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.

Read more about this topic:  Beija-flor

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

    Pride and humiliation hand in hand
    Walked with them through the world where’er they went;
    Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
    And yet unshaken as the continent.
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)

    I am the LORD, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians.
    Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 6:6,7.

    There was a sound of revelry by night,
    And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
    Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
    The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
    A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
    Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
    Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
    And all went merry as a marriage-bell;
    But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)