Inokuchi Akuri | |
---|---|
Born | January 12, 1871 Akita |
Died | March 26, 1931 |
Other names | Inoguchi Aguri, Fujita Akuri, Akuri Inokuchi |
Occupation | Physical educator |
Inokuchi Akuri (井口阿くり) (January 12, 1871 – March 26, 1931) was a Japanese physical educator.
Inokuchi Akuri was born in Akita Prefecture. Sponsored by the Japanese government,[1] she attended Smith College and Wellesley College,[2] and studied physical education with Senda Berenson[3][4] at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, founded by Mary Tileston Hemenway.[5] "There is a great desire to make women strong in Japan," she explained to a Boston newspaper in 1901, "and so my government sent me over here to study how to increase our women's strength."[6]
Inokuchi was a teacher in Tokyo before her time in the United States.[7] On her return to Japan in 1903, Inokuchi taught physical education at Girls' High School in Tokyo,[8][9] and introduced a women's exercise costume of bloomers and middy blouses and calf-length skirts, for comfortable vigorous movement.[10][11][12] She published a report, Taiiku no riron oyobi jissai (Theory and Practice of Physical Education) in 1906.[4] She is considered one of the pioneers of women's modern physical education in Japan.[13]
Inokuchi also taught in the imperial household for a time, and was head of a girls' school in Taipei.[14]
Inokuchi married in 1911, and was known as Fujita Akuri.[15] The couple spent a brief time living in San Francisco, and in the 1920s she traveled to London as a tutor. She died in 1931, aged 60 years.