<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Planet Capoeira Magazine]]></title><description><![CDATA[Articles]]></description><link>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/</link><copyright><![CDATA[Copyright Planet Capoeira Magazine]]></copyright><generator>sNews CMS</generator><item><title><![CDATA[On Capoeira Songs Part II]]></title><description><![CDATA[  By Raposa - Capoeiristas fall into two camps when it comes to singing capoeira songs in other languages. The people who are against it say that Portuguese is the traditional language of capoeira songs and we should preserve that tradition. They argue that the individual should change in order to learn capoeira, not change capoeira in order to suit the individual. Those who are in favor of singing in other languages say that capoeira has always evolved to adapt to its environment, and as capoeira spreads to other countries and cultures, non-Brazilian capoeiristas should be able to freely express themselves in their own languages. They argue that Portuguese wasn't the native language of capoeira's African creators, so why should we stick to it as "tradition"?  



  There are valid points on both sides, but I definitely support the first camp - I think we should keep capoeira songs in Portuguese, and I see many benefits to doing so.  

  First of all, the unity of the global capoeira community is at stake. Portuguese being the "universal language" of capoeira means that capoeiristas from all over the world can communicate with each other. Here in Brazil, I've met capoeiristas from France, Spain, Israel, Japan, and more -  and Portuguese is the link that allows us to converse, even though it's none of our native languages. I love knowing that I can go to Australia, Russia, Mexico, South Africa, or Greece and sing "meu facao bateu embaixo" and the chorus will respond, "a bananeira caiu"! If everyone started singing in their native languages, that intercultural connection through Portuguese would start to be broken.  

  Secondly; yes, it does require the non-Brazilian capoeirista to learn Portuguese. But this is a GOOD thing, ladies and gentlemen! It's one of the ways capoeira helps you grow as an individual: you learn a new skill, a new language, a totally new way of expressing yourself! There are things that I can only express in Portuguese because English just doesn't have the structure/vocabulary for it (the reverse is also true). Of course learning a new language can be difficult, and of course you won't understand a lot of the songs at first, but would you rather be practicing an art that challenges you and causes you to grow, or one in which everything is easily understandable and spoon-fed to you from day one?  

  Regarding the argument that if we really wanted to be "traditional" we'd sing in an African language; thus, Portuguese has no special standing. This reasoning sounds all noble, but I see several flaws in it. Yes, Africans created capoeira, but when the songs were added to the art, the songs were in Portuguese. The tradition of singing in capoeira is (relatively) recent; the earliest mention I've found of songs in capoeira occurs in Manuel Raimundo Querino's book A Bahia de Outrora (Bahia of the Old Days), written in 1916. He describes capoeira and capoeiristas, and includes a song which is in Portuguese. It's not formal, grammatically perfect Portuguese, and it contains words originating in African languages (such as moleque and marimbondo) but it's definitely Portuguese. In candomble, on the other hand, which came directly from Africa, the chants and terms are in Yoruban. For whatever reason, the capoeiristas who started the tradition of singing in the roda composed their songs in Portuguese - one possibility is that Portuguese was the only method of communication possible among capoeira's early practitioners since they came (or were descended) from different tribes, cultures, and languages in Africa.  

  Finally, I'd like to emphasize one point that I mentioned in the introduction: YOU must change in order to learn capoeira, not try to force capoeira to change in order to better suit you. If you accept the statement, "I don't understand Portuguese, so instead of learning it I'm going to sing in my own language in order to express myself", you can rapidly progress to: "I don't know how to play the berimbau, so instead of learning it I'm going to make the piano the main instrument in the roda" or, "The ginga is hard for me, so instead of practicing it, I'm going to 'express myself' in my own way by using a fixed and immobile stance". See how it rapidly goes downhill? Of course, the debate about which changes represent capoeira's natural evolution and which changes fundamentally discharacterize the art is a whole new can of worms that I don't want to open here. However, I hope I've provided some food for thought about the advantages of keeping capoeira songs in Portuguese.  

