A Reminisce on Japan at the Berlin Congress

“So Jeremy, is your training part of the STAT affiliated societies, or more ATI ?”

I had to laugh.

“Neither” I replied, “It’s Japanese”

***

The Sakoku Edict of 1635 endeavoured to cleanse and purify Japan of any foreign influence - including making it a capital offence to leave Japan. No kidding - you’d lose your head if you tried to leave. Today - just as the civil war still rages in the minds of many Americans - so Japanese remain an isolated people. 

They mostly like it that way.

For example, at the recent Berlin Congress, about 550+ teachers and trainees attended. Of those - can you guess how many were Japanese? 

I counted one.

Yet Japan is home to more than 200+ Japanese Alexscovery teachers. There are 10+ teacher training schools. You have no idea what is going on there - and you are never likely to either.

I also came to the Congress from Japan, but of course, I am not Japanese. I have two daughters with Japanese passports, but that doesn’t count.

BodyChance - the training school I designed over 23 years - is a Japanese phenomenon. It does not resemble any other school in the world* and I have the Japanese to be grateful for that. They forced me to…

“Think Different”

Thank you Japan. 

But how is it different?

Well, we don’t talk in terms of 1st, 2nd or 3rd year of training; we speak in terms of Stages, like the coloured belts of martial arts. We have three Stages - five actually, but that’s my secret for now - and the quickest anyone got through all three stages is 4 years, and the slowest has been 15+ years.

BodyChance runs more like a martial arts dojo than a would-be-if-it-could-be-but-will-never-be medical training course (thanks for that Wilfred).

Japan has developed institutions with training protocols for things like tea ceremony (Sado) and flower arrangements (Ikebana) and martial arts (Karate etc.). These institutions have survived for hundreds of years because they meet the needs of everyone - from the hobbyist to the vocationist. 

As a side note - they are also wealthy institutions, with property and capital that our poverty-stricken Societies can only dream of.

I decided to learn from this model.

One feature embedded into all these training protocols is that no one learns at the same pace. As David Anderson confirmed at the Berlin Congress, science-based research into learning methods is catching up with this common-sense insight into human skill-acquisition abilities. 

The Japanese figured this out centuries ago. 

The idea that everyone can learn a skill over the exact same number of hours is, well. I don’t want to be rude. The Japanese even managed to inject this flexibility into their Universities, which function as a stepping stone for learning, rather than a last stop. But that’s another post.

***

So how do I explain my Japanese-inspired teacher training school to Westerners?

For today, all I can offer you is a picture - go here to look:

https://bodychance.mykajabi.com/bodychance-teacher-training-image

*Sadly, other schools in Japan try to copy the Western model and - I believe - suffer because of it. I did the same thing initially, but after about 3 years, I realised that this model wasn’t working. I had two little daughters to support. I couldn’t afford to be a good boy scout - I was forced to learn and adapt. And besides, who knew what I was doing anyway?