Sure, some of us think about them, but Joao went through with it.

I am currently in Austin, TX. My girlfriend lives here, and I’ve been staying at her place for the past month. There’s a nice capoeira angola group here, headed by a teacher called John, whose teacher was Mestre Jurandir.

I’ve been told for years by teachers to be careful when in other people’s rodas. They say not to reveal all of what you can do, to play defensively, until you have a good idea of what they’re about. I have found this advice to be largely helpful, despite going against it a few times.

One of the reasons for this is that capoeira players really believe that the method their teacher plays is the ‘correct way’ - something I believed when I started playing Regional three years ago and still somewhat believe now, under Mestre Jogo de Dentro. There is no true way of playing capoeira, however. You find this out as you play with a variety of important mestres, seeing them play, and coming to realize that their styles are just one facet of capoeira.

This, I believe, makes the game all the more fascinating.

That said, one of the best ways to absorb some of the ways different capoeira mestres play is through YouTube. I’ve had amazing results just looking around, watching mestres such as Moraes, Cobra Mansa, and Joao Grande on the site. Do some searches, you’ll see.

See you guys soon– I’ll try updating more often.

Anyway, these look like really decent magazines. I’ll definitely review them more thoroughly when I’ve gotten through them, but I’m finding the interviews to be the most insightful so far. The training sections look like they will appeal mostly to regional players (for those that recall, I used to be one), but I’ll definitely look through the whole thing as thoroughly as possible and give readers an idea of what to expect.

Also, I will only rarely be cross posting my blog entries, so subscribing to this feed will not get you everything I write about capoeira. Pick up both and get some additional reading! I am making it one of my goals this year to read a book a week, and also to read more in general, and I hope you’ve also set up some goals for yourself. If you have, let me know what they are!

In case you want to follow up on posts that are written either here or at that blog, remember that it’s possible to subscribe either with an RSS reader (like NetNewsWire for me, on my Powerbook) or with an online subscription service like Bloglines (all free, of course). If you are looking to figure out how to do this, there are plenty of introductions to syndication via RSS, such as this one, that will teach you the time-saving advantages of syndication on the web. And if you find yourself looking for my RSS feed in order to subscribe, it can be found here.

My old capoeira regional group used to do batizados about once every year. The event was always very special and emotional for people like me; I love capoeira, and participating in the baptism of new students in our school, as well as having the opportunity to watch visiting teachers play together, was a tremendous experience. It was also accompanied by a troca de corda (change of cord), where students would reach their new graduation level (or, on occasion, beyond that!) and get recognized for the hard work they had gone through all year. Everybody is happy at batizado time.

It may be different in your school, but in our case, that time of year would be the only opportunity we would have to see our mestre. Needless to say, this added even more intensity to the few days we had with him; we had workshops where we were taught directly the founder of our school, got to speak to him at length afterwards, maybe even get to know him on a personal level. For a new student, particularly a non-Brazilian one with limited exposure to the roots of capoeira, this is incredible. I would recommend taking every opportunity you can to go to every class during this period, since they don’t happen that often.

So what should you expect if you’re about to have a batizado? If this is your first such event, you’re probably going to get a capoeira name, or apelido. This is the nickname that you’re known by throughout your capoeira ‘career’ (assuming you’re in the same school the whole time). Our apelidos were always given out by our mestre specifically, after he had gotten an idea of what you were like as individuals. They are names like macaco, which represent an aspect of your character. You likely won’t get the nickname you expect though, I assure you that, and sometimes you might even be thrown off by what you’re named. In these cases, you usually grow into it, so don’t stress.

It is worth adding that, while they do have events of this type, capoeira angola groups often do not have batizados per se, nor do the students always have nicknames (although some may). In the case of my current group, there is neither. So, while it is a popular ritual that capoeiristas engage in, it is by no means universal. I’m still not sure where it came from, where the first one can be said to have been, or any historical data whatsoever, for that matter. Maybe that’ll become clearer in the future; I am starting to realize, however, that in capoeira very few things ever become truly clear.

also, since my girlfriend, a linguist, is asleep right now, so she’ll have to correct the details of this post after it has been published.

when i first took capoeira, i started learning a bit of portuguese here and there by trying to randomly memorize vocabulary that i heard in capoeira songs. i assume this is how most people start, and yet, many of the students in classes i attended had a lot more difficulty than i did, despite having more experience in general. although this could be because i speak french, these classes were in montreal, where a majority of people also do. i hope that isolating the things that worked for me can help readers improve upon their acquisition.

since i am a podcaster by day, as well as a capoeira player by night, my first instinct was to move towards audiobooks as a natural tool for learning. it turns out my instinct was correct. although the pickings are scarce due to the language’s lack of popularity (in terms of interest for learners), i did pick up two good audiobooks on audible.com - here and here. these are particularly good if you have an ipod or other portable device. both use words and phrases to help with comprehension, and are far more affordable and helpful than a once-a-week tutor, and allow you to bring it around and use it on a work break or other opportunity-impoverished period of your day.

learning vocabulary, by the way, should not be your first priority. your first priority should be learning just enough vocabulary (say, twenty words) to get you to understand the most basic of sentences and creating real sentences. the grammar of the language is what makes it alive, and sticking words together in an order that makes sense to an english speaker is not going to make the best results (though it’ll do in a pinch). so reading as many complete sentences as possible should be one of the things you work towards very early. after that, work on vocabulary to expand what you can say with the sentence structure you have become familiar with by then.

one of the things i tried for a long time, and that didn’t work at all, is to hire a private tutor. i did this early on, and it left with me with very little additional help in relation to the money i was spending. it’s unfortunate, but i ended up spending several hundred dollars that could have best been invested elsewhere, when what i really should have been doing is just putting in the necessary time. so one of the earliest lessons i discovered (the hard way) is that it’s work, not money, that will get them the comprehension they are looking for. this work usually is best done daily in small amounts, not in big lumps, as most books will tell you. short daily rehearsals will definitely get you better results than cramming, which is a massive waste of energy. once again, those breaks while waiting for the bus are your friend.

i also picked up a couple of books. one came with two CDs and it was ok, and the second came with a wonderful set of stickers to put around your house. although i’m way beyond that level now, i do still have my espelho sticker on the mirror, as well as the fogao sticker on my oven. these were very helpful, and i highly doubt you’ll forget any of the words you end up having stickers for. getting the sticker to stay on your cat is another story (yes, there really is one).

one of the things you should probably know about learning from books is that almost everything you buy is going to be focused on portuguese from Portugal. this isn’t highly problematic, but when you’re starting out, it can be confusing. consonants in traditional portuguese are very hard and usually stop dead, while brazilian ones usually are mushed together. as an example, the common word ending -de:

port: deh (more or less)
braz: dji

you’re probably thinking, ‘whaa??‘, but trust me, you’ll get used to it. for now, just try and relax your mouth away from those hard endings, and remember that you’ll inevitably be a little embarrassed. the faster you make your first thousand mistakes, the faster you’ll be able to correct them. try to act like a woman, rather than a man, in a (straight) dance club: the men make barely any movement or just lean against the wall to ensure what they believe to be maximum coolness, and the chicks end up making out with each other on the dance floor after dancing the night away. only one of them ends up learning how to dance, and it’s not hard to see who ends up having more fun. good luck!

i find it interesting to note that, right now, if i type ‘capoeira blog’ into google, i get almost no hits whatsoever that describe personal experiences as relate to the game (although planet capoeira just gave itself a nice makeover). i found this frustrating when i started a little over two years ago, and i’m finding equally frustrating now. so my new personal goal is to get myself onto the first page for these kinds of searches. i want to give valuable information to people looking for it on the web. i’ll start working on this, slowly. […]

My purpose is to document the process, to make people aware of what is happening along the way. It is not to replace any other current source on capoeira, of which there are a few). I am far from a mestre, but I try to learn as if I would become one, as if I will one day need to teach capoeira to students, someday, somewhere. While this may never occur, I have found that it does help me learn and, maybe in a small way, I’ll be helping my future readers learn as well.

If you need a little bit of disclosure about who I am, I am currently a capoeira angola student, but one that has taken over two years of capoeira regional. While I enjoy what I practice, I do not fit the stereotype of a ‘typical’ angola student¹, as it is known by regional players; that is to say, self-righteous and elitist about ‘roots.’ My knowledge of Portuguese is fair, though not fluent; in fact, I intend to share a few tips about language acquisition with you, in hopes that it’ll help you move along with understanding the songs and language that surrounds capoeira.

Whatever you come here for, I hope to be able to communicate my love of the game with all readers, and welcome comments about this or any other topic.

¹: As such, this is not a blog about capoeira angola; it endeavours to be about capoeira as a whole.