WORLD NO TOBACCO DAY 2006
May 31.
5 million deaths per year worldwide from tobacco use.
That’s one every 6 seconds!
Thank you to everyone who came to our WNTD06 event last Sunday May 28th!!!
Big axé to you all.
The video will be coming soon, but let me first tell you about the event.
Click the link below to read the full event report, and take a behind-the-scenes look into the exciting life of an Australian Capoeira instructor living in Tokyo, Japan, trying to change the world!
It rained all day Saturday, and it wasn’t looking good for our event on Sunday. So Plan B came into effect. We moved the workshop to San Chu. A little out of the way, but at least we could enjoy the nice clean wooden floor. I got there a little early to drop off the atabaque and some equipment. While I was setting up our banners out the front of the school, Maki-chan arrived and started to help out. I rode back home on Cafune’s mamachari to get the rest of the instruments, and other equipment for the workshop.
When I got back the room was ready, tables and chairs put away. Uriah and I set up the berimbaus. Next we put up our No Smoking posters around the room. Thanks to the World Health Organization for supplying their offical WNTD06 campaign posters. We also displayed JT’s Spring 2006 manner campaign posters (read below for more), and posters from the Musashino City smoke free area campaign.
At first it was just Maki-chan, Uriah, Hiroshi, Cafune and I, but students were slowly trickling in. It’s good to see everyone getting into the Brazilian spirit, but running on Brazilian Time (ie. one hour late) isn’t necessary.
The workshop started with some capoeira music and singing once we had enough people. Even more guests and first-time students kept arriving and added their energy to the roda. We ended up with over 20 participants!
Once we had warmed-up our vocal chords it was time to introduce the theme of the day’s workshop. World No Tobacco Day 2006, the dangers of tobacco and the current tobacco situation in Japan (more on that below).
Next we started with a stretch and warm-up, and lots of fun activities, smiles and laughter followed. After our bodies were getting hot and sweaty we went through the basics of capoeira. By the end of the workshop everyone knew how to ginga, au (cartwheel), queixada (kick), and negativa (defend). So it was time for a training roda.
Everyone got a turn in the centre of the roda and were able to show off their new moves. I was pretty impressed with some of the first-timers, I must say.
But the fun wasn’t over yet, so off to Inokashira Park we all went to follow through with our original plan. A public demonstration of capoeira in front of the people of Kichijoji and Inokashira. We put up our banners, set up the instruments, lined the streets with No Smoking signs, made a roda and got started.
Despite the terrible weather in the morning, we managed to gather a reasonable crowd of enthusiastic onlookers. A few of our senior students were missing and it become apparent in the public roda. Nether the less, we kept the music and singing going strong, a few members of the audience jumped in, and some of our first-timers had a go of capoeira in front of the group of around a hundred curious bystanders.
Some of the smooth moves from our special guest Cesar Maruyama (all the way from Sao Paulo, Brazil via Mitsukaido, Ibaraki) and Caçapa got the crowd cheering.
We closed the roda with the final act for our World No Tobacco Day 2006 event. We handed out plastic bags, and urged smokers to dispose of their cigarrette butts thoughtfully. Going one step further, members of Bantus Capoeira Japan walked around Inokashira Park to pick up cigarette butts carelessly discarded by mindless smokers on their way spreading their deadly poisonous clouds of smoke and gas amongst the young and innocent!
Phew!
Next it was time to go party Japanese Izakaya style and enjoy a well earned meal!
Click here to see our photos.
From the diary of Caçapa, Bantus Capoeira Japan’s head instructor.
Leading up to our event last Sunday I took on the responsibility of researching tobacco, and what Japan is doing to reduce its widespread use.
Here’s what happened last Thursday 25th May, 2006 and some of my thoughts on tobacco use.
What started out just like any other Thursday morning turned out to be a little out of the ordinary.
I headed off to my part-time English teaching job in Yoyogi Uehara only to find that they were closed for the day and I didn’t have anyone to teach.
Anyway, I had a quick chat with one my coworkers in the staff room. I told her about our event on the 28th, and left her a WNTD2006 poster to put up in the building. Realizing I had the rest of the day free I thought I better make the most of it. I hopped onto the internet and checked the JT (Japan Tobacco) website. I noticed the link to the Tobacco & Salt Museum in Shibuya. I’d never been there before, so I thought I’d pay them a friendly visit.
My real reason to go there was to get some materials for our WNTD event on Sunday. They couldn’t give me flyers, but were able to give me directions to the JT building in Toranomon. 10 minutes fiddling with their printer later, and I set off back to Shibuya station to hop onto the Ginza line with map in hand.
