12 March's Class

Wow what a class it was today. We had not one but 2 Birthday Roda's.
Happy Birthday to Youcef (I thought it was Eusoff XD) and Wei Lin. Here's my Bencao to you :)

Ok for the post proper, we learnt variations of the martelo today.
More specifically, Martelo-do-Chão which means Martelo from the floor.

The first one starts with an esquiva and uses 2 hands to support the kick.
It goes something like this but from an esquiva position.

another take


The second variation, the one more popularly used in a roda starts from an esquiva frontal.
If your right leg is forward, stretch your left arm diagonally forwards and plant it on the floor and vice versa.
Give a good hop from your back leg and kick a martelo using the front leg with your planted hand working as support. Note that the weight should be on your planted hand.
Land back in a cebra position then back to ginga.
To my dismay a search on youtube for Martelo-do-Chão returned me JJ Lin's Cao Cao music videos.....
well the closest I got to was this


The last one is a sequence of moves whereby instead of kicking the martelo do chao, we fake it and land the leg behind the other person's leg. Pull back your leg like 0:06 in this awesome video
but no need to put the hands on the floor.


Ok so that's all for this week's edition of Last Thursday's Class.
As in the roda, as in life,
Ken