Stopping is good

Sometimes when I'm out on assignment I get to meet genuinely neat people.

Such was the case with Alan and Daren, taiko instructors for the Kona Hongwanji Mission. Daren and Alan seem to have a genuine enthusiasm for taiko. It's charming.

I met them on Wednesday. They said they would show me their o-daiko drum, a drum the Hongwanji has had for more than 50 years, so that I could take a picture for the paper. I figured this would take about five to ten minutes.

But Alan and Daren dragged out six shimi-daiko drums and the o-daiko drum. Then Mel, the president of the Kona Hongwanji Taiko Group arrived with his 6-year-old son. Then Emma, a haole girl and the group's best drummer, showed up.

They ended up putting on a little show for me, with recorded music in the background and all.

Then, against my better judgement, I allowed them to convince me to try my hand at the shimi-daiko.

I didn't do so well. When the song ended, I was charigned.

"I'm sorry," I told Daren. "I think I kind of suck at this."

"No, no, you did pretty good especially for a first try," Daren said.

I looked at him skeptically.

"I'll tell you what you did that was really good. Several times you noticed you were off rhythm and you stopped."

I burst out laughing. "So stopping is good?"

"Yeah, yeah. Stopping is good. A lot of people, they don't even know they're off rhythm they just keep going and going."

When I got home I told Chris this story and he laughed and laughed.

Yeah, stopping is good.