Online popularity of patient doing exercise puts others in the right frame of mind to meet challenges, Jiang Yijing reports.
Zhang Yu performs a move in a yoga introduction activity at the Nanjing University of Finance and Economics in October 2018. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
An ancient form of exercise is helping combat a modern disease after videos of a yoga instructor became popular online. Zuo Shufen, 34, never imagined that videos of her practicing yoga, while hospitalized after she was infected by the novel coronavirus in a Wuhan makeshift hospital, would be such an internet sensation.
The video has been watched more than 14 million times on Douyin, a popular video-sharing platform, known as TikTok overseas.
Infected by the virus, she was hospitalized on Feb 13.
"When I first arrived there, I was very upset," says Zuo in a phone interview with China Daily conducted after she recovered and left hospital on Feb 29.
"Talking about the virus with other patients made me feel worried," Zuo recalls. She needed something to bolster her spirits.
The instructor, with five years' experience under her belt, practiced yoga every day when she was healthy, so, she resumed doing it in a corner of the hospital every afternoon. She also found time to upload videos on Douyin to record her life in hospital.
At first, she practiced by herself, but it didn't take long to draw the attention of an administrative staff member, who then suggested to Zuo that she could teach yoga to the other patients.
"Ten people wanted to join in, so each of us was given a mat and we started practicing together the next day," Zuo says.
The hospital soon realized the benefits of the yoga class.
Patients take a class at a Wuhan's makeshift hospital on Feb 28. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
On Feb 28, a video of the class, headed by Zuo, was uploaded to micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo by The Beijing News on its official account. The video quickly received more than 440,000 views. Zuo's Douyin account also saw a surge in viewership, with 47,000 new followers and more than 1.3 million "likes".
People encouraged her with comments under her video post on Douyin, hailing her positive attitude and wishing her a full and speedy recovery.
Proof of the video's popularity that day was the data provided by Chinese search engine Baidu to China Central Television. During its News 1 Plus 1, a daily program broadcast every workday from 9:30 pm, the figures showed that "yoga classes" was one of the most searched topics by internet users in Wuhan on Feb 28. The peak time search for the topic increased by 354 percent. It also took first place for the most attention nationwide, according to the data.
"I didn't expect to get so many people's attention," Zuo says. "Yoga moves helped me to get rid of anxiety, and I just wanted to do something good for my health and that of my sick friends."
Zuo started to learn yoga eight years ago and became a yoga instructor in Wuhan three years later. She opened her own studio in 2017. From 2013, Zuo took part in several yoga workshops, some of which were held by established yoga teachers, such as Wang Xiangdong, who's known in the field as an experienced master, specializing in Ashtanga yoga.
Instructor Rao Qiuyu (front) leads a yoga class before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
A growing trend
Wang, a 39-year-old yoga coach in Beijing, is said to be among the earliest yoga practitioners in China. He first heard of yoga during high school, and he began doing it regularly in 2004.
"There were then very few teachers in China," recalls Wang, who started his yoga journey by learning from a British coach at a studio in Beijing's Shunyi district, named Beijing Yoga, which later changed its name to Fine Yoga, now a leading center for the activity in China.
"At first, I didn't know yoga well and my practice was just imitating the instructors' moves. My fellow learners in the same class were mostly dancers or housewives," he says.
He began to teach yoga in 2006, coaching at Beijing Yoga, and set up his own studio in 2010, giving morning classes from 6 am.
He has led the morning class for 10 years, with about 60 trainees each time. Many of the practitioners have themselves become yoga instructors.
Yoga enthusiast Chen Yongmin, an office worker in Shanghai, practices yoga at a walk-in studio in Bali, Indonesia, in December. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
In the past decade, the number of Wang's students has risen to more than 10,000 and he has trained more than 5,000 teachers. Besides teaching in classes, he has also conducted 200 workshops nationwide, including many times in Beijing, and 10 times each year in cities outside the capital.
Some yoga instructors, like Wang, teach in bigger classes, while other instructors prefer smaller classes. Li Meijia is one of the latter, a yoga instructor with 12 years of experience in Beijing.
Li also witnessed the growth of the market since she became a coach in 2008. Then, many practitioners in her class were foreigners, and most yoga classes took place in gyms where coaches were more dance instructors than specialists in yoga.
"At first, almost all of my Chinese students were young women whose main purpose was to keep fit, which is also a main reason that draws people in," says Li. "But now, my class trainees vary from 20 to over 70 years old, and many come to improve their health."
