1. Dance Your Opponent to Death
Capoeira is a Brazilian dance-fighting style that evolved as a way for the slaves of Brazil to entertain themselves as they practiced an effective martial art under the guise of innocent dancing. The result is a fusion of dance flourishes and deadly martial arts moves that use the entire body to leverage huge amounts of force out of large kicks, flips and swings.
2. The Brazilian Box Step
The most basic movement of capoeira is called the ginga, meaning a rocking back and forth, which is a fluid, four part motion that keeps the capoeira fighter in constant motion, allowing him to quickly transfer energy into an attack while staying hard to hit. When it comes to fitness, the ginga is an excellent cardio base that serves to also stretch usually stiff muscles such as the hips and hamstrings. From the ginga, a capoeira practitioner can move into an "au," or capoeira cartwheel, handstand or takedown.
3. Stand on Your Hand
A very large portion of capoeira moves require that you invert your body by planting your hands on the ground and rising up into some variant of a handstand. While the handstand moves look fancy and impractical, when it comes to training your body and compensating for usually weak areas such as the shoulders and the muscles under your arms, there are few better suited exercises than the handstand. Practicing solid handstands that you can hold will improve your balance, shoulder muscles and general endurance.
4. Martial Arts and Music
Unlike almost every other systematized martial art, you practice and perform capoeira to music. Practitioners of the Brazilian martial art explain that the music helps them establish a rhythm to their fighting while focusing on the small and subtle movements of flips and kicks with greater precision. For fitness folk, capoeira music, which is unique to this martial art, is one more important motivator to get into the training studio.
5. Capoeira the Game
Serious devotees of capoeira speak about the somewhat enigmatic practice in game terminology. There aren't matches or bouts between opponents, but games. Players don't fight one another but, instead, they play. The result is that the fusion between dance, martial arts and acrobatics can proceed experimentally, allowing capoeira practitioners, or capoeiristas, to make almost superhuman gains in flexibility, dance fitness, cardio endurance and pure strength.
Member Comments