Social Skills is a monthly column featuring community groups where you can meet new people through exercise or other enjoyable activities.
With the Rio Olympics just completed, what better time to highlight Brazil’s national martial art, capoeira? In its ambassadorial role as a representative of Brazilian athleticism and culture, the discipline has steadily grown in popularity over the last decade, with several international organizations dedicated to its dissemination.
Capoeira Brasil is one such organization with representatives all over the world. Under the auspices of the Hong Kong branch, Mekael Turner runs classes every Wednesday and Sunday at Guangzhou’s new TMT Gym, beside the river in Liede.
Turner, who also goes by his capoeira nickname ‘Jamaica,’ describes the sport as “like a conversation,” not just between the two bodies facing off against one another, but in the interaction of the different elements that make up the martial art, including playing an instrument called the berimbau and chanting in Portuguese. He tries to include five elements in his instruction: attack, defense, movement, acrobatics and music.
In some ways, capoeira is sport, dance, music and language lessons all in one. The activity comes with specific lingo, like ginga, the basic movement upon which more difficult actions are based. Classes generally begin with everybody performing this together, before splitting off into pairs for more complex interactions. Near the end of the nearly two-hour session, everybody joins together to form a roda: a circle in which two individuals spar in time to music.
This month, Capoeira Brasil will host a batizado in Guangzhou. Portuguese for ‘baptism,’ this gathering sees practitioners receive their corda, or ‘rope,’ a ranking system akin to the belts found in other martial arts forms. It is also where capoeiristas receive the nicknames by which they go by in the community – e.g. Jamaica. In addition to the ceremonial aspect, a batizado provides an opportunity to gather together capoeria enthusiasts from all over the world.
Coalescing the many different skills required in capoeria can be a challenge at first, as regular attendee Erick Chen explains. “There’s a lot of things going all at once… It’s a bit of a sensory overload,” he says. Eventually, however, everything comes together in a beautiful synergy of mind and body.
Follow the group's official WeChat account (ID: capoeirabrazilcn) or visit www.capoeira.hk for more information. RMB100/class, packages are also available. Capoeria Brasil meets most Wednesdays and Sundays at 8pm at TMT Gym.
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