Living alongside Sensei Ricardo Leite and Grandmaster Leo Imamura

 

(With the kind Sensei Ricardo Leite at the beloved restaurant we often go to)

Although Grandmaster Leo Imamura had invited me to reflect on a series of topics related to the need for greater attentiveness and more appropriate conduct at the end of a recently concluded practice, his words seemed not to have had the desired effect at that moment.

We were on our way to one of the german restaurant branches, with him driving and Sensei Ricardo Leite (seventh dan in Aikido and a disciple of Sensei Yamada) sitting beside him. However, my thoughts were drifting towards the bus I needed to catch in time to attend a meeting the following day. I had a work commitment scheduled, though, in the worst-case scenario, I could reschedule it. Still, that meeting was an opportunity I had been waiting for all year...

At a certain point, Sensei Ricardo addressed me and made a few positive remarks about my performance — I believe more out of kindness than anything else. I know how much I still need to improve. On the other hand, he also spoke about the value of having someone to guide us, and on that, everyone in the car agreed.

We sat down to have dinner. I don’t recall seeing any other people in the restaurant — perhaps I simply wasn’t paying attention. When I returned from the bathroom, Grandmaster Leo Imamura had already placed the order, and shortly afterwards, the food arrived. We had been together since early that morning, starting with breakfast, when Master Cristina had also joined us.

 

Being with Sensei Ricardo Leite, in my view, is always an opportunity to witness special conversations — from someone genuinely concerned about the direction his art, Aikido, has been taking and about practitioners’ understanding of how techniques are executed. For him, techniques should not be seen as mere choreography, but as the expression of a deep understanding of how to allow movement to occur naturally, arising from the propensity generated by the interaction between the two practitioners.

Sensei Ricardo Leite, who frequently refers to his master, Yamada Sensei, shared something that touched me deeply:

“Yamada Sensei came to Brazil for the first time in 1991, and even had Kawai Sensei as a guest. Kawai Sensei had invited me for the 4th Dan, but I declined the invitation. I was well regarded in Brazil, but I felt that the regard people had for me did not correspond to my real understanding. When Yamada Sensei came, that feeling was confirmed.”

These words had a profound impact on me, as they resonate with something I have always felt in my own journey. Even after receiving the title of Master from the former Moy Yat Ving Tsun Martial Intelligence in 2015 and, two years later, from the International Moy Yat Ving Tsun Federation in 2017, I carried within me a sense that my ability fell short of the titles I bore. Part of this came from a lack of deeper understanding of what those titles truly represent — and of the many reasons that may lead someone to receive them.

Even so, considering the idea of a Master as someone who has mastered a system, I never felt fully satisfied. Over the years, and especially through the experience of teaching my first students, this feeling became increasingly evident. It is easy to deceive oneself and adopt a position that avoids exposure at all costs — even the simple act of asking a question in public. But there is another path: the path of allowing oneself to pursue excellence.

As Bernardinho, the multi-championship-winning coach of the Brazilian national volleyball team, once said, “Excellence is a moving target.” Each time you approach it, you realise that what you did before may no longer be enough now.

Sensei Ricardo Leite continued with his reflections:

“...But it is wonderful, because he (Yamada Sensei) proved that to me — showing how to access what really matters in order to grow. When he came, with all his structure, training, and experience — after all, he had been a disciple of the very founder, from the roots — he presented a framework of incredible depth. Basic movements that, for me, had been developed in an intuitive way, then found solid foundations for development. It was both shocking and marvellous. Because the spirit I had developed at that time (before that encounter) was precisely the energy I needed in order to, with the tools he presented, transcend the level at which I found myself...”

Those words reminded me of a day when, after leaving a professional appointment in another field in which I work, I decided to call Grandmaster Leo Imamura and ask whether he thought it would be worthwhile for me to acquire the Wooden Dummy Course that he and his partners had just made available through the Kung Fu Life channel. I wanted to improve, and I asked sincerely. The Grandmaster reportedly replied that he considered it essential for every professional to acquire the course.

When I began to watch it, it truly was something very impactful. Grandmaster Leo Imamura proposed an exploration of the wooden dummy that went far beyond what I had imagined. That realisation made me see how little I still knew about exploring the System.

A year later, while revising the Mui Fa Jong Domain with him at the Moy Yat Institute, I demonstrated the Da Jong, and he commented:
“It’s better than I thought... it just depends on whether you’ll be content with this draft.”

I couldn’t help a slight laugh as I looked at the dummy. At that moment, it had already been 21 years since I had first been introduced to the Da Jong. I was never the most intelligent, the strongest, or the most skilful — but I always did my part. And, even so, it was still only a draft. And I knew that it was true.

Sensei Ricardo Leite is awaiting the autograph

 in the book authored by GM William Moy)

“...The point is not where you place your foot or your hand, but what you do — how the foot gets here, how the hand gets there, where it goes and why it is there. Placing the foot and the hand — nowadays, any video on YouTube shows that.
He (Yamada Sensei) did not simply teach where the foot and the hand should be — not in an absolute and definitive way, but in a structured and well-founded manner. In other words, he was not teaching what was right or wrong; he was teaching structure, providing tools so that I could overcome the level at which I found myself.
It was exactly what I needed at that time. It was something radical. Many people went through a sort of ‘Aikido depression’, because the shock was so great. But many continued and became happy with the encounter of these new instruments.
Each person had their own purpose. Mine was to surpass the level at which I had been until then.”

— concludes Sensei Ricardo Leite, regarding the beginning of his journey with Sensei Yamada.

Master Quintela has already said that the Ving Tsun Experience Programme contains a series of valuable guidelines about the Ving Tsun System, and today I am entirely certain of how much the study of this Programme helps me as a practitioner — and also helps my Family — to develop a clearer and deeper approach to the System, without a doubt.

I remember being about to enter the building of Grandmaster Leo Imamura’s parents with him in his car. On such occasions, he usually relaxes his left elbow near the window, lightly holding the steering wheel. With his right hand, he holds the gate remote control and rests his relaxed arm on his right thigh. His whole posture becomes calmer than when he is driving.

At that moment of the day, certain things usually happen: either he finishes something he was saying, or he begins a new line of reasoning — or, what enchants me the most, he ties a thought together, connecting everything we have done in terms of Kung Fu practice and life since the very first day of that particular journey. It is as if he were showing, with clarity, that he had been attentive to everything and helping me to perceive how the same conduct manifests itself in different aspects of our day and how we can work on it.

On that particular day, I could not recall whether he was concluding or starting a new reasoning while we waited for the gate — which stubbornly refuses to open. But, from what I understood of the story he was telling, someone had asked him how he had managed to go so deep starting from the Siu Nim Do, and he had replied by explaining that everything came from the demand he had.

That seemingly simple reason moved me deeply. I sat looking ahead, lost in thought. Because it was also the demand from my students that had brought me there, in that car.
And it is this same demand for the safeguarding of a legacy that seems to drive Sensei Ricardo. Perhaps that is why his well-chosen words brought back to me all these fragments of memory that I now share here.