Learco sets down his cup with excessive grace, the grace of someone about to say something unpleasant dressed up as a compliment. \"Great seminar, Ubaldo. Honestly, for a rainy Saturday, I wasn't expecting so many people. Well done to you too, Osvaldo, managing to bring your students even though the date clashed with mine.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"It didn't clash,\" says Osvaldo. \"Yours was the weekend before.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"Exactly. I'm saying you still did well, even starting at a disadvantage.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ubaldo smiles, the smile of someone who had the answer ready before the other one finished speaking. \"I never look at numbers, Learco. That's the last thing that interests me. I prefer quality. But if it makes you happy, two of your former students were at my class yesterday. Nice kids. A bit behind on kokyu, but nothing that can't be fixed.\" kokyu<\/em>, ma niente che non si sistemi.\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Behind compared to what?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Compared to where they should be, given how long they've been training. Not a criticism, to be clear. Just a technical observation, made with affection.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learco nods slowly, the kind of nod that precedes a blow. \"Of course, of course. Then again, you've always had a particular eye for kokyu<\/em> . Ever since that weekend with that Japanese master, what was his name, the minor one, who used to come around now and then...\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Sensei Wakinaia was not minor.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"No, no, I meant minor as in... well, less well-known. It wasn't a judgment. I did six seminars with Tamiru, so you understand I'm making the comparison with some authority, not to belittle anyone.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n Osvaldo, who had let it slide until then, listens to the parade of proper names with the air of someone above it all. Inside, though, he's gloating: he worked with Toda for two years, not six days of seminars strung together like trading cards, and not saying so, right at this moment, strikes him as the most refined form of superiority he knows. Then, in the voice of someone offering himself as peacemaker purely to take the stage: \"Come on, guys, it's not a competition.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Exactly,\" Learco and Ubaldo say in chorus, with a timing that betrays just how much it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"I'm only saying,\" Osvaldo continues, \"that in the end results speak for themselves. I have three students who got their first dan<\/em> this year. I'm not saying it to brag, I'm saying it because it seems like an objective fact to me.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Three?\" says Ubaldo, with a pause calculated to the millimeter. \"Good for you. I put five through, but I made them wait an extra year on purpose, because for me quality comes first. To each his own method, no judgment at all.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"My method still produces black belts who know how to fall,\" says Osvaldo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"So does mine. Except mine also know why they fall, not just how. But that's fine, there are schools and there are schools.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learco, feeling the conversation drift away from him, hauls it back with the grace of a tugboat. \"Speaking of schools. I heard they've asked me to give the plenary class at the regional gathering. I only found out late, otherwise I'd have told you sooner, so you could have planned your commitments differently.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"They asked me last year,\" says Ubaldo. \"I said no. Too many commitments. But I'm glad they thought of you this year, afterward.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Afterward what?\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Afterward, generally speaking. In the journey. Everyone has their own timing.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n The silence that follows is not a peaceful one. It's the silence of three people all, simultaneously, recalculating something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Osvaldo breaks it with the sweetest voice he has, the one he uses on frightened beginners. \"Anyway, beyond all that, I admire you both. Truly. I still consider myself a student myself, not like certain people who think they've arrived.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Nobody thinks they've arrived, Osvaldo.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"I wasn't talking about you two. I meant in general.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Ah. Good.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n \"Although, honestly, a bit more humility now and then wouldn't hurt. In general, I mean.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n Learco looks at Ubaldo. Ubaldo looks at Learco. Neither of them looks at Osvaldo, which, at that table, amounts to applause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end they say goodbye the way they always do: with long hugs, mutual compliments on each other's physical condition, and the promise, made by all three at once and believed by none of them, to see each other more often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Walking to their respective cars, each of the three thinks, with the exact same certainty as the other two, that he was the only one, that evening, to have behaved like a reasonable person.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Learco appoggia la tazzina con un garbo eccessivo, il garbo di chi sta per dire qualcosa di sgradevole vestendolo da complimento. \u00abBel seminario, Ubaldo. Sinceramente, per essere un sabato di pioggia, non mi aspettavo cos\u00ec tanta gente. Brava anche te, Osvaldo, che sei riuscito a portare i tuoi nonostante la data si sovrapponesse al mio.\u00bb […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1044,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n