When a sports teacher asked children at a primary school in Chengdu if they wanted to demonstrate their swordplay skills, many of the more than 40 students sitting on the lawn raised their hands.

Two 8-year-old boys were chosen. Donning black helmets, they brandished silica gel swords and tried to hack and stab each other. After several minutes of attack and defense, one boy was declared the winner.

The Yingbinlu Primary School in the Jinniu district of Sichuan's provincial capital has been offering martial arts training to students since 2011, three years after it was set up.

With the aim of spreading traditional Chinese culture and improving students' fitness, the school offers coaching in boxing, swordplay and martial arts etiquette, headmistress Chen Xue said.

Students can choose martial arts, table tennis, rope jumping or football to fulfill their physical education requirements.

"Only eight students picked martial arts 10 years ago. Now there are some 200 out of 1,446 students at the school," Chen said.

Martial arts training appeals to boys and girls, said Zeng Ke, a martial arts major from Chengdu Sport University who has taught them at Yingbinlu since 2011.

Lou Yiling, an 11-year-old fifth grader, likes the course so much that she practices swordplay at home.

"She has drawn many sketches in a notebook on tactics to defeat a rival in a sword competition. Her parents saw the sketches and gave the notebook to me," Zeng said.

Li Zhuoqian, now a 14-year-old middle school student, graduated from Yingbinlu two years ago. In an early Chinese-language examination in middle school she wrote: "I used to be very shy and hide behind my mother when I was supposed to show up. After taking martial arts, I won many prizes in competitions in Chengdu and demonstrated martial arts in Japan. The course has changed my personality and turned me into a confident girl."

In 2019, Li and other martial arts practitioners from Yingbinlu were invited to Japan by the Hiroshima county government for exchanges in Hiroshima, Osaka and Kyoto.

Chen said representatives of other primary schools in Chengdu and Chongqing have visited Yingbinlu to learn how to adapt martial arts courses for students.

Martial arts have also become popular in schools in other parts of the country. More than 100,000 students at primary and middle schools in Chenzhou, Hunan province, are taking part in martial arts training, China Sports Daily reported.

Xie Min in Chengdu contributed to this story.