The past 4-5 days have been such a blur…but I’ll try to remember what happened.

Day 1, Half Music and Half Capoeira.

It was a 3 hour workshop. 1.5 hrs of music and 1.5 of Capoeira.

The first half was taught by Professor Espantalho (Scarecrow). We went over the basics of the berimbau…holding it, balancing it, and how to hold the baqueta. I did not know that I was holding it wrong. I have been holding it like a pencil for the longest time. According to Professor Espantalho, the best way to hold the baqueta is between your middle and ring finger. This way you are able to swing the baqueta easier and you get less tired. I felt like i was going to drop the baqueta at any moment, luckily I did not. I was really awesome to go over all those basics again.

The second half was taught by Instrutor Menudo. The group was split in half…sort of…The people w/ yellow belts and up where on one side of the gym and yellow-whites and white on the other. There were more people of the lower rank that there were of the higher ups. The combinations given were mentally challenging and hard to do. I honestly at the moment can’t even remember what we did but all I know is that it involved a takedown. Ha! *headdesk*

Day 2, 3 hours, all Capoeira.

This workshop was all taught by Mestre Preguiça. We all warmed up together and were then split up once more. First half of the class, the full yellows and above worked together and later on we were split again. This time, yhe Orange-Yellow’s and below did combinations and the blue and ups practiced their teaching skills (From what an injured person who was just watching said, anyway.) A couple of times we were confused on what to do since our Mestre likes to use multiple names for one move. We surprisingly got a break which I was not expecting. Not much to say other than I learned what a rasteira de costas is and how to do it. It was really simple but in the beginning I kept getting confused. I nailed the move eventually.

The Roda at the end was awesome! We played the whole entire roda like so: Low Cord vs. High Cord. I never thought I would get to play so many high cords in my life! It was my birthday too…I escaped a b-day roda. Ahaaaaaa…*headdesk*

Day 3, 2 2 hour workshops. (which actually ended up being more like 1 5 hr 45 min workshop. But it was still awesome!)

Part of the day was Mestre Preguiça teaching, and the other part was taught by Mestre Índio. They both switched it up and taught equally. Once again, we were split into groups. We all did a bit of everything. We practiced singing which was a bit surprising! I don’t remember much of what we learned again but the roda was the same at the end. Oh, I got a birthday roda as well…me and two others actually. A Guy I train with had his birthday the day before the first workshop and a girl from NY had the same b-day as me. Mestre Preguiça didn’t want us to get hurt so he had only the 3 of us play each other and after a while the instructors and professores jumped in w/ us. Either way, the 3 of us got out butts kicked! Haha!

Day 4, Batizado.

Oh man…I got to the gym 2 hours early to get ready. I was nervous and just wanted to get everything set up right away. I was the first to arrive and the door was locked. Luckily someone showed up and opened the door. I was a little freaked out and all since I helped plan some of the event and felt like nothing was getting done. Eventually everything fell into place and went well! I don’t want to say perfect b/c there were some minor issues but they were solved quickly.

The whole event went smoothly. The rodas were amazing and I nearly cried when I watched the kids play and get baptized!

Oh, and I got promoted too.

Good times.