Beija-flor - Hand and Arm Strikes

Hand and Arm Strikes

Jogo de Braços or "the game of the arm and hand". Traditionally, hand strikes were rarely used in capoeira, the mythological reasoning behind this being that the shackles and chains of the slaves prevented this. Even if this is so, punches, elbows, and slaps have always existed in street rodas all around Brazil. Today, this game of the arm and hand is seen more in the Capoeira Angola rodas. Some players attempt to distract or fascinate their opponent by waving their arms and hands in a spellcasting like way. This jogo or game represents a swinging and waving of hands to diminish any perception of an attack and lower the other player's guard.

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Famous quotes containing the words hand and, hand, arm and/or strikes:

    My hand and pen are not in plight,
    As they have been of yore.
    Thomas Vaux, 2d Baron Vaux Of Harrowden (1510–1566)

    Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,
    That dust I am and shall to dust return.
    O welcome hour whenever! Why delays
    His hand to execute what his decree
    Fixed on this day? Why do I overlive?
    Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out
    To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet
    Mortality, my sentence, and be earth
    Insensible! how glad would lay me down
    As in my mother’s lap!
    John Milton (1608–1674)

    One strong wolf cannot defeat a pack of dogs; one strong arm cannot defeat many fists.
    Chinese proverb.

    One of the great reasons for the popularity of strikes is that they give the suppressed self a sense of power. For once the human tool knows itself a man, able to stand up and speak a word or strike a blow.
    Charles Horton Cooley (1864–1929)