Non-negative

Be sincere, at least inside your own head.




I try to use a positive terminology in my thoughts. I believe "positive thinking" manifests good situations for myself and helps me to overcome harder situations.
Using negative terminology, on the other hand, puts the subject you are trying to avoid in your main focus and thus manifests it.
When focusing on using a positive terminology, I often find out that I am using non-negative terminology instead of positive - "I hope I don't get lost" instead of "I hope to find the way", it even happens that I can't find the positive term for a non-negative term I've just used. Using non-negativity is the same as using negativity - the focus is on the subject we are trying to avoid and we are passive, unable to stop the "dissaster" from coming. Using positive terminology, on the other hand, puts us in an active position where we decide the outcome of the upcoming events.

The old lady

I met a 72 year old lady in a practice in a park in brasil, she was playing capoeira the best she could and had a flare in her eyes as if she was six years old. I spoke with her and she told me she started practicing capoeira in the age of 68(!). Before that, she was a very ill person, using a lot of medications and now she doesn't need any. Her smile told everything. She was enjoying herself and that brought her back to life. I wish for everyone to find that particular thing that makes their eyes flare and their smile shine like that.

We tend to tie our joy with our accomplishments. We think we will enjoy only if we will succeed. We mix Joy with Satisfaction and forget that while satisfaction is conditioned to an outcome, joy is a state of mind.We fail to realise that if we seek success then we are doomed to be unsatisfied and that there will always be a better thing to achieve. We fail to realise that only if we will enjoy then we can succeed. actually, if we enjoy then we already succeeded.

Excellence

When a child meets something new, he is driven out of curiosity and pleasure. He tries out everything he can with great creativity. when he fails, he tries harder, when he succeeds, he wants to recreate that moment. He reaches the limits of that new thing and even finds new ways to use it. his imagination and creativity are not blocked by experience, enabling him to try things that seem impossible (and sometimes he makes them possible). This is excellence.


When we grow up, our environment puts us into patterns that literally eliminates any notion of that childish excellence. this is done by driving us through an increasing process of fears: fear of failure, fear of being left alone, fear of being left behind, fear of being rejected. Suddenly you are expected to reach certain goals in your life, goals that show your progress of fitting into the pattern. you are rewarded and accepted and patted and hugged by your surroundings when you reach these goals and that nourishes the fears to grow stronger. This also becomes easier - you don't really need to be excellent, you only need to be better than the ones around you. you fall into that pattern and you already start to believe in it. You become the one who demands that pattern from others. Your excellence is now driven out of fear. you need to prove something or be proved wrong.

This cycle, mentioned above, is pretty weird because it always has a paranoiac notion of a bigger plan that is being plotted behind the scenes. Maybe by the government trying to make us slaves out of free will, maybe tycoons are trying to make us better consumers, maybe it is the devil himself. Actually it is a magical cycle that you and I spin. It is our participation that makes it go on. Trying to stop it makes more of the same. Many questions remain unanswered, like how all this cycle started anyway or what really does it take to stop it. For now I think that a huge change of course will be to open our eyes and see the situation as it truly is. Then, try to invite that investigative little child in you to come out and play.Then, just play.

Capoeira, for that aspect, makes things very clear. Your excellence depends on your joy.
Capoeira has a mind of it's own. It introduces you situations and if you stay rigid you will quickly meet the ground but if you flex and flow then you will beat any obstacle in your way. This aspect in capoeira can be found in many ways. You can see children repeating hundreds of Au's before mastering it and immediately after that, going on to practice macaco.You can see grown-ups shedding off their long day and transforming into a joyful, playful creature in the roda. On the other hand you can see people saying "Oh, capoeira, in my age? oh, I couldn't even lift my leg"... To them it seems so real, yet, to a capoeirista it seems equally fake.

The joy and positive thinking that manifest better situations are those that allow a pure form of excellence to appear. In that excellence, That change that begins in you, affects your surroundings and in the end a cycle will be closed returning to you as a better surroundings for yourself and so on... In that excellence, you only compete with your own joy and comply to your own standards (avoiding from falling into misinterpretations of what the standards are according to the influences of society).

