Yoga lifts spirits, builds up health of seniors in an impoverished village

Senior residents in an impoverished village in northern China have become high-level yoga practitioners in two years, with some even able to do advanced moves, such as standing upside down and doing splits, thepaper.cn reported.

Better known as "China's No 1 Yoga Village", Yugouliang village in Zhangbei county, Zhangjiakou city, Hebei province is a national-level impoverished village.

"The village lacks water and other natural resources, so it is hard to bring any investment project or capital into the village," said Lu Wenzheng, secretary of the poverty-relief working team that settled in the village in 2016.

"Young people go out to seek jobs, and those left are elderly, sick or handicapped," Lu said. "Currently, there are 137 people from 67 impoverished households in the village."

Not long before he settled in the village, Lu realized the villagers shared a skill that can be difficult for others.

When Lu visited villagers' houses, he saw that villagers usually sat strait-backed but cross-legged on the kang, a heatable brick bed. The position reminded him of a similar one in yoga.

Lu himself practices yoga. An idea came to him: why not ask the villagers to practice yoga together?

"The villagers are not in the habit of doing physical exercise. They always play cards in their spare time," said Jin Xiuying, a representative of the village's women's congress.

She said villagers, including herself, had never heard of yoga. But her daughter told her it is very popular in cities and is good for health.

"If we want to become rich, we have to make our bodies strong first," said Jin, adding that many villagers suffered from slipped discs or hyperostosis, an excessive growth of bone.

The village's leaders called on villagers to participate, but they reacted in different ways. Some said there were no facilities for yoga, while others wanted to give a try.

"At the beginning, seven women come to practice," said Zhao Yuhua, 72, who was in the first group to try it. When members of the first group told others how good yoga is, gradually men and other villagers joined in.

"The set routines of yoga practiced in cities do not work for our villagers," said Lu Wenzheng. Therefore, he combined some yoga movements with the villagers' daily working movements, such as pumping a bellows.

Villagers are more familiar with the modified yoga routines and gain command of them quickly, he said.

"We practice yoga every day, with one hour in the morning and another one in the afternoon," said Guo Min, 72, "As long as you keep on practicing, you will do it well."

Zhang Zhimei, 72, used to have pain in her legs and could barely stand up. Last year, Lu gave her a series of illustrations of yoga movements to try.

"I practiced yoga according to the illustrations every day; now I can do these movements," Zhang said while demonstrating a martial arts squat on the ground.

Photographer Zhao Zhannan witnessed the changes in the village. She used a camera to record the villagers' practicing yoga for more than a year and visited every household of yoga practitioners.

The photos of senior citizens performing yoga with typical rustic scenery in the background won national awards and wowed netizens.

As their stories quickly spread, the playground in the village was too small a stage for these yoga masters.

The elderly were invited to stages at local and national TV stations to demonstrate their skills.

"I feel that the villagers' spirits are refreshed," Zhao said. "Lifting morale goes before alleviating poverty. It is beyond the material level."

All year, villagers practice yoga in the open air. It's very cold in winter, which is especially hard on the seniors. After seeing how difficult it is for them to keep on exercising, Lu has a goal.

"I want to build a yoga studio in the village, so that we will have a yoga studio with village characteristics next winter," Lu said.