Free Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Chihiro Iwasaki, Dorothy Britton

year and learned this system thoroughly. Many Japanese have been influenced by Dalcroze --the composer Koscak Yamada; the originator o modern dance in Japan, Baku Ishii; the Kabuki actor
    Ichikawa Sadanji II; the modern drama pioneer Kaoru Osannai; the dancer Michio Ito. All of these people felt that Dalcroze's teachings were fundamental to many of the arts. But Sosaku Kobayashi was the first to apply it to elementary education in Japan.
    If you asked him what eurythmics was, he would reply, "It's a sport that refines the body's mechanism; a sport that teaches the mind how to use and control the body; a sport that enables the body and mind to understand rhythm. Practicing eurythmics makes the personality rhythmical. And a rhythmical personality is beautiful and strong, conforming to and obeying the laws of nature."
    Totto-chan's classes began with training the body to understand rhythm. The headmaster would play the piano on the small stage in the Assembly Hall and the children, wherever they stood, would start walking in time to the music. They could walk in whatever manner they liked, except that it wasn't good to bump into others, so they tended to go in the same circular direction. If they thought the music was in two-beat time, they would wave their arms up and down, like a conductor, as they walked. As for their feet, they were not supposed to tramp heavily, but that didn't mean they were to walk with toes pointed either, as in ballet. They were told to walk completely relaxed, as if they were dragging their toes. The most important thing was naturalness, so they could walk in any way they felt was right. If the rhythm changed to three-beat time, they waved their arms accordingly and adjusted their pace to the tempo, walking faster or slower as required. They had to learn to raise and lower their arms to fit rhythms up to six-beat time.
    Four-beat time was simple enough: "Down, around you, out to the sides, and up.”
    But when it came to five beats it was:
    *"Down, around you, out in front, out to the sides, and up.” *
    While for six beats, the arms went:
    "Down, around you, out in front, around you again, out to the sides, and up.” So when the beat kept changing it was pretty difficult.
    What was even harder was when the headmaster would call out:
    "Even if I change my tempo on the piano don't you change until I tell you to!" Suppose they were walking in two-beat time and the music changed to three beats,
the children had to keep on walking in duple time while heating the triple rhythm. It was very hard, but the headmaster said it was to cultivate the children's powers of concentration.
    Finally he would shout, "You can change now!"
    With relief, the children would immediately change to the triple rhythm. But that was when they had to be especially alert. In the time it took to mentally abandon the two beats and get the message to their muscles to adapt to three beats, the music might suddenly change to five-beat time! At first, their arms and legs were all over the place and there would be groans of “Teacher, wait! wait!” But with practice, the movements became pleasant to do, and the children even thought up variations and enjoyed themselves.
    Usually each child moved individually, but sometimes a pair would decide to act in unison, holding hands when the rhythm was in two-beat time; or they would try walking with their eyes closed. The only thing that was taboo was conversation.
    Sometimes, when there was a parent-Teacher Association meeting the mothers would peek in through the window. It was lovely to watch—each child moving arms and legs with ease, leaping about joyfully, in perfect time to the music.
    Thus, the purpose of eurythmics was first to train both mind and body to be conscious of rhythm, thereby achieving harmony between the spirit and the flesh, and finally awakening the imagination and promoting creativity.
    The day she arrived at the school for the very first time, Totto-chan had looked at