Martial Arts World News Magazine - Volume 22 | Issue 2

BUDO PHILOSOPHY
A Particular Vision, Part 1
By Shidoshi Alfredo Tucci
“Martial art is the art of the mobilization and correct use of vital energy.
Its techniques, positions, dances, and fights produce deep
stimulations in the energy meridians of the internal organs and
chakras, awakening our deeper and most unconscious feelings
and sensations. Through that vibrational resonance with the primary,
the movement of martial art revives in us our capacity to live
in the present moment, as well as forgotten behavioral mechanisms,
so necessary and balancing, as it happens in the case of the
inhibition of aggressiveness and screaming, while making it easier
for us to make an instant and intuitive assessment of reality.” –José
Luis Paniagua Tébar
Much of my training in martial practices was with a very special
teacher, a man ahead of his time and a full-fledged transgressor.
Back in the ’80s, José Luis Paniagua Tébar had a courageous
experience, which, as expected in any revolution, didn’t satisfy
anyone except, of course, those of us who lived it and
participated in it.
“Traditionalists” from both Taekwondo and
Karate often looked at him with squinty eyes,
and psychotherapists, who sent many of their
clients to his classes, observed him with resentment,
and I would even say with some envy.
His heterodoxy led him to include in his classes
Yoga, Tai Chi, middle-distance running (13 km),
and especially a type of physical training in which
particular attention was paid to the movement
of energy flows.
You had to learn the Taekwondo Hyons
and their techniques, and of course,
the Shotokan Kata forms and their
techniques. But, above all, Paniagua
put great emphasis in certain points
generally ignored by other persons
and systems, considering martial arts
as a whole original that had been
broken down into differences of
cultural nuances behind which prevailed
a holistic sense, long before
that term began to be used.
A supporter of the correct inclusion of Yin and Yang techniques
in their right order and sequence, he maintained that this
specialization was a DENATURALIZATION of Martial Art, with
capital letters, an inclusive idea which led to a personal and very
well-structured syncretic vision of an activity, which for others was
nothing more than a sport, combat system, or cultural practice. He
described it for the first time in a book whose title says it all: “Martial
Arts: Body-Mind Balance.”
The idea of seeing martial arts as a practice focused on this
purpose was very encouraging for a young Alfredo Tucci, hungry
for knowledge and willing to reach the very core of things. I
wasn’t the only one. An interesting group of practitioners joined
the classes, a heterodox group without a doubt because, except
for a few exceptions, probably none of them would have ever
thought of wearing a kimono, much less kicking and punching;
renowned psychologists, noted characters from the art world,
financial aristocracy, medicine doctors, engineers, sociologists,
many college students, and some occasional “thrill seeker” as
the present writer.
The TEAM—acronym for Taller Experimental de Artes Marciales
(Martial Arts Experimental Workshop), formerly TEPAM,
Taller Experimental y Psicodinámico de Artes Marciales (Experimental
and Psychodynamic Martial Arts Workshop, the P fell
with the early departure of a group of psychotherapists)—was
a spectacular experience. To start, it didn’t look like a gym. In
the no. 45 Pirineos St. of Madrid, the leaves of the Dehesa de la
Villa Park trees practically slipped through the windows, and the
park, crossing a quiet street, became on Mondays our training
place, where we jogged under pines in that beautiful and welllooked-after
haven of peace surprisingly located in the center of
the capital of Spain.
Paniagua was a master in directing the group energy flows
based on his idea of cycles of rupture, expansion, stillness. People
came out refreshed from classes. Even today the idea of training
combat for an hour and a half, and then finishing the class doing
Yoga and meditation, is an absolute transgression.
SHIDOSHI ALFREDO TUCCI is the CEO and General Manager of the Budo International Publishing
Company, a leading publisher in the martial arts with over 35 years in the industry. He is also author of several
books: The Immaterial Dimension, The Way of the Warrior, and The Spirit. He currently lives in Valencia, Spain.
86 MARTIAL ARTS WORLD NEWS VOLUME 22 | ISSUE 2