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Elena Vaytsekhovskaya's interview with Svetlana Sokolovskaya `Samarin is more of an athlete than a ballet dancer' for ria.ru
(please click the original link for the paper's counter)
EV: In the SP the coaches usually worry about the pupils' jumps. You, on the other hand, were following closely the steps that finished Alexandr's SP and according to your reaction it seemed there was some hidden ultra C element there.
SS: We are not too set on the technique, but Samarin has some difficulties there. He is not so much of a ballet dancer, but an athlete. I'd even say kind of a `military' like. It's not really required in the male skating now-a-days. Hence we worked a lot on the presentation. There is so much work put in those steps by our choreographer Irina Tagaeva, Maksim Zavozin who works with us on the SS. The results of that hard work really show. Even Tatiana Tarasova mentioned that when she came to TSKA. Hence I wanted so badly the judges to see that. For Sasha to show them what he worked on
EV: Samarin progressed so much. He learned the 4z and added it to his SP as one of the two quads. But you seem to want all and at once.
SS: Well, if it works in the practices of course you want it to be at once
EV: You once mentioned that from the very beginning of the work with Samarin you set the highest possible goals. And, it seems, you had no doubt he'll deliver.
SS: Right. Just that when we first started working together I knew that. He didn't.
EV: Did you have a smallest doubts your pupil will not be able to make it?
SS: Not for a second. The only thing I was afraid of is making a mistake and injuring him. He has such long legs. Hence I was slowing things down from time to time,
EV: I don't quite see how the potential injury and the leg length are related.
SS: The long legs are usually not so soft, `panther' like. You have to prepare the muscles correctly. I think we made the right choice going to Leonid Raytsin. Thanks to his help we were able to speed up the complexity plans.
EV: But Raytsin does not work with the athletes in the school premises.
SS: Sasha goes to his 3 times a week and the sessions are quite long. I ask for Raytsin's advice all the time. He works with us all the time on his special preparations.
EV: Especially now after Evgenia Medvedeva was injured we hear all the time the singles skating is too complicated and injuries prone. Do you agree?
SS: It really depends, I wouldn't generalize. But that's exactly what we work on with Raytsin. It's the injuries prevention and the strength, the stamina and the flow of the body on the ice. For the same reason Sasha takes choreography classes 3 days a week. You can't really say `we do this for that and this for that'. There is a whole set of stuff aimed for the goal.
EV: Why Raytsin? What is so special about him that the others don't have?
SS: I didn't say the others can't. Tarasova recommended Leonid Raytsin - he worked with her back when she was preparing Ilya Kulik for Nagano. I'm such a person who has to understand how this or that work would be beneficial for a skater and only then recommend them for y skaters. Though at this instance I soon understood Tarasova with her vast experience was, of course, right. A couple of months after Samarin started working with Raytsin I saw the results and knew deep down we made the right choice. Just as it was with Tagaeva and Zavozin.
EV: You are not a very experienced coach compared to your colleagues. Are you afraid to walk that unknown path?
SS: I'm always afraid. I love Sasha so much and I believe in him so much that sometimes I fear the thought the audience might not see in him what I do.
EV: What do you see? Samarin is not one of the skaters to fall for at the first glance.
SS: Agree. At first he was not interesting at all. Even this season when we came to the Sochi test skates many asked me `Svetlana, are you insane? Have you tried thinking? What 4z? In both programmes? Let us see him land a 4T at least'. But I knew Sasha would land the 4z. I knew he can do it. He just takes time - he needs longer to learn an element. But once he understands the element and learns it - that's solid. We learned that 4z when we were dreaming of making it to the WTT. Sasha was a substitute and I was dreaming he'd doa 4Z and will be seen.
EV: There was nothing else to drow the attention with?
SS: Well, we were constantly `complimented': the gliding is bad, he is made of wood, no speed...
EV: Such athletes have to work much harder to achieve what comes easy to the others. How do you find time?
SS: We never have enough time. If we have 1.5 hours of ice it's not enough. 2 hours are not enough. Besides, there is always something to work on. If I was allowed I would probably work 24 hours a day.
EV: What if the athlete will run away from so much work?
