For the month of August we will be making a return to focusing on fundamentals.  We normally spend at least a portion of every class working on fundamentals in some way.  Over the past few months we have been focusing more on different styles of games and how they should be played.  It is important to be able to distinguish the different games you play depending on the rhythm the berimbau is playing, however, all of your understanding of how to play each different type of game will be lost if you forget to focus on the fundamental movements of capoeira.  If you have a solid foundation you can play any type of game.  
    Training fundamental movements, in addition to allowing you to play all types of games, also is important for keeping yourself protected both in the roda and out.  The first thing we teach people in capoeira is how to get out of the way of an attack.  As you can assume, if you get lazy on how to escape attacks you become much more likely to get hurt.  Whether a strike is malicious or not if you put your face in front of a fast moving hand or foot then you will get hurt.  It therefore behooves you to train how to dodge and evade attacks as much and as often as possible.  Not only does this prevent you from being on the receiving end of a strike while playing capoeira, but it also trains you to be aware of your surroundings in all situations.  Meaning that if you are able to dodge a person who is doing a cartwheel around you while simultaneously sticking their foot in your face, then you will also be able to dodge someone who is trying to grab or strike you who doesn’t have that much physical agility/prowess and is doing it in a much more straightforward manner. Essentially by working on these fundamentals for improving your capoeira your ability to defend yourself in real life situations improves along with your ability to protect yourself in the roda.
    Fundamental movements improve your strength, flexibility, and overall fitness as well.  By training the fundamental kicks and working on explosion and extension you will naturally develop better flexibility and strength.  The circular fundamental kicks, such as armada, quexada, and meia lua de compasso, help you move your legs through the widest range of motion possible.  By working on them consistently your range of motion will improve, as will, as a result, your overall flexibility.  Also, if you’re working on explosion, power, and speed, your balance, strength, and cardiovascular health will improve as well.  High intensity interval training (HIIT) is one of the best methods of improving overall fitness.  HIIT training requires you to raise your heart rate briefly before allowing it to slow, and then repeating the process.  Training capoeira gives you movements that make you use all of the muscles in your body in a functional way.  Therefore by training your fundamental movements in a structured consistent fashion you will discover a workout that will improve your overall fitness as well as improve your movements while playing capoeira in order to help you maintain a clean and well structured game.  
    Physical awareness and agility are also improved by working on fundamentals.  Every fundamental movement in capoeira serves as a building block for a more advanced movement.  For example, an au (cartwheel) teaches you how to hold yourself upside down.  The more you work on being able to do an au the better your moves will be that involve inverting (handstands, beija flor, au de cabeca, macaco etc).  Similarly, by improving your flexibility and explosive abilities, by training fundamental circular kicks like armada and quexada, advanced movements like parafuso and passagem will also be more easily executed. This becomes particularly important for more advanced players because it gets them ready to be able to play more advanced games.  Not only does it improve their Iuna game (game of floreios), but it gives more advanced players the ability to play more intricate games no matter what rhythm the berimbau is playing.  By consistently training their fundamental movements advanced players will be able to improve their floreio (acrobatic movements) because their overall level of physical awareness will be constantly improving.  
    The best thing about training fundamentals is that they can never be perfected.  You can always improve upon them, and by improving on them you will make the rest of your game better. Training fundamentals helps you to protect yourself and others while training, playing, and in everyday life because it improves your overall sense of awareness. You will be able to determine if your partner, or opponent... depending on the situation, is going to make contact with you, or you them, because your spatial awareness will be so fine tuned. This makes for a safer training environment at our academy for all levels as well as improves one's self confidence in other situations that life throws at you.

