Ji Yunqi is the director and head coach of the Chinese Chess High-level Reserve Talent Training Center.
As one of the pioneers and founders of the island city chess industry, Mr. Ji has served as the secretary general of the Qingdao Chess Association, the president of the Qingdao Chess Academy, the vice chairman of the Qingdao Chess Association, the deputy secretary general of the Shandong Chess Association, and has been awarded the titles of Qingdao Professional and Technical Top Talents and Members of qingdao Senior Experts Association.
VIPCHESS: Hello, Mr. Ji! First of all, thank you for accepting our interview. As a veteran figure in the chess world in Qingdao, you can be said to have witnessed the development of island chess from scratch, from the spark of stars to the momentum of the fire, so what kind of opportunity made you contact and love chess in the first place?
Ji Yunqi: Actually, I liked music at the beginning, when I was young, I played the violin, the viola, and the bassoon pipe. I also worked in the band at our cultural center for almost a decade. When I was 20 years old, I was admitted to the North Sea Fleet Cultural and Labor Corps, but because my father was once beaten as a rightist, the political trial did not pass. That is to say, in those days I could never enter a professional group, and there was no future in the field of instrumental performance.
First of all, I played Chinese chess well, and I also won a very good ranking in the qingdao city competition, and then I came into contact with chess, which was a long story, which was completely a godsend. From the 60s of the last century to the 1970s, Qingdao's foreign trade exported a lot of chess to the former Soviet Union, Europe and other countries and regions every year through shipping, in order to prevent the goods from breaking down during shipment, each time there will be more spare chess, and over time, more than 200,000 pairs of various exquisite chess pieces have been accumulated.
In 1978, Qingdao Foreign Trade sold these stocks internally at a price of 3 yuan per pair, and buying 12 pairs at a time could get a pine suitcase as large as a 28-inch suitcase. My friend Li Gencai, who played Chinese chess, was working in foreign trade at the time, and he told me the news for the first time. At that time, in order to get that good pine packaging box, I bought a lot of chess, and then introduced relatives, classmates, and colleagues around me to buy chess. Because the price is relatively cheap, it is suitable for families to be used as art decorations, and the chessboard can also be used to make a coffee table table, which everyone likes.
After my family bought so many chess pieces, I wanted to figure out how to play this chess. At that time, there were few people in Qingdao who knew chess, and there were almost no books on the market. I ran through many bookstores and finally bought a copy of the rules of the chess competition, and I learned how to move with this book. At this time, I found that The China Sports News would publish an international match every six months or so, and I held the newspaper every day to ponder it, almost to the point of sleeping and forgetting to eat. In this way, I became fascinated with chess and began to look for friends to experience the joy of playing chess together.
(With national team coach Mr. Xu Jun and students.)
Bu Xiangzhi, Jiang Xin, Hu Yi in training)
VIPCHESS: As we all know, you have taught chess for free for more than ten years, with students all over the island and abroad, with outstanding teaching achievements, and the reputation of "Gold Medal Coach" is well known. So how did you go from being a "chess enthusiast" to a "coach who trains champions"?
Ji Yunqi: At that time, the only people I knew around me were my Chinese chess friends Mr. Wang Rongjun and Mr. Li Gencai who could play chess, so I often played chess with them. But they can't have time to play with me every day, chess addiction has come up, I fell into the loneliness and anxiety of no opponent, in order to find an opponent to play chess with, I suddenly thought: others will not, I can teach them ah! So I began to run a chess training class in the District Children's Palace for free, and chess addiction can be regarded as an antidote. But what I didn't expect was that after a few decades of teaching, a large number of my students have successively grown into reserve talents of Qingdao Chess, and continue to rank among the best in competitions at all levels, such as Zhu Guangshun, Sun Chao, Zhang Lei, Su Xuemei, Wang Qingwei, Wang Li, Jinan Champion Qin Beihang, Qingdao Champion Wang Changqing and so on. Seeing them achieve good results one after another, I was really full of motivation and pride in my heart. Since then, I have decided that chess is the cause I have dedicated my life to.
(Taking photos with students Wang Qingwei and Su Xuemei in the national competition)
VIPCHESS: It is really "unintentional willow shade", I didn't expect that in order to cultivate "opponents" can play together, and finally for Qingdao chess to send so many reserve talents Ha, seeing that many of your students have now become the backbone of the development and growth of the motherland's chess cause, you should also feel honored. As one of the many pioneers, you have participated in every moment in the development of Qingdao chess, what historical moments are still fresh in your memory, and can you share them for today's people to understand and remember?
Ji Yunqi: At that time, free teaching was not a problem for me, the most realistic difficulty was that there was no chess-related competition, parents had no long-term interest in this, and children also lacked a platform for exercise and the stimulation of competition.
In order not to lose these children who learn chess, I still need to do a lot of auxiliary work, I go to the sports authorities every three to five, apply for the organization of chess competitions, and often carry out some chess publicity and interactive activities in the name of the Children's Palace. Fortunately, my efforts were not in vain, and Qingdao first resumed the inter-district chess match and the competition for the whole city of Qingdao. At this time, I thought of simply limiting the competition to various districts of the city, and the audience and influence of the promotion were also very limited. So I went to the provincial authorities to popularize the publicity, make requirements, and do the work, hoping that the provincial units would take the lead in engaging in chess competitions with a wider range of audiences, so that we could attract more interested and potential people to join us and learn together.
