Vaitsechovskaya's Interview with Rafael Arutunian | Golden Skate

Vaitsechovskaya's Interview with Rafael Arutunian

Tutto

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Jan 25, 2013
A new interview with Rafael Arutunian published today beginning with congratulations on his Best Coach award. It is quite long so I translated only a few sections maybe someone else interested in doing the rest:

http://www.sport-express.ru/newspaper/2015-06-29/16_1/?view=page

''Nobody expected from Ashley Wagner, with whom you began working two years ago, to become the national champion, be on the podium in the GPF and win the gold as part of the US team at the World Team Trophy in Japan.
-Even Scott Hamilton expressed his admiration. He admitted he did not understand how I did it. I made a joke: if Ashley was sent to me in order to bury us both, you should not be surprised that we started to resist so actively.
In a sense, it really is a unique case not so many athletes at this age are able to progress. And Ashley does progress.
I can say that the attitude to the Russian coaches in America is slowly changing. Perhaps because American skaters have become a bit less successful. For example, not so long ago, I was invited to hold a seminar for pair coaches – on jump technique. But in order to be noticed, you have to push constantly . On the other hand, where you don’t have to?
- What is in your opinion makes a strong choreographer?
- It is most of all a specialist who year after year does not fall below a certain level and constantly comes up with something new. There are programs that you just can’t stop watching. I like the way Tom Dixon works in Colorado Springs, Shae-Lynn Bourne. Jeffrey Buttle is becoming a good choreographer. I think that is not by chance at the Olympic Games in Sochi, a three-time world champion Patrick Chan kept short program from the previous season choreographed by Buttle. And Yuzuru Hanyu won the Olympics with short program by Jeffrey.
Buttle amazingly hears music, he knows how to handle it. And he's very good at directions - he knows where to jump. At one time I worked a lot with him on his jumps. And I think that in Buttle’s gold medal at the World Championships in 2008 there is a percentage of my work as well. Before we started working together, he’d never been a strong jumper. And in that championship he didn’t have any falls because we had set all jumps in right direction.
- Could you tell more at least in general terms about direction.
- Each jump has three main components. These are direction, position and rhythm. If a person makes a mistake in the direction it distorts the position and changes the rhythm. It's simple. It’s like throwing someone into the water from the platform in awkward trajectory and expecting them to make all the required rotations. Of course I was not the first to come up with this. I remember Stanislav Zhuk used to tell his students: ‘Now you skate over there and jump in that spot’. If a skater deviated from the direction for as little as one meter, Zhuk went mad. When Zhuk was telling me about some intricacies of coaching I must confess I did not understand a half of it, although at that time I already had some good skaters won the junior competition. Now I think: I could have asked - and I did not. Wasn’t I a fool?

- What do you think of a comeback of your former student Mao Asada?
- She is doing the right thing , it seems to me coming back. She has no replacement in Japan. At least I do not see any Japanese figure skater of same standing, breed, who by their "calibre" could stand next to her. Moreover, Mao is no longer just a girl with good technique. She's a grown, developed personality. Not long ago, Assad said in an interview that she had realised what life is beyond sport, that there are so many interesting things in life. And now I'm curious to see what she will be able to bring on to the ice from this new experience. Will it be in terms of emotions, choreography. As, for all her titles, she has always been quite reserved on the ice. She only showed herself in her skating on thirty percent, no more.
- In a series of "Grand Prix" at the tournament in Japan Mao will compete against Wagner. Are you happy with GP selections?
- I have always regarded such things in this way: if an athlete has serious ambitions, he should not care who are his competitors. That’s why I never worry about GP selections.
Trying to avoid fighting in sport is pointless: all the same, sooner or later you all meet. So I never care about draws. Yes, someone due to a better draw can get through into the final easier. But for me it is never been a goal getting into the final for the sake of being in the final.
But It would be great to have more ice. Most of the skaters are not as professional as Michelle Kwan was. I never had to watch what and how she was doing. The rest has to be monitored. And how to do that when the ice time ends at two in the afternoon, and after that time athletes are left to their own devices?
- Shouldn’t the best coach in the country get more ice?
- Only if in a glass of whiskey''
 
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