Preparing For DCA Individuals

I wrote this to post for my blog back in late August of 2012. It's a few thoughts I was having about competing in a snare drumming competition again for the first in 30 years. I just published this. It went well to say the least...

I just wanted to take a second to share about my genuine enthusiasm as I approach my first solo snare competition in 30 years. As I sit here, a little over a week away from the competition, I feel really good about the way I'm playing. It's been a slow process back to playing at a high level again but it's been fun and I've learned a lot of new things.

The year started off with just hitting the pad everyday and making the commitment to play again. Along the way I started to experiment with a lot of new ideas. Some had been with me for a while and others were coming just from playing again. Of course I would always go back to some of my favorite patterns from my DCI solo days also. As the months began to go by I started to see that this was a real possibility. I felt little moments where the chops had some resemblance of what I used to know. By late Spring I had put together a lot of material for my solo. I was amazed when I timed it for the first time that it was clocking in right around 5 minutes. Knowing that I could trim a little of that time down with tempo I still had some major decisions about what to cut and what to keep.

One of the best things that happened to me this year was the chance to perform at a clinic in Lancaster, PA in late June. The performance and clinic, which was videoed in it's entirety, gave me the chance to review and see things that were working and things that were not. There were still a couple of hard choices but in the end I'm happy with the results. I've managed to basically write a new solo with some sprinklings of my last DCI solo from 1982.

There are a lot of challenges that we face as older drummers. One of the things that I was faced with over the past 8 months was the occasional injury. Not just aches and pains from working out my chops but some other pains that seem to be reoccurring. Finding ways to work through those has been a challenge but my desire to do this again is what keeps me going forward. Going back and forth between the gummy practice pad and the drum gave me the chance to work different aspects of my playing as well as give certain pains a chance to heal.

I've had some thoughts about the future. I would like to continue doing this again as I see no real reason why I can't. I look forward to experimenting with different products such as heads and sticks. I have some thoughts about going back to a mylar head but I really don't know yet. Although my style of playing has changed a little bit over the past 30 years I still basically play the shit out of the top head. I don't think I will last very long playing that way on kevlar even with some of the hybrid models.

I wanted to play again this year for a few reasons. First and foremost because I love it. I had some new things I'd been tinkering with and that was just an added incentive. Secondly I have been a little discouraged about some of the things I read about and see in solo snare drumming these days. I don't believe for a second that we can ever return to the past but if I can somehow help just a little bit to move it forward in a positive direction I would be happy. And last and a little bit personal. It's been 30 years since I won my last DCI snare title. A lot of life has gone by and I'm still kicking. Lets celebrate!!

Thanks
Rob

A Funny Little Story...

     OK, so here's a little story to share with you all. As most of you know I am a recovered alcoholic and drug addict. Now before all of my recovery friends have a holy ba- jesus fit on me let me just clarify my use of the past tense by saying that the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous tells me that I have recoverED from a hopeless state of mind and body. It also says - and I may paraphrase this - that my sobriety is based on my daily spiritual conditioning. So in other words I'm not what I used to be but if I don't pray for some strength each day I could easily be back where I was... OK? OK !

    So, I'm driving to work the other night where I am an admissions counselor at the same facility where I was treated almost 4 years ago. I have about a 15 minute drive to work each night. Sometimes faster depending if I leave on time or not. I usually talk to Cheryl or listen to some music. The drive into Father Martin's Ashley is a beautiful drive especially during the day but when I go to work it is quite dark. Still there is a peacefulness and calmness as I drive down Oakington Road and make the left onto Tydings Lane and travel up the long driveway to the facility. I usually put on some inspiring music. Maybe something deep that captures the eery night sky with a full moon over the bay or possibly just something that takes me back to 2008 when I came to treatment. Often I just have my mp3 on shuffle and inevitably something of profound meaning comes on as I am getting close to work. And so it was the other night...

    As I was coming down Oakington I was getting ready to reach for my mp3 to pick something out for the final 3 miles or so and before I had a chance to choose something the mp3 started playing "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton. Well, I paused for a second and considered changing it before I burst out laughing realizing that this was the perfect song for the evening. A substance that I struggled with for many years was being tossed out in a song as a reminder of where I came from. As I dove into work I couldn't stop laughing and felt a great sense of gratitude for where I am today. My higher power, whom I choose to call God, certainly does have a great sense of humor. I sang along with the song with no fear of the past and laughed as I remembered some of the crazy times. It's part of the mosaic that is my life. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And yet there is a beauty in all of it because it's human. So the next time you hear the song "Cocaine" by EC maybe you to will laugh as you remember this funny little story.

