guru 'Duke' Saraye's Ministry of Silly Walks

[Taro Toporific]

"I want money, I want to be popular and adored but what I want most is to build a 'Walking Paradise'"
Walking craze gathers pace across JapanAPF / 02 March 2004 1245 hrs
TOKYO: The flailing arms, high kicks, twists and crouches may look eccentric, but the walking style of exercise guru Duke Saraye is sweeping Japan with its unique mix of yoga, ballet, aerobics and other Oriental and Western ideas.... The moves, which would doubtless win approval from legendary British comedy group Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walks, include energetic high-stepping, leg swinging and shoulder rolls, as well as flowing hand movements .... flung their arms in the air, chanting "Pink, gold!"....Saraye, whose real first name is Takuya but is better known as "Duke," claims to be a descendant of a mountain ascetic who served Emperor Go-Daigo (1288-1339).

[kurohinge1]

Could this be the government's secret way of training citizens for thenew look navy ...

[Captain Japan]

Walking back to happiness
Japan Times

Ever since the 1970s, when "jazzercise" and jogging became a national craze, America has trotted out a long list of health gurus, with Richard "Sweatin' to the Oldies" Simmons, Jane Fonda, Cindy Crawford and Paula Abdul among those going gold with their exercise videos.

Now, though, Japanese fitness buffs finally have a honed knight in shining armor of their very own.

Or rather, a duke in shiny Spandex. Duke Saraie, that is: a 50-year-old former model from Wakayama Prefecture, near Osaka in western Japan, on a crusade to get Japan in shape with a system of walking he humbly calls "Dukeswalk."

"Japanese people can't walk. They take tiny little steps," he said during a break midway through a recent two-hour evening class in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward. Walking beautifully, on the other hand, is achieved with broad steps, swaying of the shoulders, a ramrod posture. But Duke was quick to deny that learning to move like a catwalk star should be a chore. "I make it fun."

Women, he says, account for almost all of them. ("Japanese men aren't conscious of a need to learn walking.") And that female-to-male ratio seems to suit Duke just fine, thank you, judging by the proceedings at the Shibuya class.

[Taro Toporific]

"Japanese people can't walk. They take tiny little steps," he said

Some years ago I bumped Duke in Harajuku on the street corner by La Foret. I knew nothing about him but as a gate-challeged person I was COMPELLED to mention to him that his posture was grrreat. He laughed and said he had been, "thinking about walking" for some time and I answered, "me too." We both laughed, I made a couple jokes about being a quadruped (on crutches) and he cake-walked away. Nice guy and friendly as anybody I've ever met here in Japan. A year or so later, I started seeing him on TV pushing the Dukeswalk Way.

[mr. sparkle]

You could do your own version of the Duke's Walk. Plant the Stick and let 'er Fly!

Great story, BTW. Me thinks you've met every single eccentric individual in the Big T.

[Taro Toporific]

Great story, BTW. Me thinks you've met every single eccentric individual in the Big T.

Hey, I'm a "strange attractor."

Plus, I loooove to smile and say a big "HOWDY" to all aliens.
The bunka-baka, henna gaijins hate it when I ruin their I'm-so-special-cause-I-more-Japanese-than-Japanese-concrete-reality-distortion sphere, hee, hee.


xnew = SIN(y * b) + c * SIN(x * b)
ynew = SIN(x * a) + d * SIN(y * a)
x = xnew
y = ynew
Where a = -2.532798
Where b = -1.384507
Where c = .8821672
And d = -1.427499

[mr. sparkle]

math is the essence of fucked up illusions ('specially in 'Tino).