The winner in happiness is the one who has many attitudes. (Silvio Ceccato).
In the 80s Silvio Ceccato in “Engineering of Happiness” (Rizzoli, Milan 1985) addressed the theme relating to attentional and nervous energy. “This energy delivered from a source, in our case from the nervous system, has various possibilities. It can expand or contract, flow back or disperse, prepare for one thing and find another that requires less or more effort than expected , and finally it can follow paths that are in conflict with each other. We immediately realize that the great positive pole of our life occurs with the energy that expands, as happens for example in love, and the negative one in its narrowing, as happens for example in hatred”.
In those years many psycho-corporeal disciplines had a notable development, bringing holistic approaches into the “world of therapies” which significantly influenced the methods of treatment of different psycho-somatic disorders. The transition from a reductionist vision of the problem to a holistic one (the person who manifested the problem), required the operator’s ability to base the operational strategy of his intervention in the ability to work with the complexity of the individual or even better with its own authenticity. Always at the turn of the 80s, in the football field Felice Accame wrote about the importance of a participatory management in the teacher-coach/pupil-player relationship , management capable of reviving those who guide and encouraging and promoting those who are guided, but above all it underlined the need to avoid the relationship of submission that binds the subject to the coach-instructor, as a cause of subtle and subtle intoxication of the learning process. Also in that historical period, Arrigo Sacchi’s Milan revolutionized the paradigms of Italian football, following by a few years what had already occurred in Holland with Cruyff and the great Ajax.
Historical courses and recurrences to highlight that in reality, and to remain on the topic of energy,what is cyclically determined is the maturation of a movement capable of generating behaviors new emerging behaviors (creativity) and consequently new maturities (consolidation of new behaviors which paves the way for new emerging behaviors). Creativity and maturity are here understood as peculiar energetic expressions of the individual. Tacticalpedia, the idea of training, its trainers and its resources represent a new attempt to consolidate the awareness of thinking about didactic-methodological strategies that arise from a philosophy that finally puts at the center (not only in theory) the person, play and the circularity of learning.
Ceccato highlights how having many attitudes determines an expansion of energy, an ability to open up and consequently win in happiness. Attitude is much more than words, attitude is a more powerful form of communication, attitude is what we are and precedes verbalization, leaving the latter with the task of confirming that attitude or unmasking what words I am not able, in fact, to disguise. Attitude is the child of character, everyone’s character is the child of the father and mother, it is genetic and generational. But attitude is also a potential that can be transformed and made rich so that it can benefit from individual, collective and social well-being. The coach, by role, cannot in my opinion escape from the commitment (primarily towards himself) to continue to sculpt himself in the round to become master of the teaching process and capable of multiple attitudes capable of facilitating learning of their students and to derive personal well-being from the “training relationship”.
Returning to the energy expressions of the individual we complete the list (not linear, but circular) of the phases of the natural flow of energy that manifests itself in everything we do; in a technical sports gesture, in a massage, when washing the dishes, in the study, while playing the piano, etc. Security, receptivity, expressiveness, freedom, excitement-pleasure, creativity, joy, maturity and satisfaction are the 9 energetic phases that Jack Painter, in his pioneering bodymind work, reports in the graph dated 2002 and the result of over 30 years of work in America and in Europe. In the various moments of life, of the day, of the moment, there is an energy flow in the shape of a wave and many waves in turn characterize each phase of this flow.
The combination of bodymind work with football pedagogy may seem acrobatic and beginstico. I don’t know what will happen to this possible entry into the field, but we need to take a risk (without breaking our menisci) because any initial embarrassment could contribute to breaking patterns and creating new ones. With the awareness of unbalancing myself forward (don’t worry if I expose myself too much), I believe that the application of the breathing rhythms behind the energy wave graph can cause an explosion capable of shattering the too many certainties that circulate in training relationships. I believe it can be the guarantee of a journey, whether sporting or otherwise, where the mind and body can travel in parallel, where the objective remains on the horizon, but everything, including the preparation and approach, are experienced as a unique moment, where inevitably and in reality, there will be an alternation of stress and pleasure, successes and failures, true competitive spirit of parts of the body willing to do anything to find coordination, where the breath does not conflict, where the emotion that flows is a moment of non-interruption and which (contrary to what you think) prepares you for overcoming an obstacle, where being able to cry over a failure has the same energetic value as crying over a success.
Thanks to the repetition of sensory-perceptive experiences, the energy of desire and the relationship-contact with others determines and redetermines everyone’s potential. For the child this happens magically in play, for the adult through a path-process of change which requires an initial awareness regarding the possibility of bringing one’s known and unknown potential into play, incompleteness and presumption, frustration and satisfaction, pleasure and pain.
Hope lies in the courage to face ourselves and convey the joy of doing.