In Chengdu, martial arts raises kids' confidence

When a sports teacher asked who would be willing to demonstrate their skills with swords, many of the 40-plus kids sitting on the lawn raised their hands.

Two 8-year-old boys were chosen and came out of the crowd.

Donning black helmets, the duo brandished silica gel swords and tried to stab each other. After several minutes of attack and defense, one boy was declared the winner after hacking the other's head and shoulders.

The scene unfolded on the afternoon of March 11 in a martial arts course at Yingbinlu Primary School in the Jinniu district of Chengdu, Sichuan province.

The school was set up in 2008 and has offered martial arts training to its students since 2011.

With the aim of spreading traditional Chinese culture and improving students' fitness, coaching is offered in boxing and swordplay, as well as in martial arts etiquette, the headmistress, Chen Xue, said.

Students can choose martial arts, table tennis or football to fulfill their physical education requirements.

"Only eight students picked martial arts 10 years ago. Now there are some 200 out of 1,446 students at the school," Chen said.

By nature, boys and girls like to play, and martial arts has strong appeal for the feminine gender, said Zeng Ke, a martial arts major from Chengdu Sport University who has taught martial arts at Yingbinlu Primary School since 2011.

Lou Yiling, an 11-year-old fifth grader, likes the course so much that she practices swordplay at home.

"She has drawn many sketches in a notebook on tactics to defeat a rival in a sword competition. Her parents saw the sketches and gave the notebook to me," Zeng said.

Li Zhuoqian, now a 14-year-old middle school student, graduated from Yingbinlu two years ago. Soon after becoming a middle school student, she wrote a composition in her Chinese-language examination in which she said: "I used to be very shy and hide behind my mother when I was supposed to show up. After taking martial arts, I won many prizes in competitions in Chengdu and demonstrated martial arts in Japan. The course has changed my personality and turned me into a confident girl."

Before her graduation from Yingbinlu in 2019, Li, together with other martial arts practitioners at the school, was invited by the Hiroshima county government in Japan to have martial arts exchanges in Hiroshima, Osaka and Kyoto.

Admiring the practitioners' experience, Chen Xiangni, an 8-year-old third grader, took martial arts last semester and has made rapid progress. Her ultimate goal is to defeat her coach, Zeng, in a martial arts competition.

After a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference put forward a motion on preventing the feminization of male teenagers, the Ministry of Education said it would moderately improve teaching methods of sports teachers and pay more attention to the cultivation of students' masculinity.

According to Chen, the headmistress, representatives of primary schools in Chengdu and Sichuan's neighboring Chongqing municipality have visited her school to learn how to adapt martial arts courses for students.

Xie Min in Chengdu contributed to the story.