Trickster
As the trickster, the capoeirista learns to keep his opponent off balance through learning to be detached from the outcomes. He knows that he can contradict with a smile while throwing a kick to your face. He knows that the kick thrown may have any number of consequences and so he flows with whatever may come next, waiting for an opening. Maybe the capoeirista will purposely create an opening in his defenses, setting a trap for his partner, and realizing that any opening he sees may be a trap as well. But as a good trickster, the capoeirista will willingly enter a trap not knowing what the outcome may be, but with a willingness to take the risk.
“African-American trickster stories, in one context, are about a particular oppressed people’s refusal to be marginalized; in another context, they are about the freedom of the awakened human mind, a freedom those in power have not necessarily acquired. The Monkey is a like a martial-arts master who uses the brutishness of the Lion ‘s fundamentalism to flip him, to show him with what cruelty his own flat readings contain him.” (Hyde 278)
The capoeirista, like the Monkey knows that there are ways around the strengths of his opponent and the capoeirista knows how to use those strengths against him. In situations of uneven power struggle, this is invaluable. “When human culture turns against human beings themselves, the trickster appears as a kind of savior.” (Hyde 279). Slavery is human culture turning against human beings and from this grew capeoira. A refugee camp is evidence of human culture of war turning against human beings. In this context, learning to think like a trickster, to think around a problem, to think like the first capoeiristas, who were fighting impossible odds, is invaluable.
This page is a tag of:
Discussion of "Trickster"
Add your voice to this discussion.
Checking your signed in status ...