One Jump at a Time: My Story
Book by Nathan Chen
DETAILS
Publisher : Harper (November 22, 2022) Language : English Hardcover : 240 pages ISBN-10 : 0063280523 ISBN-13 : 978-0063280526 Item Weight : 14.6 ounces Dimensions : 6 x 0.89 x 9 inches Best Sellers Rank: #6,794 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #1 in Ice Skating & Figure Skating (Books) #4 in Olympic Games #10 in Asian & Asian Americans Biographies , In this exhilarating memoir, three-time World Champion and Olympic gold-medalist Nathan Chen tells the story of his remarkable journey to success, reflecting on his life as a Chinese American figure skater and the joys and challenges he has experienced—including the tremendous sacrifices he and his family made, and the physical and emotional pain he endured. When three-year-old Nathan Chen tried on his first pair of figure skates, magic happened. But the odds of this young boy—one of five children born to Chinese immigrants—competing and making it into the top echelons of figure skating were daunting. Chen’s family didn’t have the resources or access to pay for expensive coaches, rink time, and equipment. But Nathan’s mother, Hetty Wang, refused to fail her child. Recognizing his tremendous talent and passion, she stepped up as his coach, making enormous sacrifices to give Nathan the opportunity to compete in this exclusive world. That dedication eventually paid off at the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing, where Chen—reverently known as the “Quad King”—won gold, becoming the first Asian-American man to stand at the highest podium in figure skating. In this moving and inspiring memoir Chen opens up for the first time, chronicling everything it took to pursue his dreams. Bolstered by his unwavering passion and his family’s unconditional support, Chen reveals the most difficult times he endured, and how he overcame each obstacle–from his disappointment at the 2018 Olympic Games, to competing during a global pandemic, to the extreme physical and mental toll the sport demands. Pulling back the curtain on the figure skating world and the Olympics, Chen reveals what it was really like at the Beijing Games and competing on the US team in the same city his parents had left—and his grandmother still lived. Poignant and unfiltered, told in his own words, One Jump at a Time is the story of one extraordinary young man—and a testament to the love of a family and the power of persistence, grit, and passion. This memoir includes 16 pages of color photographs. Read more
REVIEW
After a shockingly disastrous SP in the 2018 Olympics that dashed his medal hopes, Nathan Chen went on to dominate men's figure skating so completely in the next Olympic quad cycle that his 2022 Olympic win seemed like a given. Yet, that gold medal was hard won, and in this book, we begin to see how much work went into creating that perfect Olympic moment of triumph and glory - Nathan's own hard work, and also, team-work. From the numerous injuries he faced and the physical pain he skated through, to the mental hurdles, self-doubts, emotional struggles and psychological stress he laboured under, to the uncertainties and dangers of training and competing during a global pandemic, this book recounts in a factual manner some of the details and drama that lie behind the impressive competitive career of the Quad King. Nathan's story is actually incredible, but he tells it in a characteristic matter-of-fact tone, so that much of the drama is under-stated and under-played. Incredible, for e.g, how much he and his family achieved with limited financial resources, and the sacrifices they made. In order to train near his coach Rafael, little Nathan and his mum not only slept in cars, they even stayed in a cabin in the woods near the rink, a cabin with no internet and no car access during winter, so that he completed his homework after training in public lounges, and walked in the dark winter through the snow to get back home. Nathan's tale is full of grit, determination and sacrifice, and also, of the great kindness and generosity of coaches and people who saw the potential in him and went out of their way to help him. The list of injuries and pain he fought through was so much that I felt exhausted just reading about it, and that was even before he had begun his senior career. Just looking at his awe-inspiring skates at Nationals, Worlds, GPFs and Olympics, one would never have imagined that he skated - and won - despite great pain and crippling injury. He competed in Juniors with a broken hand in a cast and placed third. As a senior, he competed even when he was so sick that whatever he ate or drank, he vomited. He competed in Nationals with injury so bad that he could hardly move after he completed the free. Often, he competed with little time to spare for practice after recovering from injury, including in 2022 when he suffered from hip pain and ankle injury just before the Olympics. Reading about all these injuries and pains and the frustrations of practice when he couldn't land jumps, including right before competitions, makes Nathan's stellar competitive accomplishments even more impressive. That Quad Salchow with the slightly wonky landing during the 2022 Olympics FS for e.g. takes on added significance when we realise that he was struggling with the Salchow minutes before the actual competitive performance started, and that he landed it by making deliberate adjustments to compensate for the weak takeoff. The fact that Nathan never ever talks about his injuries and pains in interviews and press conferences and never ever uses injuries as excuses for poor performance is a testimony to his character. The fact that Nathan characteristically underplays his achievements is also testimony to his character. Never once in the book did