Wrestling
3 min readThe wrestling is a favorite traditional sport program with a long history in the ethnic groups such as the Uygur, the Kazak, the Hui, the mongolian, the Kirgiz, the tajik, the Uzbek and the Tartar, and is usually held on the festivals, weddings, circumcisions, slack days, gatherings or Bazaar day. It is not only a celebration form, but also a good chance to strong men for competing for the skill and the courage and showing their heroic spirit.
The athletic activity was popular in ancient western region. According to the Biography of zhang Qian in the Book of han the wrestling was popular in the western region in the 2 century BC. In 1983, a red terracotta wrestler of the 7 to 10 century was unearthed from the Chongtur Site in Bachu County; the posture is similar as the modern Uygur wrestling. In Yuan Dynasty(1206 AD to 1368 AD),”School administration”was also specifically set in the western region to administer the competitions such as the wrestling of various ethnic groups in a unified way and develop the competitions into the programs adding the fun to the folk festivals and congratulatory activities. The turkic Dictionary, an important work for the Uygur in the 11th century contains a saying”Don’t wrestle with the girl, and don’t ride on a pregnant horse”about the wrestling.
The wrestling in Xinjiang has a variety of styles, it also has distinctive wrestling styles in each area and each ethnic group besides the international wrestling and the Chinese style wrestling and the main representative is the Uygur style wrestling which is named”Kelish”by the Uygur people. The Uygur style wrestling alone includes two styles of the kashgar style and the turpan style, and the skill action form mainly includes catching the waistband, embracing the leg, embracing the waist, twisting the leg and catching the legband. The Kazak wrestling is called”Kures”by the Kazak people. Regardless of the weight of participants, the victory or defeat is determined by one wrestling There is another wrestling form characterized by putting the double legs into a gunny sack and wrestling by using the upper limbs’s power and skill. The Mongolian style wrestling is called”Beke”by the Mongolian people, it is ancient and solemn and the admission style is unique-the wrestlers dressed in wrestling suits jump into the stadium simultaneously with dancing lion steps.
The wrestling is the traditional sport program having the highes popularization degree in Xinjiang. Besides official competitions at each level, the folk competitions are also frequent. The wrestling field is simple. a piece of flat soft grassland or sand land is chosen, and the audiences sit around to form a circle so that the wrestling field is formed whether it is the field in which people works, the pasture forest and mountain, or the market, the school, everywhere can be temporarily used as the wrestling field. There are the wrestling activities in the family courtyard indeed. People vivify the cultural life, exercise the body and amuse the body and mind by the wrestling Since modern times, a lot of men of unusual strength have appeared in Xinjiang and the most famous one was siyit from artux at the end of the 19 century. It is said that he never met a rival no matter at home or abroad, and he was called”Heyide nochy”(nochy means hero). Since the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, the Xinjiang style of wrestling has been widely popularized and a lot of excellent wrestling champions have appeared, achieving a lot of prizes in national and international competitions. The national style wrestling is one competitive event in both the nationwide sports meeting and the Xinjiang minority sports meeting at present. At the 9 national minority sports meeting three brothers called Tusunmemet Tusuntohti and Rozitohti from Hotan, Xinjiang, were particularly noteworthy They displayed their skills in the wrestling field won two first prizes and one second prize, and became the big heroes of the Xinjiang Wrestling Team.
