Blog Brazilian song, dance, and almost kicking you in the face: Is capoeira better than football?

It’s football season, and that means a good portion of our fall weekends are spent creating ass-divots in the couch, and moving only enough to make that annoying sojourn to the kitchen to grab another bag of Cheetos. As awesome as football and glowing foodstuffs are, sometimes it’s nice to break up the monotony and actually go out and do something, particularly when the Packers are playing a snoozer like tomorrow's game against the Browns. With that in mind, it might be a good time to go way, way off the head-crunching football grid and check out the demonstration by UW-Madison’s capoeira club, Omulu Guanabara, at the Memorial Union at noon on Sunday. Capoeira is a fusion of Brazilian martial arts, song, and dance that couldn’t be further from football, but it just might be better. Here’s why.

You don’t ever have to worry about your team losing
While capoeira is a game, and can even be considered a sport, the spectacle is more important than the final score—mainly because there is no score. Here’s how it works: The participants gather in a circle called a “roda,” and two step into the middle. They then execute a succession of improvised kicks, flips, jumps, and even headstands. Typically each “game” lasts only a few minutes, because it’s so damn physically taxing. As violent as it may look at first glance, the goal is not to smack your opponent in the face--only to come close. Each opponent is responding to the other’s moves, so it’s less of a fight than an exchange of acrobatic unpleasantries.

It’s human chess without the blood
Football games are often described in clichéd metaphors: Teams march down the field, they attack, a defense bends but doesn’t break. Capoeira, on the other hand, does steal the “poetry in motion” groaner, though here it actually makes sense. As the two opponents engage in mock battle, they’re also trying to create a scene visually stimulating to observers. Capoeira participants employ moves that would tear up any nightclub dance floor, and they play off each other’s feints and parries to trap their opponents and catch them off-guard. Still, if it doesn’t look good, it hasn’t been effective. Agility, speed, and a sense of style are far more important than brute strength.

There are no “fuck yous” and “eat shits”
Capoeira is unique from other spectator sports in that those forming the roda are as important to any game as the two within it. The roda is rimmed with an orchestra of Brazilian instruments, and everyone joins in clapping and call-and-response singing. The rhythmic chanting provides a haunting human backbeat that stadium standards like “We Are The Champions” or “Rock And Roll Part 2” could never touch. It’s a little disappointing that capoeira fans can’t actually become a part of the roda, but they are most definitely welcome to get up close and sing along.

Capoeira’s origin story kicks football’s ass
Football began in the mid-1800s, and it’s more or less a slightly tweaked version of rugby. It’s certainly not anything new for Americans to steal someone else’s idea and pass it off as their own, but capoeira has deep cultural significance that can't exist with football. Capoeira was developed by Angolan slaves hundreds of years ago after they were taken to Brazil. They couldn’t practice their martial arts for fear of slave-owner retribution, so they shrouded their training within the song-and-dance pageantry of the exhibitions. The resulting product fits its roots: Instead of a sport that bills itself as an art form, it’s truly the exact opposite.

Here’s a video of a high-level capoeira demonstration. (Capoeira “masters” are dressed in green):