Paolo Barrucci’s martial arts journey began in 1980 and has encompassed a wide range of disciplines, from Karate and Ju Jitsu to Aikido, traditional Kung Fu, Tai Ji Quan, Qi Gong, and meditation. For thirteen years, he devoted himself to the study of Chinese martial arts, eventually becoming a teacher himself. Alongside his martial arts practice, he has taught Sociology at university since the early 1990s, developing an educational approach based on listening, sharing knowledge, and active participation.
Despite his extensive experience, Paolo gradually became aware of a gap between the theoretical principles of internal martial arts and the practical possibility of cultivating them. In 2016, while listening to an interview with Master Mauro A. D’Angelo, he recognised a different perspective. He decided to meet him in person in Rome and, shortly afterwards, began his journey with DECODE.
This encounter marked a fundamental shift in his approach: techniques ceased to be an end in themselves and became tools for developing essential principles and physical qualities. In Master D’Angelo, Paolo recognised not only technical expertise and clarity of instruction, but also a rare willingness to continually question and reassess his own knowledge, exploring the depths of tradition without reducing it to rigid, unchanging formulas.
Since 2019, Paolo has been teaching DECODE programmes in the province of Pisa. Alongside his teaching, he continues his own education through DECODE Intensive Courses and the teacher training programme.
His university teaching experience finds a natural continuation in martial arts instruction. Rather than viewing the teacher as a distant authority, he sees teaching as a relationship between practitioners, in which one guides others along a shared path of learning. He carefully prepares and documents each lesson, listens attentively to individual difficulties, and openly acknowledges the limits of his own knowledge.
Paolo offers his students an accessible and progressive approach to practice, encouraging them to cultivate it even through brief moments of daily training, so that the principles explored during lessons can gradually become tangible experiences of personal transformation.