One Coach's Journey From East To West: How the Fall of the Iron Curtain Changed the World of Gymnastics

By Vladimir Zaglada

Until the fall of the Soviet Union the West and the Communists were engaged not only in a heated arms race but a race for Olympic gold. Moscow poured tremendous resources into the effort, attracting some of the country's greatest minds. Vladimir Zaglada provides a look inside some Soviet Union gymnastics "think tanks," like Moscow's Lenin Instit

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westwood Books Publishing, LLC
• Release date: May 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781648037382

Vladimir Zaglada

VLADIMIR ZAGLADA was born in Soviet Leningrad (today, St. Petersburg, Russia) in November, 1944. He received a degree in coaching gymnastics from the Lvov (Ukraine) Institute of Physical Education. He went on to do graduate work at Moscow's Lenin Institute of Physical Education, earning a Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences (the approximate equivalent of a PhD). In 1964 he was granted the title Master of Sport of the USSR in Acrobatic Gymnastics. Zaglada has devoted his 40 years professional life to the theory and practice of artistic gymnastics, including as coach and consultant for the senior and junior Soviet women's and girl's gymnastics teams, assisting in their preparation for World and Olympic competition. After serving as a senior professor at the main physical education institutes of Lvov and Moscow, he served as the head coach for Moscow-Dynamo's Olympic Reserve School, where many of the Soviet Union's top female gymnasts spent their childhoods training to become champions. Later he became the first president of Dynamo-Moscow's Gymnastics Club. He was a member of the Women's Technical Committee of the Soviet Gymnastics Federation, a member of the Executive Board of the Dynamo-Moscow City Council, an Honorary Member of Russian Dynamo, and a vice-president of the Dynamo-Southampton Gymnastics Club (now the United Kingdom's Dynamo School of Gymnastics). He served as producer and artistic director for the Soviet Gala Concert at the 1991 World Gymnaestrada in Amsterdam and has appeared as a gymnastics expert on both CNN and CBS. The author of numerous scholarly books and articles on artistic gymnastics, he coauthored (with Tatyana Lisitskaya) Floor Exercises for Women, which has been translated into Japanese and English and is recognized as one of the best monographs on the subject. For years he contributed chapters to textbooks used in the top institutes of physical education in the Soviet Union and Russia and has written a number of works on programmed learning. He is recognized in The Encyclopedia of Gymnastics as having made a significant contribution to the shaping of both the theory and practice of Soviet gymnastics, including through his contributions in the area of branch programming, which led to changes in how complex gymnastics exercises are taught at the highest levels of training. In 1999 Zaglada left Dynamo to accept the position of technical director for men's gymnastics in Great Britain. He arrived in the United States on September 10, 2001. Since this time has he worked as head gymnastics coach for clubs in Minnesota and Georgia, where he produced a numbers of state and regional champions.

Book preview

Copyright © 2021 by Vladimir Zaglada.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Westwood Books Publishing LLC

11416 SW Aventino Drive

Port Saint Lucie, FL 34987

www.westwoodbookspublishing.com

To the little toilers of big-time gymnastics

I dedicate this book

Table of Content

MY JOURNEY THROUGH GYMNASTICS

IN PLACE OF A FOREWORD: A TRAVEL GUIDE TO THIS BOOK

The Masters of Gymnastics and their Great Achievements

The Book’s Structure and Interactive Design

How the Photographs and the Photographer Became My Coauthors

Lady Luck and Meeting the Right Person in the Right Place at the Right Time

The Future of Russian Gymnastics and Other Questions

What Can American Gymnastics Learn from Russian Gymnastics – Its Ups and Downs, Its Stars and Medals?

A Russian Coach in American Gymnastics: Thinking Out Loud

Part I

YEARS, EVENTS, PEOPLE

A TRIP THROUGH TIME AND THROUGH MY LIFE…

My Family Is My Fate and the Thing I Love Most in the World

The Nomenklatura Sieve Or the Land of Boundless Opportunity for the Young!

