Vol. 16 No. 6 November/December 2019

I
N
S
I
D
E

Voicesfrom theSeafarers
Page 4

JSU convenes 80th annual congress
Aim to spread importance of shipping, fisheries. Provide future generations safe and peaceful seafaring traditions
The All Japan Seamen’s Union(JSU) held its annual national
assembly on Nov. 6-8, 2019
at Rexxam Hall in Takamatsu,
Kagawa Prefecture. On Day 1,
reports were made on the activities the union completed andthe incomings and outgoings in
its 74th year, while discussions
were held on Bill 1, a packageof proposals for activities that it
intends to carry out in its 75th
year. On Day 2, the JSU’s international, fisheries and domestic
affairs committees met for respective meetings. On Day 3, Bill
5 was discussed, leading to an accord on proposals for 75th-year
activities.

At 9:30 a.m. on Nov. 6,
Mr. Toshiaki Kimura,secretary-general forthe general assembly,
declared the opening of the meeting, which was followed by thesinging of the JSU’s song.
After the declaration was made,Mr. Hiroyuki Tachikawa, a member of the Central Executive Board
Committee, gave the opening address. Mr. Junzo Suzuki, anothermember of the committee, reported on the preliminary work that
had been conducted to organize
the general assembly.
Mr. Hiroshi Saito, head of the
Chugoku-Shikoku Regional Of-

Day 3 of the national assembly comes to an end with a traditional triple-shot of “gambaro” chants.

fice, was elected to preside over thegeneral assembly, while Mr. Raian
Morimoto, acting head of the
Kanto Regional Office and headof the Shizuoka Branch, and Mr.
Osamu Yosuke, acting head of the
Kansai Regional Office and headof the Osaka Branch, were chosen
to report to Mr. Saito as vice chairmen.
Mr. Saito also delivered an ad-

dress on the stage, asking formeaningful discussions.
Then, the general assembly
confirmed JSU executives anddesignated new members of JSU
in-house committees. After Mr.
Yasumi Morita, president of the
JSU, gave an address on behalf of
the union, guests invited to thegeneral assembly offered their congratulations.

On Day 1, the general assembly
discussed a report on the activities
the JSU carried out in its 74th year,
and it was approved by an absolutemajority. The accounting reportfor the same year was unveiled,which was also approved by anabsolute majority. When a package of proposals for activities to be
carried out in the following year, orBill 1, was submitted, views were

exchanged on bills that had beenpresented in conjunction with Bill
1. Many attendees deepened theirunderstanding through questions
and answers. Then, the JSU presented its own view, deciding tohave its dedicated committee forBill 1 to make partial alterations
on the bill eventually. It was also
approved by an absolute majority.
On Day 2, the JSU’s international, fisheries and domestic affairs committees met to discuss
Bills 2, 3 and 4, respectively. The
discussions held during the sessions were reported at the plenary
meeting convened on Day 3.
On the final day of the general
assembly, the discussions held on
the previous day by the international, fisheries and domestic affairscommittees were reported and approved. Discussions were also heldon Bill 5—a budget and capital
investment plan for the 75th year.
When a vote was taken, it was approved by an absolute majority.
After the approval, an election was
conducted to fill vacant accounting
auditors and other executives. At
the end of the general assembly, Mr.
Morita delivered the closing address
on behalf of the JSU. When he left
the stage, the customary chant of
three “gambaro!” (Let’s work hard”)
was made, leading to the closure of
the three-day meeting.

President Morita delivers message on 1st day of meet
Takamatsu City has long beenprospering as a port town anddeveloping as a hub for linking
Honshu with Shikoko and as agateway to Shikoku. The All Japan
Seamen’s Union (JSU) established
its Takamatsu Branch in 1946 andhas since been conducting union
activities.
Dating back 31 years from now,in 1988, the Great Seto Bridge was
opened as the first bridge to connect Honshu with Shikoku. In association with the construction of
the bridge, which was completed
as a national policy, many of ourcolleagues were forced to leave
their jobs. On the bridge construction issue, we work hard as one,and the Takamatsu Branch was on
the front line.
Takamatsu is a place of an important, unforgettable fight for us,
people engaged in marine labor
movements. It is highly meaningful to hold our first annual national assembly in the Reiwa era here

in Takamatsu, Kagawa Prefecture,and I am deeply impressed andvery happy about it.
There is one thing that I want tosay. In respect to the developmentof bridges, the government of Japan is promoting various policies
emphasizing too much on road
construction. Relevant shipping
service providers are, therefore, still
urged to face unfair competitionand operate under severe businessconditions. I would like Tokyo andrelevant local governments to strive
to maintain shipping routes andmake efforts to realize coexistenceswith bridges.
For us, seamen who work at sea,
world peace and peace at sea are
the most important things.
In World War II, as many as
60,643 senior colleagues fell victim. Never forgetting about thisunfortunate experience, the JSU
will renew a pledge not to send
seaman off to war again and continue to act to seek world peace

