At Heracles Gymnasium, boxing courses coexist with a library, theater and piano. The founder is former boxer Renato De Donato. “We don’t want to be chic, but to train people at 360 degrees ». On the other side of the glass, the sounds that accompany physical effort arrive, muffled. But inside the room there is the silence and order that befits any library, with the books stacked on the wooden shelves and a table in the center for consulting the volumes.
Over everyone, athletes and readers, Heracles watches over: the hero of classical mythology is depicted on the wall in a large hand-drawn mural killing the Nemean lion, in one of his twelve proverbial labors. This gym in via Padova is dedicated to him, and he trains the body and mind a few steps from piazzale Loreto, in Milan. Weights are lifted, boxing classes are held and professional boxers are prepared for matches.
But once the workout, you can browse an essay, play the piano, or participate in the many cultural events of the Heracles Gymnasium: the large equipment room lights up in the light of the projectors for evenings of theater, music and figurative art. After all, the gymnasium of classical Greece was something very similar. A place originally created for gymnastic exercises (from the Greek word ghimnos – γυμνός-, that is “naked”), which over time first became a place of aggregation and then of cultural enrichment.
The philosophical and political conversations of the youth of the urban elites flourished among the tense muscles. Prowess and vigor were well combined with the dialectical ability and the search for knowledge, so much so that these fora were both sporting and cultural at the same time. “Plato, for example, was a formidable fighter, he also participated in the Isthmus Games”, explains Renato De Donato, founder of Heracles Gymnasium to Linkiesta.
From the way he talks about his passions, it is difficult to draw up a hierarchy. Professional boxer until a few years ago, now he trains the new generation and teaches at the University of Milan: contract professor of “Methods and didactics of sporting activities”, with a course on performance in boxing. «But I do a bit like Heidegger, who had a chair in logic and told the students anything else…» he says, joking but not too much.
The interest in philosophy and that for classicism have not supplanted, but enriched and completed his love for boxing. Which begins at 17 and continues into an adolescence of “asceticism”, which in ancient Greek simply means “exercise”. He trains three times a day, loses many kilos in a few days to participate in competitions, sweats in the weight room even on weekends. “But they weren’t sacrifices, I enjoyed myself. Boxing was the aspiration of my life ».
Between one punch and the next, however, he also gives in with his studies: a three-year degree in Physical Education and Sports Technique, then a Master’s in Science, Technique and Sports Education. When he takes off his gloves, he plays the piano and in the meantime the curiosity of a deeper knowledge of the human body pushes him, step by step, to philosophical investigation. So in 2015 his gym was born, a place designed to help the development of young people in all directions.
«Often young people experience the prejudice of a dualism between the sportsman and the scholar, so they have to choose a path and necessarily sacrifice the other dimension. This is an injustice for the growth of the individual ». Not necessarily those who train the muscles will love intellectual activities, but at least they must not be pushed to demonize them, according to the thought of De Donato.
«Those who attend high school are considered a” loser “, while the athletes almost boast of their ignorance. We must fight the mistrust between the two worlds ». This is not a drift radical chic, of a marketing gimmick or a passing fad. But of profound conviction: “We are human beings and it is important to have different affections”. In fact, in its path, sport and culture have never been alternative, but complementary.
Over the years, the competitive commitment, previously all-encompassing, has given way to other interests. «One day I had to leave to compete in an international competition and I thought about how sorry I would be not able to play the piano for a while. I have them realized that my career was over ». At 31, he decides to stop fighting, because “boxing is not a sport you can do on Sundays”. It takes consistency and total dedication, perfect physical shape and a ferocious mentality. Otherwise the risk is to get seriously hurt.
As a former professional fighter, Renato knows how important it is to have a plan B: «Many boxers cannot conceive of themselves outside of boxing. When physical decline takes place, they go into depression, they turn to alcohol or they fail to understand that it is time to say enough ». His was to channel all his interests into a single place, which today is an evocative meeting point between art, culture and sport. In the bar, run by Riccardo Capitoni, he relaxes playing the piano and guitar.
In the gymnasium library he receives students, organizes debates, prepares lectures and academic articles. With friends and gym-goers he has also formed an interdisciplinary group that studies boxing from various points of view, from the sciences to the arts. Then he goes down the stairs and puts his students, boxers of various categories, under pressure. He trains too, but without the heat of the past: “The bare minimum to maintain dignity, look in the mirror and remember what I was doing.”
At the beginning, the gymnasium-goers lived in two separate worlds: those who came to train did not participate in cultural initiatives and vice versa. Over the years, however, this clear division has begun to crack. “Now”, says De Donato, “there are those who come during the week to tone the body and on weekends to cheer the spirit”. The appointments on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon at the Heracles Gymnasium are divided into different strands: the musical one, that of the figurative art managed – by Deborah Miseo – and the theatrical one by Stefania Mangano.
Friends and traveling companions of Renato, who organize shows and exhibitions in the gym premises. The Covid19 pandemic slowed them down and to comply with anti-contagion regulations they began to use outdoor spaces as well. The closures imposed in recent months have not dispersed the Heracles Gymnasium community. According to De Donato, the difference is made by the constant propensity for dialogue, which must never fail: «In other gyms you go in, do your exercises and go out. Here we want to recreate the old gymnasium ».
Now the founder looks to the next companies: first of all the construction of a stage, which does not make it necessary to “adapt” the hall every time there is a show. It will take time, some money will be needed, but then every effort finds its reward. Even the lion of Nemea was invulnerable, before meeting Heracles.