[SQiTmhuY]

Saw this being discussed on the news this morning.

http://www.mainichi-msn.co.jp/seiji/...10041000c.html

The gist is that Japanese junior high schools are on the way to introducing compulsary budo education for all 1st and 2nd year students. The central education comission has finalised a report outlining details of the scheme. Among other things students will be able to choose between kendo, judo and sumo classes. This follows on from last years aims to promote respect for traditional culture among students.

The goal of this whole program is essentially to increase respect for traditional culture, and to cultivate a sense of respect for country and homeland. Basically fostering patriotism. Also fostering growth, teamwork and chances to enter into competitions.

Presently 1st year students can choose between budo and dance elective classes, whereas 2nd and 3rd years can choose 2 from budo, ball sports, and dance for electives.

With cooperation from sports universities and local dojo and sports halls they hope to improve teaching skills in the near future and a budget of 5000万円 has been set out to do this.


I think this is a pretty interesting story on the whole. Lots of older people here seem to dislike the idea of teaching budo because it reminds them of the war era. I suppose the government hope they can instill some budo seishin into the students, but I wonder how much of that can be achieved in ony two years of training.

On the upside I suppose this is good grassroots level action to preserve aspects of Japanese culture, which for most young people have little or no appeal. If you can foster some development and growth at the same time, well that's great.

In Kagoshima there are a few schools where Yakumaru Ryu is compulsary for 1st and 2nd years, which is great in my opinion.

Kendo is married to the Japanese school system, so I wondered what kendo people thought about this issue.

As an aside someone posted the following video on youtube, which explains one of the initial reasons why budo was allowed back into Japanese education by the GHQ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLHoBEjEVJg