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The Russian Origins of Sport Psychology: A Translation
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Tatiana V. Ryba a; Natalia B. Stambulova b; Craig A. Wrisberg a
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 JOURNAL OF APPLIED SPORT PSYCHOLOGY, 17: 157–169, 2005
Copyright © Association for Advancement of Applied Sport Psychology
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DOI: 10.1080/10413200590932461
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The Russian Origins of Sport Psychology: A Translation

of an Early Work of A. C. Puni

TATIANA V. RYBA

The University of Tennessee

NATALIA B. STAMBULOVA

Halmstad University

CRAIG A. WRISBERG

The University of Tennessee

Sport psychology today is a vibrant and thriving field with well-developed theory and in-
creased opportunities for applied consulting. However, when the field is historicized, it is often
done so with an emphasis on its North American roots (c.f., Williams & Straub, 2001). While
the development of sport psychology in other parts of the world, particularly Eastern Europe, is
acknowledged, less is known about the contributions of individuals in those countries. One such
person, who was one of the earliest contributing figures to the field, is the Russian practitioner
and scholar Avksenty Cezarevich Puni (1898–1986). To date, English-speaking audiences have
been unaware of the profound influence of Puni’s work because his papers were published in
Russian. Though some of Puni’s work was translated into various languages of the European
socialist countries, only glimpses of his work exist in English in the form of a few published
abstracts of papers Puni presented at international conferences.
In this paper, we attempt to disrupt the established linear flow of the North American
narrative by juxtaposing Russian and English historical texts, Puni’s original writings (including
documents from his personal archives), and oral history.1 This essay begins with a short

Received 5 June 2003; accepted 1 April 2004.

Tatiana V. Ryba and Craig A. Wrisberg are with the Department of Exercise (ADD), Sport and Leisure
Studies at the University of Tennessee. Natalia B. Stambulova is with the Department of Social and Health
Sciences at Halmstad University, Sweden.
Address correspondence concerning this essay should be addressed to Tatiana V. Ryba, Department
of Exercise (ADD), Sport and Leisure Studies, University of Tennessee, 322 HPER Building, 1914 Andy
Holt Ave., Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-2700. E-mail: tryba@utk.edu
1
The second author worked closely with Puni as an undergraduate student (1971–1974), doctoral
student (1974–1977), and colleague (1977–1986) in the Department of Sport Psychology at the Lesgaft
Institute until Puni’s death in 1986. Besides having had personal communication with Puni on a daily
basis for 15 years, she was one of three persons invited by Puni’s family to sort through his personal
archives after his death. Information for this biographical sketch was obtained from these archives (Puni,

157
 158 T. V. RYBA ET AL.

biographical sketch of Puni, followed by an English translation of one of his most influential
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early works. It concludes with a brief discussion of some of the parallel events transpiring in
North American sport psychology during Puni’s era.

BIOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW
Avksenty Cezarevich Puni was born in Vyatka, a small town in northwestern Russia in
1898 (Puni, 1978). As a youth Puni received what in Russia was described as a gymnasium
education, involving the study of classical languages, Greek and Roman, classical literature,
art, and so on. In 1917, Puni entered the University of Perm to study medicine but his education
was curtailed when the Great October Socialist Revolution and Civil War broke out later that
year. Puni left the university and joined the Red Army to fight in that war.
During his youth, Puni was very active in sports and was known as a good soccer goalkeeper,
sprinter, gymnast, and table tennis player. Because of his interest in a variety of sports and sport
in general, Puni accepted a position as a sport organizer in his native town of Vyatka following
the war. Puni’s experiences both as an athlete and sport organizer sparked a deeper interest in
questions relating to the psychology of training and performance. In 1927, he conducted his
first study examining the psycho-physiological effects of training in the sport of table tennis. In
1929, Puni moved to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and entered the P. F. Lesgaft Institute of
Physical Culture founded in 1896 by Piotr Lesgaft (Volkov, Gorbunov, & Stambulova, 1998).
The institute (now known as the P. F. Lesgaft State Academy of Physical Culture) was the first
institute in Russia devoted to the study of physical education and sport and is still famous for
preparing physical education teachers and professional coaches in a wide variety of sports.
Puni not only completed undergraduate and graduate studies at the Lesgaft Institute but
also served on the faculty there the remainder of his professional life. During his student years
Puni was involved in research studies examining a number of psychological issues pertaining
to sport performance. He also published several papers in the main sport science journal in
the USSR, Theory and Practice of Physical Culture. Puni’s papers are considered to be among
the earliest published works in the field of sport psychology in Russia. In 1938, he received a
Ph.D. in pedagogy from the Lesgaft Institute. Later, as an Associate Professor in the Psychology
Department, Puni devoted most of his attention to the study of applications of psychology to
sport and became identified as one of the Soviet Union’s first sport psychologists.
During WWII, Puni worked as a physiotherapist2 at several hospitals in Leningrad
(Shakhverdov, Semenov, Bogdanova, & Kiselev, 1970) and survived a 900-day blockade of
the city that occurred between 1941 and 1944. After the war he returned to the Lesgaft Insti-
tute and resumed his work in sport psychology. By that time Puni and some of his colleagues
had begun to develop the psychology of sport as a distinct area of research and scholarship.
In 1946, Puni made the then bold move of formalizing the discipline of sport psychology by
organizing and launching a department by that name at the institute. Not surprisingly, Puni
was elected the department’s first chair. Puni and a small group of enthusiastic coworkers,
including Risya Abelskaya and Anna Rafalovich, set out to establish this new field by creating

1978) as well as from works by Shakhverdov, Semenov, Bogdanova, and Kiselev (1970) and Volkov,
Gorbunov, and Stambulova (1998).
2
Students at the Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture could take additional coursework to obtain a second
diploma in physical rehabilitation. Puni had pursued this course of study and was a certified “metodist po
lechebnoi fizkulture” [rehabilitation specialist]. During the blockade of Leningrad, he provided physical
rehabilitation assistance for wounded soldiers and civilians.
 THE RUSSIAN ORIGINS OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY 159

sport psychology coursework for students, organizing a laboratory, conducting research,3 and
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establishing contacts with other scholars in sport studies and psychology in Leningrad and
around the Soviet Union.
Puni served as department chair for 30 years and never fully retired. He continued working
as a professor-consultant and supervisor of doctoral students up until his death at age 87. The
second author of the present paper was privileged to have had Puni as a strict but magnanimous
mentor for 15 years and considers him an inspiring example of a person who was completely
devoted to the field of sport psychology. The memory of Puni and his influence, personally and
professionally, is something that she and several generations of his students and colleagues
will cherish forever. In honor of his establishment of and life-long association with the Depart-
ment of Sport Psychology, the Lesgaft Institute re-named the department after Puni in 1992
(Stambulova & Hvatskaya, 1996).
We would be remiss if we did not note that a parallel development in the field of Soviet
sport psychology, led by Piotr Antonovich Roudik, occurred in the Psychology Department at
the State Central Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow (now the Russian State Academy of
Physical Culture) around the same time Puni was building the program at the Lesgaft Institute.
Consequently, Roudik is also considered to be one of the early patriarchs of Russian sport
psychology. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the focus of most sport psychology research
was on psychophysical interactions underlying motor behavior. In 1925, Roudik founded the
first sport psychology laboratory in the Soviet Union. In the following years, he and his team
of researchers directed their focus on the conceptualization of the notions of will and the moral
and volitional preparation of Soviet athletes (Rodionov & Hudadov, 1982; Roudik, 1962).
Though some research interests of Puni and Roudik overlapped, Roudik’s general orientation
was much more ideological and less applied than that of Puni.
During the 1950s, Roudik and Puni competed for the role of acknowledged leader in the
field. Their rivalry continued actively throughout the 1960s and 1970s and had an inextricable
and complex influence on the development of sport psychology in the USSR. On the one
hand, it stimulated both individuals and their respective colleagues to establish the highest
standards possible in both research and scholarship, and to pioneer ingenious and innovative
applications of sport psychology to competitive sports. On the other hand, the rivalry spurred
frequent confrontations between representatives of the Moscow and Leningrad schools and
obstructed productive communication and advancement of the field.
The decade of the 1950s was a significant marker in the history of the Soviet sport psy-
chology. In 1952, Puni received a second doctoral degree from the Leningrad State University,
following the successful defense of his thesis entitled “Sport Psychology.” This event marked
the official recognition of sport psychology as a separate discipline in the USSR. Moreover,
that same year the Soviet National team was triumphant in its first appearance at the Olympic
games held in Helsinki. Most significantly, the sport sciences, including sport psychology,
were acknowledged to be an important contributor to the successes of Soviet athletes. As a
result there was an increased call for applied research and for the improved education of Soviet

3
The line of research in the Department of Sport Psychology at that time included: a) psychologi-
cal aspects of motor learning (i.e., technical preparation of athletes), including ideomotor training, the
role of self-talk, development of awareness/non-awareness of motor habits, etc.; b) psychological as-
pects of tactical preparation (i.e., thinking, memory, anticipation); c) volition in sport and exercise; and
d) psychological characteristics of sport in general and of specific sports (see Abelskaya, 1955, 1957a,
1957b; Abelskaya & Surkov, 1955; Egupov, 1955; Puni, 1952, 1955, 1957a, 1957b, 1957c, 1959;
Rafalovich, 1955).
 160 T. V. RYBA ET AL.

coaches in the area of sport psychology. The translated article that follows represents a classic
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example of appeals for just such an emphasis by Puni and others like him at that time.
The original article, entitled “Psychological Preparation of Athletes for a Competition”
(Puni, 1963), was published in the prestigious peer-review sport science journal, Theory and
Practice of Physical Culture. Puni wrote the paper during the time he was developing his theory
of competition preparation. He eventually formalized the theory in an applied model he called
Psychological Preparation for a Competition (PPC; Puni, 1969, 1973). Puni later published
aspects of his theory in several books but, to our knowledge, he did not do so in any of his
short papers. Nevertheless, we feel that this article (Puni, 1963) demonstrates some important
“seeds” of Puni’s theory. Moreover, it represents a classic example of the emphasis given by
Soviet sport psychologists of Puni’s era to the promotion of athletic achievement by Soviet
athletes in national and international competitions.

METHODOLOGICAL NOTE
The original text of Puni’s (1963) paper was translated verbatim from Russian into English
by the first author. Once this task was completed, the first and third authors modified the
syntax and grammar in order to make the paper more comprehensible for an English-speaking
audience. In order to assure that the meaning of the original essay was not compromised,
the modified paper was then sent to the second author for review. The ensuing triangulation
process (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Patton, 1990) included several rounds of dialogue involving
the meaning of various parts of the paper. In addition, hermeneutical interpretation of the text
was achieved by constantly moving back and forth between the parts and the whole of the
text (Palmer, 1969). Throughout the resulting translation, we provide extensive explanatory
footnotes in order to contextualize Puni’s pioneering work within his overall philosophy of
sport psychology and the sociocultural and historical circumstances of his era.

“Psychological Preparation of Athletes for a Competition” – A. C. Puni, 1963

Psychological preparation of the athlete is considered nowadays as a necessary condition
of successful performance in competitions. However, from both a practical and theoretical
standpoint, this problem is far from being completely understood. There is almost no literature
that deals with issues of psychological preparation, although some works have appeared just
recently. These include papers by Nagornyi and Pisarenko (1959),4 Yurasov (1960), Pisarenko
(1960, 1961), Smirnov (1960), Gavriluk and Korobkov (1960), and a small book by Umarov
(1960). In these works, there is a tendency to discuss the psychological preparation of athletes in
general, similar to physical preparation, rather than the psychological preparation of athletes for
a specific competition. Such a broad consideration of the problem (of psychological preparation)
is unjustified as it would be unjustified to discuss physiological or hygienic preparation as
separate parts of training because both of these are already incorporated into any properly
organized training regimen.5
If the psychological aspects of sport training are ignored, this can lead to unfavorable
consequences. Such appears to be the opinion of the head coach of the tennis Federation of the
USSR, Belitz-Geiman, as articulated in his recent essay entitled “With a Creative Sparkle” in
which he echoes a concern that has been repeatedly expressed by sport psychologists like G. M.
Gagaeva, R. S. Abelskaya, A. C. Puni, P. A. Roudik, etc. in publications and oral presentations

4
Complete bibliographical information was not available for some of the references Puni cited.
5
In a subsequent paper, Puni discussed more specifically the notion of two types of psychological
preparation; general (i.e., learning of fundamental skills such as self regulation and volitional preparation)
and specific (i.e., plans for a particular competition).
 THE RUSSIAN ORIGINS OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY 161

provided for athletes and coaches. However, (Soviet) tennis coaches seem either to be unaware
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of these issues or they have disregarded the psychological bases of technical, tactical, physical,
and volitional preparation of their players. As a result, the mastery of Soviet players continues
to lag behind that of players from other countries, as mentioned by Belitz-Geiman.6
When speaking of psychological preparation, it is absolutely essential to emphasize the
development of athletes’ readiness to perform in the context of each specific competition.7 The
competitive event itself is an organic component of sporting activity. Each event can be viewed
as a specific milestone over the course of many years or of a single season. Each competition,
on the one hand, tests the level of preparedness of the athlete to demonstrate a concrete sport
result. On the other hand, each competition contributes to the training effect of the athlete,
not only in a physiological sense but also in psychological terms, which is very important.
Psychological preparation for (specific) competitions must be considered a specialized yet an
obligatory component of the year-round training of the athlete. However, a mere recognition
of the necessity of psychological preparation for competition is not enough. There is a need to
clarify what it is that is the essence of psychological preparation.
The essence of psychological preparation has been discussed briefly, although not very
clearly, by different authors. Yurasov, for example, characterizes the essence of the psycho-
logical preparation as the preparation of consciousness and thinking of the athlete for the
achievement of the highest sport results. However, Umarov writes “the point . . . of psycho-
logical preparation is to morally raise [the athlete] to the level of new tasks that appear in the
context of competitions.” But what does it mean to prepare consciousness and thinking (as if
thinking is not included in the notion of consciousness) of the athlete? What does it mean to
morally raise the athlete to the level of new tasks? As is generally known, communist morality
includes general norms of interrelationships among people in their social and personal lives;
norms that were developed by people in their thousand-year struggle against social oppression
and moral evils. Consequently, to raise the athlete morally means to prepare him8 to conform
to the norms of communist morality during the course of a competition.9 This, of course, is

6
In this paragraph, Puni emphasizes the importance of coaches knowing and implementing the psy-
chological aspects of sport training (mentioned in the previous paragraph). Puni felt that while some
coaches (like Belitz-Geiman) recognized this point, others disregarded it or were still unaware of its
importance. The psychological aspects of physical, technical, and tactical preparation of athletes repre-
sented the primary emphasis of Soviet sport psychology in the 1950s and early 1960s. In the USSR (and
still today in Russia) coaching was/is a profession. In order to become a professional coach at any level
(not only the elite level), a person was required to graduate from an Institute of Physical Culture and Sport
(consisting of four years of education, including pedagogical practice with athletes and teams under the
supervision of professors and professional coaches). Once they completed their education, professional
coaches were required to participate in additional refresher training experiences every five years in order
to stay abreast of the latest information from the sport sciences. Puni’s reproach of coaches in the last
two sentences of this paragraph illustrates his belief that it was the duty of all Soviet coaches to be aware
of new developments in the sport sciences.
7
In this sentence, Puni once again stresses the importance of psychological preparation for specific
competitions as opposed to the more general psychological training advocated by other Soviet sport
psychologists.
8
The Russian word for athlete is in the male gender. However, most Russian readers of Puni’s day
understood that whenever he used that word, he was referring to both male and female athletes.
9
Communist morality may be briefly defined as a set of collective norms that emphasizes the priority
of communal interests (e.g., of the team, of the country, etc.) over those of any individual. Most articles
published during the Soviet era were more or less ideologically oriented. Interestingly, Puni was not a
member of the communist party, which was very unusual for a person of his stature (professor and head of
the department of sport psychology). However, to maintain this stature, Puni was obliged to demonstrate
his ideological loyalty, and he always did. At the same time, terms like “communist morality,” “communist
 162 T. V. RYBA ET AL.

absolutely necessary. Moral upbringing is the basis of the whole process of athletic training and
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of the volitional preparation of the athlete. For some athletes that are not so morally grounded,
this task has to be incorporated into the process of their psychological preparation. However, it
would probably be inappropriate to call “moral raising of the athlete” the essence of psycholog-
ical preparation for specific competitions, at least under normal sport training circumstances
involving morally developed athletes. The practice of sport training and competition, the con-
temporary scientific psychological data, and my own previous athletic experience lead me to
the conclusion that the essence of psychological preparation for a competition is the system
of activities directed towards the organization of the athlete’s consciousness and actions with
regard to the anticipated conditions of the upcoming competition.
Soviet psychology, which is based on Marxist philosophical materialism and Pavlovian
physiological discourse, views consciousness as the reflection of reality in the human brain
and simultaneously as it relates to reality. Both the reflection of and the relation to reality are
always determined by the objective laws of people’s lives and activities and are the product
of the reflexive and systemic activity of the brain, which Pavlov called the organ of relations
(i.e., attitudes) toward the external world. The reflection of objects and phenomena of the
external environment in which a person lives and functions and the reflection of states of the
internal environment of his organism are typically mediated by language. However, attitudes,
as characterized by Myasischev (1960), are connections to various forms of reality that have
been shaped during an individual’s evolution/development depending on the person’s social
upbringing10 and experience. As such, attitudes are idiosyncratic and involve distinct emotional
characteristics. Relations are also mediated by means of language.
In the interaction between human and society and nature, reflections and attitudes always
act in unity and are manifested in certain activities and actions; generally speaking—in human
behavior. The latter is determined not only by the direct influence of objects and phenomena in
the external environment, by the activities and actions of other people, and by the condition and
fluctuations of the internal environment of the organism—but also by the previously developed
perception of or system of attitudes toward these objects. At the same time, attitudes are formed
and modified on the basis of the reflection of reality in a person’s brain. Consciousness, as the
unity of reflections and human attitudes, is not only revealed in activities and actions but also
regulates them. Pavlov defined man (sic), from the point of view of his interactions with the
environment, to be the only highly self-regulated system. This self-regulation is conscious,
psychic, and has, in its physiological underlying basis, two interacting signal systems, the
second of which acts as “the highest regulator of human behavior.”11
The psychological mobilization of the athlete for a specific upcoming competition can be
achieved by the system of activities that are most appropriate to the athlete’s perception of
the demands of the competition, his goals for the competition, and the development of the
necessary attitude for competing and performing. The execution of such a system of activities

upbringing,” and “advantages of the socialist way of life,” were typical ideological clichés that appeared
in most published literature. The majority of Soviet citizens perceived such expressions as “the normal
way of thinking.”
10
According to Russian terminology, “development” refers to a process of change within a person. The
terms “education” and “upbringing” refer to different socially-organized pedagogical processes. Formal
education deals with the development of students’ knowledge and skills while upbringing deals with
the formation of their personalities (i.e., motivation, moral values, character, etc.). Both education and
upbringing include interactions between teachers and students (i.e., joint activities) as well as students’
own efforts at self-improvement.
11
Pavlov proposed the notion of two signal systems, one that is non-verbal (e.g., when a person responds
to a real object, as in a case of a hungry man who secrets saliva upon looking at a plate of food) and a
second that is verbal (e.g., when a hungry person secretes saliva while speaking or hearing food-related
words).
 THE RUSSIAN ORIGINS OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY 163

requires mutual creative efforts of the coach and, to an even greater degree, the athlete, because
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the athlete is the one who must compete in order to achieve the ultimate result. Therefore, in the
process of psychological preparation for a competition, the coach must be the closest guiding
partner for the athlete, providing professional help and support, but not the thinking, for the
athlete.12
The success of psychological preparation of the athlete largely depends on identifying
correctly the athlete’s competitive goals and motives. The number of competitions in which the
athlete participates is determined by the athlete’s annual training plan. Not all competitions are
of equal importance. Among them, some are identified as antecedent competitions and others
as central or main ones. Antecedent competitions can be viewed as preparatory, leading to the
main competition. All competitions following the main one can be considered additional and
may be perceived by the athlete as having various degrees of significance. The athlete’s goals
and motives are different for each type of competition.13
A goal is usually defined as the achievement of a planned result (including a record breaking
performance) and subsequently a certain placement among the competitors. The goal should
match or even challenge the athlete’s individual abilities and level of preparedness, but must
not be perceived (by the athlete) as unfeasible, unachievable, or too easily and effortlessly
attainable. It is extremely important to formulate goal objectives definitively and specifically
(e.g., achieve a particular result or finish in a certain place). Conditional statements of the goals
should be avoided (e.g., for a distance runner—“to compete for the top three spots if the first
half of the race is run well or according to plan” or “to try to achieve a master’s time if the
athlete feels well running the course,” etc.).14 According to research conducted by Yegorov,
intended results are achieved more successfully when a definitive goal-setting format is utilized.
Conditional formats usually lead to less successful results.
Motives are driving forces grounded in the athlete’s understanding of the social and personal
significance of achieving the established goal. They are even more powerful when the social
significance of the goal becomes personally meaningful for the athlete as well. Such goals and
motives elicit interest in the upcoming competition, create the level of intensity and persistence
necessary for effective preparation for and performance during the competition, and bring
forth the athlete’s creative powers and passion to achieve the established goal. The following
quote from Tatiana Schelkanova,15 nicely illustrates the power of a goal that has both social

