Drumfest

Well, our 10 week Taiko Drumming class reached its climax with the Drumfest, held in the East Kilbride Village Theatre. Obviously I can't take photos of myself performing, so you get part of the rehearsal by the pros from the Mugen Taiko Dojo, who were superb throughout, and gave us (and the Glasgow class) unbelievable encouragement.

The whole night was absolutely brilliant - we had a couple of run-throughs and it all went smoothly, which gave a bit of confidence before the performance. I've done a reasonable amount of public speaking to large audiences (although the last was a couple of years ago being drafted in very last minute to compere a discussion with a mountain bike hall-of-famer at the bike film festival in the Filmhouse) and normally get wound up beforehand, before slipping into perfect calm when standing up. With the drumming there wasn't even that wound up feeling in the build-up. Everything was in check, and we totally nailed the performance.

It was just around 4 minutes of my life in total, but the 300 strong crowd gave us a rather nice reception. The group is hoping to meet up on one of our upcoming, now empty, Tuesday evenings for a proper get-together and drink (some of us went to the pub by the theatre afterwards where we were going to meet with the pros after they'd packed everything away, but I was on driver duty and two of my passengers were put off by the loud live band playing, so we left before I got the chance to thank the two players who had been teaching us).

Anyway, I've ticked the box to do the next class, if there is space - the Edinburgh classes are heavily over-subscribed so priority is being given to those who have missed out already, although they are considering putting on an extra Edinburgh class. If I don't get on that? Well, my plan before signing up to this was to learn something I've always wanted to do - tap dancing... I think the performer in me is screaming to get let out.

Bring on the adulation and applause.