The Dusty Fedora

Psychology of the Capoeirista Under Fire

Capoeira gets a lot of guff around martial art circles. When people are first exposed to it, either on TV or YouTube or perhaps even at a performance, their first reaction is always the same: they’re awed by the acrobatics employed, the fluidness of the attacks and escape, and generally quite surprised when they hear that it isn’t choreographed. But when they’re hit with the fact that it’s meant to be a martial art, those with some experience in the field, either practicing it or avidly observing it, they often raise an eyebrow. Although capoeira looks really cool, there doesn’t seem to be, at least from their perspective, anything deadly about it. Nothing that would work on the streets, let alone in a mixed martial art competition. Those who do have a passion for martial arts tend to write off flashier martial arts like capoeira for more visibly efficient, “hard” ones like muay thai and krav maga. They don’t feel that capoeira, with its vast repertoire of moves that are clearly just for show, has a place outside of its own culture and sport.

Capoeiristas who believe in their art as a viable form of combat argue that there is capoeira for the roda – that is, the circle in which the game (joga) is played, and for real life circumstances. After all, it was invented by slaves to use against those who would oppress them to huge effect, made clear by the fact that it was more illegal than drugs in Brazil until the late 1930s. Capoeira has been used in fighting matches, sometimes coming across as a joke, but often making an enormously unexpected impact – literally, as there is a famous incidence of a mixed martial artist being knocked out by a capoeira kick just twenty seconds into a match, and there are records of people being killed in recreational matches by these same kicks that can gather huge momentum behind them. Although even as a capoeirista and one who believes in its potential as a self-defense, I feel it would be foolish to say it’s just as useful on the street as martial arts created to disable an opponent as quickly as possible, no matter how one uses it, I believe from personal experience that it does contain something even more crucial to surviving an attack that is overlooked by hard martial arts, and widely by martial arts in general.

Ironically, this missing factor is the reason capoeira is sneered at in the first place: it is not just a form of self-defense but a form of recreation and sharing of culture. These aspects have little effect on the body or on skill, but they do have a massive effect on the mindset, and capoeiristas have known this and exploited it as the central concept of their art since its conception. Professor Vacca summarizes this strategy: “You fake to one side with your foot down low and then kick up high with your other foot. Or just lulling your opponent into a false sense of security, and then, out of nowhere, a surprise sweep will put them on the ground…The whole deception is you’re trying to make your opponent think you guys are just playing.” Although capoeira is not the first martial art to place a large emphasis on trickery, it is one of the few that not only teaches its pupils to not only deceive their opponents but also themselves.

Capoeira is a game: what other martial arts call sparring, capoeiristas call playing. This is not a whimsical expression, or evidence that it is more of a dance or sport than a martial art, as many critics profess, but a term that in itself serves to condition its students, and just like many things in capoeira, the reasoning behind this practice likely goes back to its origins: Slaves in Brazil were unarmed, without even the full use of their hands, and those who rebelled had no rights in their society. They were surrounded on all sides and, especially as word of capoeira spread among the slave owners and capoeira became the most persecuted practice in the nation. Fighting is always stressful, and fighting for one’s life and freedom is naturally much more so, and more so when one is both clearly overpowered and unorganized. In situations of high stress, reason gives into emotion, which most martial artists will agree leads to mistakes, often fatal ones. Therefore capoeiristas needed aspects that would keep up the morale of its participants, and thus came the notion of the game and sport coupled with the music and dance aspect originally put into play to fool the slaves’ antagonists. When one sees an event as a game before a mortal struggle, the two sides seem far more even, fear is controlled, and in theory and, as made clear by Brazilian history, practice, success is more likely.

The ideal of war as a game is not a new thing either, as militaries from around the world have strived to instil bloodlust and a love of “getting in the shit”, counting kills, creating nicknames between warriors…anything to keep up morale and make the situation seem only stressful enough to produce a small amount of anxiety so that fear does not cripple them – at the same time, presenting a confusing and concerning opposition to the antagonistic party. Capoeira takes this to a higher and more individual level, though, than most if any other martial art, and even today this imbued state of mind is arguably the single most important aspect of a fighter. And, in one circumstance, it may have saved this eccentric writer a trip to the hospital.

