Capoeira??

A Polish lad came along to training at my cub on Monday and joined in the warm up but it then turned out that he thought it was a Capoeira club as he'd seen the world "Brazilian" in the club info.:-)).

I think he was a bit disappointed as he said he'd done nearly 2 years training in Poland but can't find anywhere to train locally. One of our lads suggested Morris Dancing.

Anyone ever had a go at it? (Capoeira that is, not Morris dancing).

Just fancy dancing ain't it? I hear it can be good, but can't see how myself.

Rickson gracie in 'choke' documentary, where he is lifted by the Japanese wrestler to be 'slammed', but Rickson spins off the guys shoulders and un-ballances him, taking him to ground.

Highly 'copierra' type move....sure Rickson has played with it on the beach.

Looks cool:-D. I wouldnt mind learning it looks a bit like break dancing.:-p

Well then learn break-dancing! :-p

Maybe one day you'll be this good...[link=http://rob.intelcompute.com/downloads/breakdance.wmv]breakdance.wmv (7MB)[/link] :-O

caroeira looks well cool,the guy who teaches mma locally knows abit apparently,says its quite effective but bloody knackering! was banned years ago in brazil by the goverment so went underground and was disguised as a dance form so people could still train.not sure if legal again now or not.

It was originally used in some form by gangs of runaway slaves against the portugese authorities. Later it became synonomous with gang fights and gangsters (a bit like post-samurai jujitsu).
This was probably a lot different to modern-day capoerra and knives were a common feature. Some guys had sharpened hooks on the end of the berimbau (the musical instrument) for non-musical reasons (unless a cry of pain counts as a singing voice).

It was banned but eventually a master, Bimba, managed to get permission to start an academy. He was a kind of jigoro Kano of capoerra. He cleaned it up, codified it a bit, added some elements from other martial arts and began to make it a bit more respectable. This is the fast moving capoerra regional.

There was also another master (whose name I forget) who taught the 'purer' form of capoerra angola (can be really slow, a bit like tai chi!).

Break dancing was heavily influenced by martial arts, particularly capoerra from Brazilleans in New York (so I've heard).

The main thing with cap is to avoid being hit and to dodge and trick your opponent. A lot of the ground work involves leg and ankle kicks while also dodging an upper body attack. There are also throws and punches. Open hand techniques could also be used with a blade.

I think the thing is, like everything else, you really have to be taught how to use it if you want to use it for combat. I trained for a few months in Poland and our trainers had previously done kung fu, so they had some better ideas than people who just train in it for the dancing element.

It is pretty physically demanding whatever you do with it.