Yoops, I forgot to comment on the piece itself.
Nice take, Jamie! The thing that really popped out in my awareness is not just the looseness of your wrist, but how you were striking with your thumb, rather than your whole hand. (channeling through the thumb being more focused power) Good stuff indeed!
I’m grateful for everyones positive support, for myself and each other! I hope to see more videos up soon! I am also learning a bit about myself from watching these videos and reading all the comments. I hope to practice a lot more when my fibersen kawa comes back! (soon hopefully!)
Jamie! 弓道は参段なのですね、スッゴイ！You are San Dan Japanese archer! Cool(^O^)
ち、違うで。初段だけやけど・・・ You don’t need a kimono for kyudo until sandan, but my senseis thought it’d be easier for me to get a kimono in Japan than in the US, so even though I’m not sandan yet, they helped me get one before I moved back to America last year. They were also kind enough to teach me how to shoot in it, although I definitely haven’t mastered that. My elbow always gets stuck inside. ちょっと恥ずかしい。
ああ、そうなんだ(^_^;) Anyway it is cool to see you are a good archer. It was my friend Chizu whom you met in Tokyo and told me Jamie is San Dan because of wearing Kimono!
Always happy to know you are practicing something Japanese.
All warmed up from an afternoon of studio recording, I felt it was finally time to take on Norm’s Rokudan Challenge!
In terms of the tsugaru aesthetic, there’s always things to work on. I still have a habit on brushing two strings at once (1:03), and often slur notes (1:28) when I’m flying by the seat of my pants. Who knows what happened at the end, I wasn’t in control of what I was doing. 
There’s only a 1.5 months left until the challenge is over! UK Jamie, the other UK Jamie, Cana, Stev, Kevin, Grant, Anne, Kyoko, Karl, KH, BH. Jessica, Linda, Gerry, and others! Don’t be shy! Get your Ichidan on!
Don’t worry, I’ll have it done! I’ll be meeting up with Grant and Anne in less than 2 weeks and I’m hoping that I can get back home a better shamisen player for a pro recording.
Oh, and great performance 
I love the small slides.
Kyle, I gave applause to your Rokudan and did you hear my clapping?
I feel showy with Rokudan and ready to go,buuuuut my iPad cannot send vd to Bachido. So impatient and wondering any good way to satisfy myself showing!
And Karl, I am waiting to see the Vikings play(^o^)
Great performance, Kyle!!! Tone, vibrato, and ending here were fantastic!
There’s only a 1.5 months left until the challenge is over! UK Jamie, the other UK Jamie, Cana, Stev, Kevin, Grant, Anne, Kyoko, Karl, KH, BH. Jessica, Linda, Gerry, and others! Don’t be shy! Get your Ichidan on!
Unfortunately I don’t progress as fast as I wish to. But I’ll practice hard so one could watch without tears of pain and I will try to submit it in time!
Good stuff! Hey, tears of pain would make it more entertaining! 
In my experience of preforming on stage, musical skill is actually a rather small part of making a good show. (Tell that to the lead “singer” of Atreyu ) In fact, I always got more applause when I’m stomped in frustration after making a mistake, but get very little applause now when I play it flawlessly (mandolin)
People tend to be pretty forgiving, buuuut…
…if you can’t keep the beat a lot of people will want you to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Yes. I think, keeping the rhythm is the main problem.
I wonder how people manage to use metronome to assist playing. I didn’t get it at all. Even after a few learning videos. But that’s a subject for another forum thread. Or an article!
Interesting.
I’ve also found that the secret of improvising lies almost completely in rhythm/keeping the beat. I’ve been teaching music for a number of years now and what I’ve found is that when people use scales and notes relationships to chords too much their improvising sounds a bit stale and a little too controlled but when I get students to only think of playing rhythms over a beat and focus less on the actual notes something magical seems to happen. Focusing mostly on the beat seems to be the best way to achieve a flow. Once you get that, learning about the right notes to use seems to come very easily and much more naturally than vice versa!
I think using a metronome can help you identify your weaknesses but in general I think you will get a better feeling for the rhythm if you play for yourself without one.
Yeah Kevin I think I know exactly what you are talking about. The key to good improvisation is to get back on the sweet notes according to the beat. Often it will sound crap if you just randomly play notes. The last note in a beat should be pulling towards (what we experience with our hearing) for example the key note which will would be the first note in the next beat.
Of course it is important to amplify the sense of rhythm while playing as well using volume and other obscure techniques like for example yelling.
if you can’t keep the beat a lot of people will want you to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
Oh yes, rhythm is the one thing that is most important. Nothing can make up for an off beat. But if your beat is solid, everything else can be forgivable (especially if you make your show entertaining with zany antics!) As we say in our music classes, you may forget lyrics, may forget the melody (which is called ‘jazz’), but if you keep the rhythm, it’ll be just fine.
Hey guys, I’m changing my entry to this:
Which one am I? Come on! I’m the guy in the middle with the Raijin-Fuujin kimono! Couldn’t you tell?
No fair, Jamie! If I knew group performances, I would’ve called up Asano and Kinoshita for a trio.
On a serious note, nice find! I really enjoyed the cinematography. It gives the shamisen some star quality.
Here’s Rokudan from my little meetup with Anne and Grant in Linköping, Sweden!
Grant took more footage and I bet there will be a video soon containing some more playing and some fun stuff.
TRIPLE SPINNER