It was around the beginning of July that, after a brainstorming among the best (?) minds of the KCK, a perfect name for this seminar finally came out.
We believed it were important to provide a name to the event, because names are given to something you can care of. And us, we really care of Acqua&Vento. Even before it was born.
We’d also like it stayed a little longer in your hearts, in addition to your muscles (but there it’ll fade away soon, with lactic acid).
Why Acqua (water) and Vento (wind)?
Prosaically, because it is something that both the cities have in common: the hometowns of the two senseis, Daniele Boffelli (from Venice) and Didier Lupo (from Marseille).
Places of sea and wind, situated in opposite directions in relation to our peaceful Brianza, which – we could say – sits in the middle.
A little more deeper, because Water and Wind are two of the cardinal elements of Nature (by the ancient conception), whose spirit is nowadays still very alive in martial arts.
Without undervaluing other elements, Water is perhaps what best fits our idea of karatedo (if you remember this…).
Water and Wind, with their untiring work, model mountains and rocks (the Earth!), feed or extinguish Fire (maybe the hasty passion?) and are emblem of something that can be either quiet or, at the same time, bearer of an unstoppable energy.
They are symbol of patience and hard work; study, analysis and instinct – think of a sudden gust.
But they’re also a token of our path in karatedo, when, as beginners, we learn the form spending hours and hours in practicing movements; those same movements that shotokan style made so systematized, but which are again made imperfect once you’re “adult”, without any form nor formality.
As a (sage) sensei once told: «Karate is about something with no form, providing it a form, then going back to no-form».
A bit like Water, which gets the form (indeed!) of its container.
A bit like Wind, which is reluctant, but can be conveyed; thrusts the seas and rises the nature.
Or becomes a light breeze. A gentle touch, that is the ultimate spirit of the karatedo practitioner.