"To change the world, one should begin the change in himself" J.Krishnamurti

As many topics before and in the future, I'd like to thank my teacher Beduino for planting the seeds, Jiddu Krishnamurti for clearing the view and my wife for nourishing all this with great love. For this post I thank my son as well, for being a child around me, taking me back there and revealing to me my own grown-up conditioning.

The smiling mask

The capoeira version of poker face is a smiling face saying "all is well..."




In a wider perspective this is a good tool for everyday life.

saying all is well, thinking all is well, intending all is well, creates reality. not in a mystical way. It actually make situations happen and evolve in that direction. If you intend something, you immediately become a sort of a receiver and transmitter in that "wavelength" of intention. You communicate with the intention in the back of your head, listening a bit differently - with more attention to situations concerning your intention and saying and doing things a bit differently - with more emphasis on your intention. All of the above form situations that evolve into the manifestation of your intention.

Sometimes you need to make an effort going into that new state of mind but it is worth it. When you go for it, do it with all your heart.

Smile.



Photo by: alienfast

It is irrational to stop being rational

Everything is nothing
Nothing is everything
The beginning is the end
The end is the beginning
When there is no beginning there is no end
When there is no end there is no beginning
All is so complex and yet so simple.
All is so simple and yet so complex.

All is energy.

All conclusions bring me to the most simple solution - let go, right here, right now, don't wait for something to happen, don't anticipate, don't think, just let go, god damn it!!!
it's so scary, it's so complex, what will happen next? what waits on the other side? what if it is not worth it? am I making a fool out of me? it's obvious that the barriers of letting go are made of the same conditioning that brought confusion in the first place and yet they stand there tall and silent, ancient and still...

I believe that most people who experienced "enlightenment", experienced it spontaneously and not consciously because of that same scary aspect of letting go. I think it is one of the greatest fears and the brain has many tactics to convince itself to go in a different way rather than tackle it.

Photo by: Dina Mehta

Our body never lies

Our body never lies – our story is told by our health and movement, and we can learn a great deal about some of our own barriers if we listen to it carefully.

This is also a tool for capoeiristas, they tell a story of deception with their movement in order to plant traps throughout the game and not disclose their real intentions...

Photo by: screed3000

Escravo (Slave)

Would there be freedom if there was no slavery?

Slavery is very easy to define when it is introduced straightforwardly in its brutal, violent and obvious version, but there are many other subtle and deceptive ways to introduce slavery and most of them, are self-imposed.

We easily forget that we cling to an image of ourselves which separates us from the rest of existence - We have a family, a home, achievements, all gained by hard work and great skills...

in that image, we are scared and need security. We are in a constant fear of losing our uniqueness and this makes us bring up even more complex conflicts. We are scared to lose our jobs, our income, our home, our beloved, ourselves and so we struggle to achieve and evolve, struggle to be stronger and better, only to find out that we build a prison, inviting more and more different forms of enslavement upon ourselves.

So now we are totaly entangled in this pile of fears and oppressors and here is when the concept of freedom is formed and we dive into a misleading journey trying to achieve it. It is misleading because the search and the expected achievement are more of the same deceptive forms of imprisonment mentioned above.

What is the way out of this paradox? No one can tell you, you should find out for yourself because only you know your own oppressors.

"When you find out why you are insecure, you are already secure"(J. Krishnamurti). Know yourself, be honest with yourself, accept yourself, love yourself, (as my wife says:) hug yourself, understand and know your oppressors and by that, the way out is already paved.

This post was inspired by my teacher Beduino-thanks for the inspiration and perspective and by the great teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti bringing clarity into large complexities.

I really need to say that as for myself, I understand very well what I have written but nontheless I am aware that I am still trapped in that same paradox (this blog for example). very frustrating...

Photo by: Daniel West

Microcosmos

Capoeira has a very nice, built in attribute, it is a perfect reflection of the world. As a microcosmos, it enables the participants to encounter a wide variaty of situations resembling all every day situations, sometimes - straightforward and sometimes more indirect.