All Roads Lead to Moscow Or How to Become One of Us

His Highness Vasily Gubanov And Other Luminaries of this World

Professor of Gymnastics Vladimir Smolevsky Or How to Join the Ranks of the Holiest of Holies

Let’s Learn a Thing or Two from Yury Gaverdovsky Or How Alexander Tkachev Wound Up in Glossaries

Coming to You from Dynamo Central Stadium – Years Spent Beneath the White and Blue Flag

Ten Years of Russian Capitalism Or Financial Accountability à la Russe

The Lottery Is Always a Gamble – Even in Great Britain!

Remembering My Parents…

A First Offer from the United States And a Decision… 20 Years Later

Friends Don’t Happen Overnight (from a song by Vladimir Vysotsky)

September, 11, 2001 – A Day that Changed My Life

WELCOME TO AMERICA OR COACHES OF THE WORLD UNITE…IN THE U.S.A.!

Gymnastics in the United States: From Mass Fun to Olympic Gold

International Genius Or Coaches So Different, Yet so Alike

To Speak and Worship in Russian, And Not Only in Russian

Immigrant: Refugee, Dissident, Or Jobseeker

Swimming in the Job Pool: Hard Times for Soviet Stars

Russian Showmanship Meets American Commerce Or How Can a Coach Get By

We Are Russians from Russia with Love Or The Soviet Union’s Final Day

The Helping Hand – May It Prosper

Part II

WORKING FOR CHILDREN FOR THE SAKE OF CHILDREN!

MUSINGS BY A RUSSIAN COACH IN AMERICA

First Steps in the Gym Or Where’s Daddy?

Associative Thinking a Useful Tool In Working with Beginning Gymnasts

Take a Lesson from the Cat Or in America, There are Plenty of Teachers

You can do it! Or Are Those Skyscrapers as Big as They Seem?

Who Is Most Important In a Gymnastics Performance: The Coach or The Pupil?

REMINISCENCES, COMMENTARIES, AND RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING ADVANCED TRAINING AT AN EARLY AGE

A Word about the Masters and the Metrics of Selecting Gymnasts

Accelerated Early Immersion Or You Can’t Go Any Younger!

Take Your Time and Don’t Cut Corners!

The Fun Factor Or a Moveable Feast

Dynamo-Moscow’s Specialized Olympic Reserve Group – An Example Worthy of Imitation

TOGETHER FOR THE LONG HAUL: SCREENING AND SELECTION

The Coach: Painstaking Craftsman or Rash Gambler?

Who Should be Brought On Board and How Should We Sail the Ship?

GYMNASTICS TERMINOLOGY: THE KEY TO MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING

PROPER INSTRUCTION – THE PATH TO MASTERY

Part III

STARTING FROM THE BASE AND LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE

THE FIRST LAW OF GYMNASTICS: YOU HAVE TO HAVE A STURDY BASE TO BUILD ON!

Checking and Correcting: The Keys to Managing the Learning Process

The Geometry of Basics

Choreography in Gymnastics: Teach Them Tiny and They Will Learn Forever!

AN UNSCRIPTED CONVERSATION ON CHOREOGRAPHY WITH A MASTER

Part IV

WITHOUT THE PAST, THERE CAN BE NO FUTURE

LOOKING BACK OR WHAT’S MORE IMPORTANT – JUMPING HIGH OR JUMPING BEAUTIFULLY?

Digression No. 8: The Russian Plowman, Or How Lyova’s Empire Got Its Start

FACE TO FACE WITH DIFFICULTY

Blurring the Line between the Possible and the Impossible

Gymnast is Not a Profession, But Sometimes It Looks That Way!

Digression No. 9: The Great Chukarin – Iron Chuka

Part V

STEP BY STEP TO SUCCESS: ONE, TWO, THREE…

FOR EVERY QUESTION, THERE IS AN ANSWER

A Few Little Known Truths With Commentaries and Digressions

A Life in Acrobatics or the Tale of Boatswain Lyokha

Is There Such a Thing as the Ideal Background for Coaching Gymnastics?