]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 14 Jul 2007 18:32:01 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/on-capoeira-songs-part-ii/</link><guid>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/on-capoeira-songs-part-ii/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Capeira Visitors Etiquette]]></title><description><![CDATA[  BY RAPOSA - Last week, an acquaintance of mine, let's call him "Lou" asked me where and when my angola group held classes, because he was interested in training. Lou is a fellow foreigner in Brazil (though not from the same country as me) and capoeirista of 5-6 years experience in a well-known and excellent contemporanea capoeira group. I gave him the info and he showed up at the next angola class and proceeded to make an idiot out of himself.  



  He showed up late, five minutes after the class had started - not exactly a great first impression. He asked the instructor (Daniel) if he could train, and Daniel said "Go ahead and jump in, but let's talk afterwards." After we finished stretching, Daniel put half the group on the bateria and had the other half split up into pairs to play. I was paired with Lou. He was rushing, playing a tad too fast for the relaxed berimbau toque, and I tried to slow him down and keep the pace of the game from accelerating and becoming aggressive. Although I was marking rather than completing my attacks, I clearly had the upper hand in the game; I was confounding and trapping him with my movements and marking him far more often than he was getting me. He was also playing weirdly: he would go for some really cheap shots on me (sudden foot to my face while I was upside down was one of his favorites), but then do strange things like not even bother to attempt to dodge or divert my chapas de frente (a.k.a. bencao), just standing there as I marked the kick right to his stomach.  

  Later we switched partners, and Lou's new partner started to make some justified corrections/suggestions on his game (which I had refrained from doing since I felt it wasn't my place). But instead of accepting and learning from this advice from a more experienced player, Lou started to get defensive and feel like he was being picked on. He also ignored advice from Daniel (who was going around observing and giving tips to everyone) and continued being a bit of a jerk in the games.  

  When the bateria changed hands, Lou asked to play berimbau. Daniel gave him the pandeiro instead. Lou felt slighted. Daniel made some gentle corrections to Lou's pandeiro technique, which irritated Lou because he thought he was already a pandeiro expert. And yet, once the bateria got going, Lou kept messing up on the pandeiro. Daniel had him switch instruments with me (I had been playing agogo), which Lou saw as a "demotion." This is when Lou stopped singing and started sulking - everyone else was putting their heart and soul into the music and contributing great positive energy, except for him. As soon as the atabaque player left, Lou dropped the agogo and jumped on the atabaque, where Daniel also made some adjustments to his technique. The subsequent expression on Lou's face made him look like he had just drank a caipirinha without sugar. After class ended, everyone gathered around the water cooler, chilling out and chatting about how great the music was. Instead of joining the conversation, Lou immediately grabbed the gunga and started showing off his berimbau skills, looking disappointed when no one paid him much attention.  

  Daniel went over to him and explained the group schedule and policy: namely, that he's welcome to train, it costs 30 reais a month, and that the group doesn't accept people who continue to actively train with other groups in the city - Standard Operating Procedure. I missed most of the conversation that followed, because I was talking with other people, but I could hear that Lou was getting all hostile and defensive, thinking that the angoleiros thought him inferior because he came from a contemporanea background, defending his group (which no one had attacked), claiming that he felt that Daniel sang "Eu sou angoleiro" to pick on him during the class, and other nonsense. He eventually ended in a huff, with the statement, "Well, I want to train angola here, but if you guys don't want me, well then that's it's up to you."  

  The reaction he provoked among the members of the angola group was more puzzlement/amusement than irritation; during his little post-training outburst, everyone had this look on their faces that said, "Dude! Why are you acting like this?" Later on, one of the group members told me, "I just didn't understand Lou! Did you guys get what he was so upset about?" I was embarrassed on Lou's behalf, and also a little annoyed since he was there at my, well, not exactly invitation, but I was the one who directed him to the class, so I felt like it reflected badly on me. It's like if you invited an acquaintance to a dinner party at your friends' house and your acquaintance turned out to have really bad table manners.  