Rob ~  
                     
                    

 

Springtime Update 2012

          I can't believe that we are fast approaching May of 2012. Only a couple more weeks left in the spring semester and then a short break before the busy summer kicks in. Although I like to treasure every moment in time these days I am rather looking forward to this summer. And it seems as if it's going to get better as it goes along.
 
         I'll be taken a couple classes this summer as I really can't afford not to. It's hard for me to keep anything close to a full load of classes each semester so I really need to attend year round. I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to do that. Community college is really a great thing for so many reasons but in particular for the adult student who is attempting to get back in the swing of learning when they've been out of the environment for so long. On the plate this summer will be a continuation of my basic math classes as well as a speech class. The speech class is a "hybrid" class which is part online and part in class. Looking forward to both classes.

        In June I will be performing and giving a clinic on rudimental snare drumming at the Lancaster County Bible College.The name of the event is "Total Percussion Seminar". A couple of my former students are very involved with this event and I'm excited to be participating. I will place special emphasis on snare drum soloing. As many of you know I was very involved in the drum corps activity throughout my life and had some success in snare soloing back in my younger days. After some time away, to focus on other things, I have recommitted myself to playing and participating in some events that will allow me to share my passion for something that meant so much to me for so long. I also have plans on a few other appearances throughout the summer which I think will provide some fun for all.

    In early August Cheryl and I will be taking a well needed vacation to the Beach in Ocean City, MD. We both really enjoy the beach and the water and just the whole atmosphere of summertime shore resort. The boardwalk, all the fun shops and the very 'unhealthy' food will be just the right combination of goods to make for a wonderful time off from everyday life. Really looking forward to this.

    Following my beach vacation I am planning on attending the DCA Championships in Annapolis, MD over the Labor Day weekend. I figured since this event was so close to home this year that I should really go. My father and I are both members of the World Drum Corps Hall of Fame and so we will attend the HOF banquet for the first time since we both became members. The last time I attended the DCA championships was in 2007 in Rochester, NY. It was the year I was inducted into the HOF and it was a memorable weekend. A lot has happened since then and so I am looking forward to seeing friends that I haven't seen in a while.

   Well that's my report for now. As I always say I wish I could get myself to blog more often but with my schedule of work, school and other daily or weekly events it becomes hard to find time and motivation to write. Anyway, I hope you're all doing good and I wish you all a happy spring/summer of 2012. I'll be hanging around facebook and the other social apps so look me up and lets stay in touch.

Rob ~

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The Thoughts Between

a little holiday gratitude...   

       I just woke up from a nice sleep to hear the pouring down of rain outside. I put on some coffee and sat down to catch up on facebook for a little bit. After a few minutes of status updates and funny cartoons expressing some of the comedies of Christmas I began reflecting on the whirlwind that was my holiday/work weekend. I thought I would write for a little while about some of the things I had on my mind. So here it goes.

      Christmas has once again come and gone leaving behind in its wake several emotional and thought provoking experiences about life and the roads we travel. I witnessed first hand, this weekend, the joy of my own family celebrating the holiday while we experienced heart felt feelings of love in the purest sense of the word. And while I felt the warmth of my own family in Pennsylvania I also experienced the joy of  my work family under completely different circumstances. Here I watched as the faces of sadness and uncertainty were embraced by hugs and a genuine compassion for one another as these folks search to find answers to their problems with addiction. I  felt the love of fellowship as they rallied around each other with a common desire to heal the wounds of a disease that tears the love in their families apart. By the way, how would you define love? I took a philosophy class this past semester where we posed that very question. It was quite interesting to hear the different explanations coming from everyone. It's not that easy to put into words. So maybe I should be careful by dispensing the idea that I have experienced love in its purest sense. Who am I to really know what that is? I guess I'm only me, and based on my own experiences of love I have my own idea of something that would be, well, pure. But keeping that idea in mind with all of the joys during the holiday season there is also a lot of sadness and in the same way that love and happiness can be magnified during this time of year so can loneliness and depression.

     Not everyone feels warm and fuzzy about their lives. Heck I've been there my self at times but somehow the spirit of this special time of year seems to seep through and tweak our happy valves even just a little bit. You may not even realize that it's happening. I work in a treatment facility where patients are away from their families and totally confused about the situation that has developed in their lives. Its a mixed bag of emotions really because while they miss their families and feel the weight of guilt that comes with being away from their children, they also hang onto the realization that they are doing something that will yield to happier occasions in the future. But still, the current circumstances have a way of trapping the darkness of the moment into these pockets of depression and for that there is only the hope that time will heal.

