It's a new year, and City Weekend has a few alternative ways to move your thawing body. We're all familiar with the benefits of jogging, biking and joining a gym, but when City Weekend called me up and suggested I try out a few of Beijing's stranger paths to fitness, I locked up the bike and headed out to try something a bit different.

by Michael Armstrong

Parkour or “My Monkey Class”
Du Yize, the leader of the China Parkour Club, takes us up to the roof of the Beijing Film Academy. He stands on the edge of a raised section, his hands in his pockets. Everyone else is scampering to and fro amongst the roof pipes practicing his "king kong jump," a move where you spring at an object in front of you, body horizontal, plant your palms, and swing your feet underneath you, landing on the other side feet first, like a big gorilla walking on his knuckles.

"OK," my photographer calls out.

Du leaps, legs arcing over his body, a sweeping cartwheel in the air. He moves like he owns the world. His feet hit the ground. He trots three steps and his hands go directly back into his pockets. Parkour is an athletic activity based on treating the world as an obstacle course, on finding a way to get over anything. Du and his group meet up at least once a week to play. There are no coaches, no stretching, no fees and no mats. They are just a bunch of kids, the youngest 17, the oldest 23 who found Du on the internet, and whom Du then brought out to jump off and flip over everything in sight. They are monkeys clutching life with their grubby paws.

"It's about conquering your heart and mind," Du says after we get off the roof. "It's about that high, that second where you've grabbed hold of the fears and stress in your heart."

And so now I'm standing by the thick metal railing at the top of a flight of steps. I've learned a couple tricks but they want me to try something more. I'm to lean my waist over the railing, holding the metal firm with my right hand, plant my left hand on the cement underneath the railing, pull my feet over my body, and flip myself over backwards, landing on the grass two meters below.

I lean over and begin to raise my feet. "Throw your feet over! Just do it!" Liu, a boyish 20 year-old, keeps yelling. Three times I get to this point and stop. I'm scared shitless.

"There's nothing to be afraid of," Liu says. "Once you throw your feet it's done." I lift my feet, give the extra push it takes to throw them. My shifting center of gravity takes me over. For a second I can see the blue sky flash above me as my body spins itself. Then I'm looking down, seeing my feet hit the dry, brown grass. My joints move quickly, absorbing the impact, and there I am, standing.

"What was it like?" someone asks.

"Totally silent," I say. "Everything was moving all around me, but it was like the air had been sucked out of the world."

And I'm dashing off to do it again.

Fencing or “Battling Tunnel Vision”
Hu Qiusheng, project director of Vango International Fencing, smiles. "Here is not like the office. Everyone is even. You stand facing an opponent with a sword in your hand, looking for an opening, going for that huge rush when you hit him. Plus the clothes make you feel cool."

Hu is right about the rush. After a lesson in the basics, my instructor finds me another member to fight. We square off and I feel pretty good. I use the basic attacking techniques I'd just been taught to score three simultaneous hits. (Simultaneous hits are one point for both sides.) But the older man soon sees through my facade: By staying away he scores easy points poking me after I lunge.

Then, as I pull back to my starting line with the score seven to three, my periphery darkens. Sounds on the outside became faint, muted. There is only a circle straight ahead, in the center of it, the other man's glinting blade. My eyes narrow. I don't hate that person across from me. I just want to dismantle him. I smile; a cunning, Iago smile.

I lost the match, but that didn't really matter. It was as Hu said: What's important are those moments when things slow down, when your lust is finally sated by the solid feeling of a body at the tip of your sword.

Bikram Yoga or “I Remember Nada”
"This will be the only time of the day you're not thinking about business," Huiping Mo, pioneer of Bikram Yoga in China, told me before class. "That's the beauty of yoga. If you start thinking about other things you wobble and fall."

I didn't believe her. Then, halfway through class, I realized I had no recollection of the past 45 minutes. I remembered coming in, putting my towel in the corner and noticing the sound of trickling water. That was it. Everything else was great, hot breaths filling my lungs and waves of sweat washing over my bent muscles. All until this moment when I stopped to think about it ¡­ and, as she had promised, I wobbled and fell.

Bikram is yoga practiced in a room raised to 40 degrees Celsius. The heat and sweat are supposed to loosen your body and help it detox.

It is hell. You twist your body into grotesque positions. The heat pounds your temples. Your muscles twitch. You think of nothing but breathing.

