On The Closing Ceremony, 199 Teenagers Wear 36 Kilograms Of Shoes To Perform The Jumping Dragon.

At the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, 199 Shaolin boys from Henan's TA Gou military school performed the bounce dragon.

It is understood that this is the most difficult and technically demanding program in the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games.

As a perfect ending of the Olympic Games, how did these difficult movements become?

What secret weapons do you have?

Business reporter is now unveiled for you.

The amazing closing ceremony of "jumping dragon"

Dragon jump

On the evening of August 24, 2008, at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games, 199 teenagers wore special foot tools - a stand of white metal made about one meter high and a spring mounted on the stage of the closing ceremony.

The 199 boys' uniform somersault, backward somersault and cross flight caused the audience to scream and applause.

The program is 2~3 minutes long, appearing as the last part of the first chapter.

I saw these teenagers jumping up to 3 meters in height, turning 360 degrees in the air, and then a group somersault in a while, and then a group of "flying swallows". Some of them continued to flip over for more than 20 times in a row and then landed on the ground smoothly.

This is the 200 child from Henan TA Gou martial arts school (one is a substitute), showing the world "leg effort" to the world, and using "Chinese Kungfu" to bring the performance to a climax.

According to Liu Haike, coach of TA Gou school, "jumping dragon" is the most difficult and technically demanding program in the opening and closing ceremonies of the whole Olympic Games.

Dragon jump

In August 22nd, at the training base in Yanqing, trainers and students of the Tai Gou military school were interviewed by a commercial newspaper reporter, and the secret behind the performance came.

Secret weapon 1

"Sauna Costume": the whole body is equipped with light bulbs to make the performance more dazzling.

Kung fu kids wear a silver and orange leather shiny fabric.

This suit is full of small bulbs, and the waist of the clothes is also equipped with a "cell phone" device, which contains batteries.

During the performance, the children pressed the switch above, and the light bulb on the whole set of clothes lit up. Under the reflection of the light, the clothes would give off more dazzling colors.

"Such clothes are specially designed to add color to the performance.

200 children in the night grass, like a cheerful elf, with the closing ceremony happy atmosphere.

Liu Haike said.

But the clothes are bitter, children.

The clothes are designed for winter performance. They are all closed, with only a zipper on the back, and now it is "autumn tiger". The weather tight Sauna Suit lets the children wear sweat.

Secret weapon 2

"Kung fu shoes": 36 Jin is as elastic as a bow.

Martial arts masters must have a unique weapon. The shoes worn by kung fu kids are the most powerful weapon in the whole performance.

This special shoe is designed with the principles of archaic archery as an auxiliary device for bounce.

This kind of "Kung fu shoes" is a basic step for ordinary people.

This pair of shoes weighs 36 Jin and the load is 100~120 kilograms.

Coach Liu Haike said that the bow behind the shoes is elastic, the following is the point of effort. When you step down, you will exert your strength and send the person to the air.

The hardest thing to put on these shoes is to jump to the air and not get the balance, because after all, it's not your leg, and it's hard to fall down when landing.

Children need to wear helmets and gloves when performing or performing. In addition, after falling down, they first need to have their hands on the floor, so that they can play a cushioning role.

After the force, the maximum height of the projectile is 6 meters, that is, the two storey building.

After shooting into the air, various forms of martial arts are made in the air: tossing, jumping and balancing.

More difficult is that when performing, there is a 4 meter high horizontal railing below, and it must be turned over the bar after it has been sprang up.

Look at bounce

How to practice

Wearing 36 kilograms of shoes, kung fu kids in the 5 minutes of the performance, not only to arrange a variety of shapes, but also flip to move, how on the legs "magic" how to practice?

In August 22nd, at the Yanqing training base, reporters wore these shoes to experience it once.

The area of the two shoes touching the ground is only a few square centimeters, and the shoes are about one meter high.

Reporters can only stand by the help of the people around them.

At the beginning, don't jump up. It's difficult to stand firm.

The players first learn to walk, then learn to dance.

When you can basically master it, you start practicing on trampoline to find the feeling of air.

In order to enhance the strength of lower limbs, coaches have thought a lot of ways.

First, each child's legs are tied with sandbags, and a leg is tied up for 8 Jin, and then gradually increased to 15 Jin for each leg.

In addition to sleeping, two sandbags have to be tied on their legs, practicing cross-country twenty thousand meters daily.

At the beginning of training, Kung Fu boys tied up sandbags on their feet. Later, sandbags were easy to leak, so they were replaced with steel plates, weighing from 20 jin to 40 Jin.

After months of practice, the children's feet and steel plates touched a thick callus.

Those who participated in the closing ceremony of the "jumping dragon" performance were trained in the training base of Yanqing, Beijing in May, earlier than the group that attended the opening ceremony.

Bounce Dragon

Broke the Guinness record

Zhang Yimou regrets:

The performance was not put to the opening ceremony.

When performing the dragon dance, the children wore a silver coat. Once they were rehearsed by the group of chorus children in the rehearsal, they shouted after them: "Altman".

It was these Altman who once made Zhang Yimou "regret".

In May 22nd, directors Zhang Yimou, Chen Weiya and others went to Yanqing to review the program. After seeing the bounce dragon performed by the children in Ta Gou school, they were very satisfied.

Zhang Yimou said: "from now on, it is a little regret to put this program on the closing ceremony."

"Our program represents the world-class level of the project."

Coach Liu Haike said, "our little ones can jump 3 meters at a time, more than 30 somersaults."

Liu Haike said that an American can do 19 somersaults after wearing bouncing shoes, which is the world's Guinness record.

Zhang Shuai, a 17 year old player, can flip more than 30 games at a time.

Liu Haike said that these movements are not likely to be achieved by ordinary training, but these children practise martial arts from childhood, with solid Wushu skills, good physical quality and hard training, and finally returned to the perfect performance at the closing ceremony.