Sightseeing in Japan wasn’t enough for me, so I tried this

Taiko-Lab is up a narrow flight of stairs inside a scruffy office building on a scruffy back street in Kyoto. Its heavy soundproof entrance door is opened by a Japanese man in a black singlet, muscled as a yakuza bodyguard.

It’s the sort of place where, far from Kyoto’s pretty pathways and tourist temples, I might expect to find a meth lab or a swingers’ club. While I’m not taking my Japanese immersion that far, I am after something more than sightseeing.

Traditional taiko drums on the stage. Credit: iStock

I’m looking for a distinctive local cultural activity. Something I’ve never done before. I want to have insight and fun – and a bit of exercise would do me good. So here I am in Taiko-Lab for a drumming lesson.

Taiko drumming has a 1500-year history. It was developed as a military warning and communications system and to set the marching pace of armies on the move.

Credit: Jamie Brown

The huge drums, made from zelkova wood and cow leather, are often heard during festivals, religious ceremonies and theatre productions in Japan. The drums only last five years or so, but the drumsticks, which are made of maple or other wood, can be centuries old.

I’m handed over to instructor Isamu Fujii, who doesn’t appear impressed. The good thing about this instrument, he observes, after gazing at my flabby arms, is that anyone can make a sound with it.

Do you need a lot of muscle power, I wonder? Well yes, a taiko-drumming session is like running a marathon, says Fujii gleefully. Young people have all the muscles but older people, he adds, are better players because they’re looser and have more core strength. By which he’s clearly referring to professionals, not dilapidated blow-ins like me.

I’m worried from the beginning, just as soon as Fujii asks me to take my socks off, so I have a better grip on the floor. Wrist-stretching exercises follow.

I stand with legs akimbo, lean slightly forward, stomach sucked in. Body posture (kata) is as important in taiko as it is in Japanese martial arts, and a key feature on which a taiko performance is judged. I have to hunker down, says Fujii. Drumming for five minutes is like doing a thousand squats.

The drumsticks are held loosely, I learn. Players rise up and down with each beat and bounce the stick off the drum’s surface rather than relying on brute force. Core strength is required to maintain your balance.

The movement reminds me of the tai-chi lessons I did years ago. Like tai-chi, taiko drumming is deceptively physical, and already I’m perspiring. Another way to play the drum is to lie back and place it on your legs, as if halfway through a sit-up. The instructors at Taiko-Lab have stomachs like corrugated iron.

I discover that I should always hit a taiko drum with the same strength. Struck in the middle, it booms and makes the room shake. Around the edges, it pitter-patters like rain. Fujii uses a small drum to mark a rhythm. Dom-dom-dom.

I repeat it on a taiko drum the size of an armchair. Fujii keeps speeding up. During pauses, I’m instructed to look fierce and shout “Ya!” with whatever I have left of energy and breath.

Taiko drumming takes musicality, attitude, movement and energy. I’m lacking in all departments, but that doesn’t stop me from having a good time. Taiko drumming is exciting and visceral. I’ve missed another Shinto shrine and Buddhist temple, but I’ve had a cultural experience that I won’t soon forget.