He was only thirty years old when together with another dreamer, Luciano Abrahamo, he created the volleyball phenomenon in Catania at the highest level. In 1978 he won the first scudetto in the history of southern and Sicilian sport in particular.
In that same year Carmelo Pittera took the reins of the Volleyball Team of Italy, which led to a second place in the world, with the Catalans Nello Greco, Toni Alessandro, and Antonio Scilipoti.
Pittera has been and will continue to be an innovator and today, with 73 years on his shoulders, is focusing his (immense) mental energies on an innovative project, which could constitute a kind of grassroots revolution in Italian sport, we talk about the skills motor boats from 0 to 99 years old. He himself explains: “During these years I have been involved in the development of the PSI.CO.M. which opens enormous perspectives in the cognitive and motor system, starting with children. When I finished training the Brumi, then Paoletti, I worked in gyms in Catania and even in schools and soccer fields to train the children. They always fascinated me with movement, the development of motor schemes, and how the brain works to process them. ”
But the last spark appeared two years ago. Pittera was in Cairo, where he trained the youth representatives of Egypt; then his friend Quique Edelstein – technician with good results obtained in the eighties years in the volleyball league of Italy – will tell him about his project to develop the cognitive and motor system. So Edelstein promotes in Buenos Aires the “Carmelo Pittera Foundation”, the organization that today increases the studies on this topic.
“Quique’s support was essential to quickly reactivate the channel with Professor Massimo Sciuto (another Catanese excellence), a scholar already in ’94, year in which I published: ‘Attention to the volleyball player’. And so, for two years, we have worked together on the new book that we have already presented in Argentina and Italy: ‘The PSI.CO.M. system’. We are only at the beginning of a job that will have exceptional scientific developments. ”
Pittera explains that his work is enriched by other publications: the ‘notebook motório’, the class notes with exercises, easy to understand and that any teacher can apply to students even in preschool.
“Neuroscientific studies have confirmed that from 0 to 10 years of age the movement is responsible for the development of the cognitive, then it is the cognitive that guides the motor development (learning of sports techniques.) When we go to the third age there is a new investment, as a circle that closes and returns to be like children, which is why we now begin to talk about cognitive-motor activity from 0 to 99 years, “says Pittera.
“Today we are experimenting with several levels, from children to the elderly. For children, up to at least 8 years, it would be good not to teach any sports discipline. To develop their motor schemes it is better to opt for fun and cognitive paths connected to languages ​​and symbols of a different nature, which can help the child to think for himself and improve his perceptual systems, useful for the further development of a competitive activity “, adds .

And complete: “In turn, we are working both in Argentina and Italy with people of the Third Age who suffer Alzheimer’s or other neurogenic problems.”

A project in full expansion. Pittera has drafted a protocol with Luigi Mazzone (former fencing champion and child neuropsychiatrist) to apply the system to autistic children. And it is not over. In February, Pittera will fly to California where he was called by a volleyball academy and beachvoley to teach the coaches the PSI.C.OM. “I have always explored, learned and, sometimes, I have also taught, I was always ahead of my choices, often not understood, I do not lack activities in the gym or volleyball, although I look more at them. our children, beyond the discipline they will later practice, also means having a healthier country that spends less on health.

Projects of Sicilian minds for the community. THE RACE. Catanese, born in 1944, as a coach won a men’s championship with Paoletti Catania in 1978. In the same year he took the reins of the Italian Volleyball Team and took it to a resounding sub-championship: it was the first great result of our volleyball. He formed other clubs, including women’s teams, and national teams from Egypt and Qatar. But his academic contribution is still more important in volleyball. In the Italian Volleyball Federation, led by Gianfranco Briani, he promoted the project “Volley ’85” in the early eighties, which led to the generation of phenomena that over the next decade would win three world medals and several Olympic . Author of several texts and scientific articles, in 1984, he launched the minivoley project called “Silabario motorio”. The best synthesis on Pittera was made by another father of our volleyball, Silvano Prandi: “The turning point in Italy took place when Pittera started to build a culture for our coaches, physicists, everybody wonders why many of our coaches They excel in the world, Carmelo was the true prophet of our volleyball. “