And then it ends. You complete the "Spine Twisting Pose" and Mo tells you to lie down. She dims the lights and you lie there, eyes closed, aware of your thoughts like it's the first time you've been conscious. The world becomes all blues and greens, and you feel like liquid metal.

The China Parkour Club meets once a week at the Beijing Film Academy. Contact Liu (minimal English) at 132-4143-9567. Beijing Vango International Fencing Sports Center offers members unlimited sparring time and advice from onsite coaches. Tel: 6424-2520. Pacific Century Club features Beijing’s only certified Bikram Yoga studio. Tel: 6539-3434. Web: bikramyogabeijing.googlepages.com

Four Other Alternatives to the Gym

Belly Dancing

As last year’s pole dancing trend wanes, belly dancing is poised to take Beijing by storm. All the local gyms are promoting belly dancing classes, translated as “dupi wu” or “belly skin dance,” as the new path to fitness and tighter abs for Beijing’s women.

Haosha (Xindongjie)
Membership: ￥2,100 per year
Tel: 6418-5808

Rock Climbing

Rock climbing is not only a powerful way to strengthen the arms and upper body, it also builds flexibility and tones muscles in the lower body as well. Be certain to begin with an experienced rock climber and to check all your ropes and equipment to ensure safety.

Dianshi Club (Northeast Ritan Park)
Cost: ￥40 / Day
Tel: 138-0105-2361

Muay Thai

Muay Thai, aka Thai boxing, is an extremely aggressive sport that integrates many moves, such as elbow punches, that are disallowed from almost all other martial arts. You're in safe hands, however, at Black Tiger Academy, which safely trains and conditions students interested in Muay Thai, jiujitsu and capoeira.

Beijing Black Tiger Academy
Cost: ￥750 / Month
Tel: 5879-3459
Web: http://www.blacktigerclub.com All classes in English

Paragliding with the Flying Man

Levent Yurday flies with the Beijing Flying Man Club, which trains members in paragliding and hang-gliding.

How did you get started as a Flying Man? A friend was a flying coach at Flying Man, and he introduced me to the team. So, is it as dangerous as it looks? It can be dangerous the way a bad driver is dangerous. You need to be safe and follow your instructor’s words closely. How can I get started? Paragliding is easiest. First you learn to control the board on the ground. Then you glide down a 20-meter high hill and move up from there. Flying is different from anything you've everdone. Everyone has to try it at least once.

Beijing Flying Man Club
Tel: 6805-5114
Web: http://www.flying-man.com

The Cheater’s Guide to Looking Your Best

The popularity of cosmetic surgery in China has risen drastically in recent years, with advances in technology and competitive prices drawing foreigners to seek cosmetic treatments in Beijing, home to some of China’s most reputable clinics.

One of Beijing’s most well known cosmetic chains is Evercare, which rose to fame along with highly publicized client Hao Lulu in 2003, when the 23-year-old Beijinger became China’s "first man-made beauty," following 10 operations at Evercare.

About 85 percent of Evercare’s patients are Chinese, the clinic also draws clients from abroad. Most foreign visitors are from South Korea, Asia’s leader in plastic surgery. Chinese cosmetic surgery, especially body sculpting, is fast catching up to that of Korea, yet prices still haven’t.

While cosmetic surgery has traditionally been dominated by women, the China Hair and Beauty Association reports that men make up 30 percent of the clientele for many cosmetic surgeries, and Evercare has even more male clients than female ones, with skin care and hair-transplantation the most popular procedures.

Receiving the best cosmetic care in Beijing is not necessarily cheap. VIV Beauty, a Singaporean company that employs South Korean and Chinese doctors, treats many Americans and Japanese, with a number of celebrity clients. A facelift at the Beijing clinic costs USD$4,750, no small sum, and liposuction, the most popular item, is RMB4,500 per body part. Still, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, average surgery costs in America are $5,966 for a facelift, and liposuction runs for an average of $2,224. Moreover, eyelid surgery in the US averages $2,525, and breast augmentation costs around $3,375, compared to $525 and $1,500, respectively, at VIV Beauty.

Although even cheaper options are widespread in Beijing and elsewhere in China (see Valerie Sartor’s fairly harrowing surgery diary here), knowing your body and face are in good hands is surely worth the cost.

Sienna Parulis-Cook

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