I think my peak ‘drummer-regret’ moment was sometime in my mid-twenties just before I re-committed myself to playing drums for the long haul.
So at the time I probably had all the standard ones: ‘Should have stayed in band class’, ‘should have bought more workbooks’, 'should have practiced more in high school', etc. Interestingly though, the last twelve years of earnest shedding and studying seem to have more than made up for the things I might have missed out on.
As a matter of fact, the reason I decided to start tutoring others on drumkit is that I discovered along the way that most of my actual obstacles were in my head, and in my heart. My progress and real achievement were never based on how many books I worked through or which “masters I briefly studied under” at some big drum school in a faraway land. The key to annihilating regret, for me, was to infuse every moment of my practice and study time with my own energy. Choosing to ignore drum books and even YT drum lessons to develop my own routine, my own experiences, and my own style.
I cannot go back in time and begin my focused shedding earlier, yet I feel I have lost nothing along the way. In that regard I am always looking around for beginners and intermediate drummers who are still in the “dreaming” phase and not yet overwhelmed by all the marketing and editorializing, and yes even the terminology of books, websites and drummer magazines. My epiphany for no regrets drumming is to channel that inspired vibe and make it available to the student during those very long practice sessions.
So I guess another way of stating a response to the OP is that I hope to help other drummers avoid going through any unproductive, regrettable periods in their own development. Or worse, to find themselves old and still intermediate, and now making declarations and excuses about drumming in general for others to hear.
I would have devoted more effort into becoming a fake martial artist.
As an 11th dan pink belt in bullshido I can tell you it ain't all it's cracked up to be. Sure I have ninja stars and a pretty rad pony tail but I get beaten up a lot and I haven't spoken to a woman since 1987.
Lol, yeah let’s hope the era of the ponytailed fake samurai/mall ninja is coming to an end. I would never advise someone to adopt martial arts as one of their hobbies if they knew it was going to be fake!
At least now that westerners are discovering Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, they’re starting to realize how relatively easy, and rather effective martial arts can be. Finally the western world is starting to really learn what martial arts is about. Hollywood kind of messed it up for a generation or two.
The stereotypical “fake samurai” guy seems to be “larping” as a way of compensating for lack of real physicality or skill. One of the jokes being that if a fake samurai actually learned to lift weights he'd probably stop throwing those ninja stars around, lol. But I can’t imagine why anyone would do fake martial arts. I mean I guess the pugilistic American attitude is that it’s all about “winning fights" for glory or bragging rights, like on TV. And therefore anyone who practices martial arts must be larping a violent fantasy.
But there’s nothing in the first principles of Chinese kung fu that promote laziness, sloppiness, or fakeness. The first principles of the body are balance, flexibility, speed, power. The tools of kung fu train the body to develop a “mirror” understanding of itself as you advance and improve. As your body becomes lithe and strong, and your perceptions and reaction time improves, you come into one of the great epiphanies of wushu. You begin to understand that any one bipedal human opponent only has certain tools available to them (two arms, two legs), and if their tools aren’t agile and intelligent, there is very little chance they will succeed more than two “moves” if they chose to attack (out of anger) even a moderately trained person. That’s why all the old masters bear such a calm demeanor. It’s not unlike being a competent chess player. Even before the contest begins you are relatively sure of what your first, second, third moves (responses) will be.
And yes "moves" can mean dodging, circling, putting up a basic fence, etc. A tasteful mixture of western boxing and kung fu. It's not all automatically dragon chain punches and flying kicks, lol.
Hollywood martial arts is always choreographed, of course. Real world kung fu systems are based on physics and leverage, learning and adapting. Real enough for most who put in the work.
Also in defense of the sword nerds: Swords aren’t necessarily larping either. Some sword arts are not flashy, and very intuitive to learn, like the Katana/Wakizashi. And there are even leagues for Katana form where middle aged men with glasses will train for hundreds of hours after work and kill it in the competition and cutting play. Chinese gim sword is legit too. A very intuitive cutting art based on circles. And so much more…
One more point to bring this back around to music, some food for thought for you drummers. I was browsing the Seattle muso craigslist page one time and I saw a rant post from a non-musician who was accusing all CL musos of being "fake musicians", "dream on", "larpers". I thought how fascinating that many non musicians (music curious maybe) have the same lofty, dismissive attitude about "real music" as non-martial artists (secretly fascinated) have about "real fighting". This poster could not imagine how anyone on CL could have become a "real musician' without him hearing about it. That is, without his permission. So apparently musicianship seems rather magical and unattainable, to some people. But as we know the CL music section is much like this discussion forum. Players of ALL levels. In fact I think rants like the one he posted on CL only hurt the beginners and intermediate players by implying that they are wasting their time. The more experienced players just roll their eyes, and carry on.
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