Preparing for one incredible year

Hi fellow reinventors,

I'm very excited about making this a very challenging year.  When I'm doing this drum and physical therapy stuff, I'm also starting a software company to promote a privacy product I've been working on.  I'm also driving my kids to school and my wife to work, and taking the kids to their various activities every afternoon after 3pm, and helping them with their homework and giving them extra reading and math training, and doing some home gym stuff nightly to help my son with Sensory Processing Disorder--a disorder I fully intend to become an expert in treating.

I'm certain that if I get enough sleep and varied exersize, 2010 will be one of the happiest years of my life.

Here's my theory on how I'm going to become a dbl bass one handed roll drum god:  One hour a day, 7 days a week, turns you into someone radicallly different by years end.  It's the hour and it's the daily-ness of it. 

I've got about 4.5 months of double bass practice under my belt.  But am rusty after a dead fall practicing wise.  I'm also bummed about the springs offered by the manufactures and the hardware stores.  Which I'll devote an entry to at some point. 

I've probably logged 40 minutes on the one handed roll so far, tops.

But dbl bass and the one handed roll really separate the old drummers sitting around saying "Kids these days." from, well, the kids these days.  The one handed roll can make drum and bass, and jungle beats so much more fun.  I can't stand the thought of being the drumming equivalent of bellbottoms and polyester shirts.  And true, I've lived out many of the era's of drumming since I started playing in 1969 at age 9.  But, now I'm decidedly cool only in a retro sense.  When did alt rock become classic rock?  How did punk become 40 something?  IT'S TOTALLLY UNFAIR how time marches on.  But, does it have to march on without older drummers being able to even teach younger drummers what is currently pertinent?  I hate the idea of telling a kid, first you have to learn all this irrelevent stuff from the past, so you can figure out from that what's going on today.  (Implicit message:  Because I can't figure out what's going on today even though I know all this older stuff from when I was a kid.  Four months of hard core double kick practice taught me that if you want to learn something current, get to work, it's going to be hard, very hard.)

Part of my drumming heart is still only 9 years old.  I want my 9 year old heart to become the biggest part of 49 year old heart this year.  To do that, I need to start being just as uncomfortable and full of wonder about drums now, as I was in 1969.  So, I'm doing what I call platforming for success.  I'm starting this blog to create pressure.  My wife and some of my drum students bought me a Drum-O-Meter for Christmas.  I'm waiting for it to arrive .  I reconfigured my drum room for efficiency so it doesn't depress me and my students, anymore!

During the last year and a half I had a tremendous physical comeback.  Fall 2008 I could barely walk, I had so much pain in my feet, ankles, knees and hips.  I stopped the denial and met the fear, and have figured out the source of my hip, knee and ankle pain is over development of some muscles for drumming which has caused underdevelopment of other counter balancing muscles, which has caused incorrect walking which has caused hip joint damage, and threatened to damage my knees and ankles, which had started really hurting me by last fall.  I also just learned last year that a birth defect where my toes join my feet has really hampered my range of motion in how I walk and play drums.   This has also contributed to my walking dysfunction and over/under muscle development.

I did this by finding the podiatrist for the Northwest Ballet, Alan Woodle who figured out everything about my feet.  While I still have to constantly work out or lose them to pain again, who cares!  It keeps me fit, too.  I'm also a regular with Diane Hughes.  Diane is an ex-basketball player and current sports trainer/massage therapist/physical therapist/chiropractor who understands bio-mechanical movement more than any MD I've met.  And I've flown down to see the king of hip and knee surgeons, Robert Klapper.  He's seen plenty of drummers in Beverly Hills, and recognized the notches in my upper phemurs (called breaks by the Seattle surgeons) as wear points from spreading my legs so wide to play Hi Hats and Bass Drum.  He's "seen this in almost every middle aged pro drummer that's come into my office".

So, it with great enthusiasm, that I look forward to 2010 as a serious ass kicker with a future of drumming reinvention and growth.  Thanks for coming along for the ride and helping keep the pressure on me.