It's beginning to feel like my day-to-day life has become a strange dichotomy of either preparing for tabla practice (eating as much as possible while resting my arms) or tabla practice itself. And I'm only practicing a few hours per day. Honda, one of my fellow students or gurubhai (lit. guru-brother (you know I feel uncomfortable saying "disciple" with any seriousness)), is from Japan and is in his second year of study with Lacchuji. The first "year" he was only here for lessons for 2 months. So he's essentially in his 4th month of study now and Guruji has him practicing 7 hours per day. He lives in a guesthouse and so must put sound-stifling towels over his drums for the first few hours because his practice starts before dawn. 7 hours. He drinks a lot of coffee and smokes cigarettes. My body is in serious revolt after only 3 hours.
An example of a portion of my practice from last week: Play this 7-second phrase (my second kayada) repeatedly for 90 minutes. This ends up being more of a practice in meditation and focus than anything else. After that of course I'm thrilled to get to the second part of practice because the phrase I have to repeat for 90 minutes is more than 2 minutes long, aaah. See how they getcha!
