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

Curiosa: What kind of capoeira was it?

Diego: It was more regional, I believe. Keeping in mind that my style was super bad. I am still fighting to get rid of it to this day.

So, it was really a big revelation for us, we were inspired by him. Not only that, we were also inspired by his philosophy, his idea, and his vision of capoeira. The thought came to my mind, “Ok, this is what I have been looking for in capoeira.” Maybe I felt there was more to capoeira, but I never knew because I was in the different world. So, at the end of the weekend, we talked and we actually had this connection; he agreed to have us as part of his group, Mandinga, and to support us. And this support was not just lip service because, in March 2008, four months after the workshop, he sent to Shanghai a contra-mestre, Mexican Contra-Mestre Cipó37. And he taught classes every day for 3 months. He was really good and really tough. The group was halved because classes were too tough but for the people who stayed, they really learned capoeira, gained an understanding of Capoeira Mandinga, and came to understand what it means to train capoeira. It was like walking through the fire, we were really exposed to the top notch stuff. After these 3 months, we invited two more teachers of Mestre Marcelo. It was a couple: an American contra-mestra and a Brazilian professor. They were a married couple and they came to Shanghai for 3 more months from July to September. They helped us organize our first Batizado. which we had in September; they also taught very technical capoeira, very Mandinga/Cordāo de Ouro style. So, having that full immersion with them turned out to be very vital and life changing.

Curiosa: And what belt did you get during that Batizado?

Diego: Yellow belt. It was my first belt ever because my old group also never had a Batizado at that time, so I never had any belt.

Curiosa: How long did it take you to receive that belt and why?

Diego: After 7 years, but I wouldn’t count all 7 years because for me, the first three years were wasted and when I was in Shanghai teaching, I was learning some bad berimbau technique and in capoeira I was reviewing some kicks. I was just involved in some capoeira moving but still keeping it very basic. So, as you can see, that year was very important for me.

Then we invited other teachers from Mandinga school during the following years. But for me, those 6 months were the key. I was taking daily notes from all the classes, so I had material for years. This is what I have been doing after, rearranging something of course.

Curiosa: Why did you decide to stay in Shanghai?

Diego: I found an internship, and in 2007 I was contracted by a bank. I was working there and teaching capoeira in the evenings.

Curiosa: What are the major milestones in the development of your group in Shanghai?

Diego: The first Batizado was of course an important milestone. Then, I don’t remember the exact year, one female student, named Morena38, who had been training with me almost from the beginning, moved to Beijing. I think it was in 2011 or 2012.

There was also a group of people that were always present at our events, they were struggling with their training and they wanted to become a part of Mandinga, but we never got organized.

She went there and she took over, so she started to teach classes and they organized a group and they grew a lot, and it became a Mandinga group.

Another milestone was when Alex Chupateta moved to Hangzhou and started a group there. It was very funny. The first time he came to my class in 2008, he was speaking Chinese; he couldn’t speak a word in English and his only language besides Russian was Chinese. I was able to speak Chinese, so we were communicating in Chinese in the beginning. He was already in love with capoeira; he was super committed, and eventually he learned English and Portuguese. And when he moved to Hangzhou he started to teach there. Now he is back to Shanghai, but the Hangzhou group is still there.

The Beijing group is still functional, but Morena is now teaching in Iceland because her husband is from Iceland.

And then another important milestone for the Mandinga happened when one Taiwanese capoeirista came to my class. I think it was in 2009 or 2010, after class he indicated that he liked the energy and the vibe of that class; he said there were a few people in Taiwan and they had some issues with other groups there, as they didn’t like their styles and so he wanted to know about our group.

I told him it would be OK for him to come to our Batizado, so that he could speak with Mestre Marcelo. Three of them came to our Batizado, that would be the second or the third one, and they asked to join the group. Basically, we started to support them, so they could become a part of Mandinga group. I remember my first workshop there was in 2011, there were 9 of them in the class, all super beginners. I then left China in 2015, and when I returned in August of the same year, there were like 70 students; the capoeira level had risen dramatically. What they are doing there is an amazing job. People from all over Asia go to their events because they are super fun. They have nice vibe, good energy and most importantly, they are super good at capoeira.

