# Radio Taiso

- Author: Joichi Ito
- Date: 2004-08-27T21:47:02Z


10,000,000 people doing radio taisopicture via KampoOne of the participants of Fat Club uploaded an mp3 of radio taiso (morning radio exercise show) and I just set it to my alarm clock sound. radio taiso was banned by the US Occupation after WWII along with shogi (Japanese chess), all martial arts and a bunch of other things that were considered militaristic. I remember hearing a story on the radio that the original radio taiso came from the US. When life insurance just started as a business in the US, there was an uproar about "betting on people's lives." As part of a PR campaign, the life insurance companies started broadcasting exercise programs on the radio to make people more healthy. This culture migrated to Japan where now every morning millions of people exercise to radio taiso...

Here is the mp3 of chorus 1 of radio taiso.

Does anyone know if this story about the US insurance companies is true or not?

UPDATE:

The Kampo home page has little animations like the one above and a full explanation (in Japanese) on how to do these exercises properly.
 





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#### Categories

Health and Medicine, Japanese Culture, Music