JapanNewbie

JSDF Exercise Routine

Posted on 05. Dec, 2008 @ 10:01 am by harvey in Culture, Media Views: 513

Get off the Internet and get some exercise.

This is like Japan’s morning “radio exercise” (ラジオ体操) Japan Self-Defense Force style.

At the very least you will have a pretty good idea how to count in Japanese after watching this. Watch those double 2′s though.

Most of you probably know, but in Japan in the morning it is somewhat of a tradition (though a slowly fading one) to do exercises like this to radio music. It is done in most public schools, in some Japanese companies, by construction workers in the morning, by elderly in public parks, and as you can see, this iron-man version is done by the Self-Defense Force as well.

Does anyone know if something similar like this is done in any other country?

In Cambodia in Phnom Penh there was a huge group of people that would wake up early in the morning to do Taichi in a park… But there is no music making it quite different I guess. I also saw the same in China and Taiwan, but I think what I saw in Phnom Penh was much more organized as a singular event. The exercise in China and Taiwan seemed to be scattered in many different places.

I have never heard of something like this going on in Korea… does it?

Enlighten me JapanNewbies!

- Harvey