“It’s like training for the first time, you tackle everything with new eyes, energy and enthusiasm. Concentration is at its maximum and at the end of training you want to continue, despite the enormous fatigue. This experience is now much more appreciated than in the past! ” So he said Ion, born in 1999. “The return to the Dojo was a sign of regained normality… beautiful. Feeling my tatami under my feet again instead of the carpet at home was like going back to the days when we were free to stay in the gym for hours and hours together. It seems like an eternity of time ago. The shock was seeing the Dojo empty because it is always very full, but then being on the other side of the screen made me understand the importance of our presence ”. This instead, he said Martina, class 1995. “Returning to the Dojo after so many months has been fantastic, even if it remains an individual training. Thanks to this possibility, I have the desire to practice my discipline and to return to competitions as soon as possible “, was the comment of Alessio, born in 2003, but then there is also Margherita class of 2004, who said: “The strangest thing, after months of seeing my Master through the TV screen, being part of that show also amuses me a lot and stimulates me to do more even if sometimes depending on the shifts in front of me looking at me I have younger children or white belts, being an example is electrifying but it’s harder to train alone in the Dojo, you can’t escape anywhere and I miss a minute of attention that the teacher catches you immediately haha ”. And finally there is the joke of Carletto, class of 2013, which concludes: “How beautiful !! When I grow up, too, I want to be an agonist and go to television !!! Ahahahah ”.
Emotions, laughter, positive experiences and gratitude. This is what can be perceived from the words of Ion, Martina, Alessio, Margherita and Carletto, five athletes chosen at random from the large group of ‘karateka’ who, despite the limitations of this difficult period, continue to ‘live’ karate through a attractive and inspiring. Anna Devivi, Master and manager of Karate Do Trieste, explains how he is dealing with this situation. “There is a lot of talk about the problems linked to this very difficult historical moment and the demands that our sports world expresses to overcome the crisis. But we don’t talk enough about what we ourselves, each for their role, can do for our movement. We are aware of many colleagues who have given up and many companies that have effectively closed all businesses. We are all in the same boat, but there are ideas or activities that, even in times like this, have found a way to continue or find new and different ways to continue training and social activities within the asd. Personally I feel a strong attachment to my karate school, to the students and to the families that go around it. In this phase the responsibility of the Master is even stronger, also and above all towards the younger students. Each of us technicians has fielded what they could, but the feeling of not doing enough is very strong also because we are overwhelmed by negativity, by catastrophic news, by information that generates fear and worries. In our small way, the reaction to the new life imposed by Covid-19 was immediate and generated ideas of sports practice and social participation initiatives within the Sports Association Karate Do Trieste. 
Not everything has been invented, much has been taken up by other more artistic disciplines, already accustomed to the web world and its communication methods. Go to web activities then, but with extensive interactions and parallel social activities, such as drawing and video editing competitions oraperitif‘virtual between instructors. With these actions, nothing was lost on the athletic and sporting level, but above all the sense of community that has always characterized my school has been preserved. On an exquisitely sporting level, we have organized ourselves with 18 weekly courses held on the zoom platform since 25 October 2020 (first day of gyms closing), taking up what was already well experienced last spring. The courses are all held live on the tatami of the gym in Puecher square and attendance was 80-90% of those enrolled for each session, almost similar to normal face-to-face courses. The result is not causal, behind there was a continuous and strong stimulus and explanation activity, interventions also of a technical nature to give support to each partner both in the IT and logistic fields, coming to modify the arrangement of the children’s bedrooms in a way to get the right space to do a kata. But the main success came with the experimentation of the lessons with alternate participation in the presence of competitive athletes (strictly one at a time in the gym) who, as known, are the only ones who can train regularly in view of the federal competitions, but that our asd he has in any case suspended in attendance in strict compliance with the criterion of prudence for all. The competitive athletes, therefore, have been identified to offer during the theoretical / practical lessons a performance model applying to the tatami the instructions for performing athletic or technical exercises (kata or applications). The presence on the video of an athlete performing the exercises live and giving an example was one of the reasons for the success of this second round of web lessons. And an important resumption of activity was also obtained for the same agonists who returned to tread the tatami individually and in front of the cameras, thus obtaining motivation for training (which via the web for an agonist can decrease) but also and above all a continuous improvement gained with the opportunity to see each other live and then see each other again on the video recording. The experimentation of the Web lesson with the performance model was also important to strengthen the strong Coach / Athlete bond, having the opportunity to be face to face with the Teacher with an exclusive lesson, even if behind the screens they also practice the his colleagues. Individual training, at other times impossible for Karate Do reality with hundreds of athletes, is particularly appreciated by agonists who can verify (without any distraction) the level of athletic preparation achieved and technical precision. But not only…. the lesson with the presence of the competitive athlete who performs and explains the trainings led by the Master, has allowed most people to see at work, sometimes for the first time, the competitive athletes of our School who in ordinary times train in specific sessions dedicated to them.
A fact that has led many young people to find new motivations to also start a process of greater commitment to try to emulate those comrades. Another element of success is the random rotation of the athlete who will be present the next time in the Dojo to act as a performance model, this arouses expectation in the boys and therefore encourages the stimulus to participate. Finally, I would like to point out the satisfaction of the parents of these athletes who see their children really resume their activity, but without the risk of contagion, showing up, from time to time, in the gym alone. The numbers have remained important, eighteen online courses and counting the families that can work together, it is possible to rotate 28 athletes trained individually in two weeks, all motivated by live video and in complete safety. Two hundred and forty athletes who at this moment regularly follow the online lessons, about 30 occasional and non-regular present (also linked to time and work problems) and out of a total of 315 registered at the beginning of the 2020-2021 academic year we can have confidence and offer a message of encouragement to everyone. Obviously waiting for the long-awaited reopening… ”.
