**2.1 Avksentiy Caesarevich Pugni, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, representative of the Leningrad School of Sport Psychology (1898–1985)**

A. Ts. Pugni singled out three components in the volitional act: cognitive (finding the right solution, self-assessment of the results of volitional actions); emotional (self-motivated, gain); and performing (physical regulation through conscious coercion) [5]. In the concept of Puni, the will is defined as "the active side of the mind and moral senses, allowing a person to control himself, especially in the conditions of overcoming obstacles of various degrees of difficulty." According to A. Puni, obstacles are a necessary condition for the actualization and development of the will. They arise as a result of the discrepancy between the capabilities of a person (his ideas, thoughts, feelings, and actions) objective conditions and characteristics of activity and are divided into external and internal. External obstacles were understood to mean any objective conditions and peculiarities of the external environment and activities that become an obstacle in achieving the goal, in solving particular problems; under internal obstacles—objective changes occurring under the influence of external conditions of human life and human activity and the state of the internal environment of his body, which serve as an obstacle to the achievement of goals. According to A. Puni, understanding of internal obstacles only as purely mental phenomena (adverse emotional and conflict mental states) is not always justified, since mental phenomena—secondary, derivatives, subjective side of objective changes, and the states of the internal environment of the body. External and internal obstacles interact, manifested in the difficulties of varying degrees [5].
