Alena Kostornaia leaves Tutberidze | Page 46 | Golden Skate

Alena Kostornaia leaves Tutberidze

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TallyT

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I think the idea is that when the Captain says, "charge that hill," we want the soldiers to obey unquestioningly out of fear of the Old Man.

It must work. Such coaches have success just like such military commanders do.

Thank you for the mental picture of Eteri doing her best Raglan at the Charge of the Light Brigade :gclap:
 

readernick

Medalist
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Dec 5, 2015
I think that throughout the history of organized sport there has been an admiration for the military model. We expect our coaches to be tough as nails, strong as bricks -- the marine drill sergeant who berates and curses his troops, who strikes fear into the hearts of friend and foe alike, "Drop and give me 100 pushups, you wimp!"

I think the idea is that when the Captain says, "charge that hill," we want the soldiers to obey unquestioningly out of fear of the Old Man.

It must work. Such coaches have success just like such military commanders do.

I actually believe that this method has begun to be abandoned by miitaries around the world who have become aware that scared recruits don't learn skills particularly well compared to those who feel safe.

But, my major issue is that the military recruits are adults with the legal ( and hopefully) mental clarity to choose the military as a career, while kids don't have those same choices, mental maturity, or freedom. I think this.kind of coaching is unacceptable in these circumstances snd , again, (because I know I am going to get the "you just hate Eteri's success group") this isn't just about her it is about toxic coaching culture worldwide. Her comments that occur after essentially ever student leaves and the lack of any response from revelant authorities are just symptoms of the wider problems within children's sports.
 

dlco

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dunffvanstorn

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 20, 2019
Alena Kostornaia leaving Eteri

She truly admitted it or it's just puttins something into her words? I saw so many so called "admitting" which in fact was completely wishful thinking that I it could be a novel.

So:

- History of ex students with eating disorders - so far only Yulia. Other examples of coaches having skaters with eating disorders completely ignored, because particular coaches (esp. the north american ones) are not supposed to be criticized.
- History of premature retirements - hardly any retirement had to do anything with Eteri herself, also the retirements elsewhere are not compared and taken into consideration (some time ago I gave some examples of skaters starting together with Alina from several countries, who are no longer to be seen, though only Eteri is to blame).
- History of talking bad things about students who leave her and starting media wars - different opinion and attitude, many points taken here from a different position. Also many so called "media wars" were actually started by attacking Eteri, not the other way around.
- History of not teaching correct technique and not trying to improve skaters’s techniques - if a skater of Eteri is considered having a good technique, than always it is attempted to find how particularly this skater gained his technique elsewhere, while "bad technique" is always her to be blamed.
- History of controversial programs / poor choreographic choices for her students (mostly when the responsible for it was Daniil) - absolutely subjective, purpose-built claim.

All in all, this is weak and cheap cherrypicking. One would wonder how such a lousy team can be so succesful. The reality, of course, is different, self-proclaimed watchmen of the "correct technique" or what a coach should do, say or how should choreograph a program. I wonder why some people here don't open their own figure skating school and show Eteri how it's done right :rofl:

1. Evgenia said in these exact words in an interview, the same interview she was judged because she said she was having an almost vegan diet at the time with a nutritionist Brian got her.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkat...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

You can read the whole interview in this link.

2. I never said Eteri caused the retirements, I just said many skaters who trained with her had early retirements.

3. About the media wars - only blinds refuse to see what she’s been doing since Yulia left her - the woman can’t stand rejection and overreacts whenever a student leaves her.

4. Eteri’s group technique is basically: jumping from the arms and not from the legs + prerrotation + full blade assist + not trying to correct wrong edges on lutzes. If a skater has good technique but starts getting inconsistent, in Eteri’s group they start using more full blade assist and more prerrotation. The novices in her group have better technique in general. Evgenia, Yulia and Alina learned how to jump triples mostly from Eteri. Sasha and Aliona learned from other coaches. Anna had to learn superfast from someone else, and we don’t know how much of her technique is Eteri’s or not, butI think the pressure to learn triples fast was one of the reasons her technique is so flawed.

