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From a street performer to a wushu master
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ALMOST every morning at 7:30am, Pang Aiqin travels half of central China’s Zhengzhou City to its downtown sports park with one simple purpose — to practice tai chi with master Ma Chunxi.
“At first, I learned tai chi fan from online courses given by master Ma, then I heard she teaches tai chi in the park for free, so I came here to practice,” says Pang, who has practiced tai chi with Ma for two years.
“I come here every day. It is more effective to learn directly from Ma, who is a national tai chi master,” she explains.
Now, Pang can perform three types of the art: tai chi, tai chi fan and tai chi sword. She also devotes a significant amount of her time as a retiree to attend wushu (martial arts) exchanges both in China and abroad with Ma.
Ma, 78, is the fourth generation of the Ma family, which has developed a style of wushu that is unique to the family. In 1919, her great-grandfather, Ma Guitang, moved the family from Fugou County to Kaifeng, then the capital of central China’s Henan Province, to perform martial arts in the streets outside of the Xiangguo Temple.
In 1953, 13-year-old Ma Chunxi was invited to participate in the first Ethnic Minority Traditional Sports Competition.
She won the championship of the competition with a performance of Emei Ci, a traditional kung fu instrument, and since then she has performed it several times for foreign leaders visiting China.
After graduating from Beijing Sports University, Ma Chunxi become a PE teacher in the Zhengzhou No. 11 High School. In 1978, when Henan Provincial Wushu Team was set up, she became coach of the female team, then the whole team.
In 1998, at the invitation of the wushu association of the Philippines, Ma traveled to the Southwest Asian country and became a coach for its wushu team, which attended the 13th Asian Games in Bangkok.
Her career took off again after her retirement. Influenced by her family, Ma was good at formulating wushu routines, like the Chen-style tai chi fan and 36 movements of tai chi knife, which were widely popular online.
Over 70 years of experience in wushu has made Ma quite famous in the circle, but she still sticks to two rules: no charge, no discrimination between different students.
“Many people charge a lot, sometimes even 300,000 yuan, to teach wushu, and some even divide students into different classes according to money they spend. I can’t stand this,” says Ma, who wants to keep the relationship between teacher and students pure.
“Students respect me, we are equal. I’m happy to make friends with my students, who sometimes bring homemade cookies for me,” says Ma.
Apart from teaching, Ma and her husband have also always taken friends to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and other countries and regions to participate in wushu competitions.
Now, her role as a wushu master has been taken over by her two sons, with the elder one being vice president of Zhengzhou Children’s Sports School and the younger teaching tai chi in Vancouver, Canada.
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