Lions Leading 101

Lions Monday rehearsal was totally fun. They devoted it entirely to leader training.

It seems like it's kind of the same thing VamoLa tried of having a pool of multiple people who can all lead. But the pool's bigger and much stronger here: David, John J, Chris P, Mehmet, and me (and I think I'm forgetting somebody?) With that crew, and with Derek and Brian there too and Randy talking us through everything, wow. Again with the feeling like a tiny baby Lion cub for me!

Also had the maddening experience of muffing a solo call that I've played correctly the last 500 times I've played it. Totally nervous and flubbing all sorts of stuff and feeling like an idiot. It ain't ready till it's 100%, not 99.99%. Oh well, all part of the process, right? LIKE I WAS SAYING... I need to work on my repinique playing.

We spent the whole sectional just running repique stuff over and over, and attempting to simultaneously cue our way through a large chunk of the dance repertoire with Randy's guidance. Pretty funny to have 6 leaders all trying to cue each other to initiate a cue at the same time, 6 pairs of arms waving and 6 whistles blowing to a bemused little bateria of 3 or 4 players. But it was extremely helpful. Much is becoming clear.... Randy has a HUGE base of dancer cues and counts that he's keeping track of constantly, kind of mindblowing really.

And of course, I'm still the one playing catch-up on even learning the repertoire. I'm by far the newest person in the group, and a relatively new drummer too, so it's actually sort of ridiculous of me to be in this leader-training session at all, but I guess I am in there because I have done some leading before. I also have an incurable itch, in any group I play in, to understand the whole repertoire and all the cuing. (I usually end up learning the entire dance choreo repertoire too)

Also still feel weird about the Sunday session - I just found out that some of the things I said apparently came across totally bossy and know-it-all, which wasn't at ALL the way I'd meant it. Now I am even more bummed than I already was. I'm pretty sure they don't realize how intimidated and overwhelmed I actually feel about this group. So many of the people are such brilliant players and they have such a huge base of a full decade of Jorge/Boca/Bruno training. And such a rich repertoire. I'm envious, actually, of their 10 years of Jorge. I totally overstepped my bounds on Sunday and kind of feel like shit about it.

It's weird, I'm in such an odd position of having spent so much time in Rio and having played with so many groups there, and also have a fair bit of lead experience here... BUT... also being totally new to drumming, not really all that skilled, and new to this band. I ricochet all the time between feeling completely confident of what I know, and feeling like a damn fool idiot beginner. I snap into VamoLa leader mode and then snap right back into being just a puppy.

I do have to struggle to synchronize my own Rio training and reflexes with the vocabulary used here, 'cause there's definitely some differences. The paulinha/paradinha thing being a good example, and repinicado/carreteiro is another. The worst for me is the crossed-arms sign, which seems to be used up and down the US West Coast to mean "stop" but in both my Rio blocos (Monobloco and Banga) always meant "caixas". I wonder if that's an Odilon Costa caixa sign? 'Cause both those blocos had ties to him. I don't know. There's so many call systems in use in Rio.... Some seem nearly universally understood (the waving arms one is pretty widely known) but I suspect the crossed-arms-means-caixas thing is an oddity of Monobloco. Except that Banga uses it too. Ah, I dunno. Probably I'd have to spent five more years there to have even a chance of figuring it all out.

I also face a unique confusion of Jorge and Boca having taught SIMILAR BUT SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT repertoire to VamoLa, which of course I have been leading very recently. The Sergio, the paradinha set #1, the Gina, and a couple other things are minefields for me because they're so similar they trigger VamoLa reflexes. I can feel the train starting to veer onto the other track and I have to keep muttering "it's not VamoLa's Boca break #2, it's Lions Gina break #3. It's not VAMOLA'S Jorge Viradouro break 2, it's LIONS version of Jorge Viradouro break 2 which is SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT!"

So I always spend half the time in a little mental struggle of conflicting sign languages and conflicting Jorge/Boca versions.

But anyway it was good. It was totally cool and fun, actually. The proto-leaders seem to be starting to bond together into a little band-of-brothers thing that feels mutually supportive, and that's really cool. Brian made a big point to the group about how training new leaders has to be a priority: very helpful to hear that. The other band members were amazingly patient about just playing away and trying to follow all the multiple leader cues. And Derek was his usually brilliant self about breaking down stuff and looping it and catching the little fuzzies right away. I love watching the way Derek thinks about musical stuff.... He's strongly opinionated in a way that sometimes doesn't jibe with my own particular Rio training in little ways (usually in ways that expose some hole or misunderstanding on my part). The whole way he approaches samba is always very illuminating and beautiful to me. And his playing has a light, elegant feel that I find just mesmerizing. I've arranged another lesson with him tomorrow, with Chris & John, & am really looking forward to it.

Hung out afterwards at a little bar that was having a jazz open mic night. There were about 6 Lions there so I had some buddies to hang out with. Jeremy & Uma even offered to stuff my bike in their car to give me a ride home. It was really nice to feel like I've got some friends already in this town. Just hope they forgive me for Sunday.