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In the morning of August 8, a ceremony was held at the basketball court of Ruzhou Worker's Cultural Palace to celebrate the third National Fitness Day with martial arts performances.
Over 500 people attended the exhibition ceremony. About 200 fitness amateurs from 11 representative teams performed Eight Trigram Boxing, a kind of body-building qigong (Chinese breathing exercise). Audiences were amazed with the performances.
After that, 18 representative teams and individuals performed Tai Chi, body-building qigong muscle-bone strengthening exercises, five-element boxing, eyebrow-level staff, Liuhe single-broadsword, Tai Chi sword, taekwondo, and spade rod. Some of the athletes won medals at the 8th Pingdingshan sporting event.
Ruzhou is a native place of martial arts in the country. Martial arts enjoy far-ranging popularity among the general public. Martial arts comprises of many varieties and practitioners. But due to various reasons, China's top 10 martial arts coaches have either passed away or retired. It has become hard to hand down martial arts to younger generations, as there are fewer qualified successors.
To promote martial arts, the activity sponsors set the theme of the National Fitness Day as exhibition of martial arts. It helped local residents better understand martial arts, and become more enthusiastic in learning martial arts and building up the body.
Edited by Fu Bo and Tania Lee
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