The technician studies and even teaches the children. And in Argentina there is a Foundation with your name. “My mind has always wanted to learn and for a couple of years I have been involved in the development of the PSI.CO.M. project, which opens enormous perspectives in the cognitive and motor system, starting with children”.
If you want to disturb Carmelo Pittera, 73 years old and a life in the gym, tell him he is an old man. We did the test and here is the interview that came out of it. Because those who do not know the coach of Catania well, are the first to be expelled for their brusque words and their murmurs, for being a man of facts. On the other hand, before that magic word, old man, he mocks the story and becomes with the enthusiasm of a fan of sports, especially volleyball.
Who, old man? “We talk with too much superficiality and ignorance. What does it mean to be old? My mind has always wanted to learn and during the last years I have been involved in the development of the PSI.CO.M. project, which opens enormous perspectives in the cognitive and motor system, starting with children “. A passion that Pittera cultivated for more than forty years, “when I trained Paoletti – the first Sicilian club to win a championship, in 1978 – as soon as I finished the training I went to the gymnasiums of Catania and even to the schools and the football field , to see the movement of children. Movement has always fascinated me, the development of motor patterns, as the brain works to process them. ”
The story of his father’s expressions drove him to the highest levels, in a kind of competition that began more than half a century ago at Pittera’s house: “Dad always used to say: ‘I have a donkey and a guitar at home’ . The metaphorical sound of the guitar was that of my brother, a doctor. The donkey was obviously me because I was involved in sports, considered intellectually inferior. ” In contrast, the young Carmelo, Italian champion with 33 years and world runner-up of the men’s team, is today a sports teacher and continues in his high profile studies. In Catania in the sixties he was born and cultivated a friendship with Carmelo Bosco, the physiologist famous in the world for his methods of physical preparation, whom he accompanied for long periods in Finland, where he had moved. “The meeting with Bosco was one of the most important in my life. Like Gianfranco Briani, the historical general secretary of Fipav and a man always on the way to thinking “.
The spark. At least the last one was activated two years ago. Pittera was in Cairo, where he trained the youth representatives of Egypt; his friend “Quique” Edelstein – an Argentinean technician who obtained good results in the eighties in our championship – went to visit him, telling him about his project based on the cognitive and motor system. Edelstein created the “Carmelo Pittera Foundation” in Buenos Aires, an organization that today disseminates the study on this topic. “Quique’s support was essential, it was a moment in which I quickly reactivated the channel with Professor Massimo Sciuto, a scholar with whom he had already published in ’94: ‘Care in the volleyball player’. Thus, for two years we have worked together in the new book that we have already presented in Argentina, published in Spanish, and that this Tuesday will be presented in Rome: ‘The PSI.CO.M. System’. We are only at the beginning of a job that will have exceptional scientific developments. ”
Moving. Pittera explains the work better, which in the meantime is enriched by other publications: “The notebooks Motorios, brochures with exercises easy to understand, that any teacher can use with their students from the first years and therefore, also in the garden of infants
“Neuroscientific studies have confirmed that from 0 to 10 years the movement is responsible for the cognitive, while from the age of 11 the cognitive becomes responsible for the motor. When you go towards the third age there is an inversion, like a circle that closes and becomes like children again. That is why we now begin to talk about cognitive-motor activity from 0 to 99 years. We are experimenting on several levels. From children to the elderly. In the initial stage of life, until at least 8 years, it would be good not to teach a sports discipline, but to develop their motor patterns through playful and cognitive paths related to languages and symbols of different nature, which can help to think by themselves and improve the perceptual systems, useful for the subsequent development of a competitive activity. For the rest, we are working both in Argentina and in Italy with older people who have Alzheimer’s or other neurogenic problems, or with young people with Down syndrome. ”
Enthusiastic. Carmelo never talks about “old man”. “I do not know what ‘old’ means. In my life I have always explored, learned and sometimes, I have also taught something. I have always been at the forefront of my choices, often even, not understood. I am passionate about these studies that we are deepening, today I do not miss the gym and volleyball, although I always follow it. Making our children grow well, beyond the discipline they will then practice once they grow up, also means having a healthier country that spends less on health. ”
Source: La Gazzetta dello Sport [ http://bit.ly/2AqwJbF ]
