NANCHANG, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Most of the time, with his brush cut going gray and his polo shirt tucked into his trousers betraying his paunch, Principal Zhu Zhihui seems no different from any energetic and dedicated middle-aged primary school heads, except when he changes into his wrestling singlet.
"Down a little further." Kneeling on the floor coated with mats, Zhu pressed down the back of a boy, who lay prone with legs open, to help him stretch as a warm-up before a wrestling class. As Zhu instructed the children, some already medalists, one by one, only his coarse but crisp voice echoed in the gym of Matian School nestled in the mountains in east China's Jiangxi Province.
It's not common for wrestling to be taught in PE classes in China, especially in the countryside, where wrestling remains a niche sport only normally seen on TV. Nevertheless, over the past 17 years, Matian School in Pingxiang City has trained more than 100 wrestlers to win over 400 medals, and ensured that every student has one PE class every day, which the country has long been calling for but many schools are still far from.
All can be dated even earlier, when Zhu was a slim and somewhat shy sports graduate.
In 1996, the then-18-year-old was employed as a PE teacher in Pingxiang's Xinquan Primary School, where 70 percent of the students were children whose parents worked far away and left them to live with grandparents.
"We always say that knowledge changes one's fate, but without good health, it's hard for the children to get out of the mountains," said Zhu. The school had had no PE teachers or PE classes before.
Zhu also noticed that many of his students, out of a sense of inferiority, were afraid of looking at others and lowered their heads in conversation. To some degree, Zhu empathized with them, given how he had felt in the past because of his height of less than 1.6 meters, and he knew only too well how sports could give one confidence.
Zhu decided to try wrestling, which the students felt interested in for its confrontational nature and relatively low cost.
In the late 1990s, when most rural schools lacked funds, there were days when the students had no choice but to practice in meadows outside the campus, using equipment handmade by Zhu. They stretched muscles with tyres Zhu cut into strips, raced against each other dragging ropes tied to tyres, and threw rocks into nearby rivers to strengthen their arms.
Before each training started, the children spent some 20 minutes cleaning sharp objects such as stones in the grass. Still, surrounded by after-class sunshine, a mountainous breeze and the scent of grass, it turned out to be a tough but happy time for Zhu and the children.
Like any pioneer, Zhu's plan was met with the disapproval of some parents and colleagues, who worried that wrestling may distract children from academic learning and may encourage them to become mischievous and violent.
To reassure them, Zhu, who himself also agreed that academic performance mattered for athletes, made a rule that if a student failed two consecutive academic tests, they would not be allowed to continue training or to compete on behalf of the school.
It was not until 1997, when the team received six gold and 12 silver medals in a municipal sports event, that the parents started to realize that Zhu was serious and that some of their children did have a talent for wrestling.
In addition, the students became more confident and more willing to express themselves, which exceeded some parents' expectations. In the remote Matian School, where Zhu was designated by the local educational department as principal in 2006 and has since continued promoting wrestling, every student greets the principal warmly and cheerfully in a manner rarely seen in a rural school.
Lin Tianyu, a 12-year-old boy from Matian School and the tallest in his class, said that wrestling "has magic", as he has lost more than 10kg and kept his grades in the top ten of his class. Lin's father, who didn't initially support him wrestling, now often cheers him on at events.
Lin is one of Matian School's 30 professional wrestlers, who train every 6-7 am and 7-9 pm. For more of the over 600 students at Matian, wrestling is a hobby to keep them healthy and help them feel the happiness of sports. They learn basic wrestling skills in PE classes, and do their usual recess exercises combined with wrestling moves designed by Zhu.
Over the past 17 years, with funds from the local government, Matian School has been equipped with a wrestling gym with five professional PE teachers, three of them wrestling majors, and every student has wrestling shoes and suits.
Recently, Zhu has taken to hiring volleyball and basketball coaches. He knows how sports may create possibilities for rural children, and now he wants to create more. ■
