The Chinese Shuttlecock – By The Chief Instructor Mr Russell Suthern

On my many visits to China, one thing I always notice is their park culture. The parks are popular meeting places & host a whole range of activities you never see in the west.
If you take a stroll through any of China’s parks first thing in the morning, even on the coldest winter’s day, you will see a dazzling array of activities that will delight any onlooker.
There will be groups of people practicing Tai Chi & other martial arts, there will be groups of people doing traditional Chinese dance, fan dance, even ballroom dancing. There will be calligraphy masters drawing their characters directly onto the dusty paths with huge brushes the size of brooms, the ends shaped sponges dipped in water.
One activity that really caught my eye was the Chinese shuttlecock. It looks like large colourful feathers jammed into a plastic or cork plug weighed down with washers. The bright feathers led us to dub the game “kick the chicken” & the name has stuck ever since!
The rules are very simple & very similar to “ keepy uppys” using a hacky sack. The participants stand in a circle & kick the shuttlecock to one another, keeping it in the air without using their hands. The more people touch the shuttle, the higher the score. We saw some very old people kicking the shuttle to one another keeping it in the air gracefully, almost effortlessly & we saw some younger groups practicing some super cool kicks & crazy athletic moves in their efforts to keep that chicken flying!
We had to give this a go! So off we went to the nearest sports shop & bought up virtually their whole stock of shuttles!
Each morning we used the game as a fantastic warm up before practicing our patterns & even now we regularly play the game especially at Christmas when the lessons tend to emphasise game playing & trying out new things. The game is great for fitness, flexibility, eye to foot co-ordination & really improves kicking skills.
After we got back from China I did some research & discovered that the game is called “Jianzi “ in Chinese & is actually centuries old. It was originally a military game devised by generals to ensure their men stayed fit & didn’t get bored in the long wait between battles. The generals believed the sport improved martial ability, especially kicking skills. It is generally believed the sport originated in the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD), but it may be even older.
Today the sport is taken very seriously & the Chinese even have their own national championships.
As usual, if you scratch beneath the surface you find so much more than just a leisure time activity!
Like so much of China, it has cultural roots stretching back centuries. My guys love playing “Kick the Chicken”. It’s always so much fun, but more importantly, I am proud that White Crane Martial arts has been able to take another piece of Chinese cultural heritage, transplant it & keep it alive here in the West!

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