Shayna McHugh
November 2005

1) Clever singing. When a song fits perfectly with the game – especially when it’s improvised! – whether it be commenting on the game/players or giving them instructions. This element is a little bit lost if you don’t yet speak Portuguese… but for me, when I learned the language and started to understand the interactions between the songs and the games, it added a whole new dimension to capoeira.

2) Theatrical capoeiristas. You know the type: the ones who are as much actors as players, who you always love to watch. Two people who immediately come to my mind are Mestre Batata (Capoeira Besouro, Los Angeles) and Mestre Lua Rasta (Salvador, Bahia) – both are innovative, expressive, and often downright goofy in the roda.

3) Amazing and unexpected takedown conversions. Especially when a student swoops in for some takedown on a mestre, and the mestre turns it around on him so quickly that the student doesn’t even know what’s happened until he has hit the floor. I also love when the mestre acts surprised, like, “Whoops, did *I* do that?”

4) The full bateria of capoeira angola. The first time I really heard it was at the academy of Mestre Valmir (FICA) in Salvador. The berimbaus were well-tuned to each other, and I could hear each one distinctly – whoever was on the viola was really making it sing. Combined with the voices of all the other instruments, the result was music so complex and beautiful I couldn’t believe my ears.

5) Great players with disabilities. There’s one guy in my capoeira angola group here in São Carlos who’s missing his left arm below the elbow. However, he does everything – aú, queda de rins, ponte… what really made my jaw drop was seeing him jump into a handstand and lower himself into a headstand. Also, Mestre Mica in Salvador, who needs a crutch to walk, yet is untouchable in the roda. He never goes to the ground or goes on his hands, but he has the fastest and trickiest standing game I’ve ever seen. He uses the crutch as though it was a 3rd leg, and will poke you, kick you, or trip you with it.

6) Leading singing when the roda’s really into it. The games are good and the axé is high, and when you’re leading singing you can feel such a strong exchange of energy. This just makes the games even better, which makes the singers give even more, and the cycle continues.

7) When a mestre calls YOU to play. When you’re at some big event with visiting instructors, and some mestre invites you, specifically, to the foot of the berimbau, or cuts out another mestre to play with you!

8) Floreios in the context of the game. Flipping into the roda doesn’t count – I’m talking about floreios used for their original purpose: to lure the other player, who thinks you’re vulnerable, into a trap. I love this video clip where Mestre Moraes goes into a relógio and the other player, thinking he’s safe, does a bananeira on the other side of the roda. Mestre somehow sees this from his relógio and, in a fraction of a second, finishes it and shoots over to give the guy a cabeçada.

9) Mestres who are respected because people like them, not fear them. The type who hang out with their group outside of class, who make a point of getting to know all the new students, who train hard but have a sense of humor and perspective, who are dedicated to their students and love them like children.

10) Watching someone who you introduced to capoeira get really into it. When you were the one who blew away all their “I could never do that” arguments and dragged them to class and helped them through their first awkward ginga and au, and then a couple of months, a couple of years down the line you see them studying Portuguese, leading singing, playing great games, traveling to Brazil.

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10 Things That Annoy Me

1) Takedowns into the bateria. Taking someone down is fine, even taking them out of the roda is, well, a lesser evil (I still think it’s a little mean), but for goodness’ sake don’t take someone down into the bateria. It’s dangerous for both the roda players and the instrument players, it disturbs the rhythm and energy of the music, and it has the potential for breaking the instruments.

2) Players who ‘flee’ from you in the roda. You’re trying to play a close game where kicks are at least within range, and they keep distancing themselves, forcing you to keep advancing and feel like you’re being aggressive. This especially applies to very experienced players who want to use the fact that they’re playing with a less experienced player (i.e. a player who is no threat) to distance themselves and show off their floreios. ARGH I hate this.

3) People who ‘play down’ to you. Advanced capoeiristas who, although you are several years’ experienced in capoeira yourself, play you as though you were a first-week newbie – throwing kicks paaaaaaaiiiiiinnfully slow and the like. The only time this is justified is if you are playing like an idiot or doing too many floreios and you need a reminder to be brought back to basics. But otherwise, play me on my level… you don’t talk to a teenager in the same way you’d talk to a toddler.

4) The “rastelo” – the rasteira which is more like a martelo to your lower leg. A properly executed rasteira is a slick hook-and-pull trip that’s so smooth you barely feel anything; it certainly shouldn’t leave you with bruises around your ankles. Understandable that a newbie won’t have the skill to do the rasteira correctly, but I’ve gotten rastelos from instructors, especially when I piss them off and they want to teach me a lesson.

5) Half an hour (sometimes more) of non-capoeira warm-up and exercise in capoeira classes. I’m a big proponent of using capoeira, slow and controlled, as a warm-up for capoeira. The best classes I’ve taken either do only capoeira, or do about 10 minutes of stretching at the beginning. I hate wasting time with a huge session of stretching, jumping-jacks, and other non-capoeira exercises… might as well be in an aerobics class.

6) An uncomfortably, excessively wide and long ginga. In my opinion (and Mestre Decânio’s and Mestre Damião’s and many other mestres’), the ginga should be not too much longer than a normal step. Yet some instructors insist on shoving my base foot so far back I’m practically in a lunge position; this is actually less stable, not to mention it makes your muscles work way harder than they need to. No way am I gingando like that in the roda!

7) Grappling in the roda. Cross-train in jiu-jitsu if you want, but PLEASE don’t use it in the roda. It’s ugly, it doesn’t fit, and it tends to kill all the energy. The great Mestre Bimba himself, to whom the grapplers often point to as an example of someone who added blows from other martial arts to capoeira, discouraged grappling in the roda, saying that the good capoeirista never lets himself be grabbed.

8) Ri-freaking-diculously large rodas at batizados and other multi-group events. More than about 35 people and your roda is too big, in my opinion. Especially if you have a whole crew of high-level players and instructors who hog the roda, who get bought out and immediately jump back to the foot of the berimbau, and no one can buy them out because they’re high-level players. At all the best capoeira events I’ve attended, the mestres split up the capoeiristas into 4 or 5 rodas; this way, beginners can play mestres, mestres can play mestres, and everyone gets the chance to play without chaos and resentment.

9) Over-seriousness/over-discipline in capoeira classes. In capoeira regional, this usually takes the form of class being run like military boot camp, thoroughly exhausting the participants, with the attitude of “Hop to it! Can’t keep up? Go do 500 meia luas in the corner by yourself!” “SIR yes SIR!” In capoeira angola, this usually takes the form of class being run like a solemn religious ritual, awing participants into having fear of, god-forbid, making a mistake lest it offend the ancient spirits of the mestres. Training hard is good, respecting the instructor and the art is fundamental, but above all capoeira should be FUN!

10) Instructors who make me feel bad/stupid because I’ve learned something differently. Like the angola toque on the berimbau – some teach it with the caxixi shake on the last beat, others without. But don’t put me down by saying “You’re doing it wrong (you idiot)” and then making fun of people who play it the way I learned it – a simple “Just so you know, we play the angola toque this way in our school” will suffice.