playing the fool to the tempo of the berimbau

Mestre Amen was in town for a workshop & batizado. Lark was our stretchiest, bounciest, most charismatic young Capoerista. I was envious of his abilities, though he was too much younger than me for it to really burn. He was goofy, a teenager just beginning to poke his head thru the stretchy membrane of young adulthood. His younger brother Deago was somehow more down to earth, as younger brothers often are (I should know). The two of them combined were an incandescent lightbulb in the fixture of our uneven little group. Always doing handsprings and flips and whatnot. Lark especially danced in the roda, strong and supple without acting “tough.” His legs stretched out like rubber bands, his upper body joyfully followed his hips around like one of those used-car-lot tubular blowup dudes. He had all the snark of an adolescent boy without the incidental cruelty that is so often its companion. When I finally, in my early 30s, down by the lake flinging sand everywhere with bare feet, successfully pulled off my first unassisted back handspring, Lark was maybe more delighted than I was.

“Aw, man! You do it tight!” he said. Praise from a respected older man is sublime, but praise from a much younger one has a special potency of its own. As does inclusion.

“You’re one of us now!” he crowed.

Curious: the need to belong and the need to feel special can coexist. I guess that’s why they say belonging isn’t the same as fitting in.

During one of the workshop rodas, Lark was doing his usual spinning, stretching, flipping, and playing the fool to the tempo of the berimbau and atabaque. Asking who “won” in a Capoeria roda is about as nonsensical as asking who “won” a D&D game (that’s another pigeon, btw), but if anyone won that one, it woulda been Lark. I don’t remember who he was playing with at the time, but whenever he was playing he was always, in my memory at least, in some kind of mildly angst-flavored ecstasy that made him as invulnerable as a cartoon. Showing off, yes, but again, not in a mean way.

After the roda, Mestre Amen gave him a dressing down in front of all of us. “Your flips and spins are good,” he said (thumbs up). “But your Capoeira is phhhhbbbbbbbt!” Thumbs down. Lark nodded respectfully and rejoined the circle around the roda, and it was someone else's turn to go in.

Apparently, in the estimation of the Mestre, Lark hadn’t been listening, watching, tuning in, or paying attention correctly to the game he was playing with the other person in the roda. Being a virtuoso soloist isn’t the same thing as being a musician in ensemble with other people; it’s the same way with Capoeira in the roda. You’re supposed to play off each other’s energy, not just do all your flashy moves because you can. Amen apparently felt a need to take Lark down a notch or two, in the interest of guiding him towards becoming a better Capoerista.

I don’t know about anyone else who was there that day, but I was secretly gratified, because watching someone you’re a bit envious of get taken down can temporarily lift you up a little, right?

And yet, fuck Amen! Why you gotta tear someone down to build them up? Seemed like sometimes he just wanted to take someone down to take them down. Fine, OK, disclaimer: tradition. Brazilians and their Capoeira traditions, working in the United States in the nineties and oughts — I get it — we didn’t get it. Americans tried to turn Capoeira into self help or hot yoga or whatever, you know, the kinda shit we always do. Sometimes I thought I understood what Capoeira was all about. But I’m sure I usually didn’t, not really.

Later, in a different roda, Amen kicked a young professor from Kansas in the face. Almost all of us witnessing this were a bit shocked; we didn’t learn until later that the guy had been behaving and playing in ways that Amen found disrespectful. Most of us were willing to conclude that Amen had “anger issues;” meanwhile Gume (our local professor who would never live up to Mestre’s expectations but nevertheless believed in the art as fervently as a child believes in Spiderman) reminded us in an email, “This is his life and his culture. Not just from the past year or 2 or 3 but his whole life.”

And maybe Lark did need a psychological smackdown, maybe he was too beautiful for his own good, and left unchecked his ego would have turned malevolent. And maybe he wasn’t gonna get tough love from his dad, because correct me if I’m wrong but I think his dad wasn’t around. I could be wrong. Memory. You know how it is. But I’m pretty sure it was just him and Deago and “mama bear” at their house in those days.

But even a Mestre is not omniscient, and here’s something Amen never got to see: the day Lark came to my daughters’ elementary school. It was a cute suburban field day, special activities day, the kind of day they do towards the end of the school year when the guppies are getting restless and impending summer makes the case that school is obsolete. Me & Gume and a couple others from our group had offered to introduce the kids to Capoeira. Gume wasn’t there yet so I was trying to show them some stuff. Like here’s a basic movement we do, here’s a kick you can try, etc. They were kind of into it, they were game, I was comporting myself respectfully. But then after a couple of rotations through the stations, Lark showed up and it was his turn to lead the kids. What moved him, what came over him I don’t know, but it was a seamless transformation. It was like ... if teaching was a drum, if drumming was teaching. He barely said a word; just gestured, showed, and invited. Starting in the middle of this big circle of kids on the field, he would ginga up to one of them, do a move, then gesture for them to try it out. He was so loose and guileless about it, they didn’t hesitate. When they messed up, it was funny, not embarrassing. The joke was not on them, but on Lark, on all of us, and it wasn’t belittling, it was unifying. His approval was universal; he made the circle a circle.

I had never seen this aspect of Lark before. Around the younger kids, he transformed into a young man, and it was a beautiful thing to behold. Now that was teaching. Can you imagine if high school could be like that? A little circle of freedom in the middle of a pedestrian afternoon. No explaining, no coercion, just do this, now do this, and let’s see what happens. Now do the next thing, because you want to, don’t you? Because, per the rhythm, you have to, it’s the next inevitable movement your body wants to make. Youth is green moss racing from tree to tree. Teachers — and Mestres — can spring from anywhere, and the one who plants the seed rarely gets to see the eventual majesty.

But too much metaphor (like too rigid a tradition) has a way of building up; it gets corrosive. Maybe sometimes a kick in the face from the right messenger at the right time is exactly the lesson that’s needed. Honestly, I think I’m probably overdue. Then again, sometimes what works the best is the exact opposite of what you think you need, or what you think someone else needs, or what you think someone else thinks you need. Sometimes maybe all that’s required is throwing yourself backwards through the sky and trusting that the sand is gonna be there to catch your hands as you let momentum flip you on over. Eventually you’ll land on your feet. Someone will be there to share in your delight. You’ll be that someone for someone else.