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Radio taiso

This morning warm-up has been around since before World War II. The “radio” part of its name is from when the instructions for each exercise were transmitted over the radio, but today people usually do these movements while tuned to a television channel or Internet video demonstrating the steps.
One of the main purposes of doing radio taiso is to promote a spirit of unity among participants. The exercises are always done in groups, usually in schools before the start of classes, and in businesses before the workday begins.
Statistics show that 30 percent of Japanese practice radio taiso for a few minutes every morning, but radio taiso is one thing that almost everyone we interviewed in Ogimi had in common. Even the residents of the nursing home we visited dedicated at least five minutes every day to it, though some did the exercises from their wheelchairs. We joined them on their daily practice and we felt refreshed for the rest of the day.
When these exercises are done in a group, it is usually on a sports field or in a large reception hall, and typically involves some kind of loudspeaker.
The exercises take five or ten minutes, depending on whether you do all or only some of them. They focus on dynamic stretching and increasing joint mobility. One of the most iconic radio taiso exercises consists of simply raising your arms above your head and then bringing them down in a circular motion. It is a tool to wake up the body, an easy mobility workout that is low in intensity and that focuses on exercising as many joints as possible.
It might seem basic, but in our modern lives, we can spend days without raising our arms above our ears. Think about it: our arms are down when using computers, when using smartphones, when reading books. One of the few times we raise our hands over our heads is when reaching for something in a cupboard or closet, while our ancestors were raising their hands over their heads all the time when gathering things from trees. Radio taiso helps us to practice all the basic movements of the body.

Basic version of the radio taiso exercises (5 minutes).

Y oga

Popular in Japan as well as in the West, yoga can be done by almost anyone. Some of its poses have even been adapted for pregnant women and practitioners with physical disabilities.
Y oga comes from India, where it was developed millennia ago to unite our mental and physical elements. The word yoga itself comes from the Sanskrit term for “yoke,” which refers to the crosspiece that binds draft animals to one another and to the cart they’re pulling. Y oga strives to unite body and mind in the same way, guiding us toward a healthy lifestyle in harmony with the world around us. The main objectives of yoga are:

To bring us closer to our (human) nature
Mental and physical purification
To bring us closer to the divine