Has taiko affected your life other than the activity itself, e.g., your social life, work life, emotional or spiritual life, or another part of your life, perhaps your health? Please explain.
| I’ve always been in bands and have been an active Nichiren Buddhist for 20 years do there isn’t much scope for taiko to have unique effects. it does help my balance and keep me limber when sedentary work takes me over. |
| Yes. As a touring player, taiko affected my personal life deeply as we spent a huge amount of time away from home. Also, as I run a dojo a lot of my time revolves around taiko these days – which means that so does my social circle. |
| All. I’ve based my life around taiko since high school. It has effected my romantic relationships, friendship, work, and family. It’s because of what I’ve learned from the other ho etsu. Growing up from high school to college, most of the group was older than me and taught me a lot of life and teamwork skills, something I hadn’t done before. They’ve taught me empathy and how to use emotions to create something. |
| It helps me clear my mind and gives a lot of energy |
| social life, more friends now |
| It is truly my favorite interest. It’s what I list on facebook and what keeps me wanting to improve my physical fitness and helps me work out stress. |
| yes especially my mental health has improved, I also am more confident |
| I lost weight, I became much more social, I got stronger, I had my own hobby. I had more flashbacks, memories, and realizations in the first two years of playing than I had in the ten years prior. I was able to approach this last chapter of my life in a much clearer way than had I not found taiko. |
| Taiko does help to beat my stress away. My shoulder muscle etc is not yet stronger for that I play too little (I feel) |
| My social life, meeting more People |
| It brings emotional balance in my life, and the activity is an extra for my health |
| no |
| Yes, after discovering taiko, I finished all my running engagements so I could spend all my time to taiko. |
| I got more assertive, more able to feel and give boundaries. |
| physical = since i play taiko i have no yearly lumbago anymore = i call my taiko my physiotherapist |
| I found a way to release stress, become more confident in performing for other people, and just take life as it comes. |
| Yes. Taiko is my refuge. When things around me get weird, taiko helps refresh me. |
| Taiko affected every aspect of my life. Little by little I feel more at ease with my social life, not so much anxiety there anymore. I am more focused at my work and it has even gave me some good lesson to use there also. I feel more in touch with my spiritual needs and the levels of my depression symptoms are way better. Also through taiko I began to learn music theory for the first time and shakuhachi |
| Taiko gives a release to built-up stress and it gave me a new group of friends to do fun things with (movies, arcades, home parties) |
| Yes, social and spiritual |
| Taiko has opened up my social life quite a lot. Now I can meet people from all over the world, with many different experiences. I also learned to BE social… Before I only did the school-home routine, but nothing more. |
| I find taiko almost meditating. I don’t do well in my own headspace for too long so it’s nice to have an activity that’s both mentally challenging yet also somewhat distracting |
| I’ve never felt in a better physical shape than just before the pandemic(my second year taiko) and channeled joy, sense of pride and inner stability. My depression has lifted, anxiety decreased. I felt strong and brave in many layers of myself. |
| Yes. When I play with the Taiko groups I am a part of the group and we socialize afterwards. I have been able to make friends from all around the world and all around New Zealand. It has influenced my work life because I am able to use Taiko skills in my work And on a personal level it has helped me become better able to be in my body and to ground myself. |
| Taiko has been my calling card to travel to places I would not have gone to. And I have made many friends from all over cultivating community. |
| Social life – building friendships (more like family) with my own groups, but also beyond my own sphere through conferences, workshops, regional performances/festivals etc. Although I developed more confidence with public speaking through teaching in Japan a few years, being designated my taiko group’s emcee helped me expand on that to develop more “showmanship” skills. Leading the interactive parts of gigs I think also gave me a start in understanding how to teach something like this (musical, physical, performance art) as opposed to academic teaching that I did before. When I was doing more hours of taiko a week it definitely added to my weekly exercise in a more impactful way than my current one day a week arrangement. |
| It helped me to transform negative energy into positive energy |
| Every day of my life involves taiko. If not performing, practicing, or teaching, I am looking up videos online, looking through FB posts in the taiko community, studying Japanese language in hopes of connecting to more taiko players or returning to Japan, or browsing kaDON, Asano, and Kaiser websites for drums or other instruments I would love to buy. LOL. My taiko group has become my family. We encourage and support each other both in and outside of our dojo. |
| My taiko group has become a notable portion of my social life and I care very much for my fellow groupmates. I have also noticed a certain understanding between taiko players from different groups: when you meet someone from far away, there is a certain baseline understanding in your shared experience of playing taiko. Emotionally, taiko has always been a great outlet. The physicality and LOUD music can be a great pressure relief valve when there is chaos in another part of my life. |
| I have lots of friends I would not know if not for taiko. |
