China promotes Kungfu
By admin on 2014-12-23

The most traditional Chinese sports, the martial arts, or wushu, see its retired masters follow many elite athletes' paths: to coach next generations.

Of course, it is not always true: many retirees also become governmental officials, teachers in universities, or even - to many who want different career paths - movie stars.

In the 11th National Games, with retirement of several wushu competitors, many unveiled their after-competition lives.

Ou Xiasheng clenched his coach's hand in front of a group of reporters after winning his silver medal. The 27-year-old Wushu master will retire after the National Games, and join in a local sports school as a wushu teacher - to train young talents who are pursuing the essences of wushu.

"This is a perfect ending to my professional wushu career," Ou said, referring to his silver medal, as well as his new job.

Besides Ou, many from the Games, such as Zhao Qingjian, the champion of men's changquan (long fist) competition, Cao Jing, who took two gold medals this time, and a few others, will retire after the tournament.

Zhao became a wushu teacher at the Beijing Capital Normal University in 2006; Cao has been working as both a coach and a competitor for more than five years. Another gold medal winner, Zhou Bin, from southern Fujian Province, will soon join them as a wushu teacher.

Although many coaches said wushu competitors enjoyed a range of choices after retirement, to many practitioners - at least, those retired after this National Games - wushu coaches or teachers remained their favorites.

"Teaching wushu is what I really wanted, because I can still make the best use of my skills in the future,” Zhou Bin told Xinhua after his winning.

WUSHU REFORMS

Modern wushu tournaments consist of taolu, or form, and sanshou, or sparring. The taolu competition looks like gymnastics, with wushu practitioners performing combinations of punches and kicks, and exhibiting different traditional weapons on a rectangular field.

Wushu taolu tournament underwent the biggest reform in 2003, when the wushu administration introduced "difficulty ratings" - which accounted for two points out of ten - in to the scoring system.

The introduction of "difficulty ratings", along with the then-existing "performance quality" and "artistic expression", made the scoring system more objective. The reform also resulted in a more fluent performance.

"There used to be a long pause between every combination of movements, but under new rules, competitors must finish their moves in continuity," Guangdong Province coach, Huang Jiangang, said.

Discussions on which direction Chinese tradition wushu should go never stopped. Many believe modern wushu should have more improvements in order to join the world competitions - that includes better costumes, artistic performances as well as background music.

"Further reforms must be taken," Huang said.

 WUSHU PROMOTION

In southern Guangdong Province, where China started its "reform and open up" policy 30 years ago and also the home for many prominent wushu figures, such as Huang Feihong and Ye Wen, wushu enjoys a huge popularity among folks.

However, not many people take wushu as a serious sport event - like bicycles, even though China has the largest number of bikers in the world, few can compete in the world's top bicycle tournaments.

As Beijing missed the best chance to introduce wushu into Olympic Games, the focus of the wushu promotion may change to attract more local practitioners.

Local provinces have taken different measures to promote wushu. In Guangdong, professionals organized training camps for local enthusiasts; in central Zhejiang province, wushu coaches and officials introduced "ranks", similar to taekwondo, to draw attention from more people.

Wushu has also been introduced into schools' educational programs. In 2005, about 30 percent of all the schools took wushu as an official education module - that meant more than 100 million students learnt wushu in schools, the director of the Wushu Administration of the General Administration of Sport of China, GaoXiaojun, said.

"To promote wushu in the country is essential, as it has witnessed the history of the Chinese people," he said.

The Ministry of Education is planning to introduce wushu "ranks" to all Chinese people, and set up local organizations to award the ranks.

In addition, the International Wushu Federation, located in Beijing, arranges every year different international tournaments to promote the sport in the world. By far, wushu is included in all the Asian sports games. The World Wushu Championships are held in every two years.

"To introduce wushu into the Olympics is our long-term and unswerving goal in the future," Gao said, as he vowed to bring the game onto the international stage.

"Modern wushu can not only make your body stronger, but also exhibit traditional cultures, the outstanding appearances of practitioners. Taolu will exhibit more difficult movements, and the show will no doubt be a great pleasure to watch," he said.