Zhou Heyang - As A Child

As A Child

Zhou was described as being a mischievous, boisterous, opinionated and pugnacious child. He learnt Go because his father thought he'd change his behavior. He quickly progressed and improved quickly. He hated losing, and it could be seen. At the age of 10, he already achieved 4th place at the National Youth Championships. Since he was 4th in the tournament, he left home and joined the National Youth Squad in Beijing. Now he could learn about the deeper facts of Go. The team was an outstanding squad of Shao Weigang, Lui Jing, Chang Hao, Luo Xihe, Wang Lei, and Zhou himself. The problem Zhou had was that he was not like the other players. He did not go through the normal system of city or province squads. He never had those training methods. He slowly matured up after joining the team. It took him a long 18 months to finally reach the average strength of the group. He was still a very unconfident player. There was harsh criticism in the training system the team used. This is the one part Zhou had an advantage, and that was his stubbornness. Zhou was very lucky because the squad teacher, Wu Yulin, kept him with the team even though he was progressing much slower than the other teammates. Zhou would gain patience from the criticism. Now he could count a game accurately.