- Joined
- Oct 25, 2014
Nothing besides the fact that Urmanov had a lot of opinions about Misha during the GP season, but no decent track record with senior skaters at all.
Mikhail Kolyada
- Thread starter Perdita
- Start date
Nothing besides the fact that Urmanov had a lot of opinions about Misha during the GP season, but no decent track record with senior skaters at all.
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2017
One cannot do as an adult person always what the coach says. One have their own mind, their own personality and if a person is as creative as Mika is, also the desire to bring it in his profession. You cannot tell me that Plushenko did always what Mishin said. But this is the problem of Valentina as well: she must as well gather experience in teaching adult men and not only kids or teenagers for which the coach takes the decisions. An adult want something else, wants to take charge, wants to decide. The role of the coach is then changed: they have to give the best advice, to present the alternatives with pro and contra. So Valentina has loads of problems now and not because Mika is Mika, but the problems every coach who starts to be successful in adult elite sports has: how to keep the success going, how to keep your pupils motivated and developing (what can they still learn? the coach has to learn it first). Also: as a coach you have to come with new ideas, you cannot only copy other successful coaches. Mishin didn't get from his first elite skater an Olympic champion, Eteri also not. To be an elite coach is something more than a normal level one.
We see at the moment that Eteri has also difficulty to coach adult skaters as successful as she is. Because she cannot give the power of decisions from her hand and make a team of decisions with the skater. Her system works wonderful with children and teenagers who accepts the decisions made by others, with adults not so much. So, it is not a Mika problem, but a problem every coach will meet when they will have a skater as intelligent and as creative as Mika: they need to fly and to try. TAT had problem with Kulik who felt suffocated by her - but for Yagudin it was exactly what he needed and wanted. Kovtun seems also not to work well with TAT and feel caged. Probably the best coach for Mika would be Orser, who really teach his skaters to be independent and how to built themselves. Valentina is not there yet: she can learn, but naturally they as a team will make mistakes because none of them has the experience.
Giving the blame only to Mika is very unfair. He might decide what we thinks that is wrong, but he has other insider information and other motivation for his decision than us. But at this moment Valentina seems to me also that she has no clear idea what is to do and when you as a coach seems uncertain you cannot expect the skater to follow you without questions. Their team would need someone with experience to improve without making so many mistakes on their way. It is a pity they don't understand themselves with Mishin, his experience is so vast and would help to pin point some things....
We see at the moment that Eteri has also difficulty to coach adult skaters as successful as she is. Because she cannot give the power of decisions from her hand and make a team of decisions with the skater. Her system works wonderful with children and teenagers who accepts the decisions made by others, with adults not so much. So, it is not a Mika problem, but a problem every coach will meet when they will have a skater as intelligent and as creative as Mika: they need to fly and to try. TAT had problem with Kulik who felt suffocated by her - but for Yagudin it was exactly what he needed and wanted. Kovtun seems also not to work well with TAT and feel caged. Probably the best coach for Mika would be Orser, who really teach his skaters to be independent and how to built themselves. Valentina is not there yet: she can learn, but naturally they as a team will make mistakes because none of them has the experience.
Giving the blame only to Mika is very unfair. He might decide what we thinks that is wrong, but he has other insider information and other motivation for his decision than us. But at this moment Valentina seems to me also that she has no clear idea what is to do and when you as a coach seems uncertain you cannot expect the skater to follow you without questions. Their team would need someone with experience to improve without making so many mistakes on their way. It is a pity they don't understand themselves with Mishin, his experience is so vast and would help to pin point some things....
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2017
So, Mika skates after Kovtun in the short. Great 
.
.- Joined
- Apr 9, 2016
Nobody is blaming only Misha, there is enough blame to go around for everyone. We really can't be sure what's going on in that group and the relationship between the members, we can only guess. Valentina seems like someone who became a top-level coach almost by accident, in the sense that she is good and she got some talented students, but she never imagined herself or tried to figure out how to navigate at this level. Ambitious students dream of winning Olympic medals, ambitions coaches dream of taking students to the Olympics to win medals. I am not sure if Valentina did or it just kind of fell upon her. She can be hard to figure out sometimes. You can hardly accuse her of not teaching Misha anything new and not motivating him to develop though. His quality of skating is improving constantly and he is not doing this on his own, a lot of work goes into it in that team. I can believe that he may have an idea of how to train jumps but other aspects of skating not so much. He is talented and a good learner but he needs to be guided. So saying he is training himself is hardly appropriate considering the full picture. And even if you take jumps his quad sal has definitely improved. It's more about pulling it all together consistently which isn't working as well for a combination of reasons.
