国士舘大学新体操部

■Expedition to Finland 2018: Day Two

On our second morning in Finland, we found the climate in this country is nice with temperatures ranging from 10 to 20℃ at most, with fresh and clean air.
 

Today’s schedule is to practice in the morning and be interviewed by a local TV channel. We must get into shape before the coming performances and workshops.
 

We practiced from 9am to 12am, and then got interviewed by the local TV crew. The interview went smoothly. We were also requested to show individual performances, which were not included in our performance. Luckily, we had three individual gymnasts, Takuto Kawahigashi, Yuhei Ishikawa, and Ryuji Yoshimura. So we accepted this sudden offer and the three showed their routines. They did as well as they had done at the East Japan Inter-College Championship in May.
 

After the interview, we went to the lake to row in a boat with Vesa, who is taking care of us during this trip.
 

Because the land is relatively flat without mountains, the wind blows very hard in Finland. Although the temperature felt like 10℃, we got in the boat. For us, it was so cold that it didn’t seem warm enough to sail on the lake, but Vesa said, “This is summer in Finland! Children swim in the lake at this temperature.” No kidding…it can’t be true! But yes, it was true: we witnessed two children on the shore near us jumping into the cold water without hesitation…what a country Finland is!  
 

We also watched more children in swimming suits on the shore, which made us think about the differences between Finland and Japan.

After we got back to our villa, Vesa taught us how to collect branches of trees (the name of which I cannot remember).

We trimmed them into a certain shape like a fan. It is called vasta, and is used in the sauna to beat one’s body to improve blood circulation.

After enjoying the sauna, we had dinner together at the end of the day. We’ll move to Turku tomorrow. There will be 13,000 gymnasts invited for Gymnaestrada from 50 countries. It is a huge event and we’d like to demonstrate the greatness of Men’s Rhythmic Gymnastics of Japan there. We hope you are with us in supporting MRG!