Skaters with “Eteri technique”: Yulia, Evgenia (not nowadays), Alina, Anna, Elizabet Tursynbaeva.

Skaters that skated/still skate with Eteri with better technique: Alexandra Trusova (prerrotates a little, but the overall technique is not very Eteri-ish), Aliona (fluctuating lutz edge, but doesn’t prerrotate and doesn’t use full blade), most novices.

5. Controversial programs / bad choreo: The controversial programs are not a problem for me (9/11, Big Spender, Alina’s DQ second half jumps), but many people dislike Eteri for that. The bad choreo Daniil does is a problem for me and for many people. Sometimes, Daniil gets it right, but as he has to do MANY choreos per season, we end up seeing lots of bad choreographies and music choices from him.


To make it clear - these are reasons why people dislike Eteri, I don’t have strong feelings about some of them and I’m not even saying Eteri is to blame for all these things, these are just things that ended up happening with some of her students, independently of having something to do with her directly or not.
 
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
I think you watch too many forgotten cheap soap operas and read too few good books. Everybody knows who Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Harkonnen

This is the best line from the linked article:

Frank Herbert (author of Dune) wanted a harsh-sounding name for the antagonistic family opposing House Atreides in Dune. He came across the name "Härkönen" in a California telephone book and thought that it sounded "Soviet", though it is in fact Finnish.
 

el henry

Go have some cake. And come back with jollity.
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I'm sure Baron Vladimir wasn't a little Russian girl back in 2000.

Just jumping in to say, whatever is the case for Baron V., one can never assume too much from a screen name.

I was in fact a little girl back in the, well, before the 90s;) My screen name has led many to believe, understandably, that I am a man. And I am not.

I don’t think the photo of Toller helps either :laugh:
 

NadezhdaNadya

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 22, 2017
Off topic!!! Russian soap opera Poor Nastya is from 2003, but it came to Bulgaria two years later.
Anyway, I was sure that it was Baron Vladimir from Poor Nastya since the user using this name is so protective of the Russian ladies skaters. Off topic!!!
 

colormyworld240

Medalist
Joined
Dec 9, 2017
I don’t think making children jump quads is the real problem with Eteri. The main problems seem to be:
- History of ex students with eating disorders
- History of premature retirements
- History of talking bad things about students who leave her and starting media wars
- History of not teaching correct technique and not trying to improve skaters’s techniques
- History of controversial programs / poor choreographic choices for her students (mostly when the responsible for it was Daniil)


Some other people talk about the whole “being abusive”, but these are things we cannot say for sure that happened, while the above are actually true.

I have no idea when flutzing/pre-rotation/full blade became "Eteri technique". All coaches have skaters with good and bad technique; it comes down to the individual skater. Plus, Alina used to have an inside edge lutz when she was younger, and only fixed it her first junior season after working with Dudakov. It's only post puberty that the edge is now more shallow and flat.

But here are some examples: Hamada has Satoko with all the jump issues listed, Rika doesn't have these issues. Raf has Mariah with a flat edge lutz, Nathan does not. Buyanova had Adelina who had a flutz, Maria did not. Even Mishin who many regard as the master of technique, has Sofia who has a flutz, extreme pre-rotation, and blade touch down on toe jumps, while Liza has a perfect lutz. And while Sasha had her triples already, she did get her quads from Dudakov and she has no edge issues.

Also, the lutz is only one jump. While Liza does have a perfect lutz, she has a flat/wrong edge on her flip, which has been called a few times and many skaters who have an outside edge lutz have an unclear edge flip.

And how do you know that team doesn't work on correcting technique? Did you see Alina's jumps her first year with the team vs. 2 seasons in? Or that Anna's jumps used to be extremely tiny and now her 4Lz is one of the biggest jumps in ladies? Or that Alena's jumps got much, much bigger since coming to the team? And it's ridiculous to say she teaches jumping technique that relies on rotation speed. Many of those quads and 3As have been measured at international competitions, and they're the biggest jumps our of all the ladies. It just so happens that you have to rotate quickly and jump high to rotate and land a quad, which is quite obvious imo.
 

flanker

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Feb 10, 2018
Country
Czech-Republic
I think that throughout the history of organized sport there has been an admiration for the military model. We expect our coaches to be tough as nails, strong as bricks -- the marine drill sergeant who berates and curses his troops, who strikes fear into the hearts of friend and foe alike, "Drop and give me 100 pushups, you wimp!"