| Makes me feel stronger, happier, calmer |
| I have connected with people in such a profound way that I genuinely feel like they are family. Experiencing taiko with others is now my main motivation. Work is only there to finance the next taiko journey |
| Taiko has given me many taiko families all over the world. It allowed me to build my home in Japan, to build friendships and bonds that have lasted over 20 years with my first Japanese taiko family. It has allowed me to come back to my home town and contribute to the peace building and community building work that is so necessary here. Taiko has given me the vehicle to build a community around me and my family that holds the values of inclusion, diversity and kindness at the core of what we do. It also is the thing that brings me alive, that makes me want to bounce through the world and give everyone the experience of such joy and lightness of being. |
| I’m a more confident public speaker. And I’m a bit more coordinated physically. (Though that’s a pretty high hurdle to overcome. I’m kind of a klutz.) |
| Taiko has always been here for me, through relationships, divorce, illnesses, deaths, life’s ups and downs. Taiko is part of who I am!! When I perform, I give 100% of myself. I love taiko!!!! |
| My arms are thicker now 😉and I can lift them longer. Best thing: I met many very nice people. The Taiko community is very friendly. Even really good players have no problems to explain things patiently. I feel welcome, if I meet taiko players. My rhythm feeling changed a lot. I used to sing a lot, now I do rhythms. And I learned: everybody has his own strenghts and weaknesses, is different. You have to take your! time, you can‘t force things, they happen, sooner, later or perhaps never…be kind and patient to yourself! With expectations, fear and pressure, you can‘t learn. |
| Better social life |
| It has. Friendship, romance, maturity, professioanlly… |
| I quit my job to become a full-time taiko professional. This is a “lifestyle job”. There is no downtime. |
| Greatly all of the above. I have gained confidence in myself. I have taken responsibility for the artform and its future. I have developed social life and befriended many people, especially internationally. I have become/ am still becoming a leader, knowing what not to do by myself but delegate and trust in others ability. I have lived partially from income generated by teaching taiko. … |
| Learning my own culture. Trying to keep the endurance (I run). |
| Taiko is my social life. 🙂 I think it has definitely improved my health! My blood work always came back with all the right answers! And, it has not been as good since pandemic has limited how much I can play. Also, I had arm muscles for the first time ever! Emotionally it has a profound effect. I feel grounded and able to take on anything when I get my dose of taiko. |
| Activity complements former tsijiquan experience |
| I Lost weight! And felt so energetic |
| My first contact with a musical instrument and collective playing |
| I made an incredible number of friends along the way! It took me to Hawai’i and Japan, both of which were amazing experiences in their own rights. |
| Emotionally and spiritually – there is such joy and peace while playing taiko. And it lingers long after the music stops! |
| Short answer: Yes. Long answer would take me many weeks to write down, so sorry for being so brief here. |
| A big YES for that! 😀 Taiko basically affected all part of my life since I had no life beyond taiko for months. Although I didn’t give up on my daily work, but I did it with my friends: playing the drums basically meant my social life for a while. Fortunately I stopped doing that (a burnout was a massive warning) just to be able to connect with taiko in a more spiritual way. So I might spend less hours in our dojo (or with practice) but still it means more 🙂 |
| Almost of my friends from college were from the group. And as I continued to attend practices after graduating, most of my current friends are from/still in the group. |
| I consider taiko a major part of my life and identify myself as a taiko player. It throws people off because I’m African American. They have a difficult time separating the genre from culture. |
| Since I am single and have no children, about 80% of my life outside of work envolves taiko. I even try to incorporate it in my business trips, by meeting up with taiko players in the area I travel to. It has become something important that defines me. |
| Taiko has positively affected my emotional life. As someone that lives with mental illness, it helps me connect with happiness on a physical level that I had not previously known how to do. It has helped me face challenges with anxiety and refreshes my spirit. |
| Taiko is my main activity in life. It gives me energy, makes me feel alive! |
| It’s given me a sense of pride in achieving one of my goals |
| I was a Respiratory Therapist by trade. Taiko is now my work life and playing taiko is my work life and playing taiko is what I do for activity and fun. All of my closest friends that I have now are people that I met in the Taiko community. |
| I think taiko allowed me to finally accept myself and conceive my body as a resource and not a limit. So trough taiko I respected myself more. Taiko taught me to listen to others, to feel equal in terms of difference and not hierarchy, and thus afford my fear of completion. Another thing thing has been be constant, I am a multi potential kind of person and very flicke (do not know if is the right word). For me has always been difficult practice something regularly, taiko with its social dimension allowed me to overcome this since individual practice converge into something bigger and shared |
| Yes. I’ve made a lot of friends that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I’ve also learned (or improved) many skills in order to support my taiko group. |