(scroll to the bottom for an update)

With all the COVID-19 craziness, more and more countries are entering some form of quarantine. A lot of public activities are being cancelled, including everything sports related. Where I live, the city took very drastic measures on Thursday which included closing sports venues and school gyms until at least the end of the month.

Since we can’t hold our regular classes, my co-trainer and I started looking at alternative ways to keep our students busy. On Friday we held a movie night at my place and watched Besouro (let’s call it history class ?), in a small group of course. This week, we’ll do a music class at my buddy’s place (hand sanitizers will be provided…). we will also share some things to practice at home.

If you can’t meet up with your students, give them something to do at home. I just saw a great example on Reddit: Contramestre Cenoura is temporarily offering free classes from his website for everyone. It’s a great initiatieve and If you can, do the same and record or share some video’s for your students. Here are some ideas for video topics:

• physical exercises (e.g. focused on small spaces, strength exercises, …)
• stretching
• practicing instruments (e.g. basic berimbau or pandeiro exercises, a new rhythm to learn, ..)
• introduce a challenge
• share some videos of rodas that are interesting to analyze

Since most people find training at home difficult, be sure to also offer alternatives. You could suggest a selection books or articles for your students to read. This is the perfect opportunity for everyone to read up on the history or practice some music.

If your students stocked up on TP, then this might be a suitable workout:

Let’s make the best of this!

Update 24/03

About a week and a half later and I’ve been seeing lots of people sharing their workouts and exercises with the world. Below are some people who I follow and are posting classes and movements on social media.

Mestre Poncianinho

Mestre Poncianinho is organizing paid online classes as a substitute for his usual classes. You can get in touch via Instagram.

Professor Bombril

Professor Bombril is well known on social media. He’s also organizing online classes. You can get in touch via his Instagram.

Mestres Sabiá and Cristal

They are both doing a lot of (live) videos. Mestre Sabiá has done some co-op live videos with Mestre Di Mola, Mestre Catitu, Contramestre Rafael, … Mestre Cristal (also from Ginga Mundo) posts good material on ground movements.

Instagram: Mestre Sabiá – Mestre Cristal

Mestre Negoativo

I met him a few weeks back and he’s a very interesting person with a lot of passion and knowledge for Brazilian-African music. He’ll be doing a live session tomorrow night (European time).

More info on his Facebook.

Professora Borrachinha

She has also shared some training videos and you can contact her on Facebook for custom tailored classes. Also check out her YouTube channel.

Professor Thiago

He actually always posts a lot of home workouts. Check out his Facebook or YouTube (doesn’t seem to be updated frequently).

Reddit

I’ve seen some local initiatives as well in my personal network. Check out the capoeira subreddit for some examples: e.g. this post and this post.

Podcasts

There are some good podcasts and vlogs to follow if you find yourself bored and stuck at home. I listed them in a post a while back.

— Vinho