Wow! Aussie writes about training on Japanese team - Long runs were "run single-file, strictly no talking or smiling of course"

jason 00 wrote:

I admire Japan for its culture and values as a people but...I don't believe we are on equal terms with Japanese...I mean all the technology they have now is because WE gave it to them...they were still fighting with bows and swords in the 17th century until Europeans arrived. They deserve respect but they are not on par with us.

This is a strangely self-aggrandizing and xenophobic statement; entirely lacking in scholarly merit, it fails to meet even the lowest bar for intelligent, informed, intellectual discourse on the topics of human history and world culture.

So they're just throwing a bunch of eggs at a wall over there, huh? That explains why so many Japanese runners are very good but none are truly great. You can go a very long way with hard work, but a complete refusal to acknowledge basic physiological facts is inevitably going to hold you back at least a little bit in the end.

haha YOYO wrote:

Standard Setter wrote:

And Salazar got crap for Mary Cain? She needs to read this article, as does every runner and human involved in sports.

Huh? Since someone got it "worse" Salazar is off the hook and Mary shouldn't have said anything?

Correct. Salazar is off the hook because fat shaming is not as bad as beating someone up and rubbing testosterone on your son as an experiment is not as bad as raping him. When your teacher simply rubbed your genitals you should thank them for not raping you. This is the motto of the abuser and the conservatives will say it is a crime to be “woke” when really what they mean is please continue to let me abuse you.

You read articles like this and you can see why so many Japanese folks take themselves into the woods and hang themselves.

Strange, strange culture - great runners...the ultimate Eggs on the Wall approach

Kodokusi wrote:

You read articles like this and you can see why so many Japanese folks take themselves into the woods and hang themselves.

Strange, strange culture - great runners...the ultimate Eggs on the Wall approach

Nope. Really an ignorant post. Please explain why Belgium, for example, is not that far behind Japan in terms of suicide rates. Any idea why South Koreans kill themselves at a much higher rate than Japanese and why Hungarians also do?

it is jogging wrote:

I'm replying to this one in my previous post.

cooptastic wrote:

Interestingly, we so often hear of them jogging at a slow pace, yet at least on long runs they are doing 4:00/km (6:26/mile) pace. While it’s not a hard pace, it’s certainly not jogging.

It’s less than a minute over marathon pace, which is roughly what other coaches recommend. Salazar recommended 45s-1:00 over MP. You can call it jogging if you want. My point is that it’s not noticeably slower than other training programs, even though that’s the reputation the Japanese teams have.

Survival of the fittest, not necessarily the best.

Only 1 person in the world has it the worst. Only they can complain

old news wrote:

So by your logic, if I didn’t get the same size ice cream as another customer, I am now mistreated and people should feel sorry for me. Because any mistreatment that is personally felt must be mistreatment. And we wonder what’s wrong with these super liberal areas

"Because any mistreatment that is personally felt must be mistreatment." Hmm, I don't think I said that, but let's unpack it. If someone feels mistreated my first response is not "f*ck off, you're weak, deal with it, kids don't eat in Africa." Instead I ask why they feel that way and try to assess the situation on its own, as opposed to comparing it to other situations. One good question is "does it negatively affect their life, or the lives of others, if this continues?" Sometimes, believe it or not, I do think people are wrong, and that they haven't been mistreated! If they're bitching about getting a quarter scoop of ice cream less than someone else, then yeah, I'm with you -- they're being silly. If they're speaking out because when they were 18 their coach made them weigh themselves in front of their colleagues and screamed at them for putting on a pound or two, then uh, yeah, I guess I'm on the side of Mary Cain. And I think that her speaking out is good for other young girls in similar situations who might not know that what is happening to them is wrong and is not normal.

Do I agree that there are too many grievances out there to address all at once and there might need to be some priority in actually dealing with them? Sure! But I still don't think that means the grievances are invalid.

Why would any JPN corporate team ever sign a westerner again if they are just going to pen tell-all books? I think Duncan's analysis of the situation was even-handed, but there are a few lines in there that are reasonably critical of specific people (the dictatorial coaching regime, the coach who studied under Bideau but didn't adopt the western ways). If I were the leadership of a JPN coaching team, I'd never hire a western runner given this propensity to air dirty laundry.

sikeloitheone wrote:

tycobb wrote:

[quote]Standard Setter wrote:

And Salazar got crap for Mary Cain? She needs to read this article, as does every runner and human involved in sports.

