Monthly Archives: July 2019

Classes and Learning

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Tough movements look impossible.

That’s probably the hardest thing to convey about capoeira nobody starts doing all the cool stuff right away. I imagine the beginnings watching the advance instructors, professors, and mestres spin on their hands, arms, and heads, wondering why mystics they invoked to let them accomplish such a feat. It’s truly amazing watching skills like that shine.

I’m sure the performers appreciate you missing out on the years of the struggle on working all of those moments.

I realize that now as I’ve taken several of the breaks on my training, especially when I moved away from my four days a week classes with my mestre, that the classes themselves can be a hinderance. It doesn’t limit what your learn or exposure to, but it can be reliance. I felt it myself, wishing that I had some class to go to, even that I can only really learn and develop moves with a teacher and about 10 other people working on it with me. That stopped me from moving to that empty room, working on those movements myself.

Obviously, the preceding helps a lot.

The classroom is only a part of the development. The part that shows you’re the tools, giving you slight instruction on its execution. They can watch you do or attempt the movements a few times, but their job ends when you leave the room, going home for the night. Unfortunately, the time away from the mestre  the majority of when your learning and development happens. Playing those games without the instructor’s guidance, taking the time to kick over a chair several times, or just waking up and doing queda de rins push-ups is when the skills grow.

Don’t let your classes hinder your development (and appreciate that you have them.)

Classes, Styling, Teachers, Students, Learning

Keep It Together

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Keeping it together is understated.

Life is known for throwing random occurrences, obstacles, and overall doubt with the pathway to greatness. The journey almost requires it, and when a destination is reached, you can look back and marvel at how you got there the luxury of hindsight. As you travel, you have to deal with the muck.

The muck is everyday responsibilities, along with the procrastination that curses those roles, along with the people who depend on you. Those people love you, and you love them, but they get in the way. Life goes on without them, but life is harder with them gone (so you keep them.) This is another dangerous bend on the path to the top, keeping the people who go with you in check, carrying them for as long as they need you to.

Sometimes, it’s just being patience as you recruit people to come with you.

It takes a village to do anything, and building it is a painful task. It’s possible, and been done millions of times, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Great things come with struggle, but even knowing that doesn’t make the struggle easier.

It does keep the path in sight.

 

 

 

Learn The Hard Things

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Learning is hard.

Especially on your ow– so many things have to be explored before results are relished. Capoeira is magical, and those who created were magical. It was like learning and teaching calculus before the calculator, a task that seems impossible nowadays. Not that you have create kicks are movements, that part is done for you, but like learning classes and methodologies within computer programming– it’s just the beginning.

Where should the focus on the sequences be?

The question hit watching one of my training videos on IG (@capoeiramaranhao) I was working on combining the meia lua de compasso passado into a dequsiva basica. It wasn’t that there was particular reason for me to mold both of those moments, only that I wanted to work on both at the same time. I figured if I made a sequence, it would be let me do more reps. It worked for a bit.

I moved on to creating a checklist while I played an imaginary opponent. It felt good, felt right, but yet I’m only doing one rep of that movement per training, The focus was on when it would be executing and how it can be done, and typically, it was a movement I could already do fairly well. This isn’t effective if I can’t do the movement. I ended up just throwing myself into advance movements after repping some kicks and other movements.

Which methodology is the best? I don’t know, but there’s only one way I can find out.

I got to try all of them.

Get It Done

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It’s very easy to size up to the people you watch play.

You can see the work they put in, the reps, the time¬- you can see in the control of their movement. You can see in their flow, how each kick and movements transitions into each other. You can you see it in their audiles- changing movements when they need to esquiva or counterattack. It’s amazing.
How do you calculate that time?

The key is to not try to figure out how they did it. Ask, if anything, because they will tell you. It’s not a secret, and they won’t worry that you’ll encroach on their developing, stealing their training methods. They know most people who ask will never put that time in. In most cases, they figured out the time that works for them.
You need to figure out the time that works for you.

You’ll need to do it on your own, just like everyone else. It’s a champion-like mentality, so only a few really get to do something like. It’s not bad to rely on classes, or groups to get your training in order, or to accomplish the movements you’ve been working on- just know that the individual always has the capability to get it done.

So get it done.

Strength

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I have the world’s tiniest wrists.

They’ve always been small, dwarfing my forearms, biceps, and shoulders. They made my hands and fingers, but that should have been taking account when I started doing capoeira. It requires a lot of balance and support on your hands. It’s been away, but I can say that I have not have significant injury doing it as far as my arms and hands are concerned.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t had pain. Quada de Rins never is kind to the starters. It’s a lot of weight (especially with myself) to try to control with the smaller parts of your body. I’ve feared the snap when I try to do too much, using my hands as feet, and forcing my torso and the weight my legs on to my wrists. They’ve whined, they’ve ached, they’ve protested, they’ve complained.

But they never broke.

I want to thank my genes, my diet, my luck—I don’t have many issues with injury, but I think the credit should go to the art. My joint aches when I usually start training a certain movement, but it does go away. When a new ache starts, I can usually go back and break down why it hurts in a movement and fix it—part listening to my body, part fixing slopping mechanics. The creators of these movements weren’t researchers, physical therapists, or even educated. They focused on practicality and practice.
They ended up created the fountain of youth.