Ken Kondo · forty years of morning classes 148 moves and habits · 12 chapters · 6 files 30-day money back

The Japanese Day, Written Down — No. I

Everything I still do for myself.And the hour that keeps it.

Four minutes in bed before your feet touch the floor, five stands from a kitchen chair, and a staircase you had quietly stopped using.

I am Ken Kondo and I counted in a gymnasium for forty years. This is not a fitness programme and there is no Japanese secret in it. It is a hundred and forty-eight ordinary movements and habits, arranged by the thing you want to keep being able to do — get out of bed, get out of a chair, carry the shopping in one trip, reach the top shelf, kneel in the garden and stand back up. Everything happens in bed, on a chair, at a counter or on a stair.

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Still Able, by Ken Kondo

I. Everything that comes with it

Six files, in your email in one minute.

Three of them are single cards you can keep where you need them — one by the bed, one in the kitchen, one in your bag.

$27 $99 You keep $72
of what it is worth
Still Able 12 chapters, 130 entries. Arranged by what you want to keep being able to do, not by the part of the body it happens to use. Every entry says where, how many, and what it is for.
$27
The Large-Print Edition The same book in big type, one column, for reading with the book open on the counter.
$17FREE
The Bed Routine One card. Four minutes, on your back, before your feet touch the floor. This is the one that does not get skipped.
$14FREE
The Counter Routine One card. Six minutes standing in the kitchen while the kettle boils, with a hand always within reach of the worktop.
$14FREE
The Chair Routine One card. One chair, six moves, from the ankles up. The one to take to a hotel, a waiting room or somebody else's living room.
$14FREE
Write It Down The chair test log, your own week on one page, and a page for the things you can do now that you could not.
$13FREE
Total value$99
You pay today $99 $27

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II. The measure

Cross your arms and stand up.
That is the whole test.

In 2007 the Japanese Orthopaedic Association put a name to something they had been watching for years, and gave the country a way to check it. Not a machine and not a clinic — a chair.

Sit on a firm chair. Cross your arms over your chest so your hands are out of the equation. Stand up. If you cannot, put a cushion on the seat and try from there, and note the height you needed.

That height is your starting line. Not a national average, not your neighbour's — yours. Six weeks later you do it again on the same chair at the same time of day, and you are looking at evidence instead of trying to remember how February felt.

Why a chair and not a gymnasium

Count how many times you get out of a seat between waking and sleeping. For most people it is somewhere between thirty and sixty. Nothing else you do happens that often.

When standing up becomes a small negotiation, you start avoiding the chairs you cannot get out of. Then the outings where those chairs are. The world gets smaller by inches and there is never a day you could point to.

That is what this book is for. Not a number on a scale — the size of your week.

Half past six, since 1928

On NHK Radio 1 there is a broadcast of exercises every morning at half past six. Thirteen minutes of piano and a voice counting. Tens of millions of people do it and a great many of them are older than you are.

Nobody calls it a workout. It is the half-six thing, the way the kettle is the seven o'clock thing — and that, not the movements, is the part worth taking. A habit you are proud of is one you can lose. A habit you do not think about is one you still have in twenty years.

III. Inside the book

One page, one thing, one reason.

Every entry stands on its own. Here is one of them, in full, exactly as it appears.

5 · The bridge — if you only do one thing

Both knees bent, both feet flat on the bed, arms by your sides. Press through your heels and lift your hips off the mattress. Not high. An inch or two is plenty on the first morning. Hold while I count three. Lower slowly — lower it, do not drop it. Eight of those.

This is the one I would keep if I could keep only one. It asks the whole middle of you to work at the same time, it happens lying down, and it is the thing that later lets you stand up from a low chair without putting a hand on the arm.

The move

  • Where — on your back, knees bent, feet flat
  • How many — eight, hold three at the top
  • What it is for — getting up from a low seat without using your hands

That last line is on every single entry, and it is never a symptom. It is always a job: the stairs, the shopping, the car, the grandchild. That is the rule the whole book is written to.

