 In 1918–19 he fought in the Estonian War of Independence as a volunteer, and after that worked as a physical education instructor with the Estonian army (1919–20), military schools (1924–26) and police schools (1927 and 1942–44).He also trained the national athletics teams of Poland (1927–32) and Estonia, and in this capacity attended the 1928, 1932 and 1936 Olympics.He was arrested by NKVD in 1944 and kept in a prison camp in the Soviet Far East until 1956.