In the United States of America, he trains children and trains sports stars in the USA. We talked about the specificity of training athletes from the USA, a unique training program, how to raise a leader in a child and reach world-class competitions, and the secrets of victories, Anton Karpov.
– Anton, tell us, how is your career developing in America?
– I have been living in the USA quite recently, now I work in a sports club, where I am the head coach. The club is called “Dynamo Sports Center of judo, jiu – jitsu and martial arts”, and now we have about 30 students and new children are enrolled every week. Now three judo coaches are working in our sports club: Natalia Kuziutina, Artur Tsysar and me.
– Tell us about your methods of training athletes.
– I believe that a high result, in any case, depends on a team that goes to this result. Now we have a great team in America: Natalia Kuziutina (Olympic Games 2016 – bronze in Judo, World Championship 2019 – silver in judo, 4x European Championship – gold in judo), Artur Tsysar (judo black belt, Winner of the open championships of Serbia, Kazakhstan, and Russia, placed in the top five at the 2007 World Team Championship in China).
And I, Anton Karpov, have many years of experience in judo and sambo, as I have been in sports for almost 35 years. I have trained with the best athletes in the world, both as a coach and as a student. For twenty years, I worked as a coach at the Sports School of the Olympic Reserve.
More than five hundred students have passed through me, some of whom have achieved high results in national championships and international competitions in judo and sambo.
In my work, I use my many years of experience as an athlete and the experience of coaching both children and high-level adult athletes. After analyzing the training of athletes in other countries such as Japan, Italy, and, of course, America, we managed to create a unique training program for American children, the principle of which is the High-performance sport. But our task is not to harm a child, and until the age of 14, in our club “Dynamo Sports Center of judo, jiu – jitsu and martial arts” we focus on the overall physical and psychological condition of the athlete. Our main ultimate goal is to bring an athlete into the High-performance sport, but, I repeat, at the initial stage, we give priority to the general physical and psychological education and development of the child and are working on it.
– What is your mission?
– The mission of our club “Dynamo Sports Center of judo, jiu – jitsu and martial arts” is to lay the proper basics of wrestling technique in an athlete, dexterity, and flexibility, to teach him to think and make the right decisions in non-standard situations, and to cultivate the character of a champion and a leader eager for victory. All this together will allow him at the age of 14-16 to choose to continue intensive training and become a successful athlete, or, for example, to focus on studying and become a leader in another profession. No harm is our task. And it’s possible. Sport does not mean injury and disappointment. Sport is about winning and working on yourself. And our club “Dynamo Sports Center of judo, jiu – jitsu and martial arts” is the best that you can give to your child.
– What do you consider the most important when preparing for competitions?
– One of the most important points is to monitor your thoughts and set yourself tasks for short periods of time. For example, during the preparation period, various thoughts often come to mind, and it’s important to learn to concentrate on important things. So we should think about training that will be now, and not about a championship that will take place in a month. An athlete should be focused on improving physical fitness and practicing difficult technical throws. Next, our task will be to adjust the athlete’s weight, if necessary, to his weight category. And only at the competition itself it’s necessary to think about competition and rivals, prepare a plan to defeat each opponent. And first you should set yourself up to win in the first fight, then in the second… and so on. It seems to me that thinking about everything at once is not only useless but also even harmful because our attention is scattered. In addition, it’s needed to take care of emotions and use them only at competitions. Therefore, before the tournament, I advise to avoid entertainment activities in order to not spend your excitement in advance. However, I do not put direct prohibitions, I just explain to the pupil what will benefit him and what will not. As for nutrition, it is important that the body is not dehydrated and receives all the necessary elements. It is also better not to mix proteins with carbohydrates so that food is absorbed easier and faster.
– And what do you need to set up to win?
-Setting up the victory mindset is a separate work that an athlete must do. Long before a competition, you need to tell yourself that I am the best, I will be the champion, I have done a great job and deserve it more than anyone, I will win! About two weeks before a performance, we start each training session and work on psychological preparation, setting ourselves up only to take first place. At the same time, during a competition, it is important to be concentrated the whole match, be ready to fight all the time in combat, and not count on an early victory. It is also necessary to come out victorious in every small segment of the fight, especially if an opponent is very strong. That will allow you to exert psychological pressure on him. If the opponent was hoping for a quick victory, then in the end he will have no strength left and will start making mistakes.
– What goals do you set for yourself now?
– Of course, we set the highest goals – this is the World Cup and the Olympic Games! I am sure that even the most prestigious competitions can be won, everything depends on us and our preparation. It should be of the highest quality. At the same time, we are not concentrating on any particular opponent. Judo is a very competitive sport where every participant can pose a danger. But as I said earlier, we do not disperse into general tasks and do not try to eat the whole elephant. We know our goal and, therefore, slowly but surely moving towards it, realizing that time is going very fast, and now we must try to fulfill the whole plan 100% qualitatively at every training session.
