In February, Bachido member Takahashi san and I were invited to Tucson by the wonderful Karen Falkenstrom of Odaiko Sonora!
Upon arriving, the first thing Karen did was take us to see the gorgeous Saguaro cactus. The amount of cactus in the was almost unbelievable, it felt like a canopy-less forest!
Like always, when arriving at a scenic location, what’s the first thing to do? Pull out our shamisen and play Kita no Hibiki!
That was like a music video for Kita no Hibiki! Loved it !
Great performance too! Rockin the Cactus out of KNH !
Epic! I wish I could play Kita no Hibiki properly at that speed 
Karl, I sent you this via Facebook, but I might as well mention it here.
Anne had the same issue when she was preparing for the taikai. She focused on playing it perfectly and thus could never play it at full speed. It wasn’t until we were all together and she was basically forced to break through and play faster.
The secret is, simply don’t worry about the precision, just focus on the speed, even if you have to rush it. There’s a time for precision and a time for going balls out, and this it is. Even if it’s sounding like a rushed blur, keep it going. 
Truth in the speed practice over precision practice. Another consideration is that you can always drop bits of the song here and there; pairing it down more simply to keep up with speed in parts that are more of challenge (for the current moment). Heck, that’s what I do. Granted, it doesn’t sound as awesome when you’re on your own, only playing the basic structure of a song. But in a group, it sounds rockin!
In fact, if you happen to play a fewer notes, what notes you do play end up having that much more power in them, adding even further accents to those passages. Group dynamics, yaaaay~!!
A big thing to consider is that, yes, we have notation, and yes, we have “two versions/difficulties”. But when it really gets down to the wire, you can customize the complexity of you want to play to fit your need.