SS: Sasha? He won't. That's what he wants. I even slow him down sometimes - the days before the Nationals I only gave him one practice.
EV: Last year when you athlete made it to the team you said `I'll do what it takes to get all this guy's potential out'. When and how did you figure him out?
SS: On March 8th I was vacating with my family in Miami when I received a text message from Elena Buyanova that Samarin left his coach and probably we should take the guy, because otherwise he'll just leave the club to another one. I said indeed we should. There aren't so many boys in our club.
At the same time no one really liked Samarin at first. More than that, when I came back to Moscow I learned he was not skating but healing his back. I even though `oh, great, some athlete we got here!'. But then we went to a training camp together and I saw him working. I was in awe. I learned that when a person is eager to work so hard you can't say no to him.
EV: You are so kind and selfless?
SS: First of all I'm a mother. And I try treating my athletes as a mother. I love, help and push them all I can while they are willing to accept what I can give them. It just happened that the athletes who as if were not needed anymore came to me: Nikita Mikhailov, Polina Shelepen. And every time I said: I'll give them a try. Samarin was one of them.
I treated him as a mother at first. Only later I realized with Sasha I turn into a coach. He turned me into one. With him I wanted to try this and that and that other thing as well. Though all and all he was just another athlete. His biggest advantage is his athletism and the ability to work hart. And the way he was brought up. After all everything comes from the upbringing.
EV: The coaches are usually unhappy with their pupils parents.
SS: I don't hear nor see Samarin's parents. His father sometimes meets us in the airport. His mom is one of the administrators in TSKA, but she never attends the practices. We usually text each other.
EV: Don't you ever want the parents to come and see how great things are?
SS: Sasha does not allow it. He doesn't like it. I got quite used his mom sometimes picking through the door, but then he told me that's it. No more. He grew up.
EV: Do you often get negative remarks as a coach?
SS: First it was by chance. Someone told to read the internet when I have time. Just see what they write about you. I did.
EV: Assume you learned a lot of new things about yourself?
SS: Plenty. Apparently am the skaters cemetery, I steal skaters from the other coaches... Frankly, I was surprised. I always said: if you have questions - come and ask me! And there writes that person I've never seen in my life. How am I supposed to take it? Try to justify myself? I approached the author of that piece and asked why such an honour. There would be just a couple of lines about the other coaches, but a whole biography coloured with all the shades of black on me. Trust me, had I read all that about a coach I would never come to him. I spent a while thinking whose cereals did I pee into.
I also heard a hurtful phrase on the rink - they switched to Sokolovskaya, i.e. that's it. What it? If the athlete was abandoned by everyone by then anyway? I don't understand it, frankly: how can you abandon your child? Raise it, and then leave, let him go? By the way, I told Polina Shelepen in more than one occasion I think her leaving Eteri Tutberidze's group was wrong. Because Eteri raised her for many years.
EV: In the Russian male skating as a rule there is always someone kind of unachievable. First it was Pluschenko, then Kovtun. Did the thought no matter how hard you try you'll never make it to the top press on you?
SS: Well, look at the current situation: there is Misha Kolyada. I think it's right that he became a leader last year. But then Sasha and I sat down and analyzed: how can we get closer and what do we have to work on to improve I divided the whole preparation to pieces: we are better in this, we are worse in that, this is kind of the same, but here - perhaps. The level of our single man skaters is not quite a outer space. They all have the same legs and arms. Yes, some have the natural gliding which we lack. But if we lose here we have to work not twice, but 4 times harder to get the SS to the maximum possible level. This, I think, what we should do. Not look for excuses and cry you were robbed.
EV: Does it matter for Samarin figure skating is a way to earn a good living?
SS: Certainly not the most important. He is a patriot.
EV: You made it sound quite weird.
SS: I was in awe when I learned how important it all is for Sasha. The anthem, the flag, the motherland. When we first came to a senior GP event and the announcer read `Alexandr Samarin, Russia' Sasha changed in front of my eyes. I saw how he was overtaken with the emotions. I don't even know whether it's good or bad. He is always afraid to let someone down. I once couldn't take it anymore and told him to stop thinking of all that. Just go out there and skate. So well, he does. Skate.
