Mishin's experience, Averbukh's production and internal control: what helped Kolyada again become one of the best figure skaters in the world

If you write that the victory of Mikhail Kolyada is the best and most striking thing that happened on Friday at the Russian Championship, this will be true only for a tiny part.

The return of the two-time - sorry, already three-time - champion of the country to the elite under the leadership of Alexei Mishin is the best that could have happened in the current season with men's single skating.

Moreover, it seems to me, not only Russian.

I believe that in the fate of the legendary coach, working with Kolyada is not just another, albeit very talented, student joining the group.

When two outstanding personalities intersect and find a common language at the same historical stage, the result is usually very high.

But sometimes it takes a long time to wait for him.

It is no coincidence, after all, two and a half years ago, when two-time world champion Evgeny Medvedev passed to Brian Orser from Eteri Tutberidze, the Canadian said in an interview that the time it takes for an athlete and a coach to grind each other to climb to a new peak is usually one and a half of the year.

In this point of view, Orser was supported by one of the leading US coaches, Rafael Harutyunyan.

“When an adult athlete comes to the group, on whose path there have already been many mentors, the work with whom was not very successful, he looks at you in the same way as he looked at his predecessors,” he explained.

- That is, with a certain distrust and a certain model that has developed over the years in his head.

Sometimes on this basis, while the grinding is in progress, conflicts arise, because the fact that you are not at all what the student imagines, he only has to understand. "

“Moreover, he certainly doesn't believe you.

He continues to do the same work day in and day out, to which he is accustomed, not realizing that this will not change anything at all.

So the skater has to change his mind.

Teach him to listen, to do what they say, and not what he considers right.

After all, the result is primarily technology.

It depends on many small things: how a person warms up, what exercises he does, why, ”said Harutyunyan.

Kolyada recalled with admiration his rather short work with Harutyunyan in California.

For the skater, this was the first experience of some departure from the system of his main mentor Valentina Chebotareva.

After a crushing failure at the Pyeongchang Olympics, he himself was eager for new knowledge.

For choreographic skills, together with a coach, he briefly traveled to Switzerland - to Stéphane Lambiel.

“I really liked the way we worked.

We changed the approaches to jumps, and indeed the approach to training in general.

We analyzed in great detail the quadruple lutz, which before that I had jumped in competitions only twice - at the tournament in Bratislava and at the Grand Prix stage in China.

In general terms, the mistake was that I did not have quite the correct jump direction.

Everything seemed to work out well visually.

And since the quadruple lutz is a rather powerful element, sometimes I simply did not have enough physical strength to get out of it.

The most offensive thing is that I began to understand all this already in the process of entering.

As we say, when you go to the jump, you must see the exit.

And I did not see the exit.

So I landed as necessary.

Either on two legs, or in a jump-off, or generally on the fifth point, ”Kolyada noted then about the American internship.

Then I asked Mikhail: if he had to pay out of his own pocket for working with Harutyunyan or Lambiel, would he go to these specialists?

“Yes,” the skater answered without hesitation.

“I don’t mind any money for such work.”

Kolyada was certainly lucky with Mishin.

Having gone through numerous failures of the last year, the skater seems to have not only matured, but very clearly understood what he wants.

And this "something" most definitely had nothing to do with the absolute and familiar comfort that surrounded the skater in his former group.

This is by no means a reproach to the previous coach.

It was Chebotareva who taught Kolyada everything that he can now, went through the hardest period of his life with him, when the skater suffered a comminuted fracture of his leg, followed by a long, sometimes painful recovery.

She stood up to protect the ward in all life situations and sports defeats, trying to protect him, like a small child, from any stress and shock.

And, perhaps, she just missed the moment when the athlete grew up.  

Immediately after the victory in Chelyabinsk, Kolyada admitted that working with Mishin was a breath of fresh air for him.

“Everything was new to me - exercise, training, everything ... And to this day I continue to enrich myself.

He (Mishin. -

RT

) is a person with incredible experience, "said the skater.

Great experience as a mentor is another ingredient for success.

Many years ago, I asked Mishin's former partner and no less legendary coach Tamara Moskvina what it means to lead an athlete to Olympic gold.

