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Get in festival-fighting shape with Time for Radio Exercise!

A special screening of Time for Radio Exercise will be held every morning from the 11th (Sat) to the 15th (Wed), fifteen minutes before the first screening at Muse 1. Collect stamps on a stamp-card at each screening and win a prize for perfect attendance on the final day!

Time for Radio Exercise

JAPAN / 2003 / Japanese / Color / Video / 11 min

Director: Nose Daisuke

Every morning at 6:30, people gather in a park in front of a radio, in time for the radio broadcast of “rajio taiso.” For just ten minutes until 6:40, they exercise together to the music following radio instructions, and then go their own separate ways.

What is Radio Exercise?

The origins of the Japanese version of this exercise can be traced to Shinto, Japan’s indigenous religion. But the radio broadcast of the then-called “National Health Exercises” began in 1928, in the pioneering years of radio, when a manager at the Postal Life Insurance public agency was inspired by the radio ad campaign of American company Metropolitan Life Insurance. The practice was later used to mobilize the “National Spirit” in the years leading up to World War II. Citizens of Asian countries invaded and occupied by Japan were also compelled to follow this exercise. After the war, the broadcast was broken off and changes were adopted in response to U.S. occupational forces’ charges that it was “militaristic.” But it has flourished to this day, thanks to all the people who gather at 6:30 every morning. For many contemporary Japanese, it is a practice evoking nostalgic memories of summer holidays during elementary school.

—Reference: Takahashi Hidemine, What a Wonderful Radio Exercise

At YIDFF, we are not propagating the old spiritualist traditions of “early morning,” “under the open sky,” or “all in unison.” Participants are free to watch the video, exercise with the video, or watch other people, so that they can enjoy sharing a moment together. An invigorating way to start your day!