They are also very into the design and marketing of gadgets and other paraphernalia, but their excellence in capoeira is undoubtedly their drawing card. They are really committed, I saw them in the beginning and every time I see them now, I see that they’ve grown and have done an amazing job.

Yet another milestone was when I became an instructor in 2012 and then I became professor in 2015; it was my Formatura39. Personally, I trained with Ido Portal, I invited him twice to Shanghai in 2011.

Curiosa: For a workshop?

Diego: Yes, he wasn’t famous yet, but he was known in the capoeira community. He gave a workshop in March and September of 2011. Let’s just say that from those workshops, we could see that he was at a different level.

He is a very interesting guy and I became his student, I did online coaching sessions and many workshops with him, and within 3 years he had helped me to completely alter my body, change my views about certain things and taught me how to protect the body. Further technical knowledge was also imparted by him to me.

Curiosa: When you came to China, what was the situation with capoeira and how has it changed?

Diego: When I moved to China in 2005, capoeira didn’t exist, nobody knew except for some Brazilian waiters that I met in some Brazilian restaurants. Pretty much no one knew about capoeira there. The only people who knew were those 10 people in the park.

What happened next. By 2008 or was it 2009, I don’t quite recall, we had 2 Chinese students. I’m not sure how they found out about capoeira, they were a husband and wife. They were our first Chinese students and they are still training with us today. She has also gotten her yellow belt now, after 10 years. 10 years I know seems like a long time, but we are very conservative.

But then in 2010, at Shanghai Expo, through some friends, we were given the opportunity to do 2 or 3 performances in the Brazilian Pavilion. Thus, capoeira was being advertised everywhere: in subways, in magazines etc. And that is how the Chinese people started to look at this Brazilian thing: a dance, a martial art, whatever. So, after 2010 we started to have more Chinese.

Curiosa: Were there mainly expats in your group?

Diego: We had only expats until 2009; after, we initially had 2 Chinese, now we have more Chinese and foreigners.

Curiosa: How did you manage with the language?

Diego: I went to Beijing for 6 months and I learned it there.

Curiosa: In what language did you offer your training?

Diego: At first, in English. I was giving classes in English most of the time until the majority of the class became Chinese, then I mainly used the Chinese language.

Curiosa: So how did you end up teaching capoeira back in Italy?

Diego: In 2015, I moved back to Italy, to Milan. I trained with Nadav for 6 months and then in September 2016 a couple students who had trained with me in Shanghai moved to Milan.

These students comprised of one Italian guy who was originally from Milan, he had been taking capoeira classes here with a group, but when he moved to Shanghai for a year, he ended up training with me.

The group here was closed and when he moved back, he said I should teach capoeira again because he didn’t want to go back to that group and he wanted to train “my” capoeira.

So, with me, my wife, him and his girlfriend at that time, there were four of us already, so I agreed to give it a try. I didn’t know where it would lead, for I hadn’t planned to continue teaching when I moved back to Italy.

Curiosa: You didn’t plan to teach?

Diego: No, I planned just to give training but not teaching, I didn’t want another big commitment. Because it’s a lot of work to be responsible for a group. It can be huge or it can be nothing if you don’t take it seriously.

Anyway, we started out few. Now the group has 20 persons; they are all very happy people, some of them are committed, some of them are less committed, but it’s fun nonetheless.

Curiosa: Nadav said that 2 of his students went to you?

Diego: Yes.

Curiosa: He said he would recommend you to his students if they can't train with him.

Diego: Yeah. It happens that some students might have difficulties with a group or with a teacher…

Curiosa: Or with a place or with a metro…

Diego: Whatever may be the case. It’s better that they continue training with someone else than stopping.

