I have now been in Sao Paulo for 2 weeks, and though I am still finding it difficult to get adjusted to the 3rd largest city in the world, I have been enjoying my time in Brazil. Last week I tried both a samba and a capoeira class, and was surprised by which one I enjoyed the most.
Capoeira is a mix of dance and martial arts that was practiced in secret by the slaves in Brazil to defend themselves. The history of capoeira is pretty fascinating in and of itself, and it used to be illegal to practice in Brazil until 1940. The word capoeira refers to the low vegetation in the forests where the slaves used to practice in secret. Thus, when asked where a fellow slave was while practicing, they would say that they were in the capoeira, and later this term came to describe the practice itself.
My first capoeira class was fun, exhausting, and challenging, and I think it would be a good sport for me to continue, especially since I never learned how to do a cart-wheel and this would be a good opportunity to start. Here’s a video of capoeira, that explains a bit more about the history and shows the sport in practice.
As I love to dance, I was most looking forward to the samba class. But, after my first hour of samba no pé (the samba style made famous at Carnaval celebrations), I decided that I would prefer a partner dance to a solo one. I couldn’t find a good video to demonstrate it, but this should give you an idea:
So, I am going to try a samba de gafieira class next, which is one of the Brazilian samba partner dances. I’ll let you know how it goes, after the first class. See a video below:
But on another note, on Monday, I got a really exciting e-mail from my boss explaining that we might have the opportunity to do the Unresonable@Sea program and that, if I was interested, I could represent the company in the program. I was so excited because this is a unique and cool program that I was already interested in, but figured it was not something I could do since I didn’t have a social business when I first heard about it a few months ago.
The Unreasonable At Sea program, sponsored by the Unreasonable Institute and Semester At Sea, selects 10 social tech entrepreneurs to live on a boat with 20 mentors and sail to 14 countries around the globe. The idea is for the company to fast-track its expansion to international markets and to be able to learn first-hand from mentors and potential investors. So, when I learned I might be able to participate in the first ever program of Unreasonalbe@Sea, I couldn’t wait to do it. Here is a brief, 2-minute video that explains the program:
Unfortunately, our company wasn’t selected in the end for this round, but I look forward to other cool opportunities in the future.
Oh, and just for fun, here is a video I found of samba on point that I found (a mix of ballet and samba de gafieira):
