Meetings cancelled this week

It seems like people have a lot of work to do and can’t make it to class, so we’ll cancel class tonight.  We’re also cancelling on Thursday, because it’s right before spring break.

It works out for me because I’m not feeling too hot at all.

I hope y’all have a good spring break, and I’ll see you in two weeks.  Keep practicing while you’re on vacation!

No Demo, Pants, and a Video

no Apparently we won’t be doing a demonstration on the 28th anymore.  This is less than ideal, because I was looking forward to doing a demo, but that’s ok.  Hopefully we can get one set up for Charlie’s or something else before the end of the year.

Also, the pants are in!  Now you can look like a capoeirista, they’re guaranteed* to improve your game!

*no actual studies have been done to prove this claim.

Check out this video I found on YouTube yesterday, it’s insane. 

Seriously if you want to get new ideas for moves and combinations and such, watching videos on YouTube is a great thing to do.

New Video & Some Info

I made a new “sampler” video, check it out.

Also, we’ve been asked to do a demonstration on Wednesday, February 28th during the intramural basketball championship. We’ll be performing at about 9:30, but I think everyone should show up at 9 just to be there early and to warm up. It’ll be a good time.

Capoeira in the News

I thought it would be interesting to search for capoeira on Google News, and it was.

This is an interesting article about the fear that capoeira may lose touch with its Brazilian roots and culture, and become nothing more than a sport (like has happened to many Asian martial arts).  An excerpt,

“Capoeira has always been an oral tradition without any documentation of our history. There have been a lot of cases in the past where foreigners came and filmed and documented things so they are now better known abroad than in Brazil. We have to prevent that,” said Rubens Costa Silva, better known as Mestre Bamba.

. . .

To preserve capoeira’s Brazilian essence, the culture ministry has been documenting Capoeira’s mostly oral history, taking depositions from old masters and digging up old books and newspaper clippings, in preparation for an appeal to UNESCO later this year to recognize Brazilian capoeira as part of the “intangible heritage of humanity.” The distinction is meant to preserve cultural traditions needing protection in the face of globalization.

I think it would be pretty awesome to see capoeira recognized that way.  Even though I’m not Brazilian, I’ll never forget where capoeira comes from and what it means. 

[Mestre] Bimba even performed before President Getulio Vargas in 1937, a demonstration that led Vargas to declare capoeira Brazil’s national sport — a fact often forgotten in this nation of rabid soccer fans.

When I think of Brazil, I think of capoeira.  The two are the same.

If you come across any capoeira news, let me know!

Capoeira Fighter

I forgot about this game!

Capoeira Fighter is a flash game created by a member of CapuraGinga (my group).  This game is awesome, wicked fun.  I just wasted a bunch of time at work playing it, oops.

It’s awesome because its made by a capoeirista, so all the moves are genuine capoeira moves.  The coolest thing is, for me anyway, that I know some of the capoeiristas in the game.  Mestre Loka and Jamaica are in the game, and Jamaica even does his signature moves!

If you’re bored, you should definitely give this game a try.  Hey, maybe you’ll be able to learn a new move or two from it.