and peace at sea.
As I said in our action policies, Their Majesties the Emperor
Emeritus and Empress Emeritus
were present at the first memorial
ceremony for seamen victimized in
World War II, held in 1971 in Kannonzaki, Yokosuka City, when he
was the Crown Prince. Their Majesties the Emperor Emeritus andEmpress Emeritus have since visited Kannonzaki from time to time.
We, seamen, are always gratefulto Their Majesties the Emperor
Emeritus and Empress Emeritus
for having shown their thoughtfulness for a long time to our seniorcolleague seamen who were killedin the war. On Oct. 22, the Enthronement Ceremony was held
solemnly. I, myself, had the honor
to attend it at the Imperial Palaceon behalf of seafarers.
His Majesty the Emperor declared his enthronement domestically and internationally. Whenmaking the declaration in words,

he demonstrated his renewed desire to always be with Japanesepeople and desired happiness forthem and world peace. I pray forprosperity for Their Majesties theEmperor and Empress from thebottom of my heart.
When convening its 33rd national general assembly in November
1973, the JSU discontinued to support specific political parties, anddeveloped a principle for the freedom of political support. We havesince been working together with
policymakers on both national andlocal administration scenes, doing avariety of activities. We have manyfrom the national Diet and local assemblies act as political advisors to
the JSU. To realize our policies, wewill continue to solicit help fromthem. As such, we intend to continue to tightly cooperate with them.
As a labor union for seamen, we,the JSU, need to work to ensure
safety and protect jobs for on-site
workers on duty at sea and in wa-

Mr. Yasumi Morita

terfront areas, protect the lives of
their family members and improveseamen’s status.
I humbly advise that all thosepresent at today’s general assembly hold discussions sincerely andenthusiastically as to live up to
expectations from on-site union
members and to establish firm action policies.

HEALTH & FITNESS(2)NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019

On-board Exercises
Actress Kaoru Yumi presents the Nishino Breathing MethodB

orn in Kyoto, Japanese actress Kaoru Yumi joined the Nishino Ballet Troupe when she was a junior high school student.
At the age of 15, she began appearing on TV shows—singing and dancing—where Kozo Nishino, the founder of theballet troupe, worked as a producer and choreographer. A few years later, she made her silver-screen debut in Yoru no
Bara wo Kese, playing opposite the late, great Yujiro Ishihara.
Since making her debut as a singer, Ms. Yumi has been active on TV, on stage and in movies. She has won two Golden Arrow
Awards. For 25 years from 1986, she regularly acted in Mito Komon, a popular period drama on Tokyo Broadcasting System Television,
Inc. (TBS). Kaoru has won several awards outside Japan at international music festivals in Chile and in Venice, Italy. In March 2019,
she released a new CD, Jewel Box, her first in 37 years. In her private life, she is a fourth-grade master in aikido.
In May 2019, Ms. Yumi published a book on the breathing methods that anyone can do anywhere, even on board ships, wherecrewmembers tend to be underexercised. The JSU Maritime Journal will introduce the Nishino Breathing Method, which shepractices, in a series beginning this issue.

Karin—warming-up exercises with relaxed breathing

1. Breathe normally, standin relaxed position
Place your feet parallel andshoulder-width apart, and relax
your entire body.
Pay attention to your tanden(lower abdomen). Open yourarms according to the feeling of energy extending fromyour tanden.

Karin are the warm-up part of the Nishino Breathing Method.
• By doing the karin exercise, you can relax your entire body to create an ideal physical condition, called Cho Yu.
• Stand upright as if your upper body were empty while experiencing a comfortable support in your lower body.
• Twist your body slowly, while keeping a straight body axis.
• It is important to relax your body naturally and smoothly and twist without jerking or bouncing the stretch.
• Wave your arms around your body with a lashing movement.
• With natural breathing, make all the karin movements initiating from lower abdomen.

4. Continue to breathe naturally while
exercising the next movement
Keep paying attention on
moving from your lower abdomen. Don’t forget to relax
your knees.

7. While aspiring naturally,
move on to the next movement
Fully relax your both arms. Twist
your body around to your right.

2. Twist body from lower
abdomen, centering aroundthe backbone
While exhaling lightly fromyour mouth, twist your bodyto your right. Centering
around your backbone, twist
your body so slowly as to not
disturb the axis.

3. While keeping arms relaxed, swing themaround body naturally
When twisting your body,you have your arms swing
around your body. Do not
try to twine your arms
around your body, but allow
them to do so naturally.

5. Raise arm to
direction of shoulder;keep paying attention
on your lower abdomen
Twist your bodyaround to your rightfrom your lower abdomen. Raise yourleft arm naturally inthe direction of yourright shoulder.