IV. What is in it

Twelve chapters. 130 entries.

Arranged by the thing you want to keep doing. Chapter eleven is the whole plan on one page, and it is deliberately smaller than you expect.

Chapter Entries
I Getting Out of Bed — the four minutes on your back before your feet touch the floor, and how to get up without a heave 12
II Standing Up — the chair test, feet under knees, nose over toes, and the half of the movement everybody skips 12
III The Stairs — up is strength, down is control, and the bottom step used as a gymnasium 10
IV Out the Door — shoes, thresholds, kerbs, turning round, and balance kept inside ordinary business 12
V Carrying — the grip, the hinge, picking a bag off the floor, and why two bags beat one 10
VI Reaching — keeping the top shelf, the back of the car, and the cupboard at the bottom 10
VII Down and Up Again — getting to the floor and back, in four stages, with a chair beside you 10
VIII The Long Sit — the hour rule, six things you can do without leaving the chair, and the boring one at the end 12
IX Evening — putting the day down straight, on the edge of the bed 12
X The Japanese Day — half past six, the shoes at the door, the word they gave it, and what I would not copy 14
XI The Week — two things every day, three things twice a week, one thing once a week 8
XII Starting From Nothing — four weeks, beginning with forty seconds a day 8

V. Who is doing the counting

I am Ken Kondo.

I spent forty years counting in a council community centre — morning classes for people over sixty, and an evening class for the ones who worked.

I am not a doctor and I am not a physiotherapist. I have no title. What I have is forty years of watching who keeps coming and who stops, and the people who kept coming were never the strongest ones. They were the ones who came on the days they did not feel like it, did half, and went home.

I grew up with the radio at half past six and with shoes that came off at the door, and I have watched what those two ordinary things are still doing for people in their eighties. Nothing in this book is hidden knowledge. Any physiotherapist in your own town would recognise every movement in it immediately.

What Japan has is eighty years of doing the ordinary thing at the same time every day. That is the whole advantage, and it is available to you from tomorrow morning.

VI. Asked and answered

Your questions, plainly.

Do I have to get down on the floor?

No. Every exercise happens in bed, on a firm chair, at a kitchen counter or on a stair, with something solid within reach. One chapter is about getting down to the floor and back up again, because that is a skill worth keeping — and even that one is practised in stages with furniture beside you.

I have not done anything in years.

Then start at chapter twelve. Week one is ten ankle lifts in bed and nothing else — forty seconds a day. It is deliberately almost insultingly easy, because easy is the only thing that works from a standing start.

How long does it take each day?

Five minutes. Four in bed and thirty seconds twice beside a chair. Twice a week there is a six-minute card as well. That is the whole plan and it is on one page in chapter eleven.

Do I need any equipment?

A bed, a firm chair, a kitchen counter and a hand towel. Nothing else, and nothing to buy.

Is this medical advice?

No. I am not a doctor and I am not a physiotherapist, and nothing in this book treats anything. It is a set of ordinary daily habits. If something hurts, stop and leave it out — there are a hundred and forty-seven others. Talk to your own doctor first if you have had surgery recently, if you have been told to take care with exercise, if you get dizzy when you stand, or if you have fallen in the past year.

Is this the same as the videos?

The videos take one set of movements at a time. The book is the whole thing in order, with the counts written down and a week you can actually follow.

What exactly do I get, and how?

Six PDFs in your email within a minute of paying. Nothing ships. No account to make, no subscription. Pay once and they are yours to keep and to hand on.

What if I do not like it?

Email me inside thirty days and the money comes back the same day, no questions. You keep the files.

VII. Same time tomorrow

Five minutes, at the same hour,
for as long as you like.

A hundred and forty-eight ordinary things, arranged by what you want to keep being able to do.

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Thirty-day money-back guarantee. Do the four minutes in bed for a fortnight. If it is not what you hoped, email me inside thirty days and every dollar comes back — and you keep the book and every file with it.