Capoeira
Brazilian Martial Art Derived From Suppression of a Free Peoples
Capoeira has always been one of my favorite martial arts possibly because it’s the least like a martial art at a glance, and yet one of the hardest martial arts to exist. One that demands its own movements and life philosophy. Capoeira demands that you develop a different relationship to your body and the earth you stand on. It asks you to leave the ground and look upside down often.
It’s different and fun.
I had run into the art on different occasions, writing it off because it didn’t make me tougher.
At the time, I thought being tough was important.
It is.
Just not in the order I considered.
As a man, you should know what it’s like to take a few punches and keep on moving. Fighters have been passing on the vital information for ages and it echoes on in the great martial artists of today. But being the toughest guy on the block is fucking stupid.
Tough…is a personal journey. I hate to put it that way because some of the ridiculous reframes I see on Substack really piss me off. But toughness is a personal journey. You have to learn to be tough for moments that require it, and for people who can’t move on without you showing it. It’s important to have the ability to be a threat, as an option. But when you make it the ‘go-to’, you have to take regular intervals to step back and see if it’s making you a monster.
Capoeira is tough.
Meaning it’s hard.
It’s a game that requires a lot of change, flow, strength, creativity, and presence.
But that’s what makes it awesome.
It’s hard in a growth and experience kind of way.
It doesn’t require you to self destruct or break bricks.
It doesn’t ask you to draw blood.
As far as I am aware, Capoeira is an art born in Africa, and then popularized in Brazil.
Slavery and oppression were still accessible like a can of coke, and the oppressed found a new way to stay in the game.
They did it by practicing a martial art disguised as a traditional dance or game.
There are people clapping, playing instruments, and singing in…
The roda.
Any space where you see two men practicing capoeira is the roda.
Imagine being surrounded by men with guns who are ‘discouraging’ violence.
Having very little space to stay strong, it had to be created.
That space is the roda…a very important space.
A space that can appear anywhere there is intention to play Capoeira.
If you were in a gym practicing kicks and punches, there was a real life possibility of getting killed for it.
Imagine that.
Killed for the desire to be strong and safe in your own skin.
I’d fucking flip out.
But that’s how they did it.
Now that the space was made, the game could be played.
A striking difference between Tae Kwon Do and Capoeira is the flow of the game.
A hard style like Tae Kwon Do is direct. Two fighters face off and they know why they are there. Each move is clearly meant as an offensive movement.
In Capoeira, you don’t know. And that’s the point. A single offensive movement can be shrouded in flow moves that seem playful and harmless. A great trap to set in a fight.
Now…I don’t want to go to far with the martial art and exaggerate its practicality.
Does it work?
Yes.
For every scenario?
No.
I have to consider that MOST martial arts do not even bother to train in application nearly as much as the more popular ones.
Boxing.
Muay Thai.
Karate and Tae Kwon Do.
Jiujitsu.
The aforementioned are amazing because the founders built the culture of using these martial arts in real-life scenarios where you had to learn, or it was your ass getting kicked.
A lot of other martial arts that argue effectiveness, frankly, don’t spar nearly as much as they should to explore what works and what doesn’t.
Kung Fu. - All Kinds.
Karate and Tae Kwon Do. (Depending on the school. If you know, you know. But it’s the difference between a Cho’s TKD which does a lot of Olympic style sparring and American Tae Kwon Do Association that docks points for hitting some one too hard, or sometimes at all.)
Wu Shu.
Wing Chun.
Capoeira.
I want to be clear.
Learning Capoeira will not translate into real fights until you, at the very least, create real fight scenarios and test what you know.
I’m 43 years old.
I know the kind of wear and tear that comes from hard sparring and taking hits.
You feel it for days.
You walk a little bit like you’ve been injured, because you have been.
The body you have takes time to fully recover and most of us don’t have magical float tanks or saunas to increase that recovery speed.
Although I highly recommend looking into DMSO.
But I love the martial arts and wanted an option to keep moving and staying strong while minimizing the chance for concussions.
Capoeira is the big winner here.
It reteaches your body to be young and limber.
Basic moves that throw the average guys back out are practiced…a lot.
Crouching, standing, bending, swaying, walking, turning, etc…
Imagine all the moves that your physical therapist has you do with those stupid stretchy bands for 10 minutes before charging you 500 bucks.
Capoeira covers all that, and then some…to music.
It’s equipment free.
You can bring the roda anywhere.
I don’t really like the idea of NOT doing it to some kind of music…but even that stands as an option.
This series will likely involve posts on the history as I explore it further, and instructional posts that I will release as I improve. Of course, there’s always YouTube if you want to learn. I guess doing it like this gets you a little closer to the action, so to speak.
So…wish me luck as I step into what may be the last martial art of my entire life.