Kumitaiso,

character forming, or bone beaking?

photograph from YouTube, firstly what is Kumitaiso? if you have not yet worked it out from the photograph, it is a gymnastic formation in which students climb on top of one another to create a pyramid, has at the center of growing controversy in Japan, due to the high number of serious injuries reported by schools,

in 2015, a junior high school student in Osaka suffered from a broken bone after taking part in a 10-tier kumitaiso pyramid, alongside 157 male students. Trainers must have known that considering the height of the formation and the total weight of the participants, the pressure on the bottom tiers would be excessive, yet they went ahead with the exercise anyway. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated case; in fact, despite concentrated efforts to have the practice banned in Japanese schools, 51-related injuries were reported between January and August of this year, in the city of Kobe alone. Over the last three years, the number of reported injuries totalled 123, 

above how it should be done, according to a 2016 news article by AFP, the annual number of student injuries related to kumitaiso exceeds 8,000, which is quite shocking, considering we’re talking about a gymnastic formation practised by children all the way from kindergarten through high-school. Still, despite campaigns by parents and doctors to have kumitaiso banned, teachers insist that the formation teaches students important lessons about teamwork and endurance, “There is a tendency to compete over the height of pyramids,” said Ryo Uchida, professor of sociology of education at Nagoya University. “In many cases the risks are being ignored.”from my own experience on my last day at school we did indeed make a pyramid and you guessed it, Robin Goodbody did indeed fall from the top and suffered a broken ankle, a school leaving day we all will remember for a long time to come!