I mean in Shanghai, I had up to ten thousand students in ten years who have trained with me at least once. Everybody left Shanghai after a while (I am speaking about the expats) and for me the important thing is that they would continue to practice.

Curiosa: Is this a common experience with expats?

Diego: Yeah, it was tough. They were getting good and then they were leaving, they were getting good and then they were leaving. It’s frustrating but now…

Elisa (Diego’s wife): There were people who were coming and leaving but there was also a core group that was always there.

Curiosa: How did you both meet?

Diego: In Napoli, in the same university. We were not in the same class, but she was studying Chinese. After we met, in the same day, I said to her, “You know, tomorrow there will be a capoeira roda in the street.” So, I invited her to see a capoeira roda, but she didn’t go.

Elisa: I didn’t go.

Diego: And she didn’t go.

Elisa: I knew about capoeira, but I didn’t think of practicing.

Curiosa: How did the move to Shanghai come about?

Diego: I moved first, and then she moved a few months later and started capoeira a year later.

Elisa: At first, I was just going to the university classes to study Chinese but then I thought that I needed to do some sport. He was always going to the park, and I wanted to see what made it so interesting.

Curiosa: And now you are an instrutora?

Elisa: Yes.

Curiosa: Well done. Now back to Shanghai. Did you need to comply with an legal process to rent a space and teach?

Diego: No, in Shanghai you need nothing; you just teach. I paid the rent in cash at the time and I gave classes. Yeah, there was nothing to be done: no status, no registration, no association. Nothing, zero.

Curiosa: Did you have to advertise to attract more students?

Diego: In the beginning, there were just friends of friends that were coming. So, it was more of word-of-mouth advertising. Then of course, we had these magazines for expats where we posted our news. Then through this network… In the beginning it was an amazing network. Do you know that in 2016, during the World Cup, we were performing capoeira in the middle of the night when Brazil was playing? And we were doing capoeira in that place with the Brazilian community. We just had a lot of contacts!

Elisa: We also gave performances in local schools

Curiosa: Did you have children among your students?

Diego: Not in the beginning, but after, we did have classes for kids. My wife started to teach them; I taught a few classes only. But since the only day available was Saturday, she was teaching kids on Saturdays before our regular class. It still happens in Shanghai in the same format. But it was never for me to teach kids.

Curiosa: Capoeira Brasil is now in Shanghai. When they first arrived, did you communicate, did you get along?

Diego: There was Instructor Tanque, a really cool guy. I don’t remember which year they arrived in Shanghai, but I do know that I was a little worried or maybe even scared. But eventually they turned out to be very nice people, I never had any issues with them. I was going to their events and they were coming to ours. We always had a good relationship. And given that their style was different from ours, if was fun training with them.

Curiosa: Have you ever had some sort of crises in capoeira when you had doubts or wanted to stop?

Diego: Sometimes… Sometimes yes, it was overwhelming. Especially when I was training with Ido Portal, I was training four times a day!

In the morning I was working on my mobility and shoulders, then I had work, at lunchtime I was doing my strength routine, then I returned to work, then back at home I would work on my handstand. Then I would go to do give a class, and I was also teaching personal training, (though not for long). So yes, sometimes I was very tired when I considered everything. But most of the time, my thought was just to quit my job and do capoeira. So, the crisis was more on the other side.

Eventually, I decided to keep my job for my stability and to keep enjoying capoeira and not depend on it for my financial needs. Because I realized that it is a risky business anyway, and I don’t want to depend on my body.

Curiosa: You have already said a lot about your students, but your Chinese students, who are they? Why do they come? What are they looking for? Are they young or old?