Does this road become beaten and understandable when you walk along it not for the first time, but for the third or fourth time?

Moskvina then replied that this path is never repeated: each new pair has to look for its own approach, take into account the characteristics of the character of athletes.

But she added: “Experience allows you to cut corners wherever possible.

This means that the path to the goal becomes a little shorter. "

Perhaps this is precisely why Mishin managed to avoid wasting time in working with Kolyada.

Already at the September open skates, it was striking how consciously Mikhail began to skate.

After all, by and large, in the previous, "Domishin" times, the skater most of all lacked internal control.

When an athlete is naturally gifted to such an extent with a sense of movement, he does not need to control every step - everything turns out as if by itself.

But this is in training.

If, against the background of competitive stress, a breakdown suddenly occurs, a stupor arises in the athlete's head from a misunderstanding of what is happening and, as a result, panic.

In this case, there is simply no time to think about fulfilling the technical task.

It seems to me that this was the main reason for Kolyada's numerous “butterflies” at tournaments that were significant for him.

“I don’t know how Mishin managed to breathe new life into Kolyada, but thanks to this a magnificent“ cut ”appeared.

Maybe Misha just outgrew the period when an athlete rushes about in search of himself.

But now we see a confident and insanely handsome athlete.

You look at his rivals in the strongest warm-up - everyone skates beautifully, wrestles, makes quadruple jumps, and then he goes on the ice himself, makes the first movement, and you understand that he is different.

Generally different.

Not from this warm-up, but from some separate world in all respects ”, - the seven-time European champion Irina Slutskaya admired the final skating of Kolyada.

According to her, Ilya Averbukh put on a very beautiful program for the athlete, in which beautiful lines and jumps are clearly visible.

“For me, Kolyada is ten heads taller than all those I see now.

Moreover, if the world championship was held right now, and all the strongest, including Yuzuru Hanyu, would participate in it, I would say that Kolyada's skating is not even the level of the third, but of the first - second places.

He's really good.

There is not a drop of trembling in him, and most importantly, I did not notice at all that, while riding, he was fighting for something and competing with someone.

Such ease suggests that Misha is not only in great shape, but also confident as never before, ”added Slutskaya.

Free program of Kolyada "White Crow" is a topic for a separate conversation.

To begin with, it is not very typical either for Mishin himself, or for Averbukh, who put it.

In his works (and not only in figure skating, but also in his own ice show), Ilya always went from some invented story, which the athlete then embodied on the ice.

From the play.

There is no trace of this here.

In other words, Kolyada skates not to music and not to the plot.

He himself is music and plot at the same time.

That Mishin, whom we all knew as the mentor of Evgeni Plushenko and Elizaveta Tuktamysheva, most likely would have mercilessly “cut off” all the choreographic excesses in the production, as he repeatedly did to please his athlete to focus as much as possible on the performance of the elements.

Why didn't you do it now?

After the victorious rental of Kolyada in Chelyabinsk, I asked this question to Averbukh.

“Everyone who is involved in staging programs in figure skating is well aware of the peculiarities of Alexei Nikolaevich's views on choreography.

I myself also faced this.

Therefore, we agreed that I will put the program the way I see it, then Mishin will make his own adjustments, after which I will come to St. Petersburg, and we will approve the final version, ”he replied.

“In other words, I added some movements and gestures on top of Mishin's version, and I insisted that at that moment he was also at the rink and approved every piece of work,” added Averbukh.

- Thus we came to a consensus.

As Alexey Nikolaevich says, they decorated the tree with the necessary toys.

The main thing is that the essence of the program, the one that was conceived by me from the very beginning, remained unchanged.

The fact that Misha coped with her makes me happy most of all. "

Perhaps, working with Kolyada, Mishin himself realized that for the first time in many years an athlete appeared in his hands, capable of coping not only with the most complex technical problems, as Plushenko did in the old days, but also with a choreographic setting of any depth and complexity.

And, perhaps, he simply decided on an experiment, judging that there was nothing to lose.

Be that as it may, these two were very lucky with each other.

Although we are all much more fortunate.