JIAXING, China (AFP) — In a half-covered amphitheater in eastern China, 20-year-old Wang Shuangshuang locked his shoulder against the neck of a bull, grappling with its horns to force it to its knees.

Chinese bull-wrestling, or “guanniu,” dates back over 600 years but remains a little-known sport domestically, let alone internationally.

Students like Wang sporadically sign up for competitions, but a lack of funding and exposure means few adopt it as a full-time career, leaving it facing an existential struggle.

“Our heritage right now is neither dead nor alive,” 72-year-old master Han Haihua told Agence France-Presse in Jiaxing, a city just south of Shanghai.

“To bring in talent, you need money... I’m not bragging — give me 30 or 50 kids, train them here for three years, and I’ll make the whole world know about guanniu.”

Guanniu was brought to Jiaxing by Hui Muslim migrants, and evolved from a herding skill into a folk competition.

Unlike Spanish bullfighting, Chinese wrestlers use no weapons and do not kill the animal at the end of the bout.

Instead, they seize the bull’s horns and try to bring it to the ground, and win extra points if they can jump onto its back or crawl underneath its belly.

According to Han, in the early 2000s guanniu got a boost from Xi Jinping, then the provincial party secretary, who pushed for traditions like bull wrestling to be officially listed as “intangible cultural heritage.”

These days, an annual competition run by Han’s martial arts school is held at the “China Bullfighting Hall” amphitheater, its nameplate inscribed by martial arts novelist Jin Yong.