I think the idea is that when the Captain says, "charge that hill," we want the soldiers to obey unquestioningly out of fear of the Old Man.

It must work. Such coaches have success just like such military commanders do.

I myself am not completely into "military discipline" in civil sport (though I got used to it in my younger times at the police school as I've told before), on the other hand I share the view that coach must have unquestionable authority (mostly the natural one, not the forced one, however). My best friend was playing volleyball in his young age and sometimes he told about how it looked like on the summer camps - breaching light-out rules - frog jumps up to the top of the nearest hill, the same for retorting the coach etc. I don't say it's persectly right way how the things should be done, but I am not the coach and I do think that the ways how some people here imagine the coaching work (not only how it should be done but how it is truly done all around the world) are far from reality.
 

flanker

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Joined
Feb 10, 2018
Country
Czech-Republic
1. Evgenia said in these exact words in an interview, the same interview she was judged because she said she was having an almost vegan diet at the time with a nutritionist Brian got her.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FigureSkat...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

You can read the whole interview in this link.

I read it, I understand what is said there, though I don't call it "admitting having eating disorder". The thing taken from it would be "It would be good to have nutritionist before."

2. I never said Eteri caused the retirements, I just said many skaters who trained with her had early retirements.

Like anywhere else, the thing is that Eteri¨s sakters are more visible, because they ususally win something before that. Still, there should be found soime direct connestion between an "early retirement" and the things Eteri does. Also, retirements or chanings in cases like Tarakanova, Panenkova, Tsurskaya, Shelepen and others usually had some other cause, Tsurskaya skated mostly because her parents wanted, she herself had a different ideas about ehr future, tarakanova wanted to end skating as a whole (fortunately she still continues) etc.

3. About the media wars - only blinds refuse to see what she’s been doing since Yulia left her - the woman can’t stand rejection and overreacts whenever a student leaves her.

This is connected with the previous point: only blinds refuse to see that there were many splits that were quiet and polite without any drama, Tsurskaya, Tarakanova, even Sasha's departure eteri commented very modestly. Once again, it's the way how the split is done, not the fact itself it is done. Also remember many former skaters speak very well about Eteri, Shelepen, Tsurskaya, Panenkova also made positive comments about Eteri. Also Shelepen (together with Tursynbaeva) actually at some occasions defend Eteri in the virtual world very resolutely.

4. Eteri’s group technique is basically: jumping from the arms and not from the legs + prerrotation + full blade assist + not trying to correct wrong edges on lutzes. If a skater has good technique but starts getting inconsistent, in Eteri’s group they start using more full blade assist and more prerrotation. The novices in her group have better technique in general. Evgenia, Yulia and Alina learned how to jump triples mostly from Eteri. Sasha and Aliona learned from other coaches. Anna had to learn superfast from someone else, and we don’t know how much of her technique is Eteri’s or not, butI think the pressure to learn triples fast was one of the reasons her technique is so flawed.

Skaters with “Eteri technique”: Yulia, Evgenia (not nowadays), Alina, Anna, Elizabet Tursynbaeva.

Skaters that skated/still skate with Eteri with better technique: Alexandra Trusova (prerrotates a little, but the overall technique is not very Eteri-ish), Aliona (fluctuating lutz edge, but doesn’t prerrotate and doesn’t use full blade), most novices.

This is what colormyworld replied, no need to add much to it, just that e.g. alina has mostly very good technique on most jumps she gained with Eteri. her Lutz has not the deepest edge, but that's common everywhere and it's still deep enough. As for the magic prerotation, as I¨ve posted many times before, it's as common as the rain in april, just for some reasons it is pointed here and not elsewhere. Still whatever the prerotation Anna has it is within the norm. As for aliona, she corrected her originally bad edge in Eteri's camp, stabilized her originally very unstable jumps etc.

