These are some random, unordered notes about my shakuhachi practice.
It has historically been very spotty and only recently I have retaken it and made it a more common occurrence (although it may be because I’m on vacation).
Currently on vacation what I do is:
- Walk through the forest while playing, in a playful way
- Walking while playing has been great to stabilize my breathing.
- I’ve been learning the Kyorei (虚鐘), the Empty Bell honkyoku
Today (11th of August 2024) I’ve learned that if I’m not fully attentive to what I play the sound disappears, I’m starting to understand why it is originally a meditation tool. Today I spent 2 hours practicing and I’ve had my first quasi-meditative experience with it in the middle of the forest.
Breath is super important (it sounds super evident, but what’s not that clear is HOW important it is). This was discovered thanks to Honkyoku for beginners.
Today when I started my practice I could barely make a sound, it’s very strange, one day you play for an hour, without problem, and then next I could not even play a plain Ro. I tried for a bit without luck, and going back to the original idea of shakuhachi, of the Komuso (虚無僧) (monks of nothingness), I tried not to get frustrated. I read about the Robuki practice in the book above and then went to a section before that, breathing exercises.
I did that:
- 2 seconds breath in
- 1 second hold
- 12 seconds breath out
- 1 second hold
And repeat. I started like this for a few minutes. After this I felt a clear improvement in my breathing, more consistent, more targeted.
Then onto Robuki (ロ吹き), blowing Ro. In the past with my teacher I was taught robuki as the sound bench, you start your practice by doing 10-15 minutes of robuki to stabilize your sound, understand how you’re playing that day and work on it, slowly getting into the shakuhachi flow.
In the book above I learned a new technique for this, continue with the breathing cycle above with a slight variation (10 seconds blow instead of the 12 seconds breath out). This creates a rythm, a rhythm I later rediscovered while learning practicing for my first honkyoku. It seems that rhythm is pervasive and it really helped me.
After this I started with the exercises for the kyorei, at first is was working very badly, slow improve and as it usually happens a decline after some time.
That was when I redid the breathing and robuki exercises to see if they could refresh my mind, and they did by A LOT. At that point it was when I reached the first meditative state while playing shakuhachi today. It was incredible. At the start of the day my mind was so over the place I could not even count the seconds while doing it, my mind was completely off. At this point it seems it had been re-centered, I could count them clearly and I could do it without veering off too much in unwanted thoughts or ideas on how the sound was coming out or if I was doing well or bad.
Recharged with this I attacked the exercises once more, with an extra piece of learning, I think I understood a bit better how to breathe the air out, at some point I started pushing the air with the lower abs and it started sounding a lot better, stronger, less air lost, less air used and steadier. This was quite the revelation. This happend by the end of the practice and I want to continue experimenting with this tomorrow.
NOTE: When playing playfully it tends to sound much better, when playing something in particular I tense up and it doesn’t work as well. I’ve been working on changing my mindset to more playful even when I am learning something in particular instead of playing.
NOTE: My breath is very short at this point and usually I don’t reach playing all the notes that are supposed to be played in a single breath, here I learned two things today:
- Continue even if you run out of breath, learn the timings in your mind
- You can play softer, there are several tools/variables you have while playing. Soften the sound by releasing less air.
Something I noticed is that sometimes if I concentrate on the fingering the sound slips through and disappears. This goes back to what I said about being fully present, if I’m thinking about how I am sounding or what I’m doing and I stop focusing on my breathing, the sound breaks off. Today I improved this a lot.
Excited to play tomorrow, but a bit worried to see how to continue my practice when I go back home, where there is no forest to center me.
[12-08-2024] Today I slept very little and my morning practice was difficult. I couldn’t get my breathing and arms/hands to work properly, everything seemed a lot more tense than yesterday. Since I slept very little due to heat and following my current mindset I take it as a learning to not be frustrated even when nothing works. Tomorrow (or this afternoon) will be better once I’m better rested.
It seems to me the mouth embrochure is giving me problems today, will revise the basics. Without basics, the absolute basics, there is no advancement.
There is an effectiveness in doing it every day.