Читать книгу The Secret Of Mind And Body - Gianluca Pistore - Страница 10

I

I remember that Monday of April. In Rio, it was hot, very hot. It was the typical spring day where people prefers to stay laid down on a beach than to work in their office with the conditioned air. And I remember also that phone call to me in my headquarter, my “Warrior Den", a meeting point for all the iron lovers, for all the old style passionate. "Halo, Himenes, George Himenes’s speaking? The owner of the Muscle and Mind Gym?" Said a faint voice on the other side of the phone.

"Yes." I promptly answered, "Who’s on the phone?"

"I’m Santana, Carlos Santana. I should urgently speak to you. When can I come to meet you?"

"Beh, if you’ve not better things to do, you can come even now, the iron warriors never rest!" I said with vehemence.

It was in this way that I’d known that bizarre guy coming from the favelas.

He was yes and no 60 kg soaking wet and 1, 85 tall.

He was the classic real ectomorph. Slim, with a frail skeleton and underdeveloped muscles. He had narrow shoulders and a long and flat thorax. His weight and the thorax perimeter seemed to be very insufficient compared to the height. Moreover, he had an equal length of the lower and upper limbs.

He seemed undernourished and frightened by the life.

"Then, dear Carlos, how can I help you?"

"Someone told me that you’re able to do miracles with people..."

I immediately stopped him "Guy, attention to the words. Only God does miracles. I simply help the butterfly to exit from the cocoon. Michelangelo sculpted the stone for his works, but the masterpieces were already inside the crude stone. He only smoothed out the edges. Well, this is what I do."

The guy, hesitant, looked at me with barred eyes and added "This is not important for me! I must absolutely win “The Two Americas International Competition”

"Slowly guy, let’s go in good order. I’ve already said you that I don’t do miracles, you would like to win the most important American competition of weightlifter in less than a year starting without any fundamental?" What an exhilarant guy. Maybe he did not see him in a mirror, I would not have permitted him neither to participate to the tournament of arm wrestling of the quarter.

"You don’t understand. I need it. Do you want to help me or not?" said the guy quickly with a rage in his eyes that I’d never seen before.

The first confused moment finished few later: “Guy, you cannot do it, give up. If you want to do some sport I can help you but keep away from your head these stupid paranoias”.

He looked at me with tears in his eyes: “You’re a no-good man! You don’t know nothing about sport! You limit to look at me like I’m now, you don’t manage to imagine me stronger neither to see the rage, the motivation and the pain inside me looking beyond this my body....” He made the sign to say something else, then he turned and walked at a good pace towards the exit.

I called him “Guy! Wait a moment... what would be this great motivation? Then, let me understand... why do you want to win the most important American weightlifter competition? do you want by any chance to demonstrate something to your girlfriend?”

"The victory’s not important for me. I need the prize of 80 thousand dollars to save my younger brother from the street! My brothers and I were born in a very poor family, like many other here in the favelas of Rio. In our favelas, there’re incursions of the police squads, the death battalions, almost every day. I’m trying to keep my younger brother far from the gangs, but it’s difficult. Our father was died in a police raid, he was killed by a stray bullet which was directed to a drug trafficker who lived fifty meters after us. Our mother, after his death, felt in a severe state of depression and she’s not able to maintain all the family. The Saint Francis Missionaries help us but this is not good. I’m trying to earn money working with a carpenter who was my father friend but the wages don’t allow me to enrol to the gym! Some months ago, my brother is entered in a drug trafficker gang under the control of Ramires, one of the most important and ruthless drug traffickers of our favelas." While he was speaking his eyes become like transparent lights, and I was understanding what his heart was felling. He was the embodiment of the sadness of a story like many others. The fists clenched more and more on his legs "I’m trying to explain him that if he continues to do so he will harm only himself and us who love him, but he ignores my suggestions. I’ve tried to talk with his gang but I’ve received warning to not snooping around and, then, a broken nose!" he closed his eyes remembering those disagreeable experiences. "I want win for him and our mother... I want to bring them far from here! And you’re the only who can help me to achieve this goal, you’re the only who had never bowed to the outrages and who is respected by narcos..."

He seemed me different from the usual bullies coming at the gym. "Guy, the life is not easy for everybody. You must know that if I will train you, I will make you sweat other blood. It will be the 10 hardest months of your life. Your mother gave you the life, I will reprogram it. I transform the brats in real men, independently from the age. You will become a man but, before, you shall become a child, cry, ask for piety and nobody will help you. You’ll fight yourself before to be ready to fight with the world. There’ll be nobody to lift you up from the ground. You shall do it by yourself. You shall react and learn how to get up on your legs. I’ll teach you that you shall never give up in the life. You shall never let your guard down, never give up, never get soft. Do you understand, ninos? Are you able to resist to all that?"

"Let’s start!" Answered hesitant Carlos.

"Well, come here tomorrow earlier in the morning, before to go to work, here, in my arena, and we’ll talk about what will be necessary to do. It’s all for the moment."

But, little before he would exit from the gym, I stopped him. "In a week, you will have a meeting with a special person who will help you a lot. He’s a mental coach."

"Is he a shrink?" added immediately Carlos contemptuous.

"No, it’s worse. For the moment go home and rest you. We’ll see here tomorrow."

I saw him through the gym windows exiting slouch, he seemed without chest. His head bowed. “There’ll be a lot of work to do” I thought. The first to believe to be successful would be just him.