Pamela Reif practical baduanjin in a video published on Bilibili.
German fitness influencer Pamela Reif recently added China baduanjin (八段锦) to his workout routine, sparking a craze online.
Last week, Reif posted a video of herself practicing baduanjina form of fitness qigong (气功), on Bilibili, a video site in China targeting the Gen-Z group.
The unconventional but refreshing sight of a Western face practicing a slow traditional Chinese exercise has left countless netizens in awe.
In one week, the 110-second video was viewed more than 780,000 times, with more than 45,000 likes and 22,000 reposts on Bilibili. The hashtag translated as “What? Pamela does baduanjin? also made the trending topic charts on Weibo, a Twitter-like network, after attracting 160 million views so far.
Netizens left comments such as: “Finally I can see the muscles stretching for baduanjin convenient, because all the teachers I saw before were all wearing big, loose robes. » Or “It’s like watching a foreigner make dumplings at the Spring Festival.” »
“I’m really surprised,” Lisa Li, 28, a Shanghai office employee, told Shanghai Daily. “I’ve been following her for about three years, doing all these intense aerobic exercises. I never expected to see anything like this. baduanjin in his workout videos. But it made me want to try.”
Practice of international students baduanjin in Hebei province.
Reif is a perennial top streaming blogger and influencer in the fitness world. Currently, she has over 11.2 million followers on Bilibil and 9.69 million followers on YouTube.
Baduanjin originated in China more than 800 years ago, during the Song dynasty (960-1279).
Generally, it uses the human spine as the center, and through symmetrical movements of left and right and coordination between front and back, it achieves the goal of rehabilitating the body. qi (energy flow) and blood, strengthening the practitioner.
Traditional fitness exercises are very popular among older people in China because they can be performed anytime, anywhere without specific equipment, and what’s more, they are usually slow and accompanied by soothing music.
Thus, it is common for older people to dress in loose robes and gather in parks in the morning to practice traditional Chinese fitness practices like baduanjin or a better known form: tai chi (太极), listed as world intangible cultural heritage in 2020.
Reif’s choice to shoot a baduanjin The video cannot be a coincidence, given that traditional Chinese fitness exercises are gaining more and more practitioners around the world.
A video featuring Chinese baduanjin champion Zhang Qi has gone viral on YouTube.
On YouTube, a video featuring Chinese baduanjin Champion Zhang Qi has received over 13 million views and 664 comments in various languages like English, Spanish and French.
“We love this one; we train every day in Texas,” said American Elviawallacemartinez.
Many young Chinese people are also engaging in traditional Chinese fitness exercises, in a “retro” approach to traditional Chinese health care.
Relevant videos flooded video sites. A 12 minute and 10 second instruction baduanjin the video shot by the General Administration of Sport of China and posted on Bilibili in 2019, for example, has been viewed nearly 14 million times.
Anita Xu, a 34-year-old marketing director in Shanghai, works baduanjin two years since she gave birth to her daughter.
“I watched this video. It’s good. I feel like it’s a kind of Chinese yoga,” she told Shanghai Daily. “After practicing it, I felt that my back pain was greatly relieved. I also recommended it to several of my colleagues and they told me that it helped them relieve their neck and shoulder pain after a long job at the office.”
Huang Zhenyuan, a traditional Chinese medicine specialist at the centuries-old Lei Yun Shang West Traditional Chinese Medicine Pharmacy, is not surprised by the popularity of baduanjin among young people.
“This is great exercise for people today, as many spend a lot of time on computers and cell phones and often suffer from neck and lower back diseases. Baduanjin can help a lot, and it’s very simple, like one of my patients can even practice a ‘standing posture’ on a subway,” he told Shanghai Daily.
Additionally, it helps improve the health of internal organs and chase away some of the gloom. “Insomnia is a common problem among today’s young people who are under great pressure, and baduanjin offers them a respite,” he added.