5. Controversial programs / bad choreo: The controversial programs are not a problem for me (9/11, Big Spender, Alina’s DQ second half jumps), but many people dislike Eteri for that. The bad choreo Daniil does is a problem for me and for many people. Sometimes, Daniil gets it right, but as he has to do MANY choreos per season, we end up seeing lots of bad choreographies and music choices from him.


To make it clear - these are reasons why people dislike Eteri, I don’t have strong feelings about some of them and I’m not even saying Eteri is to blame for all these things, these are just things that ended up happening with some of her students, independently of having something to do with her directly or not.

Arguing "it's not a problem for me but for many people" has hardly any value, it's not an argument. As for "bad choreo", well, I like that mostly, that's once again the question of taste more than some objective value. Some people just require all choreos to look a specific way and to be done completely by Wilson or Bourne and other style is just a "blasphemy". I take there arte people who don't like Daniil's (or Eteri's) choreos, thats their taste, but thatˇis all, someone listens only hip-hop which doesn't make Beethoven's music bad ;)
 

yume

🍉
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Mar 11, 2016
I don’t think making children jump quads is the real problem with Eteri. The main problems seem to be:
- History of ex students with eating disorders
- History of premature retirements
- History of talking bad things about students who leave her and starting media wars
- History of not teaching correct technique and not trying to improve skaters’s techniques
- History of controversial programs / poor choreographic choices for her students (mostly when the responsible for it was Daniil)


Some other people talk about the whole “being abusive”, but these are things we cannot say for sure that happened, while the above are actually true.

So quads aren't the real problem....anymore.

I guess Eteri is the only one with a curriculum vitae that long. I can name coaches with the same flaws but none will have all of these (Hamada, Buianova, Plushenko, Davydov, Mishin, Lipetsky, etc.). Even if some things like teaching bad technique and poor choreo choices seems more like common things than a particular flaw.
I would also say that Julia's case isn't enough to say that Eteri has an history. But with the strict diets of some of her skaters and that weight-focus, i would say that it's possible that others has/had the same issues or are/were close to have the same issues. Which is something than can happen and had happened in other rinks/countries too.
 

eaglehelang

Final Flight
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Sep 15, 2017
On comments abt military style coaching :
- Our badminton mixed doubles coach, a Malaysian, I've never heard him shout or scream scolding his students whether during matches or in training videos. He guided our mixed doubles pair to an Olympic silver in 2016. Our 1st ever Olympic medal in mixed doubles.

He has since left to train for Japan & made the mixed doubles there a force to be reckoned with. As in from nobodies to Olympic medal prospects.

- The top men singles player, a 3x Olympic silver medalist(he was unfortunate to be sane era with Lin Dan), had a cool & calm coach. Never raise voice to scold, never have anxious looks during matches. His students win titles, other countries wanted this coach.

Of course, it didnt mean training was easy going. In the early years, when top player wanted to train under this coach, people told him "What???!! This coach is crazy in terms of training" . It was said cool & calm coach had jogging exercises at 12 noon under the hot sun.

- The diving coach from China, have been with the team for 10 years. He guided the women to win Olympic bronze in 2012, Olympic silver in 2016 and World Championships. Which is a feat considering how strong China is.
I've never seen him raise his voice to scold his students in public, whether at competitions or training videos.
Last year, one of the male divers confirmed that this coach never lay a hand on the athletes(hit physically) or raise voice to scold them.

Again, doesnt mean training is a breeze, esp under China coach. This coach was also known to be strict on discipline.

- The track cycling coach from Australia, the most democratic among them. He guided the track cycling to win an Olympic bronze in 2016 & World Championships. Our 1st ever. Considering track cycling is dominated by England, then Australia & Europe, its an achievement to an Asian country to win something.
He too does not shout, scream, berate his students in public or in training videos. In fact he is so democratic(by Asian standards), he alllowed a top cyclist to return to training later. The cyclist wanted to secure a job that he can continue working in after retiring.
The officials were the ones who were shocked, hahaha.

