Escola Brasiliera de Capoeira Batizado - at the Podium

The night before, Poch, some of the newbies and I planned to have a lunchee at 1 so we could meet up and pretty much have lunch before the event. We were all supposed to assemble at the lounge area of the Podium Mall at 2 and start the event at 3. So 1 o'clock makes for good allowance. Traffic sucks as usual, I think people are getting to be more aggressive drivers the closer December gets. Must be all the celebration stress. So... I guess it's given that I was late for the lunchee and got there at 1:30, met up with Jen in the parking lot and bought Gatorade. I hardly ate before I left... not because yaya didn't put out any lunch for me... I was just too excited too keep the food down. Jenny and I picked up Poch and Johnny (who met at NYPD near the movie tickets area)... Pirulito, Cybele and some of the other guys were there too. We all went down to the lounge area, got our t-shirt stickers and changed to our abada and Batizado shirt. People started to crowd around, or pass by the area... and pretty much got us newbies jittery and nervous. Thanks to Cybele, who decided to start warm up stretching exercises... I think we got our confidence back. The floor was marble, so... we were talking about how we were going to crack our pretty noodles on it. The itinerary of events: - Flag ceremony (sang by Katie) - Berimbau (sang by Macaca) and another song where Fantasma played the Berimbau (top percussionist) boy, she could sing! Arlene told me that Macaca won a singing contest some time in her life... and well, I believe her. - a song from Aia (rightly introduced as the singer of Imago) I love these songs. They had a flute, guitar, sax and mobile accompaniment. These first few songs puts a picture of drifting in my mind. Arlene commented that it makes her think of being on a beach, a coconut drink (with pineapple garnishes) in hand. Then... graduation proper. Fantasma introduced the group to the crowd, telling them about what Capoeira was all about. He gave a brief history, and a backgrounder of Capoeira as a culture, as much as it is a martial art dance in Brazil. He then opened the roda for us to play. First of course, there were the usual advanced belts... but eventually, the newbies started to play too. Mara invited me to play in so we lined up in anticipation for our turn. I didn't get to play with Mara though hehe. When I made singit to the head of the roda (right under the berimbau players), it was Dustin I had the pleasure of playing with. Eventually Fantasma and the Mestres decided to enter the roda too and show their stuff... much to the delight of the crowd and students alike. I'm proud to be in the group with these impressive guys. They sure know how to make it look easy. I'm not sure, but I think after this roda Fantasma decided to award the EBC idol winner... so Bessouro (the buggybugboy) got third place... why not? Zach got second place for his LSS-ing song "Escola Brasiliera de Capoeira, camara... Escola Brasiliera de Capoeria...."; and Katie winning first place for her upbeat and meaningful song "Capoeira is my home";. A special mention goeas to Macaca who wasn't supposed to join the EBC Idol cause she's pretty much a shoo-in... she gets to pit her song against all the other schools! I really hope she wins. :) Okay. Belting time. Fantasma called out our names, and then gave us our Capoeira name. Hahaha... At first I didn't hear him call me cause I thought he was calling someone else... he called me right after Johnny. haha... So... I am now known as: BEJU` (apostrophe over that U). At first, Pia and the girls thought that it was it was something else, Bijou I think, portugese for Kiss. Pia and the girls were giving me all these kissy faces which I wish I got on cam. Eventually though... I found that Beju meant something else haha... because I WAS wondering what the heck I did to earn a name meaning Kiss! My game was with Mestre Pano! He was really nice about it... no fancy moves... although he did try to trip me once but he got the strong leg. I was too intimidated to do anything spectacular... if I decided to give him a jumping round house, he might decide to catch me in mid air or something and take me down from there... So as you could see in the video (I'll upload in my multiply later) the game was a little bland haha... by the end I was just waiting for him to trip me and hope that the marble-floor-to-face wouldn't hurt as much as it sounds. Then Mestre Pano belted me and me is happy happy. =D weeheeheehee!!! There are 2 batches of newbies, apparently. So I'm thinking that there are around 20 of us new guys there... which is great! True to what Fantasma has been saying ever before the Batizado... just because you paid for the Batizado... doesn't mean that you get a belt, he made good that promise. To Fantasma... he didn't give us our white belts because he wanted our first belt to actually mean something... to me... a big sigh of relief! MY BELT! Some cried... I think I was too relieved to do