No one expected that an amateur tai chi team from the outskirts of Shanghai would win the first place in the National Games. In August last year, in the final of the 14th National Games mass performance of Taijiquan, the Xinchang Town Team of Pudong New Area of Shanghai, with the Dongyu Boxing Club as the main force, made a big splash and won the highest score of 42 types of Taijiquan in the rural township group and won the first prize in the country. For a moment, flowers and applause came together. Along with this, there is also curiosity - why did this little-known boxing club take the first place in the country when it first appeared at the National Games? What's the story behind this? Eight years ago, Sun Jiandi, a retired teacher with a reputation in Shanghai's martial arts circles, accompanied his lover back to his hometown to recuperate and came to Xinchang Town, Shanghai. In order to recover his wife's health, he volunteered to teach tai chi. Unlike the previous decades of teaching professional teams, this time, Sun Jiandi's students are the elderly people in the town, the peasant women who teased Sun, and the patients with serious diseases... Sun Jiandi took them, starting with the most basic movement and breath control, practicing for several years, until he became famous at the National Games last year. If this is a martial arts novel, it may be a story of a martial arts hero who led a scattered soldier to practice martial arts after retiring to the rivers and lakes, and once he came out of the mountains and shook the world. But reality is always more complex and far-reaching than fiction. This story records the persistence and innovation of a martial arts lover, and also recounts how the ancient art of taijiquan landed, took root, popularized and revitalized in the suburbs of Shanghai.
The ancient town came to be a tai chi master
January 5, a little cold, moderate rain. On the cold and wet rainy night, pedestrians on the road are wrapped up in tight clothes and hurry home, while in the new field, some people are gathering in a simple classroom converted from a factory building. They are students of the Dongyu Boxing Club, and they come here every morning and evening to practice tai chi, and they can't move. By 7 p.m., there were thirty or forty people standing in the classroom. Looking around, most of them are middle-aged and elderly, and there are also many young people who come after work. After the simple warm-up activities, everyone began to practice according to the rhythm of the music, servant steps, rest steps, kicks, golden rooster independence, swallow balance... As later generations continued to join, the line became longer and longer, and the rows became wider and wider.
The students of the Dongyu Boxing Club come here every morning and evening to practice tai chi, and they can't move. It is said that this is just a small scene of the boxing club. Every weekend when the big class is held, boxers from ten miles and eight townships will gather, and some people will drive more than 2 hours from Baoshan to come, and some boxers from surrounding provinces and cities will also organize groups to learn boxing. Hundreds of people stood the classroom to the fullest, and the scene was spectacular. Why does this boxing club, hidden in the southern suburbs of Shanghai, have such a big appeal? The newcomer was curious, and a loud cry came from the distance: "Pine, pine, release, take it back... Right! Pretty! Boxers instantly braced themselves and took a closer look at the movements and hand shapes under their feet. According to the prestige, this person was wearing a red jacket, a pair of black-rimmed glasses on his face, and his posture was upright and energetic. It was the master who came. Anyone who knows how to do it knows that the master is the secret of this boxing club. The master's name is Sun Jiandi, 74 years old, but his posture and spirit are really not like the old man; Sun Jiandi learned martial arts since he was a child, and he was once a well-known figure in the Shanghai martial arts circle, but his polite appearance did not look like a "martial artist". No wonder, when he first came to the new field 8 years ago, the young clerk who did not know his identity asked: "How do you prove that you can teach boxing in class?" This question made Sun Jiandi dumbfounded. He never thought that with his qualifications, he would one day need to prove himself to others. Sun Jiandi came from a martial arts family in Shanghai, and his father was the head of Shanghai who was a unified back fist. He performed on stage at the age of 5, made his debut in martial arts competitions in Yulin District (now part of Yangpu District) at the age of 11, and was selected for the Shanghai Wushu Team at the age of 12, winning several championships. He has successively entered Shanghai AutoMotive Accessories Factory, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, has been seconded to the Shanghai Wushu Team, Shanghai Workers Wushu Team as a coach, served as a referee in major martial arts competitions, and also led the Chinese team to defeat the Japanese team at the Sino-Japanese Taijiquan Exchange Conference, with a high "jianghu status" in the Shanghai martial arts community.
