Capoeira: Respeito

If I had a nickle for every time someone said, "Capoeira looks good but I don't think it's an effective martial art," I'd be a rich man. Of course, as I became more experienced with Capoeira, I would proceed to demonstrate how effective it is. This weekend while training with Tuzinho, he discussed perception. It was tremendously practical to what we went over. In any martial art, you want your opponent to perceive you about to execute another movement, feint, and then attack. It's how you win a battle right? Sometimes sheer strength and speed is not enough.

Too many people perceive capoeira as just an art and not Martial culture. It's a dance to most people even to it's practitioners. I encounter many professional dancers who have taken a class or two and then list themselves as a "capoeirista." That is a lack of respect for Capoeira. There are many reasons for this. If we expect anyone to respect Capoeira as a martial art, we should try to attack these particular issues.

Of course like most problems we face today, there is historical context. There is also what is called myopia, where we assume that certain things happened several hundred years ago without providing any proof whatsoever. It's a way people like to harken back to the old days of yore when in actuality much of what they assumed happened in the past didn't happen that way at all. If Capoeira was not an effective Martial art, would it have survived slavery? If it was not effective, would I be practicing Capoeira today? There are several forms of martial arts that never made it to the modern times. There are forms of kung fu or karate that people stopped practicing for a number of reasons most notably because the practitioners died off. So if Capoeira was inferior or not up to snuff, we might not be even discussing it. Don't get me wrong, there are styles within Capoeira that are no longer around. Yes, there are more than one style of Capoeira.

There is a myth that we really can't pinpoint as to the origin of it that needs to be addressed. People, not historians, often say that Capoeira was disguised as a dance so that the slave masters wouldn't recognize it. I am so glad that the movie Besouro addressed this matter when the villains pointed out to the capoeiristas that they know what they were doing. It's like that myth that slavemasters removed the belts from their slaves so that their pants would sag and they wouldn't run (as if our ancestors weren't smart enough to just make another belt or use rope!). It's not true and no one can prove it. The dance part was put into Capoeira in the early part of the 20th century because of the later influence of Candomble. Before this, moves like the ginga were not a part of Capoeira. In several parts of Brazil, most forms of African culture were banned except in places like Bahia which is still considered the heart of Africa in Brazil. No matter the origin of this myth, it puts into people's heads that Capoeira is just a dance. So people perceive it as such. Once we consider it a dance, everything else falls by the wayside. That's why people trip when someone walks away from a roda beat and bloodied.

Part of the blame falls on the practitioners. We continue to treat it more of an artful dance and tend to ignore the martial aspects of it. We usually accept everything we are taught and question none of it. We assume Capoeira has always been this way. We promote the unifying and good things about capoeira and neglect the deceptive and bad parts about it. Yes, it's delusional. When someone deliberately kicks someone else in the face, we cry out that this isn't capoeira. Even African Americans treat slap boxing like a martial art as simple as it is. While its all in jest, slap boxing teaches the practitioner how to box. Sometimes slapboxing is fun and sometimes it leads to a real fistfight but that's the point of it.

As Americans we have this fetishizing of all things foreign. We do the same thing to Capoeira. We see a Brazilian and we automatically assume that they have this "in" when it comes to Capoeira. Like they can explain all the aspects of Capoeira. Let me say this, the most experienced Capoeira can't tell you everything about Capoeira. They are not ancient men who can float. Brazilians are people just like me and you and have just as much to share with us as we do with them. We treat Brazilian Capoeiristas like greek gods. They bleed just like us and make mistakes just like we do. We treat Capoeira like a religion because it is foreign to us. We think that once we start playing capoeira we become part of some mystic circle of shaman. Well, we don't. We are still the same people we were before we started playing capoeira. We might be a little smarter and know some more stuff than the average bear but Capoeira does not give us deeper insights as to the secrets of life.

If we want folks to respect Capoeira, we have to respect it first. We have to study as much as we can about it. We have to look at the good as well as the bad. We have to stop treating it like a religion and see it for what it is: a martial art. As a Martial Culture created by oppressed peoples for liberation and then later used by the same people to tear sh*t up.