The air was thick and wet and hung down from the roof like a blanket,
while music, percussion, and young voices singing, reverberated around
the hall. It was nine in the morning. Inside it must have been about a
hundred degrees as the sun poured its blessings down on the corrugated
tin roof that covered our little gathering. Little? No, not
little. Groups had come from all over São Paulo to take part, and each
group had brought its own collection of singing, dancing and chanting
fans.
I sat quietly on my chair in the corner trying to concentrate as I
strapped my wrist with an old bandage. What was I doing here? I was the
only gringo in this colorful mass of people. My blonde hair and green
eyes earned me the nickname, alemão (German), and wherever I went in São
Paulo, Brazilians would shout out their friendly greeting, "Oi, alemão!
Tudo bem?" (Hi, German! How are you?)
Now here I was a year and a half after the day I first arrived in
Brazil, and I was about to enter my first competition. I tried not to
watch the other athletes as they got ready, somersaulting,
hand-standing, twisting and flipping, showing their moves to each other.
I tried not to think too much. In a short while I would meet them in the
roda, literally `circle', the traditional meeting place for those who
practiced the Brazilian art of capoeira.
Capoeira is uniquely Brazilian. According to tradition it was created by
the African slaves who were brought to Brazil by the Portuguese.
Prohibited from fight amongst themselves, the slaves developed a
fighting style that appeared to be a dance. Capoeiristas (those who
practice capoeira) would glide and float around each other using
elaborate movements, rolling, cart-wheeling, twisting and falling,
always, always to the sinuous rhythmic twang of the berimbau, an
instrument made from the thin branch of a tree, a piece of wire from a
nearby fence, and a dry cabaça, a hollow gourd that serves to amplify
the sound from the berimbau. To their white owners, the slaves would
appear to be singing and dancing, but inside the circle of clapping and
chanting spectators, two capoeiristas were honing their fighting skills,
preparing for the day when they would rise up and fight against their
oppressors.
"Oi, alemão. Tudo bem?"
I looked up. My mestre (master) stood in front of me. Tio João (Uncle
John) was a native Baiano (from the state of Bahia) who had moved to São
Paulo with his mestre fifteen years ago. Capoeira was his life. Capoeira
had taken him out of the favelas (slums) of Bahia and given meaning to
his life. Now he taught capoeira at a small academy in São Paulo where
he shared the knowledge passed down from his mestre, and his mestre's
mestre, and the mestres before him.
"Oi, tio. Tudo bem." (Hi, Uncle. I'm well.)
The drum beat, steady four on four, bounced around the hall, deep,
hollow, it sprouted from the atabaque (a large bass drum) and supported
the melody coaxed from three gaudy berimbaus and two shimmering
pandeiros (tambourines). The crowd were silent now, waiting, waiting for
the mestre to start his ladainha, his song of praise to capoeira, to his
mestre, and to the great capoeiristas of the past. Around me competitors
clad in white swayed gently. Letting the rhythm carry them, a few
started to ginga (characteristic movement associated with capoeira)
slowly. Into this silence strode the opening words of the ladainha
(litany),
|
Bom dia, meus
senhores
Bom dia, minha senhoras
Vamos dar início à festa
Que está em cima da hora
A vocês que aqui estão
Um minuto de atenção
Vou fazer a minha prece
Que eu não sou nenhum pagão
Agradeço ao Criador
Que me deu inspiração
Àqueles que me ofenderem
Eu respondo com perdão
Educação não tem fronteira
É uma realidade
É o que todos devem usar
Para o bem da humanidade
Isto é uma lição
Pra quem quiser aprender
Quem não vive para servir
Não serve para viver
Quanto mais vive se aprende
Saber nunca é demais
Capoeira é no Brasil
Quero ver quem joga mais
ra, ra, viva meu deus... |
Good day, my
good sirs
Good day, my good ladies
Lets start the celebration
That is ready to start
To you that are here
A minute of your attention
I will offer up my thanks
Because I am not a pagan
I thank the Creator
Who gave me inspiration
To those who offend me
I respond with pardon
Education has no boundaries
This is a reality
And all should use it
For the good of humanity
This is a lesson
For those who want to learn
He who does not live to serve
Has no reason to live
The more you live, the more you learn
You can never know too much
Capoeira is from Brazil
I want to see who plays the best
ra, ra, God is great… |
As one we responded, "Viva meu deus, camará." (God
is great, comrade.)
