It’s capoeira between us. Conversations with capoeiristas. Part 1

Soon regular classes were not enough for me. In the first year, I went 3 times to Krasnodar, once to Moscow and St. Petersburg, and also spent a month in Israel, where I miraculously got to an event with Grande Mestre[9 - (Great) master.] Suassuna and Mestre Ivan.

During that year, I learned that I was training in the group called Cordāo de Ouro, and that this large and friendly family, which existed the world over, was waiting for me with open arms. Then, I have met almost all the YouTube legends. It got to the point where Mestre Cueca said that he was seeing me more often than his mother, and Suassuna kissed me on both cheeks and said that I was beautiful. I was happy. But I had plans. I was going to work on a cruise ship. I was supposed to get a second belt on the eve of my departure, but I learned with bitterness that the seminar had been postponed and I had to leave without the new belt.

I left for 7 months, trying in vain to keep practicing on my own. I even managed to take time off from work once and train with a group in Miami. And then I decided to catch up on lost time in Brazil. So, having seen my master only once, I wrote to him and said that I wanted to come and train with him. I didn’t even know that receiving guests was a common practice for him.

After a short visit home, I hit the road again. I stopped over in Rio de Janeiro for a little rest and spent some time at a local school, learning Portuguese. Following this, I bought a ticket to the small town of Patos de Minas, where Papa-Leguas lived with his family.

He met me at the bus station at 5 am. I was embarrassed, because he is a master! I was supposed to stay with his student, but she had left for 2 days, and the master offered me a stay at his house until she returned. I met his wife and children; it was like in a dream. I was at my master’s house! What an honor! What a delight! But despite getting close to him and his family, he is still like a rock star to me.

And so, the training routine began; I got acquainted with his instructors and the history of capoeira in Patos de Minas. Traces of this story are scattered all over the world: Mestre Chicote[10 - A whip.], Mestre Parente[11 - A relative.], Mestre Piolho[12 - A louse.] and, of course, Mestre Papa-Leguas – they all once trained together, started together, and now live in Europe.

On that trip, I also travelled to the event of world significance – Dia de Ouro[13 - Golden day or a day of gold.], where golden threads[14 - The highest belt according to the CDO system is white, and the white and gold belts were given to the first masters who have been in the group since its creation in order to acknowledge their merits.] appeared in the masters’ belts. And this journey ended at Mestre Suassuna’s home, where I met groups from Russia, South Africa, Miami and other countries at the same time. The geography of our group is vast, but I noticed one trend – all stories lead to Brazil and Israel.

Here, I propose to my readers to go on a trip and find out how capoeira began and is being practiced in different countries. I’ll start with the country where I got the idea to write a book – South Korea.

South Korea

It is our first stop on this capoeira journey and the place that inspired me to write.

South Korea has become a very special place for me. I came here to patch holes in the budget and lick the mental wounds, so to speak. Well. Both goals were achieved. I left Korea full of energy, ideas and love for capoeira.

Korea is a small country with beautiful nature and a developed economy. Technological and economic growth has occurred so quickly here that people and local traditions have not had time to fully adapt. For example, they monitor the waste recycling and protect nature at the governmental level, but at the same time middle-aged people throw garbage out of car windows. By the way, there are a lot of cars here, and all are quite expensive. At the same time, drivers in the provinces do not stop at a red light, drive without a license, and generally don’t regard traffic rules.

Koreans have a curious way of showing respect to “age”. Even if the age difference is one year. This is reflected in the language as well: they use different “you” for addressing a person who is younger than they are and another for a person who is older than they are. This reaches the point of absurdity – I have witnessed more than once when younger friends unquestioningly endured the idiotic antics of older ones. Without going into details, I will say that this does not fit into the modern European mentality, to which I belong.

But this is all happenings in the provinces. Young people flock to Seoul, worship idols (Korea’s ideal pop stars), undergo plastic surgery, speak English, travel, and increasingly protest the archaic traditions of Korean culture. Koreans who have at one point or another lived abroad, stand out a lot. They have much more inner freedom, they look more consciously at everything that is happening in their country. They understand that the Korean mentality puts a lot of labels on people, and this is not always correct.

