Japanese Synchronized Precision Walking Exists — It’s Exceptionally Bananas

Jan 29, 2021

With its multicolored bathing suits, swim caps and elegant choreography, nearly everyone has heard of synchronized swimming, which has been an event at the Olympics since 1984. Synchronized walking, on the other hand, is only just gaining popularity outside of Japan thanks to a video that went viral back in 2012. The video, which has been covered by publications around the world, features 77 students at Japan’s Nippon Sports Science University in Tokyo walking in a mesmerizing routine.

According to The Irish Times, 11,000 spectators gathered at the university to watch the synchronized walking performance, known in Japanese as “Shuudan Koudou” (集団行動) or “collective action,” unfold.

Dressed in pink blazers and blue pants, the 77 Japanese students walk backwards, forwards and every which way in strict formation, which is almost reminiscent of the marching at military parades.

The Irish Times reports that the students practiced three times a week for nearly half a year before performing, with some drills involving up to 745 miles (1,200 km) of walking.

In an interview with The Irish Times, the Shuudan Koudou team’s captain, Keiko Suzuki, said that the training was extremely regimented.

“We all mastered this highly disciplined training and made it our habit to stick to strict rules. I believe this experience will be an asset as we enter into the job market,” she told the publication back in November 2013.

“People say Japanese youngsters these days lack the ability to work collectively in a group, but we just proved that we don’t,” Suzuki added.

While describing the performance is no substitute for watching it, you could write volumes about this unique display of talent and dedication. The room, filled to the brim with spectators of all ages, is notably silent, save for the occasional burst of applause and the sound of the Shuudan Koudou team’s coordinated footwork. There’s no music in the original video, and certain parts of the clip are almost eerily quiet.

The team’s movements are also quite interesting. Although walking doesn’t sound that impressive, this group of highly disciplined Shuudan Koudou athletes shows how impressive it is to stay in formation, maintaining the same distance between other athletes, while walking backward. The performance truly is evidence of hours upon hours of practice. 

The university and its students have been organizing Shuudan Koudou performances for the past five decades since 1966. While information about Shuudan Koudou and its history is sparse on the internet, some publications, such as the International Business Times, have pointed to Japanese culture as an explanation for the unusual sport. Japanese people, the publication claims, appreciate uniformity, which is encapsulated in the Japanese saying, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” While it’s easy to fall into stereotypes about other cultures, it turns out that there is some truth to this claim.

In a December 2015 column published in The Japan Times, the Island nation’s oldest English-language publication, Jiro Yamaguchi decries the “scourge of conformism besetting Japanese society.”

“Unlike the Western nations which cherish individualism, people in Japan have a tendency to rejoice in everybody taking the same action and sharing similar attitudes,” Yamaguchi writes.

This collectivism, unity or conformism is even embedded within the Japanese language with the Kanji character “Wa,” which literally translates to “harmony,” but refers to Japan, something that is Japanese or a sense of Japanese identity in the language of everyday Japan. The fact that Japan refers to itself as “harmonious” is already telling. But the word also plays an important role in history. According to Human Resocia Corporation’s Work In Japan section, the legendary prince regent of Japan during the sixth and early seventh century, Shoutoku, included the character in the country’s constitution, writing that, “Harmony should be valued and quarrels should be avoided … when the superiors are in harmony with each other and the inferiors are friendly, then affairs are discussed quietly and the right view of matters prevails.”

To this day, the notion of harmony remains important in Japanese society, as the Human Resocia Corporation’s study argues.

“Group values and the welfare of the community are seen as more important than individual ambitions or desires,” the report reads. “A good citizen is one who contributes to the overall 'wa' and this brings peace (or 平和 heiwa) and accord (or 調和 chōwa). Frequently, commentators on Japanese culture will contrast this group ethic with the more individualistic culture of Western societies.”

With that said, this sense of unity isn’t always a negative thing as some of the aforementioned commentators have argued. And there’s also some indications that the culture is changing.

For example, the BBC reported on the rise of Japan’s so-called “super-solo” culture in January 2020. According to the article, while Japanese people tend to be group-oriented, finding it strange to eat in a restaurant alone, there’s a movement of Japanese people who are breaking with the norm.

Solo only bars and restaurants have opened up in the country, including at Bar Hitori, where Miki Tateishi works as a bartender. The bar, which opened in 2018, only caters to solo drinkers — a fairly big deal for a country in which some people opt to eat alone in the bathroom at work or school rather than being seen alone in public.

“Some people want to enjoy being alone, others want to build a new community,” Tateishi tells BBC. Tateishi adds that she finds the bar’s policy good for solo drinkers who might not feel welcome at establishments that cater to large groups. 

“A ‘super solo society’, characterised by young people who never get married and the elderly who become single again after being widowed, will be the future of all countries, not only Japan,” says Kazuhisa Arakawa, a researcher at a Japanese advertising company, in his interview with the BBC. “It is no longer practical to focus a business solely on families.”

Of course, conformity and collectivism aren’t always bad things. As the video below demonstrates, working together as a group can lead to some truly amazing results. Whether we see synchronized walking spread to other parts of the world remains to be seen, but perhaps we can all learn something from Keiko Suzuki and her team of 76 fellow walkers.

What do you think of Japan’s synchronized walking tradition? Do you think this sport will catch on in other countries? Let us know — and be sure to share this story with your friends, family members and other fans of Japan.