His Majesty the Coach

Profession: Manager, Or How to Become a Head Gymnastics Coach

Digression No. 10. Working Side by Side with Anatoly Kozeev: A Man of Tasteful Modesty

Moscow-Peking, Peking-Moscow – Onward March the People

Digression No. 11: About the Master of French Gymnastics: A Meeting Fated to Be

Digression No. 12: Daring Captures Cities Or How to Tame a Dragon

TWO SEPARATE ART FORMS: THE ART OF GYMNASTICS AND THE ART OF COACHING GYMNASTICS

Advice and Recommendations from the Gym Floor

Sergei Petruniak: Women’s Gymnastics is a Tricky Business

Elvira Saadi: The Strength of the Weaker Sex

Combining Gymnastics and Higher Education: Advice from Ross Brewer

Flying High with Kanukai Jackson: The Human Catapult

THE HOTTEST TOPICS IN WOMEN’S GYMNASTICS

Drill Sergeant Zaglada’s Basic Training

The Little Gymnast: Eliza Doolittle or a Robot?

The Primary Types of Handstand Postures for Children

MODELING BASIC EXERCISES ON UNEVEN BARS

KIP CAST TO HANDSTAND

CLEAR HIP CIRCLE

CLEAR HIP CIRCLE TO HANDSTAND

THE ZONE OF SMALL CIRCLES: LOOKS EASY AND PRETTY SAFE!

SOLE CIRCLE TO HANDSTAND

STALDER CIRCLE

LONG SWINGS ON VERY NARROW UNEVEN BARS AND THEIR PIONEERS

BACK CIRCLE TO HANDSTAND FROM LONG SWING FORWARD (GIANT)

THE BASIC FORWARD SWING-BACK SALTO DISMOUNT (THE FLYAWAY)

THE BABY GIANT: A TRANSITIONAL FORM OR A WAY TO RELIEVE ANXIETY?

A BIT MORE ABOUT THE UNEVEN BARS AND THINGS THAT WILL NEVER LOSE THEIR VALUE

A Few Words about Fashionable Vaults and Whether or Not We Need to Struggle with Them

Why Do So Few Tumblers Enter the World of Gymnastics?

Digression № 13: What is that businessman Vladimir Zaglada doing here!?

Horizontal Line Saltos and Vertical Line Twists Or the Lowdown on High Flying

The tumbler’s course of study: whether in Russia or the States, the education is the same

A JOURNEY IS BEST MEASURED IN FRIENDS RATHER THAN MILES

THROUGH THICK AND THIN

SOMEWHERE IN AMERICA OR A LITTLE TRIP INTO… SOCIALIST REALISM!

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD?

MY JOURNEY THROUGH GYMNASTICS

IN PLACE OF A FOREWORD: A TRAVEL GUIDE TO THIS BOOK

The book that you hold in your hands is not my biography. While I did attain a certain renown as an authority on gymnastics and earned the respect of gymnastics professionals, I never achieved the sort of standing that would warrant publication of my own life story.

The Masters of Gymnastics and their Great Achievements

Fate brought me in contact with the truly great masters of gymnastics and gave me the opportunity not only to witness their extraordinary work, but also, in some cases, to collaborate with them. My readers will encounter an entire gallery of figures from my generation: some gave me my first introduction to the art of coaching, others revealed the secrets of pedagogy to me and allowed me to collaborate in their research. All of them have a permanent place in my heart and taught me a great deal about life. Their example of selfless devotion to gymnastics has been an inspiration to me.

This book focuses exclusively on the positive and readers will not find any dirt on the great masters of gymnastics. Give greatness its due is how I feel about it, and I have no interest in the gossip and stories about their personal lives that sometimes appear in the press, tarnishing their professional image. In my opinion their deeds have earned them the right to the truth and only the truth. I am proud of these beautiful, strong, and determined people and feel that they have the right to a few human frailties and bad habits.

The Book’s Structure and Interactive Design

I sincerely hope that my readers will like the design of this book. It includes three narrative planes: one devoted to events, one to people, and another to the theory and practice of gymnastics. A series of portraits take the form of biographical digressions bringing the reader behind the scenes, so to speak. These portraits are set off with their own font, but are an integral part of this methodological work on gymnastics. To make them as illustrative and meaningful as possible, I have combined biographical information about key figures in the history of gymnastics with recommendations for organizing gymnastics education. At times I even speak on their behalf, sharing their own recollections and even conveying their advice to coaches and gymnasts.

