Yoga helps villagers cope with aches, pains
Healthier residents less likely to be overwhelmed with medical bills
Villagers in northern China are learning that yoga is not just for city slickers.
Lu Wenzhen, 52, is helping popularize the exercise form in an impoverished village in Hebei province, about 300 kilometers northwest of Beijing.
And since he first arrived in the village in 2016, more and more residents of Yugouliang are attending his daily yoga sessions.
Lu, who spent two decades as a music teacher at a college in Shijiazhuang, the Hebei capital, was sent to Yugouliang by the government to help villagers pull themselves out of poverty. But he was disheartened at first as he found it difficult to turn the village’s fortunes around for a variety of reasons beyond his control.
“The place has few natural resources and suffers from a shortage of groundwater. This scares away any potential investment,” Lu said.
He added that residents’ lives revolve around crop cycles, mainly growing potatoes and oats, with some also tending to livestock. Most young people have left for cities in search of better jobs.
As Lu pondered what he could do to improve Yugouliang’s lot, he discovered that villagers spent much of their free time sitting cross-legged on brick beds called chatting with neighbors.
“No matter how old they are, villagers can sit like that for a very long time. The posture reminded me of common yoga positions,” he said.
As many families were dragged further into poverty after exhausting their meager savings on healthcare, Lu suddenly came up with the idea of teaching villagers yoga to improve their health.
Lu then took it on himself to learn yoga as quickly as possible by watching online videos.
“People here do have natural advantages in the practice of yoga because their daily habits of sitting with their legs crossed makes their bodies relatively flexible,” Lu said.
With stronger bodies, they will be able to work harder, save on medical expenses, and be in a better position to emerge from poverty, he said.
But persuading residents who were out of touch with urban trends like yoga to try something new was no simple task.
Most of the initial responses from residents included: “What is yoga? Why would I do that? It must be something that people living in cities do, not we poor villagers.”
Indeed, at the first yoga class Lu offered, only a halfdozen women showed up.
“I felt it would ease the aches and pains of my back,” said Liu Ying, 75.
News traveled fast around the small village, which is home to fewer than 100 permanent residents, mainly seniors and children.
“Several villagers, aged from 57 to 82, follow me to do yoga at least one hour a day,” Lu said, adding that the number has increased to about 60 people joining his daily sessions.
However, the yoga he teaches them is different from traditional yoga styles. To make the exercise easier and more practical, he teaches them physical movements that mimic their daily lives, such as tilling fields or pulling the handles of a bellows.
“Other than that, they can hold a variety of postures including handstands, headstands and even splits,” Lu said.
Based on yoga’s growing popularity in the village, Lu plans to develop it into a yogathemed retirement community.
“They can practice yoga together and also enjoy fresh vegetables and a good environment in the village,” Lu said, adding that the popularity of the exercise form has the potential to raise incomes in the village.