- Recently, the senior coach of the Russian women's biathlon team, Mikhail Shashilov, admitted that he sees the goal of his work as creating a strong and cohesive team.

According to him, this is the only way to achieve progress from athletes.

It is inconceivable to work hard and hard, constantly being in opposition to the surrounding world.

- Are we talking about athletes now, or about coaches?

- About athletes.

And it seems to me that Shashilov is right: it is very difficult to go to a high goal alone, without the support of the people around you.

Especially when you are overloaded with work and constantly in a state of competitive stress.

When a person sees only "enemies" around him, he closes himself in his own cocoon.

Focuses on the fact that he is small and pathetic, and the whole world is against.

- So it is, you formulated it completely exhaustively.

Offhand, a case from curling comes to mind, when in 2016 Sergey Belanov picked up five athletes: Victoria Moiseeva, Galina Arsenkina, Ulyana Vasiliev, Julia Guziev and Julia Portunova, four of whom at that time had vague prospects in the national team.

First of all, he created conditions for them, which I call "nesting": he found money, provided the girls with all the necessary conditions, that is, from all sides, as it were, he protected his group with airbags.

A few months later, these girls took out all the strongest inside the country and became European champions.

So I can say that Shashilov, speaking about the internal relations in the team, very correctly understands the nature of big sport.

- After all, not so long ago you made a report on the topic of sports psychology at the Moskomsport conference, where you also touched on the topic of human relationships.

- Yes.

It provoked different reactions, but I received valuable authoritative support that many of our athletes are people with trauma traits.

It is almost impossible to bring such a high result without creating a protection around them, without making a nest.

- What do you mean by the concept of "psychological trauma"?

- Traumatics I mean those who were largely emasculated by children and junior sports before reaching the adult level, and this happens everywhere in the country.

Such athletes, as a rule, are distinguished by a rather low ability to withstand stress - competitive, training.

In other words, a person is in a continuous state of internal anxiety: he is afraid to make a mistake, he is afraid of condemnation, he is afraid that he will be kicked out, avoids difficult tasks, is ill a lot, is critical of himself, does not sleep well.

That is why a powerful protective cocoon is needed.

In psychology, there is even a special term for this: limited parenting.

It has long been proven that the emotional bond between people working together is a very powerful anti-stress weapon.

But for a coach, this status is very energetically expensive.

- Why?

- Because in addition to direct training work, he has to solve many related problems.

Deal with organization, logistics, and other issues.

It is not always easy to find time to wipe away tears to an athlete, control the tone in which you talk to him, or give flowers for his birthday.

Many cannot stand their "limited parenting".

But if this is not done, the athlete again falls into the trap of his own internal trauma and regresses.

- You focused on Russian athletes, but after all, the same Wolfgang Pichler in biathlon for several years tried to create a family atmosphere in the Russian women's national team: he organized joint holidays for the girls, outings to restaurants, and after he stopped working with the Russian team, successfully implemented a similar scheme in Sweden.

It turns out that the topic of "limited parenting" is also relevant for foreign sports?

- Yes.

It's just that a rather open standard of relations is more typical for foreigners, there is a different communication between people.

It is customary to congratulate on the holidays, to be nice, smiling, to be interested in each other's affairs, to exchange emotions.

We do not practice this in principle.

Can you imagine a Russian athlete saying out loud that he feels bad and that he needs support?

  • Elizaveta Kozhevnikova

  • © Freestyle Sports Federation of the Tomsk Region

- More likely no than yes.

The great Alexander Karelin at one time noticed that the most terrible thing for him is to be a person who causes pity.

He explained it this way: “We - athletes - always react to pity much more painfully than anyone else.

It begins to seem to us that those around us rejoice at our weakness.

After all, we are all people with inflamed pride

...

”.

- Right.

Because in our sport a person from childhood gets used to be silent about their own vulnerability.

He is taught to overcome all troubles and worries by clenching his teeth like a superhero.

Given the stress level of modern sports, this behavior is counterproductive.

It is much more effective to speak out your own fears and emotions out loud at least with a coach.

Western experts know this and have been using it successfully for a dozen years.

Many federations have in-house professional psychologists working in the arena to help the athlete express their emotions.

- From specialists working in figure skating, I have heard many times that a coach should not be a nanny for an athlete at all.

His task is to teach, to give the ward some technical equipment - and that's all.

With this attitude, by the way, the transitions from one coach to another are not accompanied by anguish at the sides.

- I'm ready to admit that coordination sports have their own nuances, that there are no such exhausting training volumes as in skiing or biathlon, but I think that the mechanism I described should work there too.

We must not forget that man is a biological entity: the response to fear triggers a hormonal cocktail of adrenaline and cortisol.

Under its influence, it is almost impossible to perform a complex coordination action, and it becomes impossible to endure the load.

If the coach considers it his duty only to teach, without bothering to create emotional support, then a half-hearted situation will turn out: in a calm state, an athlete knows how to do everything well, and in competitive stress he loses access to a skill and cannot fulfill what is expected of him.

Such a specialist will always be abandoned.

- By the way, during the heyday of the coaching activity of Tatyana Tarasova, who brilliantly knew how to create a protective cocoon around each of her athletes, no one left.

- Another example can be cited: the brutal Soviet "Red Hockey Machine" and Anatoly Tarasov.

There were legends about his transcendent, inhuman loads, but when you read the memoirs of the participants in those events, it becomes clear how deeply Tarasov was immersed in the life of all his charges, to what extent he supported and protected them.

That is, a person completely fulfilled both the role of a psychologist and the role of a father.

Although I never put it in the foreground.

- It turns out that the president of the cross-country skiing federation and the head coach of the Russian national team Elena Vyalbe was in some way ahead of her time, embodying the concept of a large family in the team?

- If we talk about Russian sports, then yes.

Abroad, as I said, this is a normal practice.

It's just not just that.

Our athletes, as Shashilov rightly noted in his interview, need to be trained in many things.

Take responsibility, fully and without strain to follow the training and competition protocol.

That is, everything that foreigners initially know how to do.

- Why does this problem continue to exist in Russia?

- The reason, it seems to me, lies in what we have talked about many times - in too early sports specialization.

Until the age of 10, when the child has not yet developed cognitively, the load should be of a playful nature, while in Russia children already from four to five experience serious and difficult training, which is accompanied by harsh criticism for mistakes and, accordingly, the devaluation of all the work done.

The more an athlete “beat”, the more distortions appear in his psyche.

Such children initially do not believe the coach, and they perceive any load as violence against themselves, as punishment.

You say one thing, but the person hears something completely different.

- In fact, Shashilov also spoke about this.

- I think that Mikhail Viktorovich came to his current views primarily due to his colossal experience in sports.

To the understanding that the primary task of a result-oriented coach should begin with creating an atmosphere of absolute safety around the athlete.

Only then do people begin to do even the hardest work without feeling that they are being forced to do it under the duress.

And this cannot be achieved with any plans written on paper.