Anastasiia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov: “If it goes in the choreography direction, pair skating and ice dance won’t differ much over time. Pair skating shouldn’t become ice dance.”
Interview with Anastasiia Mishina and Aleksandr Galliamov. About changes in the programs, readiness to complicate them, development of pair skating and their exhibition program.
source: fsrussia.ru dd. 17th December 2021, by Olga Ermolina and Tatjana Flade
You started this season in a new status of world champions. How important was it to you to confirm this in competitions?
Aleksandr Galliamov: We understood that after the World Championships our pair would get more attention, because perhaps someone thought that we didn’t deserve to win the World Championships in Stockholm. Therefore, we wanted to show and prove with our further consistent performances that our victory was not accidental.
Almost every competition, you and coaches make certain changes to the programs. Is this process endless?
Aleksandr Galliamov: Here, Tamara Nikolaevna decides a lot (Moskvina – ed.). She is our boss, and I think there will be more changes.
Anastasiia Mishina: Tamara Nikolaevna has such a principle of work, to constantly improve, change, try something. This applies to everything, any nuances of the program, costumes. She watches our programs both live and on the screen, chooses, advises what is best. We change something, adjust, try new in every competitions in order to choose the best in the end.
Do you like that?
Anastasiia Mishina: It’s difficult. It is very difficult to constantly adjust. But this is also interesting. There is no routine when you do the same thing for a whole year.
Corrections and improvements in the programs are one thing, more serious changes – of course, not in the Olympic season. Nevertheless, have you thought about complicating the programs? Several years ago in the Velikov’s group you tried triple lutz.
Aleksandr Galliamov: We have already discussed this topic many times.
Anastasiia Mishina: We just don’t have time.
Aleksandr Galliamov: The Olympic season is not the time for experiments, because we need to prepare a new free program, to improve it. And in the future, of course, we will try something new.
But you know, you can jump in training, shoot and post a video, but this is not the same thing with skating the entire program with this element in competitions. In competitions, in addition to the stable performance of an element in the program, you must cope with anxiety, nerves and tension. There are more psychological moments and therefore it is necessary, as I said, that all the elements are stable in the program.
Yes, we performed the triple lutz two years ago, we showed it at the first stage of the St. Petersburg Cup. We tried it successfully, not always consistent, but there was an attempt, and we keep it in mind.
Anastasiia Mishina: In any case, it’s good that we have the opportunity to progress. We haven’t reached our maximum, we can add something else to the programs. There are some things that turned out, and in the future we can work on it and put into the program.
How do you see the further development of pair skating? More precisely, how would you like to see it?
Aleksandr Galliamov: It would be nice to introduce bonuses for unusual lifts. Because I want to see more variety of lifts in programs. If new, unusual things are evaluated with bonuses, it will be a motivation for athletes to search and try. Of course, now this is taken into the components score, but it seems to me that it would be more effective with bonuses.
Anastasiia Mishina: It seems to me that pair skating can develop technically. Perhaps they will add a 5th level of difficulty in lifts, twists … Pairs will start doing quad throws, twists, because they will heat the public’s interest. Still, pair skating should not become ice dance. If everything goes in the choreography direction, then pair skating and ice dance will not differ much over time.
Are you ready to complicate the programs?
Anastasiia Mishina: Gradually, yes. As competitors, so do we. We look at each other and move in the same direction.
The Olympic season takes a lot of time and effort. Everything else, like study, other things are in the background?
Anastasiia Mishina: Unfortunately, now we do not have time to fully engage in studies. But we decided not to skip a year at the university. Then it would be difficult to recover, psychologically to start all over again. We try to do it whenever possible. Exams we will take later. In the spring, in the summer …
You are quite different in temperament, character. As a pair on ice, do you feel like halves of one whole?
Anastasiia Mishina: The fact that Sasha and I are different probably helps us. Two people with similar personalities do not always get along together. And we have been skating together for so long. Of course, there can be quarrels, like everyone else. But now they have been reduced to a minimum, we get along well.
You have an interesting exhibition program this season, which, as it seems to us, reflects your characters. Who choreographed it?
Aleksandr Galliamov: Sergey Komolov. We have worked with him before, he choreographed a program for us. We liked it, so we decided to try to make an exhibition program.
We had several musical options, several ideas, but the main thing was that we wanted to cheer up the audience, try ourselves in a new genre. After Esmeralda, there was an understanding that it should work out.
Sergey suggested a lot, put together the music, and it turned out great! The most difficult thing for me in this program is the props. I have to carry an electric guitar with me, because I am a rock star. But it’s worth it, because viewers come to the gala to have fun and we have high with them.
Anastasiia Mishina: Tamara Nikolaevna gave us complete freedom in this program. Her only condition was that the program shouldn’t be boring. She said: “Do what you want, just don’t take boring music.”
Related topics: Anastasiia Mishina Alexander Galliamov
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