I am very grateful for this conversation, I confess that it took me to get into this forum was the external view, interested me just because of some recent victories of Capoeira in MMA, is a novelty for us as we are now entering the roost in this context and we want to take our doubt, is very new. even be efficient? the question is also ours. To be more objective in fights, but I say I believe in the efficacy of capoeira, but we still need to understand how to apply best there in the ring. what we observe is that some athletes who lose to capoeira has failed the difference, are not used and this gives us an advantage, as I mentioned before, our logic of struggle reverses almost all values, such as dodge open, blows apart, quickly and flexibility, and, of course, the tricks, that should be new to any fighter from another area. I just saw the defeat Anderson Silva, who is not a capoeirista in the ring, but makes extensive use of poultry if elusive, it is remarkable that his style is very peculiar and was avoidance of open poultry that you committed, I see a fighter experienced as Chris Weidman studied this failure, however we realize that it is confusing as Anderson gets many successes in doing so, leaving the entire body to show the elusive and yet the opponent can not hit him, he demosntra tranquility to fight and this comes much of the reasoning of the capoeira game. already Lelo closes his guard and focuses on surprising with the agility, keep a fight concentrated and timely throws punches in stunning visual form and effectiveness. seeing many live fights have been able to witness many spectacular knockouts of capoeira, but the fact that the Brazilian still cherishes the beauty of the struggle and this tends to be a high risk.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxBQSqAULEc&hd=1"]O campeão Perdeu! VÃdeo Anderson Silva perde luta 06/07/13 - YouTube[/ame]
I've done capoeira for about ten years now, and martial arts for about 24. I've taught both capoeira and self defense over the years. I can say with great finality that the capoeira I have seen is not effective Self Defence without a great deal of tweaking. Nor in my opinion should it be. I disagree with people who say 'oh yeah you can use it to do XXXX' then do something that while effective is blatantly borrowing moves from other martial arts. Ok I say I disagree.... I'm not sure that you can call it capoeira then is all... it probably works. I have incorporated Fairburn and Sykes combatives into my capoeira before, not sure how my professors would take to that though. I do know that the modern stuff isn't much like the older capoeira styles... I think Angola originally had 7 kicks and Bimba took the total up to something like 126 techniques. Bimba was big on saying capoeira was a martial art and he got into a few fights I think, however I get the idea that bimba would have been able to fight with or without capoeira. He was a big man who did a lot of physical labour. I trained with students of Bimba's son: Nenel (and Nenel now and then) and I got to admit that though the Reigonal Style isn't as showy as a lot of others I wouldn't class it as effective. There's a lot more I want to say but not tonight...
Interesting. I'm curious as to the following... 1. Do you mean self-defense or fighting, or both? To me, I typically think of self defense as all of the things that you do to avoid the physical confrontation in the first place (i.e., awareness, de-escalation, etc.) and I think that most MAs don't cover that aspect well enough. 2. What do you think makes capoeira ineffective (genuine question--just looking for your thoughts on the matter)? Well, I don't know if you can nail down specific numbers like that. The safest thing to say, I think, is that the 'syllabus' for angola tends to be much smaller than in contemporanea. But to say 7 kicks isn't quite right as, right off the top of my head I could name Chapa de Frente, Meia Lua de Frente, Meia Lua de Costas, Chapa de Costas, Rabo de Arraia, Martelo do Chao, Au Batido and Coice de Mula. And there are variations on these as well. There are other kicks named by the older generation of mestres that were favorites of mestres like Canjiquinha, Caicara and others. Not only Bimba. He did take some of his students around to fight in matches. They won some and lost some. Anibal Burlamaqui devised a system of capoeira meant to be more martial (whatever that meant to him) and Sinozinho was a teacher whose students apparently gave some of Bimba's students a run for their money. So there were a number of capoeiristas who fought or at least tried their hand at fighting in various scenarios. Looking forward to seeing your posts.
Hi mate I would say that capoeira is no good for self defense or fighting. You are indeed correct that most martial arts don't teach awareness and avoidance. I think the only time I've seen this taught in any of the capoeira is when I myself was teaching it. The techniques are not economical, or easy to learn or have a wide application base... There are three efficient techniques in the Capoeira Reigonal that I practice... the open hand slaps, palm heel and head butt. In my school though they're taught like someone looked at them and plonked them in the sylibus without much thought as to how to do them so they're obviously just a few game tecniques. To a lesser extent the turn in kick (martelo) and front push kick (Bancao) forgive my spelling btw, are sort of usable but not really high up in my tool box. Crescent kicks and they're ilk are not effective for the following reaons 1) they have a very specific distance in which they are effective, if you are at the wrong distance they are impossible to perform properly. 2) It is very hard to generate a great deal of force with them due to the muscle groups used. A knock out is probably possible but not a great deal else, as in no discernable use for body shots. 3) If you hit anything more durable than a head then your knee joint will probably give in before someones torso as you're striking at an angle that the knee doesn't bend. I discovered this whist training on a punch bag. Any technique works so long as you have three things Timing Distance Effect Alas most kicks need a lot of these as opposed to say the palm strike which will work in 99% of distances and times The numbers for capoeira techniques I didn't get out of thin air... I think I read them in a Mestre Acordeon book but it was years ago and I could be wrong or have forgotten them but hey ho. In my book Matches are different to fights. Capoeira fares better in matches than fight I would suspect but in fairness I've never really looked at the sport side of martial arts so I'm not the best to talk about that. It has to be said that every capoeira player I've seen try to enter a match has done so after cross training or has had their **** handed to them. Though I have to admit I don't follow stuff like that so again I'm not the best person to ask.
