Until I met the pilot.
That’s how I acted with men.
If a guy was interested in something, I got interested, too.
When I got serious with a finance guy, I opened an E-Trade account I never used.
Clearly, our values differed, however much I tried to bridge the gap.
After we split up, I went for his opposite: a poet with a goofy smile.
(He didn’t even have a passport.)
I brought along books from his collection to brush up on the experimental poetry he loved.
When that relationship ended, the pilot-capoeirista swooped down on me, as if from the clear blue sky.
When he invited me to a capoeira class, I of course said yes.
Except he stopped calling.
When I confronted him, he confessed that he had a girlfriend.
I hung up, furious.
I’d just bought four weeks of capoeira lessons!
Apparently, the classes would last longer than the relationship.
Maybe I could still get a refund.
I’d always avoided exercise, bored by every fitness routine I tried.
Now that I was 30, I told myself I needed to start working out.
I hoped that capoeira would be exotic enough to hold my interest.
The classes were held in an open room with a hardwood floor and a mirrored wall.
I suspected I could learn a lot from them, about capoeira and relationships.
Rouxinol didn’t start capoeira because of Foca; she was advanced when they met.
Under Foca’s tutelage, I got the basic moves down, followed by kicks, dodges and cartwheels.
We were taught to call capoeira a game, though it looks like a fight or a dance.
You “play” in a large circle, with two people in the center at a time.
One day, after I’d been training for two months, Foca started calling me Joaninhaladybug.
I thought of how a ladybug’s wings are hidden until it spreads them and flies.
Put form in your movement, not speed!"
Although my ex-husband hadn’t approved of graduate school, I’d reapplied, was accepted and went.
But only after starting capoeira did I consciously stop believing that having a partner was my utmost need.
Then, on a weekend trip to Boston, I met a guy and we hit it off.
I didn’t wonder if we’d marry or even demand a commitment.
In capoeira, on the other hand, my commitment was growing.
I was happy being surrounded by my new capoeira friends.
We were together for another year, and then we amicably parted ways.
This time, I wasn’t devastated, a first for me.
Another first: I now haveflat absand firm thighs, but getting fit was actually an afterthought.
“You seem more centered since you started capoeira,” a friend told me recently.
(Not everyone has to be marriage material.)