    I guess I feel lucky in a way to be in a place where I can experience the opposite ends of this emotional spectrum. It really does lend itself to a lot of gratitude for not only where I've come from but for the things that I have in my life today. A couple of days before Christmas I was sitting with my parents thinking how lucky I was to have them both alive and healthy at this point in my life. We were talking about some of the less fortunate people in the world and my dad started to tear up when he thought of one of his close friends whose wife has cancer. He was feeling the pain of that man and expressing his feelings about all of the sadness in the world. It was at that point that I said to him, " look how lucky we are! We are all still alive and pretty healthy. We have weathered some rough storms and here we are getting ready to celebrate a family tradition. We have a lot to be grateful for". It's true! We do have a lot to be grateful for and yes there is a lot a sadness in the world. It's why, in my opinion, people who have the ability to share happiness should do it. I know there are many ways in which we can all give or express our gratitude. Everyone, on some level, is close to a cause of some kind and if not there are plenty of folks who could just use a little love at this time of the year. Maybe you'll even find your own definition of pure. Who knows... But its certainly worth trying.

     One more thing and then I'll stop. Often sadness and depression are clinical and need professional attention and treatment. But often it's a result of self consuming thoughts and isolation. One way to help yourself with that would be to get out and help someone else. You might just find that your situation is not quite as bad as you think. You might even have a little surge of joy and feel better about who you are. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and please be safe over the new years weekend. I'll be working again this weekend but not before I get to spend some time with my lady as we will celebrate our belated Christmas with each other and share in the joy of the day.

Peace everyone
Rob ~

Catching Up at Christmas

         Wow! It's been sometime since I last blogged. I couldn't begin to tell you all that's been going on since August. It would take too long. I would love to make a better attempt to blog a bit more regularly in the coming year but in order to do that I need to try and allow the natural course of feelings to find there way into my writing. Ya know, without too much editing and poetic analogies and such. OK, well maybe a few here there. After all writing is a creative expression of our thoughts and what better way to allow that to happen than writing something that has your true self imbedded into it's content.

         Anyway, the last few months have been busy. To begin with I started a diet back in August because I was getting tired of the way I looked and felt. I was finally able to get on a track with both eating and working out and it started to show results. Once the results were becoming more and more evident I wanted it more and more. I got involved with a weight loss program called "A Better Weigh". It was very hard to do and I'm not kidding when I tell you there were times I had to just lay down and sleep because I couldn't stand the feeling of wanting to eat and not being able to do so. But with some determination and the support of the folks on the staff I was able to come up with ways of getting through the urges. It's a very restricting diet and one that many would disagree with but I got the results I was looking for and now I have to try and make some permanent changes from 50 years of bad eating habits. Not easy!!  By the weigh ;-) I lost a total of 35 lbs.

         I continued with school this fall although I only took one class, Philosophy 101. I only took the one class because  I was very uncertain about my involvement with music and other interests. Of course there is the other time sucker which is my full time job. I'm glad I made this choice because it really allowed me some wiggle room when my schedule got heavy. The class was great as was the teacher. Professor Brown is an attorney who works out of DC and was formally a Wall Street finance guy. He has a real passion for philosophy and gave very cool and energy packed lectures on all the topics we covered. I like to say that I put one hundred percent into this class but the reality is I did what I had to do to get by. The one thing I can say is that I was truly engaged in the class time and enjoyed participating in the conversations. I was amazed at the intellectual level of some of my classmates who, might I remind you, were only 18 or 19 years old. We covered everything from the Origins of Philosophy to Existentialism to Marxism and more. It had a profound impact on my thinking and helped me to confirm that it's OK for me to feel some of the things I do and that the quest for the truth can be often painful but enlightening.

     My job at Father Martin's Ashley has been and continues to be a gift that I can only express as divine in my life. I have never once, in the time I have been working there, felt like I didn't want to go to work. And if for some reason I did feel that way, for a second, it was because I had to get up and move from point A to point B. It never had anything to do with the actual work. In fact I don't even see it as work at all. I look forward to arriving to one of the worlds truly amazing institutions every day I'm scheduled to be there. The chance to help people to get through such difficult times in their life is really, in my opinion, being engaged in God's work. And even though I work a schedule that is a little bit isolating from what we know as normal I still love the work and the chance to be there for the next suffering person at the end of their rope. It has helped me to stay focused in my own recovery and realize the gift that I was given about 3-1/2 years ago.

