a digital scrapbook

Anyone who’s familiar with Kung Fu knows you don’t train in a circle box-stepping. Anyone who’s familiar with Capoeira knows that the formation we were doing is called a roda and the thing we call a “box step” is ginga. But this didn’t matter at the time. I was learning Kung Fu. Side-monkey-heel kicks and tame-the-tiger stances were Chinese, not Brazillian. In fact, I had never seen Capoeira, only heard its name and had some vague notion that it was similiar to the what we did. It was a question answered early on when we began to inquire why we had never seen Kung Fu like this before.

A few years later, as a senior in high school, I was in a different studio, but under the same school. A group of Capoeira instructors were looking for studio space and came to an agreement with my Shixiong to share the school. Spending 3-4 hours there, six times a week, my Kung Fu studio had become my second home . Basically, Capoeira showed up at my doorstep. At the time, I was neck deep in White Crane, but always being the first to show and last to leave the studio, I’d catch the beginnings of the Capoeira classes. I’d watch them in their white uniforms, drums, and berimbaus. I’d see them form a circle, step with the same familiar motion, to the same beat. I’d watch them “play” as they called it, jumping and kicking, emphasizing each person’ s acrobatic ability, rather than the signature Kung Fu style I was accustomed to. Soon open practice involved both schools, and I’d practice my Kung Fu beside the Capoeira folks as they exchanged their kicks and sang their Portuguese songs. Then summer came and ended, and I left to Seattle for college.

So yesterday as I attended my first Capoeira class, when some of the intermediate students approached me to compliment my ginga or when the other beginner students would exasperatedly look at me and mumble, “How do you pick it up so fast?” it was hard to give an answer. Was not about to go into the whole bit about Shaolin Longfist Kung Fu and my pseduo-exposure to Capoeira. It sounds weird enough as it is in my own head.

There are of course things that are different in Capoeira than what I’ve been taught. I’m sometimes forced to decipher corrections given to me in Portuguese. Most notably are the times that I get called out for dodging incorrectly because I’ll use a front or side dodge I’ve learned from Kung Fu. It gets the job done fine, but I have to remind myself that I didn’t come to class to practice my much-neglected Longfist. So there’s many instances where I am forced to empty my cup and listen. But while there are definite differences, from theory on hand placement to the mechanics of one’s kick, to me it’s still The Circle. Except this time I’m diving face first.

Pages: 1 2