This study aimed to analyze how an expert coach of Artistic Swimming (AS) has faced with her coaching activity through her long career, considering the characteristic of AS as an aesthetic sport. Analysis viewpoints include how to create the movements for the artistic swimmersʼ performance, how she trained them, what kind of support she gave to them in response to such training, and her ideal image of the artistic swimmers. An experienced coach was chosen as the subject (Coach A), who has been the coach of the Japanʼs national team and contributed greatly to training elite artistic swimmers and the development of AS. Life story interview was employed as an analysis method. The analysis of the narrative gained from the interview revealed three aspects. First, Coach A had once given passive coaching because she had felt inferior to those around her since she was an artistic swimmer until her first oversea trip as the coach of the national AS team. However, after a negative experience there, she became able to give active coaching based on a strong sense of mission. Second, at a qualifying competition for Japanʼs national team, Coach A found that the judges gave different assessment from her assumption toward the swimmersʼ performance before reviewing the viewpoint of her coaching. From then on, she became to work out strategies for branding the value of the swimmers based on the characteristics of aesthetic sports where judges from others are important and support the swimmers to enhance their awareness so that they could independently create movements. Last, Coach A pursued the performance that impresses the audience and what the judges expect of the swimmers by fully using her long coaching experience. As a result, Coach Aʼs ideal image of the artistic swimmers became ones who could perform as artists rather than athletes by breaking through the frame of her anticipation and independently expressing their movement through positive acceptance of their characteristics.

    The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused many changes in society. In Japan, most universities switched to online classes in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, this switch might have led to decreased physical activity and prolonged sedentary time in university students. Therefore, the aim of this study was to ascertain the physical activity in students attending universities that switched to online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study also examined the relationship between levels of physical activity and social support. Participants were 822 students enrolled in a university in Tokyo, Japan that switched to online classes. An online questionnaire survey was conducted during August 4-11, 2020 and contained items related to physical activity and sedentary time from the International Physical Activity Questionnaire-Short Form. After screening, a total of 662 valid responses were included in the analysis. The results showed a median total physical activity of 1228.50 METs・min/week and a median sedentary time of 480.00 min/day. Students who were categorized as having low levels of physical activity also had lower social support scores. These results suggest the need to take measures to maintain the physical activity levels of university students while preventing the spread of COVID-19. Sharing opportunities that students can perceive as social support might be one possible solution.

    Due to the spread of COVID-19, it is now mandatory to wear a mouth-covering mask within one’s traditional face mask when practicing kendo with another person. Using a plastic face shield inside the kendo mask is also recommended to prevent the spread of droplets during vocalization. However, no study has investigated the effects of wearing a facial mask on the safety of individuals during Kendo. Thus, this study aimed to elucidate the effects of wearing a facial mask on the saturation of percutaneous oxygen (SpO₂) during Kirikaeshi, one of the traditional Kendo practices.
     Participants were eight male college students training in kendo with no noteworthy illnesses or injuries. Each par ticipant carried out a masked trial while wearing a mask and a controlled trial on separate days while no wearing a mask. SpO₂, heart rate (HR), and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured at rest and immediately after completing five sets of kirikaeshi. The results showed that SpO₂ decreased after the experiment compared to before in both conditions, but only significantly in the mask trial. After kirikaeshi, a significant increase in HR was observed, but there was no significant difference in post-kirikaeshi HR between the masked and controlled. No significant differences in post-kirikaeshi RPE were observed between the masked and controlled. These findings suggest that despite causing no subjective symptoms, wearing a mask during kendo practice decreases SpO₂ and may put athletes at risk of hypoxemia and symptoms similar to altitude sickness (e.g., headache, dizziness, lightheadedness). It is, therefore, necessary to take more care in ensuring safety for each individual’s physical condition when practicing kendo with a mask.

    Physical education classes in Japan between 1920 and 1940 have been criticized for requiring students to attain perfection in high-level movement techniques with no regard for their growth and development, and the use of only a limited range of teaching materials over a long period. It has also been pointed out that the more enthusiastic the school, the more intensely it pursued movement techniques. This study analyzes the ideas and practices of Tobe Elementary School, which was famous for its physical education among the overall teaching materials that were undertaken. The study results are summarized as follows:
1. Tobe Elementary School saw the inferior physique and physical strength of its students as a challenge and made it its mission to improve them through research on gymnastics between 1910 and 1940.
2. While Tobe Elementary School valued gymnastics highly, it was also critical of play and games. Looking at the list of teaching materials, Tobe Elementary School added many gymnastics teaching materials that were not included in the ministryʼs curriculum guidelines.
3. The teaching at Tobe Elementary School was criticized for being biased in favor of gymnastics. As for gymnastics, free gymnastics was highly praised, while gymnastics was criticized for the bias of the teaching materials and the low level of studentsʼ motor skills.
    As mentioned before, Tobe Elementary School focused on gymnastics, but the primary goal was to improve the physical fitness of the students, not just to pursue movement techniques. Rather, they were trying to meet the challenges faced by students living in the city.

    In this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey of university student athletes from the Faculty of Sports concerning their awareness and knowledge about doping in addition their daily nutrition intake and health management. From the answers obtained, we aimed to understand the current situation of university student athletes and considered their problems and future issues.
    The group survey method was conducted for university student athletes (first graders as of April 2019) of one university sports department.
    Students who answered that they were pharmacists were the least consultants when using medicines, supplements, and health foods. Moreover, nearly 70％ of students managed their own nutrition, and nearly half of the students took supplements and health foods daily. It became clear that there are cases where supplements and health foods are obtained on the Internet (mail order).
    From these results, it was clarified that the awareness of sports pharmacist is low among university student athletes belonging to the Faculty of Sports and that they rarely participate in study sessions on anti-doping. Additionally, it was expected that performance would be further improved if university athletes themselves could have solid knowledge and awareness of daily nutrition and health management. Therefore, in the future, it would be beneficial for athletes with nutritional management in collaboration with registered dietitians and utilizing the characteristics of pharmacists support for health management.