Performance

So we had our dragon dance/lion dance performance today and it went pretty good...except for the part where I lost my drum stick.
It's funny how you can practice so many times and then one sweaty palm, one wrong angle and poof...your stick is gone. It can be hard to keep your cool when something like that happens, but in the end you just have to grab your stick and keep going. You hope that no one noticed, but you know that's probably not the case. Accepting the fact that you made a mistake can be difficult, especially when that mistake affects the performance of others. But making mistakes is part of growing, as a drummer, as a martial artist and as a person.
Trying to learn from your mistakes is part of life too, but so is accepting the fact that sometimes crap happens and sometimes that crap happens in public. You have to keep holding your head high and keep going. Damage control. It's all a part of performing.
I'm pretty sure at some point in my drumming carrier, I'll lose another stick. As much as you try to keep ahold of them, you have to drum with a loose grip and so sometimes it happens. But practice helps and maybe I should take from this that I need more practice...maybe not at drumming (although I could always use practice at that too), but at performing. Performing is a skill that gets better with practice and maybe, with practice, my palms won't get quite so sweaty and I'll keep ahold of my sticks.
So it all comes back to practice...doesn't it always!?!

Great job everyone who was involved in the dance!

Ninja Baby!

So little Julia can sit up on her own now which is pretty cool, along with almost crawling. She's growing really fast! I like to think she'll be a little ninja when she grows up and will want to train like we do. But we'll have to see. Maybe she'll want to dance instead (or do both like a certain famous martial artist). A good sign though is that she laughs when we get her to fake kick people (I know it sounds terrible, but it's really cute....not that we're advocating child violence or anything).
I hope that she finds something that she's passionate about. Everyone needs something.
Maybe if we buy one of those little baby sized uniforms, she'll get so used to wearing one that she'll have to love Kung-Fu! Mwahahahahahaha! Baby manipulation!