Sorry for the late reply. I decided to take your advice and start katakana. It is going pretty well so far. I imagine I should have it down by Friday :)

I recorded a wav file of me trying my best to do the whole tongue thing and trying to mimic Koichi. Would anyone be willing to listen to it and give me feedback?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jeffjlhkv4jxmoh/Ra%20column.wav

I have been watching multiple videos on the pronunciation of the Ra column and I am just starting to get more stressed out. In almost every video the speaker says it slightly differently. To me Koichi sounds like he is saying da, di, du, de, do. I watched one guy who said it kind of like La, Li, Lu, Le, Lo. Then I watched a native male and female say it, the male sounded like La, Di, Du, De, Lo and the female sounded like La, Li, Lu, De, Do. >_<

I don’t know why I am having such a hard time with this, but it feels like a roadblock I can’t pass.  Times like this I wish I had a teacher or someone to listen to me speak and give me pointers. Maybe I will check out the Teamspeak soon and see if someone will listen to me speak.