Mishin could advise on certain things but I absolutely would not trust him with the non-jump aspects.
Mishin could advise on certain things but I absolutely would not trust him with the non-jump aspects.
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2017
Aaaaaa....i don't remember saying that Kolyada is training himself or should train himself in any post i wrote? So, i don't get your answer. 
Edit: i get that you have a better opinion on Valentina as i. Frankly, there is a lot more to a coach than someone who teach jumps, and teaching a 4S is not a big deal of originality and new.
Where i miss experience at Valentina? For example pacing your student through a season that they peak at the right moment. Which is the second season where is not going well. Mika begins well, super prepared and at Euros is out of power.
Where i miss also? How they change over and over the jumping layout, last season looked like a total chaos.
Third: you need good connection as a coach, you have to get them if you want to survive in the politicking of Russian Fed. Valentina doesn't look to me that she is trying too much. The connections she got, i don't have idea if they come from Mika wanting to go to Raf or Lambiel or from Valentina herself. But she need allies in Russia, like yesterday.
There are more and more i could add. None of them has to do with her ability to teach jumps and basic skills, there is no denying that she is very good at them. But for the elite coaching one needs more. More grit. More fight. Luck and hard work had brought her so so far. But now she has to play the big kids game. The game of Orser, of Eteri, of Raf.
Edit: i get that you have a better opinion on Valentina as i. Frankly, there is a lot more to a coach than someone who teach jumps, and teaching a 4S is not a big deal of originality and new.
Where i miss experience at Valentina? For example pacing your student through a season that they peak at the right moment. Which is the second season where is not going well. Mika begins well, super prepared and at Euros is out of power.
Where i miss also? How they change over and over the jumping layout, last season looked like a total chaos.
Third: you need good connection as a coach, you have to get them if you want to survive in the politicking of Russian Fed. Valentina doesn't look to me that she is trying too much. The connections she got, i don't have idea if they come from Mika wanting to go to Raf or Lambiel or from Valentina herself. But she need allies in Russia, like yesterday.
There are more and more i could add. None of them has to do with her ability to teach jumps and basic skills, there is no denying that she is very good at them. But for the elite coaching one needs more. More grit. More fight. Luck and hard work had brought her so so far. But now she has to play the big kids game. The game of Orser, of Eteri, of Raf.
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2016
You are not the one who said Misha trains himself, rachno2 did.Aaaaaa....i don't remember saying that Kolyada is training himself or should train himself in any post i wrote? So, i don't get your answer.
Edit: i get that you have a better opinion on Valentina as i. Frankly, there is a lot more to a coach than someone who teach jumps, and teaching a 4S is not a big deal of originality and new.
Where i miss experience at Valentina? For example pacing your student through a season that they peak at the right moment. Which is the second season where is not going well. Mika begins well, super prepared and at Euros is out of power.
Where i miss also? How they change over and over the jumping layout, last season looked like a total chaos.
Third: you need good connection as a coach, you have to get them if you want to survive in the politicking of Russian Fed. Valentina doesn't look to me that she is trying too much. The connections she got, i don't have idea if they come from Mika wanting to go to Raf or Lambiel or from Valentina herself. But she need allies in Russia, like yesterday.
There are more and more i could add. None of them has to do with her ability to teach jumps and basic skills, there is no denying that she is very good at them. But for the elite coaching one needs more. More grit. More fight. Luck and hard work had brought her so so far. But now she has to play the big kids game. The game of Orser, of Eteri, of Raf.
They didn't change the jump layout much at all last season? I am in total agreement that last season was paced badly because they felt the need to show their best game from the beginning to secure that Olympic spot. This season I doubt anything would have worked to be honest, he would have still ended up in hospital even with a constant layout and he would have still had a problem lasting through the free skate. This is the biggest mistake, trying to ignore the underlying problem and push past it. And he didn't start super-prepared, the layout at Nepela was very simple and he couldn't even do that properly. Nothing even remotely close to last season in difficulty, where the layout was already what you saw all the way up to Euros. They were trying to start slow. People only refer to it as some sort of pinnacle because later it got worse. Even before a layout change. Which doesn't mean layout changes were a smart idea of course, they made his life even more difficult, but once again a simple layout wouldn't have made him healthy.
