@ Jorge:
I have advocated playing a little less hard, which falls on deaf ears of rumberos.
There is one clip of Barry's "Rumba en Antarés" series on YouTube, where Amado Dedeu picks up the tumbadora/salidor, and he plays so softly, but that drum is heard because of its low frequency. And furthermore, it is an accompanying part that is supposed to back up the ensemble. Holding back makes the work of the singers and the other drummers a lot easier, with the result of the entire ensemble sounding better. So that was an eye- and ear-opener to me.
Several famous conga players, including Tata Guines and Puntilla, have died of kidney disease, not sure if it was related.
Yes, you don't have to be a hand drummer to die of kidney failure. I don't know about Puntilla, but Tata wasn't a hard-hitting drummer. Maybe he was in his youth, that's outside my scope. But he sure played a lot!
... so I agree with Thomas, technique is important too.
I think, technique is an indispensable factor for anything you do, even for love - even for the arts! It's the Ogún factor. It helps you to make everything you want to do, just better and easier at the same time. And I'm not talking about speed; that's a by-product. As to playing an instrument: Sure, music is the ends. But how do you get there? Exhausted, injured, and still not where it could be? Talking about myself, I certainly went through my berserker period, but I soon found out that for me, not exactly being a Hulk, the only chance to succeed was technique. Control the physics of gravity and rebound, find out how you can accelerate the stroke, how you shape your hands, where you hit the skin surface, etc.. And remember, a good horse jumps only as high as it necessarily must. A hand drum is a relatively primitive instrument (no negative connotation), and the volume range, especially the range where it sounds good, is limited. If you play too softly, the drum sounds bland and empty; but if you try to play even louder than the drum can do, all you get back is a dull, unidentifiable noise - and hand injuries, damaged blood cells and whatever. So my advice to a beginning drummer would be to work on your technique seriously from the start, so that when you're finally busy performing, you got that out of the way and can commit yourself to the music itself.
Thomas