8. When twist body, look at leftheel
Keep your knees relaxed. Naturally
have your both arms around yourbody.

6. Keep your feet flat on the floor
Have your left
arm on your rightshoulder, and yourright arm along
your body. Withoutbuilding up momentum or generatingrecoil, do so in linewith natural body
movements. Keepyour feet flat on thefloor.

Twist your body to your right and left for one
repetition.
Do each 1-3, 4-6 and 7-8 about 30 repetitions
at one time.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019

HEALTH & FITNESS(3)

Tenyu—basic breathing method
Sokushin (soles of your feet) breathing is the bases of the Nishino Breathing Method. It revitalizes every single
cell of your body, sending energy to every part of it. Enjoy this “Tenyu” one of the most essential sokushin breathings as freely as children absorbed in playing.
Do sokushin breathing in fully relaxed state. Move your hands as if guiding the route of breaths inside your body.
When inhaling, breathe in slowly and lightly through your nose for a long period of time, imagining a big treeabsorbing water from its roots. When exhaling, breathe out through your mouth lightly and slowly, also spending a long period of time, trying to have your conscience and weight descend to the soles of your feet.

I

7. While breathing out from your mouth, lower
your arms

Points to do ‘Sokushin’ breathingmagine a big tree absorbing water from its
roots. Inhale as if breaths were taken from thesoles of your feet and up through your knees,
thighs, lower abdomen. While keeping attention
on your anus lightly, continue to breathe in throughyour backbone all way to hyakue (the vertex of yourhead). Then hold your breath lightly until your breathing traverse through your gut. And then take breaths
out toward the soles of your feet.
Pay attention to all the passage of the breathing inside
your body carefully and comfortably whenever you dothe sokushin breathing.

1. Pay attention to your lower abdomen.
Stand with legs shoulder-width apart
Place your feet parallel andshoulder-width apart. Relax
your entire body. Pay attention to your lower abdomen, and stand in a relaxedmanner.

2. Breathe out through yourmouth toward yoursokushin; bend slowly
While breathing out
through your mouth,
bend forward slowly.

When feeling tension in your body and/or being
nervous, you cannot smoothly breathe. As such, inhale
and exhale in a totally relaxed state, easing your entire
body, including your waist and legs.
As imagining the path of sokushin breathing inside,
actually take breaths in through your nose and out
through your mouth. Do not push yourself to trace all
the passage with just one breath, you can stop on theway, and breathe several times.
Do the Sokushin breathing as if you were delivering
breaths thoroughly to each cell of your entire body.
Continue to do so in a relaxed and a comfortable way.

While releasing yourbreath through yourmouth, put yourarms down slowly
guiding as if yourbreathing were down
thoroughly inside
your legs.

4. Take breaths from soles of your feet

8. After releasing yourbreath…

Take breaths in throughyour nose in thesokushin breathing
method, and raise yourupper body. Raise yourhands, too.

5. Take breaths up to the vertex of your head –>hold breath gently –> have them down to yourlower abdomen
Raise your hands above
your head, and inhale asif your breathing reaches
the vertex of your head.
Then hold your breath
gently until have yourbreathing reach down toyour lower abdomen.

Breathe down to yoursokushin, do the pose in1) again. Do the seriesof actions in about two
minutes.

Institute of Nishino
Breathing Method
Email:
info@nishinojuku.com
Internet:

https://www.nishinojuku.
com/english/e_top.html

3. While breathing out through mouth, relax
your knees. Place the back of hands on floor
naturally
Bend your upper bodyforward while exhaling until
the backs of your hands
reach the floor. When doing
it, relax your knees and haveyour conscience and weightdescend to the soles ofyour feet.

6. Hold your breath, open your arms
While you keep
holding your breath
mildly, open yourarms widely at
the height of yourshoulders.

All JApAn SeAmen’S Union
15-26, Roppongi 7-Chome,
Minato-Ku, Tokyo 106-0032
Tel.: (03) 5410-8320
Fax: (03) 5410-8336
E-mail: iss@jsu.jp
Internet: http://www.jsu.or.jp
Publisher: Hiroyuki Tachikawa
Send inquiries to the attention of
Mr. Hiroyuki Watanabe,
Director, Foreign Trades Dept.

SEAFARERS’ CORNER/NEWS(4)

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019

VOICES from SEAFARERS

C/E Baltazar I. Anical and some crewmembers of
MV ANDES QUEEN
We are thankful to the Filipino staff of JSU. They had
visited our ship at Kawasaki Mitsui Port so as to dispense
some souvenirs and valued information related to theshipping industry. Thanks and see us again in the future.

Capt. Ernesto I. Laureta Jr. and crew of
MV NICON FORTUNE
On behalf of MV Nicon Fortune crew, I would like toexpress our appreciation to you for visiting our ship andfor providing us advisories and information that are important to our work onboard.

