Students at the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy on Detroit’s Westside are learning some moves, and they’re not your average ones.
“It’s just like a dance, and I love dancing, so that’s the reason I’m mainly interested in Capoeira. So, I also watched Bruce Lee, and he would do a lot of cool martial arts skills, and that’s what really got me into martial arts because you do a lot of movement,” Kimani Abdulquadir, a Junior at Jalen Rose Leadership Academy told “Live in the D’s” April Morton.
So, what exactly is Capoeira? Is it dance or fight? Kelvin Wyatt, a Capoeira Instructor with Creative Movement Brazil says, “it’s just Capoeira,” and the Brazilian art form has been around for centuries. “Africans in the slave trade made their way to Brazil, so from there they needed to devise a way to fight back against oppression, so they created Capoeira,” Wyatt said.
The moves that combine dance, music, song, acrobatics, and philosophy, teach confidence, self-discipline, fitness, and self-respect.
It has grown in popularity world-wide, and with 25 years of experience, including training in Brazil, Wyatt is hoping that popularity will catch on with the youth in Detroit. “I’m happy I’m able to pass on this art to the next generation. Here in the city, sometimes we only have a limitation of things that we are actually able to experience,” Wyatt said.
He and a few colleagues teach a class of about 10 to 12 students twice a week . April Morton recently joined in on a lesson.
To see April in action, and learn more about the program, click the video above.