  Angola and regional/contemporanea are different languages. Like Portuguese and Spanish, they have a ton in common in terms of roots, structure, and vocabulary thus enabling their speakers to communicate but undeniable differences in tradition and "flavor." If you speak one language well, you can't just assume you're an expert in the other.  

  I think that's what it came down to in Lou's case - ego. It's tough to go from your own group, in which you're considered one of the top dogs, one of the "good" players, and enter into a group of a different style, in which you're a beginner. Believe me, I know how difficult this is, because I went through it - I'm still going through it. One has to swallow one's pride, one's thinking-one-knows-everything-and-is-hot-stuff, and be humble and willing to be taught - after all, you're learning a different style, and you can't learn anything unless you let yourself be taught. My personal experience is that if one shows humility instead of being a know-it-all with an attitude, one is respected wherever one goes.  

]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:21:00 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/capeira-visitors-etiquette/</link><guid>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/capeira-visitors-etiquette/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Developing Expression in the Roda]]></title><description><![CDATA[  BY RAPOSA - Lately Daniel (my capoeira angola instructor) has been telling me to "work on expression" in my movements. Ever since I started training with him, he's periodically mentioned that I'm doing the movements correctly but with not enough expression, or with the wrong type of expression - i.e. regional/contemporanea expression as opposed to angola expression. The whole "expression" thing sometimes irks me, for a few reasons...  



  1) It's not one of those things that you can just make a decision to do all of a sudden. Like, if he tells me "protect your face during the negativa," or "bend your knee during this transition," I can just make up my mind to DO it. But expression is something that one develops naturally over time, by listening to the music and cultivating one's own unique way of moving in capoeira. If I'm told "Do the movement with more expression," as Daniel is fond of doing, it's not like I can go, "My bad! I forgot the expression. Now I'll put it in," and fix the problem just like that.  


  2) Speaking of developing naturally, I sometimes get annoyed at the hypocrisy of certain angoleiros who claim that capoeira is all about personal, individual expression, but then insist that you do everything EXACTLY the same way as them in every detail or else it's "wrong" or "not angola." This is akin to saying, "You're free to express yourself in any way as long as you do it in exactly the right way according to me." In this way, these angoleiros are just as guilty of the padronizacao (standardization) of capoeira as the cookie-cutter ABADA armies they so often criticize.  


  3) Part of the angola kinesthetic (or "expression" - basically, the way of moving) is having one's body totally relaxed and yet totally controlled, and I can't seem to get the hang of both these things at the same time. I need to figure out how to get more molejo and looseness in my body without actually being sloppy and off-balance, letting protection drop, and using too much movement that needlessly wastes energy.  

  For example: Daniel tells me to mix up my arm movements and be more creative with them in the ginga, then as soon as I try to do this he chastises me for leaving myself unprotected as he marks blows to my face and pokes me in the ribs. So I change my focus to being more defensive, still keeping my arms in perpetual motion but trying to always have one sweeping in defense of my face/neck region and the other sweeping in defense of my stomach/lats. And then he criticizes me for moving my arms in the same repetitive pattern, and also for not going on the offense at all.  

  Or: he repeatedly tells me that I look too solid and controlled in my movements, that I'm not "light" enough, that I'm doing everything with a firm, grounded, regional/contemporanea kinesthetic. So I try to relax my body even more and try to be looser and lighter, and end up almost tripping myself or falling over, and then I hear, "Calma mulher! You've got to control/dominate your body, otherwise you're going to be in big trouble in the game." But if I shift back to concentrating on controlling the movement, I get criticized for being too plodding, heavy, and firm again. Blah. I can't win.  

