He is an engineer, passionate about photography, loves his family enormously, and is totally dedicated to a unique art movement from the Far East, six centuries old. Under his hardness lies a tender and generous soul, but also the steel nerves that have brought him and keep him in the extremely small world of the great masters budoka.
The story of the martial arts begins in Japan, six centuries back, and the name of the battle techniques, too little known, is still stirring up thrills: aikijitsu, nihon ju-jutsu, renshi, kendo ninja, karateka, shadow people, capable of scattering to the winds an opponent with bare hands.
That is, at least, the image for most of us.
A romantic with steel nerves
Beyond the picture, the person of the master Liviu Bădescu – hanshi (which I was to learn, means in the Japanese language “great master, model” but which is replaced as a form of addressing with sensei – teacher) 8 DAN Karate – is completely unexpected. Tall and slim, just fiber and nerve, probably the result of many dojo training sessions – hard, sober, computed and firmly looking, he always has the features warmed by a smile coming in and wearing a bald expression in his eyes.
On the street, you would take him as a passerby, without going through your head that in two or three seconds, he could lie down to the ground a sturdy man only with the edge of his palm or hit a target as small as a game card, from about 20 meters away. You would expect to be a cynic, but he is a wise man, just as you could think of a perfect pragmatist, in fact, to discover him as a romantic-realist.
The first time you are amazed by the extraordinary energy he spreads around him. He has something of a charming and mysterious adventurer, but, strangely, his presence sends you a strange state, like a kind of nervous anesthesia. Then, talking to you, you discover that he is part of that rare species of fully integrated people who do not turn back in front of the obstacles and who revolt against all forms of pettiness.
“For me, the story of my life is not spectacular. Many say my way is a successful one, but I have hesitations to think that reading or doing something you’ve seen in another person will have the same results. I believe that this road should be phoned by the landmarks called value and honesty. We do not have to confuse a successful man with a valued man.
“I was shy but not secluded”
The ingredients that make him are not always the same. But value and success do not eliminate each other, and I want to mention that the strands of the rope of my life – education, teaching, martial arts, my passions – have all been intertwined with the same desire for performance and progress. ”
Liviu Badescu discovered the martial arts at the age of seven and started to teach Aiki Jitsu and karate in his native village Pleniţa to defend himself from the violence he was exposed to by older colleagues. “After such a dispute, it was a moment when I understood, in one way or another, that the fight against more aggressors required much more advanced knowledge.
Master recognized at 23 years old
This was in 1971 when the martial arts were not even known to us in the country. This is where the spark and the desire to evolve and perfect in the art of struggle may have gone. I did not know anything about fighting styles and the like, I just wanted to respond to aggression on me. I was just a third-grade child … “.
After graduating from the Carol I National College in Craiova, Liviu joined the University of Craiova, the Faculty of Mechanics, and in during college he even set up a club to train, even if the martial arts were banned in Romania at that time.