Sun Jiandi (first from right) performed on stage at the age of 5, made his debut in martial arts competitions in Yulin District (now part of Yangpu District) at the age of 11, and was selected for the Shanghai Wushu Team at the age of 12, where he won the championship many times. Image courtesy of interviewees In 2014, after retiring, Sun Jiandi returned to her hometown of Xinchang Town to settle down in order to accompany her seriously ill wife. Seeing that his wife's condition was deteriorating and her spirit was getting weaker and weaker, Sun Jiandi had the idea of teaching her to learn boxing: "Taijiquan can not only strengthen the body, but also nourish the heart, why not let her practice taijiquan?" "But teaching boxing can not only be taught to one person, if you build a car behind closed doors, there is no atmosphere of collective learning and mutual communication between students to promote, even if the master is good, it is in vain." Therefore, Sun Jiandi found the relevant departments in the town and proposed the idea of teaching tai chi for free. Interlaced like a mountain, how did the young clerk know Sun Jiandi's name? Ask him for proof of qualification to be able to teach in class. Sun Jiandi had to find his own teacher qualification certificate, championship certificate, various medals and medals, coaching certificate, referee certificate... Dozens of proofs were set at the table. At this point, everyone was surprised to find that there was a Tai Chi master in the new field!
Sun Jiandi and his wife Lu Chongliang led everyone to practice boxing. Images courtesy of respondents
For the first time in my life
With the support of the Dongcheng Neighborhood Committee, the preparatory work was successfully completed. The admissions poster was prominently displayed on the community bulletin board, but the slogan on it was rather low-key: there was not much introduction to Sun Jiandi's background and achievements, only one sentence: "Sun Jiandi, a retired teacher at Shanghai Jiaotong University, volunteered to teach taijiquan." This is what Sun Jiandi meant. For decades, he was used to teaching professional martial arts teams and sports students. The first time he opened a class in the suburbs, the first time he walked into the community, the first time he volunteered to teach, the first time in his life after all these years, he was quite nervous, he did not know what kind of students he was going to face, nor did he know how far he could teach them. Everything is unknown, or it is better to keep a low profile. On March 17, 2015, Sun Jiandi clearly remembers this date. In a small activity room of the neighborhood committee, he welcomed his first batch of students in the new field. Among them are retired elderly people, peasant village women, small-town youth... Not only is there not a single professional, but there are very few people who know anything about tai chi. Sun Jiandi was a little lost. He tried to adjust his mindset: "Either don't do it, do it well." In the first lesson of this class, Sun Jiandi made two rules for the students: "First, it is best not to say that I am a student, because no one will believe it; second, if you want to learn boxing with me, the online tai chi videos will not be allowed to watch again." Sun Jiandi knew that this was not only the first time in his life, but also the first time in his life that many practitioners had come into contact with Taijiquan. He started from the initial momentum and breath, and then went to the basic cat steps and thugs, teaching slowly little by little, and the students practiced it over and over again. After a while, the crowd finally slowly entered the door.
Sun Jiandi is teaching. Photographed by Lei Zhiyuan
Xu Guobin, 70, was one of the first batch of students. He used to love tai chi, but he had no way to learn, he had studied some fur with people in the square, until he later learned boxing with Sun Jiandi, he didn't know that what he had learned before was actually wrong from the root. "Teacher Sun's requirements are very strict, legs, hands, the position is not good at all." Ye Guobin recalled, "Usually teaching boxing, he did not regard us as amateur team members at all, it was completely professional requirements. Student Li Danrong was also impressed by Sun Jiandi's sternness: "When I first came, I did complain, I felt that this teacher was really strange, we are not professional athletes, almost on the line, why is it so fierce and so strict?" It wasn't until after a period of training that she competed in the city for the first time. In that competition, Li Danrong, who was "like Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden", did not expect that she was the first to play "defeated a female team member of the Old Sports Association" and won the championship in one fell swoop. At that time, she finally understood Sun Jiandi's usual good intentions, "He led us into the world of Taijiquan with the most professional attitude, so that we could appreciate the true charm of Taijiquan." "More and more people have heard that there is a teacher Sun in Xinchang who is teaching boxing in a voluntary class, and they have come to visit. Xie Jiang, who was over the age of flower armor, was still working in the town in her early years, and every morning, she would go out half an hour early, pedal her bicycle to the boxing club to practice, pinch the point before going to work, and persist for several years rain or shine. In addition to enthusiasts, some of the students of the Dongyu Boxing Club are patients who are seriously ill. Helping them get rid of the disease and improve their physical and mental fitness through tai chi is the original intention of Sun Jiandi's class of teaching boxing. Liu Hongfang was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2018 and returned home to recuperate after more than half a year of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Hearing that Tai Chi can strengthen her body, under the influence of her friend Li Danrong, she joined the boxing club with half a doubt. Unexpectedly, 3 months later, Liu Hongfang went to the hospital for a review, and the doctor told her that her indicators were improving. This gave her more confidence and more active in cooperating with the treatment and engaging in exercise. "My previous career was car sales, and I was always hot and hot-tempered. Tai Chi has calmed my personality a lot. Liu Hongfang said that now she will walk at home without a problem, even when waiting for the bus at the station, she will unconsciously hook her feet and raise her legs, "I always feel that my body is calling me, and the things of the ancestors have been passed down for thousands of years, and there is always a certain reason." "There are many such people and things in the Dongyu Boxing Club. Ten and ten hundred have become "myths" that are divine. Some people even joke that the Dongyu Boxing Club can give people a new life. Every time he heard such a statement, Sun Jiandi always smiled and did not comment.
