Until recently we knew very few things about capoeira. We knew it was a martial art created at the beginning of the 16th century by African slaves, as a tool for self-defence and survival. That it was born out of a combination of oppression and expression, and developed in spite of being outlawed. That it looked cool, and that Brazilians (who are generally rather cool people) do it. But after our introduction class to this fascinating sport, we are now wiser folk, with aching hamstrings. We partly owe our education to the Eden Studios spa and recreation manager, Fanny Cataldo – the lady who convinced us to try it. But mostly we owe it to our teacher, Mestre Caxias.
Caxias is Alex Filadelfo’s capoeira name. The tradition of capoeiristas taking up nicknames owes its beginnings to a time when those who practiced capoeira had to do so in secret, and hide their identity to avoid detection. So Alex is best known as Caxias in the capoeira world. With 30 years of training and over 20 years of experience as an instructor, Caxias is a master at his art. This strong and agile man is as patient as he is encouraging. His warm enthusiasm had us shedding our inhibitions in an instant and diving head first into the ginga (pronounced kind of like ‘jingle’) with enthusiasm to match his.
The ginga is the fundamental movement in capoeira and involves a kind of rocking motion as you step from side to side. Sounds simple right? Well, do it 20 times and you’ll see (and you’ll rue the day you laughed while we whimpered about our hamstrings). Once we mastered that, Caxias pushed on with a ducking move (the name eludes us) but did so gently. He struck a good balance between going easy on us when we were out of breath and maintaining the momentum. Next we learnt to do a kick – and this kick is meant to come straight from your abs, so you’re strengthening your core muscles in the process.
Verdict: forget the abs thing, we could barely maintain our balance when we raised our leg. But the key is to keep trying, because slowly, your body starts getting the hang of it. This is a point Caxias stressed when he was getting us to do cartwheels. First he demonstrated what it ought to look like. This was an awesome cartwheel which had us thinking, ‘Hah! You’re joking right?’ And then he demonstrated what we should start off with if we weren’t used to doing cartwheels. This was a toddler’s version of the previous move. A bit pathetic looking but encouraging none the less, because our teacher promised that if we kept trying to push our legs higher and higher while repeating the toddler-move, we’d eventually get the hang of the awesome one. ‘With everything you start learning from somewhere,’ Caxias said, and in that moment his words were like sweet dignity-restoring wisdom.
Like all martial arts, capoeira isn’t just about self-defence, flexibility and athleticism. It’s about striking a balance between the body (in other words, all of the above) and the mind. This is where the music comes in. When capoeiristas play capoeira, they do so in a circle, and the capoeiristas outside the circle make the music. For this they engage three instruments (the drum, the tambourine and a Berimbau – a single stringed contraption), clapping and singing.
After we’d had enough exercise and were about to call it a day, Caxias had us form a circle and got us to do a bit of rhythmic clapping and singing (in Portuguese!) as he played the tambourine. Once again, it proved more difficult than you’d expect for some of us – demonstrating poor coordination of the mind. Those who have learned to play a musical instrument and sing to it, will know: it takes some skill to keep a particular beat going as you sing a completely different tune. In time, we’d get a hang of this too, Caxias encouraged, but for now we’d savour the sweet music he was making and enjoy ourselves trying to sing along.
Capoeira classes with Caxias are held at Eden Studio three times a week on Sundays and Tuesdays from 8.30pm and Saturdays (children’s class) at 11am. It costs Dhs50 for non-members per class, and Dhs450 for a package of ten classes. Eden Spa, Le Méridien Abu Dhabi (02 697 4354).
