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Post by capoeirista on Jul 26, 2012 17:08:35 GMT -5
Hey guys, I joined this forum a few weeks ago but haven't had the time to really get into it. But now, seeing as I've fractured my arm practicing Capoeira, I've got all the time in the world.
So first off, any capoeira practitioners in here? past or present, it doesn't matter.
Secondly and more importantly, what do you guys think of Capoeira as a martial art nowadays? In my group, we train in a mostly full force environment. That means fast kicks that are meant to cause real damage and quick evasion to get away from those kicks. It's as much self defense as, say, a Muay Thai gym. But I've met a few Capoeira groups who've taken the dance thing to a WHOLE new level. They perform back-springs in order to impress their mestres instead of putting some distance between their opponent in the shortest time possible. It's like.. those kicks may be fast, but they're aimed at the air instead of the opponent, making them utterly useless. So what's the point calling it a martial art?
But of course, that's my opinion.
Have any of you experienced or seen an art that's degraded into a merely ritualized set of moves like Capoeira?
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Post by kokoro on Jul 26, 2012 17:49:31 GMT -5
past, somewhere around 1992 or 93. it killed my back. lol. great style though i enjoyed up until that part.
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Chef Samurai
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Post by Chef Samurai on Jul 26, 2012 21:36:42 GMT -5
I've never taken it but I like capoeria a lot but I think of it as a little different than most people.
I think it should be like guerrilla hit & run style fighting where your never in one spot for more than one second and constantly on the run parkour style, after all parkour & capoeira have similar roots in african warfare & hunter activities.
I think when the potrugese banned capoeira a lot of people changed into more of a style like tricking and the dancing was meant to contain hidden moves like kata & only recently turned into sparring because against a portugese soldier the quilombo warriors would have to fight differently because the poturgese fought way differently themselves so different, real world war tactics would have been used in a real fight.
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Post by capoeirista on Jul 29, 2012 10:09:26 GMT -5
Back injuries are one of the more common problems that a capoeirista faces, I guess. The most severe back injury I've had from Capoeira is a fractured vertebrae from a dodgy back-flip.
Actually, there's evidence that earliest forms of capoeira resembled the parkour of today. Your idea of Capoeira is spot on, and it's a shame most people don't understand Capoeira as it should be understood. It was based entirely on evading horsemen, hiding in forest conditions and efficiently traversing some very difficult terrain. The fighting aspect probably came in when the slave-masters employed colonial agents who were trained to hunt runaways. By the time of quilombo nations, Capoeira had evolved into a hit and run form of war, probably one of the most efficient guerrilla techniques in it's time.
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ZenGenesis
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Post by ZenGenesis on Aug 5, 2012 18:32:33 GMT -5
Never tried it but I seen it when I was in Portugal to visit family on summer vacation last year. It looks pretty cool. Do you speak Portuguese too or do you just practice Capoeira? It'd be nice to have someone speak Portuguese on here besides me lol
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Chef Samurai
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Post by Chef Samurai on Aug 14, 2012 23:43:18 GMT -5
capoeirista- wow I'm surprised you know that too most people like you said think it's just dance fighting and know nothing about the evasiveness and true essence of the art but it's good to see other people who know and I hope you look into parkour one day to chech it out at least to ry to get back to the idea of true capoeira instead of the break dancing game people have reduced it to. I'm trying to do the same with boxing with moderate success I guess I would say lol @zen- I never knew they had it in portugal I guess it came over some time from brazil bur I wonder when?
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ZenGenesis
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Post by ZenGenesis on Aug 24, 2012 17:15:24 GMT -5
@chef yeah but its not common there, just very very few places that teach it.
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Post by capoeirista on Aug 26, 2012 13:25:24 GMT -5
@chef Do you know why Capoeira was banned in Brazil back in the day? It's because it was an art that gave rogues and criminals a huge edge over the police in two ways: firstly for the vicious attacks and secondly it allowed them to evade and run. My mestre would say "a capoeirista usually talks his way out, and that doesn't work he'll run away in the most incredible ways." You might have heard of the legendary Besouro. While in legend, people say he could actually turn into a beetle to escape bad situations, this most probably means that Besouro was a master of the art of evasion.
@zen Now, I've practiced capoeira for almost 8 years, but the Portuguese has NEVER stuck with me. One of the professors forced me to take a Portuguese lesson because I was so bad, but I still sucked.
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Chef Samurai
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Post by Chef Samurai on Aug 28, 2012 7:03:56 GMT -5
@capoerista- I know a bit of the history but you can always add things back like parkour's evasiveness and caoperias hit & run methods would make a great style for taking on multiple opponents because you could just constantly move & spin and stuff for evasion.
I heard in the last 200 years or so it was basically turned into a dance that resembles it's former self & that's why it has a bad rep these days but again add evasiveness like parkour and bam you have a devastating guerrilla hit & run way of fighting.
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Post by capoeirista on Aug 29, 2012 9:52:09 GMT -5
@chef You're right about that, but capoeira by itself is a very demanding martial art in terms of stamina. Sure, combining it with Parkour would make a fantastic defensive style, but it would be drain most people of their energy very quickly. However, a competent practitioner of both disciplines would be extremely fit anyway, so that's okay I guess..
It's not the fact that capoeira has turned into a dance: it still has the potential to be a devastating martial art. The problem is that most of the capoeirista out there treat it as a dance. It's like.. if a martial artist trains to make his art more aesthetically impressive and completely misses out the self defense aspect, you get a dance instead of a martial art.
You know, there are two types of capoeira. There's Angola, and there's regional. Angola has the potential to make it's practitioner into a master of evasion; it can teach you to escape many situations, and throws in some very dangerous attacks. Regional, on the other hand, makes good use of explosive power and speed. When using both as a combination, a skilled capoeirista can completely control a fight. However, students are not taught this. They haven't been taught these skills for 3 decades. They've just been taught how to back-flip nicely and kick at air. Capoeira could be an effective martial art, until practitioners stop dancing and start fighting it will always lack it's true potential.
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Chef Samurai
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Post by Chef Samurai on Sept 17, 2012 19:54:49 GMT -5
I wish I could find a decent caoperia school here all I've seen so far though is break dancing modified for play fighting lol
It's sad the good schools in some styles are so damn hard to find.
And I knew there were 2 variations but I never knew what separated them thanks for the info.
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