Helping patients get rid of the disease and improve their physical and mental fitness through tai chi is the original intention of Sun Jiandi's class of teaching boxing. In the past 7 years, the Dongyu Boxing Club has grown to more than 500 students with Xinchang Town as the center, radiating to various districts and counties in Shanghai, and has also won more than 30 gold medals in various competitions at all levels. In the Shanghai Taijiquan circle, the fame of dongyu boxing club is getting louder and louder.
Trophies and medals (partial) received by dongyu boxing club students. Photographed by Lei Zhiyuan
Amateur boxing clubs came out first
In the early summer of 2021, a news spread in the boxing club: the town was going to form a team to participate in the 14th National Games, and the main force was the students of the Dongyu Boxing Club. Being able to participate in the highest level of competition in the country makes everyone both excited and nervous. Sun Jiandi faced the first difficulty of participating in the competition - forming a team. Due to the strict restrictions on the household registration and gender composition of the participants, it is stipulated that only those whose household registration is in the county administrative district where the participating team is located can be selected, and one-third must be male. This means that Xinchang Town, with a household registration population of 100,000 people, competes with county-level cities with hundreds of thousands and millions of people in other provinces and cities, and the disadvantages of the Xinchang Town team are obvious. Due to household registration restrictions, many of the higher-level students in the boxing club could not be selected, leaving Sun Jiandi with little choice. He only had enough 11 people to pick and choose, and there was still 1 person left. In order to make up for this 1 person, Sun Jiandi repeatedly deliberated, and changed 3 times just to make substitutions, and finally finished forming a team in June. At this time, there are only two months before the start of the race. This is an amateur team composed of rural township personnel, and the longest of the team members has only learned tai chi for 6 years, and the few have only practiced for 2 or 3 years. It is also a middle-aged and elderly team, with an average age of 62.5 years, of which the oldest is 69 years old and the youngest is 54 years old. "The technology is not refined, the routine is not familiar, and the coherence is poor", this is Sun Jiandi's evaluation of the team when it was first established. How can such a team reach the level of competition in just two months? This is not a small challenge for Sun Jiandi, who has been a coach for decades.
Sun Jiandi is teaching. Lei Zhiyuan photography is first of all the intensity of training. Only hard work can be done, but the players are old, their physical fitness is no less than that of young people, and some people are seriously ill. What to do? Sun Jiandi divided the daily training into three periods: morning, middle and evening, adding up to five or six hours of practice. It not only ensures the intensity of training, but also does not make everyone too tired. What is the training content? Sun Jiandi has his own set. "Many people feel that the basic skills are only needed to be practiced by beginners, and after learning for a while, they are eager to get on the routine." This is a big misunderstanding. In fact, the basic skills are the most important, the more you go to the game, the more you should practice the simplest steps and hand shapes. After a long period of basic exercise, the players were muttering in their hearts: How come they are about to compete, and they don't know what to compare? Until one day, Sun Jiandi announced to everyone: "It is the most difficult to compare, and the project we are competing in is forty-two styles of taijiquan." "Everybody was shocked." Many people are not familiar with the basic routines, let alone the most difficult forty-two styles, which is simply a fantasy. Master Sister Gao Cuiping said bluntly. Sun Jiandi is very confident: the basic skills are solidly practiced, a set of routines, and natural water will come to fruition. He put into training the beat teaching method he had painstakingly studied for many years, drawing on the rhythm of strong, weak, sub-strong and weak beats, and decomposing each movement of Tai Chi into 4 beats of "one, two, three and four". The elusive martial arts had rules to follow, the training was simplified, and it quickly became effective. In the end, the Xinchangzhen team passed the selection layer by layer with the highest score and became one of the teams representing Shanghai in the final of the National Games. At the end of August, the good news came: in the final of the 14th National Games mass performance of Taijiquan, the Xinchang Town Team won the championship in one fell swoop, and won the highest score of the 42 types of Taijiquan in the rural township group. Another main team member was also from the Hangtou Town Team of the Dongyu Boxing Society, and won the second prize of the 24 Simplified Taijiquan in the Rural Township Group. The good news spread throughout the town.