  ...but now that I've ranted about "expression," let me take a moment to praise it when it works well. The truly great masters don't insist that their students do everything exactly the same way as them down to the last minute detail; instead they free the students to practice and teach capoeira in their own unique ways. It amazed me how different the capoeira and even the teaching methods are of the three students of Pastinha with whom I've had contact (Joao Grande, Joao Pequeno, and Curio). And look at Bimba's students too: Acordeon's capoeira is different from Suassuna's which is different from Itapoan's.  

  One interesting quirk of "expression" (or maybe this is just a quirk of mine) is that capoeiristas who have really unique expression tend to evoke some sort of image in my mind by the way they move. Not by the way they PLAY - i.e. John does lots of kicks whereas Jane prefers lots of ground movements whereas Joe tends towards floreios, but by the way they MOVE. Here are some of the more memorable capoeiristas who have impressed me with the uniqueness of their individual expression/kinesthetic (note: the titles in quotes are not their apelidos, but the nicknames that I gave them in my head based on what they reminded me of):  

  - The "old man," a young guy at M. Valmir's school in Salvador who had this stuttering, doddering way of moving (and even a certain vacuous, semi-senile facial expression at times) as though he were a frail 80-year-old.
- The "rag doll," a girl also with M. Valmir's group, whose limbs and head tended to flop as though she were made of cloth; Raggedy Anne playing capoeira.
- The "lizard," Valmir's younger son who was extremely reminiscent of a gecko, like when you try to catch one and it suddenly twists itself in impossible ways to elude your grasp.
- The "monkey," a guy in my current group who moves extremely well on any combination of arms, legs, and head, and has kind of a goofy, monkey-like face to boot.
- The "feather," a girl in my current group who is super light on her feet and hands; every movement is landed so softly and noiselessly, and she seems to "float" around the roda like a feather lifted and carried by the wind.
- As for Daniel, the image he evokes in my mind is (this is going to sound weird, but bear with me) that of a pat of butter on a warm frying pan - slides around, can move either slowly or rapidly, but every movement is smooth and buttery, never jerky or erratic.  

  Anyway, let me close with a disclaimer that I didn't post this rant to criticize my instructor for correcting me. I'm more impatient with the lengthy time it takes to develop expression and annoyed with my inability to loosen my body as much as I'd like, as opposed to being annoyed at him. Thoughts/advice from all you readers would of course be welcome!  

]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 25 Feb 2006 18:10:00 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/developing-expression-in-the-roda/</link><guid>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/developing-expression-in-the-roda/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Capoeira in Popular Culture]]></title><description><![CDATA[  BY RAPOSA - In the last few years, we've seen an exponential increase in the number of capoeira's appearances in the media. Capoeiristas are divided on this issue: some celebrate capoeira's increasing recognition and popularity, while others worry that this process will bring about fundamental and damaging changes to the art.  

  Those who are in favor view any appearance of capoeira in popular culture as beneficial. They claim that capoeira's increased visibility helps advertise the art and encourage people to join. At the other end of the spectrum are those who argue that the media dilutes capoeira and presents a false image of it. They tend to accuse capoeiristas who are involved in these endeavors of "selling out," of sacrificing the art's traditions in order to make a few bucks. There's also the fear that capoeira will become the next trendy workout and end up a pale, commercialized version of its former deep and intricate self.  

  My own point of view falls somewhere in the middle. Allow me to elaborate some of my thoughts on this tough (and often touchy) issue.  



  Commercialization is definitely a danger to capoeira, as well as to any cultural tradition that begins to be marketed for profit. Before the 1930s, when no one was trying to make money off of it, capoeira was practiced for free and for fun. But things change as soon as dinheiro enters into the picture and capoeiristas start thinking about how to better market the art. Let's say that the more Mestre X emphasizes flips in his class, the more (paying) students sign up. Sooner or later, Mestre X will start to tailor his capoeira to fit the demands of the market. Some people point out that this is exactly how capoeira regional was created - Bimba packaged the art in a form that would be more palatable and attractive to his middle- and upper-class clientele. Whether he did this for the noble motive of winning legitimization for the art, for the selfish motive of getting rich, or both - and whether regional lost things that were essential to capoeira - is a whole other can of worms that I'll open another time...  

