Listening Training

One way to “train” yourself is to practice listening to the poems without actually playing. This can give various benefits:

• becoming more familiar with the sounds of the poems
• better focusing and calming the mind
• being able to pay more attention to the rhythm, especially as one poem ends and a new one is about to read
• being able to easier recall whether a poem has been read (i.e. especially if you recognize more than just the beginning of a poem)

As usual, the apps in Other Resources or the videos on the Practice Videos page can help with this. You can even try keeping track of which poems have been read and taking note when a card’s kimariji changes, and this all can be done while doing something else like going on a walk.