First time taking a capoeira class
Today, through an unfortunate series of events, both Piolho and Nick were unavailable to teach the class — Piolho we knew all along wouldn’t make it but Nick had to work late out of town.
The unfortunate part comes where not one but two new people arrive at the group. I ended up leading most of the class with some aid from Simon and Stephen. On the bright side new folk were from the Glasgow Senzala group and had done capoeira before. Everyone was able to follow along with my garbled instructions and wooly attempts to explain.
Most of the class was spent going over very basic stuff which was nice. They were used to a different kind of capoeira, so they could use that to get familiar with the style and I wasn’t too taxed coming up with crazy sequences and variations. We spent a good amount of time on the ginga, because it’s something we all need to work on, endlessly, and it’s something that is very different between Senzala and Mao No Chao.
In the end I enjoyed myself and I think everyone felt they had worked up a good sweat and didn’t seem too angry that they weren’t getting a teacher with a plan and a system!
The class was the opposite of what I’d been looking forward to, as I’d wanted to work more on the music stuff and had been trying to practise a basic samba rhythm on the pandeiro while waiting outside. But that is not how things fell out.
So I hope to see them again in future and if I ever have to teach a class again I’ll maybe have something in the back of my mind.