capoeira log 1

we learn such funky sequences in class. for a long time now, i've been saying i should record them. then i change my mind. see, because i question if it will make me less spontaneous in the roda. however, i just can't fight the feeling 'cause i want to remember everything i learn. so here is capoeira log 1. Nothing fancy, I will just go over what we did in each class. The class I'm recording now is M 2/4/05 (6:30-8pm). I should do this for my painting class too.. i'm getting ahead of myself. anyhoo, here goes:

conditioning:
maybe another log, i'll go into our Monday conditioning routine, cause of a lot of it we repeat. what we did differently this time, is a type of crunch. we would crunch from superman position (lying on our backs, our arms straight out), grab our legs, negativa to the left, go straight into jinga position, switch jinga then lie back down into superman.

sequencia:
1. right leg back - esquiva lateral - descida - negativa - [quick get up] (*note to self: find out name for this) - esquiva left - esquiva right - negativa
- switch leg, repeat.

2. left leg back - esquiva lateral - right leg back - quiexada - jump into rasteira -
rasteira turns quickly into queda de rins - negativa on left - [quick get up] - esquiva left - esquiva right - jinga left - jinga right.
- switch leg, repeat.

3. same as 2, but instead of the last jinga, go straight into meia-lua de compasso.

practice:
we practiced au se mao. Little foam sticks were laid out one in front of another, with equal space in between. from the parallel position (left leg facing the first foam stick), we were meant to fling our heads first (swinging out our arms to get momentum and balance), then kicking the right leg straight out into the air, left leg follows and we land in the same parallel position between the next stick and repeat.
thank goodness for youtube, here is a clip of how it is supposed to look:


after we got through the sticks we had to practice au de cabeza back to the starting position. from parallel position, we grab the floor, put our heads on it and do a short au back into parallel.

roda:
roda was action-packed as usual. Mestre was nice to watch. i favor a lot of his movements. like he goes into au, stops into handstand, goes unto the head, then shoots back into the same direction he started into parallel. wow, it's like every class he changes his style, and he's always surprising you with new moves. today, he would fake that sweep thing you do before the S-dobrado. he faked, spinned around then did that funky au where you invert forward in the air into a front flip. he did that a few times. + he did that sweeper into that flying spin kick (gotta look up the name for this). he's usually so fast, other people can barely move in the roda with him... towards the end, Mestre closed in the roda, so that we we're all standing really close to each other. no one was fighting at this point. and then by Mestre's command, the singing, clapping, instrumentation grew at a fever pitch. 4...3...2...1....ay! class was over!


the previous class:
i can't tell you in so much detail now as the class i just had, but we practiced doing short aus and fake short aus combined with negativa. you know like from parallel go as if you are going into a short au, but stop half way, then do that to the other side, then quickly do an au for real - that's what i mean by fake au... but then we would tilt slightly and land in a negativa at the last step. yeah, we did that a lot. even practiced the fake aus from one end of the gym to another. we looked like bears kicking backwards basically.

we also did practice the animal movements. the sapu? (frog) - crouched like a frog, you hop like a frog; caranguejo (crab) - similar to a bridge position, you walk backwards like this; urso (bear) - legs spread apart, both hands straight on the floor, you walk like a bear; jacare (alligator) - your chest almost flat on the floor, arms bent, legs bent, you walk like an alligator; serpente (snake) - looks just like the stretching position you do after crunches; aguia (eagle) - one leg straight out in the air behind you like superman, the arms flapping as wings. these animal movements are fun, and i want to begin to use them more in the roda. in the roda, everyone naturally, was practicing their (fake)/short aus a lot. i want to see a lot more of the animal movements though - some don't seem practical like serpente and aguia, but the others are (at least funny/fun).

also we had practice work with the instruments, even though i only got to play the agogo. i got caught leading the songs, and whoops, my secret was revealed - that i didn't learn any of them yet, and i did horribly... My mestre was like sing Bob Marley, trying to lighten the situado.

\- wow, i didn't mean for this to get so long. but i like the way it went, so there will be no doubt, some other capoeira logs. -/