Each more agile than the other: Mental and physical enculturation in capoeira regional

Introduction Our title is from Jorge Amado's (1993) novel The War of the Saints set in Salvador, Brazil. The romantic hero is an African-Brazilian taxi driver, and a student (discipulo) of respected capoeira teacher Master (Mestre) Pastinha. Capoeira is an African-Brazilian dance-fight game, which has become globalized in the last 30 years. In the title scene two advanced students, Traira and ‘Good Hair’, are playing a capoeira game: In the centre of the room Traira and Good Hair performed, each more agile than the other, more in control of himself, more tricky and unexpected, more dazzling. No one who saw them leap their leaps will ever forget the roguishness of their wily thrusts, the blows that were the most difficult of ballet steps: capoeira kills! (Amado 1993, 232; emphasis in original) The goal of serious capoeira learners is to be more agile physically and mentally than the other player he or she meets in the roda, the circle in which games are played. We have structured this chapter to introduce capoeira, explain and illustrate our fieldwork and then to explore our own embodiment as fieldworkers (Herzfeld 2009). The project is an example of the carnal sociology called for by Crossley (1995) in that it focuses not only on the bodies of others but on our own embodied selves.