In sports, many athletes make sacrifices for the love of the game. In my opinion, capoeristas are the ultimate champions at this! I’ve read stories of people giving up jobs, degrees, and entire lifestyles to move to Brazil and train capoeira. I’ve also been told of people taking the train from Moscow to St. Petersburg for a 10-person roda. One capoeirista I’ve met virtually lives in two different cities, driving back and forth between them every week to teach. And the craziest thing is, it’s not even a matter of skill or having gone “pro”–whether you’ve been doing it for twenty years or twenty days, once you’ve been bitten by the capoeira bug, you’re gone!
It really hit me today as I finished my last two final exams for school (yay!). I woke up late for the first one, and hadn’t studied at all for the second one–and that isn’t like me at all. Why? Because I’ve been devoting all my time to this blog–and it’s not even doing capoeira, just talking about it!
As for actually searching out capoeira, now that was interesting. It involved taking a train four hours to another city in a foreign country where I barely spoke the language, calling a phone number obtained from an outdated website, walking and taking 5 buses to two of the sketchiest parts of town, and being driven home late at night, in a city I didn’t know at all, by men who were pretty much still strangers. Only capoeira!
Then there’s this picture my friend drew for me, which pretty much explains it all:
I didn’t actually miss my flight, but I was going away for a year and decided to spend the night before training instead of packing, so you get the idea.
So, what’s your story? I’d love to hear them–if only to prove to my family and friends that I’m not an isolated case!
Mandingueira 
I actually haven’t done anything totally crazy for capoeira. As much as I love it, I try not to let it take over my life (because there are so many other things I have going on).
But I guess there’s one thing… When I was a freshman in college we couldn’t have cars on campus, so I made my parents pick me up twice a week so they could bring me to capoeira (it was about a half hour – 45 minutes away). So it wasn’t actually me doing anything crazy, but making my parents do something crazy.
After that I started my club at school and eventually had a car on campus so I could drive myself once a week or so.
But yeah, nothing too crazy.
After that I started my
We used to have a good capoeira class on Wednesday afternoons. Of course I couldn’t attend as I had to work… you would think. I made a special arrangement with my boss. I worked ’till the capoeira class, then go and afterwards come back and stay later.
This year I drove 3 times to Germany to visit other group’s their batizados and even took the plane once to Ireland. Even though it wasn’t cheap, it doesn’t feel crazy to me. Lot’s of capoeiristas do it 🙂
Haha, thanks for your input, guys.
Faisca that was really great of your parents to do that. From my own experience as well, it seems like all parents should automatically get professional chauffeur licenses after a while! And I definitely know what you mean about not letting capoeira take over your life…sometimes it really seems like there’s a fine line between dedication and obsession-compulsion, when it comes to it.
I have a friend who did that too, Xixarro…only he didn’t go back afterwards XD Haha yeah that’s exactly what I meant, investing so much time and money doesn’t feel crazy to capoeiristas because we love capoeira so much we think it’s worth it, but to anyone else it does look crazy!
I’m one of those people who gave up jobs, degrees, and lifestyles, and moved to Brazil :-p
After college, I was accepted into grad school with a full scholarship, but I also received a 10-month research grant to go to Brazil. Although my grad advisor warned against “delaying my career”, I deferred grad school and went to Brazil… later I ended up turning down the grad school acceptance and staying in Brazil for an extra 5 months.
And I’m now in a totally different career area anyway, so no harm done 🙂
Anyone thinking of doing this, though, should read this article I wrote on “Training in Brazil: Myth vs. Reality”:
http://www.capoeira-connection.com/main/content/view/54/76/
Wow Shayna, that’s pretty amazing. Was it hard making that decision, or did you just know? (Also, what were you doing your grad studies in?)
Right.
I’m doing 400 km trice a week to give 2 hours of class each.
😉
Yup, definite kudos to you too! 🙂