(please click the original link for the paper's counter)
EV: In the SP the coaches usually worry about the pupils' jumps. You, on the other hand, were following closely the steps that finished Alexandr's SP and according to your reaction it seemed there was some hidden ultra C element there.
SS: We are not too set on the technique, but Samarin has some difficulties there. He is not so much of a ballet dancer, but an athlete. I'd even say kind of a `military' like. It's not really required in the male skating now-a-days. Hence we worked a lot on the presentation. There is so much work put in those steps by our choreographer Irina Tagaeva, Maksim Zavozin who works with us on the SS. The results of that hard work really show. Even Tatiana Tarasova mentioned that when she came to TSKA. Hence I wanted so badly the judges to see that. For Sasha to show them what he worked on
EV: Samarin progressed so much. He learned the 4z and added it to his SP as one of the two quads. But you seem to want all and at once.
SS: Well, if it works in the practices of course you want it to be at once
EV: You once mentioned that from the very beginning of the work with Samarin you set the highest possible goals. And, it seems, you had no doubt he'll deliver.
SS: Right. Just that when we first started working together I knew that. He didn't.
EV: Did you have a smallest doubts your pupil will not be able to make it?
SS: Not for a second. The only thing I was afraid of is making a mistake and injuring him. He has such long legs. Hence I was slowing things down from time to time,
EV: I don't quite see how the potential injury and the leg length are related.
SS: The long legs are usually not so soft, `panther' like. You have to prepare the muscles correctly. I think we made the right choice going to Leonid Raytsin. Thanks to his help we were able to speed up the complexity plans.
EV: But Raytsin does not work with the athletes in the school premises.
SS: Sasha goes to his 3 times a week and the sessions are quite long. I ask for Raytsin's advice all the time. He works with us all the time on his special preparations.
EV: Especially now after Evgenia Medvedeva was injured we hear all the time the singles skating is too complicated and injuries prone. Do you agree?
SS: It really depends, I wouldn't generalize. But that's exactly what we work on with Raytsin. It's the injuries prevention and the strength, the stamina and the flow of the body on the ice. For the same reason Sasha takes choreography classes 3 days a week. You can't really say `we do this for that and this for that'. There is a whole set of stuff aimed for the goal.
EV: Why Raytsin? What is so special about him that the others don't have?
SS: I didn't say the others can't. Tarasova recommended Leonid Raytsin - he worked with her back when she was preparing Ilya Kulik for Nagano. I'm such a person who has to understand how this or that work would be beneficial for a skater and only then recommend them for y skaters. Though at this instance I soon understood Tarasova with her vast experience was, of course, right. A couple of months after Samarin started working with Raytsin I saw the results and knew deep down we made the right choice. Just as it was with Tagaeva and Zavozin.
EV: You are not a very experienced coach compared to your colleagues. Are you afraid to walk that unknown path?
SS: I'm always afraid. I love Sasha so much and I believe in him so much that sometimes I fear the thought the audience might not see in him what I do.
EV: What do you see? Samarin is not one of the skaters to fall for at the first glance.
SS: Agree. At first he was not interesting at all. Even this season when we came to the Sochi test skates many asked me `Svetlana, are you insane? Have you tried thinking? What 4z? In both programmes? Let us see him land a 4T at least'. But I knew Sasha would land the 4z. I knew he can do it. He just takes time - he needs longer to learn an element. But once he understands the element and learns it - that's solid. We learned that 4z when we were dreaming of making it to the WTT. Sasha was a substitute and I was dreaming he'd doa 4Z and will be seen.
EV: There was nothing else to drow the attention with?
SS: Well, we were constantly `complimented': the gliding is bad, he is made of wood, no speed...
EV: Such athletes have to work much harder to achieve what comes easy to the others. How do you find time?
SS: We never have enough time. If we have 1.5 hours of ice it's not enough. 2 hours are not enough. Besides, there is always something to work on. If I was allowed I would probably work 24 hours a day.
EV: What if the athlete will run away from so much work?
SS: Sasha? He won't. That's what he wants. I even slow him down sometimes - the days before the Nationals I only gave him one practice.
