The objective of this study is to invent an original exercise "SAKADO YOSAKOI-EXERCISE" for the promotion of fitness by applying a regional dance "SAKADO YOSAKOI", and to verify its effectiveness. Selecting a subject of a woman, we measured values of METs (Metabolic Equivalent of Task) at the time of exercise for the intensity of physical activities. As a result, the average value of METs was 4.8 (± 1.2), which suggests the exercise has a reasonable intensity for the exercise to promote fitness. We also conducted a questionnaire survey, selecting 273 female students of J-Women’s University as subjects, after carrying the exercise into effect for three weeks as a warming-up exercise. We compared the tendencies by dividing the subjects into three groups according to their consciousness of achievement of the exercise, "high achievement group", "medium achievement group", and "insufficient achievement group". As a result, more than 90 percent of all of them answered, they could enjoy it, they could experience the mood of "YOSAKOI", and they wanted to re-experience it. Moreover, more than 80 percent of them answered it was easy. These results suggest that the "SAKADO YOSAKOI-EXERCISE" is a pleasant and easy exercise where the mood of "YOSAKOI" can be experienced. We infer from these results that the "SAKADO YOSAKOIEXERCISE" is effective as a exercise to promote fitness.

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Throughout the many years of gymnastic exercise class instructions, our aim has been to enable subjects to acquire the ability to manage their own health, based on the idea that one should take responsibility for maintaining one′s own health. We believe, as stated by Kawamorita et al., that the ability to self-manage health entails being able to comprehend one′s mental and physical conditions and to practice healthy behaviors in a self-directed manner. We believe that in putting these healthy behaviors into practice, it is important for subjects to be able to ascertain changes in their mental and physical conditions within their day-to-day activities. This act of ascertaining one′s mental and physical conditions is what we have termed “self-awareness”, and we have developed the “Self-Awareness Score” as a scale to monitor changes in the subject′s conditions. We positioned the “Self-Awareness Score” as a scale to monitor any changes in mental and physical conditions resulting from gymnastic exercise. The scale is separated into two factors, the mental condition and the physical condition, and its purpose is to provide a way to visualize and understand subjective evaluations.
The purpose of this round of research was to focus on and investigate the physical condition scale of the “Self-Awareness Score” by utilizing physical strength and fitness tests, step count recording, and a questionnaire regarding changes in mental and physical conditions. The subjects of the research were attendees of the Health Promotion courses in the Center forLifelong Learning and Extension Programs at the Shibaura Institute of Technology. The group (all residents of Saitama City) comprised 4 males and 11 females for a total of 15 people. The average age of the males was 53.5 years old, 50.5 years old for females and the group average was 51.3 years old (±11.6). In the period from October 13th through November 17th 2007, in addition to lectures on exercising, a total of five classes were implemented, each comprising approximately 90 minutes of gymnastic exercises.
The results of this round of research showed no significant differences in the mean values of the measurements taken before and after the course between the “Self-Awareness Score” physical condition scale and each of the following items: physical strength and fitness tests, step count recordings, and results in the questionnaire on changes in mental and physical conditions. No correlation between the above items was found as well. This suggests that there is no relationship between the physical condition scale and the measured items.
On the other hand, the results from the questionnaire regarding changes in mental and physical conditions and the “Self-Awareness Scores” showed that subjects both actually felt and became aware of changes in their mental and physical conditions. From this, we believe that through self-awareness, subjects were able to comprehend their mental and physical conditions, and that this can lead to the subjects acquiring the ability to manage their own health.

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The aim of this study was to propose coaching points for the introduction of wheel gymnastics. Toward this aim, beginners' particularities were investigated, especially those which appeared in side rotation. The examinees were 26 university students (3 males and 23 females) who had no previous experience in wheel gymnastics. Skill observations and questionnaires were conducted to analyze the participants' characteristics.
Of the examinees, 54% tended to dorsiflex their necks during side rotation. This kind of feature may lead to a sway of the wheel and prevent smooth rotation. A tendency to dorsiflex ankles was also observed in 85% of the examinees. That means that many examinees could not fix their feet on the foot boards with the bindings. Some of them were unconscious of the positioning of their feet. Of the examinees, 77% examinees could not finish the side rotation, because they could not begin it or because the wheel stopped on the way. The wheel gymnastics program was thoroughly interesting for all, but at the same time, a fearful experience for about half of the examinees.
From the results and considerations, the coaching points for introduction of this sport were derived mainly as follows.: 1) Visible target needs to be used to make the face turn toward the front.: 2) Assistant is to be arranged to help the beginner to fix the feet on the boards, to prevent the sway of the wheel, and to push it in case of stopping.:3) Timing of coaching the foot skill for fixing them on the boards needs to be considered. Players' emotional and technical capacity should be taken into account.: 4) Programs should be presented to accustom players to the wheel, and analogical movements should be utilized for emotional apprehension, which will help in developing the correct skills.

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The objective of this research is to devise an original school gymnastic to the university song and to examine its benefits. In 2006, we devised the ‘J-Women′s University gymnastic’ to fit the university song, which was an instrumental piano song without lyrics. Using 336 first-grade students as our subjects we conducted our investigation during warm-up exercises in class from May to July 2007, and during the final week we took the heart rate measurement (201 students) as well as conducted an anonymous survey (308 students). The results were as follows: a mild increase in heart rate from 83.5 (±12.0) bpm 30 sec after commencing exercise to 102.3 (±13.3) bpm 3 min after commencing exercise. With regard to ‘Matching the form of the gymnastic to the school song’, ‘Matching’ and ‘Partially matching’ together accounted for 97.4% of the results with no variation in the tendency for self-conscious learning. With regard to the ‘Desire to repeat the experiment’, there was a higher tendency among those who displayed a higher level of self-conscious learning. With regard to the ‘Practice of original school gymnastic outside class’, the most common results were ‘After getting up’, ‘To change my mood’ and ‘Organized gymnastic’. These results suggest that the J-Women′s University gymnastic may be highly beneficial.

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