For the sake of conversation, what are the flaws that you see in capoeira that render it ineffective, outside of the lack of economy that you mention below? Can you give me a few examples of movements that fit the lack of economy, difficulty to learn and lack of wide application? Again, trying to get some conversation going and wanting some clarity on your point of view. I've never trained regional or contemporanea, so my comments apply to angola. Slaps and palms in angola are also typically not focused on, in my experience. Cabecadas/headbutts, however, are quite common and very often trained in a variety of situations and from various angles. The hand strikes, I agree, could stand to be trained more often (though the hands do come off seeming as though they are meant to be support of or secondary to the headbutts/kicks/sweeps). By the way, how do you feel about rasteiras/sweeps? Martelo and Bencao (Chapa de frente in many angola academies) are two kicks that capoeira shares with many other martial arts (including the universally lauded Muay Thai), so I'm curious to know why they aren't that high up in your toolbox. Thanks for this detailed explanation. I myself don't use meia lua de frente or meia lua de costas much (especially in comparison to other capoeiristas), save for if I can get the other person to go low and then the kick is a head hunter. Of course, I don't see a scenario where I use either of those kicks where I couldn't use martelo or chapa de frente instead. I agree that any technique needs proper timing and distance (I'm not sure what you mean by effect). This in mind, are you perhaps then saying that what is the problem is not the techniques themselves, but the training methodology? Or do you assert that the techniques in capoeira are inherently flawed in terms of timing and distance? If so, how so? Well, angola definitely has a fairly limited number of strikes, but to say 7 kicks is a bit limiting, as different groups under different mestres had varying subsets of the 'angola corpus' that they taught. It's also a bit confusing, as I have no idea how Acordeon is counting kicks and what kicks he's referring to (but this is probably a petty point ). I'm curious: how do you see matches as different to fights? And what about those differences would cause capoeira to be ineffective in a fight? Also, do you not see any possible carryover from sport matches to fighting? I think that anyone that enters MMA matches today has crosstrained, irrespective of their primary MA, in order to cover gaps in any given MA (i.e., capoeira has no ground game/grappling). Though not impossible, it appears to be rather difficult for someone who does a striking art as their primary MA to win in MMA without at least having crosstrained in some grappling in order to, at the very least, negate any attempts to take them to the ground and out of their comfort zone. As for me, I think that capoeira has a number of techniques that would serve well in both sporting and fighting contexts, but training methodology can be a problem, especially as capoeira is a cultural form that doesn't have increased martial proficiency as its only goal. The musical and theatrical aspects of the art have their own place within the world of capoeira. However, I think that those who train the movements with the tenacity and focus of those who train for full contact matches, will find that much of the basic corpus is not much different from other arts. Capoeiristas that wish to be effective in that manner should also be sparring with people outside of capoeira (whether or not they want to also crosstrain other MAs). Just my two cents, if its worth even that. Looking forward to seeing your responses to my inquiries above.
Hi Sorry for the delay in resoponse but I've had a devil of a week with trying to sort a new class out. Ok basically if you want to use something in a fight you need to be able to use it easily and in a varaiety of situations. Capoeira is mostly kicks which are neither. They take longer to learn than hand strikes They have more specific distances that they work at and thus are usful in less situations To give an example if a man puts his nose on mine and makes a passing remark about my mother I would be able to punch him but not kick him. Of course Capoeira had head butts and such but you get the idea, most of its arsenal is limited. Also I find that the ones that are effective take a back seat in training as (quite rightly) capoeira concentrates mostly on the art side of martial art. The differences between a match and a fight are leigon. A match is pre arranged. Both fighters are expecting it and have prepared in their own ways for it. They are suitable apparelled for it, warmed and loosneded up and in a ring or octagon or whatever with a padded floor. There is a referee and a Doctor. Also they are certainly facing one opponent. Once in a match they'll entre form opposite sides and arrive at a disance that they wish to adopt for their favourate techniqes, hence this suiting capoeira. A fight basically has none of this. Often a fight starts well within kicking distance and you may well not be able to kick due to alcohol, apparel or as mentioned distance. Even kicks such as Bencau and Martelo require a distance of about three foot between you and the target, and so if they're within that distance they are next to usless. Hence them not being high in my tool box. I mention effect because for a technique to work it must effect the target, not just hit him. If you look at a Tae Kwon Do fighter sparring with a Thai man they you'll see what I mean about hits that had Time and Distance but absolutely no effect. Ok I hope that answers the majority of what you asked me. If not then let me know what I've not anwered. As for making capoeira effective in self defence the simple solution to me would be to teach awareness and avoidance beside it and then pressure test cabecada palme and gala panch... Apologies for the spelling btw I'm rushing here before the boss seeing me writing this
