Volksport – Medicine according to grades: Radio Taiso makes Japan fit

The voice that leads through the program explains step by step: on the spot you should tip, and pull your knees one after the other. Raise the arms. From time to time she praises: The whole thing is exhausting, yes, you have to hold out, good! It continues! This voice sounds on the radio and from the television – countless consequences. Almost everyone in Japan knows this daily broadcast: Radio Taiso – Gymnaschradio – is part of the usual daily routine.

Millions of people

This Wednesday morning, around 100 people meet in the Rinshi-no-Mori park in Meguro, a district of Tokyo. Shortly before 6.30 a.m., they gather on a open space, a few poor widths each and complete the ten -minute high -gymnastics program Radio Taiso together. It is estimated that 27 million people in Japan do this at least twice a week. So this park in the western center of Tokyo is nothing special. In other parks, offices, schools and domestic kitchens, the radio voice is also done daily, sometimes also in a repetition at later times of the day. Radio Taiso is a kind of popular sport.

What strikes in the Tokyo Rinshi-no-Mori park: Almost all participants are 70, 80 or 90 years old-and still practice with ease. For example, the 93-year-old Tsuyoshi Ueda. “I’ve been here every day for over 30 years. I already know the exercises by heart, «explains the former construction worker. He can do it all at home, says Ueda. But meeting everyone in the park is motivated to get out of bed in the morning. “It keeps me fit!” And you can see that: During the first three minutes, the arms rotate slightly, in the rest of the time the whole body is in use. It is about activating the body, especially for old people, but it is also helpful for office workers if this is done regularly.

Healthy in old age

Ueda wears a bright green sports jacket, has turned off his bike, with which he started at home shortly after six, on the edge of the open space. The workout is routine for him like brushing your teeth, he says. “It rained yesterday, there were a little fewer people here. But I always come. We also did this on the construction with colleagues. ”One always had a ghetto blast with them, and the recording of Radio Taiso was then taking the break.

In the Rinshi-no-Mori-Park, too, the program runs on a recorder brought with them, by citizens’ initiative, as it is everywhere in the country. In the radio program, health experts see a reason why Japanese are known worldwide not only to grow old, but also to stay fit for a long time.

American pre -gymnast

Radio Taiso originated almost 100 years ago when representative of the Japanese mail traveled to the USA and heard fitness programs there on the radio. They enthusiastically took the recordings home, contacted the public broadcasting station NHK and offered to sponsor such a program. Shortly afterwards, the broadcast began – and around 20,000 posters from the post office did gymnastics on the street. Soon the whole country continued.

The idea of operating gymnastics in large groups – also together with unknown – in public space is no longer a Japanese peculiarity. Anyone jogging through the parks of Taiwanish cities in the morning often listens to loud music, to which older people in particular move rhythmically. Although not as part of a nationally staged health program: daily movement, especially for seniors, has also become natural in Taiwan. Likewise in China: There you not only see stolen grannies and grandpas, the pull -ups, pushups and various exercises on the many fitness equipment in the open air. Larger groups also practice in rhythmic defense technology Tai Chi or in the meditation and movement form Qigong.

Good “group compulsion”

In Korea, too, public parks are designed to ensure that people, mostly older ones, act physically. Radio Taiso made it here during the Japanese colonial period; Newer fitness programs refer to this. In South Korea, mini-open-air fitness systems are also installed on the edge of smaller forests or train stations.

It is shortly after 7 a.m. in the Rinshi-no-Mori-Park, most people have disappeared again. Masaaki Nagata is still there, the 72-year-old extends something. “My back has become a bit stiff lately,” he says, but does not look tortured. He just had to do something about it regularly. “A few old acquaintances come across. Then we hunt through the area with self -made paper planes. It always has a lot of fun! «Even for Nagata, who worked in an advertising agency before his pension, the daily gymnastics unit in the park is a social occasion. He and his acquaintances, whom he knows primarily from the morning parking meetings, agree: if there were no daily “group pressure” by Radio Taiso, they would have stayed at home in the morning.