The mestre nodded and signaled to two capoeiristas waiting, crouched
before the assembled musicians. In one swift fluid movement they entered
the roda, the circle, and began their game. At the same time every pair
of hands in that steamy hall started to clap, and a thousand voices sang
with the single mestre on his berimbau. "Viva meu mestre, camará." (My
master is great, comrade.) I sang with them, and clapped, and watched
the game as it unfolded before me in a symphony of motion. Whirling legs
and twisting bodies moved smoothly through the air, and the crowd held
its breath momentarily as one of the competitors seemed to fall, but
miraculously recovered only to reply with an even more breathtaking
assault, and the crowd sang with even greater gusto.
Each game lasted a mere one and a half minutes. Three referees watched
every game and allocated points to each player for a breach of the
other's defense. Capoeira is the art of malandragem (villainy and double
dealing). The idea is to execute a complicated acrobatic maneuver (the
more complicated the better) and lure your opponent into attacking you.
Then, when he or she attacks, thinking that you are too busy executing
your one-handed double-twisting back flip (S-dobrado), you expertly roll
out of the back flip and counter attack with a flying full twisting
scissors kick (tesoura). However, your opponent might be expecting this
and could evade your carefully executed trap using a crouching back flip
(pulo do macaco) and counter with a sweeping reverse kick (meia lua de
compasso). As you can see, it gets complicated.
As each game ended and the winner was announced, so the crowd would
become an explosion of sound and motion. The winner, inspired by the
adulation of the crowd, would enter the roda once more, this time alone,
and execute a seemingly impossible maneuver, an expression of sheer
exuberance, a statement. "This is my capoeira! I can play capoeira!"
I watched each game with my group. We sang with the succession of
mestres as they took turns on the berimbau. We cheered when one of our
players entered the roda and faced a capoeirista from another group. We
shared the exultation of the winner, we consoled the loser. We laughed
at our mistakes and swore at those of the referees. And all the while a
tiny silver coil tightened itself quietly in my stomach, for as each
game passed, so the time drew closer when I would have to enter the roda
with another capoeirista. A Brazilian, weaned on samba and capoeira, not
an awkward gringo like me.
The sun hung golden orange in the late afternoon São Paulo smog and
filtered through into the hall. The young bucks of São Paulo had played
their games. They had won and lost and shared their joy or sorrow with
the crowd. Finally my time had come. My name, clumsy amid the soft
spoken Portuguese, stumbled out of the loudspeakers. The crowd became
quiet. It was the gringo. I walked slowly toward the roda. Suddenly I
heard a voice by my side. It was João.
"Calma." He said. "Sempre busca calma na roda."
I looked at him and saw the twinkle in his eye. I had heard that before.
At the end of our training sessions he would enter the roda with his
students. We would be tired, physically and mentally, after a long
arduous two hours of training. João would push each one of us, testing
our limits of ability and endurance, until finally we would flee the
tight circle of clapping chanting bodies, and seek refuge from the
incessant barrage of attacking movements executed by our mestre.
"Calm." He would say. "Always search for calm in the roda."
Amid the heady beat of the drum, the music, the clapping hands, the
singing, and the malicious intent of your partner in the roda, there
exists a quiet place in which you can find calm. I needed to find this
place. Within this space you can play your game unrestricted by thought.
Here there is no thought, there is only action and reaction, a smooth
evolution of time played out in slow motion by the body of the
capoeirista.