12
Puni was probably the first Russian sport psychologist to emphasize the point that athletes should
not be dependent on their coaches for making the right decisions in competition. This was a radical
(and risky) concept for someone to propose within an autocratic Soviet society; however, Puni strongly
believed that athletes who could not make decisions for themselves would not be good competitors.
13
Essentially, Puni identified three types of competitions during a season, each differing in terms of its
significance to the athlete. Main/central competitions were considered to be the most significant; Puni
called them “the focus of the season.” Antecedent competitions were those that prepared athletes for the
main competition, and sometimes were used to determine which athletes would participate in the main
competition. Additional competitions occurred following the main competition and assumed various
levels of importance to athletes.
14
“Master of sport” was one of the highest levels of proficiency an athlete could achieve under the
Universal Sport Classification system that existed in the Soviet Union and that is still used in Russia
today. This system included a set of criteria that allowed comparisons of athletes’ performances in any
given sport. In ascending order, levels of classification consisted of three junior grades (3rd, 2nd, and
1st), three senior grades (3rd, 2nd, and 1st), master of sport candidate, master of sport, master of sport
international, and honored master of sport. An athlete who was a master of sport in any event would be
someone who had won two or three awards at the junior national championship, placed among the top
ten in the senior championship, and at least took part in international competitions.
15
Schelkanova was a famous athlete in the sport of track and field and a popular role model for younger
athletes.
 164 T. V. RYBA ET AL.

significance and personal meaning. Commenting on the “technology” (as she put it) of her world
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record setting performance in the long jump, Schelkanova stated “there is a common criterion
for us young people. This criterion concerns the responsibility before one’s consciousness. You
must always feel that you must be an example in developing your strengths, enriching your
knowledge, and achieving your goals.”16
The process of psychological preparation for a competition involves mental and physical
activities that incorporate the anticipated context of the upcoming competition in light of the
athlete’s competitive goals and motives. The anticipated context in relation to the athlete’s
goals and motives determines the entire process of psychological preparation for a compe-
tition. Mental and physical simulation of this context during the course of training requires
as much information as possible about the upcoming competition. This information would
include time, place, and other conditions of the external environment, competitors (especially
important rivals) and their individual characteristics (physical, psychological) and prepared-
ness (technical, tactical, physical, volitional), the athlete’s knowledge of himself (and his team
mates) and his (their) readiness for the competition. It is also necessary for the athlete to be
aware of the organizational aspects that are unique to the competition (e.g., the individuals who
will be comprising the panel of judges, etc.).
Mental activity involving the anticipated context is, in fact, a multidimensional and repetitive
mental experiment. Based on the athlete’s competitive goals and motives, and the previously
mentioned information about the competition, the athlete’s (mental) action plan is composed.
In rehearsing this plan, the athlete repeatedly competes in his mind, tries it (the plan) on,
thinks it over, again and again tests, clarifies, and sometimes also changes the plan of his future
actions. It is necessary to stress that mental rehearsal is a form of ideomotor training because
it is based on the activation of multiple temporal connections in the cortex, the external effect
of which is always manifested in motor and somatic reactions that correspond to the reactions
occurring during (actual) physical execution of the imagined actions. Mental activity is tested,
increased, consolidated, and corrected during the course of physical practice that is organized
to simulate the conditions of the upcoming competition and not just competition in general.
Both mental and physical rehearsals are characterized by intense mental activities, in which
the athlete’s creative imagination plays an essential role. Such rehearsal is also characterized
by the explicit emotional expressions associated with volitional efforts of differing intensities.
The final product of mental and physical rehearsal in the anticipated context of the competition
is a crystallized mental plan detailing the actions and behaviors necessary for the athlete to
achieve the planned result.
Some authors divide the process of psychological preparation into stages. Nagornyi and
Pisarenko (1959) propose three stages. The first—occurring long before a competition (months,
weeks)—is a stage of moral and cognitive preparation. The second—prior to the competition
(last days, hours)—is a stage of preservation of emotional resources. The third—immediately
preceding the competition—is a stage of activation of lucid thinking and mobilization of all
necessary reserves. In a subsequent paper, Pisarenko (1961) characterizes the first stage as
one of cognitive “attunement,” the second—as a stage of moral “attunement” and the third—
as a stage of emotional “attunement.” Yurasov (1960) takes a totally different approach in
distinguishing the three stages. In the first stage, the athlete’s consciousness is attuned to high
sport achievement and includes the planning of psychological preparation during the athlete’s
training and for the competitive season. The second stage, according to Yurasov, involves
training in overcoming specific psychological difficulties, such as sustaining a large training
load, developing the skill of enduring pain (e.g., for long distance and marathon runners), the
skill of “exploding” and at the same time not rushing, the skill of giving one’s all, the skill of

16
Elite athletes were expected to serve as role models of communist morality for Soviet young people
in general and for young Soviet athletes in particular. Schelkanova’s use of the word “consciousness” in
this quote is assumed to be synonymous with the notion of communist morality.
 THE RUSSIAN ORIGINS OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY 165

switching attention, etc. The third and most crucial stage is that involving participation in the
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competition and the psychological preparation for it.

