Japan Informer

Your Aesthetic Japan Guide

This Silent Drills By The Honor Guard at Japan’s National Defense Academy impress and awe【Videos】

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In perfect unison and/or sequence with dozens of other people, It’s pretty impressive if you can twirl real-life guns.

Tending to enjoy the more laid-back aspects of the Japan Self Defense Force, like its questionable recruitment advertisements and its amusing, crowd-pleasing events like the Best Body Contest, but in fact, they are a military, and are, more often than not, serious people who work hard at everything they do.
Take, for example, the National Defense Academy’s Honor Guard, whose duty is to perform silent drills filled with spinning guns and sharp gestures at festivals and ceremonies.

They are a spitting image of what many imagine the military to be: so practiced and well-trained in their routines that they can twirl real life guns and salute in perfect unison, or in the case of the video below, in perfect sequence.

The video is without music or any accompanying noise except for the sound of the guns spinning and clacking, but you can almost feel the rhythm of the members’ movements nonetheless. The waves that appear as the movements slide up and down the line and are really quite a spectacle. According to the official Twitter page for the Honor Guard, what they’re twirling are real M1 Garand rifles, which weigh about 4.3 kilograms (about 9.5 pounds) each, so they aren’t light. The fact that they are twirled and held aloft so easily is just one more amazing thing about the performance.

The official Twitter account has posted numerous other videos as well, so fans can always get a glimpse of the amazing teamwork of this Guard. This one, entitled, “Kick and Pass”, features two members who are amazingly in sync as they pass their guns back and forth

The members of the Honor Guard are, of course, also students at the Academy, which offers university degrees and a track directly into military commission, and so they’re subject to the schedule of the school like any other student. Yet, impressively, they still manage to make time to not only practice the routine and the handling of the gun, but to master synchronicity and teamwork with their fellow Guard.

Unsurprisingly, the Honor Guard of the National Defense Academy is popular among spectators; they’re known to draw big crowds at their regular appearances at U.S. and Japanese military festivals. They’re extremely popular on the Internet too, as their account has more than 12,000 followers, and the video for “Wave” received over 100,000 likes and retweets, with comments expressing little else but respect for the performers.

“Wow! So cool! I can’t wait to see you at your performance in Kurihama!”
“The American style is more lively, but the Japanese style is much smoother.”
“It’s so cool I wanna die!! I really want to see it live!”
“So much respect.”
“I live in Osaka, so there aren’t many chances for me to see you live, but I definitely want to see you perform someday!”
“I have no words…except maybe ‘Amazing’!”
“Wow! It’s so in sync! When they’re all in line it’s so pretty, like an art form!”

A lot of their skill is undoubtedly due to regimental diligence and rigorous drilling, but we have an inkling that Japanese people are used to being completely in sync with each other anyway. Just think about the “robot dance group” World Order, or university synchronized marching teams. Even shibas get synchronized!Yes, practice certainly makes perfect, but natural talent might come into play here, too.

Source: Twitter/@NDA_GoH via Hamster Sokuhou
Featured Image: Twitter/@NDA_GoH

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