Capt. Ferdinand M. Morales and crew of
MV LIBERTY ISLAND
Our discussion with the JSU staff regarding the union
membership and of the ship’s agreement had given us acomprehensive knowledge about the JSU. We are hoping
the JSU will include additional medical plans to the futureseafarers’ agreements.

C/M Glenn M. Calsado and some crewmembers of
MV SOUTHERN HIGHWAY
The JSU staff’s activity in visiting ships have contributed
a lot in understanding of our ship’s agreement. We learned
a lot about our rights and benefits provided by the Union.
Thank you JSU!

Capt. Jose M. Panaguiton and some crewmembers of
MV CAPE VERDE
Thank you for visiting us at Kawasaki Port. Providing
us various information regarding the shipping industry isvery important. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Yearto all!!!

C/O Donjie A. Medrano and some crewmembers of
MV SAIYO
Thank you for checking our working and living conditions. Likewise, we’d like to greet everybody at the JSU
and all the seafarers in the world a Merry Christmas and a
Happy New Year!

Report shows ship speed’s affect on health, nature IMO launchesOn the eve of the latest round of UN
ship climate negotiations at the International Maritime Organization in
London, a new report publishedby Seas at Risk and Transport &Environment has highlighted how
slower ship speeds would massively reduce the damage shippingis causing to human health, natureand the climate.
The large positive effect that
reduced speeds can have on ship
GHG emissions is well known.

What has received less attention is
the positive effect such a change in
speeds would have on nature andhuman health.
The report describes how a modest 20% reduction in ship speed
would reduce underwater noise
pollution by 66%, and the chanceof a fatal collision between a ship
and a whale by a massive 78%.
Both noise and whale strikes arehaving a serious impact on thehealth of the marine environment.
Reduced ship speed means reduced fuel burn, resulting not justin reductions in GHG emissions
but also big reductions in black
carbon, sulfur and nitrogen oxides,
all important air pollutants. SOx
and NOx emissions have serious
implications for human health,while black carbon is a concern in
the Arctic where it is responsible
for accelerating global heating.
“Speed reduction is the closest
thing to a silver bullet the IMO
will ever see” said John Maggs fromSeas at Risk. “Delegates attending
this week’s IMO climate negotiations have on the table proposals to

reduce ship speed that would notjust make a big dent in shipping’s
climate impact but would massively reduce air pollution, underwater
noise pollution, and the incidenceof fatal collisions between whales
and ships, all issues that the IMO
must also deal with.”“Killing four birds with one
stone is pretty good, but when
you add in that it saves shipowners
money on their fuel bill, it really is
a no-brainer”, said Faig Abbasov
from Transport & Environment.
(Source: Seas At Risk)

Cornes acquisitions create leader in global digital, chart navigation
Cornes and GNS join forces tocreate a global digital navigationand data analytics leader
GNS, the maritime technology company, and Cornes Chart
Group, a leading charts business,
today announced the acquisitionof GNS by Cornes. This deal follows Cornes’ acquisition of US
and Singapore based Safe Navigation earlier this year. The combination of the three companies creates
the largest provider of navigation

software, data and products in theworld.
The Cornes-GNS deal builds on
and is a natural extension of thealready close working relationshipbetween the two companies thathas been established over many
years in areas such as navigation
management software and digital
service delivery.
Toshiyuki Kamoshita, director of Cornes & Co., LTD and
COO of Cornes Maritime Divi-sion, said, “We are very pleased to
be able to welcome GNS and its
employees into the Cornes Group.
Cornes is one of the leading chartbusinesses in the world. GNS has
the highest quality software in the
sector and has pioneered the useof data analytics in the deliveryof digital solutions to its customers. There is a great geographic fit
between the two businesses andCornes looks forward to investingin GNS and developing the cus-

tomer proposition even further inthe coming years.”Paul Stanley, CEO of GNS,
said, “Over the last 4 years GNS
has invested heavily in developing
the market leading suite of digitalproducts for marine navigation,
Voyager. GNS’s combination with
Cornes will accelerate the development of Voyager and GNS’s otherservices and will maintain GNS’s
strong culture around the safety oflife at sea.” (Source: GNS)

online tools forbetter reporting
formalities
An important tool used by software developers to create systems
for exchanging the relevant data
electronically has been made available by the International Maritime Organization online and freeof charge.
The IMO Compendium is areference manual containing data
sets and the structure and relationships between them, that will
enable the IMO Member States
to fulfill a mandatory obligation(in place since April 2019) for thereporting formalities for ships,
cargo and people on board international shipping to be carriedout electronically and in a harmonized way.
Overall this helps make crossborder trade simpler and the logistics chain more efficient, forthe more than 10 billion tons ofgoods that are traded by sea annually across the globe. (Source:
IMO)