After staying a little after work, I went home to grab a bite before heading off to Capoeira. Jules was home from Oregon, so that was a nice surprise. Practice was good tonight. Chris even came and checked out the classes today! It was cool to see a familiar face. Was beaming with energy afterward despite the night’s exertions.

I finally found out what my Capoeira name means too, sorta. Coquino calls me Couriño. Tonight I finally asked him what it meant and he pointed to the brown top of the berimbau and said something that sounded like “couro”. I combined that with my knowledge that “-ino” means small, and you kinda get the idea. Not too sure on the spelling though, the above are the mere fruits of time spent querying online Portuguese-to-English dictionaries.

Today was a long day at work. All you gots to know is two words: critical path. But I can’t really complain too much. I had my Monday morning blueberry bagel and got to see the layout of the new office we’re moving to next month. My Pilates-lunch buddies cancelled today and so instead of “working my core”, I spent my lunch hour eating the usual pad thai, cashew chicken, steamed rice combo from Uwajimaya. Such a deal.

The cool of the air and the tickle in my throat had me hankering for Asian soup today. Of the brothy variety. I went home and made some with chicken stock, soba noodles, ground beef, a plethora of seasonings and lo’ n behold, it was super good. Like “Wow I can’t believe I made this”-good. Jules even had some when she got home. :D (Ryan, you’re up.)

My Sifu e-mailed me this afternoon and it was nice hearing from him. I’ve been thinking a lot about Kung Fu lately these last couple months, especially as I’ve gotten more into Capoeira. I really miss it. While working out, whether it’s stretching or jinga-ing, it never fails to send me crashing back on memories. It’s even just times I pull open my dresser drawer and see my uniforms tucked underneath old t-shirts that I feel a flicker of sadness.

In any case, the e-mail was nice. I’ll probably call my Shixiong tomorrow to see how he’s doing as it’s been over a year since I returned his last call. And I happened to snag a glance at the AMI Fall class schedule (like I’ve been doing every quarter). And lo’ n behold, for the first time in months there’s a class on a Saturday morning that I haven’t done yet and also qualify for, and it’s a form I’ve always wanted to learn. For once feasibility is just “challenging” not “stark raving impossible” or “how do you manage it?” as it was when I was in college. And then there’s the fact that I’m so close to my brown belt that it hurts. Ah who knows. I’ve been babbling about this type of thing in my head all year. (Not in the concerning way, of course.) It’s just now there’s an opportunity. But who knows. We’ll see what pans out. Maybe I’ll call my Dad.

Anyway, here’s to my first attempt at blogging how I used to. In the psuedo-daily log sorta way. :P

The only thing that was different about this Capoeira class than the ones I took at the Experimental College was that I was truly “the new girl”. The only familiar face was my instructor and I felt totally out of place. It didn’t help that everyone in the room was dressed in their white uniforms, whereas I stood amidst them in my black Kung Fu pants and gray Informatics shirt. Talk about standing out.

What was most notable is that I felt nervous. The first half of the class we did stuff with instruments and worked on Maculele. Like mentioned before, Maculele is a fight-like stick dance where the performers hit each others’ sticks after every fourth beat of the drum. The movements are pretty awesome looking, but as you can imagine I looked like such a nub trying it–it’s all in the hips they say. As everyone gathered in a circle to have two at a time Maculele, I skirted away from the center at every chance I got, until a senior student insisted (for third time) that I really go in at least once. It was weird to feel so hesitant at something. I’m so used to diving into that sort of thing, careless of how I’ll look. But Maculele? Gah, I could hardly tell my right from left foot apart, let alone hit my sticks on the right beat.

I mean, it was fun. But it was interesting to be the newb. I’m so used to being the senior student watching the new guys as they would awkwardly attempt to mimick my movements. During last quarter’s EC classes, we all started as a group together. And even then I already felt ahead because I knew how to jinga. So tonight was different. But I’ll try again. I learned that my shyness completely dissipated when we got to the martial parts of the class. Kick your partner? Sure thing.

One day the Zen master Nan-in had a visit from a foreign scholar of eastern religions who came to learn about Zen. Nan-in gladly met with the visitor, but when they sat down together, the scholar proceeded to talk about his immense knowledge of eastern religions. After much listening, Nan-in suggested they have tea. He poured the tea into the scholar’s cup until it was full, but then he kept right on pouring. The tea then cascaded over the sides of the cup onto the saucer. Soon the saucer was full, and it spilled over onto the table and washed down onto the floor.

“Wait, what did you say you had tonight?” my boss asked as I was walking out the door.
“Er… Capoeira. Have you heard of it?” I replied, certain he hadn’t.
“Yeah, Brazillian martial arts. Originated from slaves. You do that?”
“Um, well no. This is my first time. At least… formally,” I admitted. He smiled.
“What? Where have you done it informally? South America?” he joked.
“Well, no. Acutally, I’ve studied Shaolin Kung Fu,” I paused to watch the look on his face, “And well, at one point my school shared our studio with a Capoeira school. We’d play around together every once in a while,” Wow, he most totally think I’m making this up as I go, “Anyway, gotta go! See you next week!” I said as I hurried out the door.

The story of why a Brazillian martial art is somewhat familiar to me sounds surreal enough in my head, that having voiced even part of it outloud made me feel uneasy. It’s not something that one can quickly explain. I left out the beginning of the story, the part that my Sifu had actually taken some Capoeira before he met and trained in Kung Fu with Master Yang in Boston. I left out that Northern-style Longfist, one of the two Kung Fu styles he learned and would later teach, is a long-range fighting style, that combined with Capoeira’s beat and dance-like motion, worked well for training, a fact he brought with him to Washington when he opened his first martial arts studio. That’s what I’ve been told at least.

At fourteen I received my yellow belt and I had the much-anticipated chance to choose what style to focus on for my rank. “You’re young and have lots of energy,” my Sifu told me, “Choose Longfist.” And as what any fourteen year old would do, I followed my friends. Nearly all my peers had chosen the showy spinning kicks of Longfist over the short-range movements of White Crane, and despite my inclination for the latter, I went for Longfist knowing how futile traning can be without the availability of partners. And so began my time in Longfist Level 1.

So classes began and being the slacking adolescent I was, I slowly trudged through the box steps rhythms, the cartwheels, kicks, and sideways back monkey fall dodges for nearly two years. Not that it wasn’t fun; there is a certain satisfaction to matching the steps of your partner, exchanging kicks, missing the point of contact by inches only to go, again and again ’til you were covered in sweat and forced to stop because you had dodged the wrong way or felt the tap on your shoulder that meant your turn was up. I was just bad at it. It took forever to overcome the awkwardness of my stepping, to get the timing of my kicks, to know which way to dodge when an attack came my way without ducking and closing my eyes.

As time passed, we advanced to sit in The Circle. There we would all sit in a circle formation to form a ring and a constant beat of a Chinese Lion Drum would play in the background. Two at a time we’d go up, greet, and box-step to the rhythm as we exchanged kick and dodge inside the Circle. It left you little place to run and the spectacle of it, combined with the music and jeers of your classmates, was a highlight of class time.

The higher ranking students were always fun to watch. They’d goof off more, less paranoid about their face, jump kicking, monkey crawling, and playing tricks. I used to be timid and hated The Circle. I had to be practically pushed in, but I got by. After much work and much time, I passed the first level. And with a new belt came a new decision, this time I chose the White Crane route and haven’t left it since. Longfist was cool, but it wasn’t my thing. I would revisit it in class exercises and participate in the ocassional Circle round, but that was that.