I remember that in 1984, our male chess players represented Shandong Province in the national chess men's team competition, but I have a lot of female students, their chess skills are not inferior, I want to strive to let them also participate in this competition, so I strongly recommended to the leaders of the provincial sports committee, hoping that our women's team can also participate in the national team competition. Under my repeated lobbying, the province finally agreed to let my female students Su Xuemei, Wang Li and Zhang Ming team up to participate in the women's team competition for the second year, which was the first women's chess team in the history of Shandong Province! I was happy not to sleep for three days, and this excitement is really no exaggeration.
In 1989, with the strong support of Mr. Jiang Younian, then director of Qingdao Radio, we participated in the first National Radio Cup Chess Competition. In 1992, our Qingdao Chess Association was established. After the establishment of the association, under the leadership of the chairman Mr. Jiang Younian put forward the slogan of "everyone comes to learn chess", held a radio and television chess lecture, which was written by me and lectured by my student Su Xuemei. At the same time, it also runs a variety of forms of chess training classes, starting from dolls, popularizing chess free of charge in 50 middle, primary and kindergartens in the city, and organizing teenagers and adults at all stages to participate in provincial, municipal and national competitions. Through these large and small activities, the number of people learning chess has increased year by year, so that Qingdao's chess sport has entered a virtuous circle of development track, formed a strategic mechanism for sustainable development, and cultivated a large number of young chess players with development potential more and faster.
In 1997, with the strong support of Qingdao Daily, the Qingdao Daily Chess Team was established. The following year, the National Elephant Association and the Daily Newspaper jointly founded a 64-grid chess professional website, becoming one of the earliest groups in China to start the professional promotion of chess websites.
In 1999, we established the first overseas training base in Hungary, and the fourteen-year-old student Bu Xiangzhi became the first Chinese chess player to train abroad...
(Photo with student Bu Xiangzhi in Hungary)
These achievements have greatly encouraged those of us who are like elephants, and have given us the confidence to devote more energy to this matter. I thought at the time: "No matter what you do, you should persevere, move towards one goal after another, do it well with your heart, and continue to do it, so that it is possible to do a good job." Now, I have seen the results of the stage, and my love for the cause of national elephants is deeper and more energetic! ”
VIPCHESS: In 2004, you were invited to the United States to give a lecture, and your life is full of glory, but you can not covet the established hotbeds, and dare to go abroad to a foreign country with different language barriers and different habits, which is very admirable. While coaching in the United States, you earned the National Master title, producing the City Champion, the State Champion and two U.S. Champions. So in the process of coaching and traveling, what advanced experiences and models do you think can be used by domestic peers to learn from and improve?
Ji Yunqi: Don't dare to be. At that time, the chess organization in the United States had been inviting, very warm and sincere. At that time, I saw that the development of chess in Qingdao and even the whole country had become a scale, the younger generation had grown up, and considering that chess was more popular in European and American countries, I wanted to change the environment and see how they trained and trained chess players and how to organize a game, so I went to New York. After arriving in the United States, I really saw the popularity of chess for all, which can be said to be a wealth of talents and masters. I enjoyed the atmosphere so much that I quickly found the curiosity and enthusiasm for learning chess in the first place through teaching and watching the game.
Fortunately, in less than two years, I was able to produce two national junior chess champions again, and then a Spanish junior champion through online teaching. On the one hand, these results have increased my confidence in teaching in foreign countries, and on the other hand, I have accumulated more sample experience for personalized teaching for students.
(with Ashiri Xue, a student who won the National 10-year-olds category)
(with Kathy Wu, a student who won the national 12-year-old group)
In addition, I go to the major chess tournaments in the United States as soon as I have the opportunity to watch the games, and I find that the format of the United States is very flexible, in a large competition like the National Open, participants can choose to participate in 9 days and 9 rounds, 8 days 9 rounds or 7 days 9 rounds or even 6 days 9 rounds according to their discretionary time. The time of the first 6 rounds of the game is different, which is divided into one round of slow chess and two rounds of slightly faster chess in one day. From the last three days, the players with different numbers of previous days have completed the first six rounds of the game, and the final three rounds of the game are arranged according to the score. The last three rounds were all slow moves, and the final calculation of the individual's nine rounds was calculated. At the same time, in the game, there are nearly ten kinds of small competitions such as fast chess matches, super fast chess matches, and double small team competitions, which are a bit like a chess sports conference. The National Junior Championships in the United States were attended by as many as 6,000 to 7,000 people, and the scene was spectacular. I think this is worth learning and learning from.
VIPCHESS: After returning to China this year, you were invited to participate in the "First Qingdao Chess Elders Competition" and the "Lujiazui Cup • The First National Chess Elders Competition", the sword is not old and both won the championship, when you and the old friends who fought together got together, sat and played chess, talked about friendship, what feelings do you have in your heart to tell us about it?
Ji Yunqi: My coaching career has been 40 years since 1978, and chess has become an inseparable part of me in this life span. My friends always say: Teacher Ji, you and the word "old" are never related. The body is always full of vitality and energy, more than the spirit of the big guys. I thank my friends for their praise, I think this is the love given to me by God, so that I can have a career that I can continue to exert strength for, inspire me to continue to keep up with the times, accumulate experience, and continue to shine for the cause of chess, continue to wander with our students in the ocean of chess, and strive to add new color to the chess cause of the motherland and create brilliance again!
(Mr. Ye Jiangchuan, Chairman of the Chinese National Elephant Association, at the National Seniors Competition)
(Teacher Ji Yunqi's special documentary video)
Transferred from the starting point thinking education workshop