Old Kungfu granny holds an open contest

Chinanews, Guangzhou, Feb 15 – An 88-year-old granny in Foshan, Guangdong Province, recently held an open contest seeking for challengers who could push her down onto the ground. Anyone who succeeds will be rewarded with 10,000 yuan, the Nanfang Metropolitan News reported.

The open Kungfu contest, titled "Challenging Taiqi Master Shi'er Granny", and jointly organized by the Foshan Municipal Sports Bureau and Foshan Municipal Travel Agency, will last for a month, from February 8 to March 8. A lot of Taiqi (shadowboxing) fans from Foshan, Hong Kong and Macao have inquired about the event but nobody has actually made any official arrangement for the fight so far.

The old granny, Shi'er, was born as the twelfth child in her family and was therefore given the name, Yuan Shi'er, or the twelfth child in Yuan family. Last year, in the push-hands sparring exercise contest held in Foshan, she managed to push down a dozen of young men while she herself stood rockfirm. She was then acknowledged as the winner of the contest and nicknamed the "queen of push-hands in Foshan".

When the old lady was young, she suffered from hyperthyroidism, high blood pressure, and osteoporosis. When she was 50, she started to practise Taiqi boxing from Ou Jurong, a Taiqi master in Foshan.

“Practising Taiqi has now become a part of my life, like eating or walking,” said Granny Shi'er. Every day, she practises it for a while in the Foshan Park, rain or shine.