Ayaha Chen glides onto the ice at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center followed by her younger brother, Jun-Hong Chen.
She’s ballerina-slender and tall. He’s wiry and compact. She has dimples. He has a charming smile. They’re both congenial and polite.

Nothing immediately suggests the internal drive and hunger that puts both of them on the ice day after day, week after week, all year in pursuit of lofty dreams.

The siblings competed in the U.S. Junior Figure Skating Championships in East Lansing, Mich. in December — she for the second time, he for the third.

Ayaha, 12, wants to compete internationally in the sport and make it at least once to the Olympics. Jun-Hong, 10, said he plans to win medals “at three Olympics, 2018, 2022, 2026,” and, “Definitely at the last one I want to win gold.”

At a moment like this, as his children strap on skates to practice, Shin-Juh Chen still seems a little surprised by how far they’ve taken their skills. “I didn’t know they would be so committed,” he said.

And it all started at a birthday party.

The dream begins

Shin-Juh and his wife, Rinko, didn’t grow up ice skating. Neither did their children. Then, six years ago, they were invited to a birthday skating party at the GCCC rink.

Ayaha and Jun-Hong became intrigued. Their dad had signed them up for the GCCC’s Learn to Skate program. “I just really liked being out there,” Ayaha said. “I started doing competitions.”

She didn’t do well at first. That just made her want to try harder.

“She loves to compete,” said her dad.

Three years later, Jun-Hong started skating regularly with his sister.

They started placing at competitions, coached by Lisa Schub and then Jon Robinson. When Robinson left four years ago, he recommended coaches in Colorado Springs.

So for a few months each year during competitions, the family treks north every weekend for personal coaching lessons, about a 640-mile round trip. The rest of the time, they go up at least once a month.

In between, sometimes using Skype or sending videos back and forth, their coaches give them tips from afar.

The rest of the time the sister and brother are on their own, out on the ice a couple of hours a day, five days or more a week. It is all them, their father says. He’s just along as chauffeur, adviser and quiet cheerleader.

“He doesn’t always watch us during competitions,” said Ayaha. “I’ll look up in the stands and he has his head down or his eyes closed.”

“Sometimes its hard to watch, especially when they’re doing jumps,” admitted Shin-Juh, a little sheepishly.

He knows how hard they work, how many hours they train. He knows they only have one chance in competitions to get it right.

An unusual commitment

“There are never days I want to stop, but there are definitely days when I get discouraged,” said Ayaha.

They’re both nearing a make-or-break point, the moment when they’ll learn the jumps and finesse they need to move another level closer to their dreams.

Their coaches admire how far they’ve come, given the circumstances. “They’ve got a lot drive and a lot of natural talent,”
said Damon Allen, Ayaha’s primary coach at the World Arena in Colorado Springs. “The first time I saw Ayaha skate, I thought, ‘Who is that little star?’ She’s very elegant on the ice, and smooth. She has a great musicality, understands phrasing and interpretation. That’s not really something you can teach. Both of them have that musicality in their favor.”

Jun-Hong’s coach is Ryan Jahnke, who left the U.S. national ice skating team in 2006. Neither he, nor Allen, have ever coached skaters at a distance like they do the Chens.

“It takes an extraordinary ability to stick with what they’ve been taught and stay organized,” Jahnke said. “Between them and their father, who steers them in the right direction, it’s pretty spectacular. I’ve never seen this in ice skaters of their age.”

He said Jun-Hong needs to keep working on some skating fundamentals. “When someone is young, they can look cute and spunky and get away with it. But that’s not mature skating.”

Still, Jahnke said, “The talent and ability in these kids allow them to keep moving up.”

In between face-to-face lessons, the coaches rely on email, videos and phone calls to help their Santa Fe students. “It’s not the optimum,” Allen said. “Ayaha needs to be up here a little more often. Not necessarily daily, but more continuously, just so she can get a little more of a push and competition.”

Ayaha needs to learn at least three types of triple jumps to move to the novice level. She can already do a triple Salchow. She’s on the cusp of nailing the triple toe and will still need to learn a triple lutz, loop and flip.

If she continues, she’ll move next to junior and then senior, the level which produces world champions and Olympians.

Both young skaters can do the double axel jump (2.5 revolutions). Jun-Hong is working on his triple Salchow.

On the ice

The ice rink staff all know the Chens. Ayaha said they owe a lot to the dedication the staff gives to keeping the rink in top shape.

There’s no off season for ice skating. Every moment on the ice builds the skills needed to impress judges and win fierce competitions.

Sometimes Jun-Hong’s friends ask him if he can take a day off. Off the ice, he starts to feel antsy, even bored, he said. On the ice, he looks like he was born to skate.

Ayaha said she’ll try track this year at Santa Fe Preparatory, where she attends school. But it probably won’t replace her love for figure skating.

“On the ice, I feel like I’m supposed to be there,” she said.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.