I find it interesting that people who get mistreated shouldn't care or object because another country or person is worse. You would tell a woman who got punched.........

Shouldn't we find out why she got punched first? If you care for equality and she had attacked me and I punched her back, Shouldn't I be the victim in this case? Or just because women get gang raped in el salvador I should just get punched in the face and not defend myself?

I think the real issue here is this - there are a finite amount of resources available in the world, and yes, your time and attention count as resources.

As a society, it is common sense to use these resources to help those most in need. There's a poverty line, which many government assistance programs are based off of. No one is saying if you make a little over that you don't need help. We just have to draw the line somewhere.

Many people take exception to issues, especially polarizing ones that we cannot agree on as a society, that are shoved down our throats from media outlets that demand our resources. There are so many more pressing issues that most people can agree on - fixing healthcare for example. COVID showed that as a society, we can fix a problem on an accelerated timeline IF we actually agree and focus on it but the rich would rather make money on us squabbling petty issues (the YouTube algo literally entrenches you in your own confirmation bias)

Which is why they were in China, Korea, etc.? And they suddenly and miraculously produced all those ships and planes in the 1940s they used to wage a long war with the USA despite having roughly half of the USA's population? Japan certainly had a history of isolationism but for f*ck's sake don't oversell it. They can and do innovate and manufacture with the best of them, which is why Toyotas are still superior to GMs or Chryslers.

Gentleman Savage wrote:

Which is why they were in China, Korea, etc.? And they suddenly and miraculously produced all those ships and planes in the 1940s they used to wage a long war with the USA despite having roughly half of the USA's population? Japan certainly had a history of isolationism but for f*ck's sake don't oversell it. They can and do innovate and manufacture with the best of them, which is why Toyotas are still superior to GMs or Chryslers.

The Japanese decision to isolate from 1600 to 1853 is misleading. They didn't want guns, that's for sure, because they could see it would upend the social order. But they were quietly keeping an eye on things, and bringing in technology. Dutch traders were in touch throughout, with access to a small base in Tokyo Bay. The Japanese had gas lighting and steam engines in either Satsuma or Choshu (I forget which) as the local daimyo was progressive. And of they generally hadcourse superb craftsmanship, a highly literate and educated upper class, with ceramics and metallurgy way ahead of us.

And, soon after Commodore Perry rocked up and said "trade now or we shell you" and they realised isolation was not an option, they decided to send the best and the brightest overseas as envoys. They brought back the German parliamentary system and medicine and brewing, British whisky and golf, and tech from everywhere. The national slogan was "追いつき追い越し" (catch up and overtake) in that time.

It's interesting to note that Japan defeated Russia in a naval war between ironclads in 1904, 50 years after opening up.

I ran with a high school team in Japan and we ran our long runs, (30K) in pairs in a long line. I once got reprimanded for having my shirt untucked. We ran 30k every Sunday at 4 min per K pace with the coach driving behind us in a truck and giving us splits every K and playing j-pop music through a speaker on top of his truck

1.jayjay wrote:

Japan, well into modern times (prior to WWII), was possibly one of the most isolated nations on earth. Japan rushed to catch up with the rest of the world's technology by throwing open the doors to trade with Europe and in particular the USA.

Btw they're non-whites that I truly respect and that actually want to preserve their heritage.

So cringe. Eww. You think like that? Eww, dude. Eww.

anon345 wrote:

I think Duncan's analysis of the situation was even-handed, but there are a few lines in there that are reasonably critical of specific people (the dictatorial coaching regime, the coach who studied under Bideau but didn't adopt the western ways).

You're right that Duncan was trying to be even-handed -- too hard, even. She really wants to tell the reader that these cultures are different but that doesn't make one better or worse.

But the thing is, the training she describes is obviously sub-optimal even in terms of achieving its own stated goals. You don't have to say it's globally better or worse to observe that forcing an athlete to run a workout on an injured leg is a really bad move both for getting them to the starting line of a race and also for getting many years of good performances out of them. I model the coaches here as thinking that their whole system is a house of cards, and you can't take one card out (e.g. letting an athlete have a day off when she complains) without having the entire thing collapse. But that's a superstition.

I marvel at how boneheaded these coaches sound.