It is debatable how much Misha has been hurt through the lack of connections. It didn't stop him from a meteoric rise in his first season or from staying on top or from getting into the team event at the Olympics which was a prize a lot of people were fighting over. Nobody tried to sink him at Nationals, they may have propped up others a bit too much but Misha got his. He was pressured into adding quads but so was every single other Russian guy. When he wanted to go abroad for a camp he was given the resources. Valentina is never going to be on par with Buyanova in influence but it's unlikely that any St. Petersburg coach will besides Mishin in the near future and Mishin has a looong history behind him. I am not saying Valentina can't get better at politicking or push her case more but I don't think lack of politicking is what's endangering Misha's career, it's him not skating well.
Btw Eteri is not that much about connections for a different reason, she is not good at building allies simply through her nature of not being a diplomat (to put it mildly). She is valued and has influence because she brings results like no other coach. But if the "old boys' club" could find a way to sink her they would.
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2014
The thing is, they don't hit her directly because she's strong, they hit on her skaters - look at the kind of comments TAT made on Alina. On the other hand, TAT had always some kind words for Stasya. In fact, many people accused her of being propped up for some reason or another for a couple of seasons now, so why wouldn't Misha enjoy some of that too, being the other student from Valentina's group?
The fact is that, her team is generally left out of the circle of frenemies that is the russian skating, and it shows. But they worked hard, though you can't make miracles every season. And the Olympic year was terrible for Misha, although the best one he's had, but he needed the time off, if only because his off season was packed. It started on the wrong foot, and unless he's out of the team for Euros/Worlds, I don't expect a complete recover by the end of the season either.
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2014
What we should really be getting heated over in here is why there are no pictures of Misha from the draw :dev2: if I have to watch him skate in this condition, I should at least be able to enjoy him in a suit.
I could only catch his head in one of the pictures, he was wayyyyy in the back.
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2016
I think TAT still likes Stasya because Stasya didn't turn down an invitation to CSKA. She used to like Misha too once upon a time.
I know CSKA skaters get propped up but honestly it seems to have more of a tangible effect in ladies if only because it's a bit pointless to politick for men when they are as inconsistent as they are. And Samarin last season was still under the patronage of Buyanova (not any more which is why Kovtun is the golden boy now) and the CSKA star but the Fed quickly made it clear with its scores he'll get zero support if his bombing streak continues. Last season's pushing ended up doing him more harm than good, I honestly do not think this sort of politicking is something to be wished on Misha. When TAT falls in love with a male skater the skater had better watch out.
So, Mika skates after Kovtun in the short. Great
I don’t think it will make much of a difference. Misha is going to skate how he is going to skate. As for the scoring, if he skates well, he will be supported. If he doesn’t, he probably still will be, just maybe not as much as Kovtun. I really, truly believe the federation would rather have him succeed than fail. But I’m not expecting anything at this point in terms of results, just hoping he doesn’t aggravate the sinusitis.
I think what is happening between Mikhail and Valentina is similar to what happened between Nathan and Raf last year. Yes, Nathan was only 18 compared to early 20s, but he rebelled a bit and didn't take Raf's advice seriously. Then he fell apart at the Olympics and realized he needed to take his coach seriously. I don't think the coaching situation is necessarily the problem. I think the mindset is and maturity takes time. We often say skaters take a bit more time to mature and I think this is just part of the growing process. Unfortunately, it is just hard to watch as fans.
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2018
Hello everybody,
Just want to wish the best of luck to Misha, hope he can do his best, skate clean and safe but above everything; common sense and health.
In any case, Be fire Misha!
Just want to wish the best of luck to Misha, hope he can do his best, skate clean and safe but above everything; common sense and health.
In any case, Be fire Misha!
I haven't seen any practice reports.
We did get draw pictures though..... (the first would make a good reaction image
)I'm expecting the worst, and I'm still panicking here
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2014
Survived the SP. 
Survived the SP.
He looked so exhausted
I don’t know if he will make it to the FS tomorrow, but I’m glad he was able to give himself this little victory. That judging though.......I am not happy. Let’s leave it at that.
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2014
He looked so exhausted
That judging though.......I am not happy. Let’s leave it at that.
Well, most of his elements didn't look that good, so I' won't make a comment about the score. But I didn't see him exhausted, at least nothing we haven't seen before, just very undertrained, which is understandable.
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2016
Erm, considering Aliev, can the Fed please be satisfied with just the SP?
I really really hope so. Misha had his heroic moment, he was clearly struggling through the whole thing, can they let him rest now?
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