Author: TSMA Page 176 of 200

Many students experience foreign culture through the well-highlighted pages of a history book, studying aboard or an 8 a.m. anthropology lecture.

But in Skher Brown’s Brazilian martial arts class, students cartwheel, handstand and chant their way toward a better understanding of culture in an art form called Capoeira Angola.

“Capoeira Angola is an African-Brazilian martial art that was developed as a form of cultural resistance,” Skher Brown, an adjunct professor in the dance department, said. “I am known as Treinel Skher to my students.  Treinel is a title in my martial art that basically means professor of capoeira.”

Junior Kristen McCoy said she wasn’t sure what she was getting into when she signed up for the class with a group of friends.

“I thought it was just an easy A dance class,” McCoy said. “Day one that was quickly corrected.  The first day of class felt like an intense work out, but we were learning the basic moves of Capoeira.”

McCoy said her expectation of class changed once she understood the culture better.

“There was a brief discussion after class where our treinel told us more about the class and its significance,” she said. “I learned that it was way more than a dance, it was about music, martial arts, community, conversation, relationships and life lessons.”

The enslaved Africans of Brazil merged the art forms of dance, fight and music into a unique expression of the human spirit, according to Brown.

“When two practitioners perform the movements with one another, it is at times difficult to tell whether it is a dance, a fight or some sort of game,” he said.

Information technology major Madeline Tejera said her interest with the martial art started after she saw her treinel in two performances.

“I fell in love with the movement and how it’s martial arts that is so friendly, passive and it just looks like fun,” she said. “It isn’t about beating your opponent, but instead just playing a game.”

McCoy said that she appreciates the atmosphere of equality among her classmates.

“We are playing with one another through call and response, attack and escape,” she said.  “The martial art does not run on a belt system. We are all equal, all capoeiristas, all studying the same thing and all growing together.”

Junior Lucas Oliveira said he has tried every martial art from Brazil, from jiu jitsu to basic self defense, but has never experienced anything quite like capoeira.

“Capoeira is like a conversation,” Oliveira said. “When we attend this class, we’re learning more then just a fighting style. We learn a language. Through it, we as young capoeiristas are able to interact and communicate in away that is unique to capoeira and something that I have not experienced in any other style that I’ve trained.”’

Brown said that the art form has roots in the transatlantic slave trade, when the Portuguese shipped Central Africans to Brazil.

“These enslaved Africans and their African-Brazilian descendents went on to synthesize the new martial art form of capoeira from the old traditional practices that they brought with them from Africa,” he said.

The art form went through a period of repression, according to Brown, but today it is practiced on almost every continent.

“This African-Brazilian martial art is unique in that it uses dance to camouflage aggression and disarm its opponent to gain the upper hand,” he said.  “Capoeira Angola is very playful.  Opponents do not spare, they ‘play’ capoeira.”

Brown said that capoeira is physically and musically demanding.

“It also contains cartwheels, handstands, flips and other acrobatic movements,” he said.  “All practitioners learn to sing fight-chants and play spirited music on percussion instruments.”

This special topics course was offered to all majors during Spring 2012 and might return if there is continued interest, according to Brown.

“Dr. Lea Ramsdell in the foreign languages department was instrumental in getting the course in the curriculum,” he said.

Brown said he focuses on giving students the experience of learning a traditional art form through a non-western teaching method.

“I believe that capoeira changes lives for the better and I believe that the students of Towson will appreciate its value,” Brown said.

Yoko Okamoto did not take up aikido until she was 22, but she has risen to be a 6th dan master and one of the most respected martial arts instructors in Japan.

She established her own dojo (martial arts school) three years ago, converting an old tapestry factory into a place to teach her students. Some of them are foreigners who come to Kyoto especially to study aikido for months at a time.

Before returning to Japan to build what she describes as a community of aikido, Ms Okamoto lived in Portland, Oregon for 14 years.

The job involves early starts. She gets up at 5am and likes to begin by sitting and meditating before leading several classes a day. Sunday is her day off.

As a female instructor Yoko Okamoto is unusual, but she says she does not think about it much. She does not differentiate between her male and female students; she says each individual has their own strengths and weaknesses.

She has two grown up sons and lives with her husband in a newly built house 10 minutes’ walk from work. He practices aikido too – they met at a dojo in Tokyo.

WEST BOCA— Grab his shirt. Slam your elbow in his face. Kick him in the groin!

A dozen disabled women are learning these self-defense techniques at the Levis Jewish Community Center west of Boca Raton, in a class designed to boost their confidence in the stressful situations they regularly encounter. The women, who have physical and neurological impairments, have been bullied, groped, stared at and stalked. Many lack friends and spend most of their time in the house, leaving them vulnerable during their contacts with the outside world.

Judy Goldes, 50, who reads on a third-grade level, said she was inappropriately grabbed by a nursing home resident. Torri Bandel, 32, a Publix employee with an attention disorder, said she was cornered by a man who was about to attack her and has contacted the police about a man who was following her.

“If someone attacked me now, I’d be ready,” Bandel said.

Marianne Jacobs, the JCC’s special needs director, said she frequently hears stories from families whose disabled adult children have been victims of physical aggression. Studies confirm her observations: More than 80 percent of disabled women and 32 percent of men have been sexually assaulted, according to the Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

Almost half of the victims will experience 10 or more incidents, another study found.

Last year, the special needs program received a grant from the Jewish Women’s Foundation, an arm of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, to create a self-defense program called SAVVY. The class is geared toward women ages 17-50 with impairments such as Down syndrome, autism and cerebral palsy.

The twice-weekly sessions offer a half-hour discussion with Denise Brody, a licensed clinical social worker who offers detailed safety tips, and a half-hour of self-defense instruction based onKrav Maga, the Israel Defense Forces martial arts technique, led by certified instructor Stephanie Mahler.

“They are learning safety skills for real life,” Jacobs said. “They are generally not equipped to handle abuse and dangerous situations.”

Among the skills: how to carry a purse and take out a wallet in public; how to answer the front door; when to help someone who is seeking aid; and how to maintain a friendship.

These social skills complement the physical prowess the women develop as they learn to kick, punch and grab. Mahler said she combines jeet kune do, a martial arts system created by Bruce Lee, with a branch of Krav Maga called Haganah. The women are given boxing gloves and practice punching skills on a focus mitt. They also learn three- and six-step techniques for striking back at attackers and running away.

“I hear a lot of ‘I can’t do this,'” Mahler said of her students with disabilities. “I modify the way I teach it, but they are learning the same skills I teach to my other classes. Every week they learn one more step.”

The classes, which teach the importance of privacy and physical boundaries, appear to be building assertiveness in the participants, sometimes in unexpected ways. Gail Bohm said daughter Rachel, who has Down syndrome, criticized her recently for walking into her room without knocking.

“It makes me feel better that she can be out in the world, out at the mall with friends, and have knowledge that will make her safer,” Bohm said.

Parents say their adult children’s disabilities often lead to isolation. They are too old for school and there are few ways for them to maintain friendships and develop social skills. They say that makes their irregular interactions with the world potentially more perilous.

Stephanie Ballard’s daughter, Elizabeth, who has Asperger’s syndrome, spends most of the day at home in Parkland. Elizabeth, 22, has been searching for a job for the past two years with help from a job coach. Her mom said the family has been in awe as Elizabeth’s verbal and interpersonal skills have developed in the past few months. She credits SAVVY.

“She never had a lot of opinions before, and now she is voicing opinions on politics,” Ballard said. “She finally has a sense of empowerment. And the physicality of it makes her feel strong.”