Japanese Sports Day

Last week I participated in my first school Sports day, or in Japanese, Taiiku no Hi.

As with many things, Sports Day in Japan is a big ceremonial affair, carried out with precision and full of rituals. All lessons were cancelled on the day before Sports Day, as the whole day was devoted entirely to rehearsal.

The day started off with all of the school factions, or "blocks" marching around the oval in a procession, carrying their block flags. These flags are completely different each year, designed painted by the students from that block. The student band played the marching song as the blocks slowly made their way around the oval and stood in front of the podium.

Next, came groups of student representatives marching around the oval holding 3 flags- the flag of Japan, the flag of Hyogo, our prefecture, and the school flag. Once the flags arrived at the front of the oval, the band continued playing as the students raised the three flags to the top of the flag poles.

Next, the principal and a variety of people gave speeches, and we watched the blocks (who had been standing in their organised teams in front of the podium) run around the oval to their designated areas. And finally, the games began...

The first competitions were relays. A whole bunch of different relays. My favourite relay was a relay where instead of individual runners, each turn consisted of a team of 5 runners, bound together. The first team was bound in a front to back line, with each student bound to the person in front of them by the legs. When they completed their run, they had to tag the next group in the team, who were bound left to right, with each person's ankles bound to the people on the left and right of them. When they returned, they had to tag the next team, which was another front to back team, and so on. There were lots of spills, and it made for a damn entertaining watch!

The next game was tug-of-war, done in large teams of 20 or so , followed by a skipping challenge .

Before lunch, we got to my favourite part of the day, the cheering competition. For this, each block had to create a dance. The students choreographed, made music mixes,  and practiced this themselves. The students were completely responsible for the running of this event. Which is incredible, if you think of how this would go in an Australian school (or perhaps I'm just jaded).

Have a look and tell me if you can imagine every kid in an Australian school putting in the time and effort to learn these dances, and then actually perform it.