anything. Hahaha... Fantasma also gave out all these weird names... I only remembered some of my friends' names... After giving the newbies their well-earned cordo, Fantasma took a break by giving out other special awards (which was cool, really... it shows how much he appreciates his members, and everything... ) Albert won Most Outstanding. Hahaha.. it was great... he didn't see it coming at all, so he was so hyper, and I'm happy that he got it... he would tell me that in 6 months... I would be doing stuff that he won't ever be able to do. I really doubt that, Albert! Fantasma then gave the advanced students their belts, and they got to play each other in the roda for a bit. He bumped belts up to quite a few people, well deserved!! He would have an intermission with other awards-- of which Katie got in my opinion, the best one-- Axe` award! She deserves it... She's always bringing in her own energy into the group. Of course... what would be better than have a Samba Band to play towards the end! A real live Samba Band! I didn't know they existed! Hahaha so we all got jumpy jumpy hyper hyper... sweat swapping and whatnot... had a samba line, and a dance circle where the Mestres showed another meaning to "strut your stuff". Zoinks!!! All in all... it was exhausting and exhiliarating! We looked like a Cult Groupie! I'm sure more than one person in the crowd (myself included a couple of years back) that it was a nasty Cult designed to fish in young people and brainwash them into meaningless frenzy! Hahaha of course... now I know way, way better because I opened myself to the culture. Sean noted that a lot of the registered sign-ups were from either a business side of the yuppy community, or the creative/artistic side. He would overhear people saying that it's a nice dance... but why are they in Karate uniforms?? I think that the first thing you will see in Capoeira is that it isn't just a dance, or a martial art. It's often seen as some kind of Cult-orgymania... looks that way... but honestly? It's really a CULT --- Culture. Brazilian Culture. Now for the Obrigadas (deep thanks): To Mom and Gwen for coming... and pulling dad with them (much to my surprise, really)... and people I didn't expect to go---! Sean and Jac and Levis! LEVIS??!?! (I'll hold you to your promise ha! December!!) Sean saw me from a mile away and I saw Jac a mile away! I'm so glad you guys put some time out to watch the weird orgy that I got myself into!! Hahaha... I'm sure all you guys out there also tried to go but got turned off by the guy howling into the microphone! Hahaha... that was Fantasma, singing his heart out in Portugese. My mom said that she could hardly understand Fantasma's English hahaha... it does take some getting used-to. After that... Sean and I had dinner (where he had a potato-mania in Fuzion) and I was going into sugar-low. Haha... I promised Ge that I would take him to the after-party in Bugsy's place in Makati because I would probably get lost getting there and the newbies pretty much had a peer pressure going on to go. We talked about the names we got and what they mean and probably how we got them. Only Fantasma can do the names, after all. Hahahaha... here are a few for your entertainment: Dustin - he gets to be named after Shaggy (in portugese) as in Shaggy from Scooby-Doo. Tina - Estrella, meaning Star... well-said! Arlene - Flash Dance (some say that Fantasma thought that she was wearing dance clothes) Poch - Callabreza... Sausage (this earns him a round of puns and "how the heck did he get a name like that" jibes from the advanced guys... as to the real Why the heck he got a name like that... we'll ask... some other time) Samurai - I don't really know his first name! But he DOES look like a Samurai! (A LOST one too! This guy can NOT take directions... we did a convoy home and we got lost.) Kryon - he gets to be named "Black Belt"; in portugese since he used his black garrison belt to hold up his abada. We're not sure if that was a no-no. However... i suppose in the end it was better than the original idea... which was "Spaghetti"; in portugese. Hahahaha... I would have thought something to the like of ";Lamp Post"; or something. He's 6'3, underweight and still growing like a tree! One of my favorite friends to watch, especially when he's doing a cartwheel. Jenny - Chupete (pacifier) hehehe... cause she looks like a baby (or to Fantasma... once mistook her as HIS Baby... daw) Pauline - gets to be named after her Hair Drinie - is She-ra! Kris Tan - Sorvete (ice cream) clincher?-- Kris's sister - the cone (in portugese) cuuute! Mara - Girasod (no one knew what THAT was) Alexa - small smile (don't know the portugese) I guess more like "shy smile" cause that's just the way she does smile. me--?? Beju' -- this Brazilian White Cake that I can't seem to find a picture of in the internet! White Cake! (I feel like some discriminatory remark here... hey you white cake! Hey nigga!) ok ok, only negs get to call each other negs I think. Anyhow... in Capoeira, hehe I'm a treat. :)