Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
There’s a growing fitness trend in Tokyo, but it’s nothing new really, being based on age-old traditions: katana exercise. Not only will you be taught to swing a sword like a samurai by a handsome teacher, but you’ll cut out stress and extra fat.
Walking down the street near Ikejiri-Ohashi Station on the Den-en-toshi line in Setagaya, Tokyo, Kon Inoue, a writer from RocketNews24 partner site Pouch, heard a strange sound coming from the basement of a building: “One! Two! Three!” in a thick Japanese accent. Peaking inside, she was shocked at what she saw: a room full of women swinging Japanese swords around to the beat of heavy Japanese rock music. What in the world had she stumbled into?
Her reporter sense tingling, Kon was itching to know more. After conducting a little bit of research, she placed a few calls and set out to take part in one of these bizarre new classes. She did this, of course, for the benefit of you, our dear readers, and definitely not because the teacher happened to be a sword-wielding hunk.
Said teacher is Ukon Takafuji, the creator and, ipso facto, grandmaster of Katana Exercise. Originally from Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture, Takafuji started practicing sword dance and fencing about seven years ago. As he was also a physiotherapist, he saw the benefits of many of the moves in hitting women’s “trouble areas” of their hips, butts and upper arms.
Why not take this fun, toning and historically relevant dance and turn it into an exercise class for women, he thought? Takafuji ran with the idea and now has over 100 students attending his classes in Tokyo.
Takafuji maintains that, over the period of a three-month course, participants can lose up to four kilograms and five percent of their body fat, not to mention significantly shaping up those legs and arms. For the sake of safety (lost appendages do not count as weight loss, after all), the class is all done with the use of imitation katanas made of foam and wood and mainly consists of following a series of basic moves set to music.
The 10 basic moves include an “aiming posture,” “straight cut,” “diagonal slash,” and “third-level thrust” (the special move of Okita Soji, a famous historical swordsman). In addition, the students do some sumo-like exercises like the high-leg stomp that the wrestlers do in the ring prior to their bouts.
Each class is 70 minutes long and you’d better believe you’ll work up a good sweat; Inoue-san confesses that she had to take a quick squat break when the teacher wasn’t looking.
After class, Inoue-san asked some other students about their experiences and what brought them to the class. One explained that before joining up she was running by herself as a means of exercising, “but getting nowhere”. She now attends the Katana Exercise class three times a week and states that her pre-existing shoulder pains have all but vanished as a result.
“At my normal gym, I couldn’t do dancing,” commented another breathless sword swinger. “Plus, I have an interest in traditional culture, so I chose this.”
Great exercise and opening doors to new hobbies and interests, you couldn’t ask for more. Well, you could ask for a few more lessons to be included in the 8,000 yen asking price, which currently only covers three classes.
Then again, 8,000 yen isn’t that much for a class that “makes you feel as if you became a samurai!” I think there’s a small place in all our hearts that wants to be a samurai.
Ladies, if you don’t want to commit quite yet, you can try a free trial lesson (3,500 yen value), by just signing up on the website, which is conveniently also in English!
As for all you men who may be feeling left out here, worry not: while all of the classes are women-only, there is a special men’s day once a month, so you can try it out and see what all the fuss is about.
You can check out Ukon Takafuji’s Katana Exercise class here: Kubo Building B1F, 1-7-4 Ohashi, Meguro-ku, Tokyo. Tel: 03-6415-8051 (11:00-18:00 Weekdays) Classes: Lunch time: Thursday, Saturday: 1:30 PM- 2:45 PM; Evening: Monday-Thursday 7:45 PM- 9 PM; Friday 8:15 PM-9:30 PM
Source: Katana Exercise
Read more stories from RocketNews24. -- Don’t like drinking with the boss? No Promotion For You -- Want to Grow a Bonsai Tree? There’s an App for That -- Noodle-tossing bunny is the most random, hypnotic Vine you’ll see today
© Japan Today
18 Comments
Login to comment
keika1628
Audrey Akcasu
Think I'll take a rain check on these classes.
sensei258
All you need is for one student to get careless and...
katsu78
Theoretically someone could maybe put someone's eye out if they were super careless and unlucky, but it's very unlikely.