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At Minnesota Capoeira Academy (the name of our brick and mortar location), we have chosen the name Capoeira Floração for our group.  Floração translates to "the period or season of flowering or blooming".  We wanted our new name to express our hopes for our students and our capoeira academy: that our new era as our own group would enable everyone to "bloom", so to speak- to become their very best, feel their very best, and have their best time doing capoeira.  It is a new time for us, and an exciting one; we can't wait to see how each of you grow, how our community and capoeira family grows, and how we grow capoeira here in Minnesota to be a life changing experience that is inclusive and accessible to all.

You may also have noticed our new logo!  
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Keeping along with our theme of growth- we centered our logo with a tree.  We chose to include the roots in our logo as well- even though we are growing and branching out, we always want to remember our roots in capoeira and where we came from.  That has given us a solid base to grow from.  The words "comunidade", "familia", and "cultura" are written along the bottom- these three things we also believe are at the foundation of what we do- they are what we value, what holds us up, and what we want to continue to grow.

Thank you Garnise (Rodrigo Lopez) for drawing and designing with Coruja and Vespa.

Theme: humility/humildade

Moves:
Group A: cocarinha, negativa, role

Group B:​ sit down in negative, role, macaco

Song: A Palma de Bimba... kids need to know the response, which is, "E um, dois tres" (it's one, two, three).  See below for more information about this song.

author: Coruja

A toque used for the not often seen 'money', game where the players try to pick up a coin purse placed in the center of the roda with their mouths.  In addition to the picking up of money people are also known to use items like caixixis.  This was also a rhythm played for people to play a game where they would place a ‘navalha’ (knife) between their toes while playing.   
This jogo (game) has a different feel than other capoeira rhythms like Benguela or Sao Bento Grande de Bimba because you are trying to win by picking something up.  This jogo has an end where Benguela and Sao Bento do not necessarily.  That being said it is important to remember when playing this game that there is more to winning than just picking up the item.  If you watch the video linked above you see that the two players are moving withTONS of expression.  When you play this game part of it is to also try and use as much expression in your movements to throw off your partner so you can sneak around them to get to the item.  You also see the two players stopping each other by blocking each other with their feet or head.  There is even one point where you see the one person use his head to hold the others head on the ground so he can’t pick up the caixixi… pretty crazy move if you ask me, but in this you can see that they are playing a very specific way.  They aren’t striking each other, like you see in Benguela or Sao Bento, but rather they are trying to utilize their kicks and movement to inspire the other player to move a certain way to create an opening for going in for the item.  This is an extremely helpful way to think about training and playing because it transfers to how you would play during Angola, Benguela, or Sao Bento in that you would be, if you want, connecting those kicks instead of just using them to inspire a reaction.  
The jogo de Santa Maria is helpful to understand and be able to play because it teaches you how to play with a goal in mind, but also teaches you how to occupy another person’s space to make them move where you want them to.  Vice versa, it also teaches you how to react appropriately when you are being challenged by someone who is trying to crowd you or make you move where they want you to go.  It teaches you to be mindful of your entire surroundings because if you get too focussed on just going after the item you wind up with a foot in your face.  In order to play a good Santa Maria game you have to be able to play with a goal, but not lose sight of the bigger picture, which is to have a coherent/connected game with your partner.
Another phrase used to describe this type of playing is “jogo de dentro” (game of inside or playing on the inside).  What this describes is how the two players never move away from each other, but are always trying to move through the other or around while staying as close as possible.  If you pay attention to the video you can see that the two players are never more than a couple inches away from each other at any given time.    

The melody imitates the corrido Santa Maria, Mãe de Deus. The corrido Apanha Laranja no Chão Tico Tico (não leva com mão, só com pé ou com bico) gives general rule for the game: use your mouth and feet, not your hands.

Song with other lyrics:
Apanha laranja no chao tico tico
Se meu amor for si embora eu nao fico
Apanha com a mao ou com pe ou com bico
translation:
grab the orange from the ground tico tico (tico is the sound of the berimbau)
if my love went away I will not stay.
Grab it with your hand or your foot or your mouth

​Below is an example of a Santa Maria game (Abada Capoeira, Mestre Camisa)