It should be noted at the outset that in characterizing historical events and moments in the lives of the masters of gymnastics, I am relying on my own personal observations and am expressing my own opinion. However I have tried to design my text so that readers can form their own perspective on events, people, and other elements. Furthermore, in order to make the book as meaningful as possible, I have tried to allow readers not only to interact with imaginary conversation partners, but to get as close a look as possible at their faces, to experience their emotional state, and generally to immerse themselves in the fascinating world of gymnastics.

How the Photographs and the Photographer Became My Coauthors

To this end – to give the book a documentary and interactive quality – I have included, along with black and white photographs from personal collections, a number of photographs by Debbie Poe, a talented American photojournalist specializing in gymnastics. These photographs not only make the book more attractive, but also convey the range of complex psychological states that gymnasts and their coaches experience in the course of their work.

One thing that was very important to me was that, along with her photographs of many of the stars of American and international gymnastics, Debbie Poe has created a gallery of photographs of the cream of the crop of Soviet gymnastics at the height of their careers that is unique in terms of its comprehensiveness and historical value. Furthermore, being a journalist not merely by profession but also by vocation, Debbie Poe did not stop there: exploiting a variety of sources, gleaning information one crumb at a time, she compiled biographical information about gymnasts from many countries and filled in basic biographies with gymnasts’ own personal recollections and the most interesting things that have been published about them.

Lady Luck and Meeting the Right Person in the Right Place at the Right Time

I don’t think I will be accused of excessive patriotism or immodesty if I say that the land of my youth – the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which now exists only in memory and history books – made exceptional contributions to the theory and practice of artistic gymnastics. Whatever the geopolitical motivation may have been (in addition to the space race and the arms race, there seems to have been a sort of Olympic gold race), our government put resources into gymnastics that attracted some of our country’s greatest minds and athletic talent and made sure they had the training and support to put Soviet gymnasts on Olympic pedestals. When, with the fall of the Soviet Union, that support vanished virtually overnight, some of the world’s top gymnastics experts were suddenly in desperate need of employment. Now, throughout the world, coaches and gymnasts who came of age during the heyday of Soviet gymnastics are in the position of sharing their extensive knowledge with the world, and are successfully doing so.

Imparting knowledge is never a straightforward matter, but the language barrier makes this process exceptionally challenging. While with the help of gesture, intonation, and that special connection the human mind is capable of when people are in each other’s presence, foreigners can easily convey elaborate ideas in face-to-face interaction. But the written word is another matter. There is no doubt in my mind that all my work on this book would have been wasted had Lady Luck not smiled on me. After long and fruitless searches for a translator I was fortunate to cross paths with a remarkable person, a master of her craft with a deep respect for the language of Pushkin, Tolstoy and Chekhov, and someone willing to put the necessary time and effort into the task of bridging the vast terminological divide between the Russian language of gymnastics and its English counterpart.

Nora Seligman Favorov (daughter of journalist Daniel Seligman, author of Fortune magazine’s Keeping Up column that was popular in the eighties and nineties) has not only translated my book, but has offered helpful editorial insights throughout. At first I did not fully appreciate how valuable a resource a good translator could be, but I soon understood that my baby was in good hands. The fact that Nora started out with little knowledge of gymnastics terminology was even a plus – my book can be read and, more important, understood even by gymnastics laymen. It was a pleasant surprise that people of different ages, cultures, and nationalities, with different educational backgrounds and life experiences, could be brought together by chance and not only understand one another, but have such an exceptionally fruitful collaboration in creating a book. And it was an act of creation transforming my original Russian text, with its typical Russian expansiveness, into the more laconic style favored by American readers. Nora S. Favorov approached her task with great delicacy, rendering unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.

For me to carry out this project, which has long been my life’s goal, I really did have to travel halfway across the world and meet the right person in the right place at the right time!

