When I first met him I was already an adult and he was an old man. I had learned how to swim when I was a teenager and had even competed for my club in some championships.
Mr. Sato had come from Japan many years earlier to work in the agriculture in the South of the country. I don’t know exactly how he ended up with swimming, but I know he trained the Brazilian Team for many years, and while he was the coach, the Brazilian Team won.
He had a very personal and different view of how people should relate to water. He used to say that water is like human society, if you want to dominate it using force, you end up by sinking.
He had a keen eye for people and seemed to know precisely what to say to each person. He educated several generations. It is not uncommon, even today, years after he passed away, to meet people of widely different age groups in the most varied walks of life who have been his disciples.
Some thought of him as a Zen Master, others thought of him as a Christian Master. As if these were two different things.
His swimming classes were held at sunrise in a club located in a quiet neighborhood near where I lived. We would all begin with exercises by the poolside and amidst a symphony of singing birds our bodies would stretch and warm up. He would then give his opinions about people and current events always stressing that he was educating the generation who would rule Brazil in the future. Then we would go into the water. There he would teach us how become one with it, how to let the water take us.
He was able to cross a twenty-five meter swimming pool with only three strokes. He would lie in the water and say that if you just relaxed the water would embrace you like a mother. You are made of water, he’d say emphatically.
Even today, when I look at people swimming, I am able to distinguish his disciples: they are the ones lying lazily on the water, drifting effortlessly in the pool, contended and in peace.
In his last years, he had some difficulty walking and had to use a cane. But as soon as he was inside the pool, he would be in his element and one could see the lightest of smiles playing in his lips.
He gave me a real sense of the water and taught me how to swim as an art of living.
