Free Fall

At first glance, vapoeira might look like a particularly funky cousin of breakdance. Perhaps it is, but it is more dangerous than funky, if properly applied.

Gravity-defying handspins and headspins are very much in use in vapoeira, as are a lot of the acrobatics that go into breakdancing. But the axe and windmill kicks they use are pure martial arts moves, as is their sly jinga, a rhythmic movement something like the bopping and weaving of boxers around one’s opponent.

This is the sly nature of capoeira– it looks like a dance and is played like a martial art, replete with lethal kicks, punitive attacks and unpredictable counter-attacks.

Capoeira was verboten in Brazil in the 16th century, when slavery was in vogue and the fazenderos (hacienderos we call them) imported slaves from Angola and various parts of Africa.

Slave traders and owners in Brazil did not allow their African "property" to get together in tribal groups or practice their tribal martial arts to prevent uprisings in the slave ranks.

It is a theory that capoeira was born of this repression. Perhaps that explains how this dance combines fluid, beautiful moves that are both deadly and sly. It is also played with accompanying music that is primal, earthy and full of the backbeat that so dominates what we now call world music.

It was, at first, a street art/martial art disguised as dance, with music as intrinsic to it as basic shouts are intrinsic to other martial arts. Gangs in Brazil used capoeira until organized schools opened in the 1930s and vapoeira became a national sport in Brazil.

Capoeira is not as formal as other martial arts in the sense that there is rarely a master-student type of relationship at the vapoeira class at the Centro Flamenco in Makati. Rather, there is friendship and camaraderie in what looks like a tightly-knit group that is, nonetheless, welcoming of newcomers.

Furthermore, there is no hierarchy, and students are all mixed together–beginners and students who have been at it for months. There was no telltale swagger either to the walk of Canadian Felician Soneca (called Felix by his students), 21, the class instructor, or his co-instructor Nicole Severino, 22.

All one sees in their walk is the consummate grace of a dancer, with a hint of rippling sinew under the clothing that hints at something a little more powerful than dance.

There is no formal bowing or greeting used to open sparring sessions and the sparring rarely involves physical contact. However, almost all the capoeira dance moves are surprise attacks and lethal in and of themselves as the players almost always play it by ear.

Capoeiristas use the forms they have learned innovatively, often entering an attack any sane person would evade and coming up from under, where his or her opponent least expects to find him or her.

Perhaps the closest thing to the formal bow is what they call the auoo – a handspin that involves "walking" in a tight circle on the palms of one’s hands while slowly spinning one’s legs in a windmill kick and landing without making a sound on the wooden floorboards–all the while keeping an eye on one’s opponent.

The class was an eclectic one, including people who use the fine muscles of their hands a lot: Ophthalmic surgeon Sherwin Valero and IT trainor Daniel Roman Pido II. Catering entrepreneur Mark Baretto took jujitsu before taking up capoeira, and he said capoeira "is just so cool."

Towards the end of the two-hour class, the students and teachers face off in a roda (pronounced ho-da), match off and play with the moves they learned during the session. Ever seen people smile while sparring? More than anything, these capoeiristas were enjoying themselves, laughing when they faltered and getting right back into the dance.

As a child, Montreal-born Felix had performed with the Cirque de Soleil. "My mother was a freelance trapeze artist," he says. By the age of 11, Felix was already a trained acrobat who had gotten over the very human fear of falling and hitting solid ground. He began playing capoeira four years ago, at the age of 17, in Montreal. Felix also plays the saxophone professionally when he is not dancing capoeira.

"I knew a little bit about it and I was looking for a martial arts school, but I didn’t know what I wanted yet," he says. He decided to try capoeira and, "when I did, I knew I found what I wanted."

Felix describes capoeira thus: "It is the body free. It is the body able to really express what you want to express with it. It is like communicating through your body. It is soul and energy. When you are dancing capoeira, you have to move your body. It is malandragem (pronounced mah-lan-dradge)." Malandragem means free body movement.

Felix added that capoeira is a sport in which one’s personality becomes part of his or her practice and movements. Instead of having one’s personality fit into a mold as other martial arts are wont to do, one’s personality is expressed even better in the movements of capoeira.

Capoeiristas have rope tied around their waists the way a belt designates rank in karate. When asked about this rope which, in his case, was orange, Felix explains: "It was worn by the slaves who developed capoeira. It is still worn now, but not to designate rank so much as show that the capoeira dancer wearing it has been playing capoeira for some time already."

What does he love most about capoeira? "I love the sly nature of the dance. I love the fact that you do the unexpected, look for the opening in your opponent’s attack and take it."

Nicole says capoeira is all about going beyond one’s limits. "You set your own limits. If you feel you cannot do something, nobody else is telling you cannot do it. It is you telling yourself that."

She now sings jazz with a band in Montreal, where she studied at McGill University. "If I did not do capoeira, I would never have had the nerve to try singing jazz."

Serendipity brought Nicole to capoeira five years ago, when she saw a poster advertising capoeira lessons in McGill University and went for the classes. "Other people said the poster was never there (where I saw it), but here I am doing capoeira."

"Capoeira is all about overcoming your fear of falling and your limitations. It is about discovering what your body can do if you will it to do these things," she says.

However, capoeira is not a sport to trifle with, Nicole cautions. "There have been accidents in capoeira that have caused serious injury. Once I saw a capoeira dancer kick someone on the forehead. The impact of that kick made the guy’s eye pop out of its socket."

Who would be a good capoeirista? "Someone who is open to learning capoeira. I would willingly teach anyone who wants to learn capoeira–because I believe that if you can visualize the motion, then you can execute the move."

The first thing one has to learn when doing capoeira, Nicole points out, is how to overcome the fear of falling on the ground and paying the price for defying gravity, as most of the movements of Capoeira are done while in some handstand or other, or while flipping forwards and backwards.

The next thing one learns is what one can actually do with one’s body once the brain’s analysis and paralysis of how to do it is overcome. "You don’t just think of a movement or visualize it. You go on and do it."

Capoeira rodas are done in a circle to symbolize the "roundness" of capoeira, whether in an open field or a cramped room.

"In capoeira, one does not interrupt a movement–whether it is your movement or your opponent’s; you continue the movement," Nicole says.

According to her, the best skills of a capoeirista are "flexibility, willingness to learn and agility," as well as a good sense of rhythm and the ability to recover from a fall or a mistake.

The best thing capoeira taught Nicole, she shares, "is how to get up after a fall and go on with what I am doing. It’s a lesson that applies to life in general. A capoeirista may fall down, but he or she will get up again and get back into the flow of the dance."

* * *

Capoeira sessions are held at Centro Flamenco on Tuesdays and Fridays at 6 p.m. and on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. A fee of P300 is charged per session. Interested parties may call Centro Flamenco at tel. 895-8097 or Nicole and Felix at (0917) 359-8318 for details.