Martial arts students from Yantai perform at Beijing 2022 opening ceremony

Students from Zhonghua Martial Art School in Laizhou, Yantai city in East China's Shandong province wowed all in attendance at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics with their martial arts performance taking place at the National Stadium, which is also called the Bird's Nest, in Beijing on Feb 4.

The opening ceremony started with a countdown of the 24 solar terms which was a crowd pleaser, as it marked the first day of the "Beginning of Spring". Spring represents hope and a new beginning. The martial arts students from Laizhou displayed a colorful performance that depicted green grass during the opening ceremony to ignite the magic of the Winter Olympics.

A total of 355 students from the martial arts school were selected and were trained for more than four months to perform at the opening ceremony. The students used props such as 9.5-meter-long flexible poles, which can be easily maneuvered after mastering the technique, to represent blades of green grass. The students said that it was difficult for them to master the movements at first, but after four months of hard training they succeeded in doing so.

"New problems arose at every formal rehearsal, and we had targeted improvement. However, after a lot of trial and error, we were all ready to present a perfect performance at the opening ceremony," said Zang Hua, the school's vice-principal.