I crouched quietly before the assembled mestres. As I waited for my
opponent to join me, I felt the music from the berimbau drift down over
my body. I tried to find that calm space. Suddenly my opponent arrived
and I felt the silver coil in my stomach tighten once more. The mestre
began to sing.
|
Desde de pequeniniho
Eu ouvia meu pai falar
Que quando eu crescesse
Ele ia me ensinar
Me ensinar a jogar... |
(Since I was
a small child
I heard my father say
That when I grew up
He would teach me
Teach me how to play...) |
"Capoeira." I heard myself singing with everybody
else. I looked across at my opponent. He too was singing. He caught my
eye and stretched out his hand, a greeting, a sign of respect, and an
indication that the game was about to start. The mestre dipped his
berimbau and as one we rolled into the roda. Suddenly everything else
disappeared, and all that remained was the roda, and in it, my opponent,
and I.
His first attack was swift and efficient, but I saw it coming. In an
instant I evaded his blow and moved to counter attack, but then saw that
his attack was merely a ruse, and his real intent was the counter
attack. As his body twirled and his right leg started the graceful
downward arc that would sweep my feet from under me, I halted my attack
and using my remaining momentum, threw my weight onto my arms, lifting
my legs from the floor. As my legs reached their apex, I curled my body
around my shoulders, freeing my legs once more to return and whip his
legs out from under him.
I heard a roar from the crowd. The gringo could play capoeira, and in my
mind I could see João smiling as the crowd recognized my achievement,
and his. In a flash my opponent was up again. I looked into his eyes and
saw that there would be no more opportunities like that again. I was a
gringo no longer. In his eyes I was a capoeirista, a treacherous and
malicious opponent who would be shown no leniency. I expected none.
We played for the full one and a half minutes. In that time I thrice
managed to escape being unceremoniously upended by my experienced and
skillful opponent. I found the quiet place in the roda. I played as if
my life depended on it, every movement linked to every other movement
until it became so that I did not know where the movements of my
opponent ended, and where mine began. I saw that the quiet space in the
roda was not static, but was rather a fluid continuum where motion
summoned motion and we, the players, merely responded to the call.
A shrill blast on the whistle marked the end of the game. The mestres
stopped playing and lowered their berimbaus. The crowd too became hushed
as we returned once more to the entrance of the roda in front of the
musicians and, standing together, waited for the referees to announce
their decision. One by one they raised their flags. The first referee, a
green flag. The gringo! The gringo! And I heard the shouts from the
crowd as they waited on the second referee. Yellow. There was applause,
but they wanted the gringo. They wanted the gringo to win, this glorious
crowd, because it was their sport, their heritage, their culture, and
the gringo had come to Brazil to play. They wanted the gringo.
We waited for the third referee, an old capoeirista, a mestre who no
longer played, but who carried his capoeira in his heart, and his mind
was still as sharp as his body had been in the days when he was a young
capoeirista making a name for himself on the streets of Salvador.
I knew what the color would be before he raised his flag. I had known it
during the game. I had trained hard, and was a good player, but I was
only beginning. That first sweeping rasteira (literally sweep) had been
lucky. My opponent had been overconfident and unprepared for my rapid
counter attack. He had quickly recovered, and for the rest of the game I
had been on the defensive. So when the old mestre raised his yellow
flag, I was not surprised. I was not indignant, nor was I devastated.
Rather I was proud. I was proud to have entered the same roda as the
capoeirista who stood before me now, and who, after shaking my hand, had
flick-flacked into the roda and executed a maneuver that I could only
dream of pulling off.
I was proud to have played capoeira in front of these wonderful people
who had supported us and sung with us throughout the day. I was proud to
have played before the many great mestres who had gathered here today.
And yes, in my vanity, I was proud to have tumbled another capoeirista.
Alastair Thompson
is a travelling writer and teacher. He is living in São Paulo, Brazil,
at the moment, teaching English and learning to play capoeira with the
group, Capoeira Arte e Ginga, (Web site -
http://www.capoeiraarteeginga.hpg.ig.com.br).
You can contact him at the following email address:
alastairt@hotmail.com
copyright
Alastair Thompson
October 2002
