Athlete Interviews
RUSSIA
Ruslan Poiseev
‘In my character, if it is easy, I am not interested. If it is very difficult, I am interested’
‘This region I am from, fighting is very popular boxing, taekwondo, wrestling, all kinds of fighting! - because genetically we are not very tall, but we are very well built’
are training, I never show my pain or talk about it, I always say ‘I am fine,’” he said. “So the lads say I am like a stone or a machine.” That nickname and his never-say-die attitude may be in-built, for Poiseev hails from one of the most inhospitable urban environments on earth: the city of Yakutsk. Located about 450kms south of the Arctic Circle, where the temperature can plummet to 70 degrees below zero, Yakutsk is known for its gold and diamond mines. It is also known for breeding some of Russia’s hardest men. “This region I am from, fighting is very popular - boxing, taekwondo, wrestling, all kinds of fighting! - because genetically we are not very tall, but we are very well built,” he said. “I am from a region where it is tough. A lot of lads turn to crime.”
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TAEKWONDO Official Publication of the WTF
Of course, when it comes to a combat sport, this kind of background can be a plus. “My heart and my body work well under any kind of pressure, these good genes come from conditions of nature that a normal person cannot survive,” he said. “On the Russian team everybody asks, ‘In your region, is everybody wild like you?’” As a youth, Poiseev hung around with a rough crowd. They would sample various sports and be kicked out for breaking rules. “We were very tight, very aggressive and we saw a lot of Van Damme and Jackie Chan films,” he recalled. When the crew heard that a new sport had come to town - something called “taekwondo” – they decided to give it a try. After his first lesson, Poiseev found he could barely move. “I told my mom, ‘This is not for me!’” She told him to give it anoth-
er try - a piece of advice that would stick with the young man. “Now, in my character, if it is easy, I am not interested,” he said. “If it is very difficult, I am interested.”
kick.” Poiseev counted one-twothree then looked around. His opponent was folded up on the floor, crying.
Poiseev’s taekwondo club was so poor, there was only one dobok, which was passed from player to player; it was either too big or too small for most of them. When they entered their first competition, the dobok disappeared, so Poiseev, aged 12 and a beginner in taekwondo, asked to fight wearing only a T-shirt. He was allowed to, though his opponent was a black belt.
Poiseev went on to win second place in the competition. “I got the silver medal, so I carried it with me, on the buses and everywhere!” he said. He has been with the sport ever since.
“When they warmed up, my opponent put his leg very high up, it was a big stress for me, my coach said, ‘Don’t look at him!’” he recalled. “I was very scared in my first fight, my opponent shouted and ran at me, so I just covered up and fired a back
Growing up in Yakutsk, he developed, because of his short stature, a personalized fighting style, based on head butts and shooting for the opponent’s legs. Now a full-time taekwondo athlete, he has developed his own unique style to deal with taller opponents. “When I was 17, I had a lot of questions about this and my coach could not answer all these questions,” he said - so he found his own. He borrowed heavily from other sports. He
has copied footwork from football, uses wrestling-style arm controls in the clinch, and boxing techniques when punching. He has also worked out how to kick high from very close range, cutting under his opponents’ legs. He is no one-dimensional fighter. In 2009, he was invited by a judo coach to fight in a mixed martial arts tournament – which he won, despite being a complete unknown. He has also practiced boxing, and has been approached by professional football clubs. “The football coaches say, ‘You are not paid enough, taekwondo is not famous like football,’ but I said, ‘I have everything: I have a salary, a black belt and a degree in sport,’” he said. “I am devoted to tae-
kwondo!” After winning his medal in Chelyabinsk, he called his mother. She was in tears, cursing the judges. His father simply told him to come home. And what about his wild friends from his school days? “Some of them have a criminal background, but they are happy for me, they read the newspaper and they support me,” he said. So although he had to settle for bronze in the championships, Poiseev is grateful to taekwondo. “I am lucky I got into this sport,” he mused. “If I had not, I might have been a gangster.”
Part 3 | Best of the Best
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