Development of Wushu Training Program to Improve Tornado Kick Skill of Students Aged 7-9 Years Old

Background and Aim: The tornado kick, a complex and high-level skill in wushu, presents significant challenges for young learners due to its demands on balance, coordination, strength, and agility. The tornado kick is a complex movement that involves a combination of rotation, timing, and a high kick. Younger children have difficulty synchronizing these movements due to their still-developing motor coordination. Therefore, this research was to develop a wushu training program to improve the tornado kick skill of students aged 7-9 years old. Materials and Methods: This research was quasi-experimental. The population of this research consists of 42 students, aged 7-9 years old, from the wushu club at Shanghai Putuo District Youth Sports School. All 42 students aged 7-9 years old from the wushu club will participate in the tornado kick skill test, with their scores being recorded. From this group, a sample of 30 students who score the lowest on the test and volunteer to participate in the research will be selected as a sample group. Through a systematic sampling method, 30 students were divided into 2 groups: 15 students in the experimental group and 15 students in the control group. The training was conducted over 8 weeks. The experimental group and the control group were administered the tornado kick skill test, 60-second sit-ups test, and sit-and-reach test before the training, after 4 weeks of training, and upon completion of the 8-week training program. In this research, mean, standard deviation, one-way repeated measures ANOVA, Bonferroni post hoc, and independent t-tests were used to analyze the data. Results: After training with the developed wushu training program, the tornado kick skill, 60-second sit-ups, and sit-and-reach in the experimental group had a significant difference, p<.05, between pretest-mid-test, pretest-posttest, and mid-test-posttest. This indicates that the tornado kick skill, strength, and flexibility of the students in the experimental group had significant improvements at all time points. Conclusion: The comparison between the experiment and control groups, with the post-test results of the tornado kick skill test the test results showed a significant difference. This indicates that the developed Wushu training program more effectively improves the tornado kick skill of students aged 7-9 years old.