Eight-year-old gymnast coming off back-to-back NorCal titles
Since opening his Champions Academy gymnastics center in Morgan Hill four years ago, Jinjing Zhang has been surrounded by potential.
The Chinese Olympic silver medalist works with large scores of toddlers, children and teens each day inside the 18,000-square foot facility, helping them grasp a most demanding sport.
To be successful on the state and national levels, as select Champions gymnasts have, takes more than intense physical training. It requires uncoachable qualities: focus, dedication and commitment.
Zhang sees all of that in young Natalia English. The 8-year-old from Walnut Creek wrapped up her fourth season of gymnastics with a first-place finish at the Nov. 20 Level 5 Northern California State Championship in Union City. English, who last year won a Level 4 NorCal title, took gold in beam (9.55), floor exercise (9.37) and vault (9.25) and was second in uneven bars (9.42), scoring the highest all around (37.6) for her age group and level — about 500 competitors total.
“There’s so many talented athletes; we never know, when they go compete, what’s going to happen,” Zhang said of his gymnasts at Champions. “With (Natalia), the best part is, she can control herself really well. She has a natural ability to control in big competitions.”
Being on the big stage at Level 5, English said she was intimidated at first, though, she trusts in her training.
“My coach said, ‘Just do your best. Get that high score. Remember all the corrections I told you. You can do it,'” said English, who has been ranked in the top 100 nationally. “I was proud of myself for getting those high scores.
“Going into Level 5, I had to work harder this year. There’s harder skills I still have to work on.”
English is perfecting a back walk-over on beam and a round-off, flip-flop, back tuck in floor; all of which she plans to use next season at Level 6.
By January 2012, English hopes to be at Level 7, where gymnasts can compete in regional and national events.
“My goal is to do my best,” she said. “I really want to go to worlds, be a national champion and be an Olympian.”
That would be the ultimate goal for any gymnasts. Right now, English is focused on her next step and achieving perfection.
“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Zhang said. “There’s a little pressure, but she can get there. The most important part now is building up her strength.”
English’s tiny frame is full of spring. She trains about 12 hours a week during the offseason. Once her third-grade class gets out in Berkeley, she drives to Morgan Hill and studies along the way.
Her grades haven’t suffered. English is an exemplary student at Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley, where she studies French seven hours a day.
Her teachers marvel at how she balances school and gymnastics.
“It’s hard to believe that outside of class Natalia is a serious competitor in gymnastics,” her English teacher, Michelle Mebine, said in an e-mail. “Though this takes up so much of her time and focus, at school she is all about what we are doing in class and being with her friends.”
English’s French teacher, Marie-Anne Allain added, “(Natalia) never brags about her performances and her success.”
It was English’s friends who got her into gymnastics four years ago. Her mother, Victoria, asked a friend’s mom if Natalia could carpool with her to school.
“She’s said, ‘I’ll take our daughter if you let your daughter take gymnastics,'” Victoria said. “She’s really been in love with it since.”
NOTE: Morgan Hill’s Jaya Krishnan, also of Champions Academy, won a state title in floor at the Level 4 NorCal Championship held Dec. 4-5 in Rancho Cordova. Krishnan placed fourth all around.
