I’m feeling quite
sore. Last night I Capoeirad. If you don’t know what Capoeira is think of
those blokes that are swinging their legs over each other in the BBC continuity
bit. Or the mobile phone ad where
they’re on the beach. If you’re still
not sure, you might like to think of it as Acrobatic No Contact Karate Dancing
Time.
I arrived to see a
group of excited people waiting outside a dark community hall. Somehow it felt like the meeting of some
dangerous underground society. I don’t
know how. Don’t ask me. We got changed in what seemed to be a
recently excavated 19th Century kitchen. T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms and bare feet. The ceramic floor was freezing and I moved
quickly into the hall and it’s wooden floor.
The wooden floor was freezing.
We queued up and paid,
10 Euods for 1 class, 30 for 5. I just
went for the one class. We’ll see how
it goes. Then I was just standing round
the hall waiting for the rest to pay and getting nervous about what was going
to happen next. I felt a little bit
like a gladiator waiting for the battle.
“Whatever comes through those gates, we’ll stand a much better chance if
we stick together.” The experienced
were warming up with some cartwheels.
So cartwheels seemed to be something to do with it. Instead I looked at the backdrop for
somebody’s school play which was up on the stage. It appeared to be a town scene.
First came the warm
up. Thick and fast. Running around the hall in a line. Now run sideways, now run backwards. Now spinning. Now cartwheeling. Now
jingaing. Jingaing is kind of sweeping
your foot behind you and going from foot to foot like this, and also swinging
your arms in the opposite direction.
It’s the basic move of Capoeira.
It’s the stand-by move. From
there comes all the exciting stuff.
The warm up went on for
quiet some time. I was more worn out
than warmed up by the end of it.
Jumping, crouching, stretching.
Extensive. I was also very
dizzy. Now it was time to begin. We split up into classes, based on
experience. In the beginners class we
were put in rows. The instructor showed
us a move and we practised it over and over.
It’s quite like line dancing or something. Step, step, crouch, kick.
Then we paired up and did the moves together. I did one move and my partner did the corresponding one. I kick, he crouches.
Towards the end the
teacher started batting a tambourine and everyone crowded around. Uh, oh.
This was it. They were going to
expose me for the fraud I was. “What is
the password for the house?” We stood
around in a circle and the instructors started clapping and singing a
song. And then everyone joined in. The words were something like La-la-la, but
I still couldn’t follow them. Then
people started to combat each other in the centre. Combat each other with dance.
Two at a time they’d jinga and kick and crouch and cartwheel at each
other. If there was a winner I couldn’t
tell who it was. Impressive but
actually a bit messier than I expected.
When one kicked the other didn’t always crouch. Thus spoiling the symmetry of the
thing. My favourite bit was when
someone joined a fight. By hand signals
you could take over from somebody and face up to the person they had been
battling. “Leave him to me, I’ll take
care of this guy. Hey buddy, why don’t
you pick on someone you own size?
- Hah! Yeah, how do you like that?
Not so tough now are you.” With
out actually hitting them of course. Or
saying all that stuff. It was all done
through cartwheels.
Good fun. A good experience. But I’m not sure I’ll go back.
To be honest I was just doing it to pick up women and there’s got to be
an easier way than that surely. Next
week, I’ll try a still life class or something.
What’s that? You wanted to know about the history of
Capoeira? How did it get started? Where’s it from? To be honest with you I couldn’t be arsed. You can Google it as well as I could. Go look it up for yourself.