Videos: Roda Feminina
15 02 2008This was a post I saw on Chan’s Soul Capoeira Blog/Site a while ago, and I’ve been meaning to appropriate it every since! I think I agree with his views when it comes to all-women rodas, etc., for fairly obvious reasons, but I also feel I need to do more thinking through of the matter, too. However, I’ll save that for some time later down the road. For now, witness some real mandingueiras in action!
Part 1
Part 2
I just found your blog, I’d love to hear you go more onto the reasons you agree with the view he mentioned, since I kind of go back and forth on issues surrounding events like this.
Thanks for visiting, Cenoura! You’ve probably noticed by now, but I replied to you in a new blog post. Hope it helps!
Nice! Now that’s some capoeira! The only thing I have to say is that these women are all about the same size so they are not really being forced to use much mandingueira in their game to compensate for size/weight differences.
Okay. . .about your post. I agree. I think that women’s only events are fine and are a personal choice. I might attend one of these events one of these days but prefer to train in a co-ed environment. At this point in capoeira, I see co-ed environments (generally speaking) as more competitive. I want to be the best I can be so training with men is for me. I could do without the mysogeny (sp?) that some men practice but as of now that is part of capoeira. If I am training to be a capoeirista then I have to train in a way that reflects the reality of capoeira. If you are training with all women you will not get as much of a range in terms of the weight and size differentials and as a result will develop less mandinga.
Hi Coruja, thanks for stopping by
Yeah, that’s a good point about the video…it’s funny, that point keeps coming up these days, that of mixing up sizes…and if I think about it, in the past I have been used to seeing people buy in with others closer to their size, or at least not drastically different. (I.e. I’ve never felt comfortable buying in while two really tall guys are playing…although if it were a tall person and short/medium person I think it’d be fine.)
Misogyny
And that is another great point, so true. About your training reflecting reality, that’s similar to what Mike said about the roda supposed to represent life and thus include both sexes. I don’t know whether co-ed environments would actually be more competitive or not, but either way capoeiristas definitely have to learn how to deal with everything, not just half.