And the time and place really are right, because the publication of my book – a book by a Russian author – comes at a very difficult time in the development of Russian gymnastics, to which I dedicated approximately 40 years of my life. Not so long ago, Russian women’s gymnastics was the first and last word in world gymnastics, but now, to my heartfelt chagrin, it has fallen into decline and is not currently thrilling audiences with stunning achievements. On the other hand, U.S. women’s gymnastics is not only a contender for the top prizes, but dominates international competition.

The Future of Russian Gymnastics and Other Questions

I firmly believe that despite the obvious decline of Russian gymnastics, it cannot be written off as a contender at top international competitions and the Olympics.

Believe me: when someone is fated to be strong and has indeed already been so, temporary setbacks can be deceiving. Russian gymnastics, with its tradition and history, will do all that it can to return to the ranks of the leaders of world gymnastics and challenge the American powerhouse. This is the law the great live by: to be strong among equals and to achieve victory over the mighty.

Wherein lies the former strength of Soviet gymnastics, which dominated the world arena for decades, and why did the political and economic collapse of the Soviet Union have such a catastrophic impact on the achievements of Russian gymnastics? How can we explain the amazing ascent of American gymnastics? Was it brought about by the post- Soviet influx of the best coaches from Russia and other Communist bloc countries to America, or was it that gymnastics training was well designed in the U.S. to begin with? How did the International Gymnastics Federation’s move toward radically more demanding technical requirements affect changes in the rules governing national competitions and how, in the final analysis, did that affect the development of the popular study of gymnastics? And finally, how can aspiring gymnasts not only survive in a sport that keeps raising the bar – making competition more difficult and riskier – but even triumph and protect their hard-earned standing?

I will try to answer these and other questions based not only on my own experience and knowledge, acquired over the course of a life dedicated to the sport, but also by sharing the views of leading experts in the field, seasoned coaches, and well-known veterans of the sport.

What Can American Gymnastics Learn from Russian Gymnastics – Its Ups and Downs, Its Stars and Medals?

This book takes a close look at how beginning gymnastics is taught and how more advanced training is structured, as well as the many factors involved in qualifying gymnasts at the various stages of their careers. All these and many other key questions about how gymnasts are trained at various ages are explored in the book and directly related to the process of shaping the physical and technical potential necessary to safely learn the exceptionally difficult elite combinations advanced gymnasts must master.

As a Russian, I hope that many of the stars of Soviet and Russian gymnastics mentioned in this book will take on a human face for their American fans and gymnastics professionals. After all, many of them stood at the headwaters of classical gymnastics and later created their own methodologies. How many super-challenging Ultra Cs bear their names! And the number of Russian medals won is beyond count. I hope that by presenting a thorough analysis of the course of Russian gymnastics’ development – its ups and downs, triumphs and defeats – I will not only remind the world of the achievements of one of history’s richest gymnastics wellsprings, but also provide useful insights for U.S. gymnastics as it marches boldly toward Olympic triumph.

A Russian Coach in American Gymnastics: Thinking Out Loud

My journey through the world of gymnastics has not been a simple one and might very well have turned out differently. My readers will understand this once they get to know me and hear about the pivotal moments of my career. And as they get to know me, they will see contemporary American gymnastics from the inside, through the eyes of a Russian coach working in the United States.

In addition to general recommendations on how gymnastics training should be organized, readers will learn about the classical structure of specialized gymnastics schools, the selection criteria for such schools, and their important features. This section is based entirely on my own personal observations and experience. While American gymnastics schools and clubs have their own structure and specific ways of doing things, many of the most effective ones draw on the successful experiences of the best Olympic reserve schools. This has come about largely thanks to the fact that a number of coaches who emigrated from the former Soviet Union and became the owners or leaders of elite American clubs had themselves been practicing gymnasts with first hand experience of how effective the specialized schools of their native countries were. Furthermore, many coaches from the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, France, Germany, and other countries spent time training in the USSR and were well acquainted not only with the acronym SDYuShOR (literally, the Specialized Child-Youth Sports School of the Olympic Reserve), but also with the progressive principles such schools adhere to and the exceptional results they achieve.

