Grab a tent, leave the city behind
Take time out, you deserve the best
Play capoeira by the sea, relax and unwind
Enjoy a hot tub, a massage and a well-earned rest
Walk barefoot in the forest, breath the fresh air,
Wake up with yoga, go to bed with Bossa Nova
Feel calm and refreshed
Welcome to JingaFest.
JingaFest Summer Camp 2012 is the UK’s premium capoeira retreat held in Cornwall over the Queen’s Diamond Jubillee double bank holiday weekend: Friday June 1st – Tuesday June 5th.
JingaFest (Summer Camp) 2012 is the UK’s premium capoeira retreat held in Cornwall over the Queen’s Diamond Jubillee double bank holiday weekend: Friday June 1st – Tuesday June 5th.
The 4-day festival will feature over 30 capoeira workshops across all styles from renowned UK masters (including Mestre Joaozinho & CM Claudio Campos) and other guest teachers, as well as workshops in yoga & samba.
The venue is the Chyan Cultural Centre (near Falmouth), an 11 acre nature reserve, woodland and organic garden, complete with its very own stream. There are two modern barns (with high-quality wooden floors) and several tented structures, such as tepees, marquees and yurts, which will house a shop, message therapy centre and tea/coffee room. The site also has natural toilets, wood-fired showers and hot tub.
We anticipate no more than 100 adults on site, plus some children. Tickets are sold in advance so that we can cater as well as possible for everyone. All you will need to bring is a tent, a toothbrush and a chilled attitude.
More info will be uploaded here soon. In the meantime, when people ask you what you’re doing on the Queen’s Jubillee weekend, tell them you’re going to JingaFest Summer Camp.
When yoga was popularised by celebrities like Madonna & Geri Halliwell, yoga classes throughout the world were rammed.
Now that Jennifer Lopez has been pictured (and filmed) on a beach in Montevideo, Uruguay, practicing capoeira, will capoeira teachers receive the same response from people eager to emulate the super-famous singer/actor? Somehow I doubt it, but I would love to be proved wrong.
Of course this publicity (already featured in Hello! Magazine online) will raise the profile of our beloved (but very niche) art form. But when Madonna and Geri Halliwell publicised their hobbies, they were already, I think, experienced yoga students and were happy to shout about the benefits of their new hobby. In this case it seems that J-Lo was practicing the basics learnt in her first class (and doing an excellent job too, esp for a ’42-yr-old with twins’). So I doubt we will see people flocking to our classes.
Furthermore, the quality of capoeira practiced by the muscle-bound, topless chaps in this video (which has thankfully now been removed) is an ugly crime against all that is beautiful in our graceful & fluid art form. If a capoeira game is an interactive conversation, the teacher in this video was just shouting at himself (and poor J-Lo) as he displayed his muscle-bound physique -- the sort you only get from working out in a gym, not from playing capoeira!
But, as I step down from my soap box, I extend warm thanks to J-Lo for this publicity (and to her lawyers for removing the video) She’s representing all the 40-plus yummy mummies and raising awareness for a past-time which I hold very dear to me heart.
It’s a funny way to get to know someone, capoeira!
Instead of having a beer or going ‘out’, you throw kicks and trips at each other to see what they throw back at you. You ask a question and they answer. The content of the answer and the conversation which follows tells you a lot about them -- as well as yourself. Out of this exchange, some of the longest-lasting friendships (amizades) are borne.
This weekend I went to the Winter capoeira festival of Claudio Campos in Bristol (see pic above) and made (and renewed) solid connections with a huge number of very special people purely through capoeira. I wouldn’t remember most of their names (sounds bad) if it wasn’t for Facebook but I do remember the ‘conversations’ and the good vibes expressed through the capoeira games.
I also remember the reconnection I made with with my own capoeira (and personal) character following a period of hard times. The power of capoeira as a therapy never ceases to amaze me.
Here is a short video of the batizado (grading) from the event. You can see me strut my stuff at 4mins50secs:
I used to practice (and teach) this style of capoeira (contemporary) for 8 years. Two years ago I started to learn Angola….
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‘Wow Canguru, that was even better than the last one, you’ve really raised the bar, how are you going to top that?’ This was the comment from one of the happy, exhausted, buzzing capoeiristas as they left Jingafest Inverno 2011 on Sunday.
Thanks to students from Pao de Milho’s group (Angoleiros do Mar Devon), from Claudio’s group in bristol, the massive contingent from Aloprado’s ACER CapoeiraMundo group in London and to my students from Cornwall (who helped to organise and run the festival), plus guest teachers Bom Jesus, Ligado, Vermelho & Ninjinho, this event just got better!
JingaFest Inverno 2011 was the 4th Jingafest in Cornwall. Our 4 guest instructors have been Paulinha (Amazonas London), M Fantasma (East London Capoeira), Laurie (Filhos de Angola London) and now Claudio Campos (Nucleo de Capoeiragem, Bristol).
These guests keep getting better and better, raising the bar each time, with each one bringing even more energia boa & alegria to our growing festival.
As soon as Claudio started talking to the 30-plus capoeiristas at the first workshop, asking them all about their history and experience before he started the class, I knew that this was going to be an amazing event. His positive energy, openness and massive smiles set the tone for the weekend. You’ll see in the video below at 1min15secs, as Claudio runs out of the roda and the studio, returning with a massive, micheivous, teethy smile and a hug for Ninjinho. This sums up the whole weekend for me. Claudio was happy to be in our roda and we were most thankful that he chose to come to Cornwall and spread his open philosphy to the Jingafesters!
His teaching style was refreshing, giving us all some great ideas to work with, myself included, but it was the attitude with which he delivered the sessions and the way he conducted himself that was so refreshing in our capoeira world, which is filled with so much ego and insecurities.
The next JingaFest will be a camping festival event in June 2012 in an eco-community field in Cornwall -- capoeira, yoga, samba, campfires, food and lots of energia boa! Sign up to your RSS feeds and watch this space for more info about JingaCamp 2012.
Grab a tent, leave the city behind