The main benefit of this is that these encounters happen in a safe environment, making it a perfect platform for learning.

Photo by: Roman Balashov

Energy exchange

Every encounter is an exchange of energy.

When gathering around, forming a roda, each individual comes with a certain amount of energy.

What happens with that energy inside the roda?

Every individual in the roda participates in the process of channeling the energy, passing it onwards. When the roda is one and harmony is achieved, there is a perfect balance and the energy flows from one to another,from the insruments to the clapping, from the clapping to the singer, from the singer to the player, from the player to the roda, all is one and carefuly balanced. When something happens - the game is interrupted/the rythm is unbalanced/the clapping stops/ the roda is deformed - then a 'hole' is observed and an immense "leak" of energy is followed, The game looses its coordination, the focus is gone, and a noticable lack of ballance is shown. Yet the roda has the ability to mend this, it has (like most things in nature) the "will" to ballance itself. If the "leak" was minor the balance is achieved quite immidiately but sometimes the "hole" is too large and the roda inevitably comes to an end with a sense of loss. The individual, in the roda, brings his energy and refreshes it through the means of exchange.

The law of conservation of energy is kept in two variations: in a good harmonious roda, the individual walks away with the same amount of energy that he came with only refreshed, or in a roda that "melted" - with less energy than the amount that he came with.

Photo by: Nick Cooper

Perspective

A wise man said:

you cannot change facts, but you can change the way you percieve them.



photo by: DownTown Pictures

Letting go

'Letting go' can not be a destination but must be achieved.

'Letting go' has a sense of effort and thus creating a paradox.

Another problem of letting go is that sometimes you don't understand what is it exactly that you are holding on to...

Reality

Reality is not what is outside of us but it is what we create from within...




An interesting way to manipulate another person's reality is to offer him a choice. when presented to a choice, your conclusion is that you should have the right (or with the most benefit) choice. you don't always realise that if the choice wasn't presented then you might have not even ponder about it...

Many times the choice that you are considering among many other choices, is not the main issue. The outcome of your choice might even be the same as the other choices. The question is why are you in a dilemma situation from the first place?

Falling

"na vida se cai"
"quem nunca caio, nao e capoeira"
"tem cair bem"



The falls we take are our opportunities to elevate ourselves and learn. If the perspective of duality is taken, there is no fall without rise. That said, immediately comes the coclusion - after a fall, don't dwell on it too much, rather try to see what is the good that it meant to bring you - what was the lesson you needed to learn (and manifested this situation in order to make the learning possible)

photo by: notsogoodphotography

A little anatomy

A little above the diaphragm and a littel under the sternum lies our source/port of energy
A little above our genitles and a little under our belly-button lies our center of balance
Don't forget to breath...

When energy and harmony are at their best, you get goose-bumps

We learned how to move our bodies since we were born and in time we have forgotten (not to say neglected) many of our abilities. Capoeira brings us back there. Although the movement sometimes seems to be very difficult and complex, it is always comprised of the basic movements (...well almost always). All you need is to let go and let the body remember and do what it already knows - walk, turn, sit, fall, balance...

The body knows how to balance itself. You need to trust it, train it, remember the center of balance and then forget it.

The body reflects all the processes that we go through. Listen to it, it tells a wonderful story.

Learning through experience

Capoeira puts us in a veriaty of so many situations, that testing and following ourselves inside those situations teaches us every time a little something about ourselves

The world is the game and the game is the world

Almost any situation can be projected onto a game of capoeira, and different reactions in the game can be projected back into the situation

and so on...

They are all the same.

The instruments
The roda
The players
The game
The music
The song
The clapping

They are all the same.

Neutral

every positive has it's negative and when combined, harmony is achieved."entra-saindo, sai-entrando, cai-subindo, sube-caindo" - combine "contra" and "favor" movements first in your own movement and then with your opponent.

the game is endless and full of harmony.

Nice video of our group

One of our group members, 'Cacao', who is a very good friend and capoeirista, uploaded to YouTube a movie of some of our acrobatics. he did a real good job in edditing the movie.

I appear there quite often, take a look...