Welcome to The Roda at Planet Capoeira
Getting Older, Thinking Slower & Why Not To Flip
December 29, 2005 | Author: julien
We all have this inclination when starting a new past time, especially a physical one like capoeira, to start trying to learn as many cool new things you can to impress your friends with, to show them how tough you are. There. Now that I've said it, we can acknowledge that we were all thinking that, that it happened to all of us, and we can move on. And with that, an anecdote:
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Recently, I was told by my contra-mestra,
"I have players that train with me that still only come to the beginners' classes. They have been training, sometimes, for up to three years, and that's all they attend. These guys, they can play with anybody, because their foundations are strong. Even when our mestre comes, he usually only teaches the basics, he doesn't teach anything crazy."Now myself, I am from a capoeira regional background. I did it for a few years and now I'm starting over with an angola teacher. It's very challenging, and angola is a radical change for me. When I started, I wanted to do these crazy things, I wanted to balance on my hands and twist on my head and impress my parents when they asked me what I was doing. But having heard her say this, I am beginning to realize that there is no point to try and be hungry for 'cool moves' in this game. Slowly, as I practice, I am feeling the urge to learn them pass, and I'm liking it.
All this is probably for the best. I realize I'll learn what I do when I'm ready. I have to push myself, but pushing myself just so I can impress others with my flips, that urge is juvenile, and I have an impression that it's not what capoeira is about. Do you ever feel that way? Like there are levels you need to get to that nobody ever tells you about, these subtle things that mestres talk about but never tell you. These guys, these old guys of the velha guarda, are not impressed with your backflips; they are impressed with your observation and jogo de dentro, aren't they? They don't look at the young guys, the way I had started to, with a certain jealousy, thinking, "Why can't I be that flexible? Why can't I kick that quickly?" They have other levels entirely to think about.
So this whole affair is very funny. When you are a beginner, playing regional, you are always hungry to do what you see the advanced players doing: au sem mao, salto mortal, all that impressive stuff. But what I do now, there's nothing like that. The desire you feel, it is a desire to trick, to be more clever than your opponent. It's a huge change, but it's a change I'm enjoying. Besides which, I'm planning on playing capoeira for a while, and I won't be able to do those movements forever anyway!
Might as well plan for when I'm 50; what will I rely on then?
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