Martial arts heritage passed to rural students in Anhui

In Feidong county in Anhui province, rural students have been attending free courses for a local form of martial arts since 2012.

The Feidong Niu-style Hong Boxing Association, whose members are mostly the elderly from the Niu family, introduced the sport at a local primary school.

In 2013, instructors extended their teaching to children in the village after school.

The association offers the courses free of charge. Its limited funding comes mostly from residents' donations and the local government, which provides 10,000 yuan ($1,600) annually for the effort to promote intangible cultural heritage.

Rural students have few choices of extracurricular interests, unlike their urban counterparts. The instructors offer an opportunity.

Some of the young practitioners are left-behind children, which means their parents have migrated to cities for work and don't stay with them for the most of the year.

Niu-style Hong Boxing has a long history in the county's Changlinhe township. The instructors take it as their responsibility to pass on this heritage to benefit the children physically and psychologically.