Martial arts students perform during the Games' opening ceremony. [Photo by ZHANG WEI/CHINA DAILY]

For the first two months of training, the students used hard sticks to practice.

"When they started to use flexible poles for the first time on Dec 15, they were all shocked by the longer, lighter and softer props, which have different strength points and angles than the sticks," Zang said.

To prevent the poles from breaking, the students spent long hours of practice by the seaside in Yantai, where they learned to overcome wind and improve stability.

"Another difficulty is to turn the switch that controls the color change on and off," said Yang Shengjie, director of the martial arts office at Yuncheng Songjiang Martial Arts School in Heze.

The students needed to switch manually from the green color of grass to the white color of dandelions in a coordinated fashion, Yang said.

Sun Xingzhe, a 17-year-old Zhonghua Martial Arts School student, said, "Although I didn't make it home to stay with my family for Spring Festival because of the rehearsals, I feel honored to have attended the Beijing Olympic Games."