Taiko Fighting
And so the brave warriors go into battle: one side against the other and there can only be one survivor.
Except in this case, their weapons are drums and the judges can call it a draw.
We were in Fujinomiya-shi, Shizuoka-ken for the “Bunka no hi” long weekend and for 3 days, from 8am-late, these groups of elders, Taiko drummers, flute players, dancers and hangers-on from each part of town were banging their way around town. Occasionally groups from different areas would meet head-on in the road and try to “Taiko” each other into submission.
The two teams would be face-to-face, each playing their own beat and shouting as loud as they could, trying to make the other group lose their timing.
If neither team gave up, a judge was called upon to give a verdict.
At the end both teams would drink sake together and then continue on their separate ways.
Related posts:
Haha! That sounds both crazy AND fun :)
The Taiko “fighting” was right outside our house. It was great fun to watch. Next year I want to join in. I’d probably only be allowed sake-drinking duty, but that would suit me…
A friend of mine and I once tried taiko fighting, but I can’t say that it was much fun.
We took our taiko out to the park and then we put them there real close together and stepped back and waited for them to start fighting. But they just sat there.
Being new at it, we weren’t sure how to proceed, so I suggested that we each go up to our taiko and start giving them a little “motivation” to fight. I went over to mine and started whispering stuff to mine like, “Hey I just heard that taiko over there talking, and he mentioned that he thought you were a little chicken-shit wussy. Do you think you should let him go around talking about you like that?”
But still, my taiko just sat there. And whatever my buddy was whispering to his taiko, it didn’t seem to be doing much good, because his just sat there too.
So at that point, I’m starting to get a little mad and starting to think that maybe my taiko actually was just a little chicken-shit wussy. So I told my friend that maybe what are taiko needed was a little “extra” motivation of the “stick” variety (in terms of “carrot vs. stick”). So I told my taiko that if he didn’t get out there and scrap with the other one, I was going to give him a good in the ass to show him who’s boss.
Still, my taiko just sat there, defying me. At that point, I had had about as much as I could take, and I had to make good on my word. So I reeled back an unleashed a good hard kick on my taiko which sent it sailing through the air a pretty good distance. And my friend was over there at the same time doing pretty much the same thing. And we were both so peeved that once they landed, we walked right over and started in on them again.
So we ended up that day just walking around the field kicking the crap out of our taiko until the rage abated and we decided that we and our taiko were probably just not well-suited to taiko fighting.
Anyway, as always YMMV. But, with respect to James, I can’t say that I recommend trying taiko fighiting unless you want to risk wasting half of a perfectly fine day in the park trying to motivate a disobedient taiko, and risk ending up with severely battered taiko from all the kicking around of it you might ending up need to do just to cool off your temper.