I guess for me the thing is, if you're using wood/foam weapons, you're hardly going to get any weight from them. So there's little effective difference between exercising with the imitation weapon and regular calisthenic exercise without a prop. So all the weapon adds is a "cool factor". And if the cool factor is enough to get you into an exercise class, why not jump in whole hog and take an actual sparring class?
Thunderbird2
What? In Tokyo?! Gasp!!
It's a nice idea for an exercise class... better than a gym full or posers, and teaches you the basics of Japanese swordplay. Nice.
Shumatsu_Samurai
Couldn't they just do iaido?
daito_hak
Being a lont time practitioner of an old Japanese martial art (Bujutsu not Budo) which has also technics of Ken-Jutsu (fighting with Katana), I am desperate to see this country systematically ruining what is one of the richest cultural aspect of Japan. Using old martial arts to do aerobic is sad as it just makes people believe that a Katana sword is just a toy.
And what is more sad is seeing those ridiculous frail clowns making money entertaining some silly women who should better go to practice a real martial art if they want to combat stress while studying traditional culture. And not contributing to the disappearance of traditional martial arts by lacking the courage to practice a real martial art.
nath
Some people here seem to be missing the point that these women are doing this as a self-defense course, or to learn a martial art, it's an exercise course.
daito_hak
@Strangerland
We know that (I am guessing that what you intended to write is not what is written above).
And that's my all point, I am rather against to use any martial art related or derived practice for a purpose which denature the art, particularly as a fashion trend where a few dudes makes money with it. There are zillions of ways to exercise, including doing a real martial art, but this is just silly.
And if you would be careful when reading the article above, you would notice the confusion with some people as one of them states that she chose this because she couldn't do dancing and has an interest in traditional culture. Well no this is not traditional culture as she indirectly means the art of sword. And this the danger with those deviations, they tend to make believe people that they are doing a martial art but they really don't and as they continue to believe this, the original martial art diapers because people think they are practicing it but in fact they do completely unrelated things.
Do you understand, is that clear to you?
Thunderbird2
daito-hak... that sounds just a wee bit like snobbery. I mean how dare those ladies enjoy themselves play-acting with foam swords while keeping themselves fit. So it's silly, so what?
katsu78
Daito_hak, first of all I'm saying this with the highest of respect. I have nothing but regard for people who choose to put in the effort needed to master these traditional arts. That said, I don't think we need to treat the traditional approach as the only way to deal with these arts. I've practiced martial arts in Japanese dojos and American schools, and frankly I found my Japanese dojos lacking. My training in Japan tended to revolve around constant repetition of forms with very little explicit discussion of the history, philosophy, or even functionality of the art being trained. And there was far more bullying from the upper ranks on the lower ranks than was necessary.
Now some people are going to enjoy Japanese arts taught in the traditional style, but given how in decline these traditional styles are today, we can see they aren't for everyone. Meanwhile we're seeing historical European martial arts resurging across Europe and North America, and I think a big part of why that's happening is because the people who teach these arts feel free to let their students approach them in a wide variety of ways. I'd agree that the sort of exercise in this story is probably pointless and it should not be suggested that it represents any useful practice of using swords, but I would like to see more flexible approaches to these traditional arts emerge in Japan. I really think if these arts don't adapt, they're going to die.
The Principle
It should be illegal for a company to declare that a thing is trending or growing without providing true statistics to prove it is.
And there are many other lies in print that need combating as well. It is extremely difficult to navigate this sea of media BS and its detrimental to society.
nath
This doesn't denature it at all. It's exercise, in a manner that the women like.
As Thunderbird said, your comments just come across as snobbery. If you don't to exercise this way, don't. Nothing else with someone doing so.
OldHawk
Wooden practice swords are used by beginning and intermediate students of shinkendo, with the weight increasing as you work your way towards a real sword. Having swung the wooden swords in shinkendo classes for a few years (back when I was a young hawk), I can attest that you certainly will get weight from them. Especially in an hour-long class.
Tahoochi
Some people will come up with anything to make a buck. More power to them I guess, if it puts bread on the table.
kwabish
Meanwhile, China, SK and NK are accusing this as evidence of the rearming and remilitarization of Japan...
Fagui Curtain
Mr Noidall please stop your sword-id jokes
WilliB
Sounds like the Iaido version of boxercise. Probably good exercise, but swinging metal objects in large groups sounds like an accident waiting to happen.