EV: Last year when you athlete made it to the team you said `I'll do what it takes to get all this guy's potential out'. When and how did you figure him out?
SS: On March 8th I was vacating with my family in Miami when I received a text message from Elena Buyanova that Samarin left his coach and probably we should take the guy, because otherwise he'll just leave the club to another one. I said indeed we should. There aren't so many boys in our club.
At the same time no one really liked Samarin at first. More than that, when I came back to Moscow I learned he was not skating but healing his back. I even though `oh, great, some athlete we got here!'. But then we went to a training camp together and I saw him working. I was in awe. I learned that when a person is eager to work so hard you can't say no to him.
EV: You are so kind and selfless?
SS: First of all I'm a mother. And I try treating my athletes as a mother. I love, help and push them all I can while they are willing to accept what I can give them. It just happened that the athletes who as if were not needed anymore came to me: Nikita Mikhailov, Polina Shelepen. And every time I said: I'll give them a try. Samarin was one of them.
I treated him as a mother at first. Only later I realized with Sasha I turn into a coach. He turned me into one. With him I wanted to try this and that and that other thing as well. Though all and all he was just another athlete. His biggest advantage is his athletism and the ability to work hart. And the way he was brought up. After all everything comes from the upbringing.
EV: The coaches are usually unhappy with their pupils parents.
SS: I don't hear nor see Samarin's parents. His father sometimes meets us in the airport. His mom is one of the administrators in TSKA, but she never attends the practices. We usually text each other.
EV: Don't you ever want the parents to come and see how great things are?
SS: Sasha does not allow it. He doesn't like it. I got quite used his mom sometimes picking through the door, but then he told me that's it. No more. He grew up.
EV: Do you often get negative remarks as a coach?
SS: First it was by chance. Someone told to read the internet when I have time. Just see what they write about you. I did.
EV: Assume you learned a lot of new things about yourself?
SS: Plenty. Apparently am the skaters cemetery, I steal skaters from the other coaches... Frankly, I was surprised. I always said: if you have questions - come and ask me! And there writes that person I've never seen in my life. How am I supposed to take it? Try to justify myself? I approached the author of that piece and asked why such an honour. There would be just a couple of lines about the other coaches, but a whole biography coloured with all the shades of black on me. Trust me, had I read all that about a coach I would never come to him. I spent a while thinking whose cereals did I pee into.
I also heard a hurtful phrase on the rink - they switched to Sokolovskaya, i.e. that's it. What it? If the athlete was abandoned by everyone by then anyway? I don't understand it, frankly: how can you abandon your child? Raise it, and then leave, let him go? By the way, I told Polina Shelepen in more than one occasion I think her leaving Eteri Tutberidze's group was wrong. Because Eteri raised her for many years.
EV: In the Russian male skating as a rule there is always someone kind of unachievable. First it was Pluschenko, then Kovtun. Did the thought no matter how hard you try you'll never make it to the top press on you?
SS: Well, look at the current situation: there is Misha Kolyada. I think it's right that he became a leader last year. But then Sasha and I sat down and analyzed: how can we get closer and what do we have to work on to improve I divided the whole preparation to pieces: we are better in this, we are worse in that, this is kind of the same, but here - perhaps. The level of our single man skaters is not quite a outer space. They all have the same legs and arms. Yes, some have the natural gliding which we lack. But if we lose here we have to work not twice, but 4 times harder to get the SS to the maximum possible level. This, I think, what we should do. Not look for excuses and cry you were robbed.
EV: Does it matter for Samarin figure skating is a way to earn a good living?
SS: Certainly not the most important. He is a patriot.
EV: You made it sound quite weird.
SS: I was in awe when I learned how important it all is for Sasha. The anthem, the flag, the motherland. When we first came to a senior GP event and the announcer read `Alexandr Samarin, Russia' Sasha changed in front of my eyes. I saw how he was overtaken with the emotions. I don't even know whether it's good or bad. He is always afraid to let someone down. I once couldn't take it anymore and told him to stop thinking of all that. Just go out there and skate. So well, he does. Skate.
But she did really well with Samarin 