I am not and never have been a confrontational person, not only in violence or antagonism but in people in general. Since my early teenage years I lost interest in any lasting relationship face to face, good or bad, and over the years I’ve come to accept that as a part of my individuality. I am in fact diagnosable with a condition known as schizoid personality disorder as a university student today. For eight years until I was seventeen years old I took Taekwondo lessons. I achieved a second-degree black belt and even instructed classes before I finally ceased to have time to attend. Our dojang was very focused on proactive self-defense, branching outside the usual realms of Taekwondo kicks and hand strikes and devoting entire classes to pressure points, takedowns, and precision strikes. I prided myself in these, as although I could perform essentially any level of kick I was quite light (today, at nineteen, I’m only fifty kilograms with the same build) and so lacked power. I was fast, precise, and effective in class, but when one is in high school conflicts are all but inevitable, and when it came about that I needed to defend myself physically I found I could not. When my stress level peaked from not only being forced into direct confrontation with another person my thoughts became a blur. I attempted to recall techniques but fumbled, could barely stand up straight or perceive in order to block blows. We would both leave with bruises as I got in clumsy attacks, but I would be the emotionally shattered one. Fear got the better of me, and I became more reclusive: using psychological terminology, I depersonalized and I regressed.

After I quit Taekwondo I had two years of no physical activity whatsoever. I don’t think I even went hiking. I studied, I interacted online, I formed vivid fantasies in my mind and sometimes wrote about them, read, played video games…the friends I made, I lost quickly after the novelty of having a social life wore off…I can only attribute my preserved smallness to a lack of appetite and high metabolism. One of my fantastic characters that I hold very close to me is a capoeirista, a choice fuelled by a documentary I watched, which in turn fuelled my interest in it. This interest was realized when I moved out of the house into a city, and at a polytechnical institute I discovered lessons. For the first time in years I interacted with others without bias or excessive self-awareness; rather than focusing entirely on facial expressions, voice tone, attempting to understand the mystery of the human psyche that ironically inspired my choice of major, it was reading bodies. A mathematical pursuit almost, and unlike Taekwondo an unstructured but conversely a complex dialogue that was, indeed, a game. There was no winner, no loser…no hip-checking…just a paradoxically narcissistic display of self-confidence and skill in the context of awareness of and response to one’s partner.

I’m not the best. I don’t even have my first corda, although I’ve retained an amount of skill if not fitness from my earlier days. However, even in the ivory tower, verbal conflict can turn into physical conflict. A threatening punch was thrown at my shoulder and almost instinctively I rotated, twisting my head and peering over my elbow, legs apart bent. I don’t know the Portuguese name for this, but I should, needless to say it’s a basic dodge to the right. It was different this time, though, as I felt an odd thrill. This wasn’t a confrontation; it was just another jogo, another game. I moved left into a more upright ginga and pushed him just back enough with my foot, just a continuation of the last movement, just so that he became a bit unbalanced and could no longer reach me with his hands. I couldn’t help but grin a bit at the guy’s expression. This wasn’t a fight, although he may have expected it to escalate into one but now the strangeness of the situation had gotten to him. Smaller acts of offense had brought me to shambles before but now, bouncing on the balls of my feet a little just as he put himself on guard, I put down my own and stood up fairly straight, grinning, and shrugged, and said something that might’ve been “’Sup, mate,” because I’m not nearly as verbose or creative in conversation as I am in text. We stood there for a moment; his friends (my acquaintances, in that they live on my floor) laughed, and a couple said something that may have been a joke at the expense of either of us, before the offender walked out without another word.

Whether or not I scared him, confused him, or just made him figure he was dealing with a lunatic who probably didn’t know any better than to offend him (how silence can be offensive, I might not know until 400 level PSYC) really doesn’t matter to me; what matters is that he made an offensive move and not only did I remain calm, did not withdraw compulsively from the confrontation, I even made light of it. And after reflecting upon this very brief event, I can only attribute its outcome to the aforementioned philosophy of capoeira as a game that is, as is clear by both this example and historical inspection, to be highly underrated.

In closing, it may be that capoeira is not the best defense against a gun. It will win fewer matches in the MMA than more modernized styles. However, it contains things that may not be so obviously beneficial that make it a very respectable practice not only culturally and personally but also to the martial artist who believes that success is not merely the mastery of one’s opponent but also that of oneself.

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