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| - I don't know how to explain how much FUN this is, it just like smashes my "on" button. The class is amazing because Professor Pelourinho and the many students are so engaged and inspiring. You get to participate with people who have been giving 100% for years or decades, and they are all welcoming and encouraging even if you are new and trying your best to just get started. Lots of collective knowledge of Capoeira as well as acrobatics, dance, etc. He has really established an atmosphere that is infectiously positive.
I've come in at least a few times feeling lumpy and tired, and left feeling jazzed for days.
Its not just an "exercise class." It isn't just a physical robotic workout to follow along so your butt looks nice, but a very fluid challenging martial art you need to pay close attention and think with your body, but also a community of people staying in the moment within a dynamic space; zenlike ephemeral 'there'. There is a value in something that consumes you so much that you set your adult mental shit down for an hour or so, emptying your cup, so that you can feel lighter at the other end. It also makes you appreciate how much your body *can* actually do.
Also, there aren't enough opportunities nowadays for people to [turn off their cellphones/netflix and] play, engage, be caught up and to embrace humanity in a weird way, and to creatively take up space together.
Side note: as someone with some social anxiety, I went to/had to go to a networking event after this class, and had to both give a speech and approach strangers to small-talk (sober), and it was fully comfortable (unusual for me). So there are a bunch of nice side effects of going to class, that is just one of them.
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