he mention his jaw-dropping world record scores, or his 14 back-to-back wins, making him the skater with the longest winning streak in the history of men's figure skating, and one with the highest winning percentage. He memorably beat Yuzuru Hanyu in 2 epic showdowns at Worlds 2019 and GPF 2020 where Pooh bears fell like rain after Hanyu skated only for Nathan to come out right after with record-setting skates, and he did all this while skating part-time and studying as a full time student at Yale. These incredible achievements Nathan summed up in 1 sentence which was so short and understated it made me laugh: "Even though I wasn't so focused on skating and winning over the next two years, I managed to win all my competitions." I loved reading about Nathan's relationship with his coach Rafael, and wished he would go into more details. The few anecdotes he provided about Rafael's sayings and methods are intriguing. The portrait that emerges is that of a true master who has his own enigmatic ways of teaching and a long wise vision of the journey and the goal, and of a young, gifted, hard-working but impatient disciple who is at times wilful and clueless and who even once rebelled against the master and left him, only to return. I am impressed by Rafael, and I really wish that he would write a memoir. It would be fascinating to read about Nathan's training and triumph from Rafael's perspective, because he was truly instrumental in this. Besides Rafael, we get a glimpse of the other people that were instrumental in shaping Nathan into the champion that he is. His mum, his family, his other coaches, his therapists, his choreographers, his costume designer, the people who produce and maintain his skating boots, his skating federations and sponsors, medical team, skating rink management, teachers, friends and well-wishers. Anecdotes immediately surrounding the time leading up to the Olympic skate show how much teamwork featured in creating a gold medal win, and how many people contributed to this achievement. From the skating rink manager who stood by the door to personally safeguard Nathan's private ice time during the pandemic-riddled period leading up the the Olympics, to Rafael's impromptu fix of Nathan's deteriorating boots just before the Olympic skate, these anecdotes remind us that this gold medal win might not have happened, if all these people had not stepped in and helped in their various ways. In so many ways, Nathan's win was a collective effort of many people over 20 years and all the way right up to the moment of skate in Beijing 2022. Teamwork aside, it was ultimately Nathan who had to perform, and the book gives details about how he managed to conquer his self-doubt and the memories of fouling up at Pyeongchang. One gets the impression that if Nathan had practiced less before 2018, he would have suffered less injury and stress, and also won. In a way, his mother's motto of hard driven work helped to create the basis for his success, but also created the basis for his failure at Pyeongchang. Ultimately he won by moving beyond his mother's philosophy to find a larger, more wholistic, balanced and wiser philosophy that emerged from his own experience of life and of training. Though a central aspect of his journey that Nathan was at pains to stress was that of teamwork, emergent within this is a story of a young athlete coming into his own, moving out from the shadows of his elders and mentors, finding his own path, which is the right path for him, taking control, becoming wiser and smarter, becoming the master. One comes away with a better understanding of Nathan the boy and Nathan the man and the forces that shaped him. His natural talent for jumping and for music and his fearlessness. How his competitive spirit was fuelled and his discipline forged. We catch glimpses of the creative forces of music and dance that inspire him as an artist and his talent as an athlete that made coaches from diverse disciplines from gymnastics to ballet to speed skating want to recruit him into their ranks. I feel that Nathan could have excelled in any of the fields that he participated in - gymnastics, piano, ballet - but he loved figure skating best and it was in this that he specialised. He specialised so thoroughly that much of his entire life up was spent on the rink, and even non-skating activities were in support of the skating, and his relationships with his family especially his mum were also defined by his skating. Skating, as he said, provided the basis for his development, for his greatest joy and fulfilment, and also his deepest pain and frustrations. Yet, he is not - and does not wish to be - merely defined by his skating. Inherent in this story of total commitment to skating, is also the story of moving beyond. Even before his Olympic triumph, even before his senior career indeed, Nathan was already looking ahead to a life beyond skating. Even as he moved to dominate the field of figure skating, he also laid the seeds for a future life by going to Yale. Even though his achievements as a skater is already legendary, his story is just beginning. In his family genealogy which from both maternal and paternal sides boasts a long line of physician-scientists, we discern the direction that he might take, and it is impressive. Unlike many skaters who pursue mediocre careers in their post-competitive life, we just know that Nathan Chen will be anything but mediocre in his career choices post-competition. Just like he surprised and delighted us as a skater and redefined the field of figure skating, no doubt, he will surprise and delight us in his post-competition avatar, and redefine fields of undertaking that folks can scarcely imagine. Can't wait to read the rest of his story.
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