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Help me choose a good capoiera school

MORPHEUSMORPHEUS Registered User regular
edited June 2008 in Help / Advice Forum
I live in South Florida, I was just want some tips on how to filter the the schools that want to suck your wallet, and the decent ones.

MORPHEUS on

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  • CBG BlenderCBG Blender Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited June 2008
    I trained a lot in the Georgia area. I was in a group at UGA, and we trained with several groups around the SouthEast. Some of the most fun and valuable training experiences were in a Brazilian community and training with groups from other nearby colleges. At one point we worked with a group from Florida, but sadly I cannot remember their name. The only time I ever paid much money was when we did big Batizados and had to get new cordas or springing for a new pair of abadas.

    So, my recommendations: Are you in college? If so, your school may have a good group. There were two at UGA when I started there. Also, if you are in college, take advantage of study abroad opportunities. I started with capoeira there, then took a lot of Portuguese, then got into the study abroad program for Niteroi and Salvador, Brazil. I spent a summer there and was able to train in Niteroi, Rio, and even in Salvador - It was amazing to train at a school Mestre Bimba founded, with a mestre he trained himself carrying on the legacy. If you're not in college, then look around and try to get in touch with them anyways, they may train off-campus or in a public place.

    Are there any areas with a big Brazilian population near you? There happened to be one not too far away from us that we could drive out to every now and then to train with a mestre and his students. It may be hard to find this directly, but if you get in touch with a college group and you can't join up, then they may be able to direct you to a school like this.

    So yeah, those would be the best options to me. Capoeira was amazing fun, and I was never in better shape than when I was regularly playing. Now that I'm away from a good group and low on time, I still try and make it out to my back yard every now and then and enjoy it. Whatever you do, join a group that knows how to have fun with it. You can take learning it very seriously, and train really hard, but never forget the cultural and musical aspects, and especially never forget to have fun doing it. I've done lots of more "serious" martial arts over the years, but the years I spent with capoeira are the most special to me.

    CBG Blender on
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