CU's Guerreiros Practice Capoeira

As capoeira club members Macao, Ginga and Boneco sit discussing their sport, which combines martial arts, dancing, and singing, they can't sit still. Rather than describe the movements, Macao and Ginga jump up and engage each other in a quick "conversation," abruptly attacking and evading one another.

"You can't explain capoeira," Boneco, better known as Andrew Macaluso, SEAS '09, said. "You have to see it."

The capoeirans' names are assigned by the mestre, meaning master, and usually correspond to some striking physical feature or personality trait. Akash Gupta, SEAS '09, was named Macao, meaning monkey, due to his hairy appearance, while Jeff Yang, CC '10, was named Ginga, after capoeira's most basic movement, because he mastered it so quickly. Yet, the names are part of a greater culture and tradition that sit at the core of capoeira.

"It's my philosophy of life," Contra Mestre George Palmares said. "It's my religion. It was my university. I come from a very poor neighborhood in El Salvador where our parents didn't have the money to put us in university but we have capoeira. We like to call it the university of life because capoeira grew up in the streets."

Capoeira began in Africa and was passed on to Brazil, where it developed over centuries, largely practiced on the streets and by slaves. Capoeira was illegal until the 1930s, when the famed Mestre Bimba, Manuel dos Reis Machado, created a new style, "Capoeria

Regional," and was allowed to teach it. It did not come over to the United States until the latter half of the 20th century, but it has since expanded to attract students of all ages and backgrounds.

Just as the sport has grown worldwide, the Columbia club, named the Guerreiros, has seen a recent boom in membership. According to
Gupta, a few years ago there were only six members whereas now 30 or more people regularly attend practices.

One reason the club may have struggled to attract members was that most students do not even know what capoeria is.

"Unless you know about capoeira you don't really see it that much," Yang said. "Most people who come here don't hear about it until they see us at activities day in the middle of the class just fooling around."

Though, according to Yang, most people see the sport as "break dance fighting," it combines Brazilian culture through song, dance, and martial arts with some of the martial arts of Asia.

"It's historical and cultural. Even the people—you hang around Brazilians long enough you start developing this Brazilian mindset."

The basis of capoeira is the roda, a circle formed by all the participants, with a bateria of instruments at the head. The bateria, or battery, is composed of percussive instruments centered around the berimbau, which resembles a bow and arrow. In the middle of the roda are two people dancing and fighting with one another.

While the game is going on, everyone moves around the roda assuming different positions. In the Guerreiros, anyone is allowed to "buy in" and replace one of the two people in the middle.

"There's an intuitive organic knowledge about when to buy in," Gupta said. "You see two people who've developed a really cool game, playing, interacting off each other, and you hold off. If the game has reached an awkward point where two people are just kind of dodging each other or there are no kicks or no real conversation you go in."

Describing the center as a "conversation," capoeirans emphasize that the dance in the middle requires participants to base the speed and style of their movements off the flow of the music and group.

"Capoeira is a constant motion and that was the hardest thing for me to pick up from the start, was to not stop and think about movement the whole time," Macaulso said. "The movements themselves some might find easier or harder, but putting it all together is where the real challenge comes in."

While all the club members now have experience, few began capoeira before attending Columbia. Gupta, who began the sport at the age of 14, is an exception.

Like other clubs, the Guerreiros, meaning warriors, must find their teachers from outside of school. Palmares, a native of El Salvador, is the mestre of several schools in the Northeast and is also involved with schools in Brazil.

Palmares encourages his students to visit other schools and see different styles of Capoeira.

"They get to play with people with a different style, different level and that game will become very interesting for both because they are going to work and deal with different tactics," he said.

The two different styles of capoeira are Angola and Regional. Angola is slower and more traditional. According to Palmares, most modern mestres must be well-versed in both styles.

Though Yang joked that he likes Angola more now because he is out of shape, all of the Guerreiros said that they enjoyed the two equally, as Palmares tends to bring his music to a speed somewhere in the middle.

Though capoeira does not have set competitions such as some of the other martial arts, it does have a hierarchy of chords akin to belts in karate. The chords correspond to colors of the Brazilian flag—green, yellow, blue, and white. Capoeirans are promoted at a graduation ceremony called batizados, or baptisms, which take place once a year and are where the club spends most of its money.

While the sport is not seen as a competition, a competitive nature has developed.

"Even though it's not a competition there is something inherent in every game where it's not like having friendly exchanges. You guys are out to get each other a little bit. You throw a kick when someone's not expecting it and stop your foot at their face and point at them."
It has gotten to the point where, according to Palmares, there is discussion of making it an Olympic sport. That is a possibility that, while exciting, also raises some concerns.

"I believe a lot of things have lost traditions in cultures because of competition," he said. "I hope if that happens we aren't going to lose anything and keep our tradition because it's very important to capoeira."

Because of Palmares' easygoing nature, none of the Guerreiros are worried about sacrificing the group dynamic for the sake of competition.

"He's really good at it building a group mentality," Gupta said. "He basically forced this group to be a group by sheer awesomeness."