My conclusions about Korea are limited by my observations, conversations with locals, articles from Quora and videos from YouTube. I am generalizing since you can find any type of mentality even within the same culture. I lived in a province where most of the locals spoke very poor English, so it was difficult to understand what was going on in their minds. Take into account what I’ve said above but do not form any stereotypes.

What about capoeira in South Korea?

While in Russia, I tried to find capoeira in Korea on Instagram using hashtags – I couldn’t find anyone but Zumbi[15 - Zumbi was a Brasilian of Kongo origin and a Quilombola leader; he is also one of the pioneers of resistance to the slavery of Africans by the Portuguese in Brasil.]. I looked in Yandex and found the Zumbi’s webpage again. Well, I thought, he must be the only one then. And capoeira, it seems, existed only in Seoul.

I worked far from Seoul and trained by myself in the park for 2 months. I wrote to Zumbi and informed him that I wanted to meet, chat and practice capoeira with him on my last day (and my only day off) in Korea. I had a flight in the evening, and Zumbi’s class was early in the morning, so I hit the road, slept for an hour and a half on the bus, and with drooping eyes came to his class. After that experience, my body had gone into shock. It had already been heavy after a sleepless night and I had rubbed my feet to calluses. I could barely walk after that class, as Zumbi is a maniac. Honestly, if he could, he would literally train all day long!

After the class, we went to have lunch and met Zumbi’s student. I barely remember conversations we had since my head was really foggy. But, having been on a first visit to Korea, I decided to come to Korea again and become better acquainted with the persons that I interacted with. So, on my second visit to Korea, I went to Seoul 3 times to get to know the Zumbi’s group. I met his student, who replaces him in classes when he is away, – graduada[16 - A graduate. A student with a yellow (third) belt in the CDO system.] Formiginha[17 - Little ant.].I also met his student from Brazil: in fact, this guy began to practice capoeira in England, when he moved there as a child, and continued with Zumbi, after moving to Seoul. I also met a student from the United States with Brazilian roots who teaches English in Korea.

It turned out that I had met one of Zumbi’s students even before I met him. This happened when I came to Brazil to train with Mestre Papa-Leguas in 2017. This girl used to live and study in Seoul, and now she lives in Brazil. It’s a small world, isn’t it?

Are there any other capoeira groups in Korea?

Yes, Some of Zumbi’s former students had split off and continued to work directly with Mestre Chicote. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to meet with any of them during my time in Korea.

I managed to find 3 CDO[18 - Short from Cordão de Ouro.] groups in Korea. I have also heard of Capoeira Angola[19 - Angola or Capoeira Angola is one of the fundamental styles of capoeira.] and Abada. All groups, judging by the photos, are quite small and do not hold large events.

In my personal experience, most Koreans do not know how to relax and have fun in a healthy way. Constantly competing for jobs, they worry too much about their social image, and Koreans simply don’t have the time and energy to have a real hobby, let alone devote themselves to capoeira and start teaching with a yellow belt.

Professor[20 - A capoeirista with blue-green-yellow belt in the CDO system.] Zumbi – Seoul, South Korea

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Zumbi is an amazing person who is in love with capoeira. He was the first representative of the CDO school in Korea. He breathes such confidence that it seems that he never doubts that he will achieve everything he wants.

Life is unpredictable and full of surprises, which is why, while in Korea, I interviewed Zumbi on Skype, and not in person. Zumbi was in the United States at that time. If I’m not mistaken, the difference between us was about 12 hours or even more, so I had to get up early for the conversation while for Zumbi it was the evening of the previous day.

Conversation with Professor Zumbi.

Curiosa: Tell me about your background: Where were you born? Where and when did you start practicing capoeira?

