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Hanoi (AFP) – Confronted with a machete, the fighter leaps and locks his legs across the different man’s neck, bringing him crashing right down to a cacophony of cheers.
That is vovinam, Vietnam’s acrobatic martial artwork with roots relationship again to the nation’s battle for independence, and it’s exhibiting on the SEA Video games for the primary time since 2013.
Proponents are educated to make use of not solely their palms and legs to grapple a rival to the bottom, but in addition fend off assailants armed with blades.
Quick for “Vo Viet Nam” (actually “Vietnamese Martial Arts”) it was impressed by nationalists who sought an finish to the nation’s French colonial rule.
Created within the Nineteen Thirties, it borrows from components of Chinese language kung fu and different Asian types however was crafted to go well with the Vietnamese of the time.
“Prior to now, the Vietnamese folks have been small,” SEA Video games silver medallist Tran The Thuong instructed AFP outdoors a packed gymnasium close to the capital Hanoi the place the artists, women and men, grappled in matches.
“(It was produced from) one of the best elements of different martial arts and mixed to suit the Vietnamese.”
Selling nationalist undertones, vovinam went on a rocky street. It was first suppressed by the French earlier than being banned by each the South Vietnamese and the later communist authorities.
However masters of it endured, and it was allowed as soon as extra in its dwelling nation, earlier than spreading to greater than 70 nations the world over.
First launched on the SEA Video games in 2011, the game had a second exhibiting in 2013 in Myanmar however was absent for a number of years earlier than returning to the ring in Hanoi.
Flying strikes, punches, kicks
On Saturday, over a thousand followers crowded a gymnasium corridor about 40km (25 miles) north of central Hanoi to observe seven nations contest for a few of the Video games’ 15 vovinam gold medals.
Earlier than the spectators, proponents in blue uniforms with colored belts tied across the waist confronted one another as they fought for factors.
Occasions within the sport both happen round a one-on-one struggle the place combatants battle for factors, or in a choreographed present the place two or extra proponents exhibit their abilities.
In a single show involving a machete, Thuong and a associate disarmed one another utilizing flying strikes, punches, kicks and grappling manuevers.
“The talents of groups at this SEA Video games are very excessive. The athletes from different nations have acquired this martial artwork very properly,” he stated, after judges awarded him the silver and the gold to Cambodia.
“Even Vietnam misplaced towards them. It is not simply the Vietnamese which can be good in vovinam.”
A small however steadily rising supporter base, it has greater than 2.5 million practitioners at this time everywhere in the world, in response to state-owned Vietnam Information Company.
With a presence on the SEA Video games and with its personal world championships, its leaders wish to broaden the game’s horizons previous its present area of interest, Vietnam’s vovinam crew head coach Nguyen Hong Qui stated.
“Vovinam to date has been developed in additional than 70 nations on the planet and there are regional and world tournaments,” he stated.
“We’re wanting ahead to develop vovinam additional in an effort to put it into the Olympics.”
© 2022 AFP
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