to use (with a bit of stretching) all four of them. My game is called Vesuvius and it's best described as The Last Days of Pompei meets Groundhog Day with a splash of Quantum Leap. Pretty much all the design work is good to go, I just need to get a full write-up on everything and post it by Friday.

later
Tom

Thunder and Lightning

Another fun weekend...

This time around, I ate fire. Sadly, no pictures, but I really did eat fire. Stopped short of actually running fire along my arms...just a bit too hairy for that. But it was fun to play with some of the other fire toys. Still not competent enough to actually spin fire. Dunno if I'll have the patience to figure it out. I feel like doing something else with it anyway. I have the idea of stagefighting with flaming sword and shield. Of course...I'm equally as incompetent in that, but with a good partner, we might be able to work it out.

The thing I love the most about these various fireplay activities is the sound of it. When you swing that poi or staff or torch through the air, there's this roar like a thundering waterfall. Maybe it's my inner jedi responding to the lightsaber-like noise, but it's the most fabulous thing in the world. I think part of it is that the fire is in motion and it describes circling arcs that surround you and there you are, in this whirling ring of fire -- not really trapped by it, but creating it, defining and being defined by it. The merging of the physical and metaphysical is pretty intense and it'd be fun to find something similiar for the other elements.

I got a few more lessons in drumming this weekend. The very practical lesson was in how to string up and tighten/tune my drum. Turns out I'd been playing it without a layer of lacing. So, a quick tutorial later, I laced up the drum and the sound improved about 600 percent. Not surprising, I've known for awhile that I needed to figure out that part of drum maintenance. So that was good.

The fun lesson was more time on the Djun. There was a request for drumming, the Djun was free, so I fired it up. I felt terribly self-conscious. I don't have any real formal lessons in the various rythyms and patterns, so I just made up something real simple I hoped I could hold steady for awhile and just let it go at that. The people playing on the Djembes were all good to expert so as long as there was a baseline beat, they'd go do their own thing. Despite this, I still dropped the beat a few times and when they switched off to a new pattern, they had to show me what they wanted out of the Djun. So I didn't feel terribly successful in a technical sense. But later on, a few people who'd been elsewhere in the house commented on how good the Djun sounded. Since one of them was a pretty decent Djun player in his own right, that made me feel a lot better.

Playing the Djun is definately a moving meditation. The Djembe has a bit of leeway and there's usually lots of people playing on them so it's easy enough to figure out what to do next by watching other people's hands. And if you can't figure it out, just listen to the Djun and play around it. People who are really into Djembe can get lost in their complex sub-patterns and rythyms and it's really neat. The Djun, at least in my limited experience, is a bit different. There aren't usually that many other Djun to crib off of (if there are any other Djun players) and the whole point is to hold a steady baseline for everybody else. So you have to keep focused. More so for a neophyte like me. But it's like a zen koan, your mind just keeps racing around and around and around until it falls away and there's your enlightenment. I got some of that this time around. When things are going really well, I can hear things. Nothing terribly distinct, usually it's this shouting or loud chanting. It reminds me of Maori war chants. Of course, if I listen too closely, I stop hearing it and I generally botch the drumming as well. So it's a case of paying attention to it by ignoring it. There were a few points where that effect came along and I managed to hold onto it for awhile.

The other really great thing about the Djun? It's loud and deep and you hit with a stick. I've been really wanting to just pound on something lately. Just physically struggle a bit with something and push it around. My SCA friends will be quick to invite me over to one their bruise-fests but that's not exactly what I'm thinking of.

And in other news, I'm participating in the Iron Chef Game design competition over on the Forge. You have one week to take four "theme ingredients" and use at least three of them in a roleplaying game of your own design. I'm pretty psyched in that I've managed to use (with a bit of stretching) all four of them. My game is called Vesuvius and it's best described as The Last Days of Pompei meets Groundhog Day with a splash of Quantum Leap. Pretty much all the design work is good to go, I just need to get a full write-up on everything and post it by Friday.

later
Tom