Zumbi: I was born and grew up in Jamaica. In 2000, I moved to the USA at the age of 23 where almost immediately I started to practice capoeira. I started in Berkley, California with Mestre Marcelo Caveirinha[21 - Small skull.] in the capoeira Mandinga group. At that time, it wasn’t so popular to use the name of Cordão de Ouro, so basically I started with CDO masters in a group with a different name. Capoeira became my passion and was my motivation to get good grades at university. I would allow myself 4 hours a day to practice capoeira but only if I got excellent grades!

In 2003, I started to train with Mestre Chicote in Vallejo, Oakland, and SF. These times were hard ones because Chicote was giving classes at different hours and in different locations, still I tried to go to all of them even if they were far and ended late.

Curiosa: When and how did you start to teach capoeira? Was it easy? Did it come naturally?

Zumbi: In 2005, I started to teach capoeira with the yellow belt. I didn’t really make any income from teaching, but I saw it rather as a hobby that would allow me to organize my own workouts during the week. So, I would give classes at the same place and hour to my students from Mondays to Thursdays and trained with the big group from Fridays to Sundays.

As to whether it was easy, discipline and goal setting have always been important for me. I enjoyed preparing for every class, explaining capoeira to others and mastering my own skills through teaching and for me teaching came easily; it is a part of learning.

Curiosa: Who was your greatest inspiration in the practicing of capoeira?

Zumbi: Among the people who inspired me and influenced my capoeira the most are the 2 first American masters: Beringela[22 - An eggplant.] and Xangô[23 - Xangô is one of the most popular orishas in the Yoruba religion, Heavenly Father, the spirit of thunder and lightning.]. They are geniuses in capoeira because they managed to excel in all areas of capoeira and to understand all cultural and traditional aspects of it without actually living in Brazil.

Curiosa: Why and when did you move to South Korea? What was the situation with capoeira in Seoul at that time? What is the situation now?

Zumbi: In 2009, a Korean company offered me a full-time job, which was too good to refuse, in Korea. So, I moved to Seoul and immediately started to search for capoeira classes. I found a group called Filhos de Bahia. The leader of the group was Mestre Nei Boa Morte. Their teacher’s name was Alegria, but he had temporarily stopped teaching and his wife was giving classes instead. I didn’t enjoy going to their classes and was training alone in a gym. The same year, a student of Alegria started a Muzenza group. I was visiting their rodas[24 - Roda is the circle in which capoeira is played.] and helped them with their first Batizado.

Soon after, I started my own group and right now I’m not getting on well with any other capoeira teachers in Korea. Most of these Korean teachers never left Korea and haven’t been to Brazil, so we always have disagreements on how things should be done.

Curiosa: What did you do to form your first group?

Zumbi: I came to Korea with a yellow/blue belt, and I was an estagiario.

Curiosa: I know it as a monitor belt.

Zumbi: In the class, if you have yellow/blue belt, your teacher tells you what to do and you show that to the class, then you become a monitor. However, if you don’t have a master who teaches you, or like in my case, you’re the only representative of your group in the whole country, you are called an estagiario.

So, I was working out alone in a gym every day. One girl kept looking at me and finally I offered to teach her. I said, “If you want to learn, you should come every day at 6 am and be committed.” So that’s what she did. Soon she started to come with her best friend. We would have discussions and drinks after the classes until I eventually formed a capoeira club.

I got lucky. My employer sponsored my club with $800 per month that I spent it mostly on musical instruments. Soon there wasn’t enough space for everybody to train. We rented an acrobatic studio, which cost $2000/month, for free. Again, it happened because the owners of the studio wanted to have good partnership with my employer. There were fifty students by then.

Most of these students were highly educated Korean boys and girls between 22 and 32 years old. They all spoke English, so it was easy for me to give classes, although I had been learning Korean.

Curiosa: How quickly did you learn Korean language?

Zumbi: It took me four months to learn 40% of Korean language that I now speak. The rest took me more than three years.

Curiosa: What are the major milestones of your work with capoeira in Korea? Were there any dramatic or difficult moments that caused you to consider giving it up?