Cockwhale!

After 4 days of eating, breathing and sleeping Capoeira, Zambiacongo Singapore's 1st Capoeira Camp cum Batizado has come to a close. It has been a pretty long and intense weekend for us all and if we had stayed any longer, we might've seen Exu!

I'd like to thank to the following people for making this camp a success:

First, Mestre Luizinho and Formado James for conducting the workshops and sharing their capoeira knowledge with us.

Second, the HQ members for organizing the camp and making sure it ran smoothly.

And lastly, the ZC family for being such splendid company throughout the whole camp. (Special mention goes to our friends from ITE for pumping up the axe level in rodas with their contagious energy and enthusiasm!)

For those who missed the camp, I can only attempt to describe what we did but nothing can capture the essence of how fun and enriching the camp was as well as being there yourself. Perhaps the pictures and videos that will be uploaded in facebook in the next couple of days will do a better job than what I write here :)(expect to see a tagging frenzy soon hahaha)

In addition to our daily dose of Capoeira training, we managed to squeeze in a movie screening (Besouro!), a bbq, a 'something-different' class (where we learnt some self-defense techniques) and some games into the camp schedule.

I had one of the best games of charades in my life - what with absurd guesses like Cockwhale, Cockspider, Spiderkang, Gancheong spider and Weedle (the pokemon) all being thrown out.

One of the highlights of the camp was the "roda around Singapore" on Day 3. Some of the locations tt were 'invaded' by our capoeirista flash mobs included the Merlion at One Fullerton and Mustafa centre. Stay tuned for the videos to find out where the other places were ;)


There was a lot more action going on throughout the whole camp but because I just got back, I'm too tired to write everything down. Instead, just ask me or any of the others who attended the next time you see us if you wanna know more haha.

Before I end off, I'm pleased to announce that 5 of our NUS members attended the Batizado ceremony earlier today and received their light-green belts. Let's all welcome the following into the roda:

Kelvin "no love" Kwek; Brian "Roboto" Ng






Shiela "Atabaque Princess" Carelnina; Evan





Ken Yeo (Sapo)









Well done all of you!

Ken, good news for you - as much as i think Sapo suits you, you weren't called up with your apelido so that nickname is not set in stone yet.

As for the rest, I don't know if any of you were given apelidos but I'm sure that the group is open to suggestions heheh.

Shen and Hong Jing, thanks for coming down today to lend your support - your turn will come in October. Time to start training!

I think all of us deserve a break and need to cool off from capoeira for a while so there won't be any training tomorrow.

For those who sustained injuries - take the opportunity to recover; those who just need more rest - time to catch more sleep and come back fully recharged.



We'll see each other again the week after next.

Salve Capoeira!
Bom Garoto

edit: if you're wondering who Exu is, he is one of the deities in Candomblé, an Afro-Brazilian religion. Exu is considered the personification of death and is a god of Chaos and Trickery. He makes an appearance at 1:24 in the Besouro trailer below.