  However, I don't believe that every appearance of capoeira in popular culture should be frowned upon, because it DOES bring people into capoeira. We non-Brazilian capoeiristas are being hypocritical if we sit on our high horse about this aspect. How many of our first glimpses of capoeira involved a full-blown roda complete with all its music and ritual? I'm guessing very few. Instead we saw Only the Strong, or Eddy Gordo, or some guy practicing solo moves in the park; we were intrigued, and we sought out the art. Capoeira is so complex that it can't be fully understood in a lifetime; thus, I don't think we should get our panties in a bunch insisting on presenting a "complete" image of capoeira every time it pops up in a movie or music video.  

  What we must avoid at all costs is letting these one-dimensional IMAGES of capoeira that appear in the media become the REALITY of capoeira that we practice and live. I wouldn't condemn a group for giving a beautiful, floreio-filled capoeira performance at a halftime show, but I would be concerned if ALL their rodas were flips and no game. I wouldn't slap a capoeirista who pulls out his moves in a dance club (come on, we've all done it!) with the accusation of discharacterizing the art, but I would with an instructor who decides to dispense with the traditional instruments and use only techno music in his rodas. See the difference?  

  A special word about watered-down forms of capoeira such as "capoeira workout" classes. These, in my opinion, are the practices that most toe the line of changing the art in the name of profit. I would not join one myself, but I don't have anything against them AS LONG AS the instructor makes it clear that he or she is teaching a capoeira-based aerobics class and NOT capoeira. It could even help to give it a different name so that it doesn't get confused with the real art. It runs little risk of damaging actual capoeira as long as it's kept separate and distinct from it. If, however, instructors teach capoeira aerobics, or capo-jitsu, or floreio classes, and call what they're teaching "capoeira" - then we might have a problem.  

  In conclusion - it is both unreasonable and impossible to expect capoeira to appear in all its profound complexity whenever it appears in the media. Recognizing this, we can preserve the traditions of the art in our groups, so that the people who became interested after seeing "Ocean's Twelve" will find the real thing when they come visit us. Those who really grow to love it will stay, and will become phenomenal capoeiristas. I believe that those who truly seek capoeira will find it - even if they start out self-training or imitating Marc Dacascos - and the world will open up new paths and opportunities for them. By contrast, those who REMAIN training capoeira only to look cool, or only to fight, or to ogle the female capoeiristas, or whatever - these will never understand much about the art, even if they train under the best mestre.  



]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2006 18:25:00 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/capoeira-in-popular-culture/</link><guid>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/capoeira-in-popular-culture/</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[On Capoeira Songs Part I]]></title><description><![CDATA[  BY RAPOSA - When I first got into capoeira, I excitedly looked forward to learning the music. I had heard that capoeira songs constituted an important oral tradition, that they were a treasure trove of historical knowledge, philosophy, and wisdom. But when I started looking up lyrics and their translations, I was somewhat disappointed.  



  Jogo de dentro, jogo de fora / Jogo bonito esse jogo de angola
(Inside game, outside game / This game of angola is a beautiful   game)  

  Well, that's nice, but nothing terribly profound...  

  Vai voce, vai voce? / Dona Maria como vai voce?
(How are you, how are you? / Ms. Maria, how are you?)  

  Nothing earth-shaking there...  

  Oi sim sim sim, oi nao nao nao / Olha a pisada de Lampiao
(Oh yes yes yes, oh no no no / Look at the footprints of Lampiao)  

  Hmmm, oooooookay...  

  The more songs I learned, the more frustrated I became - their messages seemed simplistic, silly, inane, even nonsensical. I just didn't see anything meaningful in a song about a canary that flew away (Xo xo meu canario), a boat that overturned (A canoa virou marinheiro), or butter that spilled (A manteiga derramou).   

