Japan is the great birthplace of martial arts: the soil where the techniques of most fighting styles emerged, including, of course, Jiu-Jitsu. And not only the techniques - the philosophical scope that guides the conduct of a true martial artist owes a considerable part of its essence to Bushido, code of ethics of the ancient samurai, which advocates a specific way of life for the warrior class. Developed between the 9th and 12th centuries AD, the Way of the Warrior proposes, in a radically non-negotiable way, the notions of heroic bravery, fidelity to an ideal, rectitude of character and detachment from all that is vain. 
 
Medieval Japan's "table of the law" points out the 7 virtues of the warrior: 

COURAGE 
JUSTICE 
HONOR 
LOYALTY 
SINCERITY 
RESPECT 
COMPASSION 
 
When a Westerner, who has dedicated his life to learning, developing and mastering a martial art to the limits of excellence, making it his Do (spiritual path), is invited to fight in Japan, it is a key point in his trajectory – the moment of giving back all that he received. The time of retribution; the long-awaited time to walk on the same soil as the founding masters of the ancestral past, the legendary samurai with their titanic battles, impossible victories and tragic seppukus (ritual suicides).
 
In October 1997, Renzo was invited to compete in Japan and show his art in a land inhabited by the ghosts of warriors that had populated his mind since childhood.
 
It was the first edition of PRIDE, an international MMA competition based in Tokyo. The fight was scheduled for October 11, just 14 days after the PENTAGON COMBAT, which Renzo had fought in Rio de Janeiro. It is clear that Renzo would not have time to recover, physically and mentally, nor to start the type of training focused on the specific characteristics of his opponent. But, to paraphrase Miyamoto Musashi, famous samurai author of THE BOOK OF 5 RINGS: for a warrior, every day is a good day to die...

(to be continued)