Its 6:05 PM and I’m hurrying out the door to my capoeira group. Capoeira is the traditional fight-dancing art of Brazil, and my exercise of the day. I’m a bit late but, luckily for me, I’m in Brazil where ten minutes late is right on time. I’m conspicuously dressed in white stretchy pants and a white singlet with the name of the capoeira teacher printed in black. The streets are dark except for the occasional dim streetlight and I trip on the uneven stones as I make my way down the street.

I arrive and surprisingly the group is getting started. The capoeira instructor welcomes me with a handshake and a kiss on the hand, as usual. I kick off my dusty flip-flops, and hurray to the back of one of the 3 lines facing the instructor. The techno-dance music starts and we start hopping in place, eventually doing a series of aerobic dance moves as a warm up. I love it, and have a hard time not grinning though the exercises that would seem more fitting in an 80’s work out video than a class for a traditional fighting art. This incongruous warm-up ends as we form a circle on the partially enclosed patio and sit down.

Capoeira is hard to describe if you’ve never seen it before. It looks like Karate, break-dancing, gymnastics, and an exaggerated Latin dance all rolled into one. Capoeira began during slavery days in Brazil when the enslaved blacks, in an effort to preserve their culture and maintain their physical capacity to fight, began practicing traditional African fighting moves. The white owners soon caught on and squashed their efforts. Capoeira in its dance-like form today evolved as a way to practice fighting under the radar of the slave owner. The smooth coordinated moves looks less like fighting and more like a two-person ballet, a quality that provided for the survival of art.

As we sit the professor and some of the students set up the instruments. Imagine a heavy halibut fishing-pole with the tension on the line very tight and the lure hooked near the reel, making the pole curve. Now imagine the pole becoming a piece of wood, and the line turning into wire. The reel then swings to the other side of the pole and turns into a coconut gourd. It is the rhythmic twang of this instrument, the berimbau, in combination with drums and tambourines, that create the music on which the movements are based.

The music starts. Two people enter the circle, touch hands briefly and start playing. One kicks and the other ducks and then returns to the upright position and kicks in one fluid motion. The speed increases and soon the ground under me is vibrating as the fighters return to earth after a spin kick into the air. I can smell the dust flying off their feet as the kicks and ducks come faster and faster. Soon they are moving as a single tumbling ball, while those in the circle clap and sing with the occasional shout of encouragement.

The instructor motions for me to enter the circle. I hesitate but stand, brushing the dust off my bottom, and walk towards the entrance of the circle. People always ask if I'm good at Capoeira, and I say that I’ve just exited the Very-Awkward Stage and entered the Awkward Stage. I make eye contact with my opponent, who is ten years old, and then clumsily cartwheel into the circle. I duck as my young partner swings around for a kick. I right myself while keeping with the rhythm of the berimbau and take a kick myself. The boy is much better than me, and he kindly motions that I should imitate his movements. At first this dynamic was humiliating; The ten year old teaching the 24 year old. But I have grown to love the absence of hierarchy. I find it refreshing to be in an environment where the experts play with the beginners, and children have all the confidence and savvy needed to teach adults.

After a few more kicks and ducks, a teenage girl claps her hands and takes over my position fighting the boy. I find an open place to sit in the circle and breathing hard, gratefully lower myself to the ground. I look to the side and receive an approving grin from my neighbor. I sigh with the relief of surviving, and grin back.

by Rachel Samuelson