  Sure, I'd read about choosing a certain song to comment on the game - "A bananeira caiu" (the banana tree fell) if someone got taken down, or "Dona Alice nao me pegue nao" (don't grab me, Ms. Alice) if the players were grappling. However, that gave me a mental rather than an experiential understanding of how the songs were used in capoeira, and I remained unimpressed.   

  So I sort of shrugged, accepted the letdown, and moved on. I still made it a priority to learn songs and sing them enthusiastically in the roda; I did see their importance in contributing to the energy, even if I thought their meanings were rather stupid.  

  Time passed - a few years. In those few years, two things happened that turned my view of the songs around 180 degrees: 1) I learned Portuguese; and 2) I gained more time and experience in capoeira, and particularly in capoeira in Brazil.   

  First of all, knowing the language enabled me to hear and understand the songs much better. And I found that as I played in more and more rodas, I came to see and more truly comprehend - in a sense that I couldn't get from just reading about it - the awesome cleverness of choosing exactly the right song at exactly the right moment. It would be pointless for me to describe here any of the countless examples I've witnessed, because reading about it doesn't do it justice. Capoeira is most meaningful when it's lived and experienced, not examined and studied on paper.  

  Another thing I realized was the reason why most of the traditional songs only have a few simplistic lines - this allows the song leader freedom to improvise the verses. I've heard some incredible improvisations within "simple" songs - everything from giving a play-by-play commentary on the game to honoring the group's past three generations of mestres. I've heard some improvised verses that made me laugh and others that were so touching I almost cried. But this whole element was totally and completely lost on me before I learned to speak Portuguese.  

  More experience in capoeira also improved my ability to physically and mentally multitask. In the beginning, I couldn't even clap and watch the game at the same time - much less sing! When I was in the roda, so much was going on at once that I couldn't even pay attention to what song was being sung. But today, I find that the verses "reach" me in the middle of the roda, even when I'm very focused on the game. I can hear it if the lead singer is praising me, instructing me, mocking me, or warning me. It has added a new aspect to my game as I try to modify my play depending on what the song is telling me.  

  One final change. For my first few years in capoeira, I compiled song-sheets. My computer had several hundred pages of documents of capoeira songs, and I even experimented with writing songs on index cards and keeping them in a little alphabetized filing-box. However, nowadays I find that I rely much more on my memory and my ability to improvise than on written records of the lyrics. If I hear a new song or hear someone make up a cool new verse, I make a mental note of it but I no longer go write it down. Capoeira music is, after all, an oral tradition - you can bet that the generations of illiterate capoeiristas didn't preserve the tradition of the songs though alphabetized index cards.   

  Interestingly, it seems that my brain has its own filing system. The songs tend to get clumped into categories in my mind: I've got the "bird songs" (Xo xo meu canario, Pomba voou, Canarinho da Alemanha, Sabia cantou, Apanha a laranja no chao tico-tico, etc.), the "sailor/sea songs" (Mare mare, Marinheiro so, Saia do mar marinheiro, Beira mar, A canoa virou marinheiro, etc.), the "songs-with-a-woman's-name-in-them" category (Sai sai Catarina, Dona Maria como vai voce, Dona Maria do Camboata, Idalina, etc.)... I even have the category of "ai ai ai songs," which consists of Ai ai Aide, Ai ai ai ai Sao Bento me chama, and Ai ai ai ai doutor. It works surprisingly well - and it's much easier to keep track of, as I don't have to worry about losing my filing-box!  

  So if you're frustrated with the songs because you just don't "get" them or see their point - have patience! Give yourself more time to experience the use of the songs in the roda, and definitely learn Portuguese. These two things, for me, opened up a whole new dimension of capoeira.  

]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 23 Dec 2005 18:52:00 +0000</pubDate><link>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/on-capoeira-songs-part-i/</link><guid>http://www.planetcapoeira.com/blog/on-capoeira-songs-part-i/</guid></item></channel></rss>