There wasn't any snow on the ground in mid-November, but the crowd of people walking around the Imperial Palace, the most famous jogging spot in Tokyo, were using ski poles all the same.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='250' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='../images/photos2006/nn20061226f2a.jpg' WIDTH='250' HEIGHT='245'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>Kenji Ogiwara –

, a former Olympic Nordic-combined skier who became a lawmaker, partakes in Nordic walking with other participants during an event at Tokyo's Yoyogi Park in mid-November. KYODO PHOTO

Passersby were perplexed, but what they were viewing was Nordic walking, possibly the next fitness craze in Japan, where many middle-aged people are worried about "metabolic syndrome" -- a buzzword this year to describe excess fat around the middle that can cause lifestyle-related diseases.