Batizado 2011

Once again the Batizado/grading is over! The 4-day event is certainly bigger than the previous year! And this is also the first Xango grading in Singapore.

Note: for those who want to know the difference b/w Zambiacongo and Xango pls approach anyone who attended the workshop!

The workshop wouldn’t be possible w/o the following ppl:

Mestre Luizuinho Barravento and Formado James

The HQ for all the planning work

And EveryONE for the fabulous AXE..

I always look forward to the big rodas because of the high enthusiasm of everyone singing, clapping, playing the instruments and jogo-ing. No doubt it looks intimidating (when I see some of them ‘flying’), the axe from the roda was really overwhelming.

A short summary of what we did at the workshop:

Sequences at the start of the workshop daily. Followed by either roda, some story telling by the Mestre or maculele. On top of that, we went for a HDB performance at Fajar Shopping Mall on the 3^rd day of batizado and also to the KTM railway station before it closes down at the end of this month! (refer to the pics to see how much the GUYS enjoyed themselves tt night!)

There’s so much to write and share with everyone but I don’t know where to start! Haha..just approach any of us if you want to find out more about the workshop. And we’ll try to share what we’ve learnt with everyone too (the moves, songs etc)

Lastly……

7 of us leveled up! The new corda (belt) system has changed so please refer to the FB group for the new color system..

Current raw + light green belt: Toshi, Shiela, Arnold, Kelvin, Brian and ME (Angeline)

Light green: Faizal Bom Garoto

Congrats to everyone for the hard work and Faizal for being the most senior among us now!

And unfortunately, because Syaz wasn’t feeling well, she came to have a feeeeel of the axe but did not take part in the grading. Next year Syaz!

And……Toshi got an apelido! No points for guessing correctly. It’s SAPO! YES! Haha..he’s the only one among us to get an apelido. Guess he can’t escape from that name!

Have a good rest everyone and for those who sustained injury, rest more and recover soon! Look forward to the next grading! In the meantime, train hard!

PS: there will be no NUS training this Thursday (16June). See you guys next week.

Salve capoeira,

Angeline (Rosa) [my first blog entry]

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.

What is a batizado?

Hey guys,

Batizado's around the corner and most of us that have been doing Capoeira for a while are really anticipating and bringing up our game for this event. So let's use good ole wiki to re-intro the idea of Batizado for us:
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A Batizado (literally baptism in Portuguese, and borrowed from the religious tradition) is normally an annual event for a Capoeira group in a region or country. The practice of Capoeira Batizados originates from Capoeira Regional, but has been extended to other styles.

Batizados are large events and are very important for the group organizing it. It is the point in the year where the new members will be baptized officially into the group and receive their first cords and where the other members depending on their progress will get a new one. A typical batizado will take several days and consist of workshops, the actual Batizado itself and a Troca das Cordas. Often many groups from more than one region will attend a Batizado for other groups. This allows for development of the game by contact with other players, teachers and styles.

In many schools, students are baptized by the floor -- that is, they play against higher level capoeiristas and are subsequently taken down by a rasteira. This is meant to signify a continual process of humility and improvement in the game.
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To the newer Capoeiristas, I hope you'll be able to attend and be blown away when our Zambiacongo Gold Coast come down along with our Mestre... its gonna be quite an exchange and a great experience!

Salve!
Morcego