A perfect zen

Qiao Liang says the most difficult thing in life is to do a double-double flip. If you can pull that off, he says, you can do anything.

In that case, Chow (as he is better known in the west) did a double back flip out of China, and with a double twist, dismounted in the US, accomplishing more in his charmed life than few can even dream about.

After a successful career as a gymnast in China, Chow immigrated to the US where he studied English and Sports Science at the University of Iowa in the early 1990s. He quickly got into coaching gymnastics for the university, leading many men and women college gymnasts to stardom.

But after seven and a half years of coaching college students, Chow decided he could make more of a difference by getting to the gymnasts at a younger age, "so I don't have to fix up somebody else's techniques," he said.

So he set to work on a dream of his: opening his own gymnastics studio. Over the next year, he built Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Studio, literally by hand sometimes. One decade and many talented gymnasts later, Chow is a coach for the US National Gymnastics Team, all but assured of taking his star pupil, Shawn Johnson, to Beijing in 2008 to compete in the Olympics.

Still, Chow remains modest about what he has accomplished.

"We're just trying to be a part of the team right now," he said when reached on his cell phone in Houston, Texas at the headquarters of the US Olympic team's training camp. "We're just taking one step at a time."

Chow and Shawn took a big step in September at the World Gymnastics Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. With her coach at her side, Shawn - who is the No 2-ranked gymnast in the world - snagged three gold medals and was named the all-around champion.

When Chow was Shawn's age and living in Beijing, he too was a gymnastics star. As a co-captain of the Chinese National Gymnastics Team, he led his country to more than 30 international gold medals over his athletic career.

It took a couple of tries before gymnastics really clicked with Chow. His father, a former soccer player, placed him in gymnastics at the tender age of five.

"He thought it would be good physical and mental preparation for life," Chow said.

But the young boy was not too interested in preparing for life just then. Unable to listen to his coach or stand still for even a minute, little Chow got kicked out of the gym: "I had too much energy, like a typical boy. I was just playing around."

But two years later, with his youthful energy seemingly channeled back into gymnastics, Chow got serious. He won all-around gold in his first gymnastics meet, and by the time he was 10, he was a national champion.

His career peaked in 1990 when he was named the All-Around Master Champion at the Gymnastics World Cup at the age of 22. But a year later, with a glut of talented young gymnasts in China poised to step into the spotlight, Chow decided to retire. He accepted a full-ride scholarship to study English in Iowa, and moved across the ocean.

It was only a few weeks after he opened his studio that Shawn walked through his door.

"She and her mom walked in and there was this six-year-old, toothless little girl, with a bigsmiling face," Chow fondly recalled. "You could just tell, that kid loves gymnastics."

Chow and his wife, Zhuang Liwen, who were teammates on the Chinese National Team before getting married 14 years ago, began coaching Shawn together. Shawn says she can't imagine a better pair of coaches.

"Even after just the first meet it felt as if it was a perfect fit," the busy 15-year-old wrote in an e-mail. "I would just say it was fate that brought us all together."

Chow is a tough coach, Shawn says, and Chow admits that he can be demanding. But Shawn, who calls her coaches her "second parents", quickly points out that Chow always has his gymnasts' best interests in mind and keeps them "as healthy as possible".

For Chow, gymnastics is about more than winning medals - it's about preparing for life. Shawn wrote that Chow teaches her "everyday about important life decisions", about responsibility and respect.

And those life lessons are hardly a one-way street: One of the most important things Chow has learned as a coach is how to speak English.

"My gymnasts helped me to learn English," he said. "It's kind of like a trade: I teach them gymnastics and they teach me the language."

Those language skills will be invaluable to Chow as his presence grows larger on the international stage. Though most Chinese people today may have difficulty recalling Chow's athletic achievements, they will be forced to notice him next summer as a driving force behind the US gymnastics team, China's fiercest rival.

And after the US's narrow team gymnastics victory at the World Championships this year, the rivalry is as hot as it's ever been. But Chow downplays the rivalry and dismisses any notion of feeling nervous about his first return to Beijing in 14 years or feeling pressure from either side.

"Sport is sport," he said plainly. "We're not politicians."

Indeed, Chow's philosophy about gymnastics transcends petty rivalries. It's a philosophy that keeps him balanced in life as well. As Shawn said, Chow is "much more concentrated on 'now' moments" and prefers not to obsess about the past or the future.

Both the rowdy kid running through the gym and the champion twisting through the air, Chow Liang has landed his double-double.

(China Daily 10/31/2007 page22)