うたぴょんスポーツOn December 27, 2025, Uta joined a training session led by a coach we call M-san, who specializes in geta training — running drills done in geta, the traditional Japanese wooden clogs, to build strength in the feet and lower legs.
Uta is nine years old, in the grade that starts in April for kids born early in 2016. She already has a national ranking from last year: tenth in Japan for the 1000m among third-grade girls. This session was a change of pace from her usual track work.
How the Day Went
The session was built around geta, the wooden sandals that force you to grip with your toes and keep your balance on a narrow base. It is awkward at first for anyone, let alone a kid used to running shoes. Uta worked through drills meant to wake up muscles in the feet and ankles that regular shoes let you ignore.
She was not alone. Other kids trained alongside her, and the day built toward a relay race at the end, with everyone split into teams. Relays always change the mood of a practice. The drills before it are quiet, technical, repetitive. The relay is loud. Kids who were focused on their own footwork a minute earlier are suddenly screaming for their teammates.
Uta seemed to enjoy the shift. Geta training is slow and deliberate; a relay is not. Watching her go from careful, controlled steps in the clogs to full sprint mode on her own two feet in the relay, you could see the point of the exercise. The wobble and effort of the geta drills is supposed to carry over into stronger, more stable running once you take them off.
What a Parent Took Away From It
I liked that this session was not about pace or results. Nobody was chasing a split time. It was about building foot strength and balance, which matters more at nine years old than another fast rep on the track.
M-san's geta approach is specific: narrow base, bare-minimum grip, nowhere to hide if your form is lazy. I think that is valuable for a kid like Uta who already runs fast — speed can mask weak fundamentals for a while, but eventually something has to give. Sessions like this are a check on that.
The relay at the end also reminded me how much she still responds to team settings. She trains alone a lot, logging her own runs and watching her own numbers. Racing shoulder to shoulder with other kids, cheering and being cheered for, is a different kind of motivation, and I do not want to let that get crowded out by solo training as she gets older.
Afterward I did not ask her about times or placings. I asked if the geta were hard to run in, and she said they were, and that she wants to try them again. That is the right answer for a session like this — not a result, just willingness to come back and do the odd, uncomfortable thing again.
Next up is back to her normal training block, but I would not be surprised if geta drills show up again every so often. The video has the full session, drills and relay included, if you want to see how it looked.