Diego: They are mainly around 20 to 30 years-old. As to why they come, I think there are a lot of reasons. In practicing capoeira, there is a lot of freedom, improvisation, creativity and Chinese people are good at memorization. They do anything, but creativity. Just to learn to read and to write, they have to memorize a lot of characters, this is how their educational system works. So, they are very good at classes: in how to follow the sequence and how to kick. Although they are not very outgoing, as they don’t do much when they are kids. The problem is when they need to play capoeira, then, it becomes worse than trying to explain to a child what to do. Without rules they really feel lost. So, many believe capoeira can be of great benefit to them, as it might be good for them to have the freedom it offers, to improvise, to create, where they don’t need to doggedly follow rules. It is in the area of expression and creativity that they need most to improve. But then once they get it… I had a strong group of four Chinese students who were really getting it, then all of them stopped, now there is only one, he is also teaching in Shanghai. So what I’m saying is, once they get it, they can be as good as anyone.

Curiosa: And how about the Portuguese language, the songs, the music? Do they understand those easily?

Diego: Not easily; but the ones who want to learn the music, they learn, they memorize. Maybe the pronunciation is not perfect, but they learn the songs.

Curiosa: How are they with instruments? Are they musical people?

Diego: Some of them, yes. When I came to Italy I thought, “Oh, it will be easy now,” but it wasn’t. So, it really depends on the people. They are not worse or better that the others.

Curiosa: What is capoeira for you? What place/priority does it have in your life?

Diego: Capoeira is a part of my life. It has gradually become more and more important. With time I realized how beneficial it is to my mind, more than my body. My job decisions are taken based on the possibility of continuing training/teaching capoeira. It is definitely one of the top priorities of my life.

Curiosa: How do you see the future of the group in Shanghai and Milan? Any plans or projects?

Diego: The group in Shanghai/China will grow. It’s already growing and with the involvement of locals in teaching and promoting the group it will grow even faster. I was worried when I left, but now I see that Nico, Alex and all the others are doing a good job keeping good fundamentals. It will get bigger and stronger, hopefully not too fast, in order to be able to steer things in the right direction. With regards to Milan, I just want to continue enjoying training and teaching capoeira with my group. I am leveraging on my ten years’ experience in China in order to optimize my teaching, thereby allowing the students to improve at a faster pace. I really try to make the best out of the 90 minutes classes that we have. I want to have more advanced students in order to be helped in teaching classes and guiding other students. A strong core group of advanced students is the key to having a stable group. It will take time, but I’m not in a hurry.

Curiosa: How does it feel not to have a teacher next to you all the time? Who or what gives you inspiration or ideas about your own training and capoeira?

Diego: I have been teaching alone in China with less than three years of capoeira experience (where I only learned just the basics). Nowadays I have a lot of materials, I get ideas for my classes everywhere, from my own students (mistakes or games), from workshops attended elsewhere, from guests, from mestres’ sequences, from videos posted by other capoeiristas etc. What mainly guides my classes is the observation of my students, trying to understand what they need to practice in order to improve their game, what their weak points are, etc. Often their weaknesses coincide with my weaknesses.

Curiosa: What is the most memorable or funniest moment of your capoeira life?

Diego: I enjoy every moment of my capoeira life. I had so many beautiful and funny moments and funny students. It is impossible to recall a specific episode.

Curiosa: Who has had the greatest impact on your capoeira?

Diego: There are too many. I will just mention three: Mestre Marcelo, directly or indirectly through his students; CM Cipo, who was the first guest we had in 2008 and who gave three months of super hard classes: it definitely shaped my capoeira and allowed me to understand what training really means; Ido Portal: his knowledge and his way of thinking has changed my approach to movement and to life in general; I learned so much and my body has been transformed. Nowadays I’m still using his method for my own training and when teaching.

Hong Kong

I set off to Hong Kong in a happy mood – there are two CDO groups in the city!

My trip to Hong Kong from Shenzhen took only 12 minutes by train. Border control – another half an hour. I spent that much time just to get from home to work on a regular day, and then I travelled to another country in just 12 minutes!

I needed to extend my visa to China, and I left for Hong Kong for just a few hours – to wander around the city and, of course, go to a capoeira class!

