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'Passion for gymnastics'

December 18, 2007 12:35 am

When Stafford's head gymnastics coach of eight years, Valerie Welch, resigned last May, the Parks and Recreation Department looked for a fresh start.

"We felt we had to regroup here," said Angela Regan, the gymnastics program director.

The result is Henry Nunez, from the Dominican Republic, new head coach for the Royals competition team, and Yan Wu, from China, whose goal is to develop, for the first time, a competitive rhythmic gymnastics group for the Royals.

Stafford's gymnastics program began on a limited basis in 1968. In 1980, a year-round gymnastics program was started at all levels. From that grew the Royals, a team eligible to perform in official USA Gymnastics competitions.

More than 900 youngsters come to the facility every week. Of these, 85 are on the Royals team, from ages 6 to 18.

Nunez, 32, was born in Santo Domingo and has been a gymnast since he was 8. He first coached when he was 14, preparing younger students. He was a competitor on his country's national team for 10 years and also was certified as a competition judge. In September 2006 he came to the United States and he coached at the Kelly Hill Gymnastic Center near Rockville, Md., before answering Stafford's ad. He came to the county in September.

"The people here have a lot of passion for gymnastics," he said. "I'm really happy to be a part of it." His favorite exercise is the rings, followed by the vault, the uneven bars and the floor events, "particularly the backflips."

Nunez wants to attract more boys to the competitive level of the gymnastics program. At the preschool level, 10 percent in the program are boys, and the count goes down from there as the years pass. They go for the "tougher" sports like football, soccer and basketball. "Gymnastics teaches poise and confidence, as well as develops the body," said Nunez.

Yan Wu, 43, has been a gymnast since she was 5, beginning in artistic gymnastics. This specialization includes the balance beam, the vault, the uneven bars and the floor exercises (like the flips across the mat that TV watchers know so well). Then, at 14, she turned to the more graceful sport of rhythmic gymnastics, now her primary love.

"This is very big in Asia and in Europe," she said, "but not so much in the United States. Americans want to have fun, be more energetic." Rhythmic exercises, like dancing with a twirling ribbon or a hoop, require discipline. "It's not just a matter of running and jumping into a pit," she said. "It's like ballet."

Yan, a former member of the Chinese national team, came to the U.S. from Beijing in July 1989 and settled in Chicago with her husband, Xiao Ming Feng, a journalist. They later moved to St. Louis, Mo., and in both cities she taught gymnastics. They came to the Washington, D.C., area in 1996 when her husband joined Radio Free Asia, the American government station serving that continent.

The mother of three also runs her own school in Fairfax in space rented from a martial arts studio, where she has 25 students. So far, in Stafford, she has four rhythmic students, giving them one hour of her six-hour week here. "My goal is to make rhythmics a bigger attraction," she said, "with girls who enjoy making the competition pretty."