My previous instructor used to always do the same joke when we were exercising new movements. He would show us the movement itself (usually too quickly for me to remember anything, which is not a good sign in a class for beginners only). We would perform it a few times on the left side, then on the right side. And then, he would say: “Now, you do it a thousand times.” The joke was not really funny. It kind of falls flat, in my opinion, when you did the movement only three times on each side or, worse, you did it incorrectly twenty times.

Nevertheless, these supposedly witty words convey an idea that explains a lot about the capoeira mindset. In a word: It takes a huge amount of time and practice to be good at capoeira. And, believe it or not, this thought tends to reassure me. Personally, I know that there is no chance that I do a new movement perfectly right when I perform it for the first time. It leaves room for people who “get it” quickly to stand out during classes (the instructor is impressed, you caught his attention, good job). But, do not worry, fellow capoeiristas will not let you down for all that if you do not execute wonderfully a macaco when you have to do it out of nowhere. In about two weeks of regular daily practice, I heard numerous comforting remarks from other players: “Don’t worry, it was very hard for me at the beginning,” or “No matter what, hard practice makes the difference between a lousy capoeirista and a good one,” these are comments I got when I voiced my concerns about not being able to do what was asked by the instructor.

The need for sustained practice is indubitably not specific to capoeira. Everything, basically, is a matter of practice. I guess that, for me, the next step I have to pay attention to after these observations is to be smart about these weaknesses I notice. Yesterday, for example, we spent a lot of time working on movements which needed to have stretched or bent arms on the ground (aú with your head on the ground, bananeira, some kind of variation of the meia-lua de compasso, etc.). I basically failed at every movement. Most of them were new to me, as I know only of the basic versions of the aú and the meia-lua de compasso. What can I do? Well, I believe that my arms are just not strong enough. A simple thing is to do pushups. And given the fact that I have a hard time doing more than 10 pushups in a row, I believe that there is a lot of room for improvement! That is something that I learnt from capoeira: You need to have a strong body to practice capoeira. Situps and exercises of the same kind probably are the best way to work on a specific set of muscles! As far as I am concerned, I know that I have to work on my arms, my legs, and my abs. So, if you will excuse me, I have a ton of working out to do!