Just came back from a Gospel music workshop at Sapporo. Went May 1st -5th. All in all a good time... I even sang a solo, go figure. It was all worth it just to see Japanese people just let loose and dance, or try to. Reminded me a lot of that one Virgin TV commercial from a few years back with that Asian dude saying something like "I'm tired of people thinking Asian people can't dance. Feel my groove," and then proceeded to dance like Puff Daddy, which sorta looks like the Chubby Checkers twist.

I guess having rhythm is a prereq for the ability to dance. And yeah, most Japanese people don't have it. Recently, our church here in Date, started contemporary worship music. So, there are times when we're called to clap on the off beat. Well, for the first 3 minutes or so, we've got clapping on the on and off beat... even when the tambourine is beaten on the off beat to help out. Reminds me of one time at AACF large group when Dave Wang was leading worship... some people were clapping on the on beat while some others were clapping on the off beat, and he just stops playing and singing, and goes, "Ok, ok, we're gonna learn how to clap on the off beat tonight."

The relationship between rhythm and Asian people is strange though because it's almost completely non-existent, until you put it in the form of a video game. DDR, that one stupid DJ game with the stupid mini keyboard, and out here in Japan there's a maracas game and a tambourine game... there's even a Taiko drum game that's out on Playstation 2. I beginning to think all these rhythm video games are the result of the Japanese government planning on creating a super-generation of Japanese people with super-rhythmic skills to... take over the world. Sorry, I couldn't really think of a reason that'd make sense, but I dunno taking over the world worked well for Pinky and the Brain, why not the Japanese government led by the Great Sasuke?