Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

Hello,

  My story relative to the shakuhachi:

  I have been dabbling in music, primarily guitar since 1990.  Other than a year of flute in grade 6, I have no formal musical training.  I have been studying Yoshinkan Aikido for about 6 years.  3 years ago, a man who used to train with my teacher in the 80's came back into the dojo.  After a few months he decided to move out to the west coast.  Knowing my interest in Japanese culture he gave me a 2.1 student shakuhachi he had (for whatever reason).  I could not get a tone out of it, so it sat in my meditation room for a few years.  Last winter my benefactor committed suicide.  The sadness that drove him to this act, has made me want to learn to play.

  I study Zen with the Toledo Zen Center, under Jay Rinsen Weik, who has studied shakuhachi with Michael Chikusen Gould.

I am currently just trying to get a consistent tone and do some basic exercises that I found on this website...

http://www.wimrijnders.nl/shakuhachi/lesson1.html

I am looking forward to searching around this site.

Rob