And I went to monitor Kazu. Kazu was born in Japan and studied in Brazil, where he began to practice capoeira and started working with Grande Mestre Cícero, then he moved back to Japan, opened a group there, then moved to Hong Kong and opened another group here. Fuh! Didn’t seem to miss anything. When I met to Kazu, he had been teaching for only a couple of months. At his class at the time of my visit, there was one girl from Portugal with some past capoeira experience, and 3 students from Japan, they were complete newbies.

After the class, we went to drink coffee and chat. Kazu’s girlfriend also came along. She happened to be a student of the Instrutora Zoinho40, who is a student of Mestre Parente and has lived in Hong Kong for several years. It was she that I had planned to talk to, but I’ll speak more to that later. She wasn’t in town that week.

Hong Kong is modern, traditional and dangerous…

Hong Kong is a city on a peninsula, which used to be a part of China, but then the UK rented it for a hundred years. One hundred years passed, and in 1997 Hong Kong returned to China.

Hong Kong won me over already at the train station – the contrast with China played its role. All apps and bank cards functioned here, there was free Wi-Fi everywhere, and everyone spoke English. Traffic in the city, like in Great Britain, is left sided. All taxis are painted red and white, fairly old Toyota models. And this all stands against the background of breathtaking skyscrapers, multi-lane and multi-level traffic. It’s a city of the future for sure. And this is so despite the fact that Hong Kong combines, it seems to me, the best that has been preserved from pre-communist China and that which was absorbed during the hundred years from the British mindset.

Traditions are seen in Buddhist temples, Chinese characters and language, which, unlike the rest of China, were not simplified in Hong Kong. At the same time, it has this cute English feature to only use double-decker buses and only allow taxis of a certain color. Hong Kong has an unbelievable number of banks and corporations and the most expensive brands in the world, which causes a feeling of inferiority in an ordinary Russian person, because, I can only go to such stores for an excursion. This I did at the Gucci store. There I was met and followed by a personal consultant, who, like all consultants, was dressed in a black trouser suit. She gave me a welcome speech in perfect English and silently, but with a smile, followed me with a tired look, knowing that I would not buy anything.

Hong Kong is a grandiose city. There you have to lift your head all the way up to see the tops of skyscrapers – I noticed I was holding my breath as I looked up. And the multi-level overpasses, which in new districts are intercrossed with shopping malls and the metro, makes your head spin and does not make tourists’ life easy. Somehow, this small peninsula also has quite a lot of greenery, mountains, beautiful views and wildlife that coexists with a crowded metropolis.

How a trip to a temple almost ended in tragedy.

During my second visit to Hong Kong, I decided to visit an amazing place – the Temple of 10,000 Buddhas. And everything seemed to be fine there: it is beautiful, has many steps, many golden Buddhas in different poses on the way to the temple, horoscope and Yin and Yang signs, jade amulets and souvenir coins for wealth. But there is one BUT – I went there on October 1st. Not that I had a choice, but it was the worst day to leave home in Hong Kong at all.

China celebrates its national day on October 1st, moreover, on October 1st, 2019, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated its 70th anniversary. Why is that bad?

Well, Hong Kong wasn’t at peace already and chaos reigned there due to mass protests. We will leave politics aside, but closed metro stations, closed streets, crowds of people in black T-shirts, uprooted and burnt ATMs created a rather overwhelming atmosphere.

I knew that the metro station next to the temple would be closed that day, so I took a bus. And everything was fine, well, except that the army of policemen on the way frightened me a little.

I was in the temple and had just found comfortable steps to take a couple of pictures upside down, when suddenly the workers began to move actively and close all the doors, saying, “Close door, close door.” It was still two hours before closing, and I didn’t understand why they were closing the doors. I assumed that they wanted to close earlier, and hastened to leave.

I got to the bus stop and started looking for my bus. I couldn’t see it anywhere, and from the information on the signs it was not clear where it was supposed to stop. Remember when I said that in Hong Kong, multi-level overpasses are intercrossed with subways and shopping malls? This was the case: there were overpasses, a closed metro station and the entrance to a multi-storied shopping center around. The bus stops were both a level above and a level below – it was not clear to me where to go.