Chapter 1 - A strange Encounter

        When the summer came - and I remember ‘94 as being a ‘scorcher - there we lay, my ‘actor friends and I, somewhat apathetically, about Brixton s Lido. After six or seven years in ‘show-business , any ideas of having a career or even regular work had all but been blasted to atoms. That seemed only for the naïve or foolhardy of my profession: a new cynicism had crept into our lives.

        Anyway, for those seemingly precious fragments in time, the rays of the sun beat down on to our bare backs, evaporating concerns as to where the next buck was coming from. And for those few hours, we could have been ‘anywhere . Only when the evening chill set back in, it was as if someone had whacked our backsides with a metre-long ruler, and we were harshly reminded that this was not bloody Jamaica, Greece or Brittany.

        Rolling up our towels, we miserably stuffed them back into plastic carrier bags, along with half-eaten sandwiches and scrunched-up packets of crisps. We ‘mooched towards the exit, not forgetting to check our flies were zipped, nor that we had left any loose change on the ground. My friends, arguing about in which watering hole the first pint of the night was to be consumed, headed off through the turnstiles of the Lido, but I stayed exactly where I was for something else had caught my attention a sound.
        “Excuse me what's that?” I asked a pool attendant, who was busy mopping up the day s dirt from the poolside. He stopped what he was doing and looked up.

        “What s that you say?”

        “The drumming?”

        “Some Brazilian thing. I don t know,” he shrugged, “It s over there, in Studio 2.”
        He indicated a light blue door on the far side of the Lido. I thanked him and made my way towards it. It had jammed - I had to slam my shoulder against it to loosen it. The drum was loud now, with a blend of other percussive instruments that I didn t recognise at all not that I ever had been particularly ‘musical . Nervously, I peeked through the gap of a second door within, and to the far end of the studio there sat an exotic-looking man, upright on a chair. Proud-mouthed and with piercing, blue eyes, he was playing what looked like a large bow-and-arrow. The ‘bow was balanced (as far as I could see) between his thumb and forefinger, and in the other hand he held a smaller stick that he was tapping rhythmically, and fast, against the wire.

        Sitting about him was a group of people, in a circle, and within its circumference was happening the most amazing dance - or was it, indeed, a fight? Two bodies entwined and encircled each other, one minute like snakes, and the next, as they jumped apart, seemingly transformed before your very eyes into couple of playful apes. As they weaved in and out of each other s space every which way, up, down, around - the faces of the players beamed with delight and cunning. Mesmerised, I couldn t take my eyes off them, and eager to see more I slipped through the gap in this inner door, and now found myself inside.

        Suddenly, the man stood, and pointing between the two players with the ‘bow , like a shaman, he stopped the rhythm. He began tapping the smaller stick on to the wire, several times, and with a final tap yelled, “YEA!”
The players looked to him, then again to each other, and with a nod of their heads, shook hands. They then separated and melted back with the rest of the group. The display had ended.

        The man leaned his stick up against the wall, next to a whole line of ‘bows of various colours and lengths. The others from the group, men and women of about my age, spread themselves around the room. Their ‘teacher (for that is what I had surmised the man with the stick was) positioned himself in front of them, now and, sinking into a low but strong stance, cried, “Jinga!” I couldn t quite work out what he was meaning, but it was definitely an order of some kind, to which everyone in the room responded immediately. His accent was quite thick, and I wondered, at the time, whether or not he might have been Russian.

        The students sank down into the same position as he, and following his movements, swayed forwards and back - then from side to side, arms swung in turn across the face, as if to protect themselves. (All in time with the rhythm of the music that was playing from a small ‘ghetto-Blaster on a windowsill.)
And it was then my presence was acknowledged.

        The teacher suddenly ran towards me and, grabbing my hand, I was guided back with hardly a choice in the matter. Taking me through the students, we came to an annex room at the side of the classroom. Before I knew it, he had me dressed in a pair of baggy, black chinos presumably his. Laughing at the bagginess around my waist, he looked to a thin piece of rope on the floor, and tied it through the belt hooks. Pulling it through, the strong hands tied a firm knot, and I felt how I had done as child, when my mountaineering father would harness me into in to a rope, before taking me on a climb.


        The challenges of a rock face, as I knew first hand, were certainly one thing but what was it, here, I had unwittingly just embarked upon? The word ‘capoeira had yet to enter my life.