Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

I can’t begin to express the amount of information presented by Michael Chikuzen Gould at the Florida Shakuhachi Camp. So I will just say that it was awesome and far more than I had hoped for. The camp structure was casual and relaxed and Very conducive to learning. The limited number of students allowed an almost one on one teaching environment. This provided continual opportunities for each student to ask questions about his or her playing issues and hurdles and yet not pull the whole class away from the educational progression. We followed a regimen of see –it, hear- it , play- it as Michael walked us through the subtle nuances of dai kan , meri and keri, ro, or kan no ro and i, ichi san no u ... and the vast array of Kanji notations - all while expressing the importance of a loose neck and proper posture. And that was in the first two hours. Many of us had “Wow-YA!” moments as we learned how to move our breath, hands and heads. This class was a group of beginner and intermediate players that all had their own sticking points and hang ups. I found that although I have “noodled” for many years I have just scratched the range of my flute and hopefully my ability. At the end of the second day I was totally saturated with terms , sounds and I think I even had a few h-allucinations of Kanji floating in my drink at lunch.
Please join me in congratulating Brian Purdy for making this an awesome camp. He was not only a gracious host but he went out of his way to help those of us who fell behind and he even coordinated a larger and cooler class space when all the hot air we were producing made our training room a little warm. THANKS BRIAN.   Let me not forget to praise Michael Gould for his patience, good nature and sense of humor. Working with Michael has made me reset my goals as a musician and his encouragement and training was an immeasurable boost to my playing and will be for some time to come.   

I can only hope that this will become an annual event.

O