Let’s do the capoeira: Here's how you can benefit from the martial art form

Updated On: 05 August, 2022 10:17 AM IST | Mumbai | Tanishka D’Lyma

Now that tennis star Novak Djokovic is learning capoeira, are you keen to take it up? Here’s how you can benefit from this martial art form

Listen to this article :

Moshe Massah

With a passion in his voice, Sucuri Singh, lead teacher at Capoeira Academy of India, introduces us to the Brazilian martial art form, capoeira, which involves flowing manoeuvres facilitated with and disguised as dance. It was created by Africans who were enslaved in Brazil in the 16th century as a way to engage in recreational activities and practise self-defense — the latter bypassing the knowledge of their colonisers. It’s often mistaken as a dance form, but Sucuri corrects us, saying, “It is purely a martial art that incorporates elements of dance and music, and instruments including the African berimbau and agogo, and the pandeiro that’s common Brazil. The moves are hidden in dance so the coloniser wouldn’t know they were practising martial art. But, without music and instruments, there will be no capoeira.”

Sucuri Singh