Next, as a logical follow up to my detailed analysis of how young children are trained in specialized schools, comes a lengthy methodological section written in interactive form. It is this interactive format featuring questions and answers that will allow my readers to accompany the author on the journey from the simplest static and transitional postures to basic training in the progressive level elements that form the foundation on which more intensive advanced training can proceed.

Once they are well acquainted with the methodological section, readers will be able to independently devise simple strategies for teaching individual skills and will have an idea of how these skills can be applied in actual gymnastics practice. This section will also give readers a deeper appreciation of the special responsibility that rests on the shoulders of anyone teaching gymnastics to young children: the formation of technical and physical potential must occur naturally and all the means applied must be absolutely safe for children’s health. Pushing children beyond their limits takes the pleasure out of training and is not effective. It is important to clarify: when I talk about elementary basic training I am talking about putting in place a multilayered solid foundation on which subsequent athletic specialization and a high level of performance can be achieved.

Part I

YEARS, EVENTS, PEOPLE

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to reap that which is planted… A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away…

(Ecclesiastes 3:1)

A TRIP THROUGH TIME AND THROUGH MY LIFE…

And now I invite you, my readers, to take the first of several trips through time with me, a trip during which the years of my life will race by quickly. Once you have become acquainted with me and my family, we will traverse the years of my life together and you will see the forces that shaped my career. Most important, our travels will allow you to witness some of the most important turning points in the history of modern gymnastics and become better acquainted with some of the key figures in this history.

My Family Is My Fate and the Thing I Love Most in the World

My permanent address is in Moscow, Russia, but for the past nine years I have been living in America, the country that now offers me a livelihood. In late November 2009 I turned 65. My wife Lyudmila (Lyusya) Zaglada, who is a dentist, also turned 65 that year. In her case, after working in her profession for more than 30 years, she went into a well deserved retirement and receives a modest (by American standards) pension from the Russian government. Now that she has time on her hands, she occupies herself with politics, literature, and art. She also is an extremely knowledgeable fan of the cinema and a foremost expert when it comes to the latest in cosmetics and perfume, a field in which she has distinguished herself over the years as an avid consumer.

Our daughter, Olesya Zaglada, who holds an advanced degree in international law, lives and works in Moscow but often comes to visit us in America. Every day that our daughter is here with us is a gift. Is there anything more precious that your own child? When you live thousands of miles from home, you feel all the more keenly that the most important thing in life is family and children.

I am proud of my daughter Olesya, a top-notch lawyer fluent in English and German, a graduate of the prestigious Moscow Institute of International Relations, and the holder of a doctorate from Goethe University in Frankfurt. Of course I am also incredibly grateful to my wife Lyusya, whom I’ve known since my school days and who has shared the most difficult periods of my life.

We have been together for more than four decades. These 40 years coincided with my career in gymnastics. After graduating the Institute of Physical Education and serving in the military, in 1967 I began to teach as an assistant in the department of gymnastics at the Lvov State Institute of Physical Education. This was the pier from which I embarked on my professional journey.

The Nomenklatura Sieve Or the Land of Boundless Opportunity for the Young!

Looking back, it is hard to believe the number of pitfalls that riddled my path. But the fact remains: while I was a young gymnastics researcher, a teacher, and even after I earned my graduate degree in pedagogical science and became a senior instructor, nobody saw me as a potential rival. In those days young professionals had no clout and as a rule held very junior positions in teaching and research institutions. Much later it would be junior scholars like I was then – people who were not allowed to realize their potential before the collapse of the Soviet Union – who would take up positions of power in the New Russia and play key roles in its dog-eat-dog order.

But back then it was impossible to get anywhere. Essentially all powerful institutions within the Soviet Union were controlled by the Communist Party and Komsomol elite, and the very highest positions – ministers and members of senior governmental committees – were, as a rule, held by experienced members of the older generation.

Not by any criterion could I be included among the Party nomenklatura (the tiny elite that filled any position that wielded power in the former Soviet Union). I was not a Communist Party member and, having been raised by members of the educated class, I lacked the proletariat pedigree that opened doors in our worker’s paradise. I did not have any relatives who were generals or academicians. I did not stand much of a chance of getting through the nomenklatura sieve that sifted out the wrong kinds of people. All I had was my own abilities and, of course, Lady Luck.