Sun Jiandi is teaching. Images courtesy of respondents
Plant a seed
Leading an amateur team on the outskirts of Shanghai to the first place in the National Games was undoubtedly the highlight of Sun Jiandi's martial arts career, and in his memory, such a moment was more than once. If this victory is the fruit of taijiquan's promotion and revitalization in the suburbs of Shanghai, then his exploration and efforts for many years have already laid the groundwork for this.
Pennants sent from all over the country were hung all over the Dongyu Boxing Society. Lei Zhiyuan photographed "Easy to have Tai Chi, is to give birth to two instruments, two instruments to give birth to four elephants, and four elephants to give birth to Gossip." "Taijiquan is an ancient Chinese boxing technique with a long history. After being introduced to neighboring Japan, it received great attention and development. By the 1980s, Japan had established the National Wushu Taijiquan Federation with 29 branches, and even openly declared that in ten years, the center of the world's taijiquan would be in Tokyo. In 1988, in order to show its tai chi strength, Japan sent teams to China to ask for a confrontation tournament. As a result, the first Sino-Japanese Taijiquan Exchange Conference was held in Beijing. In that match, the Japanese team lost. The Japanese team, which did not accept defeat, offered to fight again. In order to reflect the level of tai chi development at the grassroots level, they also proposed to set up a team competition. In March of the following year, the 2nd China-Japan Taijiquan Exchange Conference was held in Shanghai. Sun Jiandi led a Taijiquan team composed of 200 teachers and students from Shanghai Normal University to compete. On the day of the competition, the music of "Ten Faces Ambush" sounded in the Shanghai Gymnasium, "Wild Horse Mane", "Hand Waving Pipa", "Knee-hugging Step", "White Crane Bright Wings"... The team members were dressed in white Chinese exercise clothes, with red ribbons tied around their waists, and 200 people looked like the same person, and their movements were neat, neat and beautiful. Without any suspense, the Chinese team led by Sun Jiandi won.
Sun Jiandi in his youth. The image provided by the interviewee not only allowed Sun Jiandi to reap the honor, but also planted a seed in his heart - we must promote the Chinese taijiquan tradition. Since the 1980s, Sun Jiandi has begun to explore the use of musical rhythms and rhythms to integrate into the teaching of tai chi. Over the past few decades, practice has proved the effectiveness of Sun Jiandi's beat teaching method, and he has gradually come to understand, "Taijiquan should keep pace with the times, and to inject new vitality into it, to promote, to inherit, we must use the 'language' that everyone can understand." ”
Since the 1980s, Sun Jiandi has been exploring the integration of rhythmic beats into the teaching of Tai Chi. Wang Yuanxin, a physical education teacher at Nanhui No. 2 Middle School, introduced Sun Jiandi's beat teaching method into the classroom in 2019. "In the past, there were not necessarily a few children in the whole grade who had learned martial arts, let alone tai chi. Why? It is because tai chi is difficult to get started and the effect is slow, and even many parents and children feel that tai chi is a sport for the elderly. "But after we introduced the beat teaching method, the children will soon be able to master the essentials of tai chi, and their interest in learning boxing has also greatly improved." Under his leadership, many children have won honors in district and municipal competitions. The beat teaching method of Tai Chi chuan has also been successfully applied to the Shanghai Municipal Project and promoted throughout the school. Try to do it in many new areas. Wang Yuanxin's classmate and physical education teacher at Xinchang Middle School, Lei Jie, found that tai chi can play a positive role in the cultivation of students' good mentality. Therefore, she actively tried in teaching, not only using tai chi to exercise students' concentration, but also allowing them to continuously improve their self-confidence and satisfaction in the "collective resonance" of practicing boxing; Sun Jiandi's student Hong Fei is an IT engineer, he registered the account "Tai Chi Engineer" on the short video platform, and performed tai chi in an engineering and detailed form, not only becoming a well-known martial arts blogger, but also communicating with boxers in Tiannanhaibei through video; "post-80s" Zhai Yongsheng is working hard to turn his love of tai chi into a social responsibility, through the teaching of children and the elderly, so that tai chi serves more people... "Tai Chi is not exactly boxing, but art." We do one thing, and when we see it, it's happiness. Looking back at the past, Sun Jiandi sighed quite emotionally, "The development process of Taijiquan is just like itself, not a uniform movement, but a fast and slow, like the clouds on the edge of the sky, the clouds cirrus clouds, stretching endlessly." ”
Column Editor-in-Chief: Wang Xiao Text Editor: Wang Xiao Title Image Source: Sun Jiandi led the students to practice the Taijiquan move "Golden Rooster Independence". Courtesy of respondents
Source: Author: Lei Zhiyuan Zhu Quandi