Our top female squash player, recently retired is a 7 or8X World Champion. World record holder for longest world no 1, 7 to 8 years streak. If squash is an Olympic sport, she would have been Olympic gold medalist long ago.
Her coach, a westerner, non shouting screaming type.

Main point is success in sports doesnt have to be military style training. Our successes thus far, more has been from the non shouting, non screaming,non hair pulling, non military style coaches.
 

flanker

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Country
Czech-Republic
I would also say that on the ice rink 60x30m, with 10 to 15 pupils skating at once, raising a voice doen't necesarilly mean you wanna be rude, sometimes it's just necessary way how to be heard :)
 

readernick

Medalist
Joined
Dec 5, 2015
Main point is success in sports doesnt have to be military style training. Our successes thus far, more has been from the non shouting, non screaming,non hair pulling, non military style coaches.

Agree 100%. I don’t think military type training has been used in the coaching of most athletes for the last 30 years. I have friends who participated in the long distance running in the USA at a national ( not Olympic) level their coaches were guides some strict some less so but all respectful and responsible. I think that type of coaching is common in sports where the champions are usually adults. (There are obviously some terrible coaches, but it isn’t as common)However, I think that sports like figure skating and gymnastics are stuck in the past and have their own unique challenge because athletes are judged not just on results but also on appearance. As I said this culture is common worldwide although obviously some countries allow/encourage more abuse than others. There was a recent letter from Jessica Yu ( who skated for Singapore, but trained in China) that details the coaching she endured. Li Zijun was also required to essentially starve herself and drink limited water. Physical/Sexual abuse was recently undercovered to be quite widespread in France. It doesn’t need to occur, and isn’t necessary for success but these coaches were likely raised in this military style system and pass this style onto each new generation.
 

dunffvanstorn

Final Flight
Joined
Mar 20, 2019
I read it, I understand what is said there, though I don't call it "admitting having eating disorder". The thing taken from it would be "It would be good to have nutritionist before."



Like anywhere else, the thing is that Eteri¨s sakters are more visible, because they ususally win something before that. Still, there should be found soime direct connestion between an "early retirement" and the things Eteri does. Also, retirements or chanings in cases like Tarakanova, Panenkova, Tsurskaya, Shelepen and others usually had some other cause, Tsurskaya skated mostly because her parents wanted, she herself had a different ideas about ehr future, tarakanova wanted to end skating as a whole (fortunately she still continues) etc.



This is connected with the previous point: only blinds refuse to see that there were many splits that were quiet and polite without any drama, Tsurskaya, Tarakanova, even Sasha's departure eteri commented very modestly. Once again, it's the way how the split is done, not the fact itself it is done. Also remember many former skaters speak very well about Eteri, Shelepen, Tsurskaya, Panenkova also made positive comments about Eteri. Also Shelepen (together with Tursynbaeva) actually at some occasions defend Eteri in the virtual world very resolutely.



This is what colormyworld replied, no need to add much to it, just that e.g. alina has mostly very good technique on most jumps she gained with Eteri. her Lutz has not the deepest edge, but that's common everywhere and it's still deep enough. As for the magic prerotation, as I¨ve posted many times before, it's as common as the rain in april, just for some reasons it is pointed here and not elsewhere. Still whatever the prerotation Anna has it is within the norm. As for aliona, she corrected her originally bad edge in Eteri's camp, stabilized her originally very unstable jumps etc.



Arguing "it's not a problem for me but for many people" has hardly any value, it's not an argument. As for "bad choreo", well, I like that mostly, that's once again the question of taste more than some objective value. Some people just require all choreos to look a specific way and to be done completely by Wilson or Bourne and other style is just a "blasphemy". I take there arte people who don't like Daniil's (or Eteri's) choreos, thats their taste, but thatˇis all, someone listens only hip-hop which doesn't make Beethoven's music bad ;)

Dear Flanker, you’ll always defend Eteri no matter what she does. Trying to use logical arguments with you will never work, because your thinking process is passionate and biased to defend Team Tutberidze. So, I’m not gonna answer you anymore about this post because it’s pointless.
 
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