Village workout

Top Fitness athletes draw inspiration from training on a 1,000-year-old cultural site

Traditional Tibetan dance, dress and cuisine are just some of the elements that make the lifestyle of the ethnic group so fascinating. It is this rich culture that inspired the members of the Chinese National Women's Fitness Team, featuring some of the country's top gym-based athletes, to choose the Ganbao Tibetan stone village in Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province, as their ideal training ground. On July 15, the team arrived in the 1,000-year-old village for a 10-day training session. While basking in the warm welcome from the villagers, the athletes benefited from learning about the rich local culture that features the Boba Sengen, a renowned variation of the traditional dances that were included in China's National Intangible Heritage list in 2008.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 08/08/2014 page4)