By Guo Mingfang
KAUNAS, LITHUANIA, April 28 (Xinhua) -- Lithuanian basketball town Kaunas celebrated World Taiji and Qigong Day on Saturday for the first time, with more than 100 performers demonstrating Taiji to locals and visitors.
With less than 300,000 people, the Lithuanian second largest city is home to the legendary basketball team BC Zalgiris Kaunas and have produced such basketball stars of world fame as Arvydas Sabonis and Sarunas Marciulionis. Today the city was invited to experience the charm of Taiji (tai chi chuan).
At 11 o’clock on the square of the Independence Avenue, the performance of Taiji Tuishou by Chinese Wushu teachers Liang Wenming and Kong Defu from Vilnius University Confucius Institute kicked off the day.
More than 100 Taiji practitioners and fans from four Lithuanian Taiji clubs performed Chen-style Taijiquan, 24 simplified Taijiquan and Taiji kongfu fans and so on. Nearly one hour and a half of display and performance attracted prolonged applause from the audience.
“Today is an important day and festival for Lithuanian Taiji Quan practitioners and fans. Every year we celebrated it in Vilnius to promote the development of Taijiquan and Qigong," said Wang Xiyin, a Chinese who has been living in Lithuania for more than 20 years and is one of the coaches in the past 15 years.
Wang said this year they chose to celebrate the festival in the Lithuanian second largest city which is famous for basketball, in order to let more Lithuanians know about Taijiquan and experience its charm.
Taiji is one of China's traditional martial arts and has been widely practised around the world for defence training and health benefits.
“I have followed Master Wang Xiyin practicing Taiji for two years,” said Indre Ruleviciute, a lawyer.
“Practicing Taiji has improved my flexibility, body coordination and concentration.”
A women entrepreneur who only gave her surname Vladimiras practiced Taiji two years ago, and she also shared her experience.
“Two years ago, when I started to practice Taiji, I was experiencing a turning moment of life, going through massive changes in all areas,” she said. ”It is Taiji that gave me energy to overcome numerous difficulties and obstacles, and exposes me to a new and interesting social life.”
Tomas Lapinskas, the president of Lithuanian Sports and Traditional Wushu Federation, said that the event aims to introduce people to the Chinese health systems, to popularize the culture, to encourage people of all ages to care for their health, to strengthen it, to prevent possible illnesses and diseases.
The World Taiji and Qigong Day is celebrated on the last Saturday of April and is recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the "healthy events" linked to the World Health Day.
