Liikuva Koulu Päivät 2022

Liikuva Koulu Päivät is Finnish for Schools Sports day. This event, held in early May 2022 by Vantaan kaupunki for all the schools in the municipality started back in the early years of the 2000's and has become an annual event. It is intended to give all local school kids the chance to go and try out lots of different hobbies and activities, in the hope of inspiring the new generation to become more active and stay fitter and healthier for their own goods as well as for that of society as a whole.

On the flip side, this is also partly due to fitness and health problems highlighted by research into the condition of military recruits, because Finland still has a largely conscript army for which all young boys (18-19) are required to serve for a short period of time. I heard about the first research programme and general decline of kids fitness back in the 1990's from a friend and colleague who was conducting the research. Since then the situation has become progressively worse, from around 40% rate of unfit recruits, to now with the majority of kids (over 60%) being unfit for service.

Lii-Kan Jitsu club first participated in 2014 and again in 2015, which are provided for free by the participating clubs. You can read a testimony from Tarja Malmi-Raike, one of the class teachers of a school that attended the 2014 event. The following video is from the 2015 event, where as you can see, I managed to teach the whole day whilst still nursing a broken leg!

A local school also hired us a few years ago to teach our (now SeTs ry) 'Dynamic Physical Education' class/programme to the entire school (lower & upper) in the Autumn and Winter terms, following from our demo we did for them as part of the Suomi 100, centenary independence celebrations. Several of the classes include up to 40 student, which is always a challenge for a single teacher. Whilst class teachers were present and even assisting as my 'Crash test Dummy' on occasion, they mostly just sat it out in the wings and had a holiday! See embedded video below.

We have been away and moving about for a few years, but this year in 2022, we were back in action at the Rajatorpan kalliosuoja, a Bomb Shelter (Pieni tatame) converted for sports use, particularly for martial arts ranging from Paini, Judo and MMA to several other traditional arts. There are now four sizeable matted areas/halls there, and SeTs ry (commercial association), is running afternoon self-defense classes this year in the Väli-Tatame hall on behalf of Vantaan kaupunki as part of their 'low threshold' (Matala kynnyksen) activities for kids. Other SeTs ry activities include parkour classes at local schools, using their own sports hall facilities, part of the Matala Kynnyksen programme, now in its third year, the pilot scheme having been initiated in the winter of 2021 with a heavy focus on Parkour, the latest kiddies fad, and now an extended programme in the 22-23 season, that includes Parkour, Self-defense and Personal Trainer fitness and strength classes..

The Liikuva koulu 2022 event also went well, and the largest class included around 20 kids from Martinlaakso school. You can watch a video of the Activity Highlights embedded in this blog article below. Teaching Highlights and full length videos are available in the private study group forums for club members only.