Taizhou Township High School Goes Out of Champion Tengqiu Team Project | Liu Rixiang | Champion
Entering the training hall of the Tengqiu team at Taozhu Middle School in Linhai City, Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, and pushing open the inconspicuous display room door, the reporter was surprised by the championship trophies covering the entire wall. The head coach of the Tengqiu team, Liu Rixiang, pointed to the unopened cardboard box on the ground and apologized, "Sorry, the room is a bit messy. Look, there are still many trophies that can't be placed in time."
The exhibition room of the Fujiqiu training hall of Taozhu Middle School in Linhai, Zhejiang Province, is full of trophies won by the team over the years. Photo by Zhu Lingjun
As early as 1998, Taozhu Middle School established the campus rattan team, which was one of the earliest teams established in China. Afterwards, the Tengqiu team of Taozhu Middle School has represented Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, and even the national team in major domestic and international competitions multiple times, winning more than 200 awards. Since the 2006 Doha Asian Games, Taozhu High School has been delivering a large number of talents to the national team every year, achieving remarkable results. However, due to the rarity of Tengqiu sports and the changes in the enrollment methods of universities in recent years, Taozhu Middle School is facing new challenges.
A school transformed by Tengqiu
25 years ago, Liu Rixiang was a substitute physical education teacher at Taozhu Middle School. Liu Rixiang is very dedicated to his work. On weekdays, he always puts in a lot of effort to think about how to use physical education classes to improve the overall quality of students. Once, he stumbled upon an introduction to Tengqiu Sports in a newspaper and developed a strong interest, which led to the idea of building a Tengqiu team.
"Rural areas have limited venue resources, and I want to explore new sports for students. I found that rattan balls are more suitable," Liu Rixiang told reporters. On the other hand, Liu Rixiang also has selfish intentions. At that time, basketball at Linhai Huipu Middle School had gradually made a name for itself. Compared to popular sports, Liu Rixiang hoped to find a niche sports event to achieve results.
Tengqiu, also known as "kicking volleyball", is a sport that falls between volleyball, basketball, and football. It is like kicking shuttlecock in China, which can perform various clever and complex movements with high ornamental value. Tengqiu is mainly popular in Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia. It was included in the official competition of the Asian Games in 1990 and was also one of the official competition events of the Hangzhou Asian Games.
At that time, Tengqiu was rarely known in China, and the Tengqiu team faced numerous difficulties from the beginning, with the training ground being the biggest problem. Head coach Liu Rixiang simplified the situation and made a hole on both sides of the cement ground in front of the school. With the insertion of steel pipes and the pulling of nets, it became a temporary training ground. On rainy days, they train in the hallway of the teaching building; When encountering hot weather, pour some water on the cement floor and continue training. Liu Rixiang remembers that the limitations of the venue can also affect the learning of technical movements. "For example, movements such as' spinning in the air 'and' hanging upside down with a golden hook 'require frequent practice. I am not very flexible, but in order to teach students, I have to grit my head and hit myself several times, causing my nose and face to turn blue and swollen." Liu Rixiang said.
The funding for the competition is also a challenge. In 2000, the Taozhu Middle School Tengqiu team teamed up with the Jiaojiang Tengqiu team to form the Zhejiang team and participated in the National Youth Tengqiu Championship held in Hangzhou. This was the first major competition of the Tengqiu team since its establishment, but the issue of funding once caused difficulties for Liu Rixiang: "At that time, my monthly salary was about one or two hundred yuan, almost all of which was used for daily training. I had to go to friends and scrape together 300 yuan to raise enough funds for the competition." In this competition, the Zhejiang team won the third place in the women's competition. In addition to his solid ranking, Liu Rixiang also met many experienced coaches and athletes. Afterwards, Liu Rixiang not only invited coaches from various sports schools across the country to provide guidance, but also found ways to send team members to various places for training, and established a professional rattan ball class at the school.
With frequent appearances in various competitions, the reputation of the Tengqiu team at Taozhu Middle School has gradually gained. Tengqiu sports also actively contribute to the development of schools and the local community. In 2004, with the efforts of Liu Rixiang and others, the Small Ball Sports Management Center of the General Administration of Sport of China approved Linhai City as a rattan ball training base. The following year, Linhai City invested 1.5 million yuan to build a Tengqiu training center of over 1000 square meters and four outdoor training fields in Taozhu Middle School. Taozhu Middle School has become an important force in the development of domestic youth Tengqiu, starting from an unnamed township high school.
Students are training in the training hall of Taozhu Middle School in Linhai, Zhejiang Province. Photo by Zhu Lingjun
A new way out is hard to find
For a long time, Tengqiu was almost the entirety of Liu Rixiang's life, leading the team to teach and train for over 5 hours every day. Now that he has retired, he still maintains his previous routine, getting up early every day to exercise, and then going to the training center to guide his training. When he sees incorrect technical movements, he will get angry and yell at the team members, but now he has an extra lunch break.
Leading the team for over 20 years, Liu Rixiang led the Tengqiu team of Taozhu Middle School to travel south and north, representing the provincial team more than 30 times in national competitions and representing the national team 9 times in international competitions, winning more than 200 awards in total. In 2014, four Tengqiu players from Taozhu High School represented the national team and won the men's B group team championship and the double season championship at the World Tengqiu Championships, setting a new record for the best performance of the Chinese Tengqiu team.
The personal prospects of the team members are also good. For example, the team has sent more than 20 key players to the national team, with more than 40 players reaching the titles of Tengqiu National Sports Master and National First Class Tengqiu Athlete. "More than 20 of our team members have been admitted to sports colleges such as Tianjin, Xi'an, Jilin, and universities such as Dalian Foreign Language School, which has solved many parents' concerns about their children not being able to get into good universities," said Liu Rixiang.
Liu Rixiang believes that the "way out" is very important. In China, Tengqiu is not a professional sport, and even if selected for the national team, it is mostly a temporary call up. For most students, what many hope for is to gain initiative in future education through the skill of Tengqiu. During the interview, many students told reporters that they hope to be admitted to their desired schools through their sports skills and find a good job in the future.
However, new problems have emerged. "The enrollment policy has changed now, and the requirements for cultural courses are very high," Liu Rixiang told reporters. However, as a township high school, Taozhu Middle School is limited by various conditions such as student sources and teaching staff, and its teaching level is limited. On the other hand, Tengqiu belongs to non Olympic sports. Since 2017, athletes from non Olympic sports cannot apply for national first and second level athletes. Generally, only after obtaining a high-level athlete evaluation can they pass the sports special recruitment for further education. Therefore, the difficulty of further education has increased.
The school is trying to find a solution. For example, due to the similar principles of sports, on the basis of Tengqiu, Liu Rixiang led the team to increase training in events such as shuttlecock and handball. Among them, handball is an Olympic event. After achieving good rankings in the competition, team members can apply for high-level athletes through the handball event and participate in sports special moves accordingly. In addition, Huang Chengsheng, the principal of Taozhu Middle School, stated that the school is actively coordinating with the coaching staff to connect with relevant university resources and hopes to help students solve their academic difficulties as much as possible.
This is also a common dilemma faced by niche sports such as Tengqiu. Liu Rixiang's student, Cai Weijie, who returned to Linhai City as a primary school physical education teacher after graduation, has conducted a feasibility study on promoting rattan ball in campus sports. In his view, the promotion of sports such as Tengqiu should not only include the project in physical education curriculum, but also facilitate the promotion and training mechanism of relevant talents, forming a positive cycle from participation, training to education and teaching.
