Author: Downey, Greg

Source: Anthropology in Action, Volume 12, Number 2, Summer 2005 , pp. 56-71(16)

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

Abstract:

Diverse forms of physical education form in their participants' skills, perceptual abilities and physiological adaptations that distinguish them from practitioners of other activities. These traits, many unconscious, are little studied in sociocultural anthropology in spite of their widespread prevalence. This article specifically explores how practitioners of capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian dance and martial art, learn to do a bananeira, a form of handstand. Its form, practical demands and training techniques make the bananeira a radically different exercise than other forms of handstand, such as that done by gymnasts. Capoeira practitioners develop a distinctive sense of balance—a dynamic assembly of perceptual skills and motor responses—that they use to keep upright while inverted. Across all cultures, forms of physical education and apprenticeship assemble distinctive physical skills, forms of cultural difference that should be defended as ardently as other forms of distinctiveness.

Keywords: PERCEPTUAL LEARNING; PHYSICAL EDUCATION; EMBODIMENT; CAPOEIRA

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/096720105793233922

Publication date: 2005-06-01

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• Anthropology in Action is a peer-reviewed journal publishing key articles, commentaries, research reports, and book reviews that deal with the use of anthropology in all areas of policy and practice. Recent themes have included identity and movement, anthropology in Denmark, the effects of ethics, and anthropology and activism. Subjects covered by the journal include organizations, HIV/AIDS research, new reproductive technologies, the rights of indigenous peoples, community care and social policy, health, medicine and suffering, education and government policy, museums, place and space, management, ethnicity and violence, and overseas development.
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