While it is clear that different authors distinguish the various stages of psychological prepa-
ration of the athlete for a competition in different ways, the underlying principle each use to
divide the stages is less obvious. The relative proximity to a competition would seem to be an
inappropriate principle of division because it is virtually impossible to mechanistically split
the unified holistic process of psychological preparation into independent stages of cognitive,
moral, and emotional “attunement.” It would be more appropriate to differentiate the stages
of preparation for a competition in terms of the preliminary programming of behavior in the
anticipated competitive context, the mental and physical rehearsal of the action plan for the pur-
poses of testing, clarifying, correcting, and consolidating (it), and the final approval of the plan
for use in the competition.17 From both a theoretical and practical perspective, this way of dif-
ferentiating the stages of psychological preparation would seem to make more sense because
each (italics added) stage includes the organization of the athlete’s mental and physical activity,
and considers the conditions of the upcoming competition. This approach to differentiating the
stages reflects the real course of psychological preparation for a competition, regardless of
whether the process takes months as, for example, in wrestling and gymnastics, or just a few
days, as in soccer, basketball, and hockey.
The correctly executed psychological preparation for a competition results in the develop-
ment of the athlete’s sensible confidence in his abilities, the readiness to overcome all problems,
including unexpected obstacles of various degrees of difficulty, and the active aspiration to strive
passionately not only to achieve a set goal but the highest possible sport results.18 An excel-
lent example of the scrupulously organized and implemented psychological preparation of one
athlete for the XVII Olympic Games is that of our famous weight lifter Minaev,19 as described
by honored master of sport, Kutsenko. Included so far in this discussion have been the issues
of the essence of psychological preparation of the athlete for a (specific) competition, the

17
It was assumed that the three stages of psychological preparation for a competition represented
different degrees of “maturity” of the action plan and the athlete’s readiness to execute it.
18
Here Puni describes three indicators of an athlete’s psychological readiness for competition that were
presumably due to the athlete’s psychological preparation. Later in his completed theory of psycholog-
ical preparation for a specific competition, Puni suggested and empirically confirmed five symptoms,
including the preceding three, that were considered most important by Soviet sport psychologists. Of the
three indicators Puni mentions here, the first, “sensible confidence,” is the result of a rational analysis
that leads the athlete to the belief that she/he can “do my best” during a performance. The second in-
dicator refers to the athlete’s readiness to overcome obstacles of various degrees of difficulty, including
unexpected ones. The third represents the athlete’s active aspiration to strive and persist in a competition
to the very end in order to achieve the desired goal or an even greater one.
19
Kutsenko was an honored master of the sport of weight lifting. In the anecdote Puni refers to here,
Kutsenko (1960) provides a brief description of the way Minaev’s coaches used various psychological
techniques to prepare him for the 1960 Olympic games in Rome. That year had not started out well for
Minaev. He had not displayed his usual prowess in competitions and his best results were considerably
lower than those of the American weight lifter, Berger. Minaev’s confidence had begun to diminish and
he almost failed to qualify for the Olympic Games. In order to improve Minaev’s psychological state of
mind, his coaches told him not to worry about winning the gold medal but to just focus on the silver,
which was a very realistic goal. Minaev’s coaches also encouraged him to just focus on his training,
trust his plan, and simply try to avoid injuries. With those things in mind, Minaev’s training improved,
his confidence was restored, and he began to show the kind of form he had displayed in earlier years.
Just before the Olympic games began, Minaev’s coaches told him they thought he had a good chance to
win the gold medal if the competitive situation was favorable. Minaev subsequently won the gold and
Kutsenko attributed this victory in large part to the psychological preparation strategy Minaev’s coaches
had developed and implemented.
 166 T. V. RYBA ET AL.

