For anyone interested I'd thought I'd share this from my local paper...
Capoeira gets a hold at St. Peter's
3 credits for studying dance-fight discipline
To the untrained eye, capoeira - the fight-dance developed by runaway slaves in Brazil - looks like breakdancing.
Except for the kicks and throws.
Practitioners twirl on one hand, perform cartwheels and back flips. They employ sweeping low kicks and high foot jabs, all accompanied by driving percussion music.
In most contests, sparring partners don't strike each other. "The goal is to miss, so it becomes easy to hit," explained one of the capoeiristas.
This multidimensional art form debuts today as a for-credit course at St. Peter's College in the college's Fine Arts Department, graduating from its status as a student activity for the past two years.
Although several colleges and universities host capoeira clubs, St. Peter's officials say theirs is the only college to offer credit for the class.
"It is one of those disciplines that crosses several fields," said Jon Boshart, chairman of the Fine Arts Department.
"So much of capoeira is based on rhythm and dance movements, it would be like giving three credits in dance or instrument study."
The once-a-week course will be taught by Saman Dashti, a eight-year practitioner of the art form, and will earn students three credits.
Created by runaway slaves in Brazil, this complex and intriguing fight form disguises martial arts as an improvised song and dance routine, which plantation owners saw as an acceptable activity.
Later, runaway slaves would use capoeira to fend off attacks from those who tried to recapture them.
Outlawed for several decades, the art form is now Brazil's second-most popular sport, bowing only to soccer.
Russlan D. Hoffman, the college's director of safety and security, deserves most of the credit in getting the college to adopt the sport.
A retired New York City transit policeman who lives in Little Falls, Hoffman said he was hunting around for a way to keep in shape and indulge his hobby as an amateur photographer when he discovered a capoeira club in Newark.
"It was like an awakening," said Hoffman. "At first, I wasn't getting great shots because I was focused on the martial arts aspect of it . What I was missing was the whole thing I had spent my whole career perfecting: situational awareness."
In capoeira, Hoffman explained, fighters spar within a circle, so they have to be aware of potential enemies joining the fracas from any direction.
The discipline also has several cultural aspects. Every practitioner learns to play the percussion instruments associated with the sport, including the birimbau, a single-string wooden instrument, and the pandeiro, a tambourine.
Capoeiristas learn to make their own birimbau, and will be taught to do so in the St. Peter's course by Robson Rebiero, Hoffman's Newark club's mestre, or master.
Knowing he had to get beyond "capo what?" with his colleagues in order for the college to take his newly adopted sport seriously, Hoffman launched his educational campaign with a performance by his Newark club, Grupo Liberdade De Capoeira Dos Palmares, for faculty members in February 2002.
"Academics are not risk-takers," said Hoffman. "I knew I had to do an educational process."
A capoeira club formed shortly after the performance, attracting roughly 10 students each semester to learn the sport.
Dashti, also known as Instructor Macaco, said he expects more students to enroll now that credits are offered.
"The added bonus of getting credits will stabilize the interest in capoeira," said Dashti, a Queens resident who teaches technology at a Brooklyn nonprofit. "It makes it competitive."
Erika Rigby, academic athletic coordinator for the college, said several coaches have expressed interest in the class.
"Our coaches are extremely excited about it," said Rigby. "They think it's going to help their athletes with flexibility . It's definitely a physical class, but it's part of their academic performance."
Boshart said he's already penned in the course for the 2004-2005 fall and spring semesters. And Hoffman is pleased his sport has found a home.
"No one knew where this fit," he said. "It was a dance, but it is martial arts."