If Japan is “Smoker’s Heaven” as they say, then I was about to visit it’s Mecca. Actually, it felt more like I was about to visit the office of the devil.
I made it to the JT building in Toranomon only to be confronted with my first challenge, finding the front desk in this huge monolith of steel, glass, and concrete, ashtrays next to every bench, on every table, and in every corner. A quick scan of the floor guide revealed that reception for JT was on the 16th floor. Upon arriving on the 16th floor, I immediately noticed a friendly secruity guard in the place of a friendly reception desk. The secruity guard told me to go to the 22nd floor. I got on another elevator that opened onto the spacious JT building reception and public meeting area. I approached the recption desk, introduced myself, and asked them if they had any material I could use to promote their Smoking Manner Campaign at our World No Tobacco Day event.
The receptionist repeated my request back to me “Errr, excuse me? World No Tobacco Day? And what exactly do you want?”
I told them I was after some of their Smoking Manner Campaign flyers or posters to use at our WNTD2006 event. She told me to take a seat in the waiting area and she’d get back to me.
At this stage I was feeling a little worried. Altohugh my mission wasn’t nearly as ground breaking as Jeffrey Wigand’s of The Insider Hollywood movie fame. I did feel a little like Michael Moore when he goes into K-Mart in Bowling for Columbine.
Movie Trailer for The Insider here and here.
About 10 minutes later the recpetionist approached me with a piece of paper with a phone number to call. She told me she couldn’t help me, but perhaps someone in the Social Environment Creation Division could. Although she was perfectly bi-lingual and she could tell my Japanese was anything but perfect that was as far as she was going to help me.
I pulled out my mobile phone, and despite the battery having only a few minutes left, I thought I’d give it my best shot to get the material I was after. I called the number and through my broken Japanese managed to get put on hold two times, and eventually got in contact with Mr. Masato Okubo, Deputy Manager of Social Environment Creation Division Tobacco Business Headquarters.
Mr. Okubo was a nice guy, married (with kids I assume), played Rugby in his younger days, spoke more English than I spoke Japanese, and was willing to hear my request.
He meet me in the reception/meeting area. We took a seat at one of the many meeting tables, supplied with ashtrays of course. Mr. Okubo was kind enough not to light up while talking with me. I told him about the event I had planned, he seemed interested in capoeira and even knew about its history. He presented me with a huge JT Smoking Manner poster, and some portable ashtrays. Our meeting was brief, and in broken English and Japanese we managed to communicate on a superficial level at best.
JT’s view is people should be allowed to smoke where ever they wish as long as it doesn’t bother non-smokers. Smokers should dispose of their cigarette butts in portable ashtrays, but shouldn’t smoke as they walk around the city. JT wants smokers to enjoy tobacco use.
That’s all fair enough, but who on earth would be able to enjoy smoking their way to cancer of the anus, dying of a stroke at the age of 30, or at the very least having bad breath, yellow teeth, and stinky hair!
I’m personally shocked that the majority of high-profile capoeira instructors in Tokyo openly smoke before and after capoeira classes and events. I’ve even been to outdoor rodas where people in the bateria were puffing on a cancer stick while playing the atabaque or pandeiro. I believe as capoeira instructors, or any kind of dance, sports or martial arts instructor we have a responsibility to provide a positive and healthy role model to our students.
What’s going on!? Does this happen all over the world? Does your capoeira instructor allow smoking before and after capoeira class?
Maybe it’s just a Japanese thing. At one of the studios where we have capoeira class in Tokyo, we have to put up with the 2nd hand smoke coming from the ballet teachers downstairs. These ladies have smoko breaks between teaching their kids the graceful and delicate movements of ballet!! Shocking to say the least, yet the mothers of these innocent kids put up with this kind of irresponsible behaviour!
The next day I put up some info (see below) about the dangers of tobacco use and was overjoyed to hear the next week four people in my office where on their path to quiting smoking.
So to sum up, if you have a friend, family member, capoeira instructor, or member of your capoeira group that smokes, print out the material below, and convince them to break the habit. QUIT today!
Click the images to download the PDF files.
WNTD2006 materials Some must-read documents on this page.
More videos and information from The National Tobacco Campaign, Australia.
It was delightful to read this information.
I have a desire to see smokers stop that habit.
I want to build a quit for your life complex.
I know it’s a hard habit but with God all things are possible.
I believe that breaking the habit and staying off is possible.
thanks for your positive comments. I hope you get involved with the next World No Tobacco Day event wherever you are in the world. Good luck!
Good on you Marcello, give it your best.