prerequisites of success, and the process and final result of this preparation. Such issues are
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fundamental and universal for the preparation of athletes in general, irrespective of the specific
sport or the personality of the athlete. As for the latter, it is necessary to briefly discuss one
additional postulate.
Psychological preparation for a competition must be individualized. This means that it
must be based on the individual peculiarities of the athlete, such as personality characteristics
(temperament, character, motivation, and abilities), morphological characteristics (body type),
athletic experience (sport qualification, level of training, potential for success in competition),
and the athlete’s age, gender, education, profession, life conditions, etc. All of these peculiarities
must be considered in order to accurately identify the appropriate objectives, content, and
techniques of psychological preparation. Individualization is a must in team sports as well as
in individual sports. However, in team sports, individual preparation should be conducted in
the context of psychological preparation of the team as a whole.
Some sports (track-and-field, weight lifting, diving, etc.) require on-site psychological
preparation for an event during the course of the competition. This psychological preparation
is based on the overall psychological preparation of the athlete for the competition. Metaphori-
cally speaking, it is the final chord of this preparation that is mastered and creatively improvised
by the athlete. The essence of on-site preparation is the achievement of maximum concentra-
tion on the desired actions and the identification of the moment of full readiness to execute
the exercise, followed by the action itself. It is not by chance that the majority of the authors
mentioned in this paper who speak about the psychological preparation of the athlete on a
broad scale, soon switch to a discussion of single facts (numerous and vivid but, unfortunately,
just facts) that characterize on-site preparation for the execution of the exercise. This on-site
preparation is indeed of great interest and importance, and is the (current) topic of research
by the Bulgarian sport psychologists: Geron, Genova, and Genov. The present author has also
studied this issue. However, questions about the immediate psychological preparation of the
athlete for exercise execution during the course of a competition are necessary and should be
included in future reports.

SUMMARY OF THE MAIN THEMES OF PUNI’S 1963 PAPER

In his 1963 paper, Puni emphasized a number of themes that represented important char-
acteristics of Soviet sport psychology at that time. These themes are briefly summarized as
follows:
r Competition is an essential part of athletes’ self-improvement as well as their sport prepa-
ration.
r Competitions during a season can be classified according to their significance and different
strategies of psychological preparation should be developed for different types of competi-
tion.
r The essence of psychological preparation for a competition is the development of athletes’
psychological readiness to perform under the particular conditions of the competition.
r Psychological readiness for a forthcoming competition can be developed by a system of
routines aimed at organizing the athlete’s mind and behaviors.
r Psychological preparation can be also viewed as a mental experiment in which all the
conditions of the forthcoming competition are manipulated and the athlete’s behaviors
under those conditions are observed.
r Goal setting and the actualization of participation motivation are important components of
psychological preparation for a competition.
r Three components of psychological readiness for a competition are a sensible confidence
in one’s own abilities, the readiness to overcome all obstacles, including unexpected ones
 THE RUSSIAN ORIGINS OF SPORT PSYCHOLOGY 167

of various degrees of difficulty, and the active aspiration to strive passionately to achieve
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not only the set goal but the highest result possible.
r The goal of on-site psychological preparation (just prior to the performance) is to produce
maximum concentration on the desired actions and an awareness of the moment of full
readiness to execute the exercise.
r The coach is an important contributor to the athlete’s psychological preparation for a com-
petition, but the athlete also needs to have the freedom to make independent decisions.
r Both athletes and coaches should observe the basic principle of individualization of all
aspects of psychological preparation for a competition.

TOWARD A MORE GLOBAL DIALOGUE

In this paper we have attempted to add another articulation of sport psychology; specifically
the contribution of A. C. Puni to the theory and practice of sport psychology in the Soviet
Union. In so doing we acknowledge the possibility of still other origins and related discourses.
Clearly, the North American perspective, with Coleman Griffith as its figurehead, has dom-
inated historical discussions of the field (e.g., Gould & Pick, 1995; Green, 2003; Wiggins,
1984). However, there were also the pioneering efforts of Carl Diem in Germany and Mitsuo
Matsui in Japan (Salmela, 1992).
Finally, we should point out that Puni’s effect on Soviet sport psychology appears to have
been more robust and persistent in his country than was that of his counterpart, Griffith, in
the U.S. While Griffith was in many ways the model scientist-practitioner, he failed to train
or stimulate others to follow in his footsteps and thus the field of sport psychology remained
fairly dormant in the U.S. from around 1940, when Griffith ceased working with professional
sport teams (the University of Illinois had shut down his laboratory in 1932), until the late
1960s. Puni, on the other hand, continued to shape the development of sport psychology in the
Soviet Union for over 50 years and his influence persists to the present day in Russia and other
East European countries.

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