Takeaway:With traditional sports in decline and few successors to inherit, college admission of traditional sports can help the cultural inheritance. But it is also important to inject the spirit of the inheritance.
During the festival, there are always such scenes everywhere: more than a dozen strong men dressed in red or yellow suits, holding sticks, supporting the head of the dragon, following the dragon ball back and forth, twisting, waving, bending, kneeling, jumping, shaking, posing in various shapes. The side of the audience repeatedly applauded, thunderous applause, pray for the next-year good weather, longevity. But fewer young people are willing to take up the sport these days. “There are so many games. And many people give up before they can bear the pain,” says the dragon lion team at Beijing Sport University.
For the first time, dragon and lion dance was incorporated into the course selection system of physical education in Zhejiang University. The dragon dance class runs smoothly. The most critical factors lie in two points. One is the physical education teacher with relevant skills. The other is the reasonable realization of curriculum standardization. It is reported what Zhejiang University is currently studying is the competitive dragon dance. In essence, it is a standard sport event formed after the normalization of folk dragon dance in various places. Under this standard, there are a set of unified and specific regulations on the ground, equipment specifications, completion points of movements and scoring system of dragon dance. By designing the course based on a set of standards, it becomes clear what the dragon dance class teaches, how it is taught, and how it is tested.
Students practiced dragon dance in Zhejiang University. [Photo/VCG]
Although it is rare for universities to offer dragon dance classes, traditional Chinese sports such as “Tai Chi” do play an increasingly important role in the construction of college sports in recent years. This shows that modern university education does not naturally reject traditional folk culture, but mainly fails to make more achievements in this respect due to limited conditions. In fact, colleges and universities never lack the motivation to pass on traditional culture. What they lack may only be the inspiration of conditions, preparations and methods.
A student played Tai Chi in Beijing Wuzi University
In recent years, the call to protect traditional culture has become stronger and more repeated. The efforts of “traditional sports programs coming into colleges and universities” have never been interrupted, but they are only preaching. Few people can build a platform to pass on the culture by themselves, which also causes the embarrassment that the inheritors make great efforts to appeal to those who are willing to but have no place to learn. In the process of development, traditional culture has encountered many unexpected problems. Take traditional Chinese martial arts as an example: the “Tai Chi master” was defeated in a hurry under the modern martial arts, and the "Qigong master" hit people with pompous performance in the air... The traditional Chinese martial arts are frequently caught up in controversy, even raising the public’s doubt that Chinese Kung Fu is a fancy art. Less platform and less opportunity become the traditional culture’s pain which cannot be ignored. And dragon dance class into the campus formally provides a platform for the students, showing students always retain the love of traditional culture.
How to maintain the interest of students should be paid attention to against time. Although the great success of dragon dance class is gratifying, many students may be just on a whim. Interests might be generated after learning a few classes due to “hard work” and gradually diminished. With the change of times civilization, the innovation of transmission mode, we should make the traditional sports better inherited and developed. The infusion of spirit inheritance is essential while learning. After Zhejiang University tries to set up the dragon dance course, I believe more and more universities will find confidence and inspiration from it, and then develop the traditional sports programs suitable for the university.
(By Zhang Lixia)