She also says that a decade ago, coaches had to go abroad to learn yoga professionally, but now there are many Chinese coaches domestically, who focus on training professional instructors.
According to a report released by market consultancy iResearch in August 2018, the yoga market in China had seen 20 years of consecutive growth. The report said that there were more than 14,000 yoga studios by 2016, a number set to rise to 30,000 in 2018, and the market was expected to be worth 39.39 billion yuan (US$5.67 billion) by 2019.
According to the iResearch report, about 70 percent of practitioners are 26 to 40 years old, and 94.9 percent of practitioners are women.
Online yoga sensation Zuo Shufen (front), a patient at a makeshift hospital in Wuhan, instructs a class attended by a group of patients on Feb 28. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Engaging more enthusiasts
Chen Yongmin is one of them. The 28-year-old works at an international technology company in Shanghai. She started practicing yoga in October by joining a studio class that begins at 7 am every morning.
"It was not easy for me, since I used to stay up late at night and get up at around 8 am in the morning," recalls Chen. She nearly gave up at first. Gradually, though, she began to appreciate its benefits.
"Focusing on yoga helped me concentrate on the positive, especially now, during the epidemic. I feel more energetic after practice and can work with more efficiency," she says.
After 100 days of practice, she found herself able to do a difficult headstand, and felt her body getting stronger.
Such experiences inspired her in her daily activities.
"Living in a fast-paced modern city, it is easy to become impatient with basic routines, and anxious to look for ways to achieve our goals as quickly as possible," Chen confesses. "After months of practicing yoga, I realized that there is no shortcut to success and the only way to achieve your goal is to keep doing basic things over and over again."
Chen has been active in social media platforms, and often records her practice on WeChat and Instagram. One thing that brings her satisfaction is that quite a number of her friends and colleagues began to practice yoga after seeing her posts.
Fine Yoga is a big training center for both enthusiasts and coaches. According to Rao Qiuyu, owner of the studio, who's also the translator of Ashtanga Yoga by John Scott, a quality guide book for yoga enthusiasts, more than 200,000 practitioners have taken part in classes and over 40,000 coaches took their training lessons at the center.
The studio was founded by a British practitioner in 2002 and was taken over by Rao in 2004, when there were fewer than 100 practitioners. She opened her second venue in Beijing in 2010.
In 2012, with more people from other parts of China coming to learn at her studio, Rao and her team developed classes online. Practitioners have to log into the website before watching the videos.
In 2017, she had 20 studios in Beijing. She also set up branches in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Tianjin. The number of her studios has reached 60, with 550 instructors.
Internet support
The popularity of yoga and the development of the internet have resulted in a proliferation of yoga smartphone apps, including Daily Yoga, Yoga Easy and Wake Yoga. Daily Yoga is the one with the most downloads and over 330,000 comments on the iOS App Store. It has more than 50 million users. Other fitness apps, such as Keep, have also developed different yoga classes.
According to the iResearch report, 64.2 percent of practitioners use apps and 50.8 percent exercise by watching online videos.
Due to the virus outbreak, all gyms and yoga studios have been temporarily closed, so, many yoga instructors began livestreaming online classes. Lululemon, a yoga apparel brand, posted on its Sina Weibo account in early February that it has collaborated with 12 yoga instructors nationwide. These instructors gave over 40 live classes on Douyin, and users can join in for free by scanning the QR code.
Zhang Yu, a 29-year-old yoga studio operator in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, had planned to visit India in early February to improve her yoga, but her plan was canceled due to the outbreak. She then initiated online classes through livestreaming platforms and WeChat groups.
People can join her live classes on Sina Weibo for free and her paid course on WeChat group charges 100 yuan for every four classes.
Zhang runs a Sina Weibo account named Sushen Yujia, which has 1.9 million followers. She posted the information of her live classes there and says that there are about 10,000 participants every time.
Many enthusiasts love livestreamed classes, including Lu Qiuming, a 29-year-old bank clerk in Nanjing.
"The live online classes provided me with a good opportunity to practice," Lu says.
She says that unlike the smartphone apps which only have videos, online classes build a platform where users can ask questions and interact with coaches after practice.
Lu used to practice yoga but turned to badminton a year ago. Due to the virus she stopped and returned to yoga.
However, Wang also worried about the quality of online classes, emphasizing the importance of teachers' instructions.
"Practitioners can get injured without a professional instructor's guidance, which could happen more frequently during online classes," he says. "People shouldn't challenge themselves with complex moves without an instructor on the spot nearby."
Contact the writer at jiangyijing@chinadaily.com.cn
