by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh
A couple of times recently we have seen this man at our local beach, Rainbow Bay, with a didgeridoo ( or yidaki), the traditional Australian Aboriginal musical intrument.
This day we saw and heard him playing with the end of the âdidgeâ submerged at the water’s edge.
My thought was that there might be some spiritual explanation, connecting with the spirits of the sea, etc. A bit of a web search suggests something more mundane. Evidently the exercise of playing the instrument in this way trains the diaphragm and builds the player’s ability to maintain the constant pressure to produce the long drawn out sounds that are such a feature of didgeridoo playing.
So we think he was not just blowing bubbles or even communing with the spirits of the sea, so much as practising, training his body to support his playing.
Of course, we could have asked. But when we came back, he was gone and we have not seen him on subsequent days.
Inspirational thought from this? When you watch and listen to an indigenous or even a skilled non-indigenous Australian play the didgeridoo for an extended period, it seems so effortless. And maybe it is. But as with many apparently effortless displays of high level skills, such as those of a champion sports person, there is usually many hours of practice, training and self-discipline that have gone into that âeffortlessâ performance.
