Why capoeira?

Martial arts has always been a practice I have wanted to have in my life since it was a boy.
As like any kid in the 80's I grew up watching Bruce Lee, 
and even had a book about him in my house.


For me he was the epitamy of martial arts back then and still is for me now.
The embodiment of philosophy in action.


When became a teenager I was exposed to karate in secondary school 
and although my friends showed me what they learnt,
it didn't resonate with me.  


One thing did come back to me in those teenage years though,  it was seeing capoeira on Sesame Street and in a movie called "Only the Strong" with Mark Dacascos.
A combination of acrobatics melded with kicks and other strikes seemed to be fun. 
But with this art, looks were deceiving.


Alas, it was a chance enounter with a very great friend of mine Velho (who I consider to be one of my big brothers) that brought me to capoeira.
He came back from abroad and always encouraged me to come to the classes in Cascade, which was a mountain ridge away from where I lived.
But my career at the time in advertising didn't permit.
That was a lie though, I didn't make the time to permit myself to explore this dream.


When I changed jobs and went into education, 
I carried with me 40lbs which I gained over the 2 1/2 years there.


I had to make a change but this was not a change to just lose weight, but to balance mind body and spirit and master emotion.


And when I started my classes, our teacher Azulao taught and guided us to that.


I discovered that this martial art involved the balance of the enitre human body. Which required strength, agility, flexibility, endurance and being mentally tough.
For you use your entire body to do the movements: a kick was not simply your leg doing a strike- it was your leg moving to strike, the other leg pivoting and balancing 
and your torso and upper body turning to unleash the energy giving you the momentum to send your foot into the space behind your opponent 
with your arms up to defending at the same time. 


Also our movement was rhythmic and circular enabling us to dodge and evade strikes, while simultaneously moving into counterstrike at the same time.


Tranference from potential energy to kinnetic energy with control of not only mind and heart but through the harmony of these with your soul is what the art was about.


If I were to go a bit deeper into it, this was an exercise of being. Seeing the strike and yet the moves yet to be made all in the same moment.


Knowing and being resolute in action for offence, to defend and in doing so calling all the elements of the self into one to make it possible.


This is capoeira, this is martial arts, but by extension isn't this also life? 


We do (should be doing) this for ourselves, our families, our principles, for one another. 


Thus martial arts becomes the art of life. 


And in my life I made a promise to myself to do the things that resonated with my soul, 
I will continue to paint, write, draw, play music and sing.
And now to add to this Capoeira is now one of these things, a point of resonance, for the art of life.