Watching the final moments of a performance by Eitetsu Hayashi is like seeing a marathon runner straining for the line at the end of a race: muscles and sinews glisten under a film of sweat, limbs are a blur of motion and his face is a rictus of effort and concentration after what's often 90 minutes of solid drumming. A Hayashi concert is less a music performance than a spectacle of physicality and sheer stamina. Simply being fit for this job won't do. 'You must be an athlete,' says Hayashi, in Tokyo. 'There are no short cuts.' At 54, and after a quarter of a century as Japan's top solo Taiko artist, the diminutive drummer still trains up to eight hours a day during performance season. When not working, he lives alone, on modest means and a diet mainly of brown rice, tofu and fish. The cost of his chosen profession has been high. Thousands of hours of walloping drums for a living has damaged his elbows and shoulder joints, he says, and running has ruined his knees. 'It's very hard, but at my age I have to work to avoid physical decline.' The roots of Hayashi's athleticism and single-mindedness were planted on the island of Sado, off Niigata Prefecture, where he lived (after a childhood idolising the Beatles - particularly Ringo Starr) with a group of Taiko drummers for much of the 1970s. Initially a sort of hippy commune for musicians, the Sado-Ondekoza group quickly became, in his words, a cult run by an autocrat who drove them to the limits of endurance and beyond. 'We ran a marathon a day,' Hayashi says. 'We got up at 4am and ran 20km, then did speed training around a school track before lunch. In the afternoon we did cross-country and road running. So most days we ran 30-40 km - for three years. We weren't allowed to take breaks or drink water. Now, it would be considered dangerous, if not torture. But in those days that was how spirit was built.' So isolated was Hayashi's life on the island that he says he missed most of the 1970s. 'We hadn't listened to music for so long that when we got back to civilisation, we were like aliens. I had no idea what had gone on for a decade.' The legacy of Sado lingers, not just in his aching joints, but also in the intense discipline that he brings to his craft. 'Those years helped make me what I am, but it was like returning from a war. For a long time I hated even to remember.' During the years since his break with the Sado group in the early 1980s, Hayashi has travelled relentlessly with his 600kg Taiko, performing with the likes of the Boston and Berlin symphony orchestras and rock, jazz and ethic musicians in sell-out shows in North America, Europe, Latin America and Australia. When not playing or practising, he teaches in Japan and the US, where he coaches troubled high school students in Ohio six times a year. 'Teaching is the hardest of all,' he says. 'After three sessions a day, it's less like training and more like torture. I'm just completely worn out. But coaching kids can be a lot of fun. I'm told the grades have gone up since we started drumming. It improves their confidence.' Despite Hayashi's fame abroad, he says his craft isn't especially valued in Japan. 'It's a bit like American jazz, which wasn't valued either. They finally have a national jazz orchestra in the US after nearly 100 years. As a Taiko player, I understand that very well.' Hayashi's performance last March with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra was so stunning that the organisers immediately asked him back. 'The director came running up to me and said, 'What are you doing in September?' I've never had that happen before.' Hayashi will play at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall this week. He has learned over the years that he can drum loudly enough to make his audience forget whatever is going on outside the auditorium and he understands the awesome power of his performances. 'In the past when there were problems between Japan and South Korea over textbooks and history, I was advised not to go to Seoul, but I went anyway and the people who came were ecstatic after the show. The wall between us fell away.' Eitetsu Hayashi, Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall, Wed, Thu, 8pm, HK$100-HK$300 Inquiries: 2721 2332