     OK, I'm going on too long here and I've only covered three areas of my busy schedule over the past few months. Trust me when I tell you that everything else is also going well. It hasn't come without some tough days or a bit of soul searching but the journey is good and I am looking forward to Christmas and the holiday season. I will be at work on these days this year helping the folks who are in treatment to find some peace and gratitude for being exactly where they are at this moment in time. So if you think of it, toss up a prayer for the still sick and suffering throughout the world and from me to you have a wonderful holiday experience with your family and friends.

With Love,
Rob

"Baseball Night With Dad"

    This past Wednesday night my Dad and I went to see the Phillies and the Arizona D-Backs at Ctizen's Bank Park in Philadelphia. The tickets were a birthday gift from my parents for my 50th back in June. My family has always been pretty big baseball fans. We had season tickets for many years when I was growing up as a kid and went to a lot of games. But as time went on we went less and less and when the Phils moved into the new stadium my parents transferred the tickets to another person because the financial part of it seemed a bit too much. So this game on Wednesday was the first game I had been to in quite a few years and it was really the first time I had the chance to experience the new ball park.

Having dinner while watching batting practice

         We really had a good time as we went down to the park early to have dinner and watch batting practice. The stadium has so many cool places to visit but certainly the first thing on the agenda was food. We considered a few options but settled on a "no brainer". Hoagies... A Philly classic! We ate our hoagies while watching the Phils take batting practice. The weather was great in the afternoon sun and I was totally feeling the excitement about being there. After we finished our dinner we explored some of the shops.  I had decided several weeks ago that I wanted to buy my Dad a Phillies shirt. He had worn one to the game but it was old and I thought it would be great to see him in something up to date. He picked out one of the popular red shirts with the players name and number on the back. Dad picked out Chase Utley's number 26. He also bought himself a ball cap and quickly ducked into a bathroom and put on his new gear. He was like a little kid and we took some great pictures as we made our way around to the many shrines at the stadium.

Dad sportin' his new shirt and cap

Cliff Lee on the mound

The game was great! We got lucky to see Cliff Lee pitch who is one of the Phils top weapons on this very talented team. It was a pretty close game through 6 innings but in the 7th the Phillies blew it wide open with some great hitting. The final score was 9-2 and the Phillies continue to push forward  in what hopes to be a memorable season. My Dad and I had a great time. We talked about a lot of things and especially some great baseball conversation. We indulged in some yummy foods that make the baseball experience unique. I can't begin to express what a great night it was. We had the chance to share in one of America's great past times, revisit our younger days as a family, and stop time for a night to be together and create a lasting memory. Thanks Mom & Dad for a great birthday present.

Sometimes things just hurt ...

It's been a rough week or so. I've had a personal situation going on in my family that I really don't want to get into here on my blog but trust me when I tell you that it weighs on me heavily. I try to be as optimistic as possible and for the most part I am. Maybe not quite to the level of my girlfriend Cheryl but she's in a league of her own. I think I would even nominate her for president of the "Optimist Society". Is there such an organization? I might look that up...

When a member of your family is hurting or in danger it hurts badly. It dominates most of my thinking and it can really cause a depressive state in me. As I said, I try to remain optimistic. I usually go to bed at night thinking that tomorrow is a new day and it's going to be better. Today started out a little sluggish but after some morning coffee and a few activities around the house I went to a noon time AA meeting with my roommate. It was a good meeting as someone was celebrating one year of sobriety. That's always a very special celebration. I heard some really good things and I felt good. But then I came back home and lost any motivation that I had going on up to that point. I slipped into that sluggish state of mind and before I knew it I was laying down to nap. A long nap!!

I got up a late in the afternoon and tried to get going again. I just recently got a set of drums so I started to play for a bit. It was nice! Playing the drums for me has always been a good way to release some stress. I then did a quick food shopping stop and went to another AA meeting. The topic was on the first step. Actually someone read a little passage out of the Big Book from the "Doctors Opinion". It was another good meeting and, for today, just another reminder of something that caused a lot of un-manageability in my life. As my roommate likes to say, "If I have four problems and I pick up a drink I now have five".

As I approach my own celebration of sobriety in July - 3 years on July 18th - I have to realize that happiness and positive attitudes are not an automatic just because I have stopped drinking and drugging. In fact, I still have the same tendencies to isolate and become consumed in my thoughts that I had before I got sober. I'm still learning how to be consistent with the things in life that keep me on track. Consistency was never one of my strong points and I still struggle with it. I know that I also need to give myself a break sometimes because there are things in life that are just not very pleasant. No matter how much we try to see the good in life and experience the joy of living, sometimes things just hurt.

PS. I googled "Optimist Society" and this is what I found. Lets start your campaign honey.