By the 1970s, the successes of Soviet gymnasts in international competition and their overall athletic achievements started to take on greater significance as matters of state than they had in previous decades. Being involved in the victories of Soviet athletes at World Championship competitions or the Olympics became for many coaches and athletes not just a source of pride and prestige, but something that opened doors to lucrative state support. The bonuses awarded to those who helped Soviet sport triumph in the international arena were orders of magnitude greater than the highest salaries that could be earned by most sports professionals. And this elite kitchen producing top gymnasts was not to be found in the outlying areas of the Soviet Union, but in its center, in Moscow.

Somewhat later, in the lead up to the 1980 Olympic Games, a training facility called Ozero Krugloye (Round Lake was built in a scenic Moscow suburb to train Soviet gymnasts year round. The best athletes and their coaches spent most of their training time in this facility. But before it was built, everything happened right in Moscow. This is where the top experts in the theory and practice of sports training, sports medicine and medical oversight, as well as biologists and physiologists, had been assembled. The Soviet sports industry was an effective machine primarily focused on pursuing outstanding achievements. The physical education of the population had always been a priority in the Soviet Union, but the money and resources invested in popular physical fitness were nothing compared to what was invested in the country’s Olympic athletes and teams.

But with factory stadiums and the fitness centers of every single educational institution covered in colorful placards proclaiming We Will Introduce Physical Education and Athletics into the Daily Lives of the People, the impression was created that the main achievements of Soviet athletes could be traced back solely to the universal call for Soviet citizens to be physically fit.

All Roads Lead to Moscow Or How to Become One of Us

Most important, Moscow was where the headquarters of the USSR Gymnastics Federation was located and the government agency that oversaw it – the gymnastics division of the USSR State Committee for Sports. This division is where the strategy for preparing top- notch athletes for the most important international competitions was devised. This is where it was decided what gymnasts would make up delegations and it was where their travel documents were prepared. This is where the results of competitions were analyzed and reports were prepared for submission to the highest government officials. But this is not where the final filtering was done and where fates were decided – it was elsewhere, in the offices of the State Committee for Sports and at the very highest levels of government, that decisions were made as to who would and would not be let out.

I suspect that the senior gymnastics division officials (who tended to be highly professional and decent people) did not take part in this filtering. But who knows? Maybe the state machine’s heartless millstone would not have functioned so effectively if had not been lubricated by envy, personal dislike, and, at times, open hatred.

Every now and then you would get a lucky break and be admitted into the ranks of the holiest of holies and then you became one of us. When this happened you were invited to train in Moscow, to go abroad, your achievements were cheered, and at the end of the year you were given a promotion and generally enjoyed favorable treatment. To be fair I should point out that the real basis for such favorable treatment was of course not just luck, but genuine athletic achievement. At the highest level of athletics you cannot fail to notice those who are head and shoulders above everyone else and who – whether or not they are loved by the powers that be – build their own ladder to the top.

In Russian we have a saying in such cases: you can’t do anything against a crowbar! Without mentioning names, I can say with confidence that everyone – even from top sports bureaucrats to defenseless gymnasts – was more or less helpless against the most difficult to deal with and cantankerous coaches who worked for the Soviet teams for many years and went down in history as true masters of world gymnastics.

It should be noted that service to Soviet athletics was well rewarded and nobody will be surprised to hear that in the former USSR athletes and coaches who gave outstanding performances in the international arena received the highest state honors. The spectrum of governmental awards was extremely broad and diverse and, most important, it was precisely gauged to distinguish among levels of achievement.

There were various sorts of Diplomas of Merit and Certificates of Gratitude from the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and the USSR Council of Ministers, along with analogous honors bestowed by the ministries and agencies of the Soviet republics. The highest honors were always the orders and medals of the USSR, which were awarded to the best representatives of sport, primarily those who medaled at World Championships and Olympic competitions. State honors not only enhanced the prestige of their recipients: they engraved their names in the annals of Soviet history.

In 1973 I was brought from the Lvov State Institute of Physical Education to the USSR’s largest institute of higher sports education: the State Central Order of Lenin Institute of Physical Education, where I began working as a senior instructor in the gymnastics department. My wife and I lived in a Moscow suburb, where she had been assigned a small apartment through her job as a dentist.

His Highness Vasily Gubanov And Other Luminaries of this World

I will not try to hide the fact that I have been very lucky in life: at the Lenin Institute, where I did my graduate work and later worked as a senior instructor and defended my dissertation, I became personally acquainted with many of the era’s outstanding teachers of athletics. One of these great pedagogues was the master of large-scale gymnastic performance, Vasily Alexeyevich Gubanov. He had a great deal of influence on my development as a gymnastics teacher and even had me stand in for him in preparing large- scale gymnastics exercises. His exceptional mind and vast knowledge combined with a keen understanding of pedagogy, and the amazing timber of his commanding voice had nothing in common with the crude shouting of a sergeant. His Russian was impeccable, he didn’t shout into the microphone the way many other producers of massovki (large-scale gymnastics productions) did. Most important, everyone listened to that voice attentively and followed its commands to the letter.

I write about this in some detail, because it was Gubanov’s voice that led me to understand just how a large group of people should be managed and what means can and should be used to bring such a mass under your control. Throughout history it has been people like Vasily Gubanov who have been our great generals. He became a Great Pedagogue and there was much to be learned from him.

The shows that I would produce much later were not typical of the genre of large-scale gymnastics performances. Nevertheless, as I worked on them and released them into the light of day, I always tried to adhere to the principles taught to me by the Great Master: be clear and accessible, ensure cohesion and precise rhythm, don’t show off even the most idolized soloists, and remember that they don’t create the primary, decisive effect in large- scale performances. These were my guiding principles in creating the opening ceremony for gymnastics competition at the 1986 Inaugural Good Will Games, the Soviet delegations’ gala concert at the 1991 Gymnaestrada in Amsterdam, as well as other gymnastics shows.

Time Marches On à la Igor Moiseyev

It seems to me that even the Great Gubanov was outdone in staging large-scale spectacles by the even greater Igor Moiseyev (although his were not gymnastic spectacles), the inimitable director of the most famous dance company the Soviet Union and Russia has ever had. In honor of a major anniversary of the Russian Revolution, Moiseyev staged a very conceptually original and technically difficult large-scale number in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses. The audience saw a stage filled with a weave of human bodies frozen in place. Suddenly, this seemingly formless, inanimate mass began to take on the distinct form of a rhythmically working living organism moving to the sound of a musical composition famous at the time, Time Marches On. The audience saw this body, felt its nerves, and even breathed in rhythm with it. The effect was stunning. It felt as if you were witness to a magical clock starting to tick and that you could even see its countless cogs and components. I, for one, have never seen such an effect achieved in a large-scale animation without the use of strobe lights. The performers from Moiseyev’s troupe, because of their choreographic art and the genius of their master producer, relied solely on the plasticity of the human body and dance. The amazing synchronicity and, in a number of cases, the striking asynchronicity of movement by the ensemble created the total illusion that the stage was filled with a huge mass of people. The Soviet Union could clearly recognize itself in the rhythmic pulsing of the mechanism, which, as it gained momentum, began to resemble the inner workings of a clock.

Professor of Gymnastics Vladimir Smolevsky Or How to Join the Ranks of the Holiest of Holies

It is difficult to list all the extraordinary people with whom I had the opportunity to work at the Lenin Institute, but there is one that I cannot fail to mention: Vladimir Mikhailovich Smolevsky, senior coach to the Soviet men’s gymnastics team who was named chair of the department of gymnastics at the institute and the person who invited me to come work there. This highly cultured and literate specialist

Reviews for One Coach's Journey From East To West

[Vladimir Zaglada · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think that this is the only one book in Publishing Sport Books Industry about how collapse of the USSR was influenced on the World Development of Artistic Gymnastics. Being the author of this book I do have a big hope that anyone who will open the book will not stop reading it...