ok the other day when I wrote about doping I was really down and upset about sports and China and commentary etc and now there are all these other news stories about the tragic Chinese or whatever. and like I feel the need to emphasize that, given the diversity and size and the immensity of what “China” is, there’s also always so much love, yeah destructive love sometimes shot through with trauma and pain and sacrifice and whatever, but also healing giving love. and the existence of one kind shouldn’t obscure the other kind?
I mean, I’m on tumblr right now and not writing my paper bc Gabby Douglas is giving me so many feels. In a few of the pictures flooding my dash, there’s a Chinese guy enthusiastically congratulating her, so of course I had to look him up. He’s Liang Chow, her coach.
From the moment he became a coach, particularly of the younger students who just found gymnastics fun, Chow vowed to keep that youthful passion for the sport part of his teaching style, even with elite athletes. A typical day at his gym sees dozens of gymnasts of all ages cycling through their sessions, with Chow providing encouragement and eliciting the occasional giggles as he picks up a youngster in a handstand and swings her around, or playfully swats gymnasts practicing vault sprints with a foam bat to speed them up. Always ready with a smile and a joke, Chow laughs more than he scowls. That’s what kept Shawn Johnson, a native of West Des Moines, with him for nearly two decades as a competitive gymnast, and guided her to the sport’s ultimate test—the Olympic Games. “Chow is like a father to me, we’ve been with each other for so long,” she says.
It’s also what drew Gabrielle Douglas, who was living in Virginia Beach, to him. Watching on TV the hugs and smiles and genuine support Chow gave Johnson during the Beijing Games, Douglas could practically feel the warmth travelling all those miles and reaching through the screen. “I wanted to be there,” she says of being able to call Chow coach.
Douglas now lives with a host family to train with Chow in Iowa, and despite missing her family, doesn’t regret the sacrifices she has made to hone her gymnastics skills with him. “He brings out what we didn’t know we had inside,” she says.
That’s Chow’s specialty. Gymnastics, he believes, is a great teacher; he credits his time in the sport with providing him with the discipline, perspective and resilience to not only endure in the gym but in life as well. “I think gymnastics trained me as a person too,” he says. “Without the lessons I learned in gymnastics, I would be crushed.”
Which is why he passes on the same parables to his students. In Chow’s gym, it’s all about pushing athletes to not only win, but to win and be satisfied with the journey to the podium. That’s exactly what Douglas was looking for, and what she found in the hugs and warmth she felt when she saw Chow for the first time. A talented athlete who earned the only guaranteed spot on the London squad by winning the Olympic Trials, Douglas turned to Chow for help on consistency during competitions, and on learning to tune out the butterflies that seemed to take flight during high pressure events. He focused on turning her attention away from the competition and back to the training gym, to the dozens of routines she performs over and over to build up muscle memory.
It worked. “I tell her, if you perform your routine and follow my directions and you’re doing good, it’s your deal. And if you screw up, it’s my mistake, so don’t worry about it,” he says.
He came out of the Chinese system. He was going to be a coach in Beijing in fact, but allure of the West etc etc. And like fuck that shit about Chinese robot machines because he just sounds like the most grounded and lovely guy:
“I’m here for the kids. I’m not here for them to achieve my ambitions. I feel like my athletic life is over,” Chow said. “They need to be enjoying themselves. And for this level, it’s not easy. They have to have the heart to.
Johnson and Douglas both say Chow became a surrogate father to them, pushing them athletically without punishing them emotionally. He revels in their success, but doesn’t take the credit.
Indeed, after Douglas turned in a strong showing at U.S. nationals in St. Louis last month, Chow could be seen smiling proudly in front of the podium, one camera in each hand, deftly snapping pictures of his rising star. One set of pictures was for himself, the other for Douglas’s mother, Natalie Hawkins.
“I want to keep this moment. Since her mom could not be down here, I was closer. I’ll e-mail them to her mom,” Chow said.
Chow’s English has improved greatly since he arrived in Iowa City in 1991, lured by an aunt who was studying at the University of Iowa. But he is still prone to exaggerated body language when making a point, lifting his arms over his head and arching his back to show Douglas what went wrong, the way he was forced to teach when language was a barrier.
Chow said it took time for coach and gymnast to learn about each other. He had to discover the right way to motivate Douglas, to teach her that world-class gymnastics isn’t merely a matter of technique, but rather letting others feel your joy as you compete.
“I think she is a very loving kid and has a big heart. She wants to please you as your student,” he said. “But I don’t want to give her too much pressure. ‘You have to do this.’ I want her to feel like she’s doing the gymnastics every day and putting the hard work in. She’s doing it for herself. She’s doing it because she’s loving it.”
Chow was so excited about Douglas’s performance that he could be seen leaping into the air, running toward the North Greenwich Arena tunnel, pumping one fist. It was quite a departure for the normally laid-back coach.
Asked about this new hyperkinetic Chow, he at first joked that it must have been something in the food at the Olympic Village.
“You’re trying to help her to achieve her dreams, her ambitions,” he finally explained. “Every routine, we’re just one step closer. So the joy is out of my heart.”
like I don’t know how to reconcile any of this stuff. the trauma the expectation of sacrifice the fact that such tear jerking kindness and loveliness can come from those conditions. (because of? in spite of? I just don’t even know.) ugh just feels. feels all over the place.
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