Spirit and Spine
‘Kitohone’ (Kikotsu)

At the end of an old woodland path, there is a wooden gate which opens to a monument representing “Futo Fukutsu” (meaning: indomitable spirit). The Onoda Shizen Juku is surrounded by the fullness of nature in the mountains of Fukushima Prefecture. Twenty years ago, he leased this part of the national forest, after refusing a number of offers for private properties by philanthropists from various other places, and opened the school on his own account. Physically confronting nature, young students experience camping life with members from all generations. They acquire toughness through developing their own instinct and obtaining the power of nature. In recent years, Onoda began visiting schools as well. He vigorously repeated visiting 18 locations in 2009 and 19 locations in 2010. He has been requested to lecture to many students, from an elementary school class with 42 pupils through high school and college auditoriums with audiences of more than 1,000. He gently told his students that based on his own experiences no one can live alone. Then he continued – you can live only where you have people and society, and the trusted ties with them. The key to his health, according to him, was to be headstrong – that means following the natural inner-body voices. He kept moving forward with his wife, Machie, best comrade-in-arms, who underwent hardships with him during a difficult period in Brazil.