Capoeira Training Diary

Toshio, Rato, Camelo, eu, Arroz, Camelinha

🧲Using Benção as part of a controlling movement: partner is in diagonal or entre (parallel). Your Benção should aim to where their face is (not off to the side) then become meia-lua to make them move across to the other side (into escíva, esciva basica...)

⚱️maculelê rhythm.

🛠Uma sequência

Toshio, Rato, Bruce, eu, Arroz, Camelinha, Leão, Ticum.

🐈 It doesn’t matter age nor belt level, every single one of us can learn something from every other one of us.

🐉Uma sequência

Toshio, Queimado, eu, Gafanhoto

2 Fixes today:

🦀Entre/Lateral: Keep shoulders horizontal to the floor. I was always dropping my back shoulder and raising the front.

🐀Cadeira/Balança: Pull chest up so you can easily see in front. This helps your bum to go down into a better “sitting on a chair” position. I was trying to do this move with my back horizontal like entre, but that makes it difficult or even painful to look forward. Although we might move through the lowered position during balança, that should not be the base.

🐉 Uma sequencia

“VEM PRA RODA”——> com Dendê Maruo, Tokyo.

Rato, Queimado, eu, Arroz, Rainha, Ticum, Leão, berimbaus 1-2-3

🐞A small group of us went to participate in Dendê Maruo’s open roda, lead by Professor Neguinho.

🐢I played my first ever Angola game. Think I was actually just doing Benguela... I tried to stay low, but in hindsight it’s ok to stand tall in angola, but need to be super-loose and free in movement. Drunken-fist FTW!

I was one of the 2nd pair to open the Roda. That was pretty scary, so I tried to allow/reveal no hesitation or reluctance, and of course I enjoyed the Jogo. But my mouth went super-dry, and it became difficult to keep going.. I didn’t go in again after that. Almost, several times. But no.

🦄There were a lot of songs I’ve never heard.

Some I could pick up the basic lyrics.

Some that didn’t sound good and I don’t care to remember them.

And a few that spoke to me. Unfortunately the only one I do remember is, “Vem pra roda pro jogar”

~~~> This one was aimed directly at my (🐓) heart, as well as the many capoeiristas who came just to watch.

🐺While singing, Neguinho often said, “cadeira (galera?).” At first I thought he was talking to the players in the middle that were standing too tall for Angola... But now I think he was trying to get the people around the Roda - who were sitting on chairs at that time - to sing in the chorus.

Queimado, Olívia, Coco, eu, Vagalume

🍩Rolê is a good connecting/changing position move, but many people make these 2 mistakes.

At completion of rolê rise straight up. This is likely to lead to being kicked in the head. Instead stay low in balança until you can see it is safe.

Go straight from rolê to ginga. What a waste of a good floor movement! Connect some more moves, eg. entrei, negativa, deslocar, esciva-básica...

Toshio, Melancia, eu, Pavão

Uma sequência para dois:

A. B.

Meã lua de frente ➡️ Esqiva na cadeira

⬇️

Compasso uma poi

↙️ ⬇️

Esciva na cadeira ➡️ Queixada

↙️

Esciva de frente

⬇️

Martelo❗️ ➡️ Esciva de frente!

(Or die)

Toshio, Queimado, Olívia, eu, Rainha

Further advancing last week’s brief entry about “letting go”.

🌝Smile while playing. It may disarm or really disturb your opponent. But it also helps to remove the tension in your body. This is a good thing, because holding your body rigid requires a lot of energy, and will quickly exhaust you. A smile also looks a lot better than a huff-n-puff face..

Become the (non-drunk) 🍶drunken-master.

🐒 Macaco tips:

Don’t jump from your feet, but rather lead with your belly-button. Imagine it pulling the rest of your body and legs through the arc. This will help your body to open up and stretch out.

Leading with the knees or feet makes the macaco very small and closed. Actually there are times for that but in general big and open movements look better.

🍪I had an idea during warmup. While stretching or jogging we can move other body parts. Particularly small flection-relaxation movements. For example, while stretching arms across the chest/shoulder, I squeeze-relax my fingers, or flex-extend my wrists.

In my theory this does various things.

It incorporates extra muscles in the stretch.

So it also (slightly) increases calorie usage.

It might make a passive stretch more active by moving while stretching.

By changing the position it brings more parts of each muscle into the stretch.

Rato, Queimado, eu, Rainha, Arroz, Pavão

💥 Let goooooo

Relax and flow with your partner’s movements. It will look and feel so much smoother.