Capoeira

This past Sunday was my capoeira group’s batizado, which is where everyone gets a cordão (cord – think karate belts) and was a big event. But before I get too ahead of myself, let me back up and try to explain what exactly capoeira is.

So capoeira is a mix of dance and martial arts that was created by Afro-Brazilians in the days of slavery. While the history isn’t especially well-recorded, and there are many theories about its origins. It was also illegal in Brazil until the 1930s, which says a lot about the general attitude towards all things Afro-Brazilian back in the day (it’s much more celebrated now, not that that means Brazil is a racial democracy or anything – but that’s an issue for another day). So when capoeira is done (or jogado, em português) there are two people in the middle of a roda (cirlce) while everyone else stands around the circle clapping and singing. Music is also essential in capoeira; there are always people playing berimbaus, drums, and pandeiros (tambourines).

[Side note: It’s weird to talk about capoeira in English – there just aren’t translations for the names of most of the moves, and other things that sound normal in Portuguese (“jogei com o mestre”) just sound strange in English (“I played with the master”).]

But if a picture is worth a thousand words, a vídeo must be about a million, so here’s a couple of the guys from my class at the batizado.

Fica bonito, né? I should probably mention that the class I go to is for all levels, cause these guys are actually good, and I’m really terrible. But really though – at the batizado, I fell for what must be the oldest trick in the book (“look over there!”) and the mestre literally picked me up and carried me out the roda. Not a shining moment, but I have no more shame. And luckily there aren’t very strict standards for the first level, so I still got my cordão.

Capoeira class also manages to bring together the unfortunate combination of my general awkwardness, my uncomforableness doing things I’m bad at, and my inability to have normal conversations in Portuguese. Meaning I’m mostly just quietly trying really hard to do things that I’m not capable of, although I’ve improved at the whole communicating thing recently. (Also, it’s really unfortunate that Portuguese doesn’t have a word for awkward, since it would describe so many of my interactions in this country so well.)

And yet, I keep going back – I don’t have any illusions of becoming amazing at it, but I still manage to have fun and the community there is really great. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to be going back to playing ultimate soon, but I’m also glad to have tried something new while in Brazil and maybe I’ll even try to keep it up back at